Exploding Pagers and Israel’s Morality

Last night on the news magazine 60 Minutes, CBS reporter Lesley Stahl interviewed two recently retired Mossad agents who were deeply involved in Israel’s “pager plot.” This, of course, refers to the incredible operation where thousands of pagers exploded in the hands of Hezbollah terrorists on September 17th, followed by the blowing up of hundreds of Hezbollah walkie talkies the following day. (I wrote my initial thoughts about this operation here.)

Among the revelations was that the Mossad was extremely careful to ensure that the pagers hurt Hezbollah operatives, without injuring people nearby. As Stahl reports, “Using dummies, Mossad conducted tests with the pager in a padded glove to calibrate the grams of explosive needed to be just enough to hurt the fighter — but not the person next to him. [When asked if that were tested, a Mossad agent responded] ‘Yes. We test everything triple, double, multiple times in order to make sure there is minimum damage.'”

The operation worked properly. As Stahl reports, “What ensued was mayhem! People with pagers blowing up on the street, on motorcycles, hospitals filling up with the wounded – limbs, fingers torn off, bloodied, blinded, holes in stomachs. For the most part, the explosions worked as planned, they say. [A video plays of people in a store.] Watch the man on the left – those right next to him were unscathed.”

“‘So you restore your sense of superiority, but what about your moral reputation? Don’t you think Israel has to worry about its reputation?'”

This question is crucial, I believe, in highlighting the moral and ethical assumptions of many in the West, particularly in the media.

At first glance, this question is nonsensical: Stahl repeatedly acknowledges that the Mossad worked to guarantee that there would be almost no harm to civilians during the operation, and that they were quite successful in doing so. How, then, could this negatively affect Israel’s moral reputation? This operation highlights Israel’s moral reputation, rather than damaging it.

It seems, however, that many have unwittingly begun to assume that war is inherently immoral, and that anything short of complete nonviolence involves moral compromise by definition.

Do not misunderstand me: there is a reason that our prophets spoke of a perfected world where war would be eliminated, a world in which “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift a sword against nation, and they will no longer learn war.” (Isaiah 2:4) War is evil, and we pray for the day when it will be eliminated altogether.

We, however, do not yet live in that future Messianic age. It is extraordinarily dangerous to imagine that we have reached that promised land, as such self-deceptions blind us to the realities we face in the real world, while turning complex moral questions into simplistic equations that can be easily solved.

The continued existence of Israel testifies to this painful reality. The founding of the State of Israel was, we pray, a step toward the ultimate redemption; but the continued need to defend Israel militarily demonstrates that the Messianic age remains elusive, at least for now. In a world where genocidal Hamas terrorists killed 1200 innocents while taking 251 hostage, followed by other terrorists firing missiles into Israel from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen – in a world where millions of people want to wipe Israel off the face of the globe, along with its entire Jewish population – no one dares believe that we have reached the end of time.

Hezbollah fired missiles and drones at Israel for eleven months, openly saying that it would not stop as long as Israel’s fight with Hamas continued. Many Israelis died, as tens of thousands were displaced; the cost to rebuild Israel’s northern communities is estimated at over $4 billion. Israel’s leaders, meanwhile, continued to say that Israel would not initiate a military operation if Hezbollah stopped its murderous activities, and implemented UN 1701 (to which it had agreed in 2006) by retreating north of the Litani River. Only after eleven months of fruitless negotiations and continued terrorist activity did Israel decide to implement the pager operation.

Yet Lesley Stahl asks about Israel’s moral reputation.

Stahl’s question is only comprehensible in a world where war is avoidable, or where less violent options will achieve the same results. In the actual world in which we live, her question reveals a level of moral blindness that is mystifying. I have no doubt that this is unintentional… but blindness is not mitigated by good intentions.

Unlike actual terrorist sympathizers who believe that Israelis are inherently guilty for existing, I am sure that Lesley Stahl sees Hezbollah for the villains that they are. But her misguided question about Israel’s moral reputation demonstrates that even those who are not in Iran’s pocket sometimes fail to understand that in a very imperfect world, moral countries sometimes have no choice but to eliminate the enemies who are trying to murder them. Questioning the morality of such acts is the stuff of fairy tale endings, of Happily Ever After. Until that time, we cannot forget that morality involves complexity – and that pretending that it doesn’t invites death and destruction upon the innocent rather than the guilty. We live in a tragic world; and in this tragic world, the moral choice sometimes requires the sword rather than submission.

Israel is a moral country, and the pager operation proved it. Stahl’s attempt to imply otherwise is a sad indictment of the shallow moral calculus of otherwise well-meaning people.