Tag Archive for: Institute for National Security Studies

Mossad Gets an Award for its ‘Exploding Pagers’

Remember the “exploding pagers” that on September 17, 2024 all went off in the hands, or in the pockets, of members of Hezbollah, resulting in the killing of several dozen of its operatives and more importantly, in the severe wounding — of 3800 Hezbollah fighters, who lost eyes, hands, ears, arms, legs, and much more. This spectacular Mossad operation has just been recognized with an award by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. Mossad Director David Barnea accepted the award on behalf of the agency. At the award ceremony, he revealed more about the “Pagers Operation,” that can be found here: “Mossad director says beeper operation ‘broke’ Hezbollah, reveals new details,” Jerusalem Post, February 25, 2025:

Mossad Director David Barnea was honored by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) on Tuesday on behalf of the Mossad for their beeper operation targeting Hezbollah terrorists in September.

Following his acceptance of the award on behalf of the organization, Barnea spoke to the crowd.

What “deep understanding” of the enemy did Mossad require? Did Hezbollah use pagers at all, instead of other forms of communication? Did it distribute those pagers just to the upper echelons, or were those at a lower levels also supplied with such devices. Where would they have placed the pagers — in their pants pockets, flak jacket pockets, in knapsacks?

Mossad agents told Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes” that they looked at several options for the pager’s ringtones. They wanted to find a sound that would compel the owner of the device to take it out of his pocket. The intelligence agency also looked at how long it took a person to answer a pager, finding it to be an average of seven seconds. So they programmed the pagers to go off exactly seven seconds after the ringtone.

“The beeper operation is a clear example of the realization of our mission. It was planned by Mossad employees creatively, using sophistication and cunning.”

“It showed intelligence, penetration, and a deep understanding of the adversary, technological superiority, and first-rate operational capabilities.”

Barnea added that “the operation symbolizes the turning point in the war in the north and the starting point for the ten days during which the tide turned against our enemies. A clear line can be drawn in the war in the north – from the beepers to the elimination of Nasrallah to the ceasefire.”

The exploding pagers, and the day after, the exploding walkie-talkies, did not kill thousands of Hezbollah operatives. From the pagers alone, about 40 of them were immediately killed, and 3,800 were wounded, many of them severely, with eyes and hands and legs blown off.

A question of timing for Mossad to figure out: not just how long it takes the average person to answer a pager, but how long it took for Mossad to have assured itself that it had prepared enough of the pagers, and made them available on the market at a price low enough to be affordable, but not so low as to arouse suspicion. Mossad held the pagers back, and waited until ten times — a total of 5000 — as many pagers had been prepared, and at that point, it was showtime.

Many believe that in the war against Hezbollah, the exploding pagers played a critical role. The nearly 4000 Hezbollah operatives who are now walking around in southern Lebanon and southern Beirut, missing eyes, or hands, or ears, or legs, or are slumped over in wheelchairs, unable to talk, are evidence for all to see of Israeli prowess and Hezbollah weakness. The Mossad’s David Barnea believes that the “exploding pagers” effect was far greater than the numbers of casualties would suggest. It was, he says, “the turning point in the war.”caused Hezbollah’s morale to collapse, almost completely, on September 17, 2024. And ten days after the “exploding pagers,” the death of Hassan Nasrallah, buried under the rubble of Hezbollah headquarters in Dahieh, Beirut, destroyed whatever glimmer of hope Hezbollah still had. For the Lebanese terror group, It has been downhill all the way, ever since.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Obama Threatens to Veto the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act

Like many Americans and Israelis I watched expectantly President Obama’s State of the Union Address (SOTUS)  before a joint session of Congress crammed into the House Chamber. I was looking for a reaction from the Congressional audience on the issue of the P5+1 agreement implemented on January 20th. Iran’s President Rouhani had basically told  the P5+1  in a CNN  interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that the Islamic regime was not going to dismantle their nuclear program. Instead they were going to plough ahead with research and development on advanced centrifuges and would not swap the Arak heavy water plant that would produce plutonium for a bomb.

In  light of these jarring comments made in Davos, Switzerland  by President Rouhani  at the World Economic  Forum, you would have prudently thought that the President would have changed his mind about  vetoing  the Nuclear Weapons Free Iran Act (NWFIA), S. 1881. Obama made it clear that he was proceeding with the P5+1 deal as a diplomatic way of  avoiding  military action to disable the Islamic Regime’s  nuclear weapons capability.  A capability that according to Israeli PM Netanyahu  speaking at the Annual Conference of the Institute for National Security studies at Tel Aviv University  (INSS) was  “six weeks away from achievement when the P5+1 deal was signed” on November 24, 2013 in Geneva.

President Obama fired a bow shot directed at NWFIA sponsors Sens. Kirk and Menendez, and 57 other co-sponsors of S. 1881, as well as the Resolution introduced in by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor  (R-VA)  and Minority Leader Steny  Hoyer (D-Md.) supporting its passage.

Obama said:

Let me be clear if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it.

For the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed.

If Iran’s leaders do not seize this opportunity, then I will be the first to call for more sanctions, and stand ready to exercise all options to make sure Iran does not build a nuclear weapon.  But if Iran’s leaders do seize the chance, then Iran could take an important step to rejoin the community of nations, and we will have resolved one of the leading security challenges of our time without the risks of war.

It is American diplomacy, backed by pressure, that has halted the progress of Iran’s nuclear program – and rolled parts of that program back – for the very first time in a decade. As we gather here tonight, Iran has begun to eliminate its stockpile of higher levels of enriched uranium. It is not installing advanced centrifuges. Unprecedented inspections help the world verify, every day, that Iran is not building a bomb.

If John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could negotiate with the Soviet Union then surely a strong and confident America can negotiate with less powerful adversaries today.

Watch this C-SPAN video clip of the nuclear Iran segment of his SOTUS:

The immediate reaction was clearly stony silence from the Republican members of both chambers in the audience.

According to a  Jerusalem Postarticle on the President’s veto threat, NWFIA co-sponsor Sen. Kirk said:

“The American people – Democrats and Republicans alike – overwhelmingly want Iran held accountable during any negotiations. While the president promises to veto any new Iran sanctions legislation, the Iranians have already vetoed any dismantlement of their nuclear infrastructure,” Kirk added, calling his bill an “insurance policy” for Congress.

The Hill  Global Affairs blog reported the dissembling  the morning after  the President’s SOTUS remarks on a nuclear Iran by some Democratic co-sponsors of NWFIA in the wake of the President’s public veto threat.  Note these Senators’ comments:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on MSNBC Tuesday night that he didn’t endorse the bill so that it could be voted on during negotiations with Iran. “Give peace a chance,” he said.

“I did not sign it with the intention that it would ever be voted upon or used upon while we were negotiating,” Manchin said. “I signed it because I wanted to make sure the president had a hammer, if he needed it and showed them how determined we were to do it and use it, if we had to.”

[…]

“Now is not the time for a vote on the Iran sanctions bill,” Coons said Wednesday at a Politico event, according to The Huffington Post.

The senator clarified that he still supports the bill but warned advancing it now could damage ongoing negotiations toward a final agreement with Iran.

[…]

“I’m not frustrated,” Menendez told The Huffington Post on Tuesday after Obama’s address. “The president has every right to do what he wants.”

The Hill Global Affairs blog noted the Senate reaction  to NWFIA :

Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the second-highest ranking Democrat, Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the fourth-highest ranking Democrat, and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have said they are against the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has also suggested he’s leaning toward not allowing a vote on it.

On Wednesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the Senate should move the sanctions bill forward to the floor, predicting it would have a veto-proof majority.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported on Monday that lawmakers in both the House and Senate are considering a nonbinding resolution that expresses concern about Iran’s nuclear program.

Backing what Sen. Kirk said in his response to the President was further evidence from former  UN nuclear weapons inspector David Albright at the Washington, DC Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).  Both he and the sanctions analysis team from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies held a well attended briefing for Capitol Hill Staffers on Monday, January 27th.  Albright was quoted in the Los Angeles Times citing an ISIS  report on the technical aspects of the accord implemented on January 20th that allows Iran to continue research over the next six months on several types of advanced centrifuges already at Natanz:

[The accord]  is not expected to seriously affect Iran’s centrifuge research and development program. Albright said he hopes to persuade the six powers to push for much stricter limits on centrifuge research and development when they negotiate the final agreement. The issue has to be addressed much more aggressively.

Cliff May of FDD, co-sponsor of the Capitol Hill event with Albright  of  ISIS,  observed in an NRO Corner article:

If Iran’s rulers faithfully comply with every commitment they have so far made, at the end of this six-month period, they will be about three months — instead of two months — away from breakout capacity.

Yesterday, at the annual conference of the  Institute for National Security studies (INSS)  at Tel Aviv University, there was a dialog between former CIA Director Gen. David Petreaus and Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin,  former  IDF military intelligence chief.  The contrast between their positions on the Iran nuclear threat was most telling:

General (ret.) David Petraeus: The United States is war weary and suffers from a “Vietnam syndrome.” However, it still has major strategic capabilities, and President Obama will not hesitate to use force against Iran, if necessary.

Major General (ret.) Amos Yadlin: What keeps me awake at night is the Iranian issue. The Iranian nuclear program aspires to attain a nuclear capability. The only viable leverage – sanctions and a credible military threat – are weakening, and this is most worrisome. Also troubling: the status quo on the Palestinian issue is not favorable, and the relations with the United States are not on the same level as before – these must be restored.

If you are a gambler, which of the two former military leaders, would you bet on to make a decision in the sovereign national interests of Israel regarding a nuclear Iran?  I know who I would.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.