The attack using explosive pagers in Lebanon represents a large-scale psychological and terrorist blow, indiscriminately targeting civilians and causing deaths and injuries. This event highlights how globalization, instead of being a paradise of exchange, reveals the potential to turn consumer goods into instruments of political and military conflict. The involvement of Taiwan in the Western production chain underscores the growing divide between the “Golden Billion” and the rest of the world. Hezbollah, born as a reaction to the Israeli invasion, is today a powerful political party in Lebanon, and Israel’s actions have become normalized.
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by Andrea Zhok
The Israeli attack using pagers in Lebanon is understandably sparking a great deal of debate.
It appears that a 20-gram charge of a powerful explosive was embedded in a batch of Motorola pagers (a U.S. company) sourced from Taiwan five months ago. This batch was destined for the Lebanese market, with buyers within the Hezbollah group. The current death toll stands at 11, with 4,000 injured, including 200 in critical condition.
An attack like this, by definition, cannot be selective. Even if the identity of the buyer had been certain months ago, by the time of the attack, the device could have been near anyone. And indeed, images from the hospital in Beirut show a diverse array of people affected by the injuries.
Such an attack bears all the defining characteristics of terrorism. It is an attack in a civilian area, targeting civilians indiscriminately, where the primary intent is neither military nor defensive, but psychological: to impress upon the enemy the ability to strike hard, remotely, and unexpectedly.
The blow has certainly succeeded.
We will likely see the psychological impact soon, as everything suggests that an Israeli military action in Lebanon is imminent.
Another important message that emerges from this incident should not be overlooked. It is yet another nail in the coffin of the now-defunct idea of globalization as a joyful global village, a paradise of free international exchanges. There is nothing coincidental about the fact that the supplier of the explosive pagers, Taiwan, belongs to a production chain tied to the West (even though the territory is formally part of the People’s Republic of China). If until now the idea persisted that manufactured goods were just goods, and who made them didn’t matter, it is now clear to everyone that every manufactured product potentially hides a piece of a political, military, or espionage strategy that transcends market mechanisms. Who you buy your car, TV, phone, or computer from (and even less technologically complex goods) becomes crucial not only from an economic standpoint. This fact, I believe, will push non-Western countries even further to develop independent production chains, leading to a growing separation between the “Golden Billion” and the rest of the world.
But, returning to Lebanon, it is worth remembering that Hezbollah, the explicit target of the attack, was born as a paramilitary militia in 1982, as a defensive reaction by Shia groups to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon during Operation “Peace for Galilee” (the same operation during which the Sabra and Shatila massacre occurred, to be clear). Over time, however, Hezbollah became a political party that regularly participates in elections and represents the largest party in Lebanon’s legislative assembly (winning 61 out of 128 seats in the 2022 elections).
That Israel operates using terrorist methods today no longer raises an eyebrow, so great is the desensitization. After what has happened in Palestine over the past year, technological terrorism is the most civilized and elegant method employed by the IDF: what’s the harm in an indiscriminate attack with hidden explosive devices compared to a 500kg smart bomb on a refugee camp? We’ve long been beyond any moral or civil limits.
For us, as powerless onlookers, all that’s left is to preserve the memory of the wrongdoing, without excuses or pretense, to record it and remember it in the future, for when new discussions arise about the unavoidable necessity of “humanitarian wars,” the need to “export democracy,” or the Western white knight’s categorical imperative to defend “human rights” everywhere.
