You: So the pagers were ordered by Hezbollah…

Me: “The pagers were used by Hezbollah, not Hamas.”

You: “I realize that, I was drawing a parallel between the two circumstances.”

Me: asking for clarification.

You: “you seem not to (or have chosen not to) understand [the parallel?] the first two times […] Edite: I see I typed Hamas when I meant to type Hezbollah in one place”

It seems you’ve mistyped, then misunderstood me when I fixed it (though I attributed it to a lack of knowledge) and now you’re insinuating I might be misunderstanding you willfully? If that’s the case, you’re making it so easy for me other people might think we’re in cahoots[1].

Anyway, Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I didn’t understand the argument. And I’m pretty sure I did understand at least one of your points. I’ve explained why the pagers aren’t like landmines and why the rational behind the treaty to ban landmines seems to agree with me. If that’s the only argument you made (“It’s been one argument the entire time”), you can simply reply to what I said instead of reframing anything.

[1] Speaking of other people, are people downvoting me as a dislike button, or is there a specific reason? I don’t mind the downvotes, just wondering if they’re because people don’t agree with me or because they think there’s something wrong/harmful with my messages.

I realize that, I was drawing a parallel between the two circumstances.

Err… what circumstances? What was the purpose of drawing a parallel between Hamas and Hezbollah? What insight was I to gain by it? Asking seriously.

And again - when you drop a bomb, you can credibly have made an attempt to ensure no one is in the vicinity who you don’t intend to bomb. (Not that israel seems to do this) - this is especially true with modern technology.

Sorry, were you making two arguments or one? You asked about the difference between landmines and what Israel did. I thought the rest of what you said was to show how planting bombs in pagers is like landmines, not a new argument. If there were two arguments, you didn’t respond to my answer regarding landmines.

I can talk about the difference, and you’ll respond with a counter argument etc. Ultimately, it’ll come down to me saying Israel is able to reasonably predict who’ll carry the explosive and you saying they can’t. The bottom line for me is this:

Some weapons have been banned from warfare while others haven’t. The banned weapons follow certain criteria for being banned. exploda-pagers don’t follow the criteria under which landmines have been banned. If you know of other weapons or tactics that are banned and are akin to exploda-pagers, we can discuss that. Otherwise, I’m left with the conclusion what Israel did falls within the bounds of a legitimate military operation. You can, of course, think differently.

The pagers were used by Hezbollah, not Hamas. They are two different entities, and while it doesn’t make any difference in the narrow context I’m replying to, it’s really a basic detail that anyone voicing an opinion on the matter should know.

How is this argument different than defending the use of landmines?

From the Wikipedia entry about landmines: “The use of land mines is controversial because they are indiscriminate weapons, harming soldier and civilian alike. They remain dangerous after the conflict in which they were deployed has ended, killing and injuring civilians and rendering land impassable and unusable for decades. To make matters worse, many factions have not kept accurate records (or any at all) of the exact locations of their minefields, making removal efforts painstakingly slow.”

Planting bombs inside pagers specifically used by Hezbollah isn’t indiscriminate (unless by “indiscriminate” you mean “when they go off, they harm anyone in the proximity”, but going by that definition everything with an exploding charge is “indiscriminate”, yet only mines are banned). And obviously exploded bombs don’t remain dangerous and aren’t difficult to remove.

First off, I think we should contextualize what happened - according to some news sources, the bombs were supposed to go off in the first days of an Israeli attack that would probably start an all out war (Some Hezbollah operatives became suspicious). The operation wasn’t intended to create an “escalation where Hezbollah will answer”, rather opening a full out attack against Hezbollah to force them to stop firing missiles at Israeli civilians and abide by the UN resolution.

Israel didn’t send “thousands of bombs God knows where they land”. They planted bombs in hardware that is used exclusively by Hezbollah operatives and their accomplices to evade gathering sigint. Yes, civilians got hurt. That’s the nature of war, and what makes it so horrible - people who might hold no malice nor pose any threat to the other side get hurt and die. The modern rules of warfare aren’t designed to eliminate civilian casualties, rather mainly to deter the warring parties from using civilians as a tool of war. That’s why an army can’t hide behind civilian population, but given an army that’s hiding behind civilian population, it’s acceptable for the other army to fire at them as long as they take proper measures to minimize civilian casualties (this in meant only as an example, not directly relating to Hezbollah or Hamas). If any act that results in civilian casualties is not “proper defense” I don’t think there has been a single case of “proper defense” in large scale armed conflict in modern history. People in the west might not realize it because for the last decades wars are fought away form their boarders, so it’s easier to view civilian casualties as optional.

And you know what? I’d WISH all civilian casualties in war would be confined to people who are in direct proximity to enemy personnel. If I could press a button and replace all Hezbollah attacks against civilian targets with bombs sent to IDF personnel, I’d do so in a heartbeat.

Regarding Netanyahu - right now, he’s slowly climbing in the polls. His plan is to keep his coalition from falling apart till the next election. Anything that disturbs the current situation is not in his interests (and, on the whole, the last time Netanyahu was proactive in anything other than a political capacity was about 2 decades ago). If Netanyahu wanted a war, he would have the public’s support for it months ago (in fact, the public very much supports a large scale conflict in order to stop Hezbollah targeting Israeli cities). His hand is being forced by other parties in the coalition. The obvious “culprit” are the far-right parties, but I personally think the main catalyst are the ultra-orthodox parties. This gets a bit complicated, but bear with me: The ultra-orthodox parties need to pass a law that’ll exempt their constituents from military service (long story short - they were exempt for years but due to court rulings, need a new law to keep that privilege). Galant (the minister of defense) is the one stopping the law from passing. Netanyahu was about to replace him and sell it to the public as Galant being the one who was against a war against Hezbollah. Actually, I’ll go as far as saying Israel being forced to activate the bombs prematurely, thus stopping Galant from being fired, makes  a war a bit less likely (Though obviously other factors have also been put in play, so the government can’t just do a U turn).

During the last month there were not 1, not 10, not 100 but 807 alerts in Israel for missile attacks. Some of them weren’t fired by Hezbollah, and some might have been the same alert in different areas, but that’s still about 7 missile PER DAY even if we assume only 1 in 4 alerts was due to an attack by Hezbollah (side note: during the entire war, about 2,000 missile were launched from Lebanon to Israel, that’s an average of about 6 per day). In addition to this, there were 452 aircraft intrusion alerts. Most of these attacks are against civilian targets.

Right now, there are about 79 thousand people (around 0.8% of total population) who are still evicted for nearly a year from northern Israel.

And just in case it needs to be said - the first attack was made by Hezbollah (on Oct. 8th) and without any provocation by Israel.

Not only is this a situation no sovereign country can stand, but it’s also a violation of the Lebanon-approved UN Security Council’s resolution 1701, that was the basis for ending the 2006 Lebanon War. Hell, just having missiles in the area is by itself a violation of the resolution.

Regarding political reasoning - A war in Lebanon is actually bad for Netanyahu. His interest is a slow-burning war so he can prolong the current situation as much as possible (once the war is over, the pubic will demand an election). In fact, that’s probably the main reason you had “a missile here and a bomb there” and not an actual war.

Obviously, it would depend on which country you’re asking.

No idea about the US, but what you’re describing has kinda been done. The PIs were hired for a set amount of time to track some politicians during the day, and were supplemented by freedom of information requests and data from public sources.

Most of the findings were what you would expect (Some parliament members barely came to the parliament, some had days with mostly political activists/lobbing/business magnate). There were a few “out there” examples, as one parliament member was doing grocery shopping etc. Thing is, this method is pretty good to figure out what politicians work for the public and who works for private interests, but it’s nearly impossible to actually uncover anything that’s even skirting on the illegal. A PI can’t wiretap or search private property.

A tangent, but In the same spirit, there’s a crowdfunded lobbying agency called Lobby 99.

OK, I’ll just answer plainly, and if I misunderstood you, feel free to correct me:

OP asked about the difference in Israel’s response to Munich and Gaza. I tried answering that to the best of my ability, as it seems most other answers didn’t correct the implicit assumption that Israel doesn’t go after Hamas’s leaders. If you think someone is “obsessed with Munich”, you should respond to the OP.

However, I get the feeling some people here took the question as “let’s use this question to further convince ourselves/others that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza”. In this context, your reply makes more sense when it’s addressed to me.

Err… did I misunderstood the question, or do (nearly?) all commenters have no idea what they’re talking about?

You’re asking why Israel doesn’t assassinate Hamas’s top leaders, right? Or did I misunderstood and you asking Israel doesn’t ONLY assassinate Hamas’s top leaders? Or are you asking why Israel responded differently to Munich?

To answer the first question, well… they are. Hamas’s top leaders according to BBC are:

• Ismail Haniyeh - Killed.
• Mohammed Deif - Probably killed.
• Marwan Issa - Killed.
• Mahmoud Zahar - Alive. is 79 years old and might not be active/influential in the leadership.
• Khaled Meshaal - Alive.
• Yahya Sinwar - Alive.

Also, keep in mind that the response to the Munich massacre took about 2 decades.

As to why Israel dosen’t ONLY assassinate Hamas’s leadership, the simple answer is that it won’t solve anything. It won’t bring the hostages home (It will probably have opposite effect as a. it will leave Israel without a centralized entity with whom to negotiate and b. Sinwar might be using hostages as human shields, which also might explain why he’s still alive), and it will still leave Israel with a terrorist entity next door. The official Israeli version is that the assassinations, among other things, serve as leverage on Hamas leaders to secure a deal. Obviously, this is only effective if there is some leadership left.

If you’re asking why Israel responded differently to Munich, it’s because the situation is totally different in numerous ways. But the question itself is also factually wrong - Israel didn’t only assassinate the leaders of Black September. Firstly, the goal was to “assassinate individuals they accused of being involved in the 1972 Munich massacre”, not just the leaders. Not only that, Israel also responded with raids and bombings (for example: 1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon).

I have two main moral guidelines by which I try to live:

A. Try to leave everything better than it was before, or at least avoid making it worse. It doesn’t have to be by much, but if every person makes things just one tiny bit better, the culminating effect will be great. Do your part.

B. The difference between a moral person and an immoral one usually doesn’t lie in the ability/inability to know right from wrong, rather in the ability to rationalize their immoral actions. Therefore:

• Doing bad things once in a while does not make you a bad person, it makes you human.
• Avoiding doing bad things 100% of the time will make you a bad person, as you’ll inevitably fail and will be forced to rationalize your actions, making it easier to do more bad things.
• What makes you a good person is the ability to know when you’re acting wrong.

From there, there are a few rules that help me along the way:

1. Everyone are wrong. Assume you’re wrong about some important things/core beliefs, you’ve just yet to discover which ones. Don’t hesitate to act according to what you think is right, but understand you’re probably doing something wrong somewhere. Look for signs that show that’s the case.

2. Making mistakes is fine and inevitable. Reflect on your mistakes and try not to make the same mistake twice.

3. Use everything as an opportunity to learn. The best way to learn is from other people’s mistakes - it provides a visceral lesson without you having to pay the price.

4. People’s opinions of you are their business, not yours. Though you should choose to use them to improve yourself when applicable.

5. Admitting being wrong or admitting a mistake will not only improve things, but is a sign of strength. Not doing so is a sign of weakness. This is true both for yourself and for other people.

6. Give people the benefit of the doubt and don’t be quick to judge them. Wait until you have enough data and then come to conclusions.

7. No rule is correct in all situations.

8. External rules (and laws) exist for a reason. If you’re going to break one of them, first understand why it’s there in the first place and why it should be ignored. Do not assume you know better than the people who came up with it.

9. Blanket statements can be correct or incorrect for the most part, but they can’t be used to solely justify an action or an opinion.

It’s not necessarily a matter of subjective vs. objective. There’s a difference between appreciating art and enjoying watching something. IMO, Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” is utter garbage, but it was extremely enjoyable to watch.

You can use LLMs to, well, do what they’re designed to do - generate text. Need to write a marketing text? Summersie a meeting or make a summery more readable? Rewrite an “about” page to incorporate something new? Just be sure to read through the generated text and make sure it’s correct.

I’ve ordered some household items (door stoppers, tools etc.). The prices were somewhat cheaper than AE, the quality was fine (some things were better than expected. Some very cheap items were… Let’s say they were priced according to their quality. Thought other very cheap items turned out good, so it’s a gamble) and shipping was OK. Never tried the app for privacy reasons, but the site seems ok-ish (it’s a bit janky, but I suspect it’s due in part to some privacy addon I use. In short:

1. Don’t use the app.
2. Don’t buy very cheap stuff unless you’re willing to chance it.
3. The “prizes” either appear only in the app or can be disabled via ad blockers and/or privacy addons.

Gaza was a part of Egypt and the west bank was a part of Jordan until 67. Israeli Arabs (not saying “Israeli Palestinians” as some of them don’t identify as such) were under martial law till the 60s, but still had many rights deprived from other Palestinians and even some minorities in western countries (for example, they had the right to vote).

Wow, I just got and used a whetstone for the first time yesterday!

I’ll tell you what I did, with the understanding that I’m less knowledgeable than others in this post, but can probably better relate to your situation.

I’d also be happy to hear feedback from others.

I bought a dual King whetstone of 1000/6000 grit for a basic German knife that lost its edge after a few months of daily use. The 6000 side is probably overkill (King is made for Japanese knifes, which do require 6000 grit. 2000-4000 would do for a German knife), but the whetstone was at the correct balance of price, apparent quality and known brand.

I mainly used these two videos as guides:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkzG4giI8To

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahaaHxhbsA

Using a marker to see if I’m holding the knife at the correct angle helped, thought I mostly used it to get my bearings. I didn’t bother with the whole 10, 8, 6 etc. stropping process, rather went a few times on each side, and tested it until the knife was able to cut through paper easily. Overall, I’d say it took me less than 10 passes on each side.

The main issue for me was forcing myself to hold the knife correctly and move my other hand to apply pressure at the right point (I was able to do it correctly, it just took a bit of work). I also had a hard time keeping the angle of the knife constant.

The whole process start to finish took me about half an hour, I’d say about 5-10 minutes were due to me being a noob.

When inspecting the edge, I noticed it was convex, which makes sense as the angle wasn’t uniform. From what I understand, this might actually be better than a straight V edge (the most common type), so… yay for me, I guess?

After finishing the knife easily passed the paper test, and cutting through a tomato was more a matter of placing the knife on top of the tomato and sliding it back and forth, allowing the edge to drop down and slice it. The knife is at least as sharp as when it was new, if not sharper. There is one spot where I think the edge isn’t as good, but I only noticed it because I was looking for issues and it isn’t noticeable with regular use. Overall I’m very happy with the results.

Small children (under 6-7) are exempt from Jewish law. Making breast milk kosher isn’t exactly neccsery, but it makes things much easier (how to keep it, making sure it won’t get mixed with other foods by mistake, what happened if it does etc.) The neat part is that breast milk isn’t considered milk accordingly to Jewish law, so it can be drunk with/right after/before eating meat (otherwise forbidden). This means a person can, and I know at least one who actually did, add breast milk to their coffee after eating meat.

So about that Amnesty report…?

Anyway, after calling me a “cartoon villain Nazi” I don’t really think this discussion can go anywhere. so I’ll go a bit off-topic and say something other readers might find interesting:

About a month ago, I spoke with a Palestinian work-buddy (yes, Palestinian Israelis work with Israeli Jews. In the the same jobs and with the same pay. Apartheid).

I asked him how he’s doing, as he’s not only living in Israel (and therefor a missile can hit his family as well as mine. Yet another area where Palestinian-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis are no different), he has the added bonus of fearing some psycho Jewish supremacist attacking him. He mentioned that the police are monitoring social media, and summoning for investigation Israeli-Palestinian influences who show support for Hamas, threaten them with charges and release them. Me, a cartoon villain Nazi bleeding heart liberal: “wow, I don’t think anyone in their right mind should support Hamas, but summoning people and releasing them without charges just to threaten them… yeah, that’s rough”.

He replied “No, you don’t understand, that wasn’t a criticism. I’m saying that’s a good thing. If that’ll help stop a replay of two years ago [social networks played a large part in encouraging Palestinians to riot. The riots caused a surge in anti-Palestinian violence among Jews], I’m all for it” . I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

Not saying every Palestinian is like him and every Jew is like me. Just… yeah, it’s complicated.

On what basis?

Again, I didn’t see any Israeli source referring to them as “combatants”.

State security - OTHER is indeed not a real charge at all.

What does that mean? It appears in the Israeli law, so it’s as “real” as any other charge. You could say it’s not a justifiable charge, but that wasn’t her claim. She didn’t say “I was arrested for an unjustifiable charge”, rather “I was arrested without charge”.

The word espionage exists as a charge, it is not in her charge.

I think that’s like saying “The word Murder exists as a charge, it is not in her charge” when talking about homicide. Not sure though.

Jailing someone for even 3 months without process is completely insane

Not “without process”, “without trail”. It’s not uncommon for prisoners being held 3 months only to have the charges dropped (regardless of nationality).

Afterwards you go on a journey dismissing this heinous court system as okay

“what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”. Not saying there aren’t any issues with the way Palestinians are treated in the Israeli court system, but you made some specific claims that I disagree with, and didn’t give any evidence.

Don’t look up the Amnesty report damming Israel for killing their hostages without process in jail.

Sorry, but I actually did try to look it up, and wasn’t able to. Could you please link to it?

The closet thing I was able to find is this, which refers to Palestinian prisoners as, well, prisoners. So even if it’s not the right report, it would seem Amnesty themselves don’t refer to Palestinian prisoners as “hostages”. Could we at least agree on that?

BTW, I didn’t read through the full report, but I find myself agreeing to most of the thing said (most weren’t news to me).

I’m not trying to say Israel did nothing wrong. Israel has done PLENTY of immoral things, and is currently doing plenty of immoral things. I’m saying that Israel isn’t some devil that wants to kill all Palestinians, and has zero regard for their lives (though some Israeli are). It’s extremely complicated.

The op in this thread said: “The Palestinians are getting combatants who were arrested for other attacks by and large."

Right, but you said “The misinformation is calling all the released Palestinians combatants. That seems like the Israeli’s talking point here, which is a fabrication.” I have no reason to assume OP is Israeli. But even if he is, he isn’t representative of most Israeli sources (to the best of my knowledge).

Is there an index for which apartheid states are better than others? That seems like an interesting index.

I was referring to the The Economist Democracy Index. As of 2022, Israel is in the high end of flawed democracies (between Portugal and the US). Not saying that’s the end-all-be-all of democratic Indices, but it is the most widely known and commonly used, so it’s a good rule of thumb.

You’re right, calling all the released prisoners “Palestinians combatants” would be wrong. Can you please point me to a source calling them that? I only saw something similar in far right Israeli news sites, who call them “terrorists” (all other sites call them “prisoners”).

Yes, all of these people are charged by the Israeli state, an apartheid state oppressing the Palestinian people. They can make up whatever charges they want. Who believes them?

If we assume a state-wide conspiracy, any state can make up whatever charges it wants. There’s no real way to prove that’s wrong. However, there are a few indicators I can think of - what’s the democracy index of said state? is that state’s judiciary system regarded internationally as being generally good? Do other democratic states believe said state? Has said state been caught in many lies regarding its judiciary system?

Going by these indicators, Israel’s status is at least OK. Not perfect, and if you’d like I can point out quite a few issues, especially regarding the treatment of Palestinians, but they do not “make up” charges as a general modus operandi.