I’m not sure where you saw that this attack harmed thousands of innocents. If you’ve got an article that reports that, please post.
I don’t think I’d characterize this as a terrorist attack. It appears to have been discriminate in that they/someone/Israel targeted pagers going to Hizb’allah operatives. It does appear that they accepted a high chance of collateral damage just because they couldn’t necessarily control who had the pagers when they were detonated, but I don’t know what intel they had beforehand as to who was going to get these pages. If they believed the pagers were meant solely for Hizb’allah agents to use solely for business, that’s one calculation. If they believed the pagers were going to Hizb’allah agents but that they were likely to use them for all sorts of things and hand them out to family and friends, that’s another calculation.
The BBC is reporting 9 dead, 200 critically injured and 3000 injured.
I have no idea how many of the 3000 are Hezbollah, but I would be pretty amazed if they all were. There must surely have been some collateral civilian casualties.
As a psychological attack - very powerful. As a military one - who knows how many of the 9 dead or 200 critically injured were Hezbollah. One would like to think all of the 9 were.
I still feel pretty uneasy about this form of attack method though. Perhaps it’s a one bullet gun, in that a lot of people in the ME will now be opening up their current and future pagers/handhelds to look for some added explosive.
israel’s standing in the world is at the lowest point in my lifetime, that i can remember. and my lifetime spans all but the first 9 years of israel’s existence as a modern state.
what bad thing can happen? bad images of civilian (non hezbollah) casualties? a lot of the world’s governments viewing this as an unacceptable attack on a semi-autonomous country? govts less willing to give israel the benefit of the doubt on its own legitimate grievances? seen by the world as losing its moral high ground? condemnations from european countries? losing legitimacy among the friendly arab states? a highly stepped up or full blown regional war?
i don’t know how much of the above if any may happen. just, it doesn’t take that much imagination to see possible downsides.
Sure, l totally follow that and even the long term nature of such plans.
But having pagers explode that injure innocent bystanders (people that were just by chance standing near the target person while the target was in the street or in a shop or whatever.)
That’s just terrorism. And it does little except create far more enemies than are killed or harmed.
By your definition of all civilian death in any war is terrorism. This thinking is the biggest threat to your side (also currently my side) winning the upcoming election
Myabe because antisemitism is at its peak in your lifetime?
Israel can do nothing right can they? October happens and they respond with precision munitions and people bitch. They then send in troops and people bitch. Now they literally the most precision attack possible and people bitch. Do the math Dan. 2800 “casualties” times 20 grams is how many pounds? Hint it’s less than 150 pounds? Should they have used feather dusters instead?
Perhaps a full strike package from the IAF? (Although one bomb would have more explosive power than the totality of what was deployed today)
I am no expert in semantics, but I think that terrorism is close to this: “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 (mostly civilians and neutral military personnel). There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.” (wikipedia)
Conflict has changed in that our ability to not kill civilians has increased a lot since, say, WWII. In the context of this pager bomb attack and in the context of Israel’s deliberate mass extermination of civilians in Gaza, yes, I do find it extremely troubling that a country that the US funds very heavily (Israel) is so savage in its methods to achieve its supposed aims.
Not only are these tactics barbaric, they are, in the end, beyond f*cking stupid strategically. Because, rather than winning hearts and minds, Israel is instead growing its list of enemies by leaps and bounds.
I am one of the first people to call out anti-semitism on this forum, so this has nothing to do with nationality. Instead, it is about not sinking to the depths of one’s enemies and not embracing cruelty and revenge as a way of life. And, sure, if you feel that this crazy way of thinking about our allies and international funding priorities means somehow that we will lose the election, gosh, so be it.
It seems like somehow Israel was able to infiltrate the supply chain with “special” pagers. The Israelis seem to think of all sorts of clever things. The whole Iron Dome thing apparently the Israelis got America interested in it to fund it. Suits their needs and America gets in on the technology they generate to help make it work.
it was a master tactical win, for certain. but they killed 6 hezbollah in this strike. they didn’t win a war today. i don’t know the future and you don’t either. if it was 2003 and you asked what bad thing could happen after we took out saddam hussein and i gave you some bad options you’d be coming back with your barrage of exhausting half-thought-through half thoughts. but we see what happened after we did that. in a year the world will post mortem what israel did today and we’ll see if it was a net plus or minus.
How many were maimed? How degraded is their communications network? How much waa morale hit? How much face did they lose?
Now imagine you’re an asshole sitting in Tehran toweling off after your daily death to america death to Israel workout and your microwave starts making a noise?
This was a huge message sent and looking at it as anything but that is mind boggling to me.
The only strategic downside is if Hezbollah decides to retaliate in force and the IDF crushes them and then Iran enters the fray. At that point I’d keep an eye on Whitman for several “bat signals” lifting off.
