I don’t want to be remembered for my many fights — Obaseki

By Jeremy Mayer 

Lebanon has been attacked by something the world has never seen before ‒ a mass sabotage of electronic devices remotely detonated.

Tiny bombs inside pagers and walkie-talkies went off as the devices' users were in homes, supermarkets, buses and on the streets. At least 37 people, including two children, were killed and thousands wounded in two waves of attacks this week. 

Lebanon's government and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group that uses the nation as a base for its militants, both blamed Israel. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attacks directly, but anyone who pays attention to the Middle East understands that this operation almost certainly originated in Tel Aviv.

On Friday, Israel launched an airstrike that reportedly killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil in Beirut. Israeli officials said Hezbollah later fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel.

War has always involved sabotage. But the morality and legality of sabotaging pagers is highly questionable. As is its wisdom.

When you turn pagers into bombs, you have to know that there will be a high risk of collateral damage. The pagers belonged not just to military members of Hezbollah, but also medical staff and others.

As an American, I support Israel with my tax dollars

In the past, when Israel targeted specific cellphone users, including killing a bomb maker working for Hamas, it seemed like a much better way to respond to terrorism − with minimal risk of collateral civilian deaths, as compared with, say, a missile strike on an apartment.

This time, an entire nation, Lebanon, has been terrorized. Its medical facilities are straining to handle all the bomb victims. Some in Lebanon are comparing the feeling of insecurity to the awful aftermath of the 2020 Beirut dock explosion.Hezbollah is helping Hamas, and both groups kill Israeli civilians without mercy or regret. They kill Israeli children when they can. I have no illusions about their methods. But I don't financially and politically support Hamas or Hezbollah.

As an American, I financially support Israel with my tax dollars. If they are murdering Lebanese children, then to some extent, I did that.

And how, exactly, is this helping Israel? Is there a chance Hezbollah goes, "Well, we didn't realize how dangerous Israel was, let's negotiate." The cyber attack has shaken the hornets’ nest and killed a few terrorists, that's all.

Sure, Hezbollah’s ability to communicate internally has been gravely damaged, at least momentarily. But this tactic is spurring anger at Israel across all sectors of Lebanese society, and indeed, the Arab world. Iraq is sending medical supplies to Lebanon; Egypt is expressing solidarity.

Will it be harder or easier for Hezbollah to get recruits? The pager and walkie-talkie explosions killed and wounded a few fighters, but there will be three or four replacements for each one who fell.

Hezbollah has always been a terrible challenge for Israel. It’s a non-state actor, with a military force far stronger than Lebanon's national army. A few years ago, I asked a Lebanese government minister how a fight between Hezbollah and the Lebanese military would go, and he predicted that Hezbollah would win in a week.

Hezbollah also is funded by Iran, and gets more sophisticated weaponry every year. Compared with Hamas, Hezbollah has always been far more potent as a military force.

Attacks may hurt Israel in the long term

The long-term hope for Israel in its relationship with Lebanon has to be that Hezbollah is eventually brought under control of the political authorities in Beirut, and that a coalition of Sunni, Druze, Christian and moderate Shiite leaders makes peace with Israel.

That is the dream, but also the only realistic way the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel ends well.

The cyber attack just pushed that day off by years. Is a massive sabotage of devices as bad as a Hamas bus bombing, which indiscriminately killed Israelis? No, but Israel should remember what happened when bus bombings left body parts all over the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The attacks devastated the Israeli left, the side that had been working for peace and even a two-state solution. They unified the nation around harder policies against Palestinians.

They strengthened Israel’s will to fight.

That’s what’s happening in Lebanon, as even Hezbollah’s fiercest opponents are now rallying to their support.

It also will inevitably cause more and more Americans to wonder if we should be such strong supporters of a nation that uses tactics that terrorize an entire country and inevitably leave behind dead and wounded children.

Jeremy Mayer is an associate professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, where he also directs the master's and Ph.D. programs in political science.