Hundreds Wounded in Pager Sabotage
A massive Israeli operation. To what end?
AP (“Hezbollah is hit by a wave of exploding pagers that killed at least 9 people and injured thousands“):
Pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded near-simultaneously Tuesday in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least nine people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding several thousand, officials said. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated remote attack.
An American official said Israel briefed the United States on Tuesday after the conclusion of the operation, in which small amounts of explosive secreted in the pagers were detonated. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.
The Israeli military declined to comment.
Among those wounded was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. The mysterious explosions came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.
The pagers that blew up were apparently acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members in February to stop using cellphones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence. A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press the pagers were a new brand, but declined to say how long they had been in use.
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo said Wednesday that it authorized its brand on the AR-924 pagers used by the Hezbollah militant group, but the devices were produced and sold by a company called BAC.
At about 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, as people shopped for groceries, sat in cafes or drove cars and motorcycles in the afternoon traffic, the pagers in their hands or pockets started heating up and then exploding — leaving blood-splattered scenes and panicking bystanders.
It appeared that many of those hit were members of Hezbollah, but it was not immediately clear if non-Hezbollah members also carried any of the exploding pagers.
The blasts were mainly in areas where the group has a strong presence, particularly a southern Beirut suburb and in the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, as well as in Damascus, according to Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official. The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
[…]
Experts said the pager explosions pointed to a long-planned operation, possibly carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the devices with explosives before they were delivered to Lebanon.
Whatever the means, it targeted an extraordinary breadth of people with hundreds of small explosions — wherever the pager carrier happened to be — that left some maimed.
One online video showed a man picking through produce at a grocery store when the bag he was carrying at his hip explodes, sending him sprawling to the ground and bystanders running.
At overwhelmed hospitals, wounded were rushed in on stretchers, some with missing hands, faces partly blown away or gaping holes at their hips and legs, according to AP photographers. On a main road in central Beirut, a car door was splattered with blood and the windshield cracked.
Lebanon Health Minister Firas Abiad told Qatar’s Al Jazeera network at least nine people were killed, including an 8-year-old girl, and some 2,750 were wounded — 200 of them critically — by the explosions. Most had injuries in the face, hand, or around the abdomen.
It appeared eight of the dead belonged to Hezbollah. The group issued a statement confirming at least two members were killed in the pager bombings. One of them was the son of a Hezbollah member in Parliament, according to the Hezbollah official who spoke anonymously. The group later issued announcements that six other members were killed Tuesday, though it did not specify how.
WSJ (“Hezbollah Pagers Explode in Apparent Attack Across Lebanon“):
Pagers carried by thousands of Hezbollah operatives exploded at about the same time Tuesday afternoon in what appeared to be an unprecedented attack that authorities said injured almost 2,800 and killed nine across Lebanon.
[…]
Iranian state television said the country’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured by his pager but was conscious and not in danger. Iran is the main supporter of Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that has grown into one of the world’s best-armed nonstate militias.
The apparent attack comes amid growing concerns that tensions along the Lebanese border are in danger of escalating, as the daily exchange of cross-border fire grows in intensity and efforts to strike a deal to pause the fighting in Gaza fail to bear fruit.
Israel’s government is under increasing pressure to return tens of thousands of evacuees to their homes in the north by silencing Hezbollah’s rockets and drones. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that dimming prospects for diplomacy were leaving military action as the only alternative.
[…]
Bassem Badran, who went to college in Illinois and now works in education in Beirut, waited outside the American University Hospital emergency room, where one of his friends was in critical condition and two others were being treated for lesser wounds. The friend with the worst injuries had been shopping in a supermarket when his pager exploded, blowing off his hand.
Badran said many of those who carry pagers aren’t militants in the traditional sense but rather working professionals who you may not even know are Hezbollah members. “But when there is a situation they believe in defending their village and their country,” he said.
Randa Slim, director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., said the attack against Hezbollah operatives is historic in its scope and manner, one that took significant planning and preparation.
“It sends a significant message to Hezbollah leadership that, ‘We can get you anywhere,’” said Slim. “And it very much affects morale.”
“The war on the border is no longer on the border—with this attack it has expanded into their homes and shopping places around Lebanon,” Slim said.
NYT (“Israel’s Pager Attack Has No Clear Strategic Goal, Analysts Say“):
Israel’s attack on pagers belonging to Hezbollah on Tuesday was a tactical success that had no clear strategic impact, analysts say.
While it embarrassed Hezbollah and appeared to incapacitate many of its members, the attack has not so far altered the military balance along the Israel-Lebanon border, where more than 100,000 civilians on either side have been displaced by a low-intensity battle. Hezbollah and the Israeli military remained locked in the same pattern, exchanging missiles and artillery fire on Wednesday at a tempo in keeping with the daily skirmishes fought between the sides since October.
Although Tuesday’s attack was an eye-catching demonstration of Israel’s technological prowess, Israel has not initially sought to capitalize on the confusion it sowed by initiating a decisive blow against Hezbollah and invading Lebanon.
And if the attack impressed many Israelis, some of whom had criticized their government for failing to stop Hezbollah’s strikes, their core frustration remains: Hezbollah is still entrenched on Israel’s northern border, preventing tens of thousands of residents of northern Israel from returning home.
“This is an amazing tactical event,” said Miri Eisin, a fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, an Israel-based research organization.
“But not a single Hezbollah fighter is going to move because of this,” said Ms. Eisin, a former senior intelligence officer. “Having amazing capabilities does not make a strategy.”
Israelis are divided about whether the attack was born from short-term opportunism or long-term forethought. Some believe that Israeli commanders feared that their Hezbollah counterparts had recently discovered Israel’s ability to sabotage the pagers, prompting Israeli commanders to immediately blow them up or risk losing the capability forever.
Others say that Israel had a specific strategic intent. Israel may have hoped that the attack’s brazenness and sophistication would ultimately make Hezbollah more amenable to a cease-fire in the coming weeks, if not immediately.
“The goal of the operation, if Israel was behind it as Hezbollah claims, may have been to show Hezbollah that it will pay a very high price if it continues its attacks on Israel instead of reaching an agreement,” said Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s military intelligence directorate.
Time will tell whether this was mostly psychological warfare or had a larger strategic purpose. Tactically, the operation was indeed brilliant. I gather that Israeli intelligence convinced Hezbollah that their cell phones were compromised, prompting them to switch to pagers, and then managed to sabotage the pagers. It certainly highlights the difference in operational sophistication.
Once again, though, it appears that minimizing collateral damage was not a high priority. Why set these off in the middle of the afternoon, when the militants would have been most likely have been out and about? The ratio of nine Hezbollah dead to 2750 unspecified folks injured, if accurate, is problematic—especially since there does not appear to have been a high-value target.
UPDATE: Eliot Cohen weighs in, calling the attack “Israel’s Strategic Win.” After a long build-up, he argues:
Set aside the thousands of Hezbollah operatives disabled or killed by these explosions and consider the psychological effect. Hezbollah members will now be unlikely to trust any form of electronics: car keys, cellphones, computers, television sets. Myth and legend, no doubt reinforced by an information-warfare campaign, will magnify Israel’s success in getting inside black boxes no matter how big or how small. An army skittish about any kind of electronics is one that is paralyzed—an individual leader, like Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, can communicate without a phone, but an entire organization cannot.
The Iranians, already reeling from the assassination of the political head of Hamas in a Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse on the day of the inauguration of the new president, now have much to wonder about as well. How, they must ask themselves, did the Israelis penetrate the supply chain? How did they get access to the pagers? How did they know that this batch was going to Hezbollah? How did they manage to foil whatever security precautions had been taken?
From a failure so large, witch hunts will follow—no doubt fed, again, by a solid information-warfare campaign. Organizations looking for spies and saboteurs, particularly after such a disaster, are unlikely to be forgiving or measured, and so a spiral of accusations, torture, and executions will likely ensue. War is an affair of the mind as much as anything else. By showing its extraordinary reach, Israel will breed internal fear and suspicion that can be more paralyzing than fear of an enemy.
Viewed as a psychological operation rather than a kinetic strike, it makes more strategic sense. Especially if, as Cohen believes, the Israeli leadership and people see a full-on war with Hezbollah in the short term as not only inevitable but necessary.
Because a couple of grams of explosive will only injure the target if he’s wearing the pager. At night, the pagers would have been taken off and would have exploded harmlessly
nine Hezbollah dead to 2750 Hezbollah associates injured – there, fixed it for you. Why would anybody who is not involved with Hezbollah wear a pager Hezbollah distributed?
It’s remarkable how few people died when pagers exploded in their pockets: less than 1%. A couple of grams of explosive isn’t that effective apparently
@Bubba HoTep: The pagers were exploding as the users were in public places, including open-air markets. The overwhelming number of injured were almost certainly innocent bystanders.
@James Joyner:
Given the tiny amount of explosives involved, this is almost certainly wrong. Those injured were primarily those holding or carrying the pagers.
Check out the video here at 20 seconds or so to see how very, very small these “explosions” were. The guys standing literally inches away were unharmed. Frankly, I’m surprised anyone died. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEbdZmcIOsI
On a separate note, I’m not exactly surprised but it is telling that there is such little reaction to the fact that the Iranian Ambassador was carrying a Hezbollah pager. At a minimum, you would think that would be delegated to a military attaché, not the Ambassador, for deniability.
@James Joyner:
Bystander injuries?
Possible but likely to be low.
The explosive charges will have been small, hence the very high survival rate.
As to purpose, if there was a specific objective, most likely a “spoiling attack”, as Hezbollah has been widely expected to do something major in response to multiple recent Israeli strikes on high level Hezbollah/Iranian targets.
Re: purpose. There are rumors that some Hezbollah people started to have suspicions about the pagers, so the Israelis set the bombs off before the pagers were discarded
I’m not getting the logic behind Israel’s action. They’re still fighting Hamas coming up to the first year anniversary of the attack so why take a poke at another terrorist group? What’s the long- or medium-range strategy here? Is there one?
@Not the IT Dept.: They are already in an active conflict with Hezbollah in the north and have been for months and months. Much of the population in the north hasn’t been able to be in their homes safely due to rocket attacks.
@SKI!:
So there’s no long- or medium-term strategy. Just keep doing what they’re already doing regarding Hamas or Hezbollah – fighting without winning. And Hezbollah will retaliate somehow, even if only for display, and we’ll be called on to show our support for Israel by providing even more weapons and financial aid so they can defeat – somebody, somehow, someday.
I think this might be the classic definition of a vicious circle without an end in sight.
I think that the Israelis are trying to follow the bin Laden philosophy. “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they are naturally attracted to the strong horse.” Hezbollah has been shown to be a poor protector of its adherents making them vulnerable to attacks. I have no idea whether this will be successful, but Hezbollah has been portraying itself as a force that has stood up to Israel and fought the IDF to a stand still unlike Fatah, Hamas, and others who have a record of defeats. These attacks undermine Hezbollah’s claims.
1) If an attack this targeted, and this non-lethal, is somehow off-limits for Israel, just what sorts of tactics are they allowed?
2) @Not the IT Dept.:
As I’ve been saying for the last year, with very little support. We have here a chronic condition. It’s not the clap which we can cure with a shot, it’s flu which we have to fight all over again every year. Can kicking.
3) @Slugger:
Good analysis. I still wonder if this might be a spoiling attack to prevent a Hezbollah action, or an attack to prepare for a more major incursion. But in the meantime a bunch of Hezbollah guys walking around with one hand, is not going to help recruitment. It lacks the heroic martyrdom of a cruise missile. It’s too funny for that.
@Not the IT Dept.: I didn’t say anything about strategy. I was correcting a factual misunderstanding you had. Nothing more.
I’m not connected inside the Mossad or IDF leadership and am not inclined to wild internet speculation on what they must be thinking. The BBC does have some reporting on what the plan was and why it was less impactful than intended.
Just Security has an article about the international law questions raised by this attack. I would have thought that this action was OK, given that these were being distributed to fighters (although they were also apparently distributed to medics, who are not supposed to be targeted), but I’ll note the following:
Had this been done as was originally planned, as the beginning of an attack on Hezbollah, I could see this as being justified. As it was, however, this seems like Israel just decided to YOLO things, which seems much less defensible. I’m always told that Israel is very serious about its international legal obligations, as is the US military; I’d be interested in seeing the legal analysis of this action.
@SKI!:
So the BBC take is that Israel was going to launch a major follow-up attack, which was my guess. But because they didn’t launch an invasion, which would be a major escalation, the region is somehow closer to a major escalation. Ooookay.
Granted the safe bet in ME politics is to expect the worst. Still, I am not seeing any dots being connected here.
@Not the IT Dept.:
Prolong the war until Bibi dies of natural causes.
Or until he dies of other causes.
@Kathy: I can guarantee you that no one in Israel, including Bibi and the other right-wing assholes in his government, want to prolong the war with Hezbollah in the north.
There are 60,000 Israelis who haven’t been able to return to their homes in a year due to constant rocket attacks. That would be the equivalent of about 2 Million US citizens.
It would be like if the maple syrup terrorists in Canada were repeatedly sending rockets over the border and 90+% of the populations of Vermont and New Hampshire were evacuated – and the situation had lasted for almost a year.
I despise Bibi but the issues Israel is facing aren’t made up or imaginary. Hezbollah is funded by Iran and is a real and tangible threat that is coming from a neighboring state that Israel desperately doesn’t want to invade again.
One of the potential goals of this attack, which concords with doing it at 3:30 in the afternoon, is the outing of Hezbollah leadership. It provides opportunity to ID them as well, though I don’t wonder that IDF already has ID’ed many. But maybe not. Adding to the paranoia is the notion that none of them are safe from Israeli assassination attempts.
So, the business ethics and lax QC of a reseller were involved. Kinda figured that would be the ‘how’ explanation for distributing the papers.
@Michael Reynolds:
Israel has an ongoing fight on their hands and they have no choice. Their long term objective is the retaking of biblical Judea and Samaria and any kind of viable peace talks would necessitate giving that up, and Israel has demonstrated for three decades and more that this is their most important objective, so they are not giving it up. But your use of “We” is incorrect. We can, and should, distance ourselves from Israel, and put them into the category of “Toxic Middle Eastern Countries” and treat them accordingly. We should disentangle ourselves from their endless bloody engagements with their enemies, as they have no plans or intention to do anything other than continue down the destructive path they are on now.
@Bubba HoTep:
It was reported that an 8-year girl was killed. Are you saying that an 8-year old girl is Hezbollah and thus deserved to be killed?! What the fuck is wrong with you? Ugh. Israeli apologists are among the worst people in the world.
@MarkedMan:
“But your use of “We” is incorrect. We can, and should, distance ourselves from Israel, and put them into the category of “Toxic Middle Eastern Countries” and treat them accordingly. We should disentangle ourselves from their endless bloody engagements with their enemies, as they have no plans or intention to do anything other than continue down the destructive path they are on now.”
Exactly. What incentive does Israel have for coming up with different and possibly better strategies as long as they believe we’ll back them no matter what?
I can’t help but wonder how we’d be reacting if hundreds of remotely detonated bombs were going off in the West Bank because Iran was targeting people in illegal settlements there.
@Ha Nguyen: Oh, I don’t know. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian apologists give them a run for the money.
@Jay L Gischer: I’m not sure I understand how this would help with outing Hezbollah leadership. If you assume that only the leadership had pagers, which I don’t think is a safe assumption, I guess you’d be able to narrow it down to ~3000 people or so, but is that helpful?
“Why set these off in the middle of the afternoon, when the militants would have been most likely have been out and about?”
First, its hard to communicate with smoke signals. So causing concern with cell phones, pagers and now walkie talkies is very strategic.
Second, surely people know who the Hezbo’s are. If you know that person may blow up next to you, you have a tendency to not collaborate. And if you don’t believe the locals collaborate you are so naive. Very strategic.
Ultimately, this was a shot across the bow. Of course, we could have had a tersely worded memo from Joe, or a BS red line from BO. That certainly has been effective………..
@Not the IT Dept.: “I’m not getting the logic behind Israel’s action. They’re still fighting Hamas coming up to the first year anniversary of the attack so why take a poke at another terrorist group? What’s the long- or medium-range strategy here? Is there one?”
Sure. It’s about keeping Netanyahu and the extreme right-wing ultra-Orthodox in power.
@MarkedMan:
This isn’t accurate. That is the goal of a segment of Israel (the right wing) but the goal of the majority of Israelis is living in peace and security.
@wr:
First “extreme right-wing” and “ultra-Orthodox” are two separate groups in Israel. That is why there is/was hope that the issue of drafting Haredim into the Army could splinter the government and force new elections.
Second, it is kind of amazing how so many folks are absolutely sure they know exactly why something is happening in a state where (1) they don’t speak/read/understand the language and (2) routinely post things indicating that they don’t have depth of knowledge about the country or region. smdh
@Jack: At least at the moment, this appears to have been a war crime. Had this been what it was apparently intended to be, which was part of a larger attack on Hezbollah, it probably would have been OK.
Instead, it appears to have been a panicked response that inflicted mass casualties for no real reason.
@Michael Reynolds:
I think you just hit the nail on the head. Each comment.
@Kevin:
You attempt to avoid war at all costs. But once you cross that threshold shit happens. Your enemy will not play by the rules, or fairly. So you do what is necessary. You play to win.
Your childlike observation is, however, noted.
@Ha Nguyen:
An unfortunate outcome. I read it as a 10 yr old daughter of a Hezbollah leader who was standing next to her father when the pager went off. Eight or 10 yr olds are at an unfortunate height to be near murderous terrorists, even if it is their father. Perhaps some social distancing is in order for Hezbollah fighters.
And no, all video of the explosions show at worst the blast range was 2 feet. The blast in the market was attenuated for others by his satchel and lots of dollar bills that were blown out. But the real damage was when it was on a belt or being held in a clasped hand. The pagers didn’t go off randomly, they were called.
@SKI!:
It is the goal of the people who have had control of the Israeli government since the assassination of Rabin. That’s what matters.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the majority of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians want to live in peace, and I’m sure the majority of Lebanese want Hezbollah out of their country. Unfortunately for peace, they have no say in the matter.
@SKI!:
Speaking for myself, I don’t pretend to know the “why”. But the objective evidence that Israel is gradually taking over the West Bank without giving the residents citizenship or any political power is irrefutable. And while their actions in Gaza aren’t as cut and dried, the Occam’s razor explanation is that they are playing the long-takeover game there too.
@MarkedMan: But apparently only Israel has agency…
@Kevin: I think it’s very helpful. Let’s assume that the Mossad has the resources to follow up with tracking them, they have just unwound the second tier of leadership, maybe down to the third tier. This is a wonderful target for intel-gathering in the cyber age. If you can collect data on all of these, when something is up, you will see it in your data, which you are using computer resources to comb through.
@SKI!: Where did I say that? Israel has agency. Hamas has agency. Iran has agency. Hezbollah has agency. All of them are using their agency in ways incompatible with peace.
@Ha Nguyen:
The deaths of children are always a sad thing.
But so is warfare in general.
If, for example, the SOE in WW2 had had an opportunity to kill, incapacitate, and damage the communications, of a large fraction of the leadership of Germany, at the cost of several dead children, I suspect it’s highly likely they would have done so.
After all, the Allies were perfectly prepared to carry out bombing of the territory of a nominal Ally (France) at the cost of some 50,000 dead citizens of France, of whom a predictable percentage will have been young children.
Because they considered it to be justified.
If I saw that Jack was agreeing with me, I’d need to rethink my position. Just sayin’…
Of course, it could simply be a “even a blind hog can find a truffle” moment, but…
ETA: “… the goal of the majority of Israelis is living in peace and security.” If that is the case, they need to seriously rethink who they are electing to office. They don’t have an Electoral College to blame the results on.
Today, more explosions of handheld devices (walkie talkies) in Lebanon, almost exactly 24 hours later.
@becca:
Nine people killed, over 300 injured by exploding walkie–talkies.
“Set aside the thousands of Hezbollah operatives disabled or killed by these explosions and consider the psychological effect. Hezbollah members will now be unlikely to trust any form of electronics: car keys, cellphones, computers, television sets.”
Sure… if only Hezbollah members were targetted and struck. But they weren’t. Other folks were harmed. Do we want every kid to be afraid to ask for Mom or Dad’s phone because they’re worried it’s going to explode and kill them?
@MarkedMan:
Over the next decade or so – and it’s already begun – we will be disentangling ourselves from the larger ME for the simple reason that we no longer need Saudi oil and we need our ships in the Pacific not the Gulf or the Med. Which means that the KSA needs someone to defend them from Iran. Who’s that going to be? The Turks could step up but the last thing Saudis want is the return of a competing Islamic power. Ditto Egypt.
So my thesis has been that the KSA’s new strategic partner is (drumroll) Israel. The lack of response from ‘the Arab street’ to Gaza suggests to me that Sunni Arabs are mostly over their spontaneous (government instigated) anti-Israeli hate, and indifferent at best to the Palestinians. People in the region are less naive (by a lot) than western liberals, and know full well who the real enemy is.
At the same time the Houthis (Iran proxies) are fucking with Egypt’s Suez Canal income. If the US is edging away, who’s gonna kill Houthis for Egypt? The Saudis are incapable – Israel is not.
Bottom line is that Israel is making new friends, and we’re seeing a major strategic realignment which will involve a KSA/Egypt/Israel alliance. Israel will be less and less reliant on US grants, and more than capable of buying the weapons they need on the open market. Israel is also the 9th largest arms exporter, makes some very advanced toys.
But is this an improvement for the US? Might save us some money, and we can stop wasting perfectly good aircraft carriers in the region. Bad for China = good for us. Is it better for the Palestinians? Nope, same old same old, for them. Gaza will be a refugee camp surrounded by enemies (Israel and Egypt) and the WB will be effectively an Indian reservation.
If there’s a winner in this mess it’s clearly Israel.
@Michael Reynolds:
One other small point. If this is the new strategic alignment then the Saudis et al are certainly not going to be putting money into rebuilding Gaza only to have them attack Israel again. Iran doesn’t have the kind of money Gaza would need to rebuild. Egypt certainly doesn’t. EU money would come with all kinds of strings, and they don’t want to be part of the next October 7th. So I think any cash flowing into Gaza for rebuilding is going to have to come through Israel. Hamas have fucked themselves good and proper.
If they knew that Hezbollah had switched to pagers to communicate and they knew which ones it seems to me they just lost a lot of potential intelligence. Find it hard to believe it’s impossible to spy on pager communications. On the other hand I am sure that killing injuring some people and killing a few people, including kids, will make Hezbollah much less likely to want to fight. Israel has been doing this for years and i am sure it will work this time.
Steve
@Michael Reynolds:
This attack also demonstrates to the sheikhs the skill and determination of the Israelis.
From the pov of the princelings, this makes them all the more valuable as allies.
However, I suspect you may underestimate the underlying resentment of the Arab general population regarding Israel.
Imo, it would be a foolish Israeli leadership that bet too heavily on the long-term existence of the rule of the al-Saud and the emiratis.
(Why hello there, Mr Netanyahu!)
Or the rule eternal of the pasdararn and the mullahs in Tehran, for that matter.
Short term it works; mid to long term, not so much.
Also, I suspect you may me overestimating how quickly Gulf oil/gas will cease to be a major global strategic/economic asset, and therefore of major importance to US policy.
Rather unfortunately.
(They day the al-Saud are relegating to exporting sand will not be much cause for my sorrow, frankly.)
Also, in the medium term there are other players waiting to step onto the stage.
Egypt is a significant military factor. As, obviously is Turkey.
And the Pakistan/Saudi alliance is often overlooked, for reasons that escape me.
While Europe, imo, cannot indefinitely remain a hand-wringing onlooker regarding ME/NA whose disorders and human catastrophes both prompt and enable massive flows of refugees which are becoming politically intolerable in Europe.
For all these reasons, Israel would be best advised to seek a path that combines deterring or striking active enemies, with calculated resolution of Palestinian Arab grievances re the West Bank.
The problem is, to put it mildly, making that work in the context of both Israeli and Palestinian politics.
But it’s not a problem that can be just waved aside, either in Jerusalem or in Washington.
@steve:
It’s down to the nature of how pagers communicate; they don’t geolocate.
Probably supplemented by the use of code pads, as with phone texts.
They are less secure in some respects than phones, which can use encrypted methods, which pagers cannot. Though use of encryption is itself a indicator.
(But phones always tempt to use as phones)
But, the phones could, once ID’d, be traced.
It’s not likely to affect Hezbollahs motivation one way or another.
It may affect their efficiency, for a time.
It also may tend to undermine Hezbollah’s projection within Lebanon as being “untouchable”, and set above even the govt. of Lebanon itself.
And to provoke a “traitor hunt” within Hezbollah and Pasdaran/Quds Force.
@MarkedMan: Yet your previous comments imply and/or state that it is Israel’s choice for war and rejecting peace when the reality is that for most of the past 75 years, Israel has always accepted peace when actually offered.
Yes, Bibi and the current government are impediments to peace but their removal wouldn’t lead to peace as there is no partner on the other side willing to accept Israel’s existence and live in peace. Despite this reality, and the fact that over 10% of all Israelis are in the streets protesting that intransigent government, you and others in this thread repeatedly are blaming Israel for the situation as if any other government on earth would tolerate ongoing shelling for going on a year.
JohnSF- So at best they have achieved a temporary loss of efficiency vs having the ability to monitor communications longer term. Meh.
Steve
Incidentally, I wonder if there’s a market opportunity opening up in the Middle East for second hand fax machines?
Asking for a friend.
@SKI!:
I don’t think they give a damn about peace, so long as they personally have security. So long as what happens in Gaza stays in Gaza, it’s not likely a priority.
Much like Americans, as a rule of thumb. I’d point to George W Bush and the flypaper theory, but there are lots of other examples.
Not having your people kill your neighbors is pretty low on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
1. If there were elections today, Bibi would be out. 10% of the country are actively protesting his government. This is why Bibi is refusing to call for new elections despite public outcry.
2. They may not have the electoral college but they don’t have perfectly proportional representation, and they don’t have binary choices in parties.
3. I HATE the choices the Israelis have made to prioritize security but it is hard to not understand why they would make those choices given the environment. A country that is continuously beset with bus bombers, rocket attacks and routine attacks on civilians is going to have trouble taking chances and will tolerate much in the name of security. Think on how insane the United States has been since 9/11. How much we still tolerate in the name of security.
Think on how people react to the ongoing news stories of crime in cities. Now add in the reality that the “crimes” are terrorist attacks and that everyone knows victims.
They do want to live in peace and security. But they don’t see a partner for peace and, for what I hope are obvious reasons, have no faith or trust in anyone else guaranteeing their security. The result is a society living in a siege mentality.
I’ve literally been calling for a 2-state solution since the 1980s. There have been very few moments where it seemed to even be remotely possible and in none of those moments was the sole impediment the Israelis.
@Gustopher:
They do care about peace but, for the reasons I went through above, porioritize security.
The problem with your thought is that “what happens” has never stayed in Gaza. Israel doesn’t want Gaza. Has never wanted Gaza. Tried repeatedly to give it back to Egypt. Pulled its soldiers out in 2007. They don’t have the luxury of just ignoring it.
@steve:
If, and it’s a good bet, Hezbollah were using code-pads with the pages, Israel will have lost little or nothing.
Without prompt breaking, and absent geolocation, pager data is unlikely to have been productive.
Incidentally, an indication that this was not a “spur of the moment” whim: Hezbollah switches to back-up hand held “walki talkie” radio handsets.
Said handsets promptly also start exploding.
@JohnSF:
As you know, the ME is the home of ‘the enemy of my enemy. . .’ I don’t know that anyone in the region thinks in the long, long term, except when it comes to grudges. (Those are eternal.) The Arabs can hate Israel if they like, but they’ll get over it if it means keeping Iran at bay.
If you’re MBS who do you guess will still be a functioning, 21st century military power ten or twenty years down the road? Pakistan? Egypt? If the Mullahs have a knife to your throat, who you gonna call? Al Sisi?
As for the importance of oil, the US is in pretty good shape. How long are we going to keep our very costly navy in the business of ensuring oil flows to the EU and Japan? What we need for our objectives going forward is just enough to close the Strait of Hormuz to deny the Chinese, and we can do that with a few destroyers.
If we decouple from Israel – as many are hoping – I’m not sure who in the US is going to be pushing for us to defend KSA against Iran. Are we going to keep vulnerable US troops in Qatar if things get kinetic, as they say? Can MBS be sure that if Iran goes nuclear, we will step in? Iran is a very, very tough military target if one intends to take down Iranian nuclear facilities. We could do it, but we’d stick to conventional weapons, meaning we would take serious casualties. 30 or 40 US F-35s? For oil we don’t need?
Pakistan has nukes but they also have India, and no real dog in a Persian Gulf fight. I wouldn’t count on them to stop an Iranian bomb. But Israel also has nukes, and the motivation to use them. If I’m MBS looking five or ten years down the road at a nuclear-threshold Iran, which of these countries can I rely on to stop Iran at any cost? The US? Pakistan? Or Israel.
@Michael Reynolds:
Sounds quite possible. My opinion is that once our vital interests exit the ME along with the oil we should stop trying to be the mediator of first resort, and we should definitely not pick sides in land grabs and ethnic cleansing. We should keep our finger in only insomuch as it keeps the region (and eventually the world) from completely blowing up. The relationships and interests are way to complicated for us to steer towards a particular outcome. They are going to have to reach stasis on their own.
The only exception to that is on the moral side. If anyone with power demonstrates a real desire to reach a non-ethnic cleansing solution then we should do everything we can to help them. Our participation made a huge difference in Northern Ireland and it would be wonderful if we could someday do the same in the ME, or at least one part of it.
@Jack: “But once you cross that threshold shit happens. Your enemy will not play by the rules, or fairly. So you do what is necessary. You play to win”
You’re hot when you get all butch like this.
@JohnSF:
I think oil will be around for a long time, but I think a fairly abrupt price collapse is quite likely, for a whole bunch of reasons not worth iterating through here. If I’m right, the Saudi princelings and the Iranian mullahs, to name just two, will not last very long at all. More chaos for that region full of religious fanatics.
@Michael Reynolds:
Ayatollas, not Mullahs. Wrong clerics.
@Michael Reynolds: “I don’t know that anyone in the region thinks in the long, long term, except when it comes to grudges”
As long as we’re speculating — and I really like your vision of the future ME as a narrative (it rocks; as a potential reality I have absolutely no idea and won’t pretend to!) — I wonder what happens if/when the Iranian regime finally falls. If somehow the Iranian people are able to rise up and throw off the ayatollahs. (Fixed thanks to MR’s fix…) What happens to the power politics of the region? Any thoughts?
@SKI!:
Absolutely true.
Are you contending that Israel has not been confiscating Palestinian land in the West Bank for the past forty years and building settlements on them? “We are happy to offer peace, as long as you let us take your land, and let settlers build tens of thousands of homes and schools and businesses there, more and more each year, and we send the army to protect them, and we control what jobs you can have, what you can import, what you can export, whether you can cross a road to visit your family, and BTW you will never, ever have a say in your own governance”. It’s a farce.
If Israel was not erecting an apartheid regime in the West Bank your arguments would make sense. But that “If” is just effing big to ignore.
@wr:
My cynical self says, “The same thing that happened when somehow the Iranian people were able to rise up and throw off the Shah.”
@wr:
It’s not a question of “butch”.
It’s how a country is inclined to react to a serious threat.
And why I often contend that historical evidence indicates that democracies are inclined to utter ruthlessness once set to “war mode”.
The list of precedents is rather long.
@MarkedMan: Ayup!
@Michael Reynolds:
Actually, both are correct.
Ayatollah is basically a (usually Iranian, not always) Iranian shia honorific for a higher ranking of mullah.
Mullah is used both in Iran and elsewhere in the Islamic world, but is usually “base level”, of clerically trained; and imam, for a prayer leader
As is ulema, as a collective term, for the more legally/theologically schooled (the difference being blurred).
It’s as messy as Christian titles for clerics both religious and legal all mixed up.
@MarkedMan:
No disagreement that the west bank settlements are bad and wrong. BUT the condition that allows the expansion is the lack of a peace partner. In any negotiations, (most of) the settlements were chips that Israel will throw into the table – same way they did with Egypt in 1980. Everyone has always known that the starting point for negotiations would be the Green Line – with some horse trading.
Security concerns led to Bibi and his crew and have kept them in power. They have been trying to change the calculations about what makes sense. It is cynical and amoral and it can only work because there has been no one on the other side of the table.
Oh, and the “apartheid” label is more obfuscating than illuminating. It isn’t a racial or religious issue. It is a citizenry issue. There are Arab Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent who vote and serve in the Knesset. It is the non-citizens who get screwed. And they are being screwed and that doesn’t excuse the Israelis but calling it an apartheid state isn’t going to help solve the issues.
FWIW, it does screw with Hezb’allah’s communications. They went to pagers and walkie talkies to avoid cell phones. Land lines and coded transmissions is all they have for the moment. However, now that they know they have to be careful and inspect the gadgets they get, it’s just a temporary problem.
Every action in war doesn’t have to either be a strategic game-changer or not happen.
@Michael Reynolds:
I dunno; Europeans (especially of the Balkans variety) could probably give them a post-graduate education in that field.
Certainly; but if you are a sensible Israeli strategist (ie not Bibi) who do you guess will be in charge in Riyadh at the outer-edge of that time-frame? MBS?
And in Tehran, for that matter?
As long as you consider they are vital economic power centres, and therefore valuable as allies, important as aspects of the global economy the US is part of, and potential Powers in their own right. Being a naval hegemon can be annoyingly costly; it can also be better than the alternative of NOT being the naval hegemon,
See UK diplomatic history, 1815 to 1945.
Pakistan always has to consider the India factor; but otoh, India seems to have little inclination to get involved in ME.
And Pakistan is deeply involved, if rather quietly, in various Arabian countries.
The Pakistan SSG provides bodyguards to the al-Saud
Saudi Arabia was a crucial financial supporter of the the Pakistan nuclear weapons programme.
It’s highly unlikely they did so for shits and giggles.
And Saudi Arabia has purchased Chinese ballistic missiles. If these are not pre-designed to mate to Pakistani nuclear warheads, then my name is Titania, High Lady of the Unicorns.
None of this is to say Israel does not have a fairly solid, if undemonstrative, support base in Riyadh, Cairo, etc right now.
Just that its persistence is far from assured.
A settlement with the Fatah would be a sensible re-insurance policy.
@SKI!:
Yeah, no. This too-clever-by-half overstatement contradicts itself. They that are not already joined cannot be splintered from each other.
It would be like claiming evangelicals and MAGA extremists are “two separate groups,” as if there’s no shared politics, people, or objectives. Israel’s far right and it’s ultra-orthodox bloc are not two separate circles that don’t touch. These are circles whose borders overlap — and not just a little bit.
@SKI!:
Israel holds millions of people in segregated lands without hope of ever becoming citizens, nor of having a country of their own. They control every facet of those peoples’ lives and reserve the right, and use it regularly, to seize anything they want. This has been the policy for thirty years. This is apartheid and splitting hairs about small differences from the original instance of apartheid over the specific characteristics of its victims is non-productive. The victims remain. Trying to call it something else doesn’t change its nature.
Rabin was assassinated not because he was failing in moving towards a negotiated peace but because he might have possibly succeeded. Those who assassinated him assumed power from that time to now and have done as much to ensure there can never be a settlement as the extremists on the Palestinian side, who have also worked ceaselessly to that end.
@DK:
They really are separate.
There are two main, very distinct groups, on the Israeli “religous right”:
the Religious Zionist wing (origins of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir) who are enthusiastic “Greater Israel” settlers, and often, though not exclusivelyby any means, of mizrahi (Middle Eastern) or Russian descent.
And who often despise the “secular state” for its failure to support “Greater Israel”
Ben-Gvir was rejected by the IDF due to his extremist views.
(This is all very simplified, and also fails to account for Smotrich and Ben-Gvir cordially detesting each other)
Then you have the real “ultra-Orthodox”: the Haredim, largely of European ashkenazi descent, but who have also recruited mizrahi over the years, and who believe they owe little secular duty to the state of Israel, but that Israel is obliged to support them.
They are noted above all for their refusal to serve in the IDF; whereas the “Religious Zionist” types are eager to, despite the doubts of the IDF professionals as to their suitability.
@DK:
They are very separate groups and are represented by separate parties that are in a coalition and share certain goals but mostly don’t. Their one main “joint” goal is to remain as part of the governing coalition. that doesn’t make them the same group.
“[E]vangelicals and MAGA extremists” are often the same people. The members of Yisrael Beiteinu are secular and right-wing, typically Russians. Shas and UTJ are Haredim parties, one for Sephardi/Mizrachi and the other for Ashkenazi. They would have no overlap with YB in terms of members or politics. Of course, you then have the Religious Zionist party who are both ultra-conservative and religious but definitively not Haredim.
Shas and UTJ have previously served in governments with Labour, including under Ehud Barak as he negotiated with the Palestinians.
Trying to map Israeli politics onto an American binary conception is impossible. Not only is it confusing and complicated, the parties themselves radically change and rise and fall every cycle. The aforementioned Labor, which spent decades as the dominant party, basically doesn’t exist anymore. They have 4 seats in the Knesset – less than two different Arab parties – and have merged with Meretz and have rebranded as The Democrats – in large part because Meretz didn’t make the threshold in the last election round (by less than 4,000 votes).
You may have heard the expression “2 Jews, 3 opinions”? It is far more complicated in Israel when it comes to political parties.
@JohnSF: Didn’t mean Israel was acting all butch. And God knows I didn’t mean you. It was that Trump Troll Jack, the classic Keyboard Kommando, who starts spouting action movie cliches as he fantasizes about how those ragheads are getting just what’s coming to them — as long as it’s coming from someone else.
I don’t always agree with you, but I always respect your arguments and the way you make them.
Jack is just another iteration of The RyGuy and all our other trolls.
@Jack:
Is Trump still exchanging Valentine’s cards with Kim Jong-un, and giving his hero Putin the thumbs up to attack Europe? Or is Trump too busy inciting bomb threats with racist lies, promising dictatorship on his first day back, calling for the suspension of the Constitution, and demanding execution for those who give him a bad Yelp review?
Anyway, after Republicans’ poor Iraq War planning sparked the ISIS insurgency, it was under Obama that bin Laden was killed. Obama also initiated Operation Inherent Resolve, which eventually reduced ISIS territory by 95%.
And was Biden who had the guts to play Netflix executive and cancel the endless Afghan War. Now, for the first time this century, no U.S. troops are engaged in an active war zone. Biden also secured the release of hostages Trump ignored. The latest? Pastor David Lin, who had a two-decade involuntary staycation in China.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu funded and boosted the Palestinian militants that want to destroy Israel. His goal? The same as when Netanyahu helped incite Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination: undermine the Israeli peace movement, block a two-state solution, and sideline Palestinian moderates.
This kind of crackerjack strategery from Israel’s longest premiership has created an Israel that sponsors terror in the West Bank. Bibi’s Israel is increasingly isolated, divided, and unsafe—losing allies while facing hostilities on three fronts.
Frankenyahu failed to protect Israeli borders nearest the Hamas monster he helped create, enabling the worst terror attack in Israeli history. Since 7 Oct, Netanyahu has failed to secure the release of all the hostages or to defeat Hamas.
Netanyahu’s cancerous incompetence and Trump’s communist love letters are what the right calls “effective.” And that’s why rapist Trump lost in 2020 and Republicans have been losing ever since.
@MarkedMan: Name the factor is that differentiates whether an individual has rights in Israel or doesn’t.
It isn’t a “system of institutionalized racial segregation” from Apartheid. I’m definitely not defending the treatment of the Palestinians but this isn’t that.
The Palestinians are refugees without a land of their own. They could have had a land of their own and could still but it wasn’t everything they wanted so they rejected it – repeatedly. That doesn’t justify how the current government of Israel has treated them but it is a reality.
And they can’t get a land of their own until they decide that they can live peacefully side by side with Israel. The minute they do that, Israel will be forced to give them control of their land back – especially by the people of Israel. As long as Bibi and the hard-right *expletives deleted* can honestly say there is no partner for peace, they can keep screwing them over.
@wr:
Dumb. Just dumb.
@MarkedMan:
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.
The Israeli governance of the West Bank is ehtically wrong, and morally degrading, but it’s not based on the same premises as apartheid.
Under apartheid no “Blacks” had any political rights whatsoever in the “White” governance of South Africa.
There was no “Black” electorate or political party in the South African government system.
Whereas Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians (whatever the definition may be) have civil and political rights as Israeli citizens, has a party with seats in the Knesset, and was part of the government coalition until December 2022.
This would have been unthinkable in apartheid South Africa.
The person excluded are those in the “occupied territories”, and that, ironically, stems from both some Israelis and ALL other states rejecting outright Israeli annexation in 1967.
(Not that that would have been a good idea, either.)
It seems to me this is a case of wanting to apply one “accepted-as-bad” label to another situation; and in the case of Americans to view said situation through the lens of American racial political history.
The approach of the settler-dominated rule in the West Bank to Palestinian rights and lives is atrocious.
But resembles much more the position of minorities in European empires in Europe, from Ireland through Alsace to Bulgaria, in the 18th & 19th centuries, than the “race/colour” system of South Africa. (Or the American South, for that matter)
Israeli policy in the West Bank is, imo, both morally wrong and strategically counter-productive.
But trying to understand it in terms of a totally different socio-political structure is misleading.
And being misled is a long way to getting thoroughly lost, and failing.
This is just one big kabuki dance. Iran is at the root of all of this. BO had his tongue straight up Irans arse in an attempt to build a legacy.
JB, or his handlers, needs tongue disinfecting as well.
Threaten Irans oil industry and this stops tomorrow. Period, full stop.
Spare me the arguments about Israeli actions and collateral damage. It could be over tomorrow.
It simply doesn’t serve certain American interests.
@wr:
tbh, have not come across Jack before, that I can recall.
My background makes me try to balance objective analysis against moral preference.
In short: it’s oft a shitty world, and we need to navigate our way to the best outcomes we can get.
I do tend to dislike those who rejoice in simplistic “smiting of the unrighteous”; otoh, sometimes a bit of judicious smitery is either necessary and/or inevitable.
But anyone who sees all Arabs &/or Iranian &/or Muslims as deserving of death by default is a damn fool.
(Especially anyone who mixes them up; I happen to know some secular/Sunni Syrians who loathe Hezbollah and the Iranian government, but are also distressed at Israelis injustice in the West Bank, but also hope for a peace with Israel, and also think Obama missed an opportunity to excise Iran from the Levant)
In the end we must remember: all human beings are human beings.
But also: some human beings are currently inclined to be shit-heads.
The agreement that Obama’s team negotiated resulted in Iran giving up all of its plutonium and all or almost all of its high grade uranium. They also agreed to the most extensive inspections in any agreement ever negotiated. Israel wasn’t happy because they didnt also give up ballistic missiles but those arent much of a threat to the US so not sure why we would have worried about those. For US security where safety regarding nukes is a priority it was a very good agreement. Not perfect, but pretty good. Trump rescinded it so Iran could do whatever it wanted.
Steve
@DK:
One the one hand, I’m tempted to argue with you about a lot of that.
On the other, at least you are less wrong then Jack seems to be, and “wrong for the right reasons”, as my tutor used to say to me.
And emphatically right (at least imuho) about the pernicious negativity of Netanyahu.
He is in a good way to wrecking the futurity of Israel for his own short-term personal ends, and the US Republicans can’t see that that he’s playing them like a violin.
(I suspect Bibi has far fewer illusions regarding said Republicans. He may be cynical, but he’s not an idiot.)
(Though he is a fool: different thing. Tying Likud to the Republicans is foolish. Depending on your time-horizon, of course.)
@SKI!:
If that’s your belief I don’t think there is much point in discussing further. Suffice it to say, I think that is a completely unrealistic view of situation.
@JohnSF: Respectfully disagree, but don’t feel I have anything to add so I’ll leave it there.
@SKI!:
Belonging to a separate political parties, or having different religious beliefs, does not mean they don’t share similarities in conservative views. The American partisan binary has nothing to do with that.
Ben-Gvir and Otzma Yehudit are Orthodox. They are far right: ultrnationalist, religious Zionist, culturally conservative.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud are secular. They are rightwing: nationalist, secular Zionist, populist, conservative.
Then take someone like Aryeh Deri. His party Shas, is Haredi and ultra-Orthodox. It is also populist, religious Zionist, socially conservative.
Three leaders. Orthodox, secular, ultra-Orthodox. They and their parties have important differences, but they aren’t bonded together by hardly anything at all. There is considerable agreement and overlap.
@Jack:
Super magical omnipotent phone call threat diplomacy doesn’t exist outside of brains that stopped developing at age eight. Full stop.
@JohnSF:
Well, obviously. Because I’m right. 😉
@Jack:
Oh come on.
Be serious.
Iran, or rather the ayatollocrcy/pasdaran coalition that rules there, is merely exploiting Arab/Sunni grievances in the (rather foolish) hope that doing so can lead the Sunnis, and the Arabs, to embrace the leadership of Iranian Shia clerics.
They have been able to do so, in part, for a number of specific reasons.
Primarily, the folly of Likud, and the self interest of Netanyahu,
But also, specific local reasons,relating to the politics of Iraq (which the US never really grasped) of Syria, and of general cynicism re the rule of the sheiks.
In the longer term, its utterly quixotic: the Iranian people dislike the entire project, and damn few Arabs, and still fewer Sunni Arabs, will ever accept the leadership of the Jafari over the Hanafi or Hanbali.
Destroy Iranian oil exports = general Gulf War = global economic crisis.
My personal opinion, which will probably run against many here, is that the US should have crushed the Alawite/Iranian alliance in Syria, and that the Obama ministration was mistaken not doing so.
But let us not forget:
Obama asked the US Congress to support him, on a bipartisan policy of enforcing a settlement in Syria. The Republicans refused to support that, for partisan reasons.
Personally, I damn both the Obama admin for asking
(hi, Jake Sullivan, and f.y.s.!)
and the Republican for for playing games, damn fools that they were, and are.
Same applies to the Houthi: they were on the verge of being swept out of the Yemen coast, and various miscalculators had to say “Oh, noes! Let us have a peace deal!”
Sometimes I think the burden of the world is Americans who can’t figure out what’s going on.
Sometimes I think that is a blessing.
@MarkedMan:
When was the last conversation you had with an Israeli?
I was sitting at the Ravens game on Sunday with my cousin who has lived there since the early 80’s.
@MarkedMan:
When was the last conversation you had with an Israeli?
For me, it was Sunday, at the Ravens game on Sunday with my cousin who has lived in Israel since the early 80’s.
@DK:
The assertion was that they are all interchangeable and the same. That there is no difference in the members of Bibi’s coalition. That they are like Maga and evangelicals. That just isn’t true.
Many Israeli and non-Israeli knowledgeable observers believed that there was a chance that the coalition could splinter over the army drafting issue. It has been a red line for the Haredim for years.
I’m pretty pro-Palestinian, but the Palestinians do deserve blame for their situation. They screwed up a lot of things. Arafat himself should never have been allowed into the West Bank, let alone been given its command.
This is a basic fact of human life, though. If Palestinians deserve the blame then Israel deserves Hezbollah and 10/7. Pretty simple. Barring extreme situations, everyone is their own worst enemy. The west had to classify ‘terrorism’ as beyond the pale in order to obfuscate this central lesson in life.
And re: Hezbollah, since their invasion in 82, Israel has run two destructive wars, and happily overseen massacres at Sabra and Shatila, so of course they deserve a few missiles fired into their settlements.
What draws Americans to Israel is the country’s crazy conception of itself as innocent and beset upon by Iran and Islam rather than a much better-allied/funded duplicate of the Palestinians. Basically, Philip Roth was right: Israel has turned into an argumentative Baptist colony of racist American feebs, and the true diaspora is where the actual Jewish people are going to be.
@JohnSF:
Consider the possibility the reason Assad was successful in rallying the minorities around him was they all felt that if they didn’t a pure democracy would’ve placed the Muslim Brotherhood, supported by the Saudis in their long dream of Wahabitizing the Levant, in charge.
Also consider the possibility the Shia do not view this as a fight for conquest, being that only about 15% of Muslims are Shiite such a goal would not be easy to envision, but as a fight for survival against said Saudi Wahabis, Brotherhood, ISIS takfiri madmen, and the like.
@SKI: Wait, at a Ravens game? Do you live in the Baltimore area? While indifferent to the Ravens myself, I’d be happy to buy you a beer in one of the four brew pubs in the Orioles/Ravens stadium area!
@SKI!:
For the past week, I’m communicating daily with my Israeli police officer ex-boyfriend. But only because we’re arguing over whether he should request time off to meet me in Europe for New Year’s, or whether I should come to him in Israel (no thanks).
Come to think of it, two of the handful of local gay friends I have are married to Israelis. So between these three, I’m in contact with an Israeli at least weekly when not planning and arguing with this beautiful man.
@dazedandconfused:
Consider the possibility that Assad, and the Alawite Ascendancy, was successful in rallying the minorities around them by slaughtering any that crossed them.
With the assistance of Russia, the Pasdaran, and Hezbollah.
And that while the Shia may be a minority opinion within the Muslim world overall, they are comfortably in the majority in various countries thereof, and the overall global balance matters as little as the global predominance of Catholics does in Greece.
Nor is the rule of the fundamentalists the inevitable outcome of Sunni majority politics.
The enabling of the militant dominance of Hezbollah, Houthi, Alawites and Pasdaran etc by US passivity and hand-wringing, due to good motives or bad, has had generally catastrophic outcomes for the countries concerned, and the region in general.
@Modulo Myself:
Philip Roth is yet another example of the relentless quest of some Americans to view the entire world via the prism of the US.
The majority of Israelis have little connection to the US at all.
More than half of Israelis today are largely descendants of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, and the rest European, none of whom ever set eyes on America, and would not remotely know what an American Baptist was.
And for that matter, the rest of the Diaspora is largely of European Jewish descent, and so also rather disconnects from the “Middle Eastern experience” of Israelis.
@MarkedMan: Grew up in Baltimore. Now live in Naptown. Mostly up for Ravens games (and tailgating) and visiting family.
@DK:My comment was directed to MarkedMan. I presume you don’t agree with him that, if faced with an actual legitimate opportunity for peace, the Israeli populace wouldn’t insist that it be pursued.
@JohnSF:
I have, but determined it to be utter nonsense, thank you very much. The support for Assad was genuine and they’ve fought like hell for a long time too. Think you can whip all those minorities into that? They must be completely ignorant fools in your mind, I guess. Odd, considering they represent the most sophisticated part of Syrian society. You dismiss their fears of ISIS, the Brotherhood and AQ out of hand and assume they are mistaken about them despite them living there.
So, the Assad dynasty must rule, and the Alawites?
Alawites being a little under 10% of the population, of which about 70% are Arab Sunnis.
(10% Kurds, 10% Christian Arabs, 10% various other minorities including Shia)
You can believe that all that 70% are fundamentalist fanatics, and that therefore justifies eternal minority rule by military force, and alliances with Russia and Iran, if you wish.
And assume the motivations of the regime adherents are benign, if you wish.
But if you think that the use of massacre, area bombardment, chemical weapons, torture and repression as primary instruments of the Assad regimes domination of Syria is “nonsense”, then you have a very peculiar definition of “nonsense”.
@dazedandconfused:
So, the Assad dynasty must rule, and the Alawites?
Alawites being a little under 10% of the population, of which about 70% are Arab Sunnis.
(10% Kurds, 10% Christian Arabs, 10% various other minorities including Shia)
You can believe that all that 70% are fundamentalist fanatics, and that therefore justifies eternal minority rule by military force, and alliances with Russia and Iran, if you wish.
And assume the motivations of the regime adherents are benign, if you wish.
But if you think that the use of massacre, area bombardment, chemical weapons, torture and repression as primary instruments of the Assad regimes domination of Syria is “nonsense”, then you have a very peculiar definition of “nonsense”.