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
> Ever since the spectacular pager attacks of September 2024
Describing one of the worst terror attacks on civilian targets, committed by Israel, as "spectacular" is a new level of manufacturing consent I have not seen before. Disgusting.
>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”
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.
I just wanted to clarify the above comment so I'm not misunderstood: no, I have no sympathy for Hezbollah, or their cause. I think they're bloody idiots who have caused untold death and destruction, and now the loss of South Lebanon, for entirely ideological reasons, and for no practical purpose.
You write well and you mean well but what's actually hopeless is trying to use logic with the people who post these kinds of articles and crawl out to comment on them. They're never going to view these conflicts dispassionately, seek out or absorb objective facts or explanations that challenge their preconceptions. They're motivated by an animus toward Israel they nearly all seem to lack toward any other country, they hold Israel to a standard that no other country is actively held to, and yet their worst nightmare is being called antisemites.
Also to be even more clear: while I recognise that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists I am not on the side of Israel, either. Israel is a militaristic, belligerent nation that seems to have convinced itself that the only answer to all its problems is to be in a constant state of war against all its neighbours. Prime Minister Netanyahu recently compared Israel's future to Sparta; I'm from Athens. And I'm a peacenick and an anti-nationalist on top of that. The ideology promulgated by Israel's ruling class is against everything I stand for, everything my history and my culture has taught me is sane, and reasonable, and productive.
Anyway when two people (or more, as the case may be) are fighting a war, the last thing that those who wish for peace must do is take a side. Taking a side can only encourage the belligerents to fight even more, because now they have supporters for their cause (safely, from a distance, without skin in the game, but supporters). Again, war is against everything I am for, and so I must stand against war and not on the side of anyone fighting a war.
As to being antisemitic or holding Israel to a special standard, we can talk about Iran, and Russia, and the US, and China, and Darfur, and Nigeria, and everything else that's rotten and makes me angry in the world right now if you want, but of course this discussion is about Israel's use of technology in its current campaign in Lebanon.
Hezbollah at least recently was much stronger than Lebanese army and even nowadays Lebanese army afraid to challenge Hezbollah. Concept of a powerful non state actor is something many people in the west refuse to acknowledge.
> Beirut (the parts where Hezbollah has the biggest presence, granted) is bombarded every few days
Not in the way it would be if Lebanon declared war on Israel.
> Lebanese people seem to view that differently
Lebanon is uniquely diverse. The Lebanese I know absolutely see it this way, and with justification. (To be clear, that doesn’t make them peachy towards Israel doing the same.)
> with regards to the wars, there is little the opposition would do differently
Oof, I suspect you’re right. A unilateral course, then: the LAF disarms Hezbollah and then restores the Lebanese state’s monopoly on violence within its borders. Ideally timed to a change in political winds for Tel Aviv in America. Possibly with Turkish or even Saudi support. (Not holding my breath for the EU.)
The problem I see: Even if Lebanon did that, there is still no guarantee that Israel would retreat from the areas in the south they occupied. Or even just that they'd stop with the airstrikes (they didn't stop during the previous ceasefire).
The political climate inside Israel seems to become more fundamentalist and belligerent, not less.
So there has to be an outside force that applies pressure to Israel. The only state able to do that is the US - but the US don't seem to be willing to do it.
Same with the Palestinians. Disarming Hezbollah would - very conveniently - remove one of the few remaining protective forces the Palestinians still have. So what would remain then?
> There is bipartisan agreement on the first point.
I don't see how this can be true. The last initiatives to stop weapon sales all died in the House (although with shrinking majorities). Meanwhile weapon sales, military and intelligence cooperation and diplomatic protection continue with no change.
By now a majority among the US population has changed their mind on Israel - but the actual decisionmakers haven't and I don't see that they will in the future either.
> And we should pass into law a process, subject to judicial oversight, that bars even weapons sales to countries systematically engaging in war crimes.
Are you saying that Israel intentionally targets civilians? As a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, Israel is obligated to protect civilians and civilian populations from all dangers arising from military operations, and Israel is prohibited from direct attacks on civilians. The IDF must distinguish between civilian and military objectives and take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize incidental loss of civilian life. Civilians lose protected status only if they take a direct part in hostilities.
As someone who has lost family and continues to. Have you not been paying attention to what has happened in Gaza? Conservatively.. Well over 20,000 children killed in Gaza alone. What would you call that?
I also recommend looking into an Ai system developed by the Israeli's called "Where's Daddy". Admittedly used during the the Gaza campaign by IOF themselves.
>Are you saying that Israel intentionally targets civilians?
Yes.
>As a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, Israel is obligated to protect civilians and civilian populations from all dangers arising from military operations, and Israel is prohibited from direct attacks on civilians.
They dont do it.
>The IDF must distinguish between civilian and military
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).
Sorry for taking this on such a weird tangent, but I've been reading the Culture stories and my immediate thinking was - why not? Missiles fly for a relatively long time compared to human decision making, let alone compared to optimized AI agents. There's notechnical barrier to having the missile be controlled by a conversational AI to which the intended recipient could appeal, negotiating with it to change its course.
I'm obviously not arguing that this is a good idea, but I wouldn't be that surprised if this is the future trajectory (sorry for the pun) of "smart weapons".
Well, as described in the article, the victim was given a sort of appeal by phone: he could make it easier for them to kill just him, rather than murdering his whole family as well.
And you can get a fat payday in court years after the cops dogpile you for a dumb reason. Doesn't make it right. Doesn't bring back the time lost to injury. Doesn't bring back the things that money you pissed into legal fees could've been spent on.
An appeals process isn't a magic uno reverse card that makes a morally reprehensible fact pattern ok. Capricious and/or vibe and/or "Signature based" (vibes with extra steps IMO) application of government violence is reprehensible regardless of the amount of violence applied.
Trying to anchor the discussion around "whole lives" is just lying MBA accounting but for social issues. At the state level life, limb, quality of life and wealth (monetary or otherwise) are all subject to inter related tradeoffs and are somewhat fungible and convertible.
“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.
Would you say the same about a 40 year old suburban USA dad who is a Walmart store manager, who served in the US army for 8 years in his twenties? Is that a "valid military target"? Can Iran drop a bomb on the Walmart that he works in?
You can fact-check me on this if you want but soldiers on leave from active duty are not considered combatants and so are not supposed to be targeted.
There was a comment by an Israeli soldier way back at the start of the Gaza thing that stayed with me but I can't find it now of course. He was commenting on the tactic of bombing residential buildings at night with everyone inside asleep to get one Hamas operative. He said something along the lines "imagine if they came after us when we were at home on vacation" or something like that. I don't believe anyone thinks that's fair, or legitimate, or anything of the sort, it's just something that can be done, so it's done.
The way I understand the article above is that there's not even a clear motive anymore. The AI says "bomb them", so they're bombed, end of.
No, that’s the point, Israel wants their civilians to not be targeted even though many/ most of them have served in the IDF, but they targeted this man.
There's certainly a good case to be made that Israel basically shaped Hezbollah into its current form as a terrorist organization. It's understandable, but not excusable. There's no excuse for a terrorist organization, on either side of the border.
There seems to be enough excuses for the US congress tho, they weren't that bothered to aid and abet the extermination of Palestinians with bunker buster bombs that wiped out entire bloodlines. Unless you mean that there is no excuse for a "terrorist" organization that is not the ally of the USA.
> There's no excuse for a terrorist organization, on either side of the border.
I disagree; consider Jewish resistance fighters during the holocaust. Should they not have fought back any way they could? Terrorism can be excused when the circumstances are sufficiently dire.
That's obviously not an outcome Israel is overly concerned about.
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
Describing one of the worst terror attacks on civilian targets, committed by Israel, as "spectacular" is a new level of manufacturing consent I have not seen before. Disgusting.
Same deal as “awesome”; people often misunderstand its meaning.
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”
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.
Also to be even more clear: while I recognise that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists I am not on the side of Israel, either. Israel is a militaristic, belligerent nation that seems to have convinced itself that the only answer to all its problems is to be in a constant state of war against all its neighbours. Prime Minister Netanyahu recently compared Israel's future to Sparta; I'm from Athens. And I'm a peacenick and an anti-nationalist on top of that. The ideology promulgated by Israel's ruling class is against everything I stand for, everything my history and my culture has taught me is sane, and reasonable, and productive.
Anyway when two people (or more, as the case may be) are fighting a war, the last thing that those who wish for peace must do is take a side. Taking a side can only encourage the belligerents to fight even more, because now they have supporters for their cause (safely, from a distance, without skin in the game, but supporters). Again, war is against everything I am for, and so I must stand against war and not on the side of anyone fighting a war.
As to being antisemitic or holding Israel to a special standard, we can talk about Iran, and Russia, and the US, and China, and Darfur, and Nigeria, and everything else that's rotten and makes me angry in the world right now if you want, but of course this discussion is about Israel's use of technology in its current campaign in Lebanon.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Hezbollah, whatever you may think of them, are the main security actor in the South. Why should they not defend their civilian population?
Beirut (the parts where Hezbollah has the biggest presence, granted) is bombarded every few days...
> a force that fights no longer for the Lebanese people but entirely for a foreign leader.
This is the standard western/Israeli narrative in that regard. The Lebanese people seem to view that differently.
> though Netanyahu clearly does for personal political reasons.
Israel has to rid itself of Likud.
Netanyahu does lots of stuff for personal reasons, but with regards to the wars, there is little the opposition would do differently.
Not in the way it would be if Lebanon declared war on Israel.
> Lebanese people seem to view that differently
Lebanon is uniquely diverse. The Lebanese I know absolutely see it this way, and with justification. (To be clear, that doesn’t make them peachy towards Israel doing the same.)
> with regards to the wars, there is little the opposition would do differently
Oof, I suspect you’re right. A unilateral course, then: the LAF disarms Hezbollah and then restores the Lebanese state’s monopoly on violence within its borders. Ideally timed to a change in political winds for Tel Aviv in America. Possibly with Turkish or even Saudi support. (Not holding my breath for the EU.)
No, why?
The problem I see: Even if Lebanon did that, there is still no guarantee that Israel would retreat from the areas in the south they occupied. Or even just that they'd stop with the airstrikes (they didn't stop during the previous ceasefire).
The political climate inside Israel seems to become more fundamentalist and belligerent, not less.
So there has to be an outside force that applies pressure to Israel. The only state able to do that is the US - but the US don't seem to be willing to do it.
Same with the Palestinians. Disarming Hezbollah would - very conveniently - remove one of the few remaining protective forces the Palestinians still have. So what would remain then?
What would declaring a second war even imply? Lebanon and Israel are, and have been in an official state of war since 1948.
Sure, they just take 10% of the country.
What would you do if you neighboring country was attacking you?
Which is odd. Since it should be a maritime/trading power and seek to have rich, stable neighbours.
> There is bipartisan agreement on the first point.
I don't see how this can be true. The last initiatives to stop weapon sales all died in the House (although with shrinking majorities). Meanwhile weapon sales, military and intelligence cooperation and diplomatic protection continue with no change.
By now a majority among the US population has changed their mind on Israel - but the actual decisionmakers haven't and I don't see that they will in the future either.
> And we should pass into law a process, subject to judicial oversight, that bars even weapons sales to countries systematically engaging in war crimes.
This law already exists in form of the Leahy Law. Both Biden and Trump refused to apply the law to Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy_Law#The_Leahy_Law_and_Is...
I also recommend looking into an Ai system developed by the Israeli's called "Where's Daddy". Admittedly used during the the Gaza campaign by IOF themselves.
Yes.
>As a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, Israel is obligated to protect civilians and civilian populations from all dangers arising from military operations, and Israel is prohibited from direct attacks on civilians.
They dont do it.
>The IDF must distinguish between civilian and military
They do this, then pull the trigger anyway.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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).
I'm obviously not arguing that this is a good idea, but I wouldn't be that surprised if this is the future trajectory (sorry for the pun) of "smart weapons".
An appeals process isn't a magic uno reverse card that makes a morally reprehensible fact pattern ok. Capricious and/or vibe and/or "Signature based" (vibes with extra steps IMO) application of government violence is reprehensible regardless of the amount of violence applied.
Trying to anchor the discussion around "whole lives" is just lying MBA accounting but for social issues. At the state level life, limb, quality of life and wealth (monetary or otherwise) are all subject to inter related tradeoffs and are somewhat fungible and convertible.
…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.
No. But if he’s still on the Army payroll, yes?
There was a comment by an Israeli soldier way back at the start of the Gaza thing that stayed with me but I can't find it now of course. He was commenting on the tactic of bombing residential buildings at night with everyone inside asleep to get one Hamas operative. He said something along the lines "imagine if they came after us when we were at home on vacation" or something like that. I don't believe anyone thinks that's fair, or legitimate, or anything of the sort, it's just something that can be done, so it's done.
The way I understand the article above is that there's not even a clear motive anymore. The AI says "bomb them", so they're bombed, end of.
Not GP, but no... a pension is not similar to an administrative role.
Aren’t they? Particularly if they’re still doing work for the IDF or are active reservists.
I disagree; consider Jewish resistance fighters during the holocaust. Should they not have fought back any way they could? Terrorism can be excused when the circumstances are sufficiently dire.