The bigger story behind pagers exploding

CNN's latest update reports that "thousands of people were injured Tuesday and several killed when their pagers exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon,... A child was among at least nine killed in the blasts, which injured around 2,800 people, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said. At least 170 people are in a critical condition."

Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s prime minister, condemned Israel's terrorist attack as "a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards," as all terrorist attacks are. Former U.S. intelligence analyst David Kennedy believes it was a "supply chain attack"; in the manufacturing stage the pagers were maliciously modified, then shipped. 

The Israeli "pager assault" was but a preliminary move to the far more ominous execution of Phase 2: "Israel has added a new objective to its ongoing war," writes CNN in a separate report. In an overnight meeting of Prime Minister Netanyahu's security council, the decision was made to deploy the nation's killing machines to the northern border. 

"Though the return of residents of northern Israel has long been understood to be a political necessity," notes CNN, "this is the first time it has been made an official war goal." Netanyahu told U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein yesterday that returning the northern residents requires a "fundamental change in the security situation in the north." 

Hezbollah has told Netanyahu that it will cease violence once Israel ceases its warring violence in Gaza. And Axios reports that Hochstein told Netanyahu that a war with Hezbollah is a really bad idea, in that it "risks a much broader and protracted regional conflict."

But no one, including his main and nearly singular benefactor, the U.S., can persuade Bibi into doing anything he first refuses to hear. 

To those about to die, in Lebanon and Israel, we salute you. Gracious of you to do so in honoring Bibi.

And I, for one, pity Kamala Harris for the many migraines Bibi will give her should she find herself in the wintery Oval Office.

Comments

[Anne J]

If only she could cut off all aid to Israel. At this point how is it not considered funding terrorism?