Ryan Girdusky clashed with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday night.
CNN has banned a conservative commentator from appearing on the network again after he told a Muslim journalist “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” an apparent reference to the spate of exploding pagers in Lebanon that killed members of the Hezbollah militant group last month.
Ryan Girdusky made the comment during a heated debate with Mehdi Hasan, a prominent British-American broadcaster and an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, on “CNN Newsnight” with host Abby Phillip.
The guests were discussing the racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, which overshadowed former President Donald Trump’s rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday and continue to make headlines two days later.
As the debate turned fractious, Girdusky and Hasan sparred over whether the latter had been labeled an anti-Semite. “I’m a supporter of the Palestinians, I’m used to it,” Hasan said.
Girdusky replied: “Well I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
I’m still flabbergasted that there hasn’t been more of an international outrage concerning those pagers.
The use of mines as an indiscriminate weapon are already frowned upon,
And here they are using them, scattered throughout a civilian population with absolutely no regard to who could be standing next to their target.
Un-fucking believable.
They bombed dozens of hospitals and orphanages across two countries and also started a starvation siege since that time.
There is no outrage left
Not mines, IEDs. It was an indiscriminate terrorist attack on a civilian population using improvised explosive devices.
indiscriminate terrorist attack on a civilian population
You’re describing what the Palestinians did to Israel on 10/7, and have continued doing this entire time, when they launch rockets at Israeli population centers.
I didn’t realize that HAMAS was as large an organization as the Israeli government and armed forces.
We’re also talking about a completely different country from Palestine that had nothing to do with any part of any of these conflicts, and even then, an indiscriminate terrorist attack on Palestinian civilians wouldn’t be justified by HAMAS’s terrorism. That’s like saying that the US bombings on Iraqi civilians are justified by Al Qaeda’s attack on the WTC on 9/11.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for a year now. It’s hard to claim they have nothing to do with any part of these conflicts
They were firing rockets into the Shebaa farms, which Israel acknowledged is not part of Israel. Israel started doing airstrikes into Lebanon and then Hizbullah retaliated.
Hezbollah only exists because of Occupations and invasions by Israel
1982
The 1982 Lebanon war began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded again for the purpose of attacking the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israeli army laid siege to Beirut. During the conflict, according to Lebanese sources, between 15,000 and 20,000 people were killed, mostly civilians.
On 16 February 1985, Shia Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin declared a manifesto in Lebanon, announcing a resistance movement called Hezbollah, whose goals included combating the Israeli occupation. During the South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000) the Hezbollah militia waged a guerrilla campaign against Israeli forces occupying Southern Lebanon and their South Lebanon Army proxies.
Israeli Withdrawal
Throughout the painstaking process of confirming the Israeli withdrawal, Hizballah was at pains to declare its commitment to recovering the last millimeter of Lebanese territory, but it also acknowledged that it would not act hastily to reinitiate violence. In sum, Hizballah’s behavior and deference to state authority have worked to its political advantage. It reaped recognition in an unprecedented meeting between Nasrallah and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who praised Hizballah’s restraint and its promise of cooperation. The meeting with Annan offers a remarkable contrast with Hizballah’s earlier days, when it was hostile to the UN and especially to the UN force in the south.
Without an agreement between Syria and Israel, there will be little pressure on Hizballah to disarm. Syria’s calculated strategy is to allow Hizballah to serve as a constant reminder of the consequences of continuing to occupy the Golan Heights.This is a role that Hizballah is happy to play, given its enmity toward Israel. At the same time, it remains profoundly aware of the political costs of bringing destruction down on the heads of its supporters, and this further reduces the prospect that Hizballah will initiate attacks on Israel
2006
The doctrine is named after the Dahiya suburb of Beirut, where the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has its headquarters, which the Israeli military leveled during its assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 that killed nearly 1,000 civilians, about a third of them children, and caused enormous damage to the country’s civilian infrastructure, including power plants, sewage treatment plants, bridges, and port facilities.
It was formulated by then-General Gadi Eisenkot when he was Chief of Northern Command. As he explained in 2008 referring to a future war on Lebanon: "What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on… We will apply disproportionate force on it (village) and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases… This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.” Eisenkot went on to become chief of the general staff of the Israeli military before retiring in 2019.
While it became official Israeli military doctrine after Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, Israel’s military has used disproportionate force and targeted Palestinian, Lebanese, and other civilians since Israel was established in 1948 based on the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, including dozens of massacres to force them to flee for their lives.
2007 - Present
Until recently, the border had been relatively quiet. Occasional rockets or drones crossed from Lebanon into Israel without leading to serious escalation, while Israel violated Lebanese airspace more than 22,000 times from 2007 to 2022.
While the withdrawal was certified by the United Nations, Lebanon disputed it, arguing that the Shebaa Farms was part of its territory, and not part of the Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel continues to occupy.
So there are two separate issues here that lead to the current dispute: the first is that Israel occupies the Golan Heights and treats it as its own territory in violation of international law, and the second is that there was already a pre-existing disagreement between Syria and Lebanon over the border, prior to the Israeli occupation.
It was created and grew popular to make Israel withdraw, but today it mainly exists to make sure Iran’s interests in Lebanon are ‘defended’.
No, it’s still due to resistance against Israeli Occupations and defense against Israeli Invasion, which they did again, after bombing the Capital along with many other cities, killing thousands of civilians.
This is a genocide on an incarcerated population, within an Apartheid State, founded on Ethnic Cleansing
Ethnic Cleansing is fundamental to Zionism
Zionism’s aims in Palestine, its deeply-held conviction that the Land of Israel belonged exclusively to the Jewish people as a whole, and the idea of Palestine’s “civilizational barrenness" or “emptiness” against the background of European imperialist ideologies all converged in the logical conclusion that the native population should make way for thenewcomers.
The idea that the Palestinian Arabs must find a place for themselves elsewhere was articulated early on. Indeed, the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, provided an early reference to transfer even before he formally outlined his theory of Zionist rebirth in his Judenstat.
An 1895 entry in his diary provides in embryonic form many of the elements that were to be demonstrated repeatedly in the Zionist quest for solutions to the “Arab problem ”-the idea of dealing with state governments over the heads of the indigenous population, Jewish acquisition of property that would be inalienable, “Hebrew Land" and “Hebrew Labor,” and the removal of the native population.
Settlements and Occupation
Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
- The Transfer Committee, and the JNF Ethnic Cleansing, which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate before the Nakba
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.
Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing
Peace Process and Solution
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
Historian Works on the History
-
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha
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The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha
-
A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe
-
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
-
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
-
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim
-
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe
-
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy
-
10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)
Not improvised, and not on the civilian population, but you’re correct about the rest lol
Not on the civilian population, other than pagers blowing up in public?
You can see footage of some Hezbobros blowing up in the middle of a supermarket, with the people standing around them being unharmed. They were intended to maim the user of the device, the explosives were too small to cause much more. Sure, there are a handful of civilians hurt or even killed but this is was a lot ‘cleaner’ than throwing bombs from planes or Hezbollah’s own preferred method of firing rockets over the border.
As per Wikipedia, Hezbollah has to kill one civilian for every 2 soldiers. With the pager attacks, Israel hit 2750 Hezbobros and ‘only’ killed 2 kids.
Indiscriminate it was not. It was hyper targeted at everyone in the command chain that got a beeper. It’s not as if they sold them through normal stores to the general population.
It was indiscriminate and it was mass terrorism.
As of 22 September 2024, the death toll from the attacks was 42, including at least 12 civilian deaths. More than 3,500 people were injured.
At least 12 people were killed in the first wave of attacks, including civilians such as two health workers, a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. The adult son of Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah member of Parliament was killed; Prime Minister Najib Mikati visited southern Beirut to pay his respects. More than 2,750 people were wounded. In the second wave on 18 September, at least 30 people were killed and 750 others were injured. One eye doctor at Mount Lebanon University Hospital reported that a number of those injured showed signs of something being blown up directly in their face, with some losing one or both eyes, while others had shrapnel in their brains. The Lebanese health ministry reported that 300 people had lost both eyes and 500 people had lost one eye as a result of the pager attacks. Other doctors saw severe hand, waist and facial injuries, reporting patients with fingers torn, hands amputated, eyes popped out of the socket and facial lacerations.
Health Minister Firass Abiad said the vast majority of those being treated in emergency rooms were in civilian clothing and their Hezbollah affiliation was unclear. He added the casualties included elderly people as well as young children. According to the Health Ministry, healthcare workers were also injured and it advised all healthcare workers to discard their pagers. On 26 September, Abdallah Bou Habib, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister, confirmed that most of those carrying pagers were not fighters, rather civilians like administrators. Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese expert on Hezbollah, said the attacks mostly struck civilian workers, leaving its military wing largely unaffected. An unnamed source said 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were taken out of action due to injuries, with many blinded or having lost their hands.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions
A supply chain of a terrorist organisations was infiltrated and they where sold devices fitted with explosives and then distributed it within their organisation.
Everyone with a pager (and later also other devices) fell within the Hezbollah hierachy. The fact Hezbollah has infiltrated every level of society and has Docters and many others in their ranks does not make them invalid targets.
Besides, judging from the videos, we saw people standing next to whoever had the pager where mostly fine. The children dieing is horrible.
So calling it indiscriminate is more than a stretch. And the collateral damage is wayyyyy lower than with the rest of how Israël behaves.
Israel has never stopped ethnic cleansing of native populations
Hezbollah exists out of resistance to Occupation and Invasion by Israel
“International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate attacks – meaning attacks that fail to distinguish between civilians and military targets. It also prohibits the use of the type of booby-traps that appear to have been used in these attacks.
“Such attacks could constitute war crimes of murder, attacking civilians, and launching indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the right to life,” the experts said.
Just because Israel routinely violates international humanitarian law and targets civilians doesn’t make this any less of a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime
The settler colonial project of Israel is filled with rabid fascists, I agree whole heartedly. The current government of Israel is peak of that performance.
But trying to paint this as a boobytrap, and targeting civilians. I don’t think anyone buys that for a minute.
And this was hardly indiscriminate. It was pagers that where handed directly to Hezbollah and distributed by Hezbollah through their network. It’s not as if these where sold by shops in Lebanon to normal Lebanese.
And collateral sucks, but this still had less than the bomb that was dropped on the appartment complex with the command bunker under it filled with Hezbollah staff.
But trying to paint this as a boobytrap, and targeting civilians. I don’t think anyone buys that for a minute
Well, human rights organizations and international law disagree, and I agree with them. Both those articles discuss that in detail, including how it was a booby trap and indiscriminate.
Nor is Hezbollah solely an armed resistance militant group. They are also a prominent political group and maintain a multitude of social services like hospitals, those people are civilians not militants. This did not solely target militants, in fact is mostly didn’t.
The only people who had those pagers were Hezbollah members. Hezbollah has been lobbing missiles into Israel, killing civilians including children and forcing an evacuation. They picked a fight, why should there be an expectation that Israel just sits back and takes it? Don’t get me wrong about Gaza, they have gone way too far there. But Hezbollah seems at least somewhat justified.
The only people who had those pagers were Hezbollah members.
Did they have camera’s in them to know that? and also know about people in the surrounding area?
Hezbollah has been lobbing missiles into Israel, killing civilians including children and forcing an evacuation.
And you think this is the appropriate response to that?
I get the Israeli people are absolutely tired of this shit. But what makes them think that kind of response isn’t going to do anything other than bolster the other sides hatred/resolve?
As they indiscriminately kill more, they are recruiting more to the cause. When someone loses their kids/brother/father/home/etc. That just makes them having nothing more to lose, and join the war. People don’t want to fight. People just want to live their lives.
Israel is the one with all the weapons/tech/money in this. If the Israeli people are tired of this shit, they need to look at a leader who’s not going to perform actions that just increases Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s numbers.
