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.

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).

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.

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.

No no, they meant first of many unfulfilled promises.

Cool. Thanks