Tactical is not what Israel needs though - they need a strategic game changer. This was a 1 trick pony and they appear to have prematurely used it. They really needed to combine screwing up communication with a comprehensive ground attack into Lebanon to exploit the confusion and lack of command control.
Re: "Tactical triumph for Israel, but Hezbollah won't be deterred" -- Jeremy Bowen
"...They really needed to combine screwing up communication with a comprehensive ground attack into Lebanon to exploit the confusion and lack of command control."
That seemed to be what was predicted: an attack on Lebanon in the next two weeks...before the weather changed for the worst but as you say as a disruptive precursor it would now seem "premature".
...the abhorrence of people at this act. We nearly all have mobile electrical devices...we carry them around in our pockets. There was the odd case of battery meltdown but considering the numbers in use the danger was negligable and generally there was an inherent trust that they won't harm us.
That's no longer the case now Israel has "weaponised" mobile devices and let them loose on the market. Apart from the odd Zionist internet psycho thinking " Beep beep! " Is now the funniest joke since humour was invented, there can't be any doubt that Israel has injected a degree of uncertainty now about the safety of mobile devices in general.
Re: "Tactical triumph for Israel, but Hezbollah won't be deterred" -- Jeremy Bowen
Full article below. Bowen has no morals. "Tactical triumph for the IRA"? "Tactical triumph for Al Qaeda"? He barely bothers mentioning civilian casualties, guaranteed in a terrorist operation like this. A similar attack on a western country would have a totally different focus and tone, not a word about 'strategy' or 'effectiveness', which would be viewed as monstrous. He doesn't see Lebanese as real people, basically. Just like Israel.
Bowen: Tactical triumph for Israel, but Hezbollah won't be deterred
Jeremy Bowen International Editor, BBC News
Israel has scored a significant tactical triumph in this operation – the sort of spectacular coup you would read about in a thriller.
Undoubtedly it’s a humiliation for Hezbollah, which will increase their insecurity and be bad for their morale.
However there is a potentially serious strategic downside for Israel, because while this humiliates the powerful Lebanese militia and political movement, it doesn’t deter them.
And it doesn’t get closer to Israel’s strategic aim of stopping Hezbollah’s attacks and allowing the more than 60,000 Israelis on the northern border who haven’t been in their houses for nearly a year to return home.
The Israelis have used an important, audacious weapon, which is clearly very effective in their terms.
But reports in Al Monitor, a respected Middle East newsletter, say that they were not able to use it in the way they hoped.
The original plan, it says, was for Israel to follow up with devastating attacks while Hezbollah was still reeling. The pager attack, the reports say, was to be the opening salvo in a big escalation - as part of an offensive or perhaps an invasion of southern Lebanon.
But these same reports say that Hezbollah was getting suspicious – forcing Israel to trigger this attack early. So the Israelis have shown they can get into Hezbollah’s communications and shown they can humiliate them, but this attack does not take the region one inch further back from all out war. Instead it pushes it closer.
Everything at the moment in terms of de-escalation in the Middle East depends on Gaza.
While that war continues, whether it’s conflict with Lebanon, whether it’s attacks in the Red Sea from the Houthis, whether it’s tensions with Iraq; nothing is going to de-escalate.
The US envoy to Lebanon Amos Hochstein has been working assiduously for months now - talking to the Lebanese, and indirectly to Hezbollah and to the Israelis, about trying to find a way to deescalate this diplomatically. And reportedly, the Israelis didn’t tell the US about what they were doing with this plan until last moments - so this won’t help his efforts either.
American predictions that a ceasefire in Gaza is close have come up again against two seemingly immovable objects.
One is the Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, who wants Israel out of the Gaza Strip permanently, as well as a big release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The other is Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has stuck to his insistence that Israel can and will win a total victory over Hamas.
The consensus in Israel is that he benefits from prolonging the war, despite pressure from hostage families and their supporters for a deal to get their people home.
The prime minister’s ultranationalist allies in his coalition have also threatened to bring down the government if he makes a deal.
Israel and its allies insist that taking the war to its old enemies in Lebanese Hezbollah is an entirely legitimate act of self-defence.
Once again though, there are serious question marks about the way an Israeli attack has wounded and killed civilian bystanders.
CCTV footage showed a pager exploding in a crowded market as its owner shopped for food. Reports in Lebanon say a young girl was killed when her father’s pager exploded.
Hezbollah will be reeling from the attack, but it will rapidly compose itself as an organisation and will find another way to communicate. Lebanon is a small country and messages can easily be carried by hand.
Undoubtedly Hezbollah and its allies in Iran, whose ambassador to Beirut was wounded in the attack, will be licking their wounds at the moment.
But once again the region has been pushed right to the brink of an all-out war.
He used to be louche and amusing but then got promoted and had his backbone removed. I suspect that foreign correspondents have an antizionist gaffe written for them by the US-zionist antisemites who then complain and use it to "hold him hostage".The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Western elite thinking: Humiliating people you don’t like is a win ..
on September 18, 2024, 1:01 pm