So the indiscriminate mass detonation of explosive devices is not terrorism? Are you aware of how many civilian casualties there were as a result of this attack? Would this be acceptable if Hezbollah did this to Israeli military officers?

The attack was by definition discriminate. I don't think there's an attack in modern history that was more targeted and had less collateral damage. The attack targeted hundreds Hezbollah leaders, who bought and used those pagers. There was minimal collateral damage among civilians amounting to unverified allegations that a child of a Hezbollah member was maimed, and some minor other damage. The explosives in the pagers were measured in grams, and the explosions were relatively small, specifically to minimize collateral damage.

It was indiscriminate in timing, location, and device possession.

Unless you’re saying that the country behind a self-evaluated >80% civilian to combatant kill ratio in Gaza went through rigorous protocols to minimize harm in this attack?

The timing was during a war, the location was in a belligerent country, and the pagers were only and exclusively given to hezbollah leadership. The very definition of discriminate.

Also, Israel has not "self-evaluated" a >80% civilian to combatant kill ratio. There was a Haaretz report that said the IDF was able to ID about 20% of those killed as militants against known databases, which is remarkably high compared to any other war. That doesn't mean the remaining 80% are civilians, it just means they weren't ID'd against a databse. So this includes anyone with a gun at a distance. Do you think Ukraine has a database of Russian soldiers and are able to ID 20% of the russian soldiers they kill against that database? Of course not. Israel's self evaluation of the ratio varies between 1.4:1 and 2:1 depending on the government official you quote.

Re: timing - They were triggered to explode en masse, which implies that there was zero consideration to minimizing civilian harm.

Re: location - They exploded everywhere you can think of, while these targets were doing civilian activities near other civilians, and not in a combat setting.

Re: possession - Given the above, and Israel’s horrendous kill ratio, there was definitely no consideration for possession of these pagers at the time of the attack. For example, who is to say that some pagers weren’t in use by members of the political bureau, or unofficially resold to a hospital for use by oncall doctors?

> Re: timing - They were triggered to explode en masse, which implies that there was zero consideration to minimizing civilian harm.

Zero? The whole nature of the attack shows consideration towards "minimizing civilian harm." Tricking an enemy agent into carrying a small explosive device on his person, then detonating it, will have far less civilian harm than the standard procedure of dropping a bomb on whatever building they happen to be in.

Your thinking appears unreasonably binary here, as shown by your use of phrases like "zero consideration" and "definitely no consideration," in reaction to Israel not meeting an unrealistically high standard for "minimizing civilian harm." Could Israel have done more to minimize civilian harm with that attack? Perhaps, but that doesn't mean they did nothing.

So it’s either drop a bomb on them or mass detonate explosive devices? Love it.

@Cyph0n, if you think Israel's approach led to too much collateral damage, why don't you propose a solution that would have led to less collateral damage while still taking the Hezbollah leaders out of action?

I bet you won't do this, because I think we can ultimately agree it wasn't possible for Israel to take all these men out of action simultaneously and minimize collateral damage much beyond what it did.

I think where we disagree is that you think Israel should not have taken these men out of action.

Nice deflection. All I need to care about as a lowly SWE is that this attack injured thousands of Lebanese civilians. This is the real world, not a movie or simulated war game.

And I would wager that you would immediately condemn such a barbaric attack if the sides were reversed.

So you weren't able to propose a solution that would have led to less collateral damage because no such solution exists. You know it. I know it. Everyone reading this knows it.

Instead of answering directly you make a comment about deflection, and insist an obvious falsehood (the attack injured thousands of Lebanese civilians) is all you care to believe. On this, we agree. It's all you care to believe, the evidence be damned!

timing - The fact that they were triggered to explode en masse does not imply there was zero consideration to minimizing civilian harm. However, the fact that only Hezbollah leaders had these pagers, and the fact that the explosives were small, does imply there was deep consideration to minimizing civilian harm.

location - they all exploded on the person of hezbolllah leaders or in their possession in a belligerent country during wartime

possession - Israel has a laudable and low civilian: militant kill ratio, possibly the best in the history of modern combat. The pagers were encrypted military devices with military messages, there was no known use by doctors or non Hezbollah operatives.

> Israel has a laudable and low civilian: militant kill ratio, possibly the best in the history of modern combat.

Right, that’s my cue to stop engaging :)

This has not happened anywhere other than your imagination. You mean "if" not "when."

Fortunately, it was well documented. Per the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/02/archives/letterbombs-mail...

This is what you call "well-documented"? Did you even read the article?

This 1972 article cites unsubstantiated claims from memoirs written decades after the fact — not verified evidence. There is no solid historical documentation that Israel, the Israeli government, or even Lehi sent functional bombs to U.S. leadership in 1947. The only sources are anecdotal, inconsistent, and disputed.

Crucially, there are no Secret Service or National Archives records of any assassination attempt on Truman by Zionist militants. A Freedom of Information Act request for such records produced nothing. Historians who have looked into the claim find no contemporaneous evidence and no confirmation in government archives.

In other words, this is not a "documented Israeli attack on the U.S." Instead, it’s a story that survives (in spite of evidence that it's false) in the minds and narratives of people like you want it to be true. That’s how conspiracy theories work: weak evidence, strong emotion.

Correct. I am taking a denialist approach toward an absurd conspiracy theory that has been thoroughly debunked.

What you’re doing instead is substituting facts for relevance. You went from a false claim (“Israel mailed bombs to Truman”) to a pile-on of unrelated historical violence, as if proving Jews committed any political violence somehow rescues your earlier claim for which there is zero evidence. It doesn’t.

On the facts: – Irgun carried out the King David Hotel bombing against a building housing British military command, intelligence, police, and civil administration. Civilian staff were killed. That qualifies as terrorism by modern definitions. I’m not defending it. – Lehi was a tiny, radical splinter group widely condemned at the time, including by mainstream Jewish leadership. – In 1941, Lehi produced one fringe document proposing that a future Jewish state and Germany shared a common enemy in Britain. The proposal was ignored. There was no alliance, no cooperation, no operational contact. Calling this “trying to partner with Hitler” is dishonest.

None of this provides evidence that Israel, any Zionist organization, or any Jewish group attempted to assassinate a U.S. president. The fact that some groups committed real crimes does not magically make the crimes you invented true.

Conflating Irgun with Lehi, anti-British insurgency with “terrorizing the West,” and an ignored memo with Nazi collaboration isn’t history, it's you polemicizing.

The “20th century atrocity denial” comparison is disgusting and transparent. Holocaust denial is rejected because it contradicts a mountain of primary evidence. You are doing the opposite. You are trying to manufacture certainty where the documentation is missing, then calling anyone who asks for records a “denialist.”

On the Truman claim, you keep saying “adequate evidence” while producing none. The best you have is a biography by Truman’s daughter decades later that does not cite sources and newspaper blurbs repeating those claims. That is not “well documented.” That is the stuff of conspiracy theory.

Here is what you still have not provided: a contemporaneous Secret Service report, a White House mail log entry, an FBI memo, a case number, a preserved device, photographs, lab notes, arrests, indictments, or any archival file tying an actual bomb to Lehi. In fact, a FOIA request to the Secret Service for records of this alleged incident came back “no responsive documents,” and the Truman Library reports it has nothing and explicitly notes that Margaret Truman’s biographies rarely cite sources.

So no, you do not get to say “adequate evidence” and then hide behind moral outrage.

Your next move is equally sloppy. “They operated with the permission of the government.” In 1947 there was no Israeli government. When the state did exist, it disbanded Lehi, arrested members, and fought Irgun in the Altalena affair.

If you have a primary document tying a Truman mail bomb to Lehi, post it. If you do not, drop the Holocaust baiting and admit you are repeating an allegation you cannot substantiate.

And your finale, that Irgun and Lehi represent “the nature and spirit of the Israeli people today,” is just collectivist bigotry. “Terror cells are usually small,” you say, and then you claim two fringe militias somehow define millions of Israelis. That is not analysis. It is an ethnic smear.

>The “20th century atrocity denial” comparison is disgusting and transparent

I was talking about the Holodomor, obviously.