Tangle - The pager attack in Lebanon.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 13 minutes.

ICYMI: We reviewed the candidates.

On Friday, we ran a side-by-side comparison of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump by looking at their positions, their records, and their promises on the biggest issues in 2024 and beyond. Remember: We are not judging any of the policies or records, just telling you what they are as best we can. Unsurprisingly, we got a lot of criticism from the left and right for not including one detail or another, for slanted framing, or otherwise suggesting we didn't do enough to tell you if a policy or proposal was good or bad.

To reiterate: That was not the point of this deep dive. We simply wanted to inform you on what each candidate has said and done, and what positions they are running on this year. It is impossible to include every detail about every candidate in two newsletters, but we packed in as much information as we could.

You can read a partially paywalled Part 1 here (where we cover the economy, immigration, health care, and abortion), or the paywalled Part 2 here (where we cover crime, guns, the environment, and foreign policy).

Quick hits.

1. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) introduced a stopgap funding bill to keep the government open for three months; it does not include a Trump-backed measure requiring proof of citizenship to vote. Johnson plans to hold a floor vote on the legislation by Wednesday. (The bill)
2. An internal investigation of the Secret Service’s performance at former President Donald Trump’s campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 found that poor planning and communication breakdowns were responsible for the agency’s failure to stop the assassination attempt at the rally. (The report) Separately, Trump said he doesn’t think he’ll run for president in 2028 if he loses in 2024. (The comments)
3. A shooting in Birmingham, Alabama, killed four people and injured 17. A manhunt is underway for multiple suspects. (The shooting)
4. Israeli troops raided the offices of Al Jazeera, a Qatar-funded news outlet, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, claiming the newsroom was being used to support terrorist activities. Al Jazeera denies the claims. (The raid)
5. The Federal Trade Commission sued three of the largest healthcare companies in the U.S., alleging that they artificially inflated the price of insulin. (The lawsuit)
6. BONUS: Early voting has begun in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia. (The kickoff)

Today's topic.

The pager attacks in Lebanon. On Tuesday, hundreds of pagers carried by members of Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, detonated simultaneously across Lebanon. The Lebanese government blamed Israel for the attack — an assertion confirmed by U.S. officials — although Israel has denied responsibility thus far. Approximately 3,000 people were wounded by the explosions and 37 were killed, including two children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. On Wednesday, another round of exploding devices, this time handheld transceivers (or walkie-talkies), injured at least 450 and killed 20, also according to Lebanon’s health ministry. 

Back up: Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political party and militant group that was founded during the Lebanese Civil War. The group, which is funded in part by Iran, has made the destruction of Israel one of its primary goals. The day after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Hezbollah launched rockets toward Israeli positions along the Israel-Lebanon border. Since then, the two sides have exchanged attacks, displacing tens of thousands of civilians on each side of the border.  

In the days since the device detonations, reports from U.S. intelligence sources have suggested that Israel coordinated the attacks via “supply chain interdiction,” a process of creating a legitimate company to distribute boobytrapped devices. The producer of the pagers — said by U.S. intelligence officials to be a Hungary-based company operating as an Israeli front — planted one-to-two ounces of explosives and a remote trigger switch in each device, allowing for simultaneous detonation. Israel reportedly decided to carry out the attack earlier than it had planned on the suspicion that Hezbollah had uncovered the plot. 

The nature of the attacks has alarmed some in the international community, who worry that weaponizing objects commonly used by civilians creates the potential for mass indiscriminate casualties. The exact number of civilians injured in the attacks remains unclear, but videos from around Lebanon showed the devices exploding in places that could impact civilians like cars, grocery stores, and cafes. The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, called for an independent investigation into the mass explosions, and the U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the incidents.

Over the weekend, Hezbollah launched a series of retaliatory strikes, firing an estimated 115 projectiles into Israel. At least three missiles struck civilian areas, according to the Israeli military. Meanwhile, Israel carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday and Sunday, which the military called a preemptive measure to neutralize Hezbollah’s rocket-launching positions. On Monday, Israeli warplanes struck approximately 300 sites across Lebanon, killing at least 270 and injuring over 700, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. 

The pager and walkie-talkie attacks occurred amid escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah. Earlier this month, U.S. and Israeli officials met to discuss easing tensions after both sides had exchanged rocket fire and air strikes. On Sunday, prominent U.S. officials publicly cautioned Israel against a war with Hezbollah, urging the country to seek a diplomatic solution.  

Today, we’ll explore the implications of the attacks with views from the left, right, and writers in the Middle East. Then, my take.

What the left is saying.

• The left acknowledges the tactical success of the attack but worries it could lead to a wider war. 
• Some frame the attacks as an act of terror meant to stoke fear among civilians.

In The Washington Post, David Ignatius wrote about “the ominous implications of the pager attack against Hezbollah.”

“Israel didn’t take credit for Tuesday’s attack, but it didn’t need to. An attack of this sophistication and daring in Lebanon could not have been staged by any other nation. The video scenes of Hezbollah fighters blown to the floor by their own communications devices sent an unmistakable Israeli message to the Iranian-backed militia: We own you. We can penetrate every space in which you operate,” Ignatius said. “Israel’s apparent decision to launch the attack was probably driven by both political and operational factors. The U.S.-led cease-fire plan is stalled, and with it the hope of a diplomatic deal with Hezbollah to calm the border.”

“From a technical standpoint, it was a brilliant operation. Everyone on the military network was a target — including, it appears, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, who was shown on videos entering a hospital after being wounded. The Hezbollah network has now lost its special internal communications system,” Ignatius wrote. “Beyond its devastating effect on Hezbollah, the attack signals the beginning of a new and very dangerous era in cyberwarfare. Any device that is connected to the internet can potentially be transformed into a weapon.”

In Jacobin, Madeleine Hall argued “Israel’s beeper attacks are terrorism.”

“Much of the mainstream Western media has marveled at the so-called ‘precision’ and ‘sophistication’ of the attack, framing it as an operation intended only to target members of Hezbollah. This is patently false, as numerous civilians have been injured and killed,” Hall said. “Israel’s real aim was clear: to stoke fear and mass panic among an entire population. During the second attack on Wednesday, explosions could be heard during the funeral of four people killed the previous day… There’s a word for this: terrorism.”

“Israel’s genocide in Gaza has devastated its own economy and sparked international outcry and condemnation. Yet it’s still in the interests of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to keep pushing for forever war… It’s also why he’s been trying to drag the entire region into a wider war,” Hall wrote. “An invasion of Lebanon would bring Iran and Syria into the fray and expand the genocide in Gaza into a multifront war. That’s likely to keep Netanyahu’s coalition intact — and stave off his looming corruption trial.”

What the right is saying.

• The right lauds Israel for a precise and destabilizing attack on a terrorist group.
• Some say Hezbollah will decide whether the attack leads to war. 

The New York Post editorial board said “Israel’s pager blasts sent just the right message to Hezbollah.”

“That was some sublime act of counterterrorism — remotely detonating sabotaged pagers, walkie-talkies and other devices belonging to Hezbollah terrorists. Good for Israel — even though it’s not taking credit,” the board wrote. “It also hobbled the Iran-backed terror group’s ability to communicate, and will force its members to take extra precautions for whatever they plan to do next: Will their computers soon explode? Their cars? Their rockets?

“The move was exquisitely calibrated, hitting Hez’s thugs with minimal harm to civilians (as is typical with Israeli military operations). The strikes will remind all Israel’s enemies that attacking it also puts them, and those around them, at risk,” the board said. “And this was no escalation, just a response (or the start of one): Since Oct. 7, Hezbollah’s shot some 8,000 drones, missiles and rockets into Israel, igniting massive fires, killing Druze kids and forcing the evacuation of nearly 100,000 Israelis. So the pager op was entirely justified.”

In Newsweek, Jonathan Conricus wrote “it's last call for Hezbollah to opt out of war.”

“Israel has focused its main offensive capabilities on defeating Hamas in Gaza over the past year and has limited itself to absorbing Hezbollah's attacks when it comes to the threat from the north. It seems that strategy has changed, and the region could be at the brink of a major escalation,” Conricus said. “Israel does not seek war with Hezbollah, at least not now, and is trying to persuade Hezbollah and its Iranian masters to agree to the U.S. offer to de-escalate the border area and allow Israelis to return home.”

“Hezbollah faces a tough choice, which in many ways may seal its fate for years to come. It can either knowingly expose Lebanon, its population, and infrastructure to tremendous destruction and pain by deciding to unleash its more lethal and long-range weapons at Israel, or it can stand down now and agree to vacate the border with Israel and halt its aggression against it,” Conricus wrote. “Israel has been signaling to Hezbollah, the Iranians, the U.S., and others for months on end that it needs to return its citizens safely to their homes. This week, Israel chose different signals to carry that same message with additional weight. Now the ball is in Hezbollah's court.”

What Middle East writers are saying.

• Writers from the Arab world say further escalation would be devastating for Israel and Lebanon alike. 
• Israeli writers call the operation a success but urge Israel’s leaders to avoid a war with Hezbollah. 

In Arab News, Dania Koleilat Khatib suggested “a ground invasion of Lebanon would be a terrible mistake for Israel.”

“The Lebanese people are divided; a majority blame the group [Hezbollah] for directly involving Lebanon in the wider conflict with Israel. On the other hand, Hezbollah is now so invested in the conflict that halting its attacks on Israel before a ceasefire agreement in Gaza is in place would be viewed as a total defeat for the group,” Khatib wrote. “Now that Hezbollah is significantly weakened, Israeli authorities might feel encouraged to proceed with a ground operation. From their perspective, it would deliver a decisive knock-out blow on the ground.”

“There are two issues that Israeli authorities do not appear to be taking into consideration. The first is that backing Hezbollah into a corner is not a very smart strategy. A cat that is cornered will lash out at anyone it perceives as a threat, even if they are much stronger. The second issue is the ability of the group to adapt,” Khatib said. “If Israel invades Lebanon, it would be a blessing in disguise for Hezbollah. It would grant the group a renewed legitimacy, help it attract new recruits, and push the Lebanese people once again to rally behind it.”

In Haaretz, Raviv Drucker wrote “Israel hit Hezbollah, they responded, let's end this.”

The attacks “were meant to force Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to sever the connection he forged on October 8 between Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. In other words, they want to get him to sign a separate agreement with us and ignore the fact that there is no agreement on a cease-fire in Gaza,” Drucker said. “This goal is right and important. And in the negotiations we like to conduct with ourselves, we seem to have reached a deal. We used force and conducted a jaw-dropping operation, so we're ready to leave the negotiating table and realize our gains.”

“The recent ‘pager operation,’ in which thousands of pagers carried by Hezbollah members exploded, was ostensibly launched because it was about to be exposed. But alongside the operation's significant benefits, it also caused quite a bit of harm,” Drucker wrote. “Above all, it made even people in Lebanon who aren't fans of Hezbollah support a harsh response against Israel… Nevertheless, given that the operation has already been carried out, Israel's smartest move now is to seek a swift diplomatic resolution. We hit them, they responded, let's end this. Let's not repeat the mistake we made by dragging out the Second Lebanon War.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Israel obviously is responsible, and I’m torn between seeing the attacks as either ingenuous or devious.
• The attacks showed a disregard for civilian casualties, despite their precision, creating the threat of people in public being turned into unwitting bombs.
• The regional war is here, it’s been here for a while, and I hope both Israel and Hezbollah can come to a deal instead of escalating further.

First and foremost, this attack was obviously leveled by Israel. I don't think there is any real doubt about that, and I find the denials a little bizarre. Maybe they want to keep the ICC busy with fact-finding, but they’re just going to degrade whatever credibility they have left on the international stage with such an obviously false denial. 

When I first heard about this attack and details were still pretty sparse, I sent two tweets to the Tangle team asking them which perspective they felt more drawn to:

Or this:

The team was pretty split, and I also felt drawn to both perspectives in different ways. On the one hand, the story was straight out of a spy movie. In fact, if there were a scene in a movie where a government simultaneously detonated pagers or walkie-talkies inside a country to kill all the "bad guys," we would probably scoff at it as being unrealistic. Yet, Israel did it. It truly was an intelligence coup — an operation unlike any I can recall off the top of my head, remarkable in the most basic sense of the world, and apparently successful, too.

But this isn't the movies. This is real life. And when militaries execute operations like this in real life, they come with collateral damage like this: a story of a 9-year-old Lebanese girl, told in The New York Times:

"Fatima was in the kitchen on Tuesday when a pager on the table began to beep, her aunt said. She picked up the device to bring it to her father and was holding it when it exploded, mangling her face and leaving the room covered in blood, she said.

‘Fatima was trying to take courses in English,” Ms. Mousawi said. “She loved English.’

Her funeral was held in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, a rural area on the border with Syria that is known as a deep well of support for Hezbollah. Many of the injuries on Tuesday occurred in the Bekaa Valley, in southern Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital, all known as Hezbollah strongholds."

As cunning and impressive as the operation was, it was also tremendously dangerous and irresponsible. Even if you were to presume the guilt of each of these men as terrorists (which many in the West do), they were still predictably in places filled with innocents when their devices exploded — walking through grocery stores or at homes with their families. The Lebanese people, not just members of Hezbollah, are now left with the threat of future covert attacks that could kill them. Doesn’t that meet the textbook definition of terrorism? What else should we call people unwittingly being turned into bombs all across a country?

I’m confident that sowing distrust was part of Israel’s intention: If Israel can create enough fear and paranoia among Hezbollah militants that they begin to turn on each other, have major operational setbacks or perhaps flee the organization, that would at least be a worthwhile outcome. Hezbollah, like Hamas, has agency to make its own decisions here. It can plunge itself further into the conflict or take the cue that it is overmatched. I fervently wish it chooses the latter, but I don’t think it will.

Instead, we seem bound for an alternative course in which Hezbollah retaliates in rage, hoping to avenge their families and country and gaining support from people who previously opposed it. 

This is a theme, and you can see it in Ukraine, in Gaza, or any other war: When one country attacks another, it breeds virulent opposition and hatred of the attacking country. This is how the world works, yet Israel, the U.S., and every nation and militant group on earth always attempts to convince themselves otherwise.

Now, we just have to wait to see the repercussions. Israel hopes the attacks will work to their advantage in negotiating an end to its violence with Lebanon, or will give it leverage in the war in Gaza. Consider me skeptical. The U.S., meanwhile, will have to justify whatever further steps Israel takes in their strategy of strong-arming Hezbollah out of the broader regional conflict. And let’s be clear: There is already a broad regional conflict, and has been for some time.

Here is what I wrote a few weeks ago:

The entire region remains on the brink of all-out war. The idea that the "region" isn't at war already is actually hard to wrap my head around. What do you call it when two countries exchange months of rocket fire, assassinate leaders, kill soldiers, and displace tens of thousands of each other's citizens from their homes? The war is on. As National Review’s Andrew McCarthy wrote, the real question now is just how bad it will get — how deep will Israel push into Lebanese territory, how successful can Hezbollah be at killing Israelis, and how much will Iran or its other proxies engage?

Since I wrote those words, the signals have only worsened. There is no “war to come” that we should fear — the war is here, and it is only getting more dangerous and deadly.

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Your questions, answered.

Q: I recently moved to a new area (Palm Beach County, Florida) and registered to vote in the primaries. I'm having a hard time finding reliable information on down-ballot candidates. Do you have any favorite resources that consolidate the views on key issues for each candidate? How do I make an informed decision on the County Court Judge that does not come from politicized flyers that are mailed to me? 

— Jeremy from Boca Raton, FL

Tangle: Great question. The general answer here is that media outlets at their respective levels of political coverage give detailed and reliable breakdowns of the candidates running for election. We’ll be doing a review of some of the state-level ballot measures up for vote in the coming weeks, but most people can get reliable information from their local news outlets.

For viewing a comparison of the candidates at the state level, newspapers of your state’s larger cities will give thorough breakdowns of the candidates running for the Senate, House, or governor’s mansion. For example, as a Florida voter, the Tampa Bay Times has you covered with a complete voter guide, as does the Miami Herald, while other papers are likely to give their breakdowns in the coming weeks. More specific to you, I’d keep an eye on outlets like the Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Daily News, or local affiliates like WPTV, which I suspect will all break down the candidates and their policies as the election nears.

And remember, it’s a good idea to look for a breakdown from a few different sources, as each outlet has its own bias (and these papers will often give candidate endorsements separate from their election coverage). The same caveats apply to those races as apply to state and national ones — be wary of editorial biases, and seek out coverage from a variety of sources while forming your opinion.

If you want a review of what’s up for election in your precinct, Ballotpedia is a phenomenal resource —they have an online tool that will allow you to see exactly what you’ll be voting for in November based on your address.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

Nuclear energy is often touted as a powerful tool to help countries meet their net-zero emissions goals, but it could also offer a path to power emerging (and energy-intensive) industries like artificial intelligence. On Friday, Microsoft and Constellation Energy announced a plan to restart one of the reactors at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of a partial meltdown in 1979, considered the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. The unit that will be restarted is separate from the reactor involved in the 1979 incident, but it had been shut down in 2019 over cost concerns. Now, though, Microsoft will purchase electricity from the plant in a 20-year agreement to help power its AI data centers. Goldman Sachs has estimated that these kinds of data centers will consume 8% of total U.S. electricity demand by 2030 (compared with 3% at present), making carbon-free energy sources like nuclear an attractive and low-emissions option for AI companies. CNBC has the story.

Numbers.

• 60,000. The approximate number of people evacuated from their homes in northern Israel since the escalation of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in October. 
• 91,000. The approximate number of people displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon in that time. 
• 49. The approximate number of people in Israel killed by strikes from Lebanon since October 8 (23 soldiers and 26 civilians). 
• 500. The approximate number of people in Lebanon killed by Israeli airstrikes since October 8
• 8,000. The approximate number of rockets fired toward Israel by Hezbollah since October 8, according to Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. 
• 260,000. The approximate number of pagers exported by Taiwan’s Gold Apollo since 2022, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. 
• 747,000. The approximate number of pagers sold by pager network operator Spok that are in use across the U.S. and Australia. 
• 77% and 17%. The percentage of Israeli Arabs and Jews, respectively, who think Israel should pursue a diplomatic agreement with Hezbollah, according to an August 2024 poll from the Israel Democracy Institute. 
• 6% and 46%. The percentage of Israeli Arabs and Jews, respectively, who think Israel should launch an offensive in Lebanon, including targeted Lebanese infrastructure.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just written about a looming government shutdown.
• The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was the details on the possible coming government shutdown.
• Nothing to do with politics: A Chinese Zoo admitted that its pandas were just painted dogs.
• Thursday’s survey: Due to an internal error, we improperly formed our survey responses, invalidating the data we received. We regret the error. If you’d like, you can respond to our corrected survey on the Federal Reserve’s rate cut announcement here.

Have a nice day.

Michael Pirovolakis was diagnosed with spastic paraplegia 50 (SPG50), an incredibly rare neurological disorder, as a toddler. His father, Terry Pirovalakis, was told then that Michael “would be paralyzed by the waist down by age 10, and quadriplegic by age 20.” Terry started researching a treatment himself, traveling to gene therapy conferences and collaborating with researchers in Cambridge and at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to develop a drug. After the treatment proved effective at treating the disease in mice, he then found a Spanish company willing to manufacture the drug. Terry has not only administered the drug to Michael, but opened a phase 2 trial to other children. "Doctors and therapists share the same sentiment: The treatment works!" said the mother of a child receiving the treatment. Fox News has the story.

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