[random_upvoter]

> if Israel wanted to achieve similar results via a conventional war against Hezbollah, it seems virtually guaranteed that far more innocent people would have been injured and killed

"It's OK that Israel causes excessive amounts of civilian casualties, because in the alternative scenario Israel would also cause excessive amounts of civilian casualties"

[pdabbadabba]

I don't find it very persuasive to simply assume that the casualties are "excessive." Whether they are actually excessive is really the whole issue. As of right now, there is no strong evidence that I'm aware of that the injuries from today's attack are "excessive" much less those of a different purely hypothetical attack.

And even then: to judge whether casualties are excessive requires an understanding of the goal to be achieved, which is almost completely absent from this discussion.

[digging]

I think the problem many people have is that Israel's goals entirely revolve around killing people.

That is: If your goal is to murder someone, and you accidentally kill an innocent bystander in committing that murder, the number of civilians killed is infinitely too high. The number of acceptable total deaths is 0.

I understand this is idealistic. But it's the judgement many will choose to make. For the record, no I don't only think it's bad when Israel murders people.

[pdabbadabba]

I don’t understand. It seems clear enough to me that Israel’s goal is to prevent Hezbollah from continuing to launch rockets at Israeli towns in the north. Killing is a means to that end. One may disagree with that choice of means, but I don’t see how you can claim that “Israel’s goals entirely revolve around killing people.”

That being said, you might think that killing is never an appropriate means of achieving anything. If so, fair enough. But I think that’s a tough position to maintain when you are actively under attack.

[lukan]

"Israels goal"

I think Israel consists of quite different people with different goals.

Some of them have the goal, to own all of the land, because they believe it is their religious duty - and some of them are indeed part of the government.

And some of them just want to live in peace.

And on the other side it seems quite similar to me. Probably with a higher percentage of ruthless killers, but desperation tend to make people ruthless.

It really isn't a simple conflict that can be solved with more killing, unless we are talking about genocidal levels of killings.

[digging]

> It seems clear enough to me that Israel’s goal is to prevent Hezbollah from continuing to launch rockets at Israeli towns in the north. Killing is a means to that end. One may disagree with that choice of means, but I don’t see how you can claim that “Israel’s goals entirely revolve around killing people.”

Well, let me start with the necessary disclaimer: First, I'm not an expert on geopolitics or Israel or the ME. That's probably obvious. It could be that my coarse understanding is just completely wrong, but I think it's a broadly correct picture which is lacking lots of detail.

I also don't know much about the conflict with Hezbollah specifically, but what I see from Israel tells me that the prevention of rocket smay not be their top goal. I also believe that even if it is, killing is a means that I disagree with!

The rhetoric I hear about Hamas (not Hezbollah, so it may be different there, but I suspect it's not substantially so) from the Netanyahu administration is about murder. Protecting Israelis is a means to an end; the end goal is to kill every single member of Hamas (and, reading between the lines, the expulsion of all Palestinians). It's widely reported that many Israelis openly feel Netanyahu is not making meaningful efforts to recover hostages, and I've also understood that significant lapses in Israeli security were what made the Oct 7 attack last year possible. Meanwhile, some of the things Netanyahu says about Hamas and Palestine sounds genocidal, frankly.

Again, could be wrong about all that. Every word on the subject is biased in one way or another. Additionally, I know very little of the situation with Hezbollah, so I'm extrapolating: The prioritization of murder over safety that I see in the war with Hamas demonstrates to me that Israel is not making choices in the utmost interest of safety, generally, if the murder of its enemies is on the table.

Of course, I'll also reiterate that even if all of the above is wrong, their means are unacceptable to me: I don't believe one of the most powerful nations on the planet needs to murder its impoverished neighbors to keep itself safe. It's much easier than diplomatic and nonlethal approaches, yes; but I don't think it's necessary.

[pdabbadabba]

Thanks for the thorough explanation. I think there are two things worth adding to your picture that distinguish Hezbollah from Hamas.

The first is that about 60,000 Israelis are currently displaced because they lived in a zone that Hezbollah is targeting with rocket attacks. (Which, FWIW, appear to intentionally target civilians.) Many of them have been living in hotels for nearly a year. Just yesterday, the Israeli cabinet updated its official war goals to include allowing residents to return to their homes in the north. What I hear is that this is now an issue roughly on par with returning the hostages from Gaza in terms of its salience within Israel.

The second is that Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas ever was. Unlike Hamas, I think Israel must recognize that elimination of Hezbollah is not a realistic aim.

[digging]

Appreciate the measured input. Those are both pretty important points and I don't dispute it's a very different situation from the war with Hamas.

[clarkmcc]

Based.

[raxxorraxor]

At some point you have to ignore these perspectives because they are wrong. Look into the founding of Hezbollah. It isn't a secret, their stated goals is to expulse Jews. It cannot get much more plain as that.

The positions in this war are not equal.

[digging]

> The positions in this war are not equal.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Israel is one of the most powerful nations on Earth, Hezbollah is not even close. I don't think genocide is an appropriate response to the hatred of a much, much weaker enemy.

[raxxorraxor]

Hezbollah is a militia and has more manpower and equipment than the Lebanese army. They get high tech supplies from allies like Iran and they have more military power than a lot of the surrounding countries, who also fear them for that reason.

They aren't a civilian force and they are a serious military threat, especially with the backing of Iran.

[pdabbadabba]

> I don't think genocide is an appropriate response to the hatred of a much, much weaker enemy.

I'd challenge you to provide a reasonable argument that Israel is committing genocide in Lebanon.

[digging]

Sorry, I meant that I don't believe they are, but I believe they would if it became opportune. And I'm not aware of any indication otherwise; it can be assumed they would choose against it, but I don't make that assumption.

[ekanes]

Genocide is a term generally related to civilians. Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organization by the USA.

[ineedasername]

Why isn't it better to cause fewer civilian casualties &/or those of lesser severity than a shooting fight or missile attack?[1] Given the situation has already degenerated to its current state where fighting is the status quo and all options lead to innocent casualties then minimizing those is the horrible "OK" option. Not okay in the sense of desirable, not okay in the sense that things should never have degenerate to this level to begin with, only okay as the less horrible option.

[1] Videos show the explosions highly limited in their ability to cause injuries as bad as a bullet to anyone ever a foot or two away from the explosions, much less than I would expect from anything more conventional.

[energy123]

Israel isn't causing any civilian casualties in South Lebanon. Hezbollah declaring war on Israel by firing rockets onto civilian areas since the 8th of October caused them.

[plutokras]

People keep bringing up the same argument about dropping nukes on Japanese cities, and it seems like the world just accepted it.

[Beefin]

my family was evacuated due to incessant rocket fire in the golan heights, hezzbollah has been firing indiscriminately since 10/8 do you have any alternative?