Sep 18·edited Sep 18Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Great article and detailed example on the importance of keeping secrets in the execution of military plans and in national security as a whole.
Now think of the stacks of classified national security documents in Trump's flea-bag hotels, the visits of Russian intelligence officials for "off the record" meetings in The Oval Office, Trump's "off-the-record" meeting with Putin in Helsinki, and Trump ramming through top-secret clearances for the likes of Jarred Kushner (who had already been rejected for clearance due to financial and other ties, including those with convicted felons like his father), all before he took $2 billion from the bone-saw wielding, 9/11 sponsoring Saudis!
Trump is a clear Russian asset who has had US assets overseas compromised and killed, to say nothing of the damage that he's done to the security of The USA and its allies. The Republican Party, who once claimed to be the party of national security and defense (among other lies) has enabled and assisted Trump in this betrayal from the outset. In a democracy with better prospects for long-term survival, this group of useful idiots and traitors would have been stopped dead in 2016.
And who is going to stop him? The Supreme Court is in his hip pocket. As long as that connection holds? He'll never be tried with anything at all. Who is going to stop him. Roberts made him invincible.
No all nations don't. Israel is well on its way to being a rogue nation. Sneak attacks on a sovereign nation may be cute in the beginning - until that nation's friends remember the pacts they had made with the attacked nation. There are thousands of innocent people who have been injured, thousands. All so the trump of the Middle East can foment a war to stay out of prison. Sound familiar?
In 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty by air and by sea. Somehow they just couldn't see the US colors, or chose not to. 10 killed, 90 wounded 22 missing. Israel's response? Yawn. We are the poor saps who bankroll their war machine. We are not their friends.
Israel is not "protecting" its borders, it's trying to start a regional war; Bibi is hoping it will embroil US politics to the point that his good felon buddy will be re-elected. For both of them, anything to stay out of prison.
I don’t trust Bibi for all the reasons you mention but Hezbollah has been attacking northern Israel so that the residents have been evacuated for almost a year. What should they do to protect their own citizens from people who want all Israelis ( and probably all Jews) dead? Accept the attacks because Israel should not exist and have been persecuting Palestinians since time immemorial? It’s complicated. Why don’t you you see Hezbollah and Hamas as rogue leaders of their countries?
I do take exception to having civilians living above terrorist infrastructure. To me that's really shitty and those civilians are put in grave danger thusly. It sucks.
That's an amazing conclusion to make. A foreign country commits an act of war on another country and you find that ok? Because of the on going conflict in Israel? Did I mention Israel? No. Did I, in anyway, mention admiration for Hamas? No. Was the attack on another sovereign nation an act of war carried out by wholly sanctioned terrorist agency of neighboring state? Were thousands of innocent people injured? Yes. Your point in no way acknowledges the civilians who were harmed. The logical conclusion you seem to be backing is that, even if we don't like the politics of Lebanon, we have the right to react violently in their internal affairs. In Israel's jubilantly doing this? They are no better than Hezbollah and Hamas.
However, Mossad is not necessarily doing Israel favors by escalating the war. I wonder how long people will feel it is a safe homeland with things escalating and more and more Muslim countries joining in support of Palestine and Lebanon. It is not bringing the hostages home, although it is fighting against a 2 state solution.
No, they knew Hamas was coming. Netanyahu and other leaders refused to do anything when they were told. Kind of like Condi and GWB and Cheney not doing anything when they were told that Al Qaeda was planning to attack. Bush wanted a war and so did Bibi.
I'm just saying, look out everybody! This exploding device thing was a good decade or two in the making, there surely are sleepers and moles all over the place way, way deep. They are clearly organized and administering very advanced tech. It's quite a thing. So, en garde, here there and everywhere. It's not saber rattling, it's way more than that. It's not praise or condemnation but a notice that we all are in a new arena.
I do not believe our Christians lose their careers when their deviating from their stated sexual practices is revealed. Instead they just confess and ask for forgiveness and go on. Even priests get shuffled around. People who have had sex with children get away with it by their churches, and so on, unless they get prosecuted and go to prison. For example, the Mormon church gives people who have sex with children chances, and do not report them to the police. It is like these big clubs that hide their members deviations unless the press gets a hold of the story. Agreed about Mossad.
3000 murderous devices passed on to persons unknown, destination unknown, nothing controlled, but blown up at the same time. Well, that is nothing but an unprecedented terrorist act. There will be lethal unique reprisals. Let us hope they don't happen in America.
The closest thing to this that we did in Vietnam was delayed fusing on bombs dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trails; bombs designed to kill trail repair teams and users minutes or hours after being dropped. Difference: we knew who we were attacking and where the bombs were.
The Israelis have lost their moral compass. They are behaving like beasts. All American support should be withdrawn until Israel agrees to a two state solution.
I have followed Israel's history for 70 years, and am sick of it. Their behavior now is the worst I have ever seen, which is saying a lot.
Israel has over the decades negotiated with and offered Palestinians - the PLO et. al - all kinds of ways to live together peacefully. And every time, the Palestinians have rejected those offers, elected terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to power, and continued to make war on Israel. And yet you and others prefer to blame Israel for this tragic situation.
“There is a surplus of agony in the Middle East. In a competition of pain there are no winners.”
— Jon Polin, father of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, later murdered; speaking at the Democratic National Convention, 2024
For decades I have heard such arguments. One simple thing I ask you to do is this:
look at a map of Israel in 1948 and then look at the size of Israel today...OK...and then tell us that Israel doesn't have enough land to give to the Palestinians.
Rich, have you looked at the map of current Arab countries? Tell me they don't have enough land to give to the Palestinians. Aside from Jordan, Arab countries have refused to allow in their Palestinian cousins. The Palestinians are a pawn Arab countries have until recently used to their country's benefit.
I recommend a fascinating interview w/ Gridi Grinstein, a negotiator w/ Israel/PLO and author of his 2023 book, (In)sights: Peacemaking in the Oslo Process.... The link is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PrKK8zv81k
Thank you for highlighting this interview. I tuned in to it on Monday night. Gidi Grinstein knows the complex history of the region and explains it well. A link to one of his articles was posted during the program as well:
Definitely yes and thank you for this. The facts are there, the people who say they want them or just want to have opinions without them, who want them at all, appear to be kind of reticent about dealing with them. The bandwagon effect is inherently ignorant.
I was intentionally avoiding going back further than 1947, because where does it end? You could argue the massive number of invasions, including the Arab invasions conquering and seizing land in the name of Islam, have tainted the origins of many nations in the region, including making it problematic to deny Israel control over the entire ancient state of Israel - including Judea and Samaria. So where does it end?
Just enforcing UN resolution 1701 in Southern Lebanon / Northern Israel is already a huge problem!
It is not for us to decide which is the lesser evil; but let them have their civil war within their own state and, I'm sure, something awful will emerge, but that would be their decision/fault...just as happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan. To hell with them all.
LOL, both sides have conflicting claims as to who stole which dunams - be specific, and be sure to disambiguate your claims within the context of various wars.
Israel has erected security fences to discourage terrorist attacks, is that the kind of "stolen land" you mean? Or are we gonna go back all the war to the Arab invasions, which stole land all over the Middle East, North Africa, and invaded Spain? It took the Spanish hundreds of years to recover that land. The land titles in what is now Israel have all sorts of disputes left over from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Palestine Mandate, and the formation of what is now Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Trying to blame all of the problems connected with "stolen land" on Israel is risible.
Would you also consider the attacks of Dec 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 masterful? This isn't "masterful" unless you use that term because it's "our side." Cheering on an organization that foments murder and mayhem to distract from its own domestic terror isn't masterful, it's a diversion and worthy of condemnation.
Hear hear. I don't believe "masterful" is the correct way to describe what amounts to high-tech carpet bombing. Ask the families of the children who died if that term works for them.
It is a tragedy that Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, indeed "foments murder and mayhem to distract from its own domestic terror." And crap governance. Hamas didn't allow its citizens to shelter in Hamas' tunnels, but instead spread out its terrorist members in civilian areas, hospitals, schools, and such to make them targets of what they knew would be an Israeli response to the murderous attacks on Israel on October 7. Hamas figured lots of dead Palestinians would paint Israel is the villain and make the world forget about hostages held and murdered by Hamas. Indeed, Hamas is worthy of condemnation.
Unless you have the inside scoop, you know as much as the rest of us do. I was commenting on using the term "masterful" to describe a full blown act of terrorism. Give your ouji board a break, Hamas is not exemplary, but then neither is Bibi's Nazi mimicking style of governance. They are both to be condemned; but we are pouring billions into this explosive mess and what do we get for it? Derision and scorn from recipient. Sort of like dealing with juvenile delinquent teenager.
MOSSAD is not the IDF any more than the CIA is the US Mil.
My observations (FWIW)
Not comfortable with the reported number of 3000 pagers. Not at all comfortable with the device having been outfitted with both an e-detonator and an explosive. Based that on what's publicly available in videos of achieving a detonation yet no explosion follows. The vids with sound are not consistent with an explosion. Again, my sample size of vids and pic are small but not one shows secondary damage or a quick flame thru the smoke which would happen if an explosive was detonated.
E-detonators on their own can cause damage and send a message of gotcha just as blasting cap can. The few pics of the pagers show them pretty much intact minus a chunk. Other reports include comm radios inc. walkie-talkies. Now they are large enough to include an explosive capable of killing within the blast zone. As far as other reports of electronics going poof or kaboom, haven't seen any pic of vids yet.
If the MOSSAD has control over an importer and/or exporter of electronics I sure wouldn't be watching the teevee in Beirut or googling explosives that fit into a pager on a PC-laptop or notebook. And kids toys that have electronic components as so many do now would be placed in the outside trash. I mention toys cuz if the pagers were for Hez-fighters/members how did children get a hold of one or more?
Again, agree this is way over any line in the civilized world. It's terrorism because the element of fear is front and center. It's terrorism because as you correctly point out it's indiscriminate by design. And nations react to terrorism (am not a fan of that word for many reasons) emphasis react. One reaction will be internal hunting down any and all persons they deem potential collaborators. They will be tortured just as the US tortured potential AQ folk, only worse because their families will be dragged in as well. Hezbollah likely to add Israeli civ targets to their target set and work w/others to infiltrate Israel to take their pound of flesh and achieve marty-dumb.
Just when Bibi needs to focus on a ceasefire he reverts back to his MO of let's kill a bunch of Arabs and light a torch under tens of millions of others. Closing w/the US made a tragic error by adding a militarized element to the CIA that first started by sheep-dipping members of the US Mil into CIA-led missions and fully under their authority. You touched upon one. The blurring of lines never ends well. Here is to Israel and the IDF not making that same mistake.
Your take on the specifics of the devices makes me wonder what the point of this killing stunt was since they weren't, and never could be, 100% lethal. It seems like something some psychopathic child dreamt up, or something in a video game.
And to the old spook: John Brennan called it "remarkable", taking no other position.
Agree. Does come off as if a psychopath and sociopath had a game of who can come up with the wackiest idea on how to terrorize a population. Is counter to what intelligence services are chartered to do, nudge others into thinking and acting in a manner that benefits one's nation. Agree with Lucian this took years and years however, see this misuse/abuse of assets and resources to be counter-productive in the larger scheme of things. For all the time and money spent getting there, it's a very short-term result while triggering the law of unintended consequences.
It's one thing to jam or muck w/electronics in a society or nation, it; 's quite another to turn them into weapons that terrorize, injure, maim, or kill. Not surprised Brennan got a chubby from it. Heard/saw many similar takes from here at home and abroad. Not a one who has a North Star though. They all condemned it as madness. And that includes my beloved late wife's family of Sephardic Jews and my own seeds.
My initial thought was also psychological warfare...as in, we can do this anytime, anywhere with anything. Listening to NPR this morning there was a funeral service for people killed with the pagers that was temporarily halted because of the explosion of a walkie-talkie.
I shiver at the thought of something like that happening in the United States.
Still hearing far too many former CIA and mil officers applauding the tactic of weaponizing devices that (a) are not exclusive to Hezbollah fighters and leadership (b) devices that are routinely carried while amongst the civ population, in public places, and their family homes.
No, they wouldn't be. The Mossad is nothing more than a government sanctioned cadre of hired assassins. Meir and Dyan knew full well what they did and didn't care. It's been like that since the formation of Israel. Imagine, form a country and a department of assassins. Not quite like 1776.
“There is sometimes a high price to pay for holding extreme religious beliefs, and I think it’s highly probable that Hezbollah is paying that price right now in Lebanon for having allowed adherence to those beliefs to have led them down a path strewn with rose-pedals and lacy lingerie straight into the arms of Mossad.”
Well Lucian, I'm sure there are more than me waiting for your follow ups on this. I have been wondering since the information came out after the Oct. 7 attack that IDF and intelligence had intercepted the Hamas plan to do exactly as they did at the same point in the electronically monitored defence fencing at least a year prior. Since Hamas was so important to Neddy the Yahoo to keep up his saber rattling to stay out of jail, how could such a sophisticated intelligene service not prevail and allow that to happen?
Today's piece is extremely educational. I immediately wonder about the mental health and ultimate fate of the young women who are presumed to be recruited to seduce Muslim members of terrorist organizations in order to infiltrate them. It immediately makes me think of The Little Drummer Girl, by John le Carré. What stayed with me about that book was that it's centered on the emotional life of the fictional actress, Charlie, who acts as a double agent in a plot to locate a Palestinian terrorist bomber, who is then killed. While under deep cover, she gains some sympathy for the Palestinians, and has a mental breakdown brought on by the contradictions in her life.
Gonna to be blunt. As a general rule sex workers are NOT volunteers whether on the street or anywhere else. Leverage and threats are commonplace. A much smaller segment are patriots for lack of a better word.
In that region (SWA) people never forget wrongs. They are passed generation to generation. Makes some prime candidates for recruitment by other governments and other centers of power. Some are not restricted to wimmin. Includes children of both genders right up to elders, and the religious.
That region is not the Holy Land. It's the Land of Treachery. Am including a much wider sphere than Jerusalem. One large circle encompassing all the so-called holy sites of the 3Abrahamics in SWA (Middle East). To put it into perspective it's the US's current state of politics X 1M X the number of nations/sects/etc.
(tongue-in-cheek) A forty-foot wall should be erected around the entire region with a dome on top, then call it a hooman zoo and charge admission to enter.
Two peoples lived in the same land for thousands of years. I still don't comprehend why they can't decide to live in the same land now, even with wildly different religious traditions. There are many Arab Israelis even now, so it is possible. Without the extremism of both ultra-fundamentalist Jews and Muslims, chances are there could be ways to have one state encompassing both peoples. But they have to want to do it, and they would have to have stellar leadership to accomplish that.
Pre-7Oct there were signs of green shoots. Both Hamas and Bibi made sure to stamp them out.
If I may add without substracting your on point remark, the words ignorance and fear to hate.
All3 are contagions. When one infects a person it's highly likely so will the other two. That person is highly likely to spread one, two, or three to others.
You do recall that they were emerging from 400 years of slavery in an Arab country, Egypt, and that they had lived in their own land much much longer and were returning to it. Before that they were all semitics. All of them. And btw quite a few Egyptians joined the group claiming their freedom away from Egypt. History can be such a bummer when you don't know it or don't want to know it.
Great article, Lucian, your insight into much of the military/intelligence world is invaluable. Thanks for helping us understand this latest atrocity. However, this Israeli operation creates a major contradiction between what happened on October 7, 2023, which was explained as an intelligence failure, and this super secret and sophisticated pager etc., operation that Israel is pulling off right now. Mossad has an earned reputation for being very secretive and effective in its operational functions, and I, for one, was skeptical about the Hamas ‘surprise’ attack last fall. It had been planned for several years, we have learned. It didn’t make sense to me that Mossad wouldn’t have known about it, which would mean it was allowed to occur to give cover for Yahoo’s plans for a Gaza genocide. I mentioned this thought to an 80+ year-old, but still naive, Jewish friend of mine who insisted such ideas were the product of my overactive imagination. Well, not quite, especially when it concerns the ME, and especially an odious evil character like Yahoo. It does seem that the level of secrecy involved in this exploding pager operation had to have been huge because of it size and complexity. I suppose the same could be said of the Manhattan (atomic bomb) Project), which was kept secret for years, but those were perhaps more innocent times. I would think that Hezbollah’s intelligence capability would have been good enough to suss that out. Evidently not. Yahoo now seems bound and determined to go to war with Hezbollah/Lebanon despite being urged, obviously ineffectively, by us and many nations to not do so. He will do anything to stay in power and out of prison, not unlike *Rump. His other motive is to try to drag us into a land war, that no rational person wants, to do his fighting for him. Biden won’t do him that favor, IMHO. The Israeli military is saying they are prepared. What other horrors does that mean we are going to witness in the coming days before our election that Yahoo wants *Rump to win very badly.
This adds a very plausible level of complexity to Lucian's byzantine but more-than-plausible explanation. I'm not assuming that the Mossad is all-in for Bibi (nowhere close), and I'm also not assuming that the Mossad is monolithic: some parts of it may be more astute than others. Bibi has been playing games with Hamas and probably being played in return.
It is my hope that Biden will lower the boom on Yahoo after the election regardless of the outcome. Hopefully Harris wins, and she does not have a long standing relationship with Yahoo, although I think even Biden understands by now what an evil weasel Yahoo is. A major Israeli invasion of Lebanon before the election, and then Yahoo’s cry for help could put Biden in a bad place. Don’t put anything past him.
Which is exactly what the orange turd wants him to do. Lowering the boom is the hope of the MAGA party. They figure they will pick up a helluva lot of the Jewish vote if we finally cut Bibi and his thugs off. As it stands right now? The Arab vote is in play, and yes, the Democrats need them. So here we have the sword of Damocles swinging back and forth and less than 60 days to the election.
Also true...complex, complicated politics - mind blowing! However, as far as I see, Jewish people are anti-Bibi and would welcome some tough love from Biden.
Great article and detailed example on the importance of keeping secrets in the execution of military plans and in national security as a whole.
Now think of the stacks of classified national security documents in Trump's flea-bag hotels, the visits of Russian intelligence officials for "off the record" meetings in The Oval Office, Trump's "off-the-record" meeting with Putin in Helsinki, and Trump ramming through top-secret clearances for the likes of Jarred Kushner (who had already been rejected for clearance due to financial and other ties, including those with convicted felons like his father), all before he took $2 billion from the bone-saw wielding, 9/11 sponsoring Saudis!
Trump is a clear Russian asset who has had US assets overseas compromised and killed, to say nothing of the damage that he's done to the security of The USA and its allies. The Republican Party, who once claimed to be the party of national security and defense (among other lies) has enabled and assisted Trump in this betrayal from the outset. In a democracy with better prospects for long-term survival, this group of useful idiots and traitors would have been stopped dead in 2016.
And he CANNOT get away with it! It's treason, plain and simple.
And who is going to stop him? The Supreme Court is in his hip pocket. As long as that connection holds? He'll never be tried with anything at all. Who is going to stop him. Roberts made him invincible.
So far, he has...
Those pee pee tapes come to mind now, don't they?
Love the connection to our own christian hypocrites here at home. Also, none of our "secret services" can hold a silent candle to Mossad!
Do not mess with Mossad! All nations need to be thinking hard on this.
No all nations don't. Israel is well on its way to being a rogue nation. Sneak attacks on a sovereign nation may be cute in the beginning - until that nation's friends remember the pacts they had made with the attacked nation. There are thousands of innocent people who have been injured, thousands. All so the trump of the Middle East can foment a war to stay out of prison. Sound familiar?
In 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty by air and by sea. Somehow they just couldn't see the US colors, or chose not to. 10 killed, 90 wounded 22 missing. Israel's response? Yawn. We are the poor saps who bankroll their war machine. We are not their friends.
Israel is not "protecting" its borders, it's trying to start a regional war; Bibi is hoping it will embroil US politics to the point that his good felon buddy will be re-elected. For both of them, anything to stay out of prison.
I don’t trust Bibi for all the reasons you mention but Hezbollah has been attacking northern Israel so that the residents have been evacuated for almost a year. What should they do to protect their own citizens from people who want all Israelis ( and probably all Jews) dead? Accept the attacks because Israel should not exist and have been persecuting Palestinians since time immemorial? It’s complicated. Why don’t you you see Hezbollah and Hamas as rogue leaders of their countries?
I do take exception to having civilians living above terrorist infrastructure. To me that's really shitty and those civilians are put in grave danger thusly. It sucks.
That's an amazing conclusion to make. A foreign country commits an act of war on another country and you find that ok? Because of the on going conflict in Israel? Did I mention Israel? No. Did I, in anyway, mention admiration for Hamas? No. Was the attack on another sovereign nation an act of war carried out by wholly sanctioned terrorist agency of neighboring state? Were thousands of innocent people injured? Yes. Your point in no way acknowledges the civilians who were harmed. The logical conclusion you seem to be backing is that, even if we don't like the politics of Lebanon, we have the right to react violently in their internal affairs. In Israel's jubilantly doing this? They are no better than Hezbollah and Hamas.
However, Mossad is not necessarily doing Israel favors by escalating the war. I wonder how long people will feel it is a safe homeland with things escalating and more and more Muslim countries joining in support of Palestine and Lebanon. It is not bringing the hostages home, although it is fighting against a 2 state solution.
How the hell did they miss the swarm of death on October 7?
Amen. Continuing to celebrate Mossad after 7 Oct requires cultist-scale devotion.
No, they knew Hamas was coming. Netanyahu and other leaders refused to do anything when they were told. Kind of like Condi and GWB and Cheney not doing anything when they were told that Al Qaeda was planning to attack. Bush wanted a war and so did Bibi.
Correct!!
Who is celebrating though?
To me, your comments hardly sounded like criticism.
I'm just saying, look out everybody! This exploding device thing was a good decade or two in the making, there surely are sleepers and moles all over the place way, way deep. They are clearly organized and administering very advanced tech. It's quite a thing. So, en garde, here there and everywhere. It's not saber rattling, it's way more than that. It's not praise or condemnation but a notice that we all are in a new arena.
I do not believe our Christians lose their careers when their deviating from their stated sexual practices is revealed. Instead they just confess and ask for forgiveness and go on. Even priests get shuffled around. People who have had sex with children get away with it by their churches, and so on, unless they get prosecuted and go to prison. For example, the Mormon church gives people who have sex with children chances, and do not report them to the police. It is like these big clubs that hide their members deviations unless the press gets a hold of the story. Agreed about Mossad.
There aren't the words to convey how much I appreciate your insight, Lucian. Thank you... fantastic article.
3000 murderous devices passed on to persons unknown, destination unknown, nothing controlled, but blown up at the same time. Well, that is nothing but an unprecedented terrorist act. There will be lethal unique reprisals. Let us hope they don't happen in America.
The closest thing to this that we did in Vietnam was delayed fusing on bombs dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trails; bombs designed to kill trail repair teams and users minutes or hours after being dropped. Difference: we knew who we were attacking and where the bombs were.
The Israelis have lost their moral compass. They are behaving like beasts. All American support should be withdrawn until Israel agrees to a two state solution.
I have followed Israel's history for 70 years, and am sick of it. Their behavior now is the worst I have ever seen, which is saying a lot.
Israel has over the decades negotiated with and offered Palestinians - the PLO et. al - all kinds of ways to live together peacefully. And every time, the Palestinians have rejected those offers, elected terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to power, and continued to make war on Israel. And yet you and others prefer to blame Israel for this tragic situation.
“There is a surplus of agony in the Middle East. In a competition of pain there are no winners.”
— Jon Polin, father of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, later murdered; speaking at the Democratic National Convention, 2024
For decades I have heard such arguments. One simple thing I ask you to do is this:
look at a map of Israel in 1948 and then look at the size of Israel today...OK...and then tell us that Israel doesn't have enough land to give to the Palestinians.
Rich, have you looked at the map of current Arab countries? Tell me they don't have enough land to give to the Palestinians. Aside from Jordan, Arab countries have refused to allow in their Palestinian cousins. The Palestinians are a pawn Arab countries have until recently used to their country's benefit.
I recommend a fascinating interview w/ Gridi Grinstein, a negotiator w/ Israel/PLO and author of his 2023 book, (In)sights: Peacemaking in the Oslo Process.... The link is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PrKK8zv81k
Thank you for highlighting this interview. I tuned in to it on Monday night. Gidi Grinstein knows the complex history of the region and explains it well. A link to one of his articles was posted during the program as well:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-statehood-do-it-right/
Those Arab states have played the Palestinians since 1948. King Hussein kicked the PLO out of Jordan in the 70s.
Definitely yes and thank you for this. The facts are there, the people who say they want them or just want to have opinions without them, who want them at all, appear to be kind of reticent about dealing with them. The bandwagon effect is inherently ignorant.
Yes where are their helpful neighbors? Keeping pretty mum.
Sure, but WHICH Palestinians, and elected by who, under what circumstances, and making what agreements with Israel?
Can't ignore the context surrounding these land seizures and bargaining chips, which goes back many decades.
Centuries, actually.
Centuries
I was intentionally avoiding going back further than 1947, because where does it end? You could argue the massive number of invasions, including the Arab invasions conquering and seizing land in the name of Islam, have tainted the origins of many nations in the region, including making it problematic to deny Israel control over the entire ancient state of Israel - including Judea and Samaria. So where does it end?
Just enforcing UN resolution 1701 in Southern Lebanon / Northern Israel is already a huge problem!
It is not for us to decide which is the lesser evil; but let them have their civil war within their own state and, I'm sure, something awful will emerge, but that would be their decision/fault...just as happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan. To hell with them all.
How about the land they stole? That would be a good start.
LOL, both sides have conflicting claims as to who stole which dunams - be specific, and be sure to disambiguate your claims within the context of various wars.
Israel has erected security fences to discourage terrorist attacks, is that the kind of "stolen land" you mean? Or are we gonna go back all the war to the Arab invasions, which stole land all over the Middle East, North Africa, and invaded Spain? It took the Spanish hundreds of years to recover that land. The land titles in what is now Israel have all sorts of disputes left over from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Palestine Mandate, and the formation of what is now Israel, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Trying to blame all of the problems connected with "stolen land" on Israel is risible.
How about the Farhud, the violent expulsion of Jews from Baghdad in 1941 before Israel even existed?
https://archive.org/details/farhudrootsofara0000blac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud
I mean it’s one of the smallest countries in the Middle East and no one ask anything of Israel’s Arab neighbors. Why is that?
Puzzles me too.
Rich,
Ah, there was more than that going on, and yes, those secrets are still being kept.
I will say, as an old spook, an absolutely masterful operation and I'm sure they aren't done yet.
Interesting choice of words, "masterful."
Would you also consider the attacks of Dec 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 masterful? This isn't "masterful" unless you use that term because it's "our side." Cheering on an organization that foments murder and mayhem to distract from its own domestic terror isn't masterful, it's a diversion and worthy of condemnation.
Hear hear. I don't believe "masterful" is the correct way to describe what amounts to high-tech carpet bombing. Ask the families of the children who died if that term works for them.
It is a tragedy that Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, indeed "foments murder and mayhem to distract from its own domestic terror." And crap governance. Hamas didn't allow its citizens to shelter in Hamas' tunnels, but instead spread out its terrorist members in civilian areas, hospitals, schools, and such to make them targets of what they knew would be an Israeli response to the murderous attacks on Israel on October 7. Hamas figured lots of dead Palestinians would paint Israel is the villain and make the world forget about hostages held and murdered by Hamas. Indeed, Hamas is worthy of condemnation.
Unless you have the inside scoop, you know as much as the rest of us do. I was commenting on using the term "masterful" to describe a full blown act of terrorism. Give your ouji board a break, Hamas is not exemplary, but then neither is Bibi's Nazi mimicking style of governance. They are both to be condemned; but we are pouring billions into this explosive mess and what do we get for it? Derision and scorn from recipient. Sort of like dealing with juvenile delinquent teenager.
Have similar thoughts, Rich
State-sponsored terrorism is NOT a mil op.
MOSSAD is not the IDF any more than the CIA is the US Mil.
My observations (FWIW)
Not comfortable with the reported number of 3000 pagers. Not at all comfortable with the device having been outfitted with both an e-detonator and an explosive. Based that on what's publicly available in videos of achieving a detonation yet no explosion follows. The vids with sound are not consistent with an explosion. Again, my sample size of vids and pic are small but not one shows secondary damage or a quick flame thru the smoke which would happen if an explosive was detonated.
E-detonators on their own can cause damage and send a message of gotcha just as blasting cap can. The few pics of the pagers show them pretty much intact minus a chunk. Other reports include comm radios inc. walkie-talkies. Now they are large enough to include an explosive capable of killing within the blast zone. As far as other reports of electronics going poof or kaboom, haven't seen any pic of vids yet.
If the MOSSAD has control over an importer and/or exporter of electronics I sure wouldn't be watching the teevee in Beirut or googling explosives that fit into a pager on a PC-laptop or notebook. And kids toys that have electronic components as so many do now would be placed in the outside trash. I mention toys cuz if the pagers were for Hez-fighters/members how did children get a hold of one or more?
Again, agree this is way over any line in the civilized world. It's terrorism because the element of fear is front and center. It's terrorism because as you correctly point out it's indiscriminate by design. And nations react to terrorism (am not a fan of that word for many reasons) emphasis react. One reaction will be internal hunting down any and all persons they deem potential collaborators. They will be tortured just as the US tortured potential AQ folk, only worse because their families will be dragged in as well. Hezbollah likely to add Israeli civ targets to their target set and work w/others to infiltrate Israel to take their pound of flesh and achieve marty-dumb.
Just when Bibi needs to focus on a ceasefire he reverts back to his MO of let's kill a bunch of Arabs and light a torch under tens of millions of others. Closing w/the US made a tragic error by adding a militarized element to the CIA that first started by sheep-dipping members of the US Mil into CIA-led missions and fully under their authority. You touched upon one. The blurring of lines never ends well. Here is to Israel and the IDF not making that same mistake.
Like your comment!
Your take on the specifics of the devices makes me wonder what the point of this killing stunt was since they weren't, and never could be, 100% lethal. It seems like something some psychopathic child dreamt up, or something in a video game.
And to the old spook: John Brennan called it "remarkable", taking no other position.
Agree. Does come off as if a psychopath and sociopath had a game of who can come up with the wackiest idea on how to terrorize a population. Is counter to what intelligence services are chartered to do, nudge others into thinking and acting in a manner that benefits one's nation. Agree with Lucian this took years and years however, see this misuse/abuse of assets and resources to be counter-productive in the larger scheme of things. For all the time and money spent getting there, it's a very short-term result while triggering the law of unintended consequences.
It's one thing to jam or muck w/electronics in a society or nation, it; 's quite another to turn them into weapons that terrorize, injure, maim, or kill. Not surprised Brennan got a chubby from it. Heard/saw many similar takes from here at home and abroad. Not a one who has a North Star though. They all condemned it as madness. And that includes my beloved late wife's family of Sephardic Jews and my own seeds.
My initial thought was also psychological warfare...as in, we can do this anytime, anywhere with anything. Listening to NPR this morning there was a funeral service for people killed with the pagers that was temporarily halted because of the explosion of a walkie-talkie.
I shiver at the thought of something like that happening in the United States.
Agree.
Still hearing far too many former CIA and mil officers applauding the tactic of weaponizing devices that (a) are not exclusive to Hezbollah fighters and leadership (b) devices that are routinely carried while amongst the civ population, in public places, and their family homes.
Bibi has no shame and no honor.
For sure.
I find this Mossad plot and Bibi morally reprehensible. Agree with your articulate statement!
Agreed. Golda Meir and Moshe Dyan are spinning in their graves!
No, they wouldn't be. The Mossad is nothing more than a government sanctioned cadre of hired assassins. Meir and Dyan knew full well what they did and didn't care. It's been like that since the formation of Israel. Imagine, form a country and a department of assassins. Not quite like 1776.
Wow. Nothing else, just wow.
Paragraph of the day, possibly of the month:
“There is sometimes a high price to pay for holding extreme religious beliefs, and I think it’s highly probable that Hezbollah is paying that price right now in Lebanon for having allowed adherence to those beliefs to have led them down a path strewn with rose-pedals and lacy lingerie straight into the arms of Mossad.”
Truly. Truly.
👍👍👍👍
The culture that treats women like garbage is the most susceptible to the guaranteed success of so called "Honey Traps."
Well Lucian, I'm sure there are more than me waiting for your follow ups on this. I have been wondering since the information came out after the Oct. 7 attack that IDF and intelligence had intercepted the Hamas plan to do exactly as they did at the same point in the electronically monitored defence fencing at least a year prior. Since Hamas was so important to Neddy the Yahoo to keep up his saber rattling to stay out of jail, how could such a sophisticated intelligene service not prevail and allow that to happen?
Today's piece is extremely educational. I immediately wonder about the mental health and ultimate fate of the young women who are presumed to be recruited to seduce Muslim members of terrorist organizations in order to infiltrate them. It immediately makes me think of The Little Drummer Girl, by John le Carré. What stayed with me about that book was that it's centered on the emotional life of the fictional actress, Charlie, who acts as a double agent in a plot to locate a Palestinian terrorist bomber, who is then killed. While under deep cover, she gains some sympathy for the Palestinians, and has a mental breakdown brought on by the contradictions in her life.
Gonna to be blunt. As a general rule sex workers are NOT volunteers whether on the street or anywhere else. Leverage and threats are commonplace. A much smaller segment are patriots for lack of a better word.
In that region (SWA) people never forget wrongs. They are passed generation to generation. Makes some prime candidates for recruitment by other governments and other centers of power. Some are not restricted to wimmin. Includes children of both genders right up to elders, and the religious.
That region is not the Holy Land. It's the Land of Treachery. Am including a much wider sphere than Jerusalem. One large circle encompassing all the so-called holy sites of the 3Abrahamics in SWA (Middle East). To put it into perspective it's the US's current state of politics X 1M X the number of nations/sects/etc.
(tongue-in-cheek) A forty-foot wall should be erected around the entire region with a dome on top, then call it a hooman zoo and charge admission to enter.
3000 years of hate.
3000 years of tribal competition, invading conquerors, and warfare.
Two peoples lived in the same land for thousands of years. I still don't comprehend why they can't decide to live in the same land now, even with wildly different religious traditions. There are many Arab Israelis even now, so it is possible. Without the extremism of both ultra-fundamentalist Jews and Muslims, chances are there could be ways to have one state encompassing both peoples. But they have to want to do it, and they would have to have stellar leadership to accomplish that.
Actually, going back to the early 1900s and Lawrence of Arabia would be good enough. The British just love to meddle.
Pre-7Oct there were signs of green shoots. Both Hamas and Bibi made sure to stamp them out.
If I may add without substracting your on point remark, the words ignorance and fear to hate.
All3 are contagions. When one infects a person it's highly likely so will the other two. That person is highly likely to spread one, two, or three to others.
No doubt. It goes back to the Israelites entering the land of the ancient descendants of the modern Arabs. And we Irish thought we held grudges!
Can only wish them the best and to stay prepared for the worst (including themselves).
You do recall that they were emerging from 400 years of slavery in an Arab country, Egypt, and that they had lived in their own land much much longer and were returning to it. Before that they were all semitics. All of them. And btw quite a few Egyptians joined the group claiming their freedom away from Egypt. History can be such a bummer when you don't know it or don't want to know it.
Call in a wall expert, how about Donald J. Trump?
lol.
Best be higher and slipperier than the wall in World War Z
Nothing about this raging tragedy is funny.
Wow Lucian 👏
So what does the whole scheme rest on? Women. It always finally rests on the women.
Put Mom in charge, we may be smart enough to do that here Nov 5!
Bra-fucking vo!!!
Good right on article
In the 70's I once met and served Moshe Dayan his dinner when he was staying at the Biltmore Hotel in Arizona
That was supposed to be, Gabriel Allon strikes again!
A wow from me, too.
Great article, Lucian, your insight into much of the military/intelligence world is invaluable. Thanks for helping us understand this latest atrocity. However, this Israeli operation creates a major contradiction between what happened on October 7, 2023, which was explained as an intelligence failure, and this super secret and sophisticated pager etc., operation that Israel is pulling off right now. Mossad has an earned reputation for being very secretive and effective in its operational functions, and I, for one, was skeptical about the Hamas ‘surprise’ attack last fall. It had been planned for several years, we have learned. It didn’t make sense to me that Mossad wouldn’t have known about it, which would mean it was allowed to occur to give cover for Yahoo’s plans for a Gaza genocide. I mentioned this thought to an 80+ year-old, but still naive, Jewish friend of mine who insisted such ideas were the product of my overactive imagination. Well, not quite, especially when it concerns the ME, and especially an odious evil character like Yahoo. It does seem that the level of secrecy involved in this exploding pager operation had to have been huge because of it size and complexity. I suppose the same could be said of the Manhattan (atomic bomb) Project), which was kept secret for years, but those were perhaps more innocent times. I would think that Hezbollah’s intelligence capability would have been good enough to suss that out. Evidently not. Yahoo now seems bound and determined to go to war with Hezbollah/Lebanon despite being urged, obviously ineffectively, by us and many nations to not do so. He will do anything to stay in power and out of prison, not unlike *Rump. His other motive is to try to drag us into a land war, that no rational person wants, to do his fighting for him. Biden won’t do him that favor, IMHO. The Israeli military is saying they are prepared. What other horrors does that mean we are going to witness in the coming days before our election that Yahoo wants *Rump to win very badly.
This adds a very plausible level of complexity to Lucian's byzantine but more-than-plausible explanation. I'm not assuming that the Mossad is all-in for Bibi (nowhere close), and I'm also not assuming that the Mossad is monolithic: some parts of it may be more astute than others. Bibi has been playing games with Hamas and probably being played in return.
Biden needs to lower the boom on 'Yahoo'. we have the leverage so USE IT, goddamit!
This pager thing is terrorism, pure and simple!
It is my hope that Biden will lower the boom on Yahoo after the election regardless of the outcome. Hopefully Harris wins, and she does not have a long standing relationship with Yahoo, although I think even Biden understands by now what an evil weasel Yahoo is. A major Israeli invasion of Lebanon before the election, and then Yahoo’s cry for help could put Biden in a bad place. Don’t put anything past him.
Which is exactly what the orange turd wants him to do. Lowering the boom is the hope of the MAGA party. They figure they will pick up a helluva lot of the Jewish vote if we finally cut Bibi and his thugs off. As it stands right now? The Arab vote is in play, and yes, the Democrats need them. So here we have the sword of Damocles swinging back and forth and less than 60 days to the election.
Also true...complex, complicated politics - mind blowing! However, as far as I see, Jewish people are anti-Bibi and would welcome some tough love from Biden.