WAR! What is it good for?

No, not every single missile is an escalation of conflict. An escalation is when you have changed the dynamic of the conflict. If the UK shoots a missile at an Iraqi military base and they fire back in return, the UK escalated the situation to open conflict. If Iraq then decides to fire a missile at a British refugee camp and it kills 15 civillians, Iraq have now changed the dynamic of the conflict, requiring a change of strategy from the British.

So on and so forth.

For the Israeli side, this is the first time Hezbollah has killed a large group of civilians going about their day and they obviously consider it an escalation from Hezbollah. Have Hezbollah just made it open season on civilian targets?

The definition of it is to change the rules of engagement, Israel have argued that Hamas changed the rules of engagement when they entered Israel from Gaza and targetted specifically civilians. Israel seem to believe this is now open season on civilian targets.

 

Doesn't apply when it's Israel lobbing rockets at schools, hospitals and refugee camps obvs

 

Yeah it does

 

ICJ think so too.

 

Hope you get the irony in your post - your words "... first time Hezbollah has killed a large group of civilians " - and that "Israel seem to believe this is now open season on civilian targets..."

Whilst the death of those 12 kids is indeed a tragedy - on the same day, Israeli missiles struck a school in central Gaza killing at least 30 and injuring more than 100 - (all civilians according to the Gaza Health Ministry) a further 23 Palestinians were killed and another 89 injured in Khan Younis and, in the West Bank, a 17 year old and a 24 year old were killed and another 22 injured at a refugee camp ...

... those Israeli strikes were deliberate - and civilian casualties were seemingly irrelevant or just collateral...

... whilst Hezbollah's continued denials of involvement on the Golan tragedy seem to have been proven wrong - no commentators are suggesting that they purposefully targeted the village / town in question ... unless I've missed it ...

Perspective...

 

It is by definition from the Israeli side an escalation of the conflict.

Thats it.

I don't need sheets of information as to why you think Israel are bad.

Nor does Hezbollah doing something bad mean Israel hasn't.

 

Okay then

So who was your post directed at?

 

Anybody who will listen

 

"Escalation" is a relative term. Unless there are lines which the conflict hasn't yet crossed, and/or military capacity that has not yet been unleashed, the word means nothing.

Hamas has no way of "escalating" the conflict. Their attack on Oct 7th was the absolute limit of their military capacity and it's barbarity crossed every line.

So there is little point in speaking about Israeli retaliation in terms of escalation.

The situation in the north is radically different. Both sides have shown huge restraint and have exercised barely 1% of their true military power until now.

Escalation is therefore both possible and extremely worrying.

The rocket Hezbollah fired on Majdal is one of their most basic warheads. The proper stuff Iran has given them have a range of over 400km and carry payloads of half a tonne of explosives.

An escalation there would be devastating for the entire region, as it would almost certainly draw in Syria and then the Gulf states will also get involved.

Hezbollah has more soldiers than the British army.

 

Sure - different view for different civilians ... so will keep it short due to your limited cranial analytical capacity ...

12 kids tragically killed by seemingly inept ****-up = escalation

59 dead civilians (including many kids) plus over 200 injured in targeted initiatives = as you were - normal day at the office

KDEN

 

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what you on about now lol

stop misquoting me you weirdo

 

Fook him up Welshie

 

these types of soldiers or?

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As above: Escalation is redundant if only one side can escalate. It's simply the wrong term to use, as was your use of 'misfire' for example.

The north is different because both sides can escalate by about 98%. So if one side crosses a line, as Hezbollah did, the other side will see it as escalation and consider a response that ups the ante on the other side of the equation.

Whereas if Israel crosses a line in Gaza, there is nothing Hamas can do to retaliate in a stronger capacity, so escalation is an obsolete term.

 

It seems more to me that the escalation point was Oct 7th, as previously no matter what side you think is right - if it was an illegal occupation or not, the act of entering Israel kidnapping and killing civilians meant that no matter what Israel responded with the gauntlet was set down by Hamas.

This is why to this day, some still do not condemn Israels actions, because Hamas are the ones that fundementally changed the conflict. I don't think people can argue this, only argue if they think that escalation was merited or not.

I think previously, Pinkie, Treble and Fosse have argued this action to change the conflict was merited, but I have rarely ever seen them state it was in fact not an open escalation of the conflict against Israel.

Whilst in the North, military standoffs are common, but civilian murders less so. However, it should be noted, that from the Lebanese and Syrian perspective, Israel have been bombing them for years.

 

decades mate
they were carrying out bombing raids on Lebanon in approx 79/80 when i was in Haifa though in those dars they were using Phantoms

 

Yes Oct 7th pretty much raised the bar as high as it could possibly go. I'd say the scale of Israel's response has kept it there since.

I'd be interested in your opinion on Syria and Lebanon in general. Israel is of the opinion that neither country exists beyond a flag and an anthem, and views them as principalities of Iran, ergo an attack on a military convoy in Syria is an attack on Iran.

I tend to agree with this assessment, as neither Syria nor Lebanon can do anything anymore without the Ayatollah saying so.

The West has collectively ignored this problem for years.

 

I simply don't know enough about Lebanon to say, but I have friends who have been to Beirut and say it's a wonderful place with many freedoms. As far as I am aware the country is essentially split in two, between a Western supporting moderate government and then Hezbollah. This obviously could be wrong.

I know plenty of Syrians, christians who fled from ISIS during the darkest days of the civil war to Kurds who just had to get out asap. "Syria" as we imagine it is the Damascus areas and places in which the Alawites maintain control, the Syrian Kurds are all but self governing, we have the countryside controlled by what could be best described as village militias and then parts which are directly controlled by foreign powers.

I agree to Israels point to an extent, perhaps these countries don't "exist" but I then have the opinion that the people who reside there many of them identify as Syrians and Lebanese so in that sense their nations live.