“I think it’s fair to say the Israelis have tended to look at strategy as an accumulation of tactical victories.” This is way more than Doolittle's raid, THE 300, Cherbourg boat steal, the shoot-down of Yamamoto, ULTRA, etc. Insane planning and balls! This war with the Arabs won’t stop until the Arabs stop.
Israel's long term strategy may not be substantially effective as pointed out, but that should not deter them from pressing whatever tactical opportunities that arise.
Another issue not mentioned in the article is that Israel’s actions will prove a major impediment in Hezbollah’s recruitment. It will be hard for them to romanticise fighting the Zionist infidel when there are so many walking advertisements of the perils of doing terrorist type work.
Steven Spielberg's best movie is "Munich", a film about the Mossad's pursuit of the Black September murderers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. One sequence depicts a Mossad agent planting explosives in the home telephone of an Arab emigre living in Paris--a man sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but not one of the killers. While planting the bomb, the man's pretty Arab daughter--maybe 12 years old--walks into the room to practice piano. The the eyes of the agent and the girl meet, and he is visibly flustered and unnerved, clearly bothered by the idea that she might be a victim when the operation comes to fruition. But plant the bomb he does. In the follow-up scene, the phone rings and the girl moves across the room to answer it. The same Mossad agent is observing the room via binoculars at a distance. Horrified, he commands his fellows by radio to abort the mission lest the girls be blown to bits. A very effective scene.
The message is that the Israelis are the good guys, sensitively distinguishing between innocence and guilt, good and evil. Even at the time of the movie's release, that idea had been proven false many times over. But the recent explosions of thousands of communication devices in impossible-to-foresee situations will make that scene one worthy of audible sneering forevermore. The sound of the champagne corks and loud murmur of self congratulations disgusts me.
Oh, and if you have not seen the movie, the father is finally murdered by the phone bomb.
I have to disagree with Eli on this one. The Israelis are incrementally taking away their adversary’s communication technology. They went from cell phones to pagers to radios. What’s next, rotary telephones, cup and string, runners with notepads? It appears to me they severely degraded Hezbollahs command and control apparatus. From this event I gather that their operatives are dispersed throughout the country. Will they find it necessary to gather their groups to convey their orders thus making it easier to identify and strike.
UPDATE: Tuesday it was the beepers. Wednesday it was the walkie talkies and apparently some solar panels. Who knows what today (Thursday) will bring...
No regrets. No sympathy for the injured. The Lebanese need to learn the lesson.
Absolutely brilliant move by Mossad. Bravo! But Eli cannot bring himself to talk about the elephant in the room: WHY does Israel’s strategic situation never seem to improve despite its tactical successes? It’s because Israelis and the Jewish diaspora cannot bring themselves to address the real problem, that the ultra orthodox (especially the messianic version on the West Bank) are a fatal impediment to peace and progress. They will resist, probably violently, any attempts to set up a state of Palestine or to remove their illegal settlements. And until the Palestinians have a state of their own, they can have no hope, and have no incentive to turn away from Hamas and the other extremists. But no one wants to talk about this; it’s all too hard.
Hezbollah is a Shi'ite organization funded, trained, and armed by Iran, a Shi'ite theocracy a thousand miles away. Israel has no territorial designs on Lebanon and had long ago withdrawn from the security buffer region, much to their regret and which obviously they will be reoccupying soon. Hezbollah's attacks on Israel are pure aggression.
As for the "ultra-Orthodox", they are completely pacifist, refusing to join the army, and many of them don't even recognize Israel as a legitimate Jewish country, believing that God will send the Messiah to reestablish the kingdom of David.
Clearly you know very little about Israel, but don't worry; almost no one else in the West knows anything either, despite holding very strident beliefs.
There is no evidence that Hamas is interested in a two state solution -- their charter explicitly states that the seek the elimination of the state of Israel and the removal of all Jews from Palestine. Their slogan is "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Arab" when they chant that in arabic; in English, it gets changed to "sea" -- but the thought is the same. And, by all appearances, the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank agree with this absolutist position.
While the ultra-orthodox might be an obstacle some day to a peace deal, so far they haven't been. Instead, it has been the Palestinians who have on multiple occasions rejected peace proposals.
These are all facts that advocates of a two state solution just ignore.
Palestinians had plenty of opportunity to show what an independent Palestine would look like when Israel unilaterally withdrew from 100% of the Gaza Strip in 2005. They did.
Okay, I know that's what the world constantly says. But ask them to quote the relevant LAW, and they do a bait-and-switch about "consensus". So let's do LAW right now.
The Oslo Accords expressly protected the settlements that were in place by the 1990s... and even legitimized Israel's military presence in the territories. Surprised? Skeptical? Read on...
-----------
Oslo Accords, 1993 [emphasis added]:
"It is understood that, subsequent to the Israeli withdrawal [from Gaza and Jericho], Israel will continue to be responsible for external security, and for internal security and public order of SETTLEMENTS AND ISRAELIS. ISRAELI MILITARY FORCES AND CIVILIANS MAY CONTINUE to use roads freely within the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area." (Annex II)
"The Palestinian side shall ensure that [in the West Bank and Gaza Strip] NO CONSTRUCTION CLOSE TO THE SETTLEMENTS and MILITARY LOCATIONS will harm, damage or adversely affect them or the infrastructure serving them." (Article 27-3a)
"Israeli public transportation routes FROM ISRAEL TO AND BETWEEN SETTLEMENTS and
MILITARY LOCATIONS, and/or to other places in Israel, shall be determined by Israel.
Bus stops at the main junctions LEADING TO SETTLEMENTS and MILITARY LOCATIONS or
Palestinian villages in the West Bank will be determined in cooperation between
Israeli and Palestinian traffic controllers.
EXISTING BUS STOPS WILL BE KEPT AT JEWISH HOLY SITES [in PA-controlled areas]." (Article 38-10b-c)
Needless to say, that last one is just a bad joke.
-----------
Oslo II, 1995 [emphasis added]:
"Israel shall continue to carry the responsibility for defense against external threats, including the responsibility for protecting the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, and for defense against external threats from the sea and from the air, as well as the responsibility FOR OVERALL SECURITY OF ISRAELIS AND SETTLEMENTS, for the purpose of safeguarding their internal security and public order, and WILL HAVE ALL THE POWERS to take the steps necessary to meet this responsibility."
"For the purpose of this Agreement, "the Settlements" means, in the West Bank THE SETTLEMENTS IN AREA C; and in the Gaza Strip - the Gush Katif and Erez SETTLEMENT AREAS, as well as THE OTHER SETTLEMENTS IN THE GAZA STRIP, as shown on attached map." (Article 12)
"For the purposes of this Annex, "Territory" means West Bank territory except for Area
C which, EXCEPT FOR THE SETTLEMENTS and the MILITARY LOCATIONS, will be gradually
transferred to the Palestinian side in accordance with this Agreement, and Gaza Strip
territory EXCEPT FOR THE SETTLEMENTS and the MILITARY INSTALLATION Area." (Annex IV)
----------
Takeaway: What the Palestinians couldn't get legally, they got through brute extortion of Israel and bullying of the West -- by demanding settlement "freezes" in return for stopping illegal terror attacks (killing both Israelis and foreigners).
That's when the global community started fabricating the 'illegality' of settlements, and even redefining "settlement expansion" as building a new flat or a school inside their existing borders.
That's when Israel tried to buy international legitimacy by voluntarily pulling all settlements out of Gaza. It didn't bring legitimacy to Israel, but at least it showed the world EXACTLY how "a state of Palestine" will function.
So maybe you didn't know about this before, Will. But you do now.
The Palestinians have never been willing to recognize Jewish sovereignty over any part of the land. They’ve turned down a 2-state solution several times. That’s the crux of the problem, not the settlements. Without that, why should Israel agree to a Palestinian state? It would only be used for more attacks on Israel.
I actually very much appreciate the "Palestinians" (a fake people) for turning down all the 2 state deals. Now the idiots who thought it was a good idea have had a chance to take a second look. It never was, but October 7th seals that coffin shut permanently.
Correction: The Elephant in the Room is the sabotage of the Western powers, who consistently refuse to let Israel follow up on those strategic moves with tactical successes.
The UN and the US have a habit of handwringing over the "risk of escalation of tensions" -- but only after Israeli's enemies strike, giving Israel the right to strike back proportionately.
It happened every time the Oslo Accords were violated by terror attacks in Israel's coastal cities (NOT SETTLEMENTS), every time Hamas fired missiles into southern Israeli towns (NOT SETTLEMENTS), every time Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel's northern hills (NOT SETTLEMENTS).
You are absolutely 100% WRONG. I'm not sure you know much about this conflict at all. It has NOTHING to do with land (duh). This is a religious war that Islam is waging on the Jews. Why do westerners not understand that?!
You obviously don't know about the history or the geography of the place either. Judea and Samaria (which you mistakenly refer to as the West Bank) has ALWAYS been Jewish land. Please inform yourself instead of listening to talking heads who are similarly ignorant of the facts.
There’s actually plenty of people who talk about this very thing. There’s people who have very, very specific plans regarding the settlements (including but not all all limited to the Trump admin), and plenty of people who are against them all together. However, even if Israel uprooted every settlement, like they did in Gaza - even dug up the dead - no Palestinian governing body (PA, any other leader, or their 50+ terrorist organizations) what a state. They want to destroy Israel more than they want a state. They won’t even except a state handed to them under any terms of except “from the water to the water Palestine is Arab.”
TLDR: settlers, however bad, are not the route of the problem. Islamism stops at nothing.
I have long wondered if advanced US weapons sold to foriegn countries come with secret 'kill switches' embedded deeply in the coding or firmware if the weapons were to be used against the US or Israel.
For example, some US client trys to attack Israel with US made aircraft and out goes a coded message. Suddenly, it is all the Muslim pilot can do to keep the plane at half speed in the air while his weapons refuse to arm. Attack aborted!
The story of the exploding pagers is both good and amusing news. One can hope some of the worst terrorists kept the things tucked in the front of their pants. However, as the author says, it is only a tactical victory. Unless things in Iran change drastically, sometime, maybe pretty soon, someone will have to inflict a strategic defeat on Iran by destroying its capability to build an atomic bomb. Whether we or the Israelis do it, it seems like a good idea to finish Hamas and Hezbollah off first, limiting the Iranians ability to strike back.
IMO people are missing the strategic point: All the people carrying those pagers - without exception - were Hezbollah commanders. The brilliance was to severely hamper the chain of command, maybe even destroy it for a good while to come, with one big efficient BANG.
Besides the psychological fear of reactivating that communication network, thousands of these guys are in no condition to command anyone -- except nurses to bring them another @#%^ painkiller.
The effect of that leadership vacuum has yet to unfold. As I understand it, the Hezbollah caste system kept their foot soldiers as brainwashed cannon fodder to blindly follow orders. PLUS the Lebanese are increasingly bitter about Hezbollah ruining their once-prosperous little country. If they are smart, they will take this opportunity to launch a People's Revolution and chase Iran's proxy all the way to Teheran.
My only prayer is that the West will not get in the way of Israel pressing this advantage with a ground action. We have every legal right to clear out the booby traps and invasion tunnels and weapons caches, up to the Litani (like UN Res. 1701 requires).
I have nothing but the utmost respect and awe for Israel’s cunning and audacity. If you don’t see this as a victory, you sorely lack both comprehension and a sense of humor.
Please! The cyber operation in some way encouraged the Iranians to speed up their development of nuclear weapons? What utter silliness. The progress which Iran was able to make was primarily as a result of the policies of the Obama and Biden administrations who thought that we could purchase peace from ideologues. (Those transfers were well in excess of $150 billion). The logic of the pager attack was simple - just two goals. First, take out some number of Hezbollah supporters. And depending on who one listens to that was in excess of 8 and fewer than 2700 “freedom” fighters. Second, it was designed to introduce uncertainty into the terrorist networks. They quit using cellphones because as the US and Israel have demonstrated their signals can be tracked - so they went to supposedly safer pagers. I’ll bet a lot of the techies on the side of Hezbollah are wondering what the next innovation they will need to use to communicate (smoke signals?). From my view whoever did this accomplished both objectives.
The United States should not give one more dollar of military assistance to Lebanon, nor should any Western country, if the Lebanese military does not seize this moment to destroy the Hezbollah jihadis in their midst. It's not hard to find them now.
If you have not listened to any of the podcasts by Dan senor, give the most recent one with nadav eyal. They talk about this. I would also suggest any of the past ones.
The name of the podcast is ‘call me back’. The title of this episode is ‘BEEP’. I did not get it at first but it made me smile when I started to listen.
We will see what strategic effect this has on the "larger war" I doubt it is just tactical
“I think it’s fair to say the Israelis have tended to look at strategy as an accumulation of tactical victories.” This is way more than Doolittle's raid, THE 300, Cherbourg boat steal, the shoot-down of Yamamoto, ULTRA, etc. Insane planning and balls! This war with the Arabs won’t stop until the Arabs stop.
Israel's long term strategy may not be substantially effective as pointed out, but that should not deter them from pressing whatever tactical opportunities that arise.
Another issue not mentioned in the article is that Israel’s actions will prove a major impediment in Hezbollah’s recruitment. It will be hard for them to romanticise fighting the Zionist infidel when there are so many walking advertisements of the perils of doing terrorist type work.
Steven Spielberg's best movie is "Munich", a film about the Mossad's pursuit of the Black September murderers of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. One sequence depicts a Mossad agent planting explosives in the home telephone of an Arab emigre living in Paris--a man sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but not one of the killers. While planting the bomb, the man's pretty Arab daughter--maybe 12 years old--walks into the room to practice piano. The the eyes of the agent and the girl meet, and he is visibly flustered and unnerved, clearly bothered by the idea that she might be a victim when the operation comes to fruition. But plant the bomb he does. In the follow-up scene, the phone rings and the girl moves across the room to answer it. The same Mossad agent is observing the room via binoculars at a distance. Horrified, he commands his fellows by radio to abort the mission lest the girls be blown to bits. A very effective scene.
The message is that the Israelis are the good guys, sensitively distinguishing between innocence and guilt, good and evil. Even at the time of the movie's release, that idea had been proven false many times over. But the recent explosions of thousands of communication devices in impossible-to-foresee situations will make that scene one worthy of audible sneering forevermore. The sound of the champagne corks and loud murmur of self congratulations disgusts me.
Oh, and if you have not seen the movie, the father is finally murdered by the phone bomb.
I have to disagree with Eli on this one. The Israelis are incrementally taking away their adversary’s communication technology. They went from cell phones to pagers to radios. What’s next, rotary telephones, cup and string, runners with notepads? It appears to me they severely degraded Hezbollahs command and control apparatus. From this event I gather that their operatives are dispersed throughout the country. Will they find it necessary to gather their groups to convey their orders thus making it easier to identify and strike.
An update from John Spencer, Professor of Urban Warfare at West Point, on the spectacular pager/radio operation:
“I cannot find a similar intelligence/military operation with such secrecy, lethality, ingenuity, and audacity”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-820774
UPDATE: Tuesday it was the beepers. Wednesday it was the walkie talkies and apparently some solar panels. Who knows what today (Thursday) will bring...
No regrets. No sympathy for the injured. The Lebanese need to learn the lesson.
Absolutely brilliant move by Mossad. Bravo! But Eli cannot bring himself to talk about the elephant in the room: WHY does Israel’s strategic situation never seem to improve despite its tactical successes? It’s because Israelis and the Jewish diaspora cannot bring themselves to address the real problem, that the ultra orthodox (especially the messianic version on the West Bank) are a fatal impediment to peace and progress. They will resist, probably violently, any attempts to set up a state of Palestine or to remove their illegal settlements. And until the Palestinians have a state of their own, they can have no hope, and have no incentive to turn away from Hamas and the other extremists. But no one wants to talk about this; it’s all too hard.
Hezbollah is a Shi'ite organization funded, trained, and armed by Iran, a Shi'ite theocracy a thousand miles away. Israel has no territorial designs on Lebanon and had long ago withdrawn from the security buffer region, much to their regret and which obviously they will be reoccupying soon. Hezbollah's attacks on Israel are pure aggression.
As for the "ultra-Orthodox", they are completely pacifist, refusing to join the army, and many of them don't even recognize Israel as a legitimate Jewish country, believing that God will send the Messiah to reestablish the kingdom of David.
Clearly you know very little about Israel, but don't worry; almost no one else in the West knows anything either, despite holding very strident beliefs.
There is no evidence that Hamas is interested in a two state solution -- their charter explicitly states that the seek the elimination of the state of Israel and the removal of all Jews from Palestine. Their slogan is "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Arab" when they chant that in arabic; in English, it gets changed to "sea" -- but the thought is the same. And, by all appearances, the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank agree with this absolutist position.
While the ultra-orthodox might be an obstacle some day to a peace deal, so far they haven't been. Instead, it has been the Palestinians who have on multiple occasions rejected peace proposals.
These are all facts that advocates of a two state solution just ignore.
There will be no 2 state solution as long as I draw breath. I am "ride or die" on this issue.
Palestinians had plenty of opportunity to show what an independent Palestine would look like when Israel unilaterally withdrew from 100% of the Gaza Strip in 2005. They did.
Bye, bye "Palestine", you won't be missed.
What "illegal settlements", dude??
Okay, I know that's what the world constantly says. But ask them to quote the relevant LAW, and they do a bait-and-switch about "consensus". So let's do LAW right now.
The Oslo Accords expressly protected the settlements that were in place by the 1990s... and even legitimized Israel's military presence in the territories. Surprised? Skeptical? Read on...
-----------
Oslo Accords, 1993 [emphasis added]:
"It is understood that, subsequent to the Israeli withdrawal [from Gaza and Jericho], Israel will continue to be responsible for external security, and for internal security and public order of SETTLEMENTS AND ISRAELIS. ISRAELI MILITARY FORCES AND CIVILIANS MAY CONTINUE to use roads freely within the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area." (Annex II)
"The Palestinian side shall ensure that [in the West Bank and Gaza Strip] NO CONSTRUCTION CLOSE TO THE SETTLEMENTS and MILITARY LOCATIONS will harm, damage or adversely affect them or the infrastructure serving them." (Article 27-3a)
"Israeli public transportation routes FROM ISRAEL TO AND BETWEEN SETTLEMENTS and
MILITARY LOCATIONS, and/or to other places in Israel, shall be determined by Israel.
Bus stops at the main junctions LEADING TO SETTLEMENTS and MILITARY LOCATIONS or
Palestinian villages in the West Bank will be determined in cooperation between
Israeli and Palestinian traffic controllers.
EXISTING BUS STOPS WILL BE KEPT AT JEWISH HOLY SITES [in PA-controlled areas]." (Article 38-10b-c)
Needless to say, that last one is just a bad joke.
-----------
Oslo II, 1995 [emphasis added]:
"Israel shall continue to carry the responsibility for defense against external threats, including the responsibility for protecting the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, and for defense against external threats from the sea and from the air, as well as the responsibility FOR OVERALL SECURITY OF ISRAELIS AND SETTLEMENTS, for the purpose of safeguarding their internal security and public order, and WILL HAVE ALL THE POWERS to take the steps necessary to meet this responsibility."
"For the purpose of this Agreement, "the Settlements" means, in the West Bank THE SETTLEMENTS IN AREA C; and in the Gaza Strip - the Gush Katif and Erez SETTLEMENT AREAS, as well as THE OTHER SETTLEMENTS IN THE GAZA STRIP, as shown on attached map." (Article 12)
"For the purposes of this Annex, "Territory" means West Bank territory except for Area
C which, EXCEPT FOR THE SETTLEMENTS and the MILITARY LOCATIONS, will be gradually
transferred to the Palestinian side in accordance with this Agreement, and Gaza Strip
territory EXCEPT FOR THE SETTLEMENTS and the MILITARY INSTALLATION Area." (Annex IV)
----------
Takeaway: What the Palestinians couldn't get legally, they got through brute extortion of Israel and bullying of the West -- by demanding settlement "freezes" in return for stopping illegal terror attacks (killing both Israelis and foreigners).
That's when the global community started fabricating the 'illegality' of settlements, and even redefining "settlement expansion" as building a new flat or a school inside their existing borders.
That's when Israel tried to buy international legitimacy by voluntarily pulling all settlements out of Gaza. It didn't bring legitimacy to Israel, but at least it showed the world EXACTLY how "a state of Palestine" will function.
So maybe you didn't know about this before, Will. But you do now.
The Palestinians have never been willing to recognize Jewish sovereignty over any part of the land. They’ve turned down a 2-state solution several times. That’s the crux of the problem, not the settlements. Without that, why should Israel agree to a Palestinian state? It would only be used for more attacks on Israel.
I actually very much appreciate the "Palestinians" (a fake people) for turning down all the 2 state deals. Now the idiots who thought it was a good idea have had a chance to take a second look. It never was, but October 7th seals that coffin shut permanently.
Correction: The Elephant in the Room is the sabotage of the Western powers, who consistently refuse to let Israel follow up on those strategic moves with tactical successes.
The UN and the US have a habit of handwringing over the "risk of escalation of tensions" -- but only after Israeli's enemies strike, giving Israel the right to strike back proportionately.
It happened every time the Oslo Accords were violated by terror attacks in Israel's coastal cities (NOT SETTLEMENTS), every time Hamas fired missiles into southern Israeli towns (NOT SETTLEMENTS), every time Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel's northern hills (NOT SETTLEMENTS).
I agree, Eli DID avoid looking at that Elephant.
And so did you.
Bravo‼️
You are absolutely 100% WRONG. I'm not sure you know much about this conflict at all. It has NOTHING to do with land (duh). This is a religious war that Islam is waging on the Jews. Why do westerners not understand that?!
You obviously don't know about the history or the geography of the place either. Judea and Samaria (which you mistakenly refer to as the West Bank) has ALWAYS been Jewish land. Please inform yourself instead of listening to talking heads who are similarly ignorant of the facts.
There’s actually plenty of people who talk about this very thing. There’s people who have very, very specific plans regarding the settlements (including but not all all limited to the Trump admin), and plenty of people who are against them all together. However, even if Israel uprooted every settlement, like they did in Gaza - even dug up the dead - no Palestinian governing body (PA, any other leader, or their 50+ terrorist organizations) what a state. They want to destroy Israel more than they want a state. They won’t even except a state handed to them under any terms of except “from the water to the water Palestine is Arab.”
TLDR: settlers, however bad, are not the route of the problem. Islamism stops at nothing.
I have long wondered if advanced US weapons sold to foriegn countries come with secret 'kill switches' embedded deeply in the coding or firmware if the weapons were to be used against the US or Israel.
For example, some US client trys to attack Israel with US made aircraft and out goes a coded message. Suddenly, it is all the Muslim pilot can do to keep the plane at half speed in the air while his weapons refuse to arm. Attack aborted!
The story of the exploding pagers is both good and amusing news. One can hope some of the worst terrorists kept the things tucked in the front of their pants. However, as the author says, it is only a tactical victory. Unless things in Iran change drastically, sometime, maybe pretty soon, someone will have to inflict a strategic defeat on Iran by destroying its capability to build an atomic bomb. Whether we or the Israelis do it, it seems like a good idea to finish Hamas and Hezbollah off first, limiting the Iranians ability to strike back.
IMO people are missing the strategic point: All the people carrying those pagers - without exception - were Hezbollah commanders. The brilliance was to severely hamper the chain of command, maybe even destroy it for a good while to come, with one big efficient BANG.
Besides the psychological fear of reactivating that communication network, thousands of these guys are in no condition to command anyone -- except nurses to bring them another @#%^ painkiller.
The effect of that leadership vacuum has yet to unfold. As I understand it, the Hezbollah caste system kept their foot soldiers as brainwashed cannon fodder to blindly follow orders. PLUS the Lebanese are increasingly bitter about Hezbollah ruining their once-prosperous little country. If they are smart, they will take this opportunity to launch a People's Revolution and chase Iran's proxy all the way to Teheran.
My only prayer is that the West will not get in the way of Israel pressing this advantage with a ground action. We have every legal right to clear out the booby traps and invasion tunnels and weapons caches, up to the Litani (like UN Res. 1701 requires).
I have nothing but the utmost respect and awe for Israel’s cunning and audacity. If you don’t see this as a victory, you sorely lack both comprehension and a sense of humor.
Please! The cyber operation in some way encouraged the Iranians to speed up their development of nuclear weapons? What utter silliness. The progress which Iran was able to make was primarily as a result of the policies of the Obama and Biden administrations who thought that we could purchase peace from ideologues. (Those transfers were well in excess of $150 billion). The logic of the pager attack was simple - just two goals. First, take out some number of Hezbollah supporters. And depending on who one listens to that was in excess of 8 and fewer than 2700 “freedom” fighters. Second, it was designed to introduce uncertainty into the terrorist networks. They quit using cellphones because as the US and Israel have demonstrated their signals can be tracked - so they went to supposedly safer pagers. I’ll bet a lot of the techies on the side of Hezbollah are wondering what the next innovation they will need to use to communicate (smoke signals?). From my view whoever did this accomplished both objectives.
Boy, the pro Israel communitariat really has the bit between its teeth on this.
You got that right: a covert operation from the liver to the knee. Does Hezbollah still have the balls?
The antisemitic commentariat is definitely throwing fits at one of the most effective clandestine operations in many decades.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates
'...a covert operation from the liver to the knee.'
Absolutely brilliant mate
The United States should not give one more dollar of military assistance to Lebanon, nor should any Western country, if the Lebanese military does not seize this moment to destroy the Hezbollah jihadis in their midst. It's not hard to find them now.
The Lebanese military is not what you think it is. It can barely defend its own enclaves.
If you have not listened to any of the podcasts by Dan senor, give the most recent one with nadav eyal. They talk about this. I would also suggest any of the past ones.
The name of the podcast is ‘call me back’. The title of this episode is ‘BEEP’. I did not get it at first but it made me smile when I started to listen.