To understand the escalation in Lebanon, we must confront what Israelis are thinking

[Gunnersforthecup]

Rather good and well-informed article in the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/28/escalation-lebanon-israelis-benjamin-netanyahu-hamas-hezbollah

"It is almost certainly true that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has political reasons for prolonging the conflict. But while a majority of Israelis would probably like a different prime minister, many don’t want to stop the war until they think that both Hamas and more particularly Hezbollah – which has tied its actions directly to Gaza – have been neutralised as serious threats.

And that is because behind both groups they see an Iran that is dedicated to their destruction...

This isn’t simply about the US and its western allies. This time the Gulf states – and most of all Saudi Arabia – are going to be key actors. The prize of normalisation with Israel has not disappeared. But the price has gone up. It will certainly include the effective containment of Iran and its allies – and an answer to real, not simply declarative, Palestinian statehood. And this time we need to make it stick. Otherwise the pain we are seeing now will not simply not go away. It will get a lot worse."

You send a squad of special ops types to rescue them.

Invasion means to invade another state. That’s it. It doesn’t imply annexation or colonisation.

Ofc not, but to think you can do what you did in 2006 and have a different outcome is madness. I hope they are not planning a ground invasion of Lebanon, but there are indications of it. They have done exercises, they are massing troops at the border, the rhetoric has stepped up…

And when they know from experience just a month earlier in Gaza that it won't be quite as simple as that?

This is getting well and truly absurd. I can't believe you're genuinely trying to somehow reframe the 2006 war in Lebanon as Israeli aggression.

Erm I was just trying to explain to you why you are wrong to think that a country under attack defending itself is a provocation.

It’s a better option than a ground invasion! You know how it ended for the kidnapped soldiers in 2006? They came home in body bags.

I did not reframe 2006 as Israeli aggression. I stated quite calmly that we are on the path of a rerun of 2006…and where we are in the re-run is post the terrorist provocation and currently on the cusp of the part where Israel might invade Lebanon.

The best option is a ceasefire and negotiations, that has the highest success rate bar none of getting living hostages back, and stopping the deaths of innocents.

Except that counter-attacks that are escalatory and/or disporportionate are not considered solely self defence but also provocation.

Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were either dead before they even reached Lebanon or died very shortly thereafter, Hezbollah just pretended they were still alive so they could use it as more leverage. Their deaths had absolutely nothing to do with Israel's response to the heinous and unprovoked attack.

Their families thought they were still alive up until the bodies were returned in exchange for grotesque terrorists such as Samir Kumar.

We went over this, events don’t count scale in your chart. So Hezbollah could launch 1000 rockets at once and Israel could launch 10 separate rockets targeting the units that fired at them and it would look like Israel had launched 10 attacks vs Hezbollahs 1 on the basis of how events are counted.

If someone is firing and refusing to stop, you fire back (I tried to demonstrate this to you earlier). If Hezbollah had stopped firing Israel would have stopped firing because they already have a war on.

I think though you expect Israel to sit still and allow itself to be attacked with impunity. I suspect that anything Israel did in response would be seen as an escalation by you.

This.

The poster didn't do that.

Just to add thar Samir Kuntar murdered a little 4 year old girl by smashing her head in after killing her father in front of her eyes. He was feted as a hero by Hezbollah.

The girl's mother had hidden in a crawlspace with their 2 year old. She accidentally suffocated her daughter to keep her from giving away the hiding space as she was crying.

I did not post a chart. I posted a BBC report that is reporting data from the ACLED which does in fact count scale using a hierarchy of events.

Your data integrity concerns are unfounded.

There would never be an event of 1000 rockets from one Actor being counted as 1 attack while 10 rockets from another Actor being counted as 10 attacks.

Even if it were as you said (and it isn’t) by looking at the impact of the attacks on the affected regions, it is clear that Israel’s retaliatory attacks have had a significantly greater impact than the Hezbollah attacks in terms of damage to infrastructure and deaths. Where ACLED falls short is they do not distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths or terror/military infrastructure or civilian infrastructure- the BBC report I posted did the rest of that analysis drawing from other databases which do.

The difference in overall damage & deaths supports the ACLED analysis reported by the BBC that Israel has indeed responded to Hezbollah attacks at a 5:1 ratio. Which isn’t a punch for a punch, but a disproportionate response and ultimately an escalation in the cross border violence.

Since everyone thought they were still alive, including Israel, then it did in fact influence the Israeli military response at least for several months.

Oh, and as I stated yesterday, more IDF troops massing at the border.
I think another invasion of Lebanon would be a mistake for Israel.
https://news.sky.com/video/tanks-gather-near-israeli-lebanon-border-as-defence-minister-holds-talks-over-expansion-of-idf-activity-13224413

"It’s a better option than a ground invasion! You know how it ended for the kidnapped soldiers in 2006? They came home in body bags."

Were you not implying that the two hostages were killed because of a ground invasion? That's definitely what it sounded like you were saying. I'm not quite sure how else to read it.

They came home in body bags because Hezbollah are immoral, murderous, genocidal terrorists. Not because of a ground invasion.

😥 yet people support the depraved group

I wouldn't trust the BBC, they cannot even manage to call proscribed terrorist organisations and their leaders terrorists.

Surprised they produced a very moving record of 7th October although of course the use of the word terrorist wasn't allowed 🤔

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4806998,00.html

https://time.com/archive/6939498/a-mothers-anguish-renewed/

King Hussein called them 'the worst kind of people' , he asked for Israeli help to rid them from Jordan. Not sure about the current Jordanian king's views, Rania is quite vocal.

What a lovely woman

@ToBeDetermined ,

‘Except that counter-attacks that are escalatory and/or disporportionate are not considered solely self defence but also provocation.’

Israel has a total population of less than 10 million, Iran 90 million. And even that ratio of 9:1 is dwarfed by the ratio of surface areas. And that is not even including Iran’s proxies and allies.

If Israel wants to survive, it cannot afford to be ‘proportionate’.

I wonder what that ratio would look like for the U.S’s response to 9/11? Would you consider that a provocation?

Please read into what Hamas stands for.

They would not be bombing so indiscriminately if those countries had Jewish residents. To the Israeli government, Arab life doesn't matter.

I was under the impression there were Israeli Arabs in the knesset.

There are currently 10 Arab members of the Knesset I believe.

Gaza has Jewish residents. Not by choice unfortunately