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Comment by dlubarov | Hacker News Reader

Suppose we believe all captions in your links, so for example we'll assume that guy in shorts and flip flops was some sort of “spy balloon manager.”

It wouldn’t matter, because once you perform terrorist attacks, you’re still a terrorist even if you also attack valid targets sometimes. Same as Hamas, which is still a terrorist org despite attacking some IDF bases.

Even Amnesty has acknowledged Hezbollah’s routine use of unguided rockets, which can’t possibly target military assets but are just lobbed in the general direction of population centers. That makes them terrorists, regardless of what else they do.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/israel-hezbol...

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Could you quote from that article where Amnesty makes a statement calling actions by armed factions of Hezbollah terrorism?

I didn't say that Amnesty used the term. If bombardment of population centers, with no targeting of military assets, isn't terrorism than what is?

Yeah, why don't they do that? And why do you?

My suspicion is that you expect it to short circuit the conversation, and that no one is willing to side with terrorism or affiliate themselves with it in any way, which would give you a degree of power over the conversation.

It's a weasely word, and has about zero relevance in criminal law regarding warfare, it being a political designation mainly used by states that meet resistance to colonisation and the like.

Yeah, sure, Hezbollah has committed war crimes. So what? They look like a pathetic little rounding error beside the usian and israeli war crimes over the past decades, or even just the last year or so. Like Hamas I'm sure Hezbollah would gladly send people to the Hague for prosecution if Israel did too.

So tell us, why is this designation so important to you? Is it because you lack arguments? Is it because you're lazy and just want to waste other people's time?

While there isn't one standard definition of terrorism, Hezbollah's untargeted bombardment of Israeli towns qualifies under pretty much any definition.

You seemed happy to use the term against Israel [1], claiming an operation which specifically targeted Hezbollah operatives was somehow terrorism. Why do you suddenly have a blanket objection to a term that you were just using yourself?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46243118

You're repeating yourself.

Under what definition would the targeting of villages where the IDF is operating qualify? Why are you back to lying about the pager attacks being "targeted", even though they clearly were not, and even if they were, that would make the israeli crime a lot worse?

I used it as a rhetorical device, and as is obvious above and elsewhere, it's not something I'm monotonically trying to rub in as part of an astroturfing campaign.

Resistance to occupation and attack isn't "terrorism", that word has no meaning anymore.

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