Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say
(reuters.com)292 points by shmatt 2 days ago
292 points by shmatt 2 days ago
I think it should not be considered terrorism to the extent that the attack targeted legitimate military targets during a time of war — broadly speaking, combatants and other parts of the organization that affect its ability to wage war. Terrorism, at least least in my view, is an attack that either intentionally targets civilians or is truly indiscriminate, and is aimed at producing political cha age by causing fear.
By those definitions, I think this is clearly not terrorism. (Though we might learn more information about who was targeted that could change this assessment.) Admittedly, my definitions only imperfectly track the way the word is used in the west, but I think that's only due to frequent misuse of the term for political ends.
I would worry about a definition of terrorism that creates an incentive to avoid this type of warfare in favor of dropping bombs.
According to the LA Times these devices are “not usually used by fighters, but by ambulance and civil defense crews and administrators affiliated with Hezbollah. The devices are unrestricted and can be sold to anyone, and as such are used by other organizations in areas of poor signal.” [1]
There is no question if an enemy set off hundreds of bombs in American ambulances we would recognize it as a mass terrorist attack.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-09-18/second...
Hold up, that skips over the crucial issue of triggering-logic.
It's reasonable to guess that these devices were made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah.
In contrast, an uninvolved civilian medical doctor buying a booby-trapped pager secondhand shouldn't be at significant risk, since before carrying the pager around all day they'll first configure it to use their hospital's radio network, which should only be broadcasting innocuous hospital messages.
> There is no question if an enemy set off hundreds of bombs in American ambulances we would recognize it as a mass terrorist attack.
However if those bombs were only triggered by the code "Immediate Mobilization" broadcast over a CIA/DIA pager network, then the real question would become why so many ambulance staff were holding down a second secret job as spies and soldiers.
I agree that if it is confirmed that these are primarily used by civilian ambulance crews, that would make a big difference. Of course, this isn't what the LA Times actually reported, but I'm not sure what "civil defense crews and administrators affiliated with Hezbollah" actually means on the ground.
LA Times notably does not report that Hezbollah has been recognized as a terrorist organization for many years by the US government. That fact alone makes their reporting suspect, IMHO.
I don't see how anyone can claim that the remote detonation of explosive devices hidden inside everyday devices can be called an operation against 'legitimate military targets'.
There's no way to know that 4000 devices are going to only harm their 'owner'.
Call it whatever you want, but these attacks are not responsible nor 'in the right'. This sort of tactic is reckless and evil.
Sure you can hold that opinion but Volume II, Chapter 1, Section F of Customary International Humanitarian Law[1] strictly disagrees with you.
[1] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule1
Not to diminish your point, but to add to the discussion.
I would point out that landmines are also indiscriminate and allowed within warfare. If anything mines are slightly more indiscriminate due to you not needing to have accepted a device.
Although I think morally people are against the use of mines, we've seen widespread use of them in Ukraine. It would be good to see a global ban on these type of methods.
> legitimate military targets during a time of war
Israel and Lebanon are not at war.
But Israel and Hezbollah are at war, and these are (reportedly) devices used by Hezbollah operatives.
A war Hezbollah declared, btw.
Hezbollah doesn't speak for all of Lebanon but it certainly is at war with Israel. Permanently for that matter because it exists to attack Israel.
The Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, describes it as such. I imagine if pressed he'd argue that Israel is attacking Hezbollah and not Lebanon, but given the extreme civil dysfunction in Lebanon it's equally arguable that Hezbollah is the de facto government for a lot of the country.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-planted-exp...
Its not, but Hezbollah is in control of the hot border in the south.
Its a govt within a govt.
> Israel and Lebanon are not at war.
Maybe not, but the combatants holding those devices were at war, no?
It seems like the purpose was to disable enemy combatants, and prevent those combatants from striking Israel; which would be a legitimate and targeted strike. Your phrasing makes it seems like the explosives were targeted at damaging the restaurants and stores (along with, perhaps all the occupants), which would not be a legitimate and targeted strike.
As attacks go, this is far more targeted than most dropped bombs.
The purpose is to disable the communication infrastructure. That's a valid military target.
To be clear, I'm not saying this is a good thing. It does seem to fit within the rules of war though.
> Wearing a uniform and identifying yourself as a soldier of the state fielding a military is the only way to identify an individual as a legitimate target
That was a long time ago. The traditional international laws for armed conflict also make it illegal to wear civilian clothes as a combatant. The problem with organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah is that they're not state armies, often don't wear a clear uniform, but they do launch rockets and wage war.
You can't really claim that people in civilian clothes launching rockets at a neighbouring country are not targets.
They do, and have done so since the 1990s. You would know this even if from US TV news if you paid attention. I cannot help but wonder how many people's 'knowledge' of Hezbollah is based on pundits and the occasional movie with random 'terrorists' shouting in Arabic.
They are not part of the regular Lebanese army, but they are a straight up military force. The most obvious parallel I can think of would be the US Marines.
The definition of terrorism is controversial and political, so there isn't a hard answer.
But I think a general distinction is the targeting of combatants vs civilians.
There is a difference between infiltrating military or para-military organizations or operations and intentionally targeting mass casualties of civilians for attention.
I don't know about that. When Al Quaeda attacked the USS Cole, a purely military vessel without a single civilian casualty, the US administration and the entire US military called it an act of terrorrism.
Al Qaeda isn't a nation-state so by definition it falls into terrorism. It's like if Greenpeace sunk a military vessel because the sonar was killing sea life that would be terrorism. It would have some serious side effects if it was OK for private non-governmental actors being able to target militaries and be seen as legitimate in their actions.
The entire US is going to freak out if a platoon of KGB soldiers flew into US and killed hundreds of bad guys. How objectively bad the "victims" might have been isn't going to matter.
You can't just walk across a recognized international border and do the "right" thing without a consent, regardless of how right or wrong it had been. That's an act of war, technically.
As far as I know in this case both sides have already attacked each other via bombs, airstrikes, rockets, etc. I'm not really making a judgement on whether this was ethical or justified.
There's just a distinction to be made from intentionally killing civilians for the purpose of causing terror versus targeting a group that you are in an open military hostility with. The second one, as you say, is basically just war. And war has historically also included civilian casualties.
Flying a plane full of civilians into a building full of civilians, or detonating a bomb in a public square full of civilians, are pretty clear examples of what "terrorism" is. They aren't actions meant to directly attack the capability of an enemy to wage war against you.
What governments and media choose to label "terrorism" or "terrorist groups" however is inherently political and not done following some agreed, objective definition.
>You can't just walk across a recognized international border and do the "right" thing without a consent, regardless of how right or wrong it had been. That's an act of war, technically.
You might want to read up on the killing of bin Laden, Entebbe raid, and many other similar operations.
Hezbollah does specifically exist to attack Israel. Of course that does matter, even if I ignore them firing rockets constantly.
They could decide to build up their country and Israel wouldn't interfere.
Hezbollah is the government in southern Lebanon so when you throw around "combatant" you're including a lot of civil servants, doctors, teachers etc.
> But I think a general distinction is the targeting of combatants vs civilians
When Afghans took up arms against occupying American soldiers, they were routinely called terrorists in American press and media.
When Muslims fight America or Israel, they are called terrorists. When the situation is reversed, that label isn't applied.
Not only were they called terrorists, they were kidnapped to be tortured in Guantanamo like this kid (he was 15 when his father dragged him to Afghanistan, took part in a skirmish, and might have killed in action a US soldier): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khadr
> I'm genuinely curious where the line is drawn.
I'm the opposite, in that I think it is incredibly uninteresting to obsess over semantics and try to neatly sort everything into a terrorism or non-terrorism box.
Definitions are generally not universal and are inherently inexact. The definition will simply be stretched by the interpreting party to put things they do not morally approve of into the terrorism box and things they do approve of in the non-terrorism box.
So I think it makes more sense to just skip that step and instead directly consider whether something is morally justified or not and to provide arguments of why or why not.
I'm not convinced this was a terror attack and I think Israel is within its rights to target Hezbollah, but here's a question:
If the assailant and target were reversed, would Western media hesitate at all to call it terrorism?
Or, forget Hezbollah and Israel. If ISIS had detonated thousands of explosive devices all over, e.g., the UK injuring and killing hundreds of UK military personnel and some civilians, would that not immediately be condemned as an act of terror, by everyone in the entire world, East and West? And rightly so?
If the designation of "terror" or "not terror" depends on who's attacking and whom they are targeting, then there's not much point in talking about terror or not terror at all.
If the IDF were to detonate the rockets Hezbollah uses to explode before launch would this be different? What about gps devices or range finders?
Without a doubt it’s asymmetrical… and the common binary is military/terror but I fear this is a distinction left to the last century.
The loss of children is always unacceptable, but Hezbollah has a history of courting child soldiers… so skepticism is not unwarranted.
https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/cscoal/2008/...
Mmmm...
Hizbollah
Hizbollah was the largest armed political group in the country with a base mainly in Shia areas. It said that it supported the country's ratification of the Optional Protocol in meetings with government officials.29 The group denied any use of children in the ongoing conflict with Israel, including the war of 2006.30 In 2007 there were reports that its military wing was recruiting boys aged 16-19. [...]
The US military accepts recruits at age 17, so I think you're really stretching the definition of 'child soldiers' here. The report goes on to mention that Hezbollah organizes youth camps and suchlike, and in turn we could point out that ROTC accepts recruits aged 14 and up. While I would not say they're exactly alike, as someone who grew up outside the USA, this society is very militaristic compared to a lot of others. I was genuinely shocked when I discovered that US schoolchildren are expected to recite a pledge of allegiance every morning.
I never thought hard about the last part of your comment here, but it really seems strange that it's been normalized to train high-schoolers in the USA to do military drills and such. There's not a lot of weapons training, I don't think, but I'm starting to realize at middle-age that things I've been told as I grew up (even in adulthood) are straight out lies or at least propaganda. I am too trusting.
It depends. If ISIS does it to scare the UK into a political decision because it has no way of matching its military in the battlefield (e.g to push out UK forces in Iraq) its a Terror attack in nature.
If it is actually done to degrade the capabilities of the UK military so ISIS could use its fighters to chase them out of Iraq, or maybe, conquer a part of England - its an act of war and is actually worse from a UK POV. Calling it a terror attack would be silly.
People are biased to treat wars as better then terror because wars have rules and often involve good people trying to defend their country. But from a country's POV a terror organization is usually way less dangerous than a competent enemy military attacking.
Terror is usually done because someone lacks military competence and is willing to play dirty to even the playing field.
The establishment is so aggressive in condemning terrorism, because its easier to deal aggressively with a small terrorist organization before it becomes an established military and carves its own autonomous place on the world stage.
ISIS is a good example, it used a lot of terror tactics, but its goal was to create a country.
The security council defines terrorism as "…criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism…"
the crucial lines is "provoe a state of terror in the general public." That is to say, terrorism uses arbitrary violence in order to cause fear and panic leading to political goals. By contrast, the targets of this attack were directly against the personnel and leadership of a militarized organization currently in a shooting war with israel. The goal is not to instill terror in a population, but to directly target the capabilities of a military organization.
Note that doesn't mean its not a war crime (I don't think it is but...)! It could still be a war crime for all sorts of reasons... it just means it's not terrorism.
> the crucial lines is "provoe a state of terror in the general public." That is to say, terrorism uses arbitrary violence in order to cause fear and panic leading to political goals. By contrast, the targets of this attack were directly against the personnel and leadership of a militarized organization currently in a shooting war with israel. The goal is not to instill terror in a population, but to directly target the capabilities of a military organization.
Doesn't have to be arbitrary, and a highly precise targeted attack killing high commanders can still instill fear in the general population - if the most guarded guys can be killed, nobody is safe.
If terrorism is violence against non-combatants to further political goals, this isn't terrorism.
From Wikipedia:
"Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants."
There's a lot of disagreement about the international definition of terrorism, but most seem to agree that it is specifically violence against non-combatants and outside the context of a declared military action.
To me it just looks like rhetoric, an us vs. them type deal. Call something terrorism so that you can justify using any kind of violence against them basically.
It isn't rhetoric... It is a specific combat strategy that small nations employ against huge ones. By targeting non-combatants and creating "terror" you can break the will of a larger nation.
If the USA in 2001 could have waved a magic wand that killed all the Taliban and didn't touch a hair on any non-combatants head they would have waved it and called it a day.
Not really. Not all violence is terrorism. Not all bad things are terrorism either. But terrorism is always bad. Ukrainians killing Russian soldiers isn't terrorism. Hezbollah trying to kill Israeli civilians is terrorism.
> What would you call Russians killing Ukrainian soldiers
War.
But terrorism is always bad.
Suppose some country occupies another country and the occupied country has no proper army to fight back, therefore they resort to methods of unconventional warfare to fight back against the occupation. Would some call this terrorism? Would this qualify as terrorism given some proper definition of the term and objective judgment of the situation? Would it be bad? What if they not only target the military of the occupier but also their civilians as it is them who voted for the government doing the occupation? What if they did this out of some kind of necessity because targeting the occupying military is not effective given the power imbalance?
Terrorism targets civilian populations. This operation, as described, targets Hezbollah militants.
That feels like an oversimplification to me. Some of those devices have surely injured civilians. I think the question is how many. Broadly it's the same question that's plagued Israel's actions since last October: there will always be civilian casualties as a result of military action, but how many is too many?
If a bomb blew up next to me in a grocery store, even if I wasn't injured, I'd consider myself "targeted" and that the people who exploded it were my enemy. Imagine that actually happening while you were at Safeway.
You were by definition not targeted. You are collateral damage.
It's not terrorism when you're on the winning side. That's how it's always been.
That's literally true, and I don't mean that in a snarky way. Everyone who ever had a history class should know this.
I'm disappointed that this thread has devolved into an angry and pointless political debate, when it could instead have been a cool technical exploration of how Mossad pulled it off. Come on, Hacker News!
Considering Hezbollah is a designated terrorist organisation in many countries, this probably should be considered an anti-terrorist operation. The targets are enemy combatants.
Also notably, it clearly did not intentionally target civilians, although there may be civilian casualties which is uncharacteristic of a terrorist attack.
I assume by "many countries" you mean the US and its allies? Is that it then? Your definition of "terrorist" is whoever the West designates a terrorist? Ergo Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.
[There are a few](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_g...)
Surprisingly there are several Arab countries, including the [Gulf Cooperation Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Cooperation_Council), and the UAE.
I find it very difficult and out of place to discuss these kind of matters in HN. particularly because it is a very US centric forum, the user base share a lot of preconceptions and ideals that come from the education their society gave them.
It's expected, it's OK, but it just prevents discussion of certain topics.
Yes that is how "terrorism" is defined: one geopolitical entity's enemy relative to another
See here, even the US military can be labeled terrorists in the eyes of american people https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41578412
Do LGBT people in Russia deliberately target non-combattants with shocking levels of violence?
If not, then the definition might still hold meaning and Russia's appellation might be ridiculous.
Terrorist organizations routinely use terrorist tactics against each other. There have been attacks on US military bases, and even military ships, which the media describes as terrorism.
In reality it becomes significantly more likely that an attack is considered terrorism if the attacker is Muslim.
> If it's not terrorism, what is the differentiating factor(s)?
Typically the differentiating factor is who the victims are and what the goal of the operation are - terrorists = victims are primarily civilian and the operation has negligible military benefit. Not terrorists = the targets are military. If there is collateral damage then it is not excessive (or not intended to be; intent matters) in relation to the military objective.
All this is subjective of course, and politics are involved, but that is what the difference is usually given as.
In this particular case - i would say it would be terrorism if it was random people's radios & pagers, but not terrorism if it was pagers/radios bought for military purpose that were primarily owned by soldiers. Initial reports suggest it is the latter, but i imagine more details will appear in time to better make that determination.
> If they could have executed this without a single civilian injury they definitely would have.
Why do you think that?
Look at what the leadership of the Israel government is saying when they aren't placating western audiences / media outlets:
Cabinet Member May Golan: "Proud of the ruins of Gaza" ( https://www.palestinechronicle.com/i-am-proud-of-the-ruins-o... )
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: Starving 2 million Gazans to death is right and moral but the world won't let us ( https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-08-05/ty-article/is... )
Minister of National Security Ben Gvir: We should tear down the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build a synagogue in its place ( https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240826-israel-minist... )
It's not terrorism, as Israel is targeting their enemies during war. Terrorism is targeting uninvolved civilians not during war.
The Hezbollah attack that started this war was an act of terrorism.
The Ukraine placing bombs in cities where the Russians are about to march in is not terrorism.
Having that said: It would be better if the Hezbollah could be stopped by other less cruel means. But war is ugly. The Hezbollah has started it so Israel has all the right to defend themselves. Even if it's cruel.
First - from the 'technical' point of view - I can't wait to read books / documentaries about how it was all prepared etc. Fascinating.
I can't really wrap my head around it neither, is it terrorism or not ?
On one hand it sure is - we don't know if it was the main goal, but it sure did instil fear and terror. Even in people that have nothing to do with the region.
On the other hand, it's pretty much as targeted as it gets. From what we know, the explosives were really small, installed in devices specifically used by their targets. I have hard time imagining any other way one could eliminate or incapacitate thousands of legimitate (in their view at least) targets without firing a single bullet and with so few other casualties (and yes, of course even a single one is too much).
> how is this not considered terrorism on Israel's part?
Terrorism is variously defined [1]. People are debating whether this was "random or indiscriminate nature" relative to other terrorist attacks. But relative to any wartime strike on an enemy capital, it's been highly precise.
The reason it's open to intepretation is we don't know Israel's motivation. Is it to mark Hezbollah members? A prelude to a strategic strike? If so, it's not terrorism. If it's to scare Hezbollah and the Lebanese, on the other hand, it does start to look like terrorism.
It's an intentional construct that benefits Hezbollah and Iran. Their Iranian funding has made them bigger and stronger than most nation-state armies but they can continue pretending to be a civilian Lebanese NGO with a strong political lobby in Brussels and Paris.
Wikipedia:
> Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants
"If it's not terrorism, what is the differentiating factor(s)?" The power structure in charge of labeling.
What's the old saying? "One mans terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".
Hezbollah is a militia, I think the goal of terrorism is to scare a civil population. Of course one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. But I would have problems to call Hezbollah anything of that sort.
Hezbollahs goal is to destroy Israel, so I wouldn't call any military action against them terrorism. They have a right to defend themselves and that right does include these tactics.
this is very hard to defend considering the lack of consideration for collateral damage.
however as already pointed out, even this happened in one instance, it all depends on which side you are on. being from a country that fought for its independence, we remember those who did the deed as "freedom fighters". during the time, from the "opressor's" point of view, however, they would have been seen as insurgents.
Terrorism is a matter of perspective. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Maybe we should all just try to treat others the way we want to be treated? That’s pretty much what that hippy Jewish philosopher guy said back in the day.
On each side they think the others are the terrorists but the fact is that they're terrorizing each other and have lots of non-military casualties. I think of them as terrorists on both sides.
"Terrorism" is one of the most useful terms for dehumanizing and delegitimizing a group's actions. It's only a useful term insofar as it's applied only to the enemy.
Mental gymnastics will be in full force here and in the media/politics to recategorize it.
I have no doubt a headline saying "Israeli politicians' hand-held radios explode, killing three, one day after pager blasts" would receive very different responses in this thread.
And yes, politicians here is correct since
> Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist _political party_ and paramilitary group
You should start by outlining the definition of terrorism, but by that point it would be obvious it isn't terrorism and such a post would have been unnecessary.
The difference is the target. Targeting non-combatants would make it terrorism. Hezbollah aren't non-combatants.
While I don't want to get involved in a political and radioactive topic (and don't intend to participate in an ongoing discussion), it seems to me there is something important to be said here.
To my mind, there are two critical moral differences between war and terrorism. The first is that the soldier attacks those who are fighting him - if not exactly the guilty, at least the active and resistant. The terrorist doesn't care if he attacks the weak and innocent and in fact prefers it. The second is that the object of a soldier's attack is to break the resistance, and he minimizes evil and suffering in pursuit of that goal. The terrorist maximizes it as a point of strategy.
Of course, fighting is sometimes necessary - evil must be resisted or it will dominate the earth. And in a messy real world, fighting often unavoidably hurts the innocent and the uninvolved - or even the involved in unnecessary ways. The desire to do things perfectly has to at some point yield to the need to do something - insisting that only perfect actions be taken is the same as saying no actions can be taken.
So what makes a fighting action moral? There isn't a bright line. At the margins, this is a judgement call. What level of violence, of what sort, is acceptable is something good people will have differing opinions on. But to suggest that the existence of a spectrum and the necessity of exercising judgement erases the categories is to commit the beard fallacy. The fact that we cannot say exactly when stubble becomes a beard does not mean there is no such thing as a beard - it just means the edges of the definition are fuzzy. That's actually normal! Most definitions have fuzzy edges, and have weak meaning on those edges. If one person wants a clean shaven man for some purpose and another wants a bearded man, both may consider a week old shave unacceptable for their purposes. Definitional edges have their interests, but don't necessarily inform how we think about centers.
Most ethics in war and in fighting turn on these ideas of innocence or powerlessness and necessity. Soldiers take prisoners (and treat them well) because taking someone out of the conflict is the honorable goal of war, and causing suffering once that is accomplished is evil. Criminals in prison (should) still have human rights for the same reason. I once heard a federal law enforcement official describe a shootout with a criminal, stating that the criminal was shooting at him and didn't care who else he hit, while the LEO was unwilling to return fire against the backstop of an occupied apartment building because that would be evil.
It does cost something to do things right - you pay for it in the blood of your own soldiers and in your chances of victory. One reason to seek an overwhelming force is to have the luxury of doing things as cleanly as possible. In a more even fight, at higher stakes, necessity may look different. People do take capabilities and circumstances into account when they judge you.
Nonetheless, there is a very big difference between doing the right thing imperfectly or even badly and doing the wrong thing. There are matters of degree between going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and accepting more of them. That does not mean intentionally targeting civilians exists on that spectrum. That's crossing an entirely different line.
On a personal level, in a self defense scenario, you can be taking actions to stop a threat or to hurt a person. The first is moral and legal; the second is immoral and illegal. And while you sometimes do the second in the course of doing the first, the minute you are doing it for its own sake, you are over the line. While we may disagree over where exactly the line is, that doesn't mean you can put it anywhere you find convenient. There is a moral truth to the situation.
Every criminal says they're acting in self defense through some twisted line of reasoning. And every terrorist can tell you why their targets are legitimate and their actions necessary. It is entirely possible to argue along such lines and to be wrong. Further down the thread, someone argues that targeting civilians is justified when those civilians vote for the government you are fighting. This is an example of careless moral reasoning that seeks to justify evil - you cannot know who voted how, and we do not kill people for how they vote or we find ourselves in the position of killing huge numbers of people. This is a thin justification for violence as a goal in itself. Likewise, someone argues that targeting the innocent is justifiable in a very asymmetric conflict. Again, this is a very thin justification. It is true that you are judged by the precision of your weapons and the options available to you, but a tenuous relationship to some strategic advantage doesn't justify egregious and pointless violence. At some point, it starts to look like the violence is the point to you and you're just evil.
These lines of argument highlight why I feel the need to respond. This erasing of the line between war and terrorism, which has apparently happened in the minds of a lot of people here, has an effect that is doubly harmful. It has the effect of hampering necessary and legitimate war by miring it in endless criticism and confusion about legitimacy. This is bad - when we fight evil, we need to be able to have intelligent conversations about how to acceptably do it. Overly hampering our capabilities helps evil be a little more dominant - keeps the bad guys a little more in control on the margins. Calling war terrorism commits this evil. But perhaps a worse evil is committed by calling terrorism war - it has the effect of justifying it! There are people in this thread who think that targeting voters and children is okay because they are confused about the concepts of innocence and necessity and in their confusion are incapable of intelligently evaluating reasoning that involves those concepts. It is not a great leap between finding terrorism morally acceptable and being willing to support it.
The ethics and morals of violent conflict - whether writ small between individuals or writ large between nations - have been a topic of discussion for all of civilization. While we don't always agree, a lot of important, intelligent, moral things have been said on the topic - things worth learning. We have concepts like war crime and terrorism for reasons. Contrary to (apparent) popular belief, there are not merely ugly sounds, linguistic weapons wielded for power. They are important and specific ideas, given to us by generations of thinkers, that help us distinguish between good and evil and understand the moral meaning of things. You erase those in your own mind at the risk of supporting and committing atrocities. It is important to know when the price of winning morally obligates you to lose, and when the price of losing morally obligates you to win. The ability to tell the difference comes, not from erasing lines, but learning how they are drawn and why.
The argument is that the IDF is targeting enemy combatants, and not deliberately targeting civilians (unlike, e.g. Hamas). The existence of non-combatant casualties alone does not imply terrorism.
The IDF has killed orders of magnitude more civilians than Hamas.
not deliberately targeting civilians (unlike, e.g. Hamas)
This is not as simple as it looks. Hamas does indeed target civilians, but what really put the wind up Israel on October 7 was that they successfully overran 2 military bases and mounted a serious attack on a third, although that was repelled. Per Israeli media, the government there had significant prior warning (months or maybe as much as a year) but dismissed the intelligence in the belief that Hamas lacked the military capability and was just LARPing.
Terrorism, by definition, is directed against civilians. Hezbollah militants are not civilians. Hezbollah is recognized as a terrorist organization by US, EU, Canada and League of Arab States among others. The declared goal of Hezbollah is to fight US and Israel.
Pagers and radios are used for their communication. That means that it is a military equipment.
The US Federal government uses the following definition:
the term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:22%20section:...
And yet the same Federal government called the attack against USS Cole "terrorism" and its perpetrators "terrorists", and implemented a range of "anti-terrorism" measures in the Navy after that. And it was a military target, and all the victims were military.
So really, terrorism is what people say is terrorism.
It's really quite bizarre how official history sources unironically talk about a 'terrorist boat' inflicting a surprise attack on a 'destroyer'.
I think the more relevant part in that particular case is "subnational groups". The USS Cole attack was obviously not an act of war by Yemen against the US, so it needed to be investigated as a terrorist attack instead.
> The extensive FBI investigation ultimately determined that members of the al Qaeda terrorist network planned and carried out the bombing.
[...]
> By the end of 2000, Yemeni authorities had arrested several suspects, including Jamal Muhammad Ahmad Al-Badawi and Fahad Muhammad Ahmad Al-Quso
(Source: https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/uss-cole-bombing)
You don't generally call in the FBI to "investigate" a military attack, or "arrest suspects".
If the nation of Yemen had immediately claimed responsibly for the exact same attack and declared war, it wouldn't have been considered terrorism, and rightfully so.
Modern war obviously doesn't follow all the rules the Geneva convention assumed (Hezbollah militants don't wear their insignia and IDs) but in practice it seems fairly effectively targeted given the casualty breakdown so it'd be a hard case to make.
Isn’t Israel targeting militants or those associated with a terrorist organization?
I mean, maybe it meets the technical definition of terrorism, but at a certain point all military conflict becomes terrorism and the term becomes meaningless.
Criticism of Israel here on HN will only earn you down votes and flagging. It's not worth it.
They’re not terrorists because they’re on a side we support. At worst, we might consider them rebels, though that’s usually reserved for people in this hemisphere.
Exactly! So if you choose to go to war with Israel the way Hamas and Hezbollah (Lebanon) did, you should also accept the consequences that follow…
For example, get ready to have your entire military coms infrastructure blown up in a cyberattack.
Why are we sitting here debating what’s a war crime and what isn’t, when Hezbollah (a designated guerrilla terrorist organization) deliberately chooses to go into war with Israel, and drag all of Lebanon into it?
It is terrorism if the attack is planned in such a way, where innocent people will suffer with very high probability and nothing is done to prevent that.
How can we qualify atomic bombing of Japan during WW2 under this definition?
Inflicting casualties on innocent people to instill terror in the population has literally been Israel's military policy for at least half a century.
Religious and/or nationalistic flamewar will get you banned here. No more of this (or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41583887) please.
> As middle eastern societies proof unable to create complex institutions and states
Pretty sure history proves that to be vastly incorrect. And the modern state of Middle Eastern countries is inseparable from the actions outside (both western and not) powers have undertaken there.
It was like that before the west came in. The marines were formed because it was like that.
Terrorism is just a label to describe attacks by people that powerful governments don't like. If you have enough military power, you're a legitimate government conducting a war (even if you're lobbing hundreds of missiles and drones into civilian targets like Russia is). If not, you're a terrorist org or government.
You've been breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread. Religious flamewar, in particular, is not welcome on HN. We ban accounts that post like this (or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41585013), so please don't do that again.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
> Terrorism is targeting civilians to further a politician or ideological agenda.
This is the old, pre- War on Terror definition. The definition of terrorism now, as used by most imperialist governments, is far less strict.
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism
You will notice that the FBI's official definition of international terrorism doesn't mention either civilians or political goals at all:
> International terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored).
Their definition of domestic terrorism is likewise unbound from civilian targets entirely, and is not only about political goals, but "ideological" goals (which is in fact any goal, by definition, i.e. "something you desire to see/ believe should be achieved"):
> Domestic terrorism: Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
Terrorism is now any act of violence that serves the goals of any group that is designated as "bad".
The rest of your comment is just textbook Islamophobia.
I'm genuinely curious: how is this not considered terrorism on Israel's part? (or is it considered terrorism?)
From a tactical standpoint, this is very similar, and the only big difference I see is that this is technologically more advanced/more complex than just planting a bomb or something.
If it's not terrorism, what is the differentiating factor(s)?
*side note: I'm quite sure other western countries have used tactics that I would call terrorism as well. This isn't meant to be a callout or anti-anything post. I'm genuinely curious where the line is drawn.