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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18679 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025

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Israel bombed an embassy a few months ago and has a long history of fighting dirty. They shouldn't be surprised that they get the same treatment back. The expectation can't be that they can finance terrorism, assassinate people, and bomb embassies and then not get the same back.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we accept all your characterizations are accurate, can you give any examples of countries waging war in the modern era whom you would not consider to be "fighting dirty," using the same criteria by which you are judging Israel?

I mean, most countries don't do the pager-supply-chain-explosive thing. I don't think anyone has managed to infiltrate a foreign military's boot supplier, for instance.

I have no doubt that many countries (including the US) are trying to do that and definitely would if given the opportunity.

I also don't see what is uniquely bad about the pager operation. The rhetoric about "they booby trapped office supplies!!!" seems very bad faith and crocodilian. Yes, they targeted a terrorist guerilla organization with supply chain infiltration. And?

Oh, I'm not saying I have a problem with it, simply that I can see why it might be considered "fighting dirty". Granted, the RN once thought the very concept of a submarine was "fighting dirty", so...

I can understand people who have principled objections to certain weapons or tactics, even if I disagree with them. But someone who only objects when it's one particular group that they really hate who uses "dirty tactics," I don't believe their objections are actually based on principle.

what's uniquely bad

It shows a reckless disregard for the lives of civilians, for one.

I think killing diplomats in a country you're not at war with is much worse though. It undermines everyone's ability to make peace and is just vandalizing the commons of humanity.

It shows a reckless disregard for the lives of civilians, for one.

Does it really though? These were pagers that were getting encrypted messages from Hezbollah. They set up a front company to rig them. What exactly is a "civilian" doing with an encrypted Hezbollah pager?

These weren't grenade sized explosions, most people lost hands and eyes not their lives. It wasn't something that would take out an entire room full of people.

It shows a reckless disregard for the lives of civilians, for one.

How is it more reckless than air strikes?

I think killing diplomats in a country you're not at war with is much worse though. It undermines everyone's ability to make peace and is just vandalizing the commons of humanity.

It may be poor diplomacy, but given that for all practical purposes Iran is fighting a war with Israel, and their officers were in Syria to execute military operations directed at Israel, I don't consider any claims that Israel was "fighting dirty" to be ingenuous.

I will go out on a limb and say that I do not consider the Israeli airstrike against an Iranian general in Damascus all that bad.

Attacking an embassy is both an act of war against the host country and the country running the embassy.

Killing a general, his staff, and civilian Iranian embassy employees alongside two Syrian civilians (a mother and her child) is not great, but it is pretty tame both in the context of the Syrian civil war and compared to what Israel considers acceptable civilian casualties when taking out Hamas leaders in Gaza.

There is also a point to be made that this probably was a causal factor in the collapse of the Assad regime which happened in the same year, ending (hopefully) a decades long civil war.

Now, if you show me that the two Israelis which were killed were instrumental in the Israeli military efforts, perhaps tasked with sourcing US weapons, and the attacker picked them for that reason, then I will grudgingly grant you that they would have been acceptable targets from Iran's point of view.

But based on what I heard, some dude just shot two random embassy employees because he was unhappy with Israel.

Well agreed that compared to Israels other bombings in this war, this event is not so bad. The problems is that Israeli propagandist in the west always try to make every attack on them some major moral and civilizational issue. So playing by their own rules its relevant that Israel has no problem at all attacking an embassy and killing staff there.

There doesnt need seem to be more proof of this claim:

There is also a point to be made that this probably was a causal factor in the collapse of the Assad regime which happened in the same year, ending (hopefully) a decades long civil war.

Than this one:

Now, if you show me that the two Israelis which were killed were instrumental in the Israeli military efforts, perhaps tasked with sourcing US weapons, and the attacker picked them for that reason,

It seems like a case of isolated demand of rigor.

The problems is that Israeli propagandist in the west always try to make every attack on them some major moral and civilizational issue.

I feel like this argument burned out for me during the first Trump term when the "Muslim bans" were castigated for clear racial/religious animus and disparate impact on a subset (even a fairly limited one) of (mostly-)Muslim nations. I thought the arguments were somewhat reasonable and compelling that the combination of a history of disparaging remarks and policies (which may perhaps have been defensible in isolation) was at least arguably a bridge too far (see a near-divided SCOTUS in Trump v. Hawaii).

But in the case of Israel, self-styled "anti-Zionists" (many of whom were clearly against Trump's travel bans on the above basis) manage to make no shortage of religious/ethnic animus comments, and propose policies that disparately impact the (unitary) set of Jewish-majority states: Your rules, applied fairly.

Isnt there widespread agreement in this community that this kind of hysteric rhetoric by the democrats was very damaging, and also alienated alot of people who were otherwise sympathetic to the cause?

Which embassy did they bomb? And when? I’ve just did some cursory Googling but I didn’t turn up anything.

Airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_airstrike_on_the_Iranian_consulate_in_Damascus

Israel doesn't have diplomatic relations with Iran, so for them the consulates and embassies are just buildings.

Right; the special sanctity of an embassy is an obligation of the host country, not a third party. Of course, bombing an embassy building is a hostile act towards both host country and the country whose embassy it is, but I'm pretty sure Israel was OK with that.

bombing an embassy building is a hostile act towards both host country and the country whose embassy it is, but I'm pretty sure Israel was OK with that.

Given that they were already in some sort of a state of hostilities to both parties involved, I'd agree. To a lesser extent, it's not dissimilar from the allies hitting the German Embassy in Rome with a bomb during WWII. I don't know if such a thing happened, but I highly doubt anyone on any side would have made a fuss if it had.

Seems unlikely, he said it happened a few months ago.

Which, notably, caught... people planning the financing of terrorism, assassinations, and bombardment against Israel at the time.

International law objects to many things, but it doesn't render military targets invalid. Rather, the military use of protected sites removes the protected status of normally protected sites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_airstrike_on_the_Iranian_consulate_in_Damascus

Your tone sounds like it's dismissing the concerns, but your claims are the furthest thing possible from reassuring.

Who's funding terrorists on American soil? How can the US claim to protect their allies when it can't even protect their staff? Who would want this outcome (okay, that's kind of a long list)?

A "reassuring" way for embassy staff to be shot dead is random crossfire from an unrelated crime. State-sponsored assassination or terrorism is the worst scenario.

Who's funding terrorists on American soil?

Our priors should be very strong that Iran and Russia are both doing this, even if they’re ineffective little league terrorists. Probably Cuba too.

Well I think OP means that the US have chosen to ally itself with Israel, a country that routinely does these kind of actions in other countries (including western allied ones). Im sure DC spends big amounts of money on security for the Israeli embassy, but there will always be some lone wolf willing to throw away their life and thats why these low level staffers got targeted.

Im sure DC spends big amounts of money on security for the Israeli embassy

Notably this attack did not take place AT the embassy. The staffers were shot leaving an event at the Jewish Museum.

Well I think OP means that the US have chosen to ally itself with Israel, a country that routinely does these kind of actions in other countries (including western allied ones).

Routinely? Name one time they shot up a western embassy.

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