As many commentators have noted, Israel’s exploding pager/walkie-talkie attacks, followed by air strikes on a Hezbollah command post and then broadly across Lebanon are a gambit to try to get Lebanon to respond in a manner that would get the US to come in more formally on Israel’s side as the Axis of Resistance is inflicting costs on Israel over its Gaza genocide.
However, the reporting on the large scale terrorist act of the communication-devices-turned-bombs illustrates how corrupted this information environment is. Israel and its cheerleaders have attempted to justify this act as part of an intended military operation, to disrupt Hezbollah’s operations. The only “bad” thing was they executed prematurely.
In fact, as we’ll unpack further below, this tech-bombing was even worse than you imagined. The military wing of Hezbollah does not use pager or walkie talkies. They’ve used their own fiber optic network since 2006, and otherwise rely on couriers. These devices were in the hands of civilian Hezbollah workers, such as members of its large social services effort. Yes, military members may have been hurt too, but that was dumb luck, like being in proximity to blown-up pager-user or picking up a ringing device on behalf of someone else.
Needless to say, this also means that the device attacks were pure terrorism, with no remotely colorable military purpose whatsoever. Remember, the press has brayed that Israel has been working on this caper for 15 years. But Hezbollah moved its military comms to fiber optic before that. And Israel surely knew that. So that means this entire enterprise was from its outset a terrorist scheme and never a military operation.
But why should that be a surprise? This is how Israel has rolled since its Stern Gang days.
Because we are in what Lambert would call an overly-dynamic situation, rather than attempt a state-of-play account, it seemed more productive to alert readers to how the deeply polluted state of Anglosphere reporting. It should be no surprise that it is coming to resemble Western reporting on the Ukraine conflict, as overstating Israeli successes and underplaying or ignoring Hezbollah/Axis of Resistance wins.
This matters because if Israel’s efforts to subdue the Axis of Resistance fall short, which seems likely, the campaign to get the US committed to the conflict will only intensify. Mind you, in reality, it’s not as if we could do all that much even if we wanted to, ex possibly commit more air power. As Associated Press pointed out yesterday, the US has only 40,000 men in the entire theater. They presumably already have things to do. It takes 6+ months to move more men and the needed logistical support in were we to deploy more than say some Special Forces types. And the US is low on materiel world-wide, thanks to having drained our stockpiles to back Ukraine. For instance, one thing the US is short on globally is Patriot air defense missiles, and at least as of now, we are prioritizing Ukraine.
The general tendency for Western reporting to favor our allies dovetails with Israeli press censorship. The Israeli government finds it important to restore if at all possible the image of the IDF as formidable, both to restore its citizens’ once central belief that Israel was safe place for Jews, and to project power in the region.
Yours truly in now finding it necessary to listen to Alastair Crooke’s Monday morning talks on Judge Napolitano to sanity check Israeli claims. Readers may recall that a few weeks ago, we showcased one of these interviews immediately after some much-ballyhooed Israel air strikes into Lebanon. The claim was that Israel had sent in 100 planes and destroyed Hezbollah rocket launchers right before a planned Hezbollah attack, defanging it.
Whatever you’ve read is almost certainly wrong. It’s a narrative…..First of all, it all happened at around 4 o’clock in the morning on Sunday. The Israelis started to see people moving in Lebanon and moving towards platforms. Hezbollah was planning the operation to fire drones and rockets at 5:15 on Sunday morning. And Israel started to, an attack, a direct attack. It involved I think about a hundred aircraft.
But contrary to what the Israeli propagandists at the IDF are saying, and I know this not from Hezbollah but I know this from inside Lebanon, people who are on the ground there, it was chaotic twenty minutes. Israel just bombed various valleys where they imagined the ballistic missiles were. But they’d been cleared out of there some time ago. There were no ballistic missiles. You can check that, there are people on the ground who know what’s happened. There are no missiles. So when they said they destroyed thousands of missile launchers, this is a complete lie. Because first of all, there are no missiles, no ballistic missiles, no large missiles south of the Litani River. What you have is drones and small rockets. And none of these have launchers. And they destroyed none of them. It was just a show, a show of force and it only lasted about twenty minutes…..
On top of that, the Hezbollah attack that Sunday morning, in retaliation for the assassination of senior Hezbollah military official Fuad Shukr in Beirut, did take place. Israel immediately clamped down on all reports. At first, Israel claimed the Hezbollah strikes were ineffective (there was Twitter fun about Hezbollah striking a chicken coop, which does seem to have occurred). However, it finally came out that Hezbollah was successful in striking a building in the military airport near Tel Avis that housed Unit 8200, which is akin to our NSA. Hezbollah believed Unit 8200 planned the killing of Fuad Shukr. “Successful” as in some Unit 8200 members died (there is speculation that Hezbollah got a very top level official; I’ve not seen anything convincing either way).
Now let us turn to the series of exchanges that started with barbarism-by-pager. Per Moon of Alabama:
Last week Israel launched a terror attack on Hizbullah operatives who were using pagers to receive alarms and orders. These people were part of the civil administration side of Hizbullah and not its armed fighters.
But since a new trope coming out of the bogus claim that the Hezbollah militia used pagers and didn’t even inspect them is (just like Russians!) that this proves that they are incompetent. So let’s again turn to Alastair Crooke:
The notion that Hizbullah’s communications are crippled is wishful thinking that fails to distinguish between what may be called civil-society Hizbullah, and its military arm.
Hizbullah is a civil movement, as well as a military power. It is the Authority over a significant slice of Beirut and a country – a responsibility that requires the Movement to provide civil order and security. The pagers and radios were used primarily by its civil security forces (effectively a civil police managing security and order in Hizbullah-controlled parts of Lebanon), as well as used by its logistics and support branches. Since these personnel are not combat forces, they were not seen to require truly secure communications.
Even before the 2006 war, Hizbullah ended all cellphone and landline communications in favour of their own dedicated optic cable system and hand-courier messaging for the military cadres. In short, Hizbullah’s communications at the civil level took a major hit, but this will not unduly impact upon its military forces. For years, the Movement has operated on the basis that units could continue with combat, even in the event of a complete rupture of optic communications, or the loss of a HQ.
So again in a close parallel to Ukraine, the real reason for this attack appears to be to try to break the will of the long-suffering Lebanese people and turn them against Hezbollah, just as some collective Ukraine officials fantasize that if they cause enough pain to Russian civilians, they will turn on Putin. At least so far, Lebanese citizens instead appear to be pulling together. Journalist Laith Marouf, now in Beirut, told Rachel Blevins that thousands of citizens came to hospitals offering to donate one of their eyes to a victim of the cyber attack (starting at 9:20). Even though that’s beyond current medical technology, it’s an indication of the depth of public support. Marouf also contends that the Lebanese know what they are up against, that wars of decolonization take years.
A second leg of the attack, coming shortly after the device carnage, was an assassination attempt via precision air strike in Beirut against Hezbollah paramilitary leader Ali Karaki, reportedly one of the top three on Israel’s kill list. The press cheered his death. That turns out to have been premature. From Military Watch:
A senior commander for the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah, Ali Karaki, has survived an Israeli assassination attempt, after a precision strike on a military headquarters in the capital Beirut was launched to eliminate him… Confirmation of his survival follows multiple reports from Western media outlets, citing Lebanese military sources, that the commander was eliminated during an Israeli attack on Beirut’s Madi neighbourhood.
It was a nice touch for Military Watch to point out that the initial Anglosphere accounts cited (or made up) “Lebanese military sources”. Admittedly, it is possible this was disinfo while Karaki was being moved to safety.
Now to the next Israel move, widespread air strikes that extended into Syria. The claim was that they were targeting rocket launchers, So far, they have killed nearly 500. But as for the rockets, we again turn to Alastair Crooke, here on Judge Napolitano. Starting at 9:00:
But for the moment, they have bet on escalation dominance, “escalating to de-escalate,” first the pagers, then the assassination on its heels, and then they’re banking on intelligence and firepower to push Hezbollah into an agreement. But first of all, there was no agreement. Amos Hochstein was in Lebanon but he was acting more for the Israelis and for the Americans, but it was a complete failure, the attempt for some sort of diplomatic route. I mean there isn’t one. It’s been talked about, but there was no agreement, Americans know that, Israelis know that too. So this is really what they are betting on is they can either push Hezbollah in. And to this extent, we’re seeing this massive air attacks taking place in the south and in the Bekka, that you just spoke about. But really what we’re talking about is ineffectiveness of air firepower in these circumstances, when put against deep, deep buried rockets and missiles. In the beginning, in ’23, Hezbollah was looking at losing about 10 men a day. Now they’re not really losing any. There were about 2 Hezbollah who were supposed to be killed but they were religious figures, they din’t have to do with Hezbollah per se, they sadly will be civilian losses.
They are heavily bombing the area, and although it’s being presented as being by intelligence as if they’re knocking out rocket launchers, that too is pretty much bunk. Because they too basically try and find launchers by combing the forest, because this is mountain area, forest area. Very difficult terrain. Deep valleys, little nooks and crannies. So they film all of this, looking for movements, and then they use artificial intelligence detection methodology to try to find where someone has moved. It’s not done by spies or intelligence per se. It is done by using AI, again, to spot some sort of movement. And Hezbollah for years, since 2006, have been adept at putting up ghosts and fake missile launchers, fake men, moving them around, fooling the Israelis who are basically bombing every spot in the forest, hills and valleys where it thinks possibly going to be a rocket launcher….
Crooke also stressed that even the death of a senior commander would only be a tactical loss. As 7:40, he explains that every top Hezbollah officer trains his successor.
Crooke turned to the Hezbollah response, which is to increase the range of territory in Israel that they consider to be fair game for attack. At 14:20:
Hezbollah has escalated too, just to be clear. Because one of the things they are facing again is Israel has put another big blackout notice on everything, no filming, no photos, no reporting at all from anywhere north of Haifa, which is in the center, right on the coast of Israel. No news is allowed to be presented. But you do get some because there are Israelis in the settlements that are sending videos. The point here is there is major destruction in Haifa, a major port. Hezbollah’s reported an attack on an airbase, there are attacks going on, there are rocket continuing. So with all this bombing, all this so-called carpet bombing, it’s actually quite ineffective. It’s not stopping Hezbollah. I emphasize here htat we are seeing rockets, [not sure of name] 1 and 2, which are probably similar to a HIMARS. They’re not guided, they’re not smart. Hezbollah hasn’t even begun to use its smart missiles. They’re using the rockets to create destruction of houses. Nearly a million Israelis were in the shelters last night [Sunday].
Dmitry Liscaris claims in this interview (at 15:13) that Hezbollah attacks took out one of Israel’s three airbases, the Ramat David airbase in the Golan Heights, and a major arms making plant, Rafael Military Industries complex, which makes air defense equipment, as well as hitting targets near Tel Aviv. He also said waves of drones were coming from Iraq.
It has not gotten as much mention in the (far from comprehensive) press I follow, but Twitter does confirm the drone attack:
#Iraq / #Palestine / #Israel 🇮🇶🇵🇸🇮🇱: "Islamic Resistance in Iraq" carried out a drone attack against an #IDF position.
Group used an #Iran-made 🇮🇷 'Meraj-532' kamikaze drone (loitering munition) to target the position. pic.twitter.com/MVF2AalG1b
— Md Badrul Hasan (@MdBadrulHasan16) September 24, 2024
Without trying to give a comprehensive account of the latest strikes and counter-strikes, Arab News reports a new attack on Beirut killed a different top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Qubaisi. With the news blackout in Israel, we don’t (and won’t for a while) have much news on damage and deaths there. Even though Crooke depicted Hezbollah as making a discrete, as opposed to open-ended escalation, such niceties may not count for much. A new update from Laith Malouf at Garland Nixon troubling points out that in 36 hours, Israel has killed more Lebanese than it did in the 33 days of its 2006 war with Lebanon. And it seems to be targeting hospitals as well as other civilian infrastructure. Are they attempting Gaza on a bigger scale?
I thought it was hilariously funny that Israelis claimed that Hizb’ullah rockets hit a chicken coop…especially if the military intel installation was indeed hit. That’d be some chicken (I heard a reference to a joke in Russian that was something similar, although I’m hazy on the particulars–apparently, this had to do with some military unit having a derogatory nickname “the chickens” or something, but I don’t know what’s what. Russian-speakers, please tell me if I’m totally wrong.)
I can’t think of any “military joke” involving chickens, BUT.
a) In Russian prison slang, a…passively homosexual inmate is referred to as a “rooster”. Hence, referring to someone, or a group of people, as a rooster/roosters is derogatory, especially in “macho” settings like the military.
Although in both Russian and Ukrainian militaries the preferred version is a variation on the term “pederast”. You can hear it in uncensored combat and drone operator videos very, very frequently, and even read in some Washington Post-type interviews.
But by the way, this is why the Gallic Rooster being a symbol of France causes so many Russian speakers to snicker.
b) There is a very old Russian adage, something like – “he won’t do something until a fried chicken comes up and pecks him”, referring to an extreme procrastinator. But I doubt this is very relevant in this case.
Maybe it has something to do with haircut.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseledets
This is why Ukrainians are sometimes called chubs or hohols (khokhols). Machine translation sometimes translate hohols to crests.
Nice summarry. In other news, it looks like the stars are aligning but not the way the Biden team was hoping.
Much more than „nice“ – excellent in fact and focused on fact
https://x.com/asadabukhalil/status/1826318216630861985
asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل @asadabukhalil
Ronald Reagan was supremely pro-Israeli but he was far less indulgent with Israel and far less flexible (during the Israeli invasion of 1982) than the Bidan-Harris criminal team. Reagan would call Begin upon seeing photos of dead children in Beirut and write about it in his diary *
1:59 PM · Aug 21, 2024
* https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-end-to-attacks-in-a-blunt-telephone-call-to-begin.html
August 13, 1982
REAGAN DEMANDS END TO ATTACKS IN A BLUNT TELEPHONE CALL TO BEGIN
By Bernard Weinraub
5:10 P.M. (11:10 A.M., New York time) – Mr. Reagan reaches Mr. Begin for 10-minute telephone call.
5:40 P.M. (11:40 A.M., New York time) – Mr. Begin calls President Reagan to say that a ”complete cease-fire” had been ordered.
At least Reagan was concerned with legacy and PR. Israel of course continued its illegal occupations and atrocities during his tenure. Sabra and Shatila come to mind. Ariel Sharon and others were never held to account of course.
Mossad hadn’t inherited all the video from Robert Maxwells estate yet I guess.
In 1982 oil was still expensive, US had not started fracking, and just came off “losing” Iran.
The Soviets were also making hay over Israel aggressions.
Great analysis and aggregation of credible sources on this topic, which is always shrouded in thick miasma by the Anglosphere MassMedia MiniTrue.
“…So again in a close parallel to Ukraine, the real reason for this attack appears to be to try to break the will of the long-suffering Lebanese people and turn them against Hezbollah…”
This sort of thing has been tried many times in history, and it rarely works. It did not really work on previous Israeli attacks, and invasions of Lebanon. As noted, the desperate, wishful thinking is not working in Ukraine/Russia either.
I also don’t think Israel will try to invade this time either, unless they are prepared to take heavy losses and the domestic Israeli population are in support. This does not look like the case, far from it. Air power is all they really have (like the US).
Also, the election year BS from the Biden regime changes so often. Biden said that if Israel crossed into Rafah, the US would stop shipping missiles, bombs etc. Nod nod, wink wink. That was just cheap lies for public consumption during an “election” year where many of the D faithful are being alienated by Israel policy. We must be careful to believe the words of serially mendacious politricksters and conmen.
Given the DTs relationship with the Adelsons, Netanyahus, etc. and the previous unconditional support of Israel, another DT regime will continue the long-standing US policy of full support of Israel. So much for meaningful democratic choice. Vote D = use more US public resources for genocide; vote R = use more of our resources for genocide. How patriotic eh.
A sensitive analysis, but there was no war on Gaza or Lebanon during the last administration and the last president is not in elected office now. Biden-Harris are in office now, and American foreign policy is controlled from the White House, and the violence being directed on Gaza and Lebanon is terrifying beyond comparison.
As I said, the policy is long-term and there was NO deviation in Israel policy during DT’s first term. However, he did move the embassy to J-lem for Israel and recognition of the illegally-occupied Golan. He bent over for Israel, more even than the previous regime. (Obama). It should be painfully obvious by now, that we have full Bipartisan Consensus on Israel, and have done for many years now.
One thing that DT does not bullshit about: his unconditional support for Israel. So will it be D genocide, or blue genocide? Great democratic choice eh?
Notice the genocide has gone off the MassMedia radar lately? But we get a lot of the “they’re eating your cats and dogs” BS distraction
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/g-s1-23859/trump-jewish-voters-israel-election-2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Heights
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/donald-trumps-legacy-in-israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_recognition_of_the_Golan_Heights_as_part_of_Israel
I don’t agree with your characterization of what Trump would do. He famously said he would have told Bibi to “finish the job” but I took that to mean a quick and bloody incursion . . . not siege, starvation and genocide of civilians. I could of course be wrong, but I don’t think he wants “supported mass genocide in Gaza” on his resume , and he would not have let it drag on for a year. There’s no deniability in that.
Not to lend this take any credibility, but that would only come as a result of his supposed, and your certain, misapprehension of what “the job” entails. Biden doesn’t want genocide on his resume either, why he pretends it isn’t happening. There are numerous, visible reasons why Trump will do, at minimum, the same.
Its an election year. Given the Zionists oversized influence on our electoral outcomes, why would anyone think that any candidate would tip their hand as to what they might do when elected. Trying to evaluate the candidates positions on this and so many other items is truly a fools errand. That said, if DT wins it is his last term and he does not have to give any consideration to electoral issues, and can focus solely on his legacy. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
More excuses and wishful thinking. Just as bad as the KH crowd. Oh well, Election Delusion Syndrome strikes again
Continuing to believe and put faith in someone who has repeatedly lied to you without any sign of remorse seems to be a sign of lack of self respect. Maybe that is at the heart of why people continue to buy the BS being peddled by our unrepentant, serially mendacious “leaders”.
Yes, lack of self-respect or even a type of mental illness? Collective Stockholm Syndrome? Election Derangement Syndrome? Is there a psychologist in the house?
I’m particularly worried about how these people will react when the music finally stops. Because it will.
Bi-partisan agreement on Palestine and Ukraine puts the Kayfabe nature of domestic politics into stark relief.
Trump isn’t in the professional wrestling hall of fame for nothing.
The claim that pagers and radios are only used by civilian Hezbollah workers and not by military personnel has plausibility to me. I was skeptical and surprised that Israel would have blown up all the Lebanese pagers since that revealed Israel’s complete penetration of the pager network. The ability to listen in at will on Hezbollah’s military communication system seems vastly more valuable than a one-time event of setting off small explosive charges here and there.
Israel must have realized sometime back (“5 years ago”?) that the pager system did not carry information of much military value, and that this penetration was not worth anything from an intelligence standpoint.
Interesting to hear that Hezbollah is now relying on a combination of fiber optic communication networks and human messengers. Evidently there is now a belated realization among various militaries that radio systems are both useless and dangerous during wartime since they reveal the sender’s position and since they are easy to spoof and jam. This must be a great disappointment to many NATO and Western military contractors, who have been pushing radio-based communication products to their various customers for several decades now, spinning off a lot of civilian technologies into hoped-for military uses. Reportedly US military bases are now “lit up like a Christmas tree” when observed in the radio spectrum.
It’s especially charming to hear that messages are now being passed by World War I style “runners”. Everything old is new again!
This probably put a lot of hurt on the ability of the Taiwanese electronics industries to export consumer grade telecom equipment to the Global South as well.
Rumours about that Gold Apollo has worked with US agencies for 15 years and that those behind shell companies in EU set up in 2022 flew Tobias from Sofia.
Clearly the 6 Hezbollah operatives executed took kickbacks to direct comms device order to one supplier – why they did not buy turnkey from China is surprising
Amazon sells this pager model at €168 or did – I doubt the reviews are good
Taiwan should be out of this market – it cannot be manufacturing in Taiwan such a commodity item
If Gold Apollo is/was a US/CIA asset, the next question is then how deeply involved US Intel was in the Israeli Pager-Bomblet operation.
Did Gold Apollo sign that contract with “BAC” thinking or assuming that it was a US operation?
Did USA/CIA/etc OK (or control?) that contract?
Or did Mossad trick Apollo Gold/USA into cooperating?
Apollo Gold is kaput. If it was a legit company that got tricked into cooperating in this operation, it will merely go bankrupt and its leaders, engineers, and investors will drift into other Tech Corps. If it was a CIA asset, anybody who knew anything about the BAC contract will soon be living rent-free in a gated community in Arizona.
At a higher level, [all] Taiwanese Tech businesses will start to lose customers who are worried about CIA/Mossad connections. And that is really bad for Taiwan; it will become even more dependent on US customers as sales to BRICS and non-aligned countries.
Israel burned Taiwan. Taiwan isn’t in a position to do anything about it, but Israel now has one less “friend”.
The Taiwanese connection reminded me of Stuxnet, malware that was targeting Iranian nuclear centrifuges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
The malware has both user mode and kernel mode rootkit ability under Windows,[67] and its device drivers have been digitally signed with the private keys of two public key certificates that were stolen from separate well-known companies, JMicron and Realtek, both located at Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan.[45][65] The driver signing helped it install kernel mode rootkit drivers successfully without users being notified, and thus it remained undetected for a relatively long period of time.[71] Both compromised certificates have been revoked by Verisign.
I don’t know: I would want to be convinced. Pagers are, by definition and in my very distant memory, one way devices to transmit simple messages. Usually it was “call this number” or “meet me here.” They are not very useful for routine management. By contrast, the other methods (fibre-optic, messengers) would certainly be used for routine and strategic-level messages, but fibre-optic is not very mobile. I can imagine pagers being used for certain non-military functions as well, but in its absence, how does Hezbollah send an urgent message to a military commander who’s in his car somewhere near the border?
Incidentally, in the first paragraph, it’s not “Lebanon” they want to respond, but Hezbollah.
Runners? During the Millennium Challenge 2002 war game, the oppo commander was a hard-bitten Marine by the name of Ripper. Facing an overwhelming force, he adopted an asymmetric strategy and used motorcycle riders to spread orders to front line forces. The Blue force never even accounted for such a thing and were annihilated much to the embarrassment of the Pentagon who had rigged the whole game in the Blue’s favour-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
Yes, but then they stopped the exercise and restarted it with different rules (and, I think, without Ripper). Maybe Israel should try that approach?
Minor correction to the article. Ramat David is near Nazareth, i.e, in Palestine and not in Syria.
The announced effects of aerial bombardment have always been inflated. Especially wrt the effect of expensive new intel, and over stated accuracy.
Second point related to current confabulation over S Lebanon it is possible the pager terrorism was pushed up bc the operation was about to be compromised.
It was and they murdered one Hezbollah operative who rumbled them
Well done. Israeli, A Chickli, has stated that Lebanon is not a sovreign state, with the stated goal not only elimination of Hezbollah but also incorporation of considerable Lebanese territory (free of current inhabitants) into Israel including the Litani river and its watershed. As noted by many commenters – Israel regards all denizens of a given area as “terrorists” justifying high levels of civilian death whereas both Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamic non state actors appear to be adhering to the more usual rules of warfare,
Like intermingling your military with civilians and putting command centers in tunnels under hospitals?
Britain has its nuclear command centre under Central London.
It is very hard for Israel to separate its Reservists from the civilian population since they refuse to keep a large regular standing army
Quite why Israel has weapons manufacturers near civilian populations is hard to fathom
I do not think they should treat wounded soldiers in civilian hospitals
Think it’d be good to pull back and see what Israel is really up to here. As alluded to in the piece, they clearly want to suck the US in, but their planning would logically need to go further. With Israel in such a tough place, what is their real plan?
The ultimate goal, which they seem to be improvised toward, has always been to cleanse themselves of the Pals in the WB and Gaza. A Final Solution, as it were. They can and are putting as much heat on the Pals to JUST LEAVE, but to where? As the Germans found, ethnically cleansing over 7 million people is an intractable logistical challenge, even with careful planning and industrialization. You can only kill so many, with far more ultimately dying due to starvation and disease. Unfortunately, Israel can turn up the heat all it wants, but unless the Pals die or leave it’s pointless…they’d be left right back where they were a year ago. Proceeding along these lines, the job simply will not get done.
What is needed is 1) for the US to rescue them from the war they are now provoking, at least with Hezbollah if not Iran, 2) As part of that rescue, push Egypt and Jordan to accept (all) the Palestinians, and 3) PAY for everything involved in resolving the whole mess:
a) Get the US to essentially bribe the neighboring countries to take however many of those 7 million don’t die or the US doesn’t absorb. After all, what else was Camp David I other than a ongoing bribe, which now accounts for the peace on the Egyptian front?
b) Get the US to clean up and rebuild Gaza for Israel and the Israelies. Months ago I heard a UN estimate it’d take 15 years assuming an unlimited budget. But, be it US or Gulf money, as far as Israel is concerned it’ll be OPM.
c) Rebuild the Israeli economy, since, after all, the mindset at work here has Israel as the 51rst and pre-eminent US State.
Israeli control over the US makes this all not an unreasonable strategy or goal. The thing is that with mobilization of the IDF their economy has been suffering hugely for the past year. And, don’t forget, well over 500M Israelies (out of ~7M) have simply LEFT since October.
Israel is an economic basket case, propped up by the US. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are playing rope-a-dope and winning. The only way out is for Israel to suck the US in to save them, and to then foot an unimaginably big bill to fix things, which may or may not be possible without US boots on the ground.
ULTIMATELY, it’s not an unreasonable plan, albeit desperate. What other options do they have? A two-state solution with true autonomy for the Pals? It’ll never happen. A one state solution that accepts and integrates the Pals as full citizens into a true democracy within a non-jewish state?????
‘What is needed is 1) for the US to rescue them from the war they are now provoking, at least with Hezbollah if not Iran, 2) As part of that rescue, push Egypt and Jordan to accept (all) the Palestinians, and 3) PAY for everything involved in resolving the whole mess:’
OK, I will counter that-
1) The Israelis can’t provoke anything without the US supplying all those bombs which the US is giving Israel out of the kindness of their hearts.
2) Those Palestinians are totally opposed to the regimes in Jordan and Egypt. They would end up taking those countries over and then Israel would have two more opposing nations on their borders.
3) Every plan Israel comes up with always ends up with the US paying for it all. The US should tell Israel to shove it and tell them to put their hands in their own pockets for a change – and start charging full freight for every round an bullet that they send Israel.
And you call Israel a “true democracy?” Pull the other one. It plays jingle bells.
I think he js saying “a true democracy” would be a necessary component of a one-state solution, not that Israel currently approximates that utopian condition.
Thanks for this. I’d watched the Judge and Crooke but your information provided a lot of helpful context.
Agree. And Alastair has such an ease in his presentation that I always miss something he is explaining and often wish I had time to listen to it twice.
Truly appreciate NC for linking to/citing websites like Judge Nap, The Duran, etc.
..the device attacks were pure terrorism, with no remotely colorable military purpose whatsoever.
And yet my Senator, John Fetterman, fully endorses this terrorist act. The terrorist occupy the U.S. Congress, this country has been infiltrated by criminal, amoral, careerist who are either comprised or mentally deficient and they should be under the care of a mental health professional
https://thenationaldesk.com/news/americas-news-now/fetterman-absolutely-endorses-explosion-of-hezbollah-devices-in-lebanon-fully-support-senator-john-fetterman-israel-iran-palestine-gaza-walkie-talkies-terrorism
Terrorism aka shock and awe is good when we do it.
Yes indeed. We might need a new term to describe them Sociopath-kakistocrats; sociopathocracy maybe?
I sure hope the bad Karma being infused into the US social order by our government promoting genocide doesn’t affect my afterlife.
Where is the official Lebanese army now? Are they thinking, “Oh, this is a war between Hezbollah and Israel. It has nothing to do with us”?
As far as I know, the Lebanese Army is a police force, not a fightibg force. They did, apparently, gain a good deal of experience defending Lebanese borders against ISIS incursions and the like, but they didn’t do the heavy fighting even then–that was Hizb’ullah’s expeditionary force in Syria. I doubt the “regular” Lebanese army has the training or equipment now for a serious fight.
US keeps Lebanon weak. It blocks weapons to Lebanon and bans air defence. When China wanted to rebuild electricity supply US intervened. US does everything to keep Lebanon weak and divided which is why Hezbollah is strong because US has no influence there
A former USAF pilot told me years ago that they were taught that strategic bombing doesn’t work, and the military has known this since WW2. The rationale is that it tends to strengthen the resolve of those being bombed and most damaged roads/bridges/factories can usually be rebuilt in relatively short time. It works well to soften the target prior to an invasion, but with no invasion, it’s not very useful. Ghouls.
That was the minority conclusion of the strategic bombing study after WW II, which JK Galbraith helped write. The point was what you said and the tech, and manpower would have been better used for the ground war.
See Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
The aerospace lobby….
Those studies were back-to-front. Strategic bombing was limited by free-fall bomb accuracy and the fact that RAF which dropped most tonnage until well into 1943 – lacked a good bombsight
The Schweinfurt raids were horrific for USAAF as they ran into concentrated flak trying g to take out ball-bearing production. Had Britain and France destroyed Mannheim or Ludwigshafen or Kassel in 1939 and the Rhine bridges Germany would have been crippled
The fact that the strategic bombing had huge CEP and missed targets is the reason it was ineffectual – however Iskander and FAB and kh101 are taking out Ukrainian industry very accurately
It seems unlikely that Hezbollah would stand long for a lengthy bombing campaign ala Gaza – at some point, Israel’s electric grid (transformer stations), oil pipelines, refinery, and aircraft hangers will be destroyed – years to replace with no functional ports.
Alastair Crooke argues that Hezbollah will enter northern Israel (my SWAG – after destroying IDF airbases and Cypress airbase). One hypersonic missile hit on a US carrier and my SWAG is they will retreat (claiming maintenance) to too far to fly bombing missions, leaving only B-2s.
Note, it would not surprise me if Iran now has EW that can disable the B2 – Russia has focused on developing hardware and tactics targeting US military weaknesses – EW being one.
Side note: Mahmood Od reports (from Arabic-language press) that 100,000 Iraqis are ready to transit Syria for the opportunity to hit the IDF. In general, he has been fairly credible, and given the anger (it’s Genocide!) – seems plausible. This could provide the forces needed for a northern Israel invasion. Again, Alastair Crooke has repeated this potential several times over recent months.
The mysterious allision of the USNS Big Horn on Monday is going to put a big dent in the Abraham Lincoln group’s operational capacity. A lack of fleet oilers apparently means a commercial oiler will have to be retro-fitted with Navy systems, no mean or quick feat. Well timed and shows that there is no need for shock and awe to degrade offensive capacities.
I don’t know what to make of it, but Armchair Warlord speculates that the damage to the Big Horn might be Russian retaliation for the recent strike on the 107th GRAU Arsenal in Toropets, using a torpedo with a proximity fuse with a fairly large distance setting.
https://x.com/armchairw/status/1838778504592151033?s=46
Key word is “speculates”. Russian submarine directly firing a torpedo at an USA ship is too big of an escalation at this point in time. They are still at the level “we will give someone weapons to shoot at USA”. When Russian submarines start launching their stuff, you better run to the shelter. Or don’t, because it won’t matter much.
This attack is also going to further destabilise parliamentary systems in the West.
There are thousands of Lebanese Australians here in Aus and they too will probably become outraged by the Govt’s inaction, just like the Palestinian Australians are.
Here is the front page article on the ABC this morning:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-25/lebanese-community-heartbroken-over-israel-attack-on-lebanon/104389180
There was another one which has now disappeared since I just read it which had Penny Wong, the Foreign Minister, warning that evacuation of the (30,000) Australians in Lebanon was “beyond the capacity” of the Aus Govt. The Prime Minister was also quoted as saying that anyone who had gone to Lebanon in the last few months had done something stupid anyway.
Apologies, as I say, the article has been quickly moved and I have no time to dig it back up.
We have an election here next year. It’s not looking good for the Govt. Lots of outraged Palestinians and Lebanese in Labour seats in Sydney.
It depends on your definition of destabilize.
Western (particularly anglophone) parliaments are marching in a fairly direct line towards authoritarianism. Parliamentary rules and norms have already been defenestrated in several countries and I don’t expect the situation to improve as protest increases. More likely we will see ever tighter crackdowns and power grabs, as the MSM cheers. Cometh the PPE-ocracy.
I don’t disagree with that. As people turn further towards protest votes, not voting or new parties the two party will indeed become “destabilised”.
And, your description of “rules and norms being defenestrated” sounds like a good description of “destabilisation” to me.
If Israel’s hope is that bombing Lebanese civilians will ‘encourage’ them to turn against Hezbullah, thereby easing and opening the way for Israel to turn the Lebanon into another Gaza, it sounds like a brilliant masterplan to me tho’ I’ve a niggling suspicion that if I were actually a civilian living in the Lebanon it would have a somewhat obvious drawback.
Possible collateral damage. The Marriot in Beirut gets worried.
https://open.substack.com/pub/leefang/p/marriott-issues-internal-alert-in?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1239256&post_id=149356852&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1auay&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMTg1NDUwLCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNDkzNTY4NTIsImlhdCI6MTcyNzE5NTM4NSwiZXhwIjoxNzI5Nzg3Mzg1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTIzOTI1NiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.D4oK5eEaSXSHhwHoAjuoxitNetP8pEXeJb7nxDYMX3o
I think it’s pretty clear the current rulers of Israel plan to take over Gaza, the West Bank and much of Lebanon. Those living there now will either die or leave (if they can). So far it appears the plan is to destroy all support services like hospitals, food distribution etc.and let diseases and starvation eliminate the population. 10 million people live in those areas, quite a few more than in Isreal itself. The usa (and it’s billionaire rulers) are all in on this genocide. That’s why it’s forbidden to even say the word! For my part I now am beyond convinced that Isreal was a mistake, and the residents would be better moved to Brooklyn or some other location in the usa.
Perhaps they could simply return to their roots. Not always the best plan, but T.S.Eliot did it, and we have all benefited.
I agree partially. It was always a mistake to rectify one atrocity by perpetrating another on persons uninvolved in the original atrocity. I would have pushed for Italy being forced to give up Sicily in lieu of reparations and handing that island over to the Jews of Europe. The land area of Sicily is about the same in size of Israel currently and it would be an island that could be defended by the American navy. Then Germany should have been forced to pay for development of that island as a partial reduction of its reparations bill. At least the parties responsible would be the ones penalised. But all that is too late and water under the bridge.
A few million Sicilians might want a word.
Always favoured Florida myself. All Jews in the world could live in Florida and not just the ones from New York. Most of world’s Jews live in USA and seem fine there so why not have all those people now in Palestine in Florida ?
Truman could have solved everything in 1948 by being more generous just as Biden is now on border control – US should have invited dispossessed of postwar Europe to live in USA
Brooklyn? Brooklyn??? See what these guys do in Brooklyn before making such suggestions.
Fadi-1 rocket used during yesterday’s & this morning’s rocket barrage.
• 6m long
• Range: 75 km
• Warhead: 83 kg explosives
• Calibre: 220 mm rocket
The rocket was first used in the 2006 war. So it’s not a new rocket, but new in this war.
Fadi-2 rocket
– 6 meters long
– 100 km range
– 302 mm rocket
– 170 kg warhead
Is used for non-pinpoint attacks, but wide areas. Is used to disrupt logistics and big bases.
Was first introduced 18 years ago, in the 2006 war.
Reportedly Lebanese Hezbollah used Fadi 3 missiles today for the first time against bases housing Israeli nuclear missile silos (Samson base) as well as Golanis HQ.
Sources: Fotros Resistance, Middle East Spectator, Strategika51, mostly translated from Lebanese Hezbollah public communications.
—
Fadi rockets were introduced on the 22nd:
Lebanese Hezbollah operations on 22/09/2024:
1- Ramat David airbase targeted with dozens of Fadi 1 (220mm caliber/range 80K) and Fadi 2 (302mm caliber/range: 110 K) missiles, “in response to countless Israeli air attacks targeting various Lebanese regions, which resulted in the death of many civilian martyrs.”
2- Ramat David air base targeted with dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles, second salvo.
3- Targeting of the Rafael company’s military-industrial complexes specializing in electronic media and equipment in the Zovulun area north of Haifa with dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles and Katyusha rockets, “as a first response to the brutal massacre committed by the Israeli enemy in various Lebanese regions on Tuesday and Wednesday (massacre of beepers and radios)”.
4- Launch of two air attacks with swarms of drones on new enemy soldier positions in the vicinity of the Manara position and the Yiftah barracks, hitting their targets with precision, in response to Israeli attacks (over 250) on villages and refuges in southern Lebanon.
—
Since then the targeting has been similar. Although it now reaches south of Tel Aviv, threatening 2M Israelis, the targets are relentlessly military: air bases, logistics and supply depots, industrial areas, military HQs.
Over the last year Leanese Hezbollah focused on air defense and electronic surveillance, as well as troop movements, very near the border, striking with anti-tank guided missiles, one-way drones, and katyushas. In that year, they killed between 6 and 8 Israeli civilians.
(Similarly, I think Ansar Allah’s count still stands at 0-3, depending on whether they killed those Navy Seals back in October. They didn’t claim they did, and neither did the US. Being able to take big military victories with negligible body counts is impressive, and publicly virtuous.)
Now Lebanese Hezbollah has escalated to using old truck-fired missiles (6 or 8 of them per truck) to attrit Israel’s ability to invade. Israeli planes reportedly (Reuters) had to make emergency landings in Cyprus because of the damage to Ramat David and other air bases.
Lebanese Hezbollah is only doing 15-20 operations per day, firing a few hundred missiles and drones, not close to the Israeli tempo. Elijah J. Magnier writes Israel has
“about 13000 Hezbollah targets in its bank of objectives and needs a few weeks to hit them all and then stop. Hezbollah was aware of Israel’s target bank; this wouldn’t work the way the Israelis planned…. Hezbollah has more on the Syrian borders than there is in #Lebanon and underground cities with rockets intact in the south and the Bekaa.”
Others say Lebanese Hezbollah’s big/smart/modern rockets are north of the Litani river. If we see them, I doubt it will be for a few weeks, after Israel shows its hand by hitting whatever its 13000 targets are.
Meanwhile Israel terroristically killed 600 Lebanese civilians and a few Lebanese Hezbollah commanders with US weapons, ISR, and diplomatic cover.
This war continues to hurt.
Thanks for this detailed description!
Why are the comments so one sided?
Have two sided debates at NC been banned?
Perhaps it has not occurred to you that on some issues, there is only one side. What about “Genocide is evil” don’t you understand?
We normally don’t approve comments that are attacks on the site or discussions of our moderation policy, so future remarks along these lines will go straight to our Trash folder.
Tom Clancy had this line in one of his books : “State sponsored terrorism is war”. Paging Dr Jack Ryan, please come to the nearest courtesy phone.
“Paging Dr. Jack Ryan. Please check your pager.” ‘Boom!’
Russian radars sweep across down to the Gulf and log every Israeli plane. They also integrate the radars on S400 systems used by Erdogan (to protect himself from his US trained air force) into their comprehensive network.
There is a story Israel tried to attack Tartus where Russia has a base – then again Russian troops are on Golan Heights
I met Milley‘s ears burn when his Russian counterpart tells him how things might unfold
Story now is 13 IDF missiles aimed at Tartus downed by air defence in Syria
Not to get all conspiratorial, but is anyone actually monitoring this? How many men could the US have moved into Israel, Jordan, Egypt, even Syria over the past year? Who would have reported it?
Personally I really do think the US will commit tens of thousands of troops on the ground to support Israel. It will just never be officially/openly declared as such(or else propagandized as a triumph). Similar to the current US troops in Syria, just an order of magnitude larger (at least). I don’t know if the troops have been moved already, but if the IDF gets into difficulty I strongly believe they will be moved, even if Ukraine, half the Baltics, Taiwan, and/or the whole US economy have to collapse as a result.
Regular US forces being thrown into the breaches in Lebanon might (for the present) be a stretch. But what you could see is Ukraine style “irregulars”, PMCs, and ISIS style “bashi-bazouks”, recruited from up and down the west and across the globe, given a rifle and a few drones, and sent into the hills of Lebanon to get Hezbollah to reveal their positions. Of course, Hezbollah will have quite a few bashi-bazouks to call on themselves. But my main point is that western ground intervention in Lebanon is not as off the table as some believe.
It’s HIGHLY visible. I was only a casual news follower in the early 2000s and Internet/social media reporting was a pale shadow of what it has become. I knew 9 months in advance that the US was going into Iraq because we were pre-positioning hospital ships.
I have to disagree with you. William Schryver who has a good Substack opines that if US scraped every single US soldier outside worldwide it would be hard-pressed to muster 250,000.
Not sure you have seen how unfit and untested US soldiers are – they were vested by Taliban Pashtuns and they want to help Lebanon as does Pakistan.
There are satellites all over region and they can see that long supply chain GIs need to feed themselves – no other nation on planet needs so much. Putting light infantry like 101st in theatre is nothing – they are toast.
Don‘t over inflate US capability. Get involved in Israel and watch N Korea destroy Guam or Seoul. Israel will fight a 7 front war when Jordan collapses and U.S. will fight in West Asia and Europe and East Asia and maybe Mexico
This is called Imperial Overreach like Britain in 1939
These reports from Mr. Crooke puts the lie to these “warlords” on Twitter and elsewhere. We know that Mr. Crooke has immense knowledge of the people in Lebanon and elsewhere. Time to delete those second rate “warlords” from Twitter. Time to keep reading Alaistair Crooke.
Thanks for sharing this news.
PS: We deeply wish Will S. would cover the issues in Israel, Iran and Lebanon.
Perhaps I have missed the Israeli “Purity of Arms” IDF core value coverage in the MSM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_of_arms
“The soldier shall make use of his weaponry and power only for the fulfillment of the mission and solely to the extent required; he will maintain his humanity even in combat. The soldier shall not employ his weaponry and power in order to harm non-combatants or prisoners of war, and shall do all he can to avoid harming their lives, body, honor and property.”
“— Spirit of the Israel Defense Forces”
“Some challenge the idea that the IDF is either particularly moral or follows the concept of “Purity of Arms”,but according to Gideon Levy, the “majority of Israelis are still deeply convinced that their army, the IDF, is the most moral army of the world, and nothing else”.
As would be expected there is some criticism and “nuanced views” on this Wikipedia page.