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tptacek12/11/20251 replyview on HN

The most obvious citation is Reuters, which did a whole article on this, including the specific circumstances in which the pagers exchanged hands. And, whatever the rest of the moral circumstances of the strike may have been, the fact of the devices being combatant communication equipment does mean that it was neither indiscriminate (it was in fact very discriminate) nor terroristic (it had combatant targets, not civilians).

The attacks can still be immoral for a host of other reasons. Pearl Harbor was deeply immoral. It was also not an indiscriminate terrorist attack. Words mean things.


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Cyph0n12/12/2025

I have expanded in other comments in this same tree, but it was indiscriminate in timing, location, and possession (unless Israel individually verified possession).

If it were a “discriminate” attack as you claim, then we wouldn’t have seen thousands of civilians (non-combatants, Hezbollah affiliated or otherwise) being injured.

> Words mean things.

Small aside: not saying this applies to you specifically, but I have found that most people who use this adage (if you will) are quick to apply it to situations they don’t agree with, but become more flexible when it aligns with their interests.

The typical example I use is how Western politicians vehemently deny/denied usage of the term “genocide” or even “war crimes” for Gaza, but apply it liberally to Ukraine, even though the latter is objectively (by any metric) “less” of a genocide than Gaza is. Bernie Sanders only came around just a few months ago.

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