More Blatant NGO Hypocrisy and the Exploding Hezbollah Pagers
Summary
On the 17 and 18 of September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkie radio communicators belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria, reportedly resulting in 3000 dead or severely injured. This was a major blow to the Iranian proxy terror force. The explosions were widely attributed to an Israeli operation, although there was no official confirmation.
Multiple NGOs claiming to promote human rights and international law condemned this action, falsely accusing Israel of responsibility for “unlawful and indiscriminate” attacks, and alleging that they harmed civilians as well as Hezbollah targets. A number of organizations called for international investigations of what they termed “violations of international law.” In many examples, the NGOs omitted the core facts that the pagers and communicators were explicitly distributed by the Hezbollah terror army to its commanders and fighters, as well as some allies, and that the Iranian proxy had targeted Israel with over 9,000 rocket and drone attacks (each a war crime) since 8 October 2023, resulting in the deaths of 47 individuals, including 12 children in the Majdal Shams massacre in July, as well as numerous injuries.
Analysis
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the other advocacy NGOs discussed in this report repeatedly claim to base their condemnations of Israel on human rights principles and international law. Yet, they systematically ignore and erase repeated and blatant violations by the aggressors and affiliated terror organizations. This highly selective and blatantly political agenda is directly reflected in their statements and social media posts on the Hezbollah pager incident.
They also entirely erase the context of the ongoing war waged by Hezbollah that began on 8 October 2024 when the Lebanon-based Iranian proxy supported the Hamas mass slaughter and atrocity by initiating rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
A central theme used by many of the political NGOs cited below, including HRW, World Council of Churches, AFSC, Code Pink, Pax (Netherlands), and CJPME, is the unfounded accusation that the operation attributed to Israel indiscriminately killed civilians. In Amnesty’s invented version, the pagers and communicators were detonated “without being able to determine their exact location or whose possession they were in at the time of the attack,” and according to HRW, detonating devices “without knowing where they are and who they are with” is therefore no different than “bombing from the skies without looking.” Both NGO propaganda statements erase the core and undisputed fact that the owners were Hezbollah terrorists.
The NGO emphasis on the “indiscriminate” accusation strips the term of any meaning, as repeatedly occurs when the language of international law and human rights is weaponized to demonize Israel. HRW invokes “customary international humanitarian law” (a phrase that is easily manipulated for selective advocacy) to claim the prohibition of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use.” In reality, this refers to bombs placed in toys or food items (both practiced by Palestinian terrorists), for example. Clearly, outsized pagers that were specifically designed for Hezbollah and rarely if ever “associated with normal civilian daily use” do not fit this definition. In contrast, by any rational definition, the rocket and drone attacks launched by Hezbollah are indeed indiscriminate (“bombing from the skies without looking”) but the Iranian proxy force is of no concern to these self-proclaimed guardians of human rights.
CODEPINK added “including children and doctors” to the list of those “indiscriminately” killed, in order to add to the emotional horror that the accusation is designed to elicit regarding Israel. Even a cursory understanding of the events expose the lies and show the opposite to be true – that the exploding pagers and communicators distributed to and used exclusively by Hezbollah terror operatives and their Iranian allies, minimized any collateral casualties to a far greater extent than most military operations.
Moreover, CODEPINK, JVP, and IJV, go further by labeling all Israeli defensive measures against the Hezbollah assault as “terrorism.” The Canadian IJV ludicrously referred to the pager operation as part of a “terrorism campaign against the civilian population of Lebanon.”
Similarly, HRW accuses Israel of breaching the laws of war by targeting what they claim are “civilian objects”, but the organization notably omits Hezbollah’s use of such devices for the purposes of planning and conducting actual terror attacks against Israeli civilians. The missing attacks by Hezbollah include indiscriminate rocket fire aimed at Israeli civilians since October 2023, resulting in the deaths of 47 individuals, including 12 children in the Majdal Shams massacre in July.
Another prominent aspect of the NGO propaganda is the reliance on entirely unsubstantiated claims that fuel anti-Israel propaganda. For example, AFSC’s invents and asserts the claim that “the escalation in Lebanon and the attacks carried out by both Hezbollah and Israel stem directly from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” Similarly, according to JVP’s fabricated version, “Israel’s real aim was to stoke fear and mass panic among an entire population.” Such NGO vitriol and hyperbole constitute massive distortion and contribute to a narrative that further fuels the vilification of Israel and the Jewish people.
In the same vein, Pax, an influential Dutch church-based NGO, declared, “Israel must be made very clear that escalation of the war towards the north will not be tolerated” – as if the Iranian proxy army in Lebanon did not exist or had no responsibility. This selective outrage, which targets Israel alone while ignoring the actions of terrorist organizations, again highlights the systematic bias and lack of credibility.
The pattern in these NGO statements, including from the World Council of Churches, is clear: Israel is consistently portrayed as the aggressor, while its legitimate efforts to protect its citizens – while also minimizing civilian casualties resulting from its entirely legitimate defensive measures – are condemned.
Finally, the cynical calls from HRW and Amnesty for an “independent international investigation” are part of the standard NGO playbook on Israel. As repeatedly demonstrated, such “investigations” are led by inherently biased institutions – usually the UN Human Rights Council – and contain recycled NGO propaganda.
The absurd rhetorical acrobatics performed by these and other NGOs in falsely portraying the precise pager operation against a brutal terror organization as a sinister violation of universal ethical and legal principles, spotlight this network’s hypocrisy. In the Hezbollah pager example, as in many others, any and all Israeli actions to defend its citizens against terror atrocities are automatically and mindlessly condemned as unacceptable. In the NGO advocacy network, Israel, and Israel alone is repeatedly denied the right of self-defense, as specified in Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Examples of NGO Statements
Amnesty International
- On September 20, Amnesty International issued a press release calling for an international investigation into the attacks “to establish the facts and bring the perpetrators to justice,” and “detonating thousands of devices simultaneously without being able to determine their exact location or whose possession they were in at the time of the attack demonstrates a flagrant disregard for the right to life and for the laws of armed conflict.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
- On September 18, an HRW press release condemned the attacks, asserting that “the use of an explosives device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate “and calling for a “prompt and impartial investigation” into the attacks.
- On September 19, an HRW brief claimed that “setting off simultaneous explosives in thousands of personal devices without knowing where they are and who they are with runs the same risks as bombing from the skies without looking”, and that the attacks were indiscriminate.
- On September 19, HRW tweeted that “using everyday civilian objects as explosive devices puts civilians at grave risk and violates the laws of war.”
World Council of Churches
- On September 18, the powerful Geneva-based World Council of Churches released a statement condemning the loss of life from the blasts and calling “for peace amid an attack that only escalates warfare, and needlessly harms and kills innocent civilians.”
AFSC (American Friends Service Committee)
- On September 18, AFSC shared a twitter thread stating, “We are holding the victims of these attacks and their loved ones in the Light.” They also condemned Israel’s actions, asserting that “indiscriminately exploding communications devices terrorizes civilian populations and is stoking fears that Israel will launch a ground war on Lebanon. The explosions also targeted people inside Syria, further increasing the risk of regional escalation.”
- On September 23, AFSC published an article emphasizing that it “mourns all who have been killed or injured”, and that “Israel’s exploding of electronic devices across Lebanon was an illegal and indiscriminate act.” According to AFSC, “the escalation in Lebanon and the attacks carried out by both Hezbollah and Israel stem directly from Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
Jewish Voices for Peace
- On September 19, JVP published an article labeling Israel’s attack as “terrorism” and the actions of a “rogue state”. They claimed that Israel’s real aim was “to stoke fear and mass panic among an entire population.”
CODEPINK
- On September 19, CODEPINK tweeted, “Israel’s recent attacks in Lebanon, blowing up hundreds of electronic devices, are acts of terrorism, indiscriminately killing civilians, including children and doctors. This violence is escalating towards a wider regional war. Governments worldwide must STOP supporting Israel’s genocidal regime.”
Independent Jewish Voices – Canada
- On September 19, IJV released a statement condemning what it called “Israel campaign of terror in Lebanon”. The statement read: “Several mainstream media outlets and pundits have misrepresented this Israeli campaign of terror against the civilian population of Lebanon as a sophisticated targeted attack against high-ranking officials within Hezbollah. We know that was not the case. Israel’s attack on communication methods targeted and killed civilians, including 9 year old Fatima Abdullah.”
- On September 20, IJV tweeted, “IJV unequivocally condemns Israel’s terror campaign in Lebanon. As the death toll from these explosions rises, we call on our government to condemn Israel’s actions as an illegal, lethal attack on civilians.”
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)
- On September 17, CJPME tweeted, “Israel’s attack was an act of mass terrorism targeting thousands of people as they went about their daily lives, out in public, with their families, in the market, anywhere. 9 killed including a young girl and 2,750 injured…”
- On September 23, CJPME issued a press release claiming that “reckless and indiscriminate attacks that fail to distinguish between civilians and combatants are strictly illegal under international law.”
PAX (Netherlands)
- On September 19, PAX released a statement condemning the attacks and claiming that they “violate international law, in part because no distinction was made between military and civilian targets.” And that “Israel must be made very clear that escalation of the war towards the north will not be tolerated.”