>a small village less than three miles from the Israeli border which had turned into a battlefield during Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in 2024.
Classic New York Times style writing. This sentence should say “Israel attacked this village as part of its invasion of southern Lebanon and Hezbollah defended it”
Imagine if this whitewashing were done to Russia: Karkiv, a small city 10 miles from the Russian boarder which had turned into a battlefield during Russia’s campaign against Zelenski in 2022”
They're not defending anything, not even their families. They're only struggling in an ideological war. Randomly firing missiles at Israeli civillians and drawing punitive action from Israeli leadership, which is all too happy for another reason to blow them up and invade.
Well, Hezbollah is not defending anything, all they do is shoot rockets and lately fly drones. That's because they don't really have the capability to do anything else, they're a militia up against a fully modernised army and they are forced to fight in an asymmetric manner and so on. One does not simply "defend" territory with irregulars.
I understand that they are in a difficult position for a force that wants to place itself as the legitimate resistance to an invading army, in fact that's the same situation that Hamas finds itself in but with a more obvious occupation (it's not clear to most people that parts of Lebanon are under Israeli occupation, or at least contested).
But what's the end result of fighting? Death and ruin. Nothing else. For Hamas, they had their little "triumph" in October 7 23 and then they lost half of Gaza and the other half is a wasteland. How is that "defending" anything, either the territory or the people? The same thing is happening in Southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah are just as incapable of doing anything to stop the IDF advance as Hamas were in Gaza. They can't defend a thing.
If we are to have any sympathy for the cause, if not the tactics or the ideology, of terrorist resistance groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, we have to also understand that their struggle is hopeless. Violence is clearly not the way for them to win, because the force they are fighting has all the violence. Non-violence is also not an answer because the force they fight has all the violence. They're screwed, quite bad, and there's no way out.
I think it's clear they don't fight to defend anything, just because there's nothing they can do and they might as well go down fighting, or they'll go insane. Or more insane.
“His family described him as a former fighter for the militant Islamist group, but who in his older age had taken an administrative role”
…this sounds like a valid military target. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that, bewilderingly, has declared war on Israel. Whether or not Israel should be mucking around in southern Lebanon is somewhat orthogonal to the validity of an attack on such a man. (And being able to reduce civilian casualties with a phone call is a good thing.)
Given the IDF’s record, I’d assume a more-sympathetic target could be found.
You're led to this conclusion because you have a lack of understanding of the structure of Hezbollah, and a seeming disinterest in understanding it more.
Like it or not, Hezbollah serves a number of functions in Lebanon. They have civil servants (think trash collectors, postal delivery representatives, etc.) They also have politicians.
A corollary would be if the Democratic Party in the United States had a militarized wing, politicians, and civil servants.
It's a structure that those in the West don't recognize or understand, and leads you to the conclusion that anyone killed in the pager attack, for instance, is just terrorist adjacent. So a trash collector who's killed in the pager attack, and their family, are not in fact, 'terrorists'.
Also worth investigating in all of this are the structures and centers of power that are labeling them as a terrorist organization and why.
I don't know so much about Hizballah (though maybe more than the average american), but I do know a bit about Israel and its army.
The late Yeshayahu Leibovitch called certain behaviors "judonazism". And currently this is the mainstream of the Israeli society. Everyone in Israel knows it (though they would try to cast it in different terms), few speak about it, the ones who do get silenced, most simply don't care (who cared in nazi Germany about jews massacred in the woods or starved to death and killed in concentration camps?). The government, the judicial system, and of course the army (just check Haliva's interview on Guardian, and he is, I suspect, "a moderate"..)
This is a fallacious argument. As if it was controversial to say that an organization engaging in lawless violence and terror attacks (imagine if those attacks were against you) doesn't have any moral ground to stand on, even if it does some other things besides that.
It's basically the mafia approach. They are known to help people and stuff sometimes, does it mean we should condone them and protest when they are targeted?
The key people in mafia are also always in "administrative" roles. If you only target the guy pulling the trigger, you would be a fool since he is pretty low among the pawns.
Nothing Hezbollah has done is even remotely close to the evils of Israel. Hezbollah is armed resistance against a genocidal terror force. They're not even remotely "bad".
I looked it up and according to Hezbollah the evil of Israel is in its existence. The stated objective is destruction of Israel and having another one of the many Islamic countries in its place, and it does not appear contingent on what Israel does. If you are in favor of that, I guess you're entitled to your opinion, but I don't share it.
But is it a battlefield situation too? What's the line between "we had no other choice" versus "we could have arrested them and had a trial but murdering them with soldiers is easier"?
For example, suppose a mugger waves a knife at your face, and takes your stuff. Sure, they were "a valid self-defense target"—for thirty seconds—but that can't justify following them home and killing them in their sleep.
A military base is a valid target and the barracks can be bombed to death even when everybody is sleeping.
Hezbollah could significantly reduce collateral damage by choosing to sleep in designated bases separated from civilian buildings. It would also make killing them much easier.
Sounds to me like this is just signature strikes but replacing the analysts with AI.
And to think many would cheer if it were being applied to ends they approve of (enforcing some petty domestic law with fines and bureaucrats instead of taking foreign soil with bombs and soldiers, or whatever).
They have a bunch of dumb react components that can become the gui for live targeting systems, but that all happens post contract and in the liability of their customers, the organizations willing to expend human capital coming and going, e.g. militaries
This is a very weird way to frame a highly targeted attack against Hezbollah, which achieved a far better civilian casualty ratio than what's possible with conventional warfare.
43 comments
[ 1.0 ms ] story [ 78.5 ms ] threadClassic New York Times style writing. This sentence should say “Israel attacked this village as part of its invasion of southern Lebanon and Hezbollah defended it”
Imagine if this whitewashing were done to Russia: Karkiv, a small city 10 miles from the Russian boarder which had turned into a battlefield during Russia’s campaign against Zelenski in 2022”
I understand that they are in a difficult position for a force that wants to place itself as the legitimate resistance to an invading army, in fact that's the same situation that Hamas finds itself in but with a more obvious occupation (it's not clear to most people that parts of Lebanon are under Israeli occupation, or at least contested).
But what's the end result of fighting? Death and ruin. Nothing else. For Hamas, they had their little "triumph" in October 7 23 and then they lost half of Gaza and the other half is a wasteland. How is that "defending" anything, either the territory or the people? The same thing is happening in Southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah are just as incapable of doing anything to stop the IDF advance as Hamas were in Gaza. They can't defend a thing.
If we are to have any sympathy for the cause, if not the tactics or the ideology, of terrorist resistance groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, we have to also understand that their struggle is hopeless. Violence is clearly not the way for them to win, because the force they are fighting has all the violence. Non-violence is also not an answer because the force they fight has all the violence. They're screwed, quite bad, and there's no way out.
I think it's clear they don't fight to defend anything, just because there's nothing they can do and they might as well go down fighting, or they'll go insane. Or more insane.
…this sounds like a valid military target. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that, bewilderingly, has declared war on Israel. Whether or not Israel should be mucking around in southern Lebanon is somewhat orthogonal to the validity of an attack on such a man. (And being able to reduce civilian casualties with a phone call is a good thing.)
Given the IDF’s record, I’d assume a more-sympathetic target could be found.
Like it or not, Hezbollah serves a number of functions in Lebanon. They have civil servants (think trash collectors, postal delivery representatives, etc.) They also have politicians.
A corollary would be if the Democratic Party in the United States had a militarized wing, politicians, and civil servants.
It's a structure that those in the West don't recognize or understand, and leads you to the conclusion that anyone killed in the pager attack, for instance, is just terrorist adjacent. So a trash collector who's killed in the pager attack, and their family, are not in fact, 'terrorists'.
Also worth investigating in all of this are the structures and centers of power that are labeling them as a terrorist organization and why.
The late Yeshayahu Leibovitch called certain behaviors "judonazism". And currently this is the mainstream of the Israeli society. Everyone in Israel knows it (though they would try to cast it in different terms), few speak about it, the ones who do get silenced, most simply don't care (who cared in nazi Germany about jews massacred in the woods or starved to death and killed in concentration camps?). The government, the judicial system, and of course the army (just check Haliva's interview on Guardian, and he is, I suspect, "a moderate"..)
It's basically the mafia approach. They are known to help people and stuff sometimes, does it mean we should condone them and protest when they are targeted?
The key people in mafia are also always in "administrative" roles. If you only target the guy pulling the trigger, you would be a fool since he is pretty low among the pawns.
ISIS also had trash collectors. Are you saying ISIS should have been left alone?
But is it a battlefield situation too? What's the line between "we had no other choice" versus "we could have arrested them and had a trial but murdering them with soldiers is easier"?
For example, suppose a mugger waves a knife at your face, and takes your stuff. Sure, they were "a valid self-defense target"—for thirty seconds—but that can't justify following them home and killing them in their sleep.
Hezbollah could significantly reduce collateral damage by choosing to sleep in designated bases separated from civilian buildings. It would also make killing them much easier.
And to think many would cheer if it were being applied to ends they approve of (enforcing some petty domestic law with fines and bureaucrats instead of taking foreign soil with bombs and soldiers, or whatever).
They have a bunch of dumb react components that can become the gui for live targeting systems, but that all happens post contract and in the liability of their customers, the organizations willing to expend human capital coming and going, e.g. militaries
That's obviously not an outcome Israel is overly concerned about.
This is a very weird way to frame a highly targeted attack against Hezbollah, which achieved a far better civilian casualty ratio than what's possible with conventional warfare.