Tactically brilliant, strategically foolish

The exploding pagers in Lebanon – and now, even walkie-talkies – that killed at least a dozen people and injured over 2,800, most of them believed to be Hezbollah fighters, has all the hallmarks of an Israeli covert operation. Although Israel hasn’t owned up to it, American and other officials briefed on the matter have said that Israeli agencies planted tiny explosives in thousands of pagers used by the Hezbollah militia.

Consider this: Whoever was behind the operation knew that the Hezbollah fighters were using pagers to communicate through the militia’s hierarchy (and with their Iranian sponsors), found out who was supplying the devices to the militia, intercepted at least one batch of pagers somewhere along the supply chain and inserted tiny explosives into each device, and remotely triggered the explosives on thousands of them on Tuesday. Who has the sophistication and the capability to pull off such an operation? More importantly, who has the motivation and intent to do so? Clearly, it is Israel’s security agencies.

The question is, though, was it meant to be a warning to Hezbollah to back off on the Lebanon border? Or, was it a strike aimed at decapitating the communications and command-and-control -- and some militiamen as well in the bargain -- of Hezbollah ahead of an Israeli ground offensive into Lebanon? Has Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that, having degraded Hamas’ fighting capability with the war on Gaza, it is time to do the same to Hezbollah, Iran’s other proxy? 

The exploding pagers in Lebanon evoke shock and awe over Israeli tactics, arousing equal measures of admiration for a tiny nation that has honed its capabilities to survive in its hostile neighbourhood, and of disgust that it seems to know only the art of war but not the art of peace and coexistence.

Israel has only managed to show that while its security establishment is tactically clever and capable, the higher strategic direction coming from the political level is way off the mark in serving its national interest. It has locked itself into a permanent state of war and hostilities, rather than securing peace for itself.

It has to come up with ever more sophisticated tactics to survive. Israel cannot win on this spiral with clever tactics and covert operations. It must seek to win peace and friends by stopping the ongoing war -- in which it has already killed more than 40,000 Palestinian civilians – and negotiating a settlement of the Palestinian issue once for all. 

Israel has given notice to the world on how future wars will begin – by one side trying to destroy the sensors, communications and command-and-control capabilities of the other side.

For a number of years, countries have worried over electronic backdoors, software trojans, eavesdropping bugs and kill buttons inserted into electronic and communications hardware and software. Now, they have to plan for tiny explosives that may be inserted, too. Most importantly, can anyone anymore trust anything they import, from friend or foe, to be safe for their populations and national security?