What’s In Your Wallet, Hezbollah?
Israel’s Brilliant Coup
A bit of background before we discuss the subtle genius of the Pager/Walkie-Talkie affair:
The residents of Gaza voted Hamas into office. Israel did not meddle in their governance. (In fairness, Israel at that time, 2006-2007, saw the civil war between Hamas and Fatah as a welcome relief that these two factions interrupted their killing of Israelis to kill each other.)
Fast forward: On October 7, 2023, thousands of cowardly Hamas sheep with wolves’ weapons poured into civilian villages and a young persons’ music festival in Israel. There they raped women, beat children, and burned and mutilated adults and children before killing them -- and joyously filmed themselves and each other. Selfies for the Armageddon.
Had these loathsome cowards not done so, none of what followed would be happening today.
Hamas was the trigger for the latest confrontation. But Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, financed by Iran, are the enemy not just of Israel, but of the entire Free World.
Yet poorly educated boys and girls, in US institutions of what these days pass as “higher learning,” have been told by certain news media, fake social media, and many of their professors that Israel is the villain, and the Hamas murderers the heroes.
Tell me again who caused Israel’s defensive reaction?
Yes, but? The adult professors who egg these un-grownups on say, “Yes, but Hamas only killed 1200 or so and only abducted 250 or so. The response is not fair.”
Fair? Fair? Only those who cuddle safely in the bosom of academia could be so naïve. When 2,996 Americans were murdered in the 9/11 attack, did the US say, “Well, we need to respond by killing 2,996 of the people who have sworn “Death to America!”? Of course not.
You do not respond to murder and mayhem with a “measured response” as you discuss which sanitary missile to use on some foreign milk factory over tea and scones.
You respond with overwhelming force. It is only overwhelming force that keeps your casualty count down as the perpetrators continue dying at your hands.
Was it a “fair fight” when armed men attacked unarmed men, women, and children?
No military, and no nation with any sense of duty to protect themselves, wants a fair fight. You do not bring a knife to a gunfight. You want a sledgehammer, big guns, and air supremacy. You want to cripple the forces of evil arrayed against you.
And that is what Israel has done. There is no tit-for-tat here. Nor should there be. Crush those who would murder your own.
Israel chose a particularly creative means to further the safety of its people.
Pagers and Walkie-Talkies
As most nations race to get the most technologically advanced weapons and other accouterments of modern warfare, we must never forget that there is nothing more dangerous and capable than a people fighting for their survival.
No technological advancement trumps that. Because no mere technological advancement remains the sole property of its inventor or innovator for long.
By the 4th century BC, the Scythian cavalry was using stirrups. This simple innovation revolutionized how war was fought. Gunpowder meant the development of firearms, cannons, and artillery. The longbow could penetrate armor. The machine gun changed forever infantry strategy and tactics.
Wireless telecommunications devices like pagers and walkie-talkies will be overtaken by some other future technologies. We must be ever aware of this and place our faith in no single armament or enhancement.
Wireless telecommunications devices like pagers and walkie-talkies have their own Achilles’ heel: they are wireless. While they have strengths in terms of distance and mobility, their weaknesses include not just physical tampering, but also jamming, over-riding messages, and other issues. We’ll leave it at that.
Earlier this year, Hassan Nasrallah, the currently still alive leader of Hezbollah, told his followers to stop using smartphones to communicate. It was clear that Israel had the capability to hack them for surveillance and targeting.
He sent a message: “What is in your hand? I do not have a phone in my hand,” he said.
What’s in your wallet, Hezbollah? A pager? A walkie-talkie?
The good news here is that Iran and Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis will for now be afraid to use any technology. Whatever code they devise, whatever new means of communication they try, each of their minions will think twice before using it. Their ability to plan, communicate information, or attack others will be greatly diminished. In battle, good comms are essential. Immediacy counts.
The bad news is that interrupting an enemy’s supply chain is now a possibility known to all. Evildoers will be far more apprehensive of, and attentive to, the source and middlemen they buy articles of mayhem from. This will include weapons, comms, combat vehicles, simple supplies or even food and water.
All adversaries will ultimately adapt. It is the nature of warfare. But for now, it is obvious that Israel can find you wherever you are. Not exactly a Hezbollah recruiting poster.
Indeed, Nasrallah just responded to the Israeli coup, “We say to the enemy: The Lebanese front will not stop until the war in Gaza is over. The only solution is to stop the aggression.” For any intelligence officer who follows these pronouncements, this is a clear change in tone. Instead of “Death to Israel! Death to America!” it says, would someone please stop the Israelis from retaliating on Hamas so we here can regroup?
What has been the US response?
The US administration, thus far, is doing its best to accommodate Nasrallah’s wish. Holding Israel and Hamas et al equally responsible has meant that, since Israel has the upper hand, Israel must be the party to an agreement that gives up the most.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday in Cairo that actions like this risk undercutting efforts to get a cease-fire in Gaza. “We’ve been very clear and we remain clear about the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we’re trying to resolve in Gaza,” he said.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder then reported that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it was important not to escalate, but to “give diplomatic negotiations time to succeed.”
Seriously? Is the US administration so blind that it has missed the fact that this is already a wider war? Iran has directly attacked Israel. Hezbollah has directly attacked Israel. The Houthis have directly attacked Israel. Hamas has directly attacked Israel.
What is the US government afraid of? That maybe Gabon or Sri Lanka will get involved?
Perhaps the US diplomatic and political community and their friends in the compliant media fear being pulled into a direct confrontation with Russia or Iran.
The US leadership must not have noticed that Russia cannot even defeat Ukraine.
Perhaps they have not observed that Iran is so wobbly an autocracy that it sends Arabs to die rather than risk its own soldiers.
Israel has stopped pandering to those who crave its destruction. It is time the US and the rest of the Free World did the same.
© Joseph L. Shaefer 2024