Did the US REALLY Know About Israel's Pager Operation?

Right, so did the US know about the tampered pagers detonated by Israel in Lebanon ahead of that operation being carried out? It seems that despite strong denials by the US, that they might be fibbing, not just because details of Israel informing the US administration ahead of time to give them a head up have been carried by news sources such as Axios or the Times of Israel, but also the strange coincidence surrounding the American University of Beirut Medical Centre, being the only hospital to conspicuously replace all of their pagers around the same time the tampered ones were imported into Lebanon. I’m not a big fan of coincidence, it seems social media given their reaction to claims made by the American University in light of this pager incident don’t either, but whether it is pure coincidence or not, the optics are damaging either way and again a spotlight is shone on how deep even now US relations with Israel go, that nothing no matter how awful an act of atrocity committed by the blue and white state seems able to shake.
Right, so firstly let’s address the latest news on exploding electronics, at least insofar as it is correct at time of writing. Following the incident on Tuesday, where 3,000 of an alleged 5,000 imported Gold Apollo pagers exploded, killing 9 people and injuring 2,750, 200 critically so. Almost 24 hours later exactly, we saw similar happen, albeit on a smaller scale with walkie talkies produced by a Japanese firm called Icom. They claim it was impossible for these devices to be theirs, because the manufacturing process was highly automated, they stopped producing the models identified a decade ago and have declared them to be counterfeit. The fact that the Hungarian distributor of the Gold Apollo pagers used to deadly effect the previous day appears to be little more than an Israeli shell company does add some believability that they may also have been produced elsewhere by pro Israel sources, an obsolete model wouldn’t I suppose be one a licence would be sought for or likely to be granted either, so counterfeiting them does make sense. It wasn’t just walkie talkies that exploded yesterday though as cases of mobile phones, laptops and solar panels exploding have also been recorded, so this is a far more wide reaching scale of terrorism being committed by Israel than previously thought and the pagers might just be the tip of the iceberg and sadly the death toll due to all of this has now risen to 32. Functionally, whilst we can say at this moment in time everything that has exploded has happened in Lebanon, these are completely indiscriminate attacks in that Israel have no idea who could be harmed, but neither do they care, the innocent casualty rate acceptable it seems to a society that puts so little value into the lives of others, not even their own people actually if you consider those Hannibal Directives they have. Ultimately we need to determine exactly how Israel are doing this, because if they can do this in Lebanon, surely they can do it anywhere? And how many devices we all may have, may prove to be a weapon at the flick of a switch so to speak? Sure, the claim is that Mossad put 3 grams of explosive in the pagers, but we’re talking a whole host of devices now, how are they doing that?
That investigation aside however, US involvement is a big topic of conversation right now, it is being heavily played down as conspiracy theorism and it may well be just that, but given US support for Israel seems absolute, coincidence begins to look awfully convenient, if indeed it really is all coincidence.
Now the US denies any prior knowledge of what exactly Israel planned to do before the pagers were set off, however it has been claimed that Israeli Defence Secretary Yoav Gallant rang the US Secretary of Defence just before the explosions. Here’s an excerpt from US based news site Axios laying this out:
‘A U.S. official said that several minutes before the pagers started exploding across Lebanon, Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant called U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and told him Israel was going to conduct an operation in Lebanon soon, but refused to give any specific details.
• The U.S. official said the Israelis didn't tell the U.S. about the specifics of the operation, but added that Gallant's call was an attempt to avoid keeping the U.S. totally in the dark.
• Nevertheless, U.S. officials said they didn't see Gallant's call as a serious prior notice. "We were not aware of this operation and were not involved," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday.
• Austin spoke to Gallant on the phone twice on Tuesday and discussed the situation, Israeli and U.S. officials said.’
So this all ties in nicely to the US claim they had no prior knowledge of the details of the attack but knew something was coming.
But there’s another story going around that is bothering me, that I have to make mention of, that might imply otherwise if there is any truth to it, but I don’t buy this at all, I think this is vicious rumour.
This one really does hit the conspiracy theory switch to me and I’d like to think that’s all it is, because as far as pagers go, when you think about who might still use them, all over the world, your mind automatically goes to hospitals. Doctors, medical staff carry pagers. Israel will have known that. There are reports of medics being harmed in hospitals as a result of this attack, but one hospital that has faced more accusation than any other, has been the one with the US links, the American University of Beirut Medical Centre, or AUBMC for short. The allegation has been that they suddenly, at the end of August, switched over to a brand new batch of pagers, therefore people are asking were they tipped off?
There has been some defence of this, people saying well the pagers that had been interfered with were imported in April. However undermining that argument has been the news that the pagers the AUBMC are now using, were also delivered in April and just went live in August. Now actually that could imply they got tampered ones, I don’t know if they did. What I do know, is that like many hospitals in Beirut, they were treating hundreds of injured people as a result of the pager attack, they received 160 seriously injured patients inside 3 hours according to Lebanon’s National News Agency, and did sterling work treating them.
I think in our pursuit to know who is responsible as well as who may have known about it beforehand, we’ve got to careful that we are aiming our ire at the right people, if we’re choosing to pick on a hospital, I don’t see how we can be doing that. Where the likes of Joe Biden haven’t said a dicky bird about this at all, that should be where the condemnation lies as far as the US goes, and of course blame where it is definitely due, at the genocidal state of Israel who perpetrated this disgusting attack.
The AUBMC issued a statement in light of the attacks on it, reading:
‘At a crucial time when AUBMC physicians, nurses, and staff have been fully mobilized to deal with the aftermath of today’s injuries, several malicious social media outlets have started spreading rumours and conspiracy theories about the types of communications systems AUB has in place, attempting to link AUB to this tragic event. The university categorically denies these baseless allegations. 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. The American University of Beirut Medical Center has received over 160 seriously injured individuals over the last three hours, with more to come. Our full focus must be on saving lives and caring for the wounded to the best of our ability. Rather than waste time spreading baseless rumours, we urge all to rally to support AUBMC and the heroic but overwhelmed medical system in Lebanon.’
Absolutely 100% agree with that sentiment and statement.
So what did the US know? I can quite believe they had that warning by Gallant, I don’t think that piece by Axios would be published and indeed repeated in other sources too if not, but equally I’m not convinced anyone outside Israel knew what had been done to these pagers, or the walkie talks, solar panels and laptops that have also exploded since. Much like Israel won’t share the tech for their iron dome defence system, there are other military secrets too, but this one, given what they’ve done here, making electronics explode, the fact an array of different devices have now done this, all of a sudden Israel has become a bigger global threat, because in theory, right now with what we know and too much that we don’t, who’s to say they can’t strike anyone, anywhere, at any time now? It’s a really disturbing and disconcerting thought and as much as I’d like that to be a conspiracy theory, you just can’t be sure anymore.
For more details on the story behind the pagers, a bit more known about those, links to Mossad, Taiwan and a Hungarian company that appears to pretty much only exist on paper, check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.