Comment by dragonwriter 10 months ago
Booby traps and land mines are legally distinct (and, within land mines, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle land mines are distinct), but its also not the case that no one complains about the use of mines, booby-traps, etc., by both parties in the Russia-Ukraine War.
(1) Ukraine is using its mines defensively. Israel's use in this instance is intrinsically offensive.
(2) The scale is entirely different - but completely orthogonal to that: Do you see a difference between (per what Ukraine is doing) leaving devices around in areas which are mostly depopulated by now anyway, where people generally know that mines are likely to be there, and which will most likely be clearly enough marked on maps after all of this is over; and in a society where there is basically a solid social consensus that this war needs to be fought, and laying mines out on the frontlines is one of the many heavy costs that they will need to bear in order to bring the war to its necessary end --
And (per what the Mossad is doing) consciously triggering these devices, knowing full well (as they must have) that a 1:2 civilian-military ratio of fatalities and maimings (the current boxscore on this per WP) was not just possible, but entirely to be expected? In a population that definitely did not chose to be at war (or even to support a necessary defensive war like Ukraine is doing), and where the targetted/responsible party is but one faction among many?
I do.
Israel is defending itself against Hezbollah. Hezbollah started the current Israel-Hezbollah conflict on Oct 8, the day after the Hamas-led attack. They can end it at any time by merely stopping their bombardment of Israel, but they have indicated that they don't plan to stop until there's an end to the Gaza conflict, which they are not a party to. Of course self-defense sometimes involves preemptive strikes, like Ukraine striking Russian airfields.
We'll have to see how effective future demining efforts are, but historically, civilian casualties from unexploded mines have been quite significant. Despite the risks, Ukraine can't realistically stop inhabiting 20-30% of its territory indefinitely.
Where do you get 1:2 from? There isn't much credible information yet about civilian vs militant deaths. What we do know is that the 5,000 affected pagers were ordered by Hezbollah and issued to its members. Less is known about other devices.
> What we do know is that the 5,000 affected pagers were ordered by Hezbollah and issued to its members.
Even if that is true, the fact remains that "Hezbollah members" and "combatants" are not, even to a first approximation, the same thing; Hezbollah is a political party that has an armed wing and also has a substantial civilian social services (including healthcare) operation.
I meant "offensive" in the operational sense (as in, "going on the offensive"). So the distinction is between bringing flaming hot death (FHD) to your opponent (on their territory) vs. leaving FHD devices on your own territory for them to stumble upon.
In that sense we can say Ukraine's current operation in Kursk is operationally offensive, even though the war itself is entirely defensive on Ukraine's part of course. (One might still disagree that Israel's current adventure in Lebanon is overall "defensive", due to factors you haven't mentioned, but that is also completely orthogonal the distinction we are clarifying here).
Where do you get 1:2 from?
From the source I indicated ("per WP"), though the acronym may not have been clear:
The total death toll from the attacks stood at 37, and included at least 12 civilians killed according to Lebanese authorities, including a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. At least two health workers were also killed.
Which in turn cites L'Orient-Le Jour, ABC, AP, CNN, WSJ, and the BBC. I don't know what sources you might find more credible, but these do appear to be in rough agreement at least, and I'll take them as a decent enough approximation to the truth for the time being.
What we do know is that the 5,000 affected pagers were ordered by Hezbollah and issued to its members.
That was the theory, anyway. Mossad also knew that many of these devices would have been at the militants' homes when they exploded, thus directly targeting innocents and minors.
There's also an indication that some of the devices may have in use by healthcare workers (for whatever reason - perhaps the supply chain intercept wasn't quite as precise as the Mossad intended; or they know perfectly well that some of the devices would end up in non-militant hands, and per their usual MO just didn't give a fuck), though this will require further investigation. From the same section on the same page:
Health Minister Firass Abiad said the vast majority of those being treated in emergency rooms were in civilian clothing and their Hezbollah affiliation was unclear.[119] He added the casualties included elderly people as well as young children. According to the Health Ministry, healthcare workers were also injured and it advised all healthcare workers to discard their pagers
Well, Russia isn't a party to the Ottawa Treaty. Ukraine hasn't formally withdrawn yet, but has hinted that they consider adherence impractical.
Stepping back though, there are literally millions of mines hidden in Ukraine, creating a vastly greater danger for civilians. Legal or not, for the most part noone cares.
Why are we here scrutinizing Israel for a form of booby-trapping which is vastly smaller in scale, much easier to clean up (figuring out which devices are compromised vs demining 174,000 km^2), and more targeted?