Big exit order at 55% if anyone is bullish.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-789447

@MarcusAbramovitch It looks like some people might be trading under different assumptions of what counts as “wartime military action.” Is Semiotic Rivalry correct in thinking that it has to be on the same level as Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Hamas (many troops crossing the border in an invasion) to count?

How does this market deal with the fact that Israel and Lebanon are already at war and have always been?

הרמטכ"ל הרצי הלוי אמר בשיחה עם חיילי מילואים בצפון: "אני לא יודע מתי המלחמה בצפון, אני יודע להגיד לכם שהסבירות לזה שהיא קורית בחודשים הקרובים היא הרבה יותר גבוהה ממה שהיה בעבר"

Google Translate:

Chief of Staff Hertzi Halevi said in a conversation with reservists in the north: "I don't know when the war in the north is, I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past"

Iran does not want the regional conflict to escalate. Similarly, USA does not want the regional conflict to escalate. However, the collective arab unconcious is very angry with israel and hotter heads may make a costly miscalculation. Further, Israel's administration party needs to escalate to stay in power (they are very unpopular right now). For this reason, I will bet Yes.

@JamieCrom All war decisions are made by Gantz, Gallant, and Netanyahu together, not Netanyahu alone and certainly not by the idiots in Otzma Yehudit.

@nathanwei all three of those are members of the Likud party. Likud's strategy is to illegally settle palestinian land for national security (for example, the palestinian west bank is on a fortified hill overlooking adjacent telaviv) and to manufacture war with arab peoples to boost popularity and consent. For purposes of a potential israel-hezbollah war, netanyahu and gantz and gallant are the same person

@JamieCrom Gantz is a member of Likud?

Likud doesn't have a STRATEGY, its "strategy" is Bibi cult populism and not anything ideological. Gallant is an exception though.

@nathanwei political parties have strategies to accomplish their political goals. the Likud political party has a strategy of encouraging and aiding and subsidizing illegal settling in the west bank. Israeli citizens move to the west bank because its cheaper. The Housing Ministry of israel provides funds for israeli citizens who settle beyond the Green Line, and this policy is an example of the Likud party's strategy.

@JamieCrom The Likud Party nowadays doesn't have a strategy other than cultish loyalty to Bibi.

The countries (Germany, Canada, etc.) are all telling their citizens to evacuate Lebanon. Idk if this means anything. Maybe the intelligence agencies know something we don't.

do targeted strikes count as "wartime military action" for the purpose of this market?
struggling to find a broadly agreed upon definition so I'm hesitant to bid this up

@shankypanky

@MarcusAbramovitch may differ, but my interpretation of these questions is that the two sides engage in full-scale war, of a similar quality to Israel-Hamas or Russia-Ukraine. As of now, Wikipedia refers to this is a "border conflict" instead of a full war which I think is a generally accurate characterization. Neither side is interested in crossing the border and engaging the enemy in full, at least not yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Lebanon_border_conflict

@SemioticRivalry thanks for chiming in. I take "declares war OR performs wartime military action." to mean there's a bit of a spectrum of qualifying actions here. it's unfortunate that there isn't a broadly agreed upon definition of wartime military action (as far as I can tell, anyway?) though even if today's drone strikes leading to the assassination of multiple leaders of an enemy faction somehow doesn't qualify, there's a long year ahead of us - and Hezbollah has released a quite lengthy statement about not letting this pass quietly - time will tell whether or not that's an empty threat.

@shankypanky My interpretation of that would be "acts that clearly are war, but without a declaration of war."

@SemioticRivalry airstrikes count?

quote from Hezbollah leadership:

"We consider the crime of assassinating Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri and his fellow martyrs in the heart of the southern suburb of Beirut to be a serious assault on Lebanon, its people, its security, sovereignty, and resistance, and the highly symbolic and significant political and security messages it contains, and a dangerous development in the course of the war between the enemy and the axis of resistance, and we in Hezbollah We affirm that this crime will never pass without response and punishment, and that our resistance to its pledge is steadfast, proud, and faithful to its principles and commitments that it has made to itself, its hand is on the trigger, and its resistors are in the highest levels of readiness and preparedness, and this is a memorable day for what follows."

@shankypanky if airstrikes counted, I don't see why marcus would create this market since both sides have been hitting each other for months.

@SemioticRivalry especially since this one (unlike previous strikes) wasn't even on Hezbollah.

@ShakedKoplewitz it's Lebanon or Hezbollah as I understand it?

@shankypanky sure, but a strike on a target that's neither the Lebanese military nor Hezbollah should still count less than strikes against Hezbollah targets (which were already going on at market creation so presumably don't count).

For context here, Hezbollah has launched enough missiles at northern Israeli towns to drive a hundred thousand people out of their homes (before this market started), so an actual war would need to be a significant escalation beyond that to count.

@ShakedKoplewitz yes that's a good point. it's up to Marcus obviously but I think there may be actions that qualify that don't necessarily initiate a war - my question is still about whether wartime military action is separate from starting/participating in a defined war - that either side could take. for example, Hezbollah is launching missiles leading to displacement, but couldn't we say it's entirely new if Israel were to do the same? hypothetically. I presume it needn't be 1+ to 1

@shankypanky hm. So I'm general I think of "war" as a chain reaction - one side escalates in a way that the other can no longer ignore and both sides clearly hit the point where it's a new state.

This situation is kind of pushing the boundaries of that - for various reasons there's a lot more room for partial escalation than normal without it blowing up, which makes "it blows up" less clearly distinct. If Israel bombed southern Lebanon heavily enough to cause mass evacuation, I assume it'd cause Hezbollah to launch heavy bombardments (thousands or tens of thousands of missiles instead of dozens), which would lead to ground warfare and be incontrovertibly full war. But I can also imagine a scenario where we just gradually increase the tempo of missiles to airstrikes without ever crossing a clear line. (Or maybe, say, some limited ground operations happen, at first raids to knock out launch sites, then...) Which might legitimately be hard to tell.

@ShakedKoplewitz the latter is the most likely scenario imo but only time reveals these things

the best thing is to try to get as clear as possible on criteria here and then expect outlier situations/actions when the time comes?