The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.
In Lebanon, as Israel picked off senior Hezbollah commandos with targeted assassinations, their leader came to a conclusion: If Israel was going high-tech, Hezbollah would go low. It was clear, a distressed Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, said, that Israel was using cellphone networks to pinpoint the locations of his operatives.
. . .
Israeli intelligence officials saw an opportunity.
Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.
By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.
I wish I could disagree, but, not possible.
I think it’s important to separate all of Israel, which includes ten million people with many different views, with the folks above. Not every Israelite, or even the majority of them, necessarily want this.
Agreed. In the past I was willing to give some credibility to the IDF’s claim that Hamas used their own urban population as hostages and that’s why it was difficult for the IDF. But that line of reasoning doesn’t apply with the pagers - those would have always hurt some civilians no matter how isolated Hezbollah kept from the general population.
Also agreed. Though given a choice between the two I’d be happy to be alive…
Wondering if this is worse - since it’s not a formal declaration of war they’ve decided to ignore the rules of engagement and such?!