Some Truth Bombs At the UN 169


Alongside Richard Medhurst I had the chance to state rather more truth than is generally heard inside the United Nations in Geneva:

“Not only is the West complicit in the Genocide in Palestine, the ruling class of the West is so scared of its own citizens that it is now prepared to persecute its own citizens in support of a genocide”.

Richard Medhurst followed up on the same theme:

Our appearance at the UN was organised by Justice for All International, an admirable Geneva based NGO with which I am proud to be associated. If you can donate to their continuing crowdfunder I should be grateful. Please note that neither Richard nor I stand to receive anything from this other than (hopefully) travel expenses. Their crowdfunder is here.

On an apparently unrelated note, the scandal of the day is Keir Starmer receiving money from wealthy donors for designer clothes and accessories for his wife and himself. In the video above I am wearing the second-hand suit I bought in the Hague when I pitched up for the ICJ South Africa/Israel Genocide case. It doesn’t appear to detract from my words at all.

In the video I state that the reason the western ruling class support Israel is that they are bought.

UK civil servants are not allowed to receive gifts above a very small monetary value, in case they are influenced. I cannot understand why elected politicians are not subject to the same rule. They are in receipt of perfectly adequate public salaries and administrative and policy support from the public purse.

Why are any donors allowed to pay to influence them?

I would say the same for political parties. Individual donations over £1,000 should be banned, from people or organisations. If that shrank party machines, that would be entirely a good thing.

If the West is ever to return to meaningful democracy, these are a small but essential proportion of the changes required in our corrupt systems.

 

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169 thoughts on “Some Truth Bombs At the UN

1 2
  • Brian Red

    Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar and Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf were both removed from office for opposing the genocide.

    • Republicofscotland

      Brian Red.

      Yousaf was removed because he dissolved the Bute House Agreement with the Greens – you see the Greens and the SNP are on the same page – when it comes to gender issues – and they vote with the government to pass policy, as the SNP are a minority administration.

      Yousaf dissolved the partnership – the Greens had two – ministerial roles, in a panic, Yousaf who wanted to remain FM of Scotland – looked to the Alba party which has one MSP at present for back-up; Alex Salmond who is the figurehead of the Alba party, said that Yousaf wanted to do a deal with his party – Alba, a deal that would allow Yousaf to keep his job – however SNP bigwigs, who control the party from behind the scenes told Yousaf – in no uncertain terms that he was to stand-down as FM – and he did – and a safe pair of hands (a puppet) in John Swinney was appointed as FM.

      • Brian Red

        That sounds as though it was written by an AI program.

        Why in your view did Yousaf suddenly enter a state of panic (does he do that often?) in which he told the only friends his minority government were relying on to keep the confidence of the Scottish parliament that they could eff off and shove their agreement where the Sun doesn’t shine? There must be a reason.

        And why are the Greens now supporting an SNP government led by someone who isn’t Yousaf, regardless of the Bute House Agreement not having been reinstated?

        Yousaf was the issue. It had nothing to do with eco anything. The decision was taken by the Lobby to get rid of him, and an appropriate method was chosen – one that wouldn’t drag on and on. Same with Varadkar.

        • ET

          I can’t speak for Yousaf, I don’t know enough about Scottish politics. Varadkar’s resignation was unexpected but he hasn’t explained his sudden change of direction other than to say there were political and personal reasons. His succesor, Simon Harris, continued Ireland’s criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza and it was whilst he was taoiseach that Ireland recognised Palestine officially. There hasn’t been a change on the official Irish views on what’s happening in Gaza with the intention to join the ICJ case South Africa has brought still ongoing. Even with Varadkar now gone the Irish stance hasn’t changed. Not that it has made much difference on the ground sadly.

        • Republicofscotland

          Brian Red.

          I can assure you its written by me – from my home town of Glasgow – Yousaf got fed up with the tail wagging to dog so to speak – with the Greens pushing their own agenda’s, and holding the SNP to ransom of voting with the government – meaning back our Green agenda or we won’t back you in the chamber.

          Anyway the Greens pushed the Bottle Return Scheme which collapsed costing hundreds of millions of pounds – which was wasted taxpayers cash – add in that the Environmental firm – Biffa is now suing the Scottish government for around £200 million quid – Biffa spent big on making itself ready for the recycling scheme only for it to collapse.

          This and few other things (mainly gender issues) – really pissed Yousaf off – who decided to dissolve the Bute House Agreement – the Greens then made loud noises of not supporting the minority SNP government in the chamber – the SNP bigwig shot callers, such as Sturgeon and Robertson – decided that Yousaf must go and he did – to be replaced by John Swinney – which in effect was a safe pair of hands in the eyes of the SNP bigwigs, via supposed “internal elections.”

          If you don’t know how Yousaf was elected in the first place – you won’t understand the “internal lections” process of the SNP.

          The Greens made peace with the SNP – their main goal was the removal of Yousaf – was achieved – however the Greens are back making noises of not supporting the upcoming SNP government budget – which if it doesn’t pass could possibly lead to an election.

  • Stevie Boy

    “Individual donations over £1,000 should be banned”. This won’t work, there are limits within the USA, but they get around this by having funding parties where 100s of people attend and give donations just below the legal limit.
    The only way is to totally ban all donations and just let the state fund all parties as appropriate.

    • Townsman

      just let the state fund all parties as appropriate

      But how does the State decide which parties to fund?
      In Britain, should the Monster Raving Loony party receive funding? It fields candidates at General Elections, and thousands of people voted for it in 2024. Do you propose to fund only parties that get a lot of votes? If so, how do new parties get started? How could the Uniparty monopoly ever be broken?

      • Stevie Boy

        As I said (RTFM) ALL parties. I believe there already is a standardised definition a party needs to meet to stand, after that funding only allowed by the state, a standard amount to cover expenses and a right to a standard amount of TV exposure. The same for everyone, a level playing field.

    • Goose

      The only way to change politics in a UK and US context, is through the introduction of proportional representation. Then at least the cosy political duopoly, that’s become almost like a conspiracy against true democracy, can potentially be broken up.

      I recently stumbled across the obituary of financier, Lord Jacob Rothschild, who died in February, aged 87. In the obituary, it was stated, that it is estimated the Rothschild family’s net worth is… wait for it… £15.7 trillion. What chance do electorates have of been the sole concern of politicians, against people with a net worth like that; people who can demand an audience with any leading politician at their own convenience, not the politician’s. I’m not suggesting Rothschild exerted undue influence in any way, shape or form; merely that that kind of money gives the potential to buy and control leading figures in both parties fairly easily.

      • Brian Red

        With proportional representation, will the parties that form a government after an election on the basis of dropping manifesto commitments – because how else do you reach a deal with another party that ran on a different manifesto? – put their coalition platform to a popular vote?

        I am not defending first past the post. There is no answer to the question how to make parliamentary democracy truly democratic. Similarly, as far as I know, there’s no way to polish a turd at room temperature.

        Capitalism is gangster, everywhere.

        • Goose

          Brian Red

          Well, all the countries that use PR (vast majority) have hugely outperformed the UK, so that kinda answers that question. Britain is in a minority of one, in Europe, if you exclude Belarus.

          It could be that Labour and Tory remain the big two post PR’s introduction, as their German counterparts have: the SPD and CDU/CSU – Germany uses MMPR. But there’s a chance new parties finally get representation if you set the set a threshold low enough, at around say 5%.

          Besides economic equality and prosperity metrics, European countries using PR are more generally better governed in other ways too. Relevant to the UK currently; they also send a lot less people to jail and hardly ever for trivial offences. US and UK politicians love creating new laws and banging citizens up; laws that appear to be driven by nothing more than vindictiveness and spite. Read this v.good piece from Simon Jenkins from over 14 years ago (2009), when Labour were last in power, it holds equally true today: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/dec/10/conrad-black-labour-law-crime

          • AG

            thanks
            always love the old stuff.
            Reminds me of German TAZ from when it was a serious paper edited by serious people.
            That´s like ancient times looking back.
            Same with Telepolis and many others.
            Shocking to see the severeness of the downfall of (German) legacy media.
            Like a cultural turn.
            I wonder if ANYBODY in German media is aware of what is happening in GB right now.
            I am trying to send some of the outlets links from Craig e.g.
            But to inform the true powerhouses like SZ or ZEIT makes zero sense.
            They live in their own space and time.
            It´s sad as it is embarassing and infuriating.
            It´s beyond a shred of doub that if Palestinians would literally all be exterminated – in Germany there would be little reaction to that.
            “Ooops. They sure must be hiding somewhere in that desert. Can´t be ALL gone.”
            So this country is a lost cause.

        • Stevie Boy

          Brian. As you identify, parties are another of the cankers on true democracy. IMO, if you have to vote for a party then, in reality, you are having to accept compromises on your beliefs. Parties breed a hive mentality whereby the party is more important than the electorate. At the end of the day I’m coming to the conclusion that voting and democracy is an illusion created by TPTB to keep us happy and compliant. Don’t keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome !

          • Goose

            Stevie Boy

            Yes, I’m sympathetic to that idea too : political parties are an unnecessary evil; especially if cruel and despotic leaders impose draconian disciplinary practices – demanding total obedience to their edicts. Starmer’s early removal of the whip from those who rebelled over the two-child benefit cap, was a slap in the face to their electorates who’d put them in parliament as Labour MPs, only weeks earlier.

            How would you get anything done? Is the common refrain from critics of the ‘partyless’ idea. But there would be nothing to stop elected members forming loose cooperation agreements and forming groups – just nothing formal. The prime minister, were we to retain one, would need to muster a majority of the HoC, and his/her position would be tenuous, keeping them honest.

            Parties become especially dangerous when a consensus is created for something like war, as we saw in 2003 over Iraq, a situation where no one in either big party dare break ranks. This, despite the doubts many parliamentarians revealed ,only later, that they had at the time.

          • Goose

            Stevie Boy

            If you think about it, how is the ‘threat of whip removal’ for defying the leader, not a form of legalised ‘controlling and coercive’ behaviour?

            The UK Parliament sets a terrible example. The party whips should be removed, as a first step.

      • Calgacus

        People having net worth like that would be worrisome. But no individual or family has ever gotten near that much. Estimating that the relatively poor Rothschilds have that ridiculous amount suggests an anti-semitic lunatic source. Of course increasing inequality and massive wealth concentration has baleful influence on politics. Fairy tales about particular families hurts rather than helps efforts to make societies more equitable once again. People succeeded in equalizing things in the middle of the past century. It can be done again.

  • David Warriston

    David Lammy defended this donor democracy by explaining how important it was for politicians to ‘look their best’ when representing the public. But apparently some of the garments donated to Mrs Starmer were undergarments which, to date, have remained hidden from the public. Although given Starmer’s slump in the polls it may be too early to rule anything out.

  • Sparticus

    “the ruling class of the West is so scared of its own citizens that it is now prepared to persecute its own citizens in support of” – a foreign country and its ongoing war crimes. It sounds treasonous, dictatorial and illegitimate in those terms.

    I am glad our young people do not want to join our police force, join our army or even take up paid employment at all. Our system stinks, is corrupt and does not deserve anyone’s support.

  • Bob (original)

    Writing as a former U.N. staff member:

    israel has killed more than 200 UN staff in Gaza.

    Why has this member state not – at the very least – been suspended?

    • Republicofscotland

      “Why has this member state not – at the very least – been suspended?”

      Bob (original).

      Its pretty obvious Bob – that Israel is protected at the UN especially by the US and the UK – how else could an illegal occupying force – commit crimes against the oppressed Palestinian people for 75 years – even countless Resolution by the UN against Israel have made very little difference.

      Its high time the UN’s HQ moved out of New York to somewhere more central.

  • U Watt

    While persecuting his own citizens in support of a genocide, Sir Keir stood at a podium last night and said this:

    “We must call out Antisemitism for what it is: hatred.

    Tonight, I set a new national ambition. For the first time, studying the Holocaust will become a critical part of every student’s identity.

    We will make sure that the Holocaust is never forgotten, and never again repeated.”

    https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1835787536599539878

    The remarks have been reported with solemn respect by the British media. Literally nobody in the political-media class has suggested his remarks are in any way incongruous let alone the grossest hypocrisy, not even one individual from what they themselves term “the opposition”.

    The consensus is that this was a heartfelt outpouring by a deeply moral man, representing a deeply moral political-media class.

    • Jack

      Once again we see that some lives, the lives of the palestinians are not worth saving and could very well face a holocaust under the watch of the heinous Starmer & co, only certain races for much as they care other ethnic groups are however worth saving, respecting.
      This is a typical effort by the israeli lobby, so obvious, and comically, on the same day here in Sweden, the right-wing government made an the same announcement to strengthen jewish life and combat antisemitism:
      https://www-regeringen-se.translate.goog/debattartiklar/2024/09/judiskt-liv-ska-starkas-i-sverige/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=sv&_x_tr_pto=wapp

      Jews are not facing persecution in the west – that is such a nasty manipulative lie. Pro-israeli jewish groups however face criticism but try to frame this as antisemitism and now want the support from the western governments to silence their critics (us).
      If you are going to support war crimes galore you will get criticised regardless of your ethnic background, how hard is that to grasp for the pro-israeli jewish groups? They believe they are above the law and above other ethnic groups. So basically we have racist groups that want to support genocide and get away with it. World is upside down!

      Muslims, arabs should unite and make sure genocidal-enablers like Labour (and other pro-israeli political parties in europe) will not ever get their vote again, they should start a new party. Without being united we will get nowhere.

    • Stevie Boy

      Antisemitism is hating who Israel tells you to. Nothing to do with Jews.
      I welcome an honest study of the holocaust(tm), maybe then the truth can be ascertained.

      • glenn_nl

        SB: Try reading this, it’s exceptionally well referenced:

        The Holocaust : a new history
        Author: Rees, Laurence, 1957- author.
        ISBN: 9780241297001

        I really hope you weren’t straying into holocaust denialism there. To go along with your climate, covid and vaccine denialism. That way lies fascism, you know.

    • Brian Red

      will become a critical part of every student’s identity

      What is the word “critical” doing in there?

      Remember the Armenians, remember Rwanda, remember Hitler – and now look at Gaza. If you don’t do the last bit, it doesn’t matter what slaughter in the past you remember or don’t remember.

      Starmer is the scum of the earth. Nothing he says should be taken as suitable to have an intellectual debate over.

    • Jamie

      After Israel invaded Gaza, I threw “The Diary of Anne Frank” in the bin, along with a 600+ page concentration camp survivor’s notes. I did similar when Russia invaded Ukraine – including uninstalling two Russian programs. Indoctrination doesn’t work on me! No one is born a “_ew” – it’s a belief, NOT a race! I should know – my grandfather was one until he renounced his religion. He didn’t use the Holocaust to steal land or commit crimes against humanity. So tell SIR Keir to stick that in his pipe and smoke it!

        • Jamie

          Well, pretzelattack, I have no direct evidence of that (though I’m well aware of the Nuland recording) and, anyway, my response to what Russia did was also the result of other factors. I’d simply had enough of a certain religious group and Russia. They’re not a positive influence on me. Instead, I’ve discovered Japanese music – Tamaki Roy, for example.

        • Jamie

          Reply ↓
          Jamie
          September 17, 2024 at 18:21

          In case you or anyone is interested. Here are some more Japanese groups/singers:

          rhymester; ancient youth club; punpee; rip slyme; elvis beats; sakanaction;
          WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA – Shakushain; One Last Kiss (she’s actually Japanese American; video made in the UK); imase / demone,tamaniwa (click “cc” for English lyrics)

          That should be enough to help find others songs.

      • Stevie Boy

        I understand the sentiment but we shouldn’t destroy the past, it’s evidence of our history. And, maybe one day we’ll be able to point at the evidence and say: ‘here are the lies you bastards told us’. We can dream,can’t we !

        • Jamie

          I was purging from my life that which had done me no good. Russia threatening the world with a nuclear holocaust and then Putin rubbing shoulders with that two-bit despot, Lukashenko, talking about a “meat grinder” in Ukraine, was the last straw for me. I read no political books and don’t take any interest in UK or US politics – that’s also gone from my life! I know Keir Starmer is PM, but who else is in government and their positions, I haven’t a clue. Same with the U.S. I only read news when major events happen.

          • pretzelattack

            Russia did not threaten the world with a nuclear holocaust. the main meat grinder is the US – which, by the way, is aggressively provoking other nuclear powers.

  • Peter

    Good work Mr Murray, thank you.

    “In the video I state that the reason the western ruling class support Israel is that they are bought.”

    Indeed, but the power of the American and British establishments to control the narrative of the political and media classes, and their attempts to control the reaction and responses of the public should not be neglected.

  • nevermind

    Thank you both for your international calling out of the despicable actions of the current Uk collaborators to genocide.
    The Presentation went well and both of you made it clear that the UN, which has lost 200 of its staff to the genocidal regime, has only one option left, i.e. to expel and ban Israel for their lawless actions.
    Those who are active collaborators to this genocide should be barred from a vote/having a say on this punishment, the only action the UN can take should it so decide.

  • Republicofscotland

    So – as many UK pensioners lose their Winter Fuel Payments – it turns out that Starmer, sent Lammy to Kiev – with a big fat £600 million pounds cheque; of which MP George Galloway said:

    “This would be monstrous in itself. He saves £1.1 billion, but the very next day the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, went to Kiev and handed over another £600 million of our money, half the saving of the winter fuel allowance.

    And if that’s not an indication of two tier governance, I really don’t know what it is.”

    Already UK governments (Since 2022) have given the Neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine a staggering £12.5 billion quid of taxpayers cash – and Starmer, has bragged that he’ll support the Neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine to the bitter end – whatever that may be – in the meantime, Starmer – will be giving this vile unelected dictatorship in Ukraine – around £3 billion quid of taxpayers cash a year, whilst deep cuts to public spending go ahead in the UK.

    English governments love their Neo-Nazi’s.

    “Military
    the UK has provided £7.6 billion in military support since the invasion, and will provide £3 billion in military support for 2024 to 2025
    *******we will sustain £3 billion a year in military aid until 2030 to 2031 and for as long as it takes (announced on 10 July 2024)*******
    we have sent around 400 different capabilities to Ukraine, with a new package of military equipment announced on 7 July 2024
    a new UK/Ukraine Defence Industrial Support Treaty makes it easier for Ukraine to draw on £3.5 billion of export finance to support its armed forces (signed on 19 July 2024)
    we have trained over 45,000 Ukrainian personnel in the UK under Operation INTERFLEX
    we administer the International Fund for Ukraine to procure military equipment: over £966 million has been pledged to the International Fund for Ukraine to date, including for a new £300 million ammunition order (announced on 10 July 2024)
    Non-military
    the UK’s non-military commitments to Ukraine since the start of the invasion come to £5 billion. This includes £4.1 billion in fiscal support through World Bank loan guarantees and £937 million in bilateral assistance
    we will provide £242 million in bilateral assistance for 2024 to 2025, to fund humanitarian, energy, stabilisation, reform, recovery and reconstruction programmes.”

    Click the link – to get a full list of what UK taxpayers are being fleeced for – to support a vile Neo-Nazi dictatorship in Ukraine.

    https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/heres-everything-britain-has-given-to-ukraine/

  • Goose

    Breaking news story regarding Israel – Lebanon.

    It appears the IDF have detonated thousands of pagers in possession of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. It goes without saying that this is likely to trigger a major conflagration, a conflagration that many believe Netanyahu wants. With the simultaneous blasts, Israel had callous disregard for location (what if a passenger on a plane, or bus,train, alongside British or American tourists?) as many exploded indiscriminatetly in markets, shopping malls etc. females and males among the horrifically injured.

    From the reports it appears the Mossad or the IDF intercepted/replaced a shipment of pagers earmarked for Hezbollah; presumably inserting a small strip of semtex or other plastic explosive? If this is possible with ordinary batteries in standard devices, than no one is safe, and all devices need replacing, think of the implications for air travel.

    • Republicofscotland

      Goose.

      It looks like a major aim of Netanyahu’s – is to return the 60,000+ homeless illegal settlers in Northern Israel – (Palestine) back to their homes – Netanyahu almost sacked his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant – but he’s refrained from doing so for now – because Gallant has agreed with him (Netanyahu) that, a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is now imminent.

      The 60,000+ homeless illegal settlers in Northern Israel (Palestine) have now become an huge economic burden to the government – with all that’s going on – Netanyahu thinks a war with Lebanon (Hezbollah) is winnable – and that it must take place before Winter weather sets in.

      MoA – has a better detailed description of what Netanyahu might do – with regards to war with Lebanon.

      https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/israels-threat-to-wage-war-on-hizbullah-is-getting-more-serious.html#more

      • Goose

        RoS

        Adding to that risk: The Iranian ambassador is reportedly injured, note. that information comes with a huge disclaimer as it’s from normally reputable source on social media.

        If these devices were standard devices, and this is some previously unknown hack with the capability to overload/detonate batteries, the implications are v.bad. I don’t know why some pro-Israel people are celebrating online, if that’s the case? For it would mean every mobile device is potentially lethal and change travel restrictions.

        • Goose

          Edward Snowden just commented on X :

          What Israel has just done is, via *any* method, reckless. They blew up countless numbers of people who were driving (meaning cars out of control), shopping (your children are in the stroller standing behind him in the checkout line), et cetera. Indistinguishable from terrorism.

          A post under his :

          One exploded by a little girl at the store with her mom

          • Carlyle Moulton

            Goose.

            Correction! Nothing that Israel does or has done in the past can be called “terrorism”. This is true by definition.

            In 1948 three Jewish death squads that later were combined into the “most moral army in the World” killed 15,000 Palestinians to encourage 750,000 to flee. This is a death rate of 2%. This happened in 2 phases, first a softening up phase of about 7500 including the village of Deir Yassin followed by another 7500 on Nakba Day. This considerably exceeds by a factor of 10 the 1400 killed by Hamas on October 7 if one assumes that none of the remaining hostages survive.

          • Goose

            Stevie Boy

            Snowden doesn’t think it was simply the batteries, because of the seriousness and consistency of the injuries. The batteries in such devices tend to burn or flare, rather than explode with a detonation.

          • Goose

            Wonder how they did it?

            At a guess they probably interdicted the ship and did a spot inspection(?) replacing the box of pagers with their own ‘modified’ ones. They can certainly monitor orders( for the model numbers) and shipping manifests( to go straight to location of the cargo on the ship). Quite clever from a purely operational perspective. You can wager that Hezbollah will do an internal inspection of devices in future. They probably have a few that failed to detonate given the sheer number.

          • Goose

            There is one thing for sure. Were the situation reversed and had this happened in Israel, politicians in the US and UK would be queuing around the block to do TV/ radio interviews to condemn this act of obscene indiscriminate terrorism.

            Double standards again.

          • Laguerre

            The explosive would have had to be inserted at the time of manufacture. You couldn’t do it en route as it were.

          • Goose

            Laguerre

            Of course not. It’d take too long to do that.

            More likely scenario is they monitor all orders and/or have informants in Hezbollah, thus they have a window(weeks) to modify a box of that common model. Then they probably interdicted the ship in the guise of conducting a spot inspection(?) in the process replacing the box of pagers with their own ‘modified’ ones. No one any the wiser.

        • Republicofscotland

          Goose.

          The English propaganda machine – the BBC – is carrying the story.

          ITV’s news programme, also carrying the story.

          “At least eight people have died and thousands are injured after handheld pagers, used by Hezbollah, exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday afternoon

          The health ministry says 200 of those injured are in a critical condition, with a munition expert telling the BBC the devices were likely packed with up to 20 grams of military-grade high explosive.”

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwyl9048gx8t

          • Laguerre

            What le Lebanese health ministry calls a ‘critical condition’ may be more like ‘serious’ for us, not point of death. Something I saw suggested their criteria were different.

            The quantity of explosive is so small, that it could only be fatal, if the person carried it in their shirt pocket (over the heart….). Not everybody does that.

          • Republicofscotland

            Laguerre.

            The detonating of these pagers – would fall into line with a precursor to war, with Lebanon by Israel.

            See my 16.36pm link – it will explain it.

          • Goose

            Doctors and nurses use these pagers.

            American University of Beirut Medical Center had a new paging system go-live on August 29,2024.

            Whether linked or not, you can see how this looks.

          • Goose

            An AUBMC official statement said the following:

            ‘Following are the facts. Our paging system infrastructure was upgraded in April 2024. The Go-Live for switching to the new system took place on August 29, 2024. The scope of this upgrade was to enhance emergency and code communication, as several devices and systems had become obsolete.’
            ————
            That doesn’t mean much however, as this operation was clearly months and months in the planning. More may emerge as to collection/disposal of devices.

          • Goose

            …And sure enough it does…Iranian media claim.

            “The management of Beirut American Hospital collected pager devices from its employees 10 days ago, claiming that they needed to be repaired,” the Islamic Republic’s state TV said.

        • MR MARK CUTTS

          I hear Edward Snowden thinks that this is more of a battery sabotage.

          Personally I’m no techie. But if it is true then a battery in a Laptop or iPad could be attacked to do an immense amount of harm.

          All politicians and Civil servants have them – as do we.

          Disagree with some governments policies (foreign or otherwise) and Kapow!… we are out of the game.

          The Israelis have just set a precedent. Imagine if The Chinese did that with their technology? The Guardian would be full of blackened faced singed hair Liberals articles.

          To be honest despite the levity this does not look good to me. An example of what can be done. Once we know how Gazans can be ‘vapourised’ that will be another weapon for the so called Axis of Evil.

          All is fair in love and war, don’t forget. More reason not to cheer these things on.

          • Goose

            Lithium batteries are too small to explode and do the horrific injuries seen in some of the videos on X. People had their hands blown clean off and some of the facial(eyes),leg and chest injuries are absolutely gruesome. Most ‘expert’ opinion seems to be agreed that explosives were involved.

    • Stevie Boy

      Desperation. They can only do this once. Other news sources say 100s, not thousands, with potentially three killed. This is undoubtably Bibi and his buddies stirring the pot. Hezbolla will retaliate.

    • Jack

      There are tons of collaborators in the arab world unfortunately, just look how Israel swayed 20+ arab states to sit in silence during the this genocide. Israel seems to have penetrated the communication lines used by Hezbollah, making it easy to intercept imports of beepers and compromise them etc.
      A couple of years ago Israel assassinated Hamas prime bomb maker with a telephone bomb delivered by palestinian traitor:
      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/how-the-phone-bomb-was-set-up-1323096.html

      • Jack

        Besides is it not interesting that Israel could freely commit all these nefarious plots and not one of the 20+ arab states intelligence services ever manage to pick up on anything? Meanwhile the same arab states picked up that palestinians 7th october attack and warned Israel repeatedly about it.

        Egypt intelligence official says Israel ignored repeated warnings of ‘something big’
        https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/

        What a treasonous bunch of pathetic people that represent the Arab League. They should be called the US-Israeli Puppet League.

        • Laguerre

          You should understand how Arab intelligence agencies work. Their main activity once they come onto the office is drinking tea. But the Israelis’ understandable contempt is directed at the wrong target. They are not going to be defeated by the Arab national states, but by the religion-based movements, which include Hamas and Hizbullah. and which are doing pretty well at the moment.
          Israel doesn’t understand that a clever electronic trick is not going to win the war, or even create a lot of disruption (if the event is an prelude to a attack tonight).

      • Jack

        Imagine if Hezbollah, Iran, Palestinians did this instead against Israel. Oh the west would whine day and night for weeks with condemnations.

        So some 10 killed and they speak of almost 3000 injured! What is this if not terrorism?!
        Israel attacked not only Lebanon today, they set off bombs in Syria and injured the iranian ambassador to Lebanon. Still they have the audacity to claim they are the victim and that they want peace?!

        But they can do whatever they want since 20+ arab states do nothing anyway and they are the only ones that sit on the cards, but the enabling arab leaders apparently want to be humiliated, how the arab street put up with this though I do not understand, perhaps it is too risky to voice dissent in the arab world but so it was pre the Arab Spring too and the arab street exploded with protests anyway.

    • Brian Red

      1. The media in the US and its satellite countries will do everything to boost the line that Zionist fighters are very clever, they can act with nobody seeing them coming, they are very audacious – those boys and girls have really got cojones and mojo – and when they strike a target and Arabs get killed, the way the attack plays out is almost always exactly as the heroes planned it. No journalist ever gets the sack for channelling that message.

      2. Hezbollah (Arabic for the Party of God) are treated like filth by the said media. No interviews are published with Hezbollah spokespeople or leaders, because the US and its satellites have labelled Hezbollah “terrorist” – and the line must hold. Hezbollah don’t even launch missiles – they always “fire rockets”.

      3. No journalist will stay in his job longer than 5 minutes if he tries to call yesterday’s action in the Lebanon and Syria “terrorist”. But compare it with the Guildford pub bombings in England, which similarly injured both soldiers and civilians. For some reason, those bombs are always called “terrorist”. If you’re wondering what the definition of “terrorist” should be, you’re probably not a journalist.

      4. Keyboard warriors seem to be saying that having donned their tactical camouflaged underpants and conducted some osint analysis of a video or two, it was definitely explosives rather than merely exploding batteries and a software hack. So in other words they agree with the New York Times. But even if they’re right about the videos, only a fool would extrapolate from one or two videos. There were hundreds and perhaps even thousands of bangs yesterday.

      5. You can be absolutely sure that if several hundred or a few thousand devices exploded, there were some that were supposed to explode but didn’t. These can be analysed by Hezbollah, and when they are defused a quantity of explosives taken from a pager, if it exists, can be photographed and actually shown at a press conference. Until that happens, keep a very very open mind.

      6. If you want to fight the system, don’t carry a phone, pager, smartwatch, smart enema, Fitbit, pair of virtual reality glasses, etc. You need your head tested if you do. If you need to carrry a comfort item, that’s OK – carry a small teddy bear.

    • Paul M.

      some indication that the swappable battery module was altered by replacing one of the two batteries with explosive and adding a bit of circuitry. Once this was done and a supply of the exploding batteries were manufactured, it would take less than a minute per pager to pop it open and exchange the battery module. There have been explosions in Syria as well and on devices other than pagers.

  • Wilshire

    Some True Bombs against Hezbollah. That could have been the next topic. Away from Geneva.
    Whatever the technical details of this elaborate attack, it sadly shows Israel is playing in a league of its own. But like everything else, expertise in explosives comes with a price.
    The surest way to stop this bloodthirsty regime would be to cut their funding. Craig Murray underlines the bribes many politicians receive from Israel through lobbying. But it goes full circle. Israel would find it impossible to sustain its lifestyle, let alone continue this endless war against palestinians, without the permanent funding from the US government. Stopping this funneling, or conditioning its continuation to strict conditions for a peace respecting the people of Palestine is the only plausible way out of this quagmire.

    • Jack

      That is not enough and will not happen – the israeli power and the pro-israeli sentiment is too strong in the west even if funding/lobbying was cut tommorow. Palestinians need actual political and/or military help.
      One could compare the situation to the war in Ukraine. If Ukraine only got support through protests in the street in the west they would get nowhere. Same with palestinians. That is where the problem is since the 20+ arab nations will do nothing about their situation. Compare that with the 20+ EU nations that bend over backwards to give Ukraine support. Arab leaders could not even summon 1% of that type of aid/help and that is why palestinians will be forever stuck in their misery I fear.

      • pretzelattack

        Ukraine is a tool of the West. They don’t need military help; they need to cut themselves off from the West.

        I don’t know what line you are peddling here, but agree the Palestinians need military help.

        • Brian Red

          The question is how to break a siege when

          a) the besieging side is not concentrated only in the close vicinity of the besieged area but also has a presence around the world, and

          b) the besieged side too has people who are positively disposed towards it, also around the world.

    • Laguerre

      Clever Israeli tricks don’t mean victory. Not all hizbullah leaders had their pagers in their shirt pockets (necessary to kill). I doubt if they’ll even be much disrupted, though a certain number having their pagers in their trouser pockets may have had their masculine jewels put out of action.

      • Pears Morgaine

        If a major artery in the leg was severed, then the victim could bleed to death before help arrived; many people die of shock in such circumstances anyway.

        Hizbollah were using pagers because they were cautious of using mobile phones after the assassination of Yahya Ayyash. After this how many of them would want to carry a pager again?

        • Goose

          Seems crazy they didn’t have a sniffer dog trained to detect such things, or actually take a random few apart, to find the plastic explosive.

          Lackadaisical on their part given how sophisticated the Israeli’s are with tech and at monitoring weapons flows, and basically anything that has potential military use. I wonder what’ll happen to the guy who handed them out, if he’s still alive?

          • Goose

            ‘A former British Army munitions expert told the BBC that the devices would have likely been packed with between 10 and 20 grams each of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component. This would have been armed by a signal, something called an alphanumeric text message, according to the expert.’

            So taking them apart, as I suggested, without deep knowledge of the correct underlying schematic, wouldn’t have achieved much. And the explosive may have been sealed – in, say, a capacitor – so as to be barely detectable.

          • Goose

            Reported that the pagers ‘bleeped’ before exploding, so the clear intention was to maim as many as possible. As the pager goes off the person takes it off their belt to look at the number. That explains the 500 blinded stat and why so many have lost hands and fingers. As Craig states in his post on X, many of these are non-combatants, who work in govt and administration roles.

            Sick, isn’t it.

          • Jack

            I wonder where the shipments with the beepers came from, apparently it was the batteries that had been compromised. Done by collaborators of Israel in Libanon(?) or was compromised pre/during shipment that in turn came from another arab country?

            Regardless, very humiliating for the arab world but it seems like majority of that part of the world is sleeping.

          • nevermind

            There must have been some pagers that did not go off, failed to explode. Once they have found out and investigated how this was done, they’ll have a better idea on how to avoid similar goods delivery chains that are held up in transit.
            This was a desperate attempt by the Zionist regime to get Hizbollah into a full blown war before winter sets in.
            I am not convinced that the US had no knowledge of this hideous attack. Why else would they exchange/faze out pagers at their establishment/hospitals/university libraries in Lebanon?

          • Brian Red

            @Goose – “A former British Army munitions expert told the BBC that the devices would have likely been packed with between 10 and 20 grams each of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component. This would have been armed by a signal, something called an alphanumeric text message, according to the expert.’

            So taking them apart, as I suggested, without deep knowledge of the correct underlying schematic, wouldn’t have achieved much. And the explosive may have been sealed – in, say, a capacitor – so as to be barely detectable.

            I don’t take it as read that they did all have explosives in them, but if a small device like a phone or pager has 10-20 grams of plastic explosive in it, and it’s examined for explosives by someone who knows what they’re doing, of course the explosives will be found.

            Plastic explosive seems to have a density of about 1.5 grams per cm^3. So 10-20 grams will take up 6.7-13.3 cm^3 of space, or 0.4 to 0.8 cubic inches.
            An AR-924 pager has external size 73mm x 50 mm x 27 mm, i.e. 6.0 cubic inches.
            So 10-20 grams of plastic explosive would take up 7-13% of its volume. Hard to miss.

        • Laguerre

          PM “After this how many of them would want to carry a pager again?”

          You’re too limited with that. Who, all round the world, is going to trust their device again, now they know what the Israelis are willing to inflict on innocent people? And once a state knows how to do it, then private hackers will soon be able to do similar. yes, I know this is supposed to be a particular batch which were made in Europe under the name of a Taiwanese company, fitted with explosives, and they are pagers not mobiles. But that’s not what people may think. and hackers will be spending all their time trying to imitate what the Israelis did (Israelis, the inventors of terrorism in the 1930s, a practice subsequently copied by everyone else). They Israelis didn’t think out the potential consequences of their attack.

          • Stevie Boy

            I guess the important questions are:
            Who was the manufacturer (eg. Motorola?)
            Where were they manufactured (Eg. USA ?)
            Who supplied the software (eg. USA/Israel ?)
            Israel is the obvious perpetrator but who are the enablers/accomplices ?

          • Laguerre

            Stevie
            as my above @9.23: “Manufactured by BAC in Hungary for Gold Apollo in Taiwan. An Israeli front company?”

          • Brian Red

            Nobody in their right mind trusts any phone.
            Media reports are avoiding calling a pager a mobile phone when (look at this from a caveman’s point of view for a second) it’s obviously a type of mobile phone.
            Can a software hack cause a battery fire? Seems the answer is yes. That should be the “story”.
            So as well as following your every movement, and as well as listening to you even when the phone is switched off (NSA and GCHQ have been able to do this for years), they can be used to start a fire deliberately, either in your trousers or your house.
            There may even be a positive consequence of yesterday’s terrorism: among those who are reasonably sussed, security consciousness may increase and more people may decide to dispense with these fscking shitty little devices they have so far chosen to carry.

          • Brian Red

            Sounds to me as though the Hezbollah leadership panicked. “Just stop using smartphones now! We’ve arranged for something else…they’re called pagers…a shipment is coming.”

            May yesterday’s martyrs rest in peace, and may all the injured people recover fast, but something positive has come out of this, which is that the whole idea of mass carrying of electronic devices will hopefully go in the dustbin for the resistance. If there’s an addiction problem, well this won’t be the first time that an armed force has had an addiction problem. They’ll need to study what others have done in such circumstances. I’m only half joking about the teddy bears. Getting a new habit is a tried and tested way of breaking an unwanted habit. Gotta be flexible if you want to win.

          • Goose

            One aspect to this,is they can’t pull the same thing twice. Like with the sophisticated Pegasus spyware developed by NSO group,the Israelis may be revealing FVEYs tradecraft – much to their annoyance (as with NSO).

            Russia, China and Iran have no doubt watched with keen interest. Israel has previously boasted of sabotaging Iran – Russia technology supply chains remember. You can wager they are testing their own devices. Iran saw their President, Ebrahim Raisi and seven other people, including their foreign minister, killed in that unexplained helicopter crash not long since, so maybe a new avenue of enquiry regarding the pilot’s device?

          • Stevie Boy

            They could pull the same trick again if there were two batches of pagers with different kill codes. IMO, Hungary and Taiwan involvement implies USA involvement. Just saying …

          • Goose

            Also likely really counterproductive for Israel, as it’s likely to spur a recruitment drive because of its indiscriminate nature. Women and kids were killed and maimed. Taxi drivers etc. Targeted assassinations on compounds are one thing, doing this, quite another. They’ll probably easily replace the injured fighters and this will radicalise the group even more.

            Netanyahu won’t be around forever and Israel with have to live with his bitter legacy.

          • Stevie Boy

            It’s not really Netanyahu thats the problem, as such, he plays his evil games to keep out of prison and to satisfy the extremists. Israel is the issue, because the overwhelming majority support the genocide and the ethnic cleansing. So, replacing Netanyahu won’t change a thing. Also, Israel only exists and is able to do what it does because of USA support.
            To solve the Palestinian issue requires total change in the USA and that won’t happen because of the Jewish lobby that controls the USA government. Same in the UK.

  • Jack

    There is no lack of israeli-collaborators in Lebanon that is for sure: It is absurd how Israel could wield such power in the west with their lobby but what is even more disgusting is how Israel are able to pay off and play the arabs against each other:
    2010: Lebanon’s western-backed government warned its friends that “Iran telecom” was taking over the country two years ago when it uncovered a secret communications network across the country used by Hezbollah, according to a US state department cable.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/05/lebanon-warned-allies-hezbollah-telecoms

    2010: WikiLeaks cables: Saudis proposed Arab force to invade Lebanon
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-saudi-arab-invasion-lebanon

    2010: LEBANON: Wikileaks reveals cable saying defense minister gave Israel invasion advice
    https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/babylon-beyond/story/2010-12-02/lebanon-wikileaks-reveals-cable-saying-defense-minister-gave-israel-invasion-advice

    2011: Lebanon speaker pleased with 2006 Israel raids: Wikileak
    https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/20332.aspx

    • Laguerre

      What you’re talking about there in Lebanon is the hatred of the old elite, who lost the civil war, Christian and to some extent Sunni, for Hizbullah and the Shi’a. It’s a curious situation. In the last election, it was Hizbullah who won, and should have formed the government, but the Western powers, notably France, were so opposed, and the economic situation of Lebanon so poor that they needed Western help. So Hizbullah withdrew, and remained out of government. But they should be in power, democratically speaking.
      Of course, the problem goes back to what the French did when they enlarged the Ottoman province of Lebanon to create the mandate, incorporating large numbers of Muslims, when they wanted to make a Christian-dominated base in the Middle East, and then fixed the constitution/elections so that Christians would remain in power, or secondly Sunnis. It was stupidly done.

    • Stevie Boy

      When you understand how the security services in the west work: torture, blackmail, threats, bribery, then it’s easier to understand why there are collaborators. Maybe a bit more difficult for some from the comfort of their armchairs !
      Mossad, CIA, MI6. they’re all the same and have the same playbook.

  • Brian Red

    The Telegraph are saying that US sources have told the New York Times that “Two ounces of explosives were believed to have been hidden in 5,000 pagers next to a battery along with a switch to remotely trigger the device“.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/09/18/israel-hamas-war-gaza-latest-news-hezbollah-pagers-lebanon/

    So it’s not 10-20 grams any more; it’s two ounces, which is 57 grams.

    Two ounces of plastic explosives take up about 2.3 cubic inches, in a device that takes up 6.0 cubic inches.
    Without any explosives in it, an AR-924 pager weighs 95g, including the battery.

    So two ounces of explosives would be about 40% of the device’s volume, and they’d add 60% to its weight.
    What an absolute load of crap.

  • Goose

    Blinken today in Egypt, all smiles, propping dictator el Sisi up.

    Just how sinister is the US’s influence around the world, it can summarised as follows : Bad People Doing Bad Things.

    There is lots to admire about the US: its cultural, scientific research contribution and technological innovation, but its foreign policy, imho, post WW2 and right up to the modern day is an absolute nightmare for global stability. The US is facilitating Israel’s genocide with its bombs, and enabling Netanyahu’s arrogant belligerence: their assassinations and frequent sovereignty infringing air space violations, that risk deliberately expanding conflict to the wider region. And by propping up surrounding military dictators(see Blinken), the US is directly enslaving most Arabs to live under brutal dictatorships, dictators that hold democracy and human rights in contempt, dictators that are are held in place purely to serve Israeli regional policing needs.
    In Ukraine, the US is prolonging and indeed escalating an unnecessary war, a war that is hollowing out Ukraine’s younger population, and its future. This, rather than urging and allowing for a negotiated settlement, in what was a genuinely divided country post events at Euromaidan. Russia bears responsibility for their illegal invasion, but events that led to it have the US’s and UK’s fingerprints all over them.

  • Brian Red

    You’ve got to wonder how BBC diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams feels when he allows his name to be put to a sentence like this:

    “Given the astonishingly audacious scope of yesterday’s attack, it seems it was designed to cause massive physical, psychological and technical damage to one of Israel’s most formidable opponents.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3lm436jlo

    Would that even be worth higher than a C grade in English Language GCSE?

    We get it, Paul, with your nose so brown, your fingers on the clippings, your reaching for words like “vow”, and your multiple uses of “audacious” and “covert”. You can’t write for toffees, mate, and you can’t think either. Even your mum probably thinks you’re a dickhead and a thicko. No speculation other than the “heated” type, eh? And no conflict other than a “simmering” one. It hurts my brain to read this BBC shite.

    • Wilshire

      Likewise, in the same brilliant prose by Paul Adams: “ Commandos repelled from helicopters, planted explosives…” for RAPPELLED.
      As we always say, if you think education is expensive, just try ignorance.

    • Lapsed Agnostic

      Maybe it’s just me, Brian, but I can’t see anything wrong with the sentence that you highlighted. Are people not allowed to use the same word in the same article*, or utilise cliches? FYI, in England, GCSEs are now graded with numbers rather than letters.

      * I note that, in the first comment below the next blogpost, you used the word ‘again’ three times in the same sentence.

  • Republicofscotland

    It looks like Mi6 – might have been involved in the Zionists terrorist attack in Lebanon.

    “The pagers were sold under the brand name of Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company specialized in such devices. But, according to the company, the devices sold in Lebanon were manufactured under license by the Hungarian company BAC Consulting KFT.

    Lowkey writes:

    The CEO and founder of BAC is Cristiana Arcidiacono-Barsony, who describes herself as a strategic adviser in internal affairs with international experience in the Middle East.
    According to her academic profile she studied at SOAS and LSE universities in London.

    The above points to an MI-6 involvement in the affair.

    Elijah Magnier reports (vid) that the delivery of the pagers had been held up for several months by customs in a Middle Eastern country. The time was allegedly used by Israeli services to dismantle the devices and to replace their original Lithium-Ion batteries with ones which included explosives and birdshot to create a maximum of damage. The electronics of the devices were manipulated to trigger delayed explosions after the pager received a certain coded message.”

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/israels-pager-attack-a-sophisticated-one-times-shot-with-little-effect.html#more

    • frankywiggles

      Britain has been up to its neck in what’s happened since October 7th. Matt Kennard unpacked it on the latest Electronic Intifada live cast. Link posted above.

    • Brian Red

      Hi RoS – we posted at exactly the same minute. So SOAS as well as the LSE.

      I wonder in which Middle Eastern country in that scenario the Israelis are supposed to have got their hands on the devices. Replacing the original batteries with new ones that included explosives and birdshot sounds like an actual possibility, unlike the stuffing of two ounces of plastique into each device as was ludicrously suggested in the Telegraph and the NYT.

      The Middle East is supposed to be a group of Arab countries plus Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Cyprus.

      Are we talking Cyprus?

      • Republicofscotland

        Brian Red.

        This sounds interesting.

        “From Pepe Escobar’s TG channel

        THE MOSSAD-MI6 CONNECTION

        This is deliciously intriguing; it comes from a very well-informed Russian intel source.

        So the story goes that the head of MI6 Richard Moore ordered his spooks – in Hungary – to put explosives in the pagers in case Hezbollah got “out of control”.

        But” among the English T.E. Lawrences”, there were not only friends of Israel, but also enemies of Moore. They handed over the alarm code to the Mossad. So, “without hesitation, they neutralized all of Moore’s agents with one blow.”

        This might indeed be directly linked to the Brit nest of spiders. There won’t be a smoking gun, of course. What is already happening is the whole Brit press hysterically stating this was just a tricky Mossad op – and MI6 was not involved at all.”

      • Stevie Boy

        Or Oman, or UAE, or even Saudi.
        The question comes back to who actually supplied the devices because it wasn’t Taiwan and BAC Hungary is just a post box.

  • Brian Red

    OK we have a trace on the CEO of BAC Consulting, the company that according to a representative of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo had sole responsibility for the design and manufacture of the pagers. (Source: Telegraph). She’s Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono.

    According to her page at Academia.edu, she has a PhD and she seems to have gone to the LSE, but it’s not clear whether or not that’s where she got the PhD. She lists her interests as including chess and spirit possession.

    She sounds like just my type! (I’ll have to read up on Aby Warburg.)

    https://independent.academia.edu/CristianaBarsonyArcidiacono

    But wait. She seems to be connected with the Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Sciences in France (LSCE – Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement).

    Someone should take a look at the LSCE’s symbol etc. and say whether it smells a bit Steinerite. It’s part of the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, some kinda climatoid operation.

    The big question is does she treat the climate change BLX as just a day job, and keep it properly compartmentalised away from the spirit possession stuff. I hope so!

    • Brian Red

      OK so according to Linked In we’ve got the following academic record for Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono:

      * PhD at UCL, 2002-06 in Physical Sciences
      * master’s at SOAS, 2009-14 (presumably part time), in Sustainable Development of Natural Resources
      * diploma at the LSE 2015-17, Politics

      (Check: yes, that is the reported chronological order.)

      Her PhD thesis is here:

      https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1445268/

      Important: she may well be telling the truth when she says she was just the intermediary, and it is quite possible that she knew practically eff-all about what was going on.

      • Brian Red

        “(EU) Commission ‘looking into’ whether it ever employed exploding-pager firm boss”:

        https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-looking-exploding-pager-firm-boss-did-advisory-work-us-hezbollah/

        Did the Israelis take the EU for a bunch of schmucks? The BBC and Torygraph will doubtless continue to use the word “audacious” if so. Meanwhile thousands of people were injured, many with hands and fingers blown off, in this terrorist attack.

        • Tatyana

          “(EU) Commission ‘looking into’ whether it ever employed exploding-pager firm boss”
          Strange, because Cristiana has BAC portfolio on her Linkedin, on page 16 she describes how they evaluate, monitor and coordinate something for European Union and European Comission.

      • Jack

        She does not appear too concerned at all. If I happend to be a unknowing(ly) intermediary related to a large terror attack I would be sure and come clean to the media that I did not have anything to do with such an attack. This woman however seems to sneer at the media and hide away from obvious questions.

    • Tatyana

      Her LinkedIn page is most curious.
      – Earth Child Institute (NYC), Board Member
      – Initiative More Water for the Sahel (Paris), Board member
      – Foundation for Post-Conflict Development (NYC), UN representative
      – Working Group Business for Peace, UN Global COMPACT (NYC), member
      She speaks several languages, including Russian, and she cites Bulgakov in her self-presentation!
      And, she’s got some relation to nuclear physics?
      https://prnt.sc/z2RaPlKxXqr0

  • Jack

    Speaking on Lebanon I had missed this incident, so in 1980s Israel tried to kill the US ambassador to Lebanon:

    In August 1980, while serving as ambassador to Lebanon, Dean was the target of an assassination attempt, which, evidence dictated, was directed by Israel.[7][8][9] According to him:
    Weapons financed and given by the United States to Israel were used in an attempt to kill an American diplomat! Undoubtedly using a proxy, our ally Israel had tried to kill me.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gunther_Dean

    New book gives credence to US ambassador’s claim that Israel tried to assassinate him in 1980
    https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/credence-ambassadors-assassinate/

    When one read about the constant attacks, killing, assassinations etc by Israel one realize, that what Israel do today is exactly what the israeli-sect did ever since the Old Testament. When one read the Old Testament one find the same racism, same hatred, same thnic cleansing, same fights against this or that alleged enemy, same genocidal thinking, same genocidal acts, same herrenfolk thinking.

    • David Warriston

      The Zionist contribution to what is nowadays called ‘terrorism’ cannot be questioned. They have been the greatest developers, if not in fact inventors, of the car bomb, the letter bomb and now the pager bomb. They may now be working on developing the baby’s milk bottle bomb to speed things up a bit.

      Still no pronouncement from UK PM Keir Starmer on events in Lebanon. Though as Ernie Bevin, UK Foreign Minister and a target of Zionist letter bombs back in the 1940s might have said: ‘The Israelis have the right to defend themselves.’

      • Jack

        Indeed, add the etno-biological-bomb Israel came up with in the 90s, that apparently was set to target only arab/gene.

        Israel is reportedly developing a biological weapon that would harm Arabs while leaving Jews unaffected, according to a report in London’s Sunday Times.
        https://www.wired.com/1998/11/israels-ethnic-weapon/

        Who even think in these lines??
        Israel are on par with Dr Mengele’s experiments.

        • Stevie Boy

          Isn’t this exactly what the USA/UK bio labs in Ukraine and Georgia were doing, only targeted towards Russians. Not to mention gain of function in Wuhan.
          And let’s not forget the testing of Gates latest concoction on Palestinians currently underway in Gaza.

    • Republicofscotland

      Tatyana.

      It makes you wonder – where else in West Asia, or indeed the world – there are explosives hidden in walkie-talkies, computers, pagers etc – ready to be detonated (by who) when the time is right.

      • Tatyana

        Yet people implant things in their bodies, sometimes right into their brain.
        Well, I’ll start my own conspiracy theory, explaining why the US is so obsessed with Taiwan.

        • Goose

          Half the US/ UK’s and Israel’s cutting edge military gear couldn’t be made without Taiwanese components e.g. F-35s. The US literally doesn’t have the world leading TSMC advanced semiconductor technology chip fabs, to create the latest 3nm parts. The US is in the process of bringing those to the US however, and has offered huge financial incentives to TSMC for the construction of these fabrication plants. The US’s Intel have kinda dropped the ball in terms of fabrication tech in recent years,

          The world’s leading lithography company, that manufactures the large machines that make it all possible, is based in the Netherlands. ASML holdings have been forbidden by the US from selling new lithography machines to China, and more recently the US has even banned them from servicing pre-existing machines. Much to the company’s annoyance as China is an important customer financially for ASML.

      • Goose

        You’d think these groups would and rightly should, be so paranoid as to insist on accompanying any devices from factory floor to final destination for distribution. The US military and UK military depend on Taiwanese manufactured electronic components, and you can wager we have very secure supply chain auditing practices in place.

        I’m staggered they’ve been hit again, using the same technique, on a batch of radios ordered at the same time.

        • Republicofscotland

          Goose.

          From Tatyana’s link.

          The Zionists had unfettered access to the electronic equipment.

          “The walkie-talkies were booby-trapped in advance by Israeli intelligence services and then delivered to Hezbollah as part of the militia’s emergency communications system, which was supposed to be used during a war with Israel, the sources said.

          One source said that because they were meant to be used only during war with Israel, a large number of the walkie-talkies were in storage in Hezbollah warehouses.”

          • Goose

            Some of this stuff reads like it could produce candidates for the Darwin award, doesn’t it.

            This was the sworn military enemy of Israel, with Israel fully backed by the US. I find some of the poor security practices, quite frankly, incredible, the follow up walkie-talkie hit today being another example.

            The 2020 Beirut explosion bore all the hallmarks too.

          • Jack

            Hezbollah should dump all suspicious devices right outside the arab embassies throughout Lebanon. Return to sender/agent. Or better yet throw them over the fence.

          • Stevie Boy

            If you want conspiracy theory then it may be worth thinking about the software in your smart cars. Where does it come from and what does it/can it actually control ? Unit 8200 is involved in many, many hi tech companies.

      • Jack

        One wonder if the western intelligence services counter-spying/surveillance units know what Israel is up to and let them carry out their terror acts or 2 the western intelligence counter units have no idea what Israel is up to.

    • Jack

      Jesus christ the israelis are so heinously depraved. Who would get away with setting off bombs in civilian use tools as mobile phone gadgets, killing, maiming and injuring thousands of people not only 1 but 2 days?? Who even come up with these evil ideas of hurting people?

      And when Hezbollah will send some rockets, oh then they will throw up their arms and lamenting, crying – “why do they hate us?!”.

  • MR MARK CUTTS

    If the idea was to put Hezbolla off and then the Lebanese would all surrender once the IDF
    move in unchallenged is a stupid idea.

    Unless you want to provoke Iran into the conflict.

    Bring Iran in you bring Russia and possibly China in.

    This then becomes Big league and that will be very serious indeed.

    Not just for Israel but The West as a whole.

    Ditto with Ukraine and the UK’s obsession with giving Putin one in the eye.

    The centrists are playing with fire.

    They are unfortunately too dumb to realise it as it takes imagination to view the
    future due to the consequences of your actions.

    It looks like the UK is under the illusion ( like the US) that you can attack a country
    without being attacked back.

    Israel similarly – I’m afraid all concerned are about to have their illusions shattered.

    I can imagine the MSM’s headlines crying foul.

    They are dumb too.

    • Goose

      Israel seem to excel in the highly technical stuff, like hacking ( e.g. Stuxnet, Pegasus, these pagers’ firmware) and supply chain interdiction, but have you seen how disorganised and unprofessional their mainly conscript soldiers are?
      The females appear to be more interested in posing and dancing, and the fellas seem to enjoy humiliating Palestinians and desecrating their properties with silly ‘knob’ drawings, that is when they’re not posing wearing stolen female underwear. A disciplined fighting force would probably wipe the floor with them in street to street combat. It’s to be hope Israel never gets invaded alongside the rocket barrages, because it seems like their vastly superior, US provided air power, does most of the heavy lifting.

  • Republicofscotland

    Supposedly Edward Snowden said on X – (I don’t do X) – that, it might not just be walkie-talkies and pagers that are packed with explosives – tablets – phones – laptops etc, could also have explosives inside of them.

    Maybe, this is the first picture of the model of the walkie-talkies that the Zionist terrorists blew-up.

    https://en.topwar.ru/250376-racii-telefony-i-planshety-v-livane-novaja-ataka-na-hizballu-s-detonaciej-gadzhetov.html

    • Goose

      And an iPad battery is fairly large too – at least relative to a pager’s. These attacks could change air travel precautions, for sure. I mean, hypothetically speaking, how easy to sneak a pager on a flight and tape it somewhere (under a seat) then get kicked off the plane feigning a medical emergency or drunkenness? Horrible world, isn’t it.

      This whole ‘supply chain sabotage’ problem will likely make Russia paranoid too; making them reevaluate all purchased electronic components in their weapon systems and especially nuclear deterrent systems. Could the US and UK have sabotaged those, hence the recent recklessness and overconfidence? China less so, as they actually manufacture most of their own electronic components such as circuit boards, transistors and capacitors.

      • Republicofscotland

        Goose.

        Our host has commented – that who now would trust ANY electronic equipment made in Israel – these terrorist attacks, have damaged their electronic manufacturing credibility.

        • Goose

          RoS

          I doubt they’d be interested in their harmless online critics, of which there are hundreds of millions around the world in Muslim countries alone.

          But yes, dangerous vulnerabilities need to be shared by the NSA, GCHQ et al, not hoarded. As if the capability exists to remotely change parameters in devices, resulting in setting someone’s house on fire and killing someone’s wife and kids, then that isn’t proportionate and nobody would see it as such.

        • Wilshire

          Until further notice, none of the devices that ‘exploded’ in these recent attacks had been ‘made’ in Israel.
          Hezbollah has been extremely careless in using those without proper scrutiny, but they’re not utterly mad to the point of ordering Israeli-made devices!

          • Goose

            Israel would become more of a pariah state than it already is if they shipped a batch of explosive-laced iPhones – they’d lose all inward investment, it’d be economic suicide. And sanctions would follow. They’d also be sued to oblivion by Apple.

        • glenn_nl

          RoS: “[…]who now would trust ANY electronic equipment made in Israel”

          – Or, indeed, if there was Israeli involvement in any part of the supply chain.

  • Alyson

    Well, guys, ladies, I think we’re up to date here now.
    How many of us use apple devices, manufactured in Israel?
    Japan has just agreed an import order of iPhone 16’s with the agreement not to have the AI program installed on them. AI programs?
    Schools are set to ban smart phones from school premises and issue dumb phones instead. Sensible.
    This has been very long in the planning.
    Are we scared yet? Is Starmer scared? Clever bunch aren’t they…

    • Wilshire

      Apple has 2 R&D labs located in Israel, but there’s no production facility. No commercial devices manufactured there. Regarding AI, the software interface used only works in English so far. The rollout in German, Spanish, French and JAPANESE is only scheduled for late in 2025. This is basically a technical delay, nothing to do with some reluctance from Japanese authorities.

  • Republicofscotland

    On the pager – and walkie-talkie terrorist attacks in Lebanon – by the Zionist occupying forces in Palestine.

    Congressman Brad Sherman – a Democratic representative for California’s 32nd congressional district, took to X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday – to express his approval of the attacks.

    Sherman – has received around $800,000 dollars from Israeli lobbyists so far.

    • Jack

      I assume no money is needed for this man though:
      “His parents were both of Ukrainian Jewish descent.

      Very odd but common discourse in the west now. Sure some media implying that civilians have been killed which they believe is bad… but who said it was legal to kill Hezbollah members to begin with? These are extra-judicial assassinations!

  • Brian Red

    The psychological warfare geniuses in the British state’s “BBC Verify” department claim that the identification of the pagers as carrying Gold Apollo branding is based on … unverified images they found on “social media”:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew12r5qe1ro

    – although rather than encouraging scepticism about the brand identification, given the dubious source of the photos, they write as if it’s a fact.

    The British fighters also say that Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono’s Linked In page says she “holds PhDs from two London universities”. It doesn’t. Clearly no-one at any point during the BBC unit’s “verification” process thought to check, or to realise that “diploma” and “doctorate” don’t mean the same thing even if they start with the same letter.

    What a bunch of jokers.

    And to think…there’s bound to be someone at BBC Verify who either knew Dr Bársony-Arcidiacono at SOAS or who shares a mutual acquaintance.

  • AG

    Just to offer an example of how German “left” daily TAZ is commenting on this sick attack.

    First piece is arguing IN FAVOUR of such an attack. Second AGAINST.

    FIRST:
    The author – after all – was Israel/Palestine correspondent – for 20 years!
    1999-2019.
    The incompetence and the indescribable racism speak for themselves.

    Good god this country…
    (Needless to say that many among TAZ staff are supportive of hate-speech laws – hmm, if they were honest they might wanna indict their own colleague then. Oh no, I forgot because it is disguised as a political analysis it’s not hate speech. That makes everything suddenly much better.)

    “(…)
    Was the attack attributed to the Israelis legitimate?

    Yes

    of course it is legitimate to attack the enemy in a war in such a way that civilian casualties are kept to a minimum. What else? The attack with explosives hidden in the pagers of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah does exactly that.

    All indications are that the Mossad, Israel’s legendary foreign intelligence service, is behind this military feat. Equipping the new pagers, which the terrorist organization had specifically ordered to protect itself from being spied on, with explosives is simply ingenious.

    Hezbollah aims to destroy Israel

    Now it could be debated whether the attack was also strategically clever. It is doubtful that it will bring Israel any closer to its goal of pacifying the north and allowing the tens of thousands of internally displaced people to return safely to their homes. Hezbollah, for whom the attack represents a severe humiliation, is threatening retaliation. Ultimately, Tehran decides on the military action of its Lebanese henchmen, and the Ayatollahs have so far stuck to the unwritten rules to prevent the war from spreading. The fact that they are doing this is due to the military superiority of the opponents and the fact that a major war would be a catastrophe for all involved.

    Without Iranian influence and without Hezbollah, the two neighboring states could have made peace with each other long ago. Israel withdrew its troops almost a quarter of a century ago. The conflict is neither about territorial claims nor about the liberation of a people living under occupation. Hezbollah aims to destroy Israel or – as its program says – the end of the “little devil.” The terrorists draw their raison d’être from the fight against the Zionists. The fact that around 4,000 fighters are out of action for the time being changes the situation little. But there is no need to regret it either.

    Susanne Knaul
    (…)”

    Second

    “(…)
    Was the attack attributed to the Israelis legitimate?

    No

    the explosion of thousands of pagers in Lebanon was an indiscriminate attack. Such attacks are prohibited by international law. An indiscriminate attack is when military targets and civilians or civilian objects are hit without distinction. The attackers could not estimate where the devices were. They exploded in private homes, shopping centers, on streets with heavy traffic.

    These are not combat zones, but undefended places. The Israeli secret service cannot control who the pager booby traps hit: Hezbollah officials, the Iranian ambassador, the son of a Hezbollah MP, a Hezbollah fighter who operated the rocket launcher yesterday, or his wife and child. Hezbollah is not just a militia. It has MPs, ministers, its own hospitals, paramedics. The attackers cannot know which of its members Hezbollah gave a pager to.

    Fear is spreading in Lebanon

    If, on the other hand, Hezbollah had detonated Israeli soldiers’ radios while they were shopping for apples, it would have been called a terrorist attack and condemned. The terrorist attacks on pagers were directed against unarmed people going about their daily lives. Even if the pager owners are Hezbollah fighters, it is a war crime to attack them when they are out of action. The victims’ innocence and defenselessness were exploited here.

    Added to this is the psychological impact and the political scale. People unknowingly carried bombs in their trouser pockets into public places. An explosion in the middle of the supermarket, bleeding people on the street. Fear is spreading of becoming civilian victims of an Israeli attack and that the war is now finally expanding, with Lebanon as the main theater. It is a deliberate massive escalation by Israel.

    Julia Neumann
    (…)”

    This is elementary school grade level and tells you everything you need to know not only about Germany but the EU.

    The latter author is correspondent for “Western Asia, stationed in Beirut” (of course you have one correspondent for Israel/Palestine, and another one for whole of “Western Asia”). Obviously Germany is a mighty big fucking country at the forefront of global industry and technology, famous universities and a supreme culture. In case you did not know. Come and visit us!

  • Tatyana

    On explosions in Lebanon, todays article in the New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html
    “B.A.C. Consulting …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.
    B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
    …in Israel, intelligence officers referred to the pagers as “buttons” that could be pushed when the time seemed ripe.
    …on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would do whatever was necessary to enable more than 70,000 Israelis driven away by the fighting with Hezbollah to return home
    …On Tuesday, the order was given to activate the pagers.
    To set off the explosions, according to three intelligence and defense officials, Israel triggered the pagers to beep and sent a message to them in Arabic that appeared as though it had come from Hezbollah’s senior leadership.
    Seconds later, Lebanon was in chaos.”

    • AG

      you can only cry over the canting behaviour.
      Comparing RU society and the ever-sickening racist views in Israel.
      But who is being pestered by sanctions?

      Sometimes I have this dark feeling it would be really good for them to rot in their idiotic Israel being ignored by the whole world, boycotted on every conceivable issue, an outlaw people. Just isolated 100% for 50 years on the world stage with zero sympathy by anyone.
      Subject to water-proof cancel culture.
      p.s. problem: Too many Arabs live there who would have to pay the price.

    • Stevie Boy

      British Aircraft Corporation – BAC, now known as BAE Systems, heavily involved in ‘intelligence’, and manufacturing death and destruction for the UK and USA.
      Just saying … 🙂

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