Brendan O’Neill
Spiked, Sept. 18, 2024
“The list of things that become ‘crimes’ when Israel does them grows longer every day.”
Getting your balls blown off by a primed pager has got to be the most ‘f**k around, find out’ thing that has ever happened. It took place in Lebanon yesterday. To the approval of both supporters of Israel and meme-makers everywhere, thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah operatives suddenly exploded. The footage coming out of Lebanon is extraordinary. A man’s trouser pocket erupting in a supermarket, a man writhing in agony in the middle of the road after his trusted comms device turned on him. The battle of the pagers will surely be recorded as one of the most unusual and audacious acts in the entire history of human warfare.
All eyes are on Israel, naturally. Experts suspect Mossad intercepted a massive stash of pagers destined for Hezbollah militants and planted explosive material in the batteries. Then they sent a signal, from hundreds of miles away, that caused the batteries to overheat and eventually to blow up. The planning required for such a spectacular op blows the mind – no pun intended. I know Israelophobia is the default position of the influential classes, but surely even they will admit this was an ingenious way for the Jewish State to take out the adherents to a self-styled ‘army of god’ that has sworn itself to excising the ‘cancerous growth’ of Zionism from the Middle East. (They mean Jews.)
Much remains unclear about the operation. Israel has not claimed responsibility. It is reported that 12 people were killed. Tragically, two of them were children. The others included Hezbollah fighters. Around 3,000 were injured, including Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani. Of course, the West’s leftists are too busy slamming evil Israel to ask why an Iranian official was in such close proximity to a Hezbollah pager. But then, we all know why. Yet for all the questions that still hang over this techno-assault on medieval militants, some observers seem unshakeably certain about one thing: it was terrorism. It was a war crime. It was yet more proof of what a uniquely nasty nation Israel is.
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