How Mossad Planned Its Exploding Pager Operation: Inside Israel's Penetration of Hezbollah (msn.com) 125
The Washington Post interviewed Lebanese officials, people close to Hezbollah, and Israeli, Arab and U.S. security officials and politicians about a years-long plan (originated at Mossad headquarters) that ultimately killed or maimed "as many as 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members — most of them rear-echelon figures... along with an unknown number of civilians... when Israel's Mossad intelligence service triggered the devices remotely on September 17."
In the initial sales pitch to Hezbollah two years ago, the new line of Apollo pagers seemed precisely suited to the needs of a militia group with a sprawling network of fighters and a hard-earned reputation for paranoia... Best of all, there was no risk that the pagers could ever be tracked by Israel's intelligence services. Hezbollah's leaders were so impressed they bought 5,000 of them and began handing them out to mid-level fighters and support personnel in February. None of the users suspected they were wearing an ingeniously crafted Israeli bomb...
Israeli officials had watched with increasing anxiety as the Lebanese group added new weapons to an arsenal already capable of striking Israeli cities with tens of thousands of precision-guided missiles. Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service responsible for combating foreign threats to the Jewish state, had worked for years to penetrate the group with electronic monitoring and human informants. Over time, Hezbollah leaders learned to worry about the group's vulnerability to Israeli surveillance and hacking, fearing that even ordinary cellphones could be turned into Israeli-controlled eavesdropping and tracking devices. Thus was born the idea of creating a kind of communications Trojan horse, the officials said. Hezbollah was looking for hack-proof electronic networks for relaying messages, and Mossad came up with a pair of ruses that would lead the militia group to purchase devices that seemed perfect for the job — equipment that Mossad designed and had assembled in Israel.
The first part of the plan, booby-trapped walkie-talkies, began being inserted into Lebanon by Mossad nearly a decade ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained oversized battery packs, a hidden explosive and a transmission system that gave Israel complete access to Hezbollah communications. For nine years, the Israelis contented themselves with eavesdropping on Hezbollah, the officials said, while reserving the option to turn the walkie-talkies into bombs in a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a glitzy new product: a small pager equipped with a powerful explosive. In an irony that would not become clear for many months, Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.
Because Hezbollah leaders were alert to possible sabotage, the pagers could not originate in Israel, the United States or any other Israeli ally. So, in 2023, the group began receiving solicitations for the bulk purchase of Taiwanese-branded Apollo pagers, a well-recognized trademark and product line with a worldwide distribution and no discernible links to Israeli or Jewish interests. The Taiwanese company had no knowledge of the plan, officials said... The marketing official had no knowledge of the operation and was unaware that the pagers were physically assembled in Israel under Mossad oversight, officials said... In a feat of engineering, the bomb component was so carefully hidden as to be virtually undetectable, even if the device was taken apart, the officials said. Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah did disassemble some of the pagers and may have even X-rayed them.
"Thousands of Apollo-branded pagers rang or vibrated at once, all across Lebanon and Syria," according to the article, with a short sentence in Arabic that said "You received an encrypted message." The two-button de-encryption procedure "ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated," according to the article, although "Less than a minute later, thousands of other pagers exploded by remote command, regardless of whether the user ever touched his device. The following day, on September 18, hundreds of walkie-talkies blew up in the same way, killing and maiming users and bystanders..."
"As Hezbollah reeled, Israel struck again, pounding the group's headquarters, arsenals and logistic centers with 2,000-pound bombs," the article concludes. And the strike "convinced the country's political leaders that Hezbollah could be put on the ropes, susceptible to a systematic dismantling using airstrikes and, eventually a ground invasion..."
Israeli officials had watched with increasing anxiety as the Lebanese group added new weapons to an arsenal already capable of striking Israeli cities with tens of thousands of precision-guided missiles. Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service responsible for combating foreign threats to the Jewish state, had worked for years to penetrate the group with electronic monitoring and human informants. Over time, Hezbollah leaders learned to worry about the group's vulnerability to Israeli surveillance and hacking, fearing that even ordinary cellphones could be turned into Israeli-controlled eavesdropping and tracking devices. Thus was born the idea of creating a kind of communications Trojan horse, the officials said. Hezbollah was looking for hack-proof electronic networks for relaying messages, and Mossad came up with a pair of ruses that would lead the militia group to purchase devices that seemed perfect for the job — equipment that Mossad designed and had assembled in Israel.
The first part of the plan, booby-trapped walkie-talkies, began being inserted into Lebanon by Mossad nearly a decade ago, in 2015. The mobile two-way radios contained oversized battery packs, a hidden explosive and a transmission system that gave Israel complete access to Hezbollah communications. For nine years, the Israelis contented themselves with eavesdropping on Hezbollah, the officials said, while reserving the option to turn the walkie-talkies into bombs in a future crisis. But then came a new opportunity and a glitzy new product: a small pager equipped with a powerful explosive. In an irony that would not become clear for many months, Hezbollah would end up indirectly paying the Israelis for the tiny bombs that would kill or wound many of its operatives.
Because Hezbollah leaders were alert to possible sabotage, the pagers could not originate in Israel, the United States or any other Israeli ally. So, in 2023, the group began receiving solicitations for the bulk purchase of Taiwanese-branded Apollo pagers, a well-recognized trademark and product line with a worldwide distribution and no discernible links to Israeli or Jewish interests. The Taiwanese company had no knowledge of the plan, officials said... The marketing official had no knowledge of the operation and was unaware that the pagers were physically assembled in Israel under Mossad oversight, officials said... In a feat of engineering, the bomb component was so carefully hidden as to be virtually undetectable, even if the device was taken apart, the officials said. Israeli officials believe that Hezbollah did disassemble some of the pagers and may have even X-rayed them.
"Thousands of Apollo-branded pagers rang or vibrated at once, all across Lebanon and Syria," according to the article, with a short sentence in Arabic that said "You received an encrypted message." The two-button de-encryption procedure "ensured most users would be holding the pager with both hands when it detonated," according to the article, although "Less than a minute later, thousands of other pagers exploded by remote command, regardless of whether the user ever touched his device. The following day, on September 18, hundreds of walkie-talkies blew up in the same way, killing and maiming users and bystanders..."
"As Hezbollah reeled, Israel struck again, pounding the group's headquarters, arsenals and logistic centers with 2,000-pound bombs," the article concludes. And the strike "convinced the country's political leaders that Hezbollah could be put on the ropes, susceptible to a systematic dismantling using airstrikes and, eventually a ground invasion..."
Bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
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Has America been stealing parts of Mexico, piece by piece, in violation of repeated UN resolutions for decades?
Does America arrest Mexicans in Mexico and throw them into indefinite detention?
Has America provided funds to the very terrorist organisation it's fighting just to scupper the chances of a peaceful solution?
Does America have effective control over Mexican airspace, and does it block Mexicans' access to the waters off Mexico's shores?
Does America control what and who passes over the Mexican border w
Re: (Score:1)
American wouldn't do any of the horrible things you are accusing Israel of doing here (let's not mince words) to Mexico if Mexico had done the horrible things to Israel that Hamas has done.
Mexico would be a sea of glass.
Re: Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
If a bully keeps flicking your ear even when you try to move away, eventually you're going to do something about it right? Something more than asking them to please stop?
I'm not the poster you were replying to, but I would like to say that, in that situation, I would absolutely do something. However, that does not mean I will do just anything. For example, I won't find out where they live and cut off their younger siblings heads and leave them in the Bully's bed. I won't burn down their entire neighborhood just to get to them. Basically, someone else's bad behavior does not somehow free you from all restraints or ethical considerations. People get this idea when they are angry, even justifiably so, that their anger makes them righteous and justifies any response. That is human nature, but it doesn't make it right. The objection is not to Israel doing something about it, but to what, specifically, they did.
There's a reason that things like the Geneva Convention exist. Because if you ignore things like that, it just becomes a race to the bottom and everyone feels like they're justified in doing whatever they can to hurt the "enemy". Eventually, you have a situation where, for example, innocent children, rather than just being bystanders, become preferred targets.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The devices were... only given out by Hezbollah to Hezbollah members.
Explain why Hezbollah military were embedded with civilians. Please.
Explain why an Iranian dignitary was carrying a Hezbollah pager.
Please do explain. Or just admit you're a lying antisemitic sack of shit.
Re: Bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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The devices were... only given out by Hezbollah to Hezbollah members.
Well, Hezbollah were using those pagers to rapidly muster their troops so: DUUUUHHHH!!!!
Explain why Hezbollah military were embedded with civilians. Please.
Why were Irgun terrorists [wikipedia.org] 'embedded with civilians'? Because that's how guerrilla and terrorist organisations work, read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Explain why an Iranian dignitary was carrying a Hezbollah pager.
Explain why a CIA station chief in Guatemala had the number of the guy running the local death squads. Because that's how intelligence services keep in touch with their proxies.
Please do explain. Or just admit you're a lying antisemitic sack of shit.
Well, I did explain so by that logic I'm not an 'antisemitic sack of sh
Re: Bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
Re: Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get why these guys think Hezbolla is so innocent in all of this. Israelis that have nothing to do with them have had to leave their homes for the last year because Hezbolla started lobbing shells at them completely unprovoked. Israel did barely anything to respond to it until the moment those pagers went off. Then you've got this guy and Amimoji manufacturing disinformation (see my signature) out of some deeply misplaced sympathy towards a well known and very active terrorist organization.
And why is this shit so widespread? Wikipedia removed the link to kiwifarms because they found its actions unconscionable, yet they keep a link to Hezbolla's propaganda website on its page. Pronouns are more offensive to them than people who encourage suicide bombing Jews.
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You mean the memo about pushing the Jews into the sea?
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At this point there is no excuse to not know what is going on. To not know is to either have been living under a rock, or to be in active denial. All of what is going on in Gaza is available for your viewing pleasure on your favourite social media platform. Endless videos and pictures of levelled city blocks, dead children and bombing campaigns to your heart's content. By now 2% of palestinians have been killed, and that's official Israeli numbers with a name on every body. In any war the real numbers are a
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You mean the memo about pushing the Jews into the sea?
You mean like the memo from god about purging everybody except god's chosen people from the face of Greater Israel [wikipedia.org].
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
Nobody thinks Hezbolla is innocent (Score:3, Insightful)
Hezbolla , like any military organization, rotates people out of combat roles to prevent burn out. Meaning a large number of those pagers would be in and around civvies. And that played out exactly as expected with hundreds injured and many dead.
This isn't about fighting Hezbolla. This is about Benjamin Netanyahu's power. He fucked up. 10/7 happened on his watch, and there's no e
Re: Nobody thinks Hezbolla is innocent (Score:2)
Re: Bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to think that fighting a terrorist organization gives a country license to violate international law. It doesn't. At least no more license to kill anyone you want than *sovereignty* does.
People just assume military strikes that kill civilians are automatically war crimes. That's simply not true. But on the other hand, having *a* military objective doesn't make *any* amount of civilian-killing OK. There's supposed to be proportionality between military ends and civilian casualties. Blowing up a children's hospital because a driver from the Hamas motor pool is visiting his sick child there wouldn't be OK. Starving out an entire city because there was a terrorist cell operating in it wouldn't be OK.
In this case, since the vast majority of people likely to injured are Hamas *operative*, I think a strong case can be made it's less bad than other operations that weren't regarded as war crimes.
If the idea of proportionality seems kind of subjective, it is. Ultimately you can't hold a *nation* accountable for war crimes except in the court of world opinion. Nations that do things which shock the conscience of the world risk becoming pariahs. In this case the means is so novel it's shocking, but you don't necessarily have to go with your initial gut response. You can think about it.
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
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From my point of view both states are terrorist organizations.
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This is what everyone overlooks when taking sides. At this point, both sides fall into this category. We are all part of an international group (UN) and have agreed to adhere to its resolutions. Let the fighting stop, adhere to and implement the resolutions, and then whoever starts fighting again, sanction the shit out of them and then kick them out of UN at the next stage. If they continue to misbehave, go in as an international force and force a regime change.
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Amen! They are both going deeply to hell if there is one.
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IDF is a terrorist organization. One of these bombs killed a 10 year old and they've been mocking people asking if they have pagers. Terrorists. Textbook, terrorists:
Terrorism definition
Based on the provided search results, terrorism is defined as the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government or civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives.
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Evidence is that it worked. Many of your fellow terrorists are dead.
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A lot more of them are missing eyeballs and/or their jackoff hand.
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Damn. That sounds worse than death.
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get it, and this has nothing to do with being pro-Israeli or pro-Hezbollah. The article is saying the Mossad conned Hezbollah into buying these devices and then set them off. Where's the bullshit in that? Are you saying it didn't happen?
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I signed in to ask the same question: which part is propaganda? Pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in Lebanon? People were killed, some of the potentially part of Hezbollah? Israel, Mossad, had a hand manufacturing and orchestrating the delivery of the pagers and walkies-talkies? The part I cannot find confirmation for is that Mossad and/or Israel has officially taken credit. However, it seems there is no one on any side disputing Israel's role. It would be fairly impressive if there were no exploding commu
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Ah yes, it's you again, siding with anyone who is against Israel, regardless of how evil Israel's opponents are.
What part of this story is BS, exactly? That Hezbollah soldiers were killed and hurt by pagers and walkie talkies? That the devices were sabotaged? That Mossad did it?
As far as I can see, this was a very slick operation. It was very precisely targeted at people who were openly fighting Israel. It's true that some civilians got hurt too, as always happens in war. But it's hard to imagine a method t
LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
So they carried something that stands out and used an organization specific device? Bad idea. Never have the same supplier. Also, don't get Israel as an enemy. Have to wonder if Iran is infiltrated to this level too .. they probably have more knowledge and disruption capability of Iran than that ayatollah dude himself. Wouldn't be surprised if their entire nuclear program is compromised. If only South Korea was as on the ball, diabetes patient in North Korea would be under control.
Re: LOL (Score:2)
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Un-LOL. Terrorism begets terrorism.
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The assassination of a Hamas leader inside Iran, using a bomb that was planted months in advance, seems to suggest that you are right about Israel's infiltration of Iran. https://apnews.com/article/ira... [apnews.com]
Favorite movie quote deemed applicable to this sto (Score:2)
"Boom. Big bada boom"
"Multipass" (to the afterlife)
Israel is just creating more enemies (Score:1)
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Been that way before most here were even born.
Re:Israel is just creating more enemies (Score:4, Insightful)
False. Most Iranians actually like Israel and hate their own rulers. They can't do anything about it because the regime is ruthless and kills anyone they perceive as a threat. Everytime they organize protests there are executions/torture. Organized revolt is impossible, the regime is too powerful because there is a percent of Iran that supports the regime. Also the regime has enough spies and informants to prevent any organized opposition.
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False. Most Iranians actually like Israel and hate their own rulers.
*Citation needed.
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I don't know about individual people, but one thing I think you don't understand is that virtually nobody in the middle east wants a Palestinian state. The only one besides Palestine itself that has expressed any desire towards this end is in fact Israel. Iran, Lebanon, and Syria in particular do not give one fuck about Palestinians.
Tall al-Za‘tar, the big Palestinian refugee camp in East Beirut, was besieged by Lebanese forces and reduced to rubble in the early days of the Lebanese civil war in 1975. And just three years after the Shatila massacre, in 1985, something started called the “War of the Camps.” That was Lebanese Shia, backed by Syria and Iran, laying siege to the Shatila and Bourj el-Barajneh camps for almost three years with untold numbers of dead and wounded among the Palestinians. And the irony there of course is when you fast forward to today and the supposed Iranian support for Hamas and the Palestinian cause generally — well, not so much. It is a marriage of convenience. All part of Iran’s larger strategy of exporting force beyond its borders with allies and proxies. We in the West do not remember the War of the Camps, but I assure you that the Iranians and Palestinians do. They understand there is no love in Tehran on the part of Ayatollahs for the Palestinians or their cause.
The last thing the Arab states, particularly those around Palestine and Israel, wanted to see was an independent Palestinian movement, let alone a state.
The Nakba of 1948 shook the legitimacy of Arab regimes. Seven Arab states declared war on the Zionists — and were decisively routed. Arab leaders feared the consequences of their failure in Palestine, both from elements within their own societies and from Palestinians themselves. But the fact that [Palestine Liberation Army] units were under the command of the Arab armies allowed them to keep control of Palestinian arms until the Six Day War. The 1967 war brought two dramatic changes: It ended dreams of the conquest of Israel by force of arms, and it gave rise to the PLO as a somewhat independent force. These combined to shift the fight for Palestinian control of territory to the Arab lands themselves — Lebanon in 1969 and Jordan in 1970.
That is what led to Black September, the 1970 PLO effort to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy. That failed not just because of the prowess of the Jordanian military but also because the Syrians withheld the air support for the Palestinians they had promised, and that allowed the Jordanians to win the day. That Syrian air force was under command of a general named Hafez al-Assad [later ruler of Syria], whose hatred and fear of all things Palestinian was intense.
That was one of the many ironies of the Israeli invasion in 1982, in that Israel did serious work for Syria in dismantling the PLO structures in Lebanon and forcing the PLO to evacuate from Beirut.
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
This is not, and never was about "liberating" Palestine. It is and always was about one thing, and one thing only. IMO you should stick to wors
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Here's the biggest proof of that (done at the risk of death): https://youtu.be/o73NnqX8hYM [youtu.be]
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Well Reza Pahlavi has more followers on X in comparison to Khamenei. And notice also that Reza’s posts are in Farsi so we can surmise that most of his followers are Persian. And by the way the way Iranians are following him at risk to themselves and families in Iran.
Here’s a link with analysis: https://iranian-studies.stanfo... [stanford.edu]
Other evidence: Iranians always vote for the least radical candidate when given a chance. Here’s what people in Iran are like:
https://youtu.be/dFhj30lAFTk [youtu.be]
https://you [youtu.be]
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Here’s another citation in addition to the ones in my other reply. https://youtu.be/o73NnqX8hYM [youtu.be]
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I don't know about most Iranians, but every Persian I've met here in Canada hates the Islamic regime and is quite fond of Israel. The most pro-Israel person I know, who cheers on Netanyahu, is a Persian friend.
When you've lived under Islamic repression in what used to be a forward-looking and cultured society, you get pissed off.
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You have no fucking clue: https://youtu.be/o73NnqX8hYM [youtu.be]
See that clip and also see my other comment above.
This (Score:2)
We were well on our way to getting Iran out of it's shell under Obama... and then we pissed away 20 years of careful foreign policy with one bad president (no prizes for guessing which one).
Ask yourself wh
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The Shah wasn't ideal, but the Iranian people will take his son Reza back as interim leader to sort out the mess. The only thing is I feel like he'll be too milquetoast/weak against the religious psychos. They need someone really tough who will do a serious clerical purge the likes of which the world has never seen before (and yes I've heard of the French Reign of Terror, Chinese Cultural Revolution, Ataturk's reforms (which were clearly super-weak), and Russian Civil War).
Re:Israel is just creating more enemies (Score:5, Insightful)
>Israel is just creating more enemies to continue the cycle of violence
Sure. But if it wasn't a cycle it'd be line - Hezbollah killing Jews without anything to slow them down.
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And you want history to start with the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon and ignore that it was in response to the PLO attacking Israel freely from Lebanon?
Shove your disingenuous post up your ass.
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Shove your disingenuous post up your ass.
huuuh, why so nervous, kid? calm down, all indicates you're going to get away with your genocide after all. you do not get to play the victim, though. can't have it all.
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If you want it to stop all you have to do is convince Israel's neighbors to stop attacking them. The day that happens Israel will stop.
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Re: Israel is just creating more enemies (Score:4)
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Re: Single State (Score:2)
Re: Single State (Score:2)
Differences in action (Score:3, Insightful)
Hezbollah kills indiscriminately. Mossad targeted Hezbollah members.
If they're going to kill each other, I know which group's tactics I can support.
Re: Differences in action (Score:3, Informative)
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Save your breath. The OP probably watches FOX News. It doesn't even matter that the whole international community is protesting the indiscriminate killing of civilians and that international courts are passing genocide judgement.
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That's the wrong question. The question is the ratio of civilians to combatants, because in absolute numbers, of course Israel has killed more because they have a much more powerful military.
In terms of ratio, Hezbollah is worse. The 12 Druze kids they killed were not anywhere near a military target.
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The question is the ratio of civilians to combatants
Are you serious? The whole world is complaining about Israel's indiscriminate killing of civilians. Of the over 40000 killed in Gaza, most were women and children [un.org]. Lebanon is just starting and over 2000 civilians have already died (not counting pager and walkie-talkie deaths). Are you going to stick to that line?
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hmmm... and how many could be attributed to Hezbollah using them as meat shield? Please try harder....
Ummm no, if the terrorist is hiding behind a 'meat shield' of civilians an Israeli thinks: 'Oh dear, now I have no choice except dropping a 4000lb bomb on him, woe is me!!!', everybody else thinks: 'This is a job for a sniper!'.
Question is intent (Score:2)
How many civilians has Hezbollah killed in the last year?
They tried to kill hundreds of thousands. Random rocket attacks will do that, they fire several thousand a year. They only need to get lucky once, if someone was firing rockets at city you lived in would you want that to stop or nah?
How many civilians has Israel killed?
Zero with the pager attack, brilliant.
P.S. Fuck Nazis.
Re:Differences in action (Score:4)
I know which group's tactics I can support.
yeah, the genocidal one's, you have made that very clear many times.
Re: Differences in action (Score:2)
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oficially? no. some individual members might as well harbor such thoughts, decades of abuse and onslaught might very well spur such emotions.
then again hezbollah has no ability whatsover to inflict such a thing on israel, not even remotely.
israel otoh has made those intentions pretty clear, and is actually carrying out ethnic cleansing as we speak, arguably genocide, and they are able to do that for the sole reason that the u.s. has their back inconditionally ... which makes the u.s. a necessary accomplice
Re: Differences in action (Score:2)
Re: Differences in action (Score:2)
Know what? You don't have to choose sides. You can choose not to support any of them.
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Yes, one can. But I believe it's good and appropriate to stand with those who are indiscriminately attacked just because they exist. The Jews were given a piece of land in the Middle East after the Germans and the Ottomans tried to annihilate them in WWI and WWII. The Palestinians have been trying to drive out the Jews ever since. THAT is genocide.
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What a load of shit. Israel has slaughtered more Palestinian women and children than Hamas members by a factor of 20. Are you stupid, or just a victim of US propaganda?
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if that's a sketch of western propaganda, you actually nailed it :-)
Re: If it helps shalshbots to think about this ... (Score:2)
Reading between the lines (Score:4, Interesting)
>American diplomats had been pressing Nasrallah to agree to a separate cease-fire with Israel, without links to the fighting in Gaza, hoping for a deal that could lead to the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters from the southern Lebanese bases that threatened Israeli citizens in communities near the border.
>Senior Israeli officials said they voiced support for the cease-fire proposal, but Nasrallah withheld his consent, insisting on a cease-fire for Gaza first, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials said. Some senior political and military officials in Israel remained deeply uncertain about targeting Nasrallah, fearing the fallout in the region.
>On Sept. 17, even as the debate in Israel’s highest national security circles about whether to strike the Hezbollah leader raged on, thousands of Apollo-branded pagers rang or vibrated at once, all across Lebanon and Syria. A short sentence in Arabic appeared on the screen: “You received an encrypted message,” it said. ...
> “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another Oct. 7-style massacre,” Netanyahu said in the speech [after the explosions].
So let me get this straight...they were engaged in peace negotiations that would withdraw the troops that Israel objected to, under the condition they stop attacking Gaza, and to make sure those talks failed they detonated the devices and assassinated the guy, Nasrallah, who was negotiating for peace?
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they were engaged in peace negotiations that would withdraw the troops that Israel objected to
You are assuming that Netanyahu wants peace. He, or more precisely his right wing supporters, want Gaza and a big chunk of southern Lebanon. Cleared of existing occupants first, of course. Hamas/Hezbollah are no match for Israel. So as long as Bibi can keep shaking the tiger cage and eliciting the appropriate response, he can just point and say to US negotiators, "See? I told you so."
Anyone that successfully negotiates peace with Palestine will end up like Yitzhak Rabin. Bibi isn't that stupid.
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Considering he ordered the operation in the midst of peace talks, I'd already agree that no, he doesn't want peace, and any statements to that effect are contradicted by his attack.
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Anyone that successfully negotiates peace with Palestine will end up like Yitzhak Rabin. Bibi isn't that stupid.
It's not even that.
First thing to remember is that if Bibi left power tomorrow his corruption trial would resume and he'd go to jail. So his only hope of staying out of jail is staying in power until he can give himself immunity.
Second thing to remember is that Bibi is largely responsible for the Oct 7th attack. Not only did he ensure Hamas stayed in power by helping Qatar funnel money into Gaza, but in the months leading up to the attack he increased tensions by increasing the rate of settlement expansion,
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No. Nasrallah wanted to protect Hamas. He didn't want peace, as your quote makes clear. He was stalling for time and refusing to advance negotiations so that his minions could continue to fire rockets into Israel, like the one that killed a dozen Druze children at a soccer field.
Excellent plan, now the question for everyone is (Score:1)
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Israel is not going anywhere, so what's the plan now?
Iran is not going anywhere either, so what's the plan now?
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You could be right, maybe they did know in advance about the Hamas attack, and were waiting for it to play out so they would have a reason to strike back. Even if that is true, Israel was justified in striking back, in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Now, have they gotten themselves into a war that they cannot ultimately win? I don't know, they might have won some battles, only to lose a larger war.
When you got enemies around... (Score:2)