Imagine presenting the following challenge to the international human rights community:
There are 5,000 terrorists spread over a wide geographic area. They are embedded into the civilian population and are difficult to identify.
Your mission: Eradicate these terrorists in the most ethical and efficient way possible, and with minimal damage to civilians and property. After much debate, our team of human rights experts proposes an ideal solution:
Deliver 5,000 “mini-bombs” into the hands of each of the 5,000 terrorists. Make the explosives small enough to wound the terrorists yet with minimal collateral damage. Such a solution is clearly beyond the realm of reality. Or so everyone thought – until last week, when Israel combined incredible ingenuity, technology and espionage to achieve precisely this result.
Even better, Israel got Hezbollah to self-identify each of the 5,000 terrorists.
Even better, Israel got Hezbollah to distribute the mini-bombs to all 5,000 terrorists.
Even better, Israel got the terrorists – Hezbollah and Iran – to pay for it all. Imagine how Israel’s historic triumph over terrorism is now being celebrated by all humanity – praised by diplomats, academics, the media and “human rights advocates.”
Yet the reaction was far different:
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply alarmed” by the beeper attack.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said the attack “violates international human rights law.”
NPR blared this headline: “Did exploding pagers attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon violate international law?” (Their answer: Yes.)
Josep Borrell, the European Union’stop diplomat, condemned the “indiscriminate method” used in the beeper attack.
CNN negatively portrayed the beeper attack by highlighting the (rare) civilian casualties.
It’s disturbing to see how deep antisemitism runs in the corridors of power. With Israel standing on the frontlines against the evil jihad, how much more clear proof does anyone need that those who frame Israel as the evil aggressor are on the wrong side of history – joined by a long list of antisemites who promote blood libels against the Jews.
“This is a seismic battle of civilisation against barbarism, victim against oppressor, truth against lies,” Melanie Phillips writes. “Lonely Israel is leading the great fight of good against evil, while the so-called civilised world no longer knows what side it’s on.”
One thing is obvious: No matter what Israel does, nothing will silence the antisemites and their supporters. So instead of trying to satisfy the critics, let's say with full confidence: “The problem is not with us. The problem is that you are speaking falsehood, and are either antisemitic, brainwashed or being bought off.”
The genius of Israel’s beeper attack may have achieved much more than the goals of eliminating Hezbollah terrorists and destroying their communications network. It is being checked if during the weeks prior to the explosions the beepers also served as GPS tracking devices placed onto every Hezbollah terrorist. This would have provided real-time intelligence on the precise location of every Hezbollah asset – rocket launchers, weapons depots, military camps, underground tunnels and network of contacts. Israel is now using these same GPS coordinates to hit a vast array of terrorist targets with pinpoint accuracy. The central character in this story – the humble “beeper” – was invented in the 1940s by a Jewish engineer named Al Gross. Gross, the son of Romanian-Jewish immigrants, grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. At age nine, he became fascinated with wireless communication technology, and by age 20 he’d invented the walkie-talkie.
Hired by the CIA during WW2, Gross created a breakthrough portable communication device that enabled American military intelligence to safely communicate, while doubling as a wireless intelligence-gathering device that saved millions of lives by shortening the war.
In 1946, Gross became immortalised in American pop culture when his visionary concept of combining a beeper with a wireless microphone (an early iteration of the mobile phone) became the iconic “wrist radio” in the Dick Tracy comic strip.
Gross’ beeper invention first came into use in 1950, as a life-saving way to communicate with doctors at New York's Jewish Hospital. The first commercially available beepers were produced by Motorola, which in 1964 became the first U.S. corporation to have an R&D unit in Israel, helping pave the way for other tech companies to invest in Israel.
Ironically, Motorola’s office was located in Haifa, the capital of Israel’s northern region that today is the prime focus of many Hezbollah attacks. Al Gross’s inventions were decades ahead of their time and he never got to cash in. His patents expired in the 1970s, just prior to the cellular explosion that has transformed global communications. Gross passed away in 2000. He’d likely be pleased by Israel’s beeper attack, where after so many years, his ingenious device helped the Jewish state eliminate evil.
