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Comment by gypsy_boots | Hacker News Reader

You're led to this conclusion because you have a lack of understanding of the structure of Hezbollah, and a seeming disinterest in understanding it more.

Like it or not, Hezbollah serves a number of functions in Lebanon. They have civil servants (think trash collectors, postal delivery representatives, etc.) They also have politicians.

A corollary would be if the Democratic Party in the United States had a militarized wing, politicians, and civil servants.

It's a structure that those in the West don't recognize or understand, and leads you to the conclusion that anyone killed in the pager attack, for instance, is just terrorist adjacent. So a trash collector who's killed in the pager attack, and their family, are not in fact, 'terrorists'.

Also worth investigating in all of this are the structures and centers of power that are labeling them as a terrorist organization and why.

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I don't know so much about Hizballah (though maybe more than the average american), but I do know a bit about Israel and its army.

The late Yeshayahu Leibovitch called certain behaviors "judonazism". And currently this is the mainstream of the Israeli society. Everyone in Israel knows it (though they would try to cast it in different terms), few speak about it, the ones who do get silenced, most simply don't care (who cared in nazi Germany about jews massacred in the woods or starved to death and killed in concentration camps?). The government, the judicial system, and of course the army (just check Haliva's interview on Guardian, and he is, I suspect, "a moderate"..)

Why the hell would a trash collector get a pager specialized for secure military communication?

nobody should have a gripe against civil services, I want civil services but I'm not going to want them delivered by murderous crime syndicates.

If you live in the US, I've got bad news for you. If you live in Israel, "crime syndicate" isn't strong enough of a pejorative.

your corollary is what terrifies me. On one hand, it is fascinating to get a glimpse into how it works. On the other, we are next.

This is a fallacious argument. As if it was controversial to say that an organization engaging in lawless violence and terror attacks (imagine if those attacks were against you) doesn't have any moral ground to stand on, even if it does some other things besides that.

It's basically the mafia approach. They are known to help people and stuff sometimes, does it mean we should condone them and protest when they are targeted?

The key people in mafia are also always in "administrative" roles. If you only target the guy pulling the trigger, you would be a fool since he is pretty low among the pawns.

Nothing Hezbollah has done is even remotely close to the evils of Israel. Hezbollah is armed resistance against a genocidal terror force. They're not even remotely "bad".

I looked it up and according to Hezbollah the evil of Israel is in its existence. The stated objective is destruction of Israel and having another one of the many Islamic countries in its place, and it does not appear contingent on what Israel does. If you are in favor of that, I guess you're entitled to your opinion, but I don't share it.

Bullshit. You can’t compare terrorists to the Democratic Party.

ISIS also had trash collectors. Are you saying ISIS should have been left alone?

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