“You threw out your pager, right? Because –”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. Did you see Ahmed’s arm?! It looks like a gnarled tree limb.”
“I know. His eyes are gone too.”
“Gone?”
“Well, they’re still there, but they just look like black marbles now. It’s super creepy.”
“F–kin Mossad.”
“Right?! Bastards. Anyway, did you get your walkie talkie yet? I got mine this morning. Check it out…”
Less than 24 hours after scores of pagers exploded simultaneously on the waists of Hezbollah members and affiliates across Lebanon and Syria, killing a dozen and injuring thousands, Israeli intelligence struck again.
At least nine people were dead in Lebanon after hand-held radios exploded in unison, according to local health authorities and Hezbollah officials who spoke to the international press. First responders, firefighters and just regular fighters moved hurriedly through the crowded, chaotic streets of Beirut’s suburbs, where structures smoldered and stunned residents looked on bemused.
After some initial speculation that Israel might’ve infected Hezbollah’s pager network with malware, the cause of Tuesday’s blasts was ultimately determined to be explosives built into the devices. The manufacturer, Taiwanese Gold Apollo, blamed a Hungarian subcontractor called BAC Consulting. The firm, which maintains (or at least lists) a Budapest address, had a three-year-old licensing deal that allowed it to use the Gold Apollo name. BAC, Gold Apollo founder and chief Hsu Ching-Kuang said, was well-regarded in the dwindling market for bulk pagers.
Suffice to say Mossad’s in the supply chain. And you really (really) don’t want Mossad in your supply chain.
The jokes write themselves, and I’d write more of them if it weren’t for the macabre circumstances. As noted here Tuesday, affiliating yourself with Hezbollah is to take your life into your own hands, but it’s important for international audiences to understand that Hezbollah is a dominant player on the Lebanese political scene. The group controls multiple government ministries and is instrumental in the provision of public services and security, such as they are. Hezbollah could easily assert de jure, unchallenged control over the country, but they don’t because they don’t have to: They exercise de facto control.
So, when you’re Israel and you’re blowing up everyone’s pagers, you’re blowing up militants, yes, but also politicians, civil servants, labor ministers, public work officials and just everyday people wandering around shopping for produce. That’s not lost on the IDF and Mossad. They just don’t care.
Nor did they trouble themselves with the self-evident fact that those pagers would be in supermarkets, schools and just wherever the people holding them happened to be at 3:30 PM local time on September 17 when they exploded. Israel knew the explosions wouldn’t be large enough to kill a lot of bystanders, but if you were standing right next to one of the people wearing them, so much the worse for your midsection.
Anyway, hospitals in Lebanon were inundated for a second day Wednesday. Footage posted to social media and eye-witness accounts evidenced cars and local businesses ablaze amid charred buildings and generalized chaos, all set to the familiar sound of shrieks and wailing sirens.
I assume this is obvious, but just in case: As ruthless as Hezbollah is, the Israeli government — and particularly this Israeli government — is just as cut-throat. I don’t blame them. I don’t agree with the strategy. It’s tantamount to terrorism in its own right. But at the same time, I can’t fault them. Kill or be killed. That’s the region.
If you’re the bettin’ type, Polymarket’s got the odds of Israel invading Lebanon by November at ¢31 right now. Not investment advice. Consult your financial advisor. 10-4? Copy-that?
I don’t know if I’m just becoming more cynical as I age, but my faith in humanity is dropping daily. We’ll still survive until a gamma ray burst sterilizes the whole planet, but we’ll never get past our tribal instincts and will be killing each other until the end. Both sides are filled with war criminals and I can’t imagine being responsible for so much death and destruction (well, maybe I am responsible knowing who funds one side of this war), but it seems these people somehow go to sleep at night thinking they are on god’s side and their actions are righteous. I don’t get it.
Neither do I… violence indiscriminately meted out appalls me. But maybe it’s like MacBeth, who is horrified by killing King Duncan “Will all Great Neptune’s Ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No. This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine.” Who then goes on to killing MacDuff’s children peremptorily. However, the differences are he is under no doubt God is not on his side, and he can’t sleep at night.
… but it seems these people somehow go to sleep at night thinking they are on god’s side and their actions are righteous. I don’t get it.
It’s easy to understand if you view it as being a tradition.
I agree absolutely. In my college days, the war was escalating, and Bob Dylan was heating up. One of my favorites from that era ( up to “Nashville Skyline”) was “The Masters of War” which contained the tag line “With God on our Side.” Fortunately, by finding my way through the draft, magic numbers, the draft test, and other land mines, I never had to go. Anyway, my father-in-law was pals with many Generals and Admirals and a dentist in the reserves who worked at Walter Reed every summer to do research in dental prosthetics and develop new ways to reassemble the boys the Masters of War sent back daily. Once he’d seen enough of those faces there was no way I was going to go. I have marked the over/under on civilization at 2100 and I have the under.
Mr. L – I always look for and read your comments with interest. So, I humbly offer a correction – the song in question is “With God on our Side”, which Bob performed with Joan Baez. Nothin’ wrong with “Masters of War”, though.
Pagers on Tuesday, hand-held radios on Wednesday. What’s next – pens on Thursday?
Maybe!
How about iPhones?
Have you ever seen the inside of an iPhone? You couldn’t fit a microgram of explosive in there, let alone enough to actually hurt someone. No, if you want to hurt someone with an iPhone, the best thing you could do is pre-load it with every social media app known to man, along with maybe a few dozen of the most addictive games you can find. Stupefaction for the win!
Leaded footage of the Mossad’s next operation:
https://youtu.be/BaSxnxOpUlM
100% IS terrorism. And I have a problem with it because of this government’s aid and so should you.
I mean, it is what it is. Survival. I’ve been as neutral as I can be. There are bad people on both sides. What can I tell you?
Yes, best to remain neutral and ignore context and power dynamics. Except when it comes to wealth, the economy, finance. For those, acknowledge context and dynamics wholeheartedly.
Therein lies the danger of stepping your toes into political debate. And I’m fine pointing out that you’re only dipping your toes in certain puddles and skipping over others. And it’s your prerogative. But I’ma still point it out.
Two things.
First, I don’t “step my toes” into politics. I dive right on in head first and always have. Maybe you’re new here. If so, allow me to enlighten you: This site has always been partially about politics and as anyone who’s been around these parts for more than a year or so knows, I’m a political scientist by training. And I’ve covered the Mideast — and particularly Hezbollah and Iran’s affiliate militias in Iraq — in exhaustive detail going back eight years. Exhaustive detail. It’s an obsession of mine and there’s a very long backstory behind it.
Second, if you presume to take a snarky tone with me again, “I’ma” refund your most recent subscription payment and then figuratively boot your snarky ass right out the door. In other words, you’ll “point out” exactly what I want you to “point out” and nothing else. How’s that for “power dynamics”?
“Therein lies the danger” of snarky comments.
Amazing craftwork. now that Hezbollah’s communications are wrecked and hundreds upon hundreds of its members are incommunicado and in the hospital…why wait until Nov? To have ‘something’ to show by Oct 7 would make more sense.
Terrorists need to be terrorized.
One of the principles of democratic gouvernance is implicitly to not take “an eye for an eye”. But it is debatable if Israel can be a democracy with the kind of pressure it is under…
I don’t think democracy and no-eye-for-eye are necessarily related. The most successful democracy in history (so far) deliberately incinerated a million or more civilians in strategic bombing campaigns culminating in the only nuclear bombs yet used on humans.
Yes, but does a nation need to be traumatized?
A good read is Ronen Bergman’s “Rise and Kill First” the secret history of Israel’s assassinations. The Talmud says “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first”.