I’m firmly in the camp of, do we really have to compare? There’s so many things that could be used for comparison, and that really just distracts from the point, that all of these are bad, and should be stopped.
The Ukraine invasion, the genocide of Palestinians, Uyghurs, Rohingya, etc.
The long running war in Sudan, the horrific civil wars in Eastern Africa…
Thanks for filling my head in, I knew I was forgetting some, especially the African ones. British media barely covers it at all.
Thanks for mentioning this. I spent 3 months working with former child soldiers in the DRC. Over 20 million people have died there and hardly anyone knows about it.
You’re right that there is no point in trying to compare or equate the horrors of war itself. But in the Middle East thread (or an Africa one if it existed) I think it is important to make the point that some lives are not considered equal
It is, but I think more to the point most people who care about the plight of Palestinians also tend to care about the plight of the Ukrainians.
It’s the people who don’t care you should be directing your ire at. Make allies, not enemies.
I am afraid that in much of the world, the combination of Western media voices and the efforts of Russian-backed disinformation programs has been to make those two more commonly opposing poles than they are shared sympathies. Ukrainians are on ‘our side’, Palestinians are on ‘their side’, or vice versa depending on how you view the world.
Reports out now that the pagers were manufactured in Hungary under license from a Taiwanese firm, using the Taiwanese brand - but that company otherwise had no hands on the product.
Nothing is safe.
Absolutely. If anything, it makes the genocide in Hamas all the more unbearable.
I understand @Magnus’ point above, about this not being easy to pull off. But there were many means to directly reach the disgusting individuals who launched the attacks on October 7, without having to destroy the whole of Gaza and to commit genocide on the civilians there.
More blasts today, this time two-way radios. Widespread, but nowhere near as extensive as the pager explosions.
That was about collective punishment.
And a blatant land grab.
If that’s the case can we change the name of this thread to ‘Israeli War Crimes’, in line with the other?
I’d disagree because although it’s been dominated by the Israeli war crimes of late, the thread has its roots (and had much discussion) on the broader Middle East as well.
Seems to be a reluctance in our media to describe yesterdays and todays attacks for what they are.
Terrorist attacks.
To me it’s a bit of a grey area as to whether it can be classed as Terrorism. It is clear that Hezbollah terrorists were the target, but a large number of civilians are caught in the middle of it.
Where on the scale between ‘not giving two fucks about Lebanese civilians’ (war crime) and ‘putting the Lebanese civilian population on notice’ (terrorism) was Israel’s thinking on this attack?
Probably high on the “not giving a fuck about civilians, ever” list.
Lets call the attacks war crimes, using sophisticated terrorist tactics?
If Hezbollah or Hamas did the same to off duty/reserve IDF, but with pagers also used by teachers, doctors etc that also killed children… how would this be described??
It’s unbelievable that it’s even being debated. It seems what is defined as ‘terrorism/terrorist’ is dependent on the size of your military and your alliance with the US
https://x.com/sharifkouddous/status/1835292186818056667?s=46&t=Tk6buFVfyHeITdfFRWCVMg
The 1st 14 pages the age is listed as 0
I think this may be the beginning of an israeli invasion of south Lebanon, with the likely goal of creating a buffer sone to the Litani River. I hope I am wrong of course and I am just speculating in any case.
But I find it likely that It’s either that, or the stories about Israel setting these devices prematurely off are very accurate since it makes no tactical sense to detonate them outside the context of a surprise attack.
I fear the beginning of something worse, as I think Israel is trying to goad Hezbollah and Iran into going berserk, create a war and no mere clashes as has been happening since October 23, to force the US in on the Israeli side. It’s also a very critical time for the US due to upcoming elections, neither party in the US can politically stop Israel now and the US has promised Israel aid in the event of a larger war. So maybe it is favourable for Israel’s security cabinet to spring the war they want now, as their political freedom, is probably larger now than after US elections.
I am speculating of course, but A) israel has a political problem, they want to re-settle their evacuees in the north. This cannot happen under current clashes with Hezbollah. So either clashes must go to close to zero, or they must deal with it militarily. To deal with it militarily, they need to invade and physically limit rocketry range by occupying a buffer. To deal with it politically, they need a Long Term Cease Fire in Gaza, which seems far off currently, due to lack of political will regarding concessions and inabillity to force Hamas to surrender.
B) The IDF has trained for over a year to invade Lebanon. Most of it’s army is in the north. Very little in Gaza.
C) The israeli cabinet today gave Netanyahu and Galant the authorisation to undertake military action against Hezbollah, even if it leads to all-out war.
D) Israel has been unable to get a Casus Belli on Iran. The Iranian promised response did not happen, Iran backed down. Try again by going after iran’s most important and powerful proxy ? Maybe…
E) Unless this entire operation went awry and was prematurely set off as reported by many, the damage to Hezbollah command and control is vast and gives Israel a window of opportunity to hurt them truly bad with incoherant resistance from Hezbollah due to severe command and control issues. Likewise, a very, very large number of Hezbollah’s cadre have been maimed yesterday and today. The psychological effect of fear/terror is also vast, it is now reported that the Lebanese army (not Hezbollah( are destructing their electronic communication devices, panic has set in. A cynical actor about planning to attack can exploit this.
F) Even if no war has been actually planned to happen right now, these events often escalate and Hezbollah must surely respond in a powerful manner now, or their deterrence will be void; which again predictably will lead to Israeli retaliation and we know Israel is prepared for at least a limited invasion now (but notably, Hezbollah knows this too, so may not respond as harshly as one would think to avoid this scenario, I don’t know). Many previous wars have been started by Ad-Hoc situations, that actors choose to run with and exploit for strategic benefit. So it’s possible that even if these devices were set off prematurely because Hezbollah was in the process of unraveling the corrupted shipments, it’s possible still that Israeli cabinet says “go” without being completely prepared, due to the window of opportunity created mentioned earlier.
That would of course be a harrowing disaster for Lebanon, which is a country that has not yet even recovered from the Beirut port explosion. It would likely create millions of refugees, depending on how far Israel would go (Lebanon south of the litani is almost not populated, but one expects that any invasion would make a heavy bombing campaign against ammunition depots and launchers necessary, which would cause vast casualties and suffering, since parts of heavily populated Beirut would certainly be targeted in any sort of real war).
Anyway, it looks grim and could get a lot worse possibly.