After Pager Attack, How Dare the West Speak of Civilization?

Since Israel began the brutal massacre of the Palestinian people in October 2023, the Netanyahu regime has continuously pushed the boundaries of our understanding of the depths of Western civilization in front of people worldwide.

Starting from September 17, 2024, a series of large-scale pager and walkie-talkie explosion incidents within Lebanon’s borders have resulted in the deaths of numerous innocent civilians, including children. All signs indicate that Israel is the mastermind behind the first large-scale, indiscriminate, targeted assassinations of ordinary citizens of another country in the modern history of human warfare. The emphasis on assassination is due to the fact that before this, the United States had “invented” carpet bombing targeting civilians during the war in Vietnam, as well as chemical weapon attacks on food-producing areas.

In this instance, Israel’s actions in downtown Lebanon, using explosive devices hidden in civilian electronics, without regard for the safety of innocent civilians, through large-scale explosion assassinations, once again redefine our understanding of the words “barbaric”.

Since then, all everyday electronic products used by people have become unsettling. Israel’s assassinations have made the word “security” perilous in our daily lives. Faced with this extreme madness, everyone is in danger. The term “supply chain security,” which has recently entered people’s consciousness, is now intimately connected with life and death for each one of us.

Pager Explosions occurred in multiple locations in Lebanon.

On the afternoon of September 18th, there were more incidents of communication equipment explosions in various locations in Lebanon. This event completely shatters the last trace of warmth in the capitalist international division of labor in this “globalized era.”

Before this, some of us might have somewhat believed that “supply chain security” was merely a matter of national rivalry. For individuals, the personal consumer goods bought in the global market seemed “sweet.” No one would question the significant threat posed to personal security, especially life security, by products such as smartphones, watches, headphones, televisions, refrigerators, cars, and airplanes produced in the global industrial chain and circulated in the global market.

However, as Israel introduced explosives into these products, each individual is now exposed to pure violence in a terrifying way. Behind this violence stands a complete evil cloaked in the guise of a “nation,” serving only the very few.

A video circulating on English social media depicts a girl speaking with an American accent, sharing her story as a researcher on Palestine, silenced by Western universities and media. She asks:

“Why can’t we mention Israel?”

It’s an excellent question.

In recent years, with the popularity of Western “left-wing” discourse on post-colonialism and identity politics, we have developed an illusion that colonialism, imperialism, genocide, oppression, and the like belong to the past.

The former colonizers, oppressors, and hegemonists have long since actively reflected, admitted mistakes, completed a self-transformation akin to “enlightenment,” and become spokespersons for human civilization. These hegemonists are well-dressed, full of righteousness and morality; technologically advanced, carrying dreams of leading humanity to Mars; polite, kind to people, and have even elected a Black person as their president. What is there not to worship, respect, and follow in them? Why shouldn’t we “forget the past and look forward”?

Hegemonists urgently want us to forget the past, focus on their current glorious image, and imagine the future as they guide us. “You have no choice,” they say, “because history has already ended with us.”

However, the past is like their shadow under the sun. This black, murderous shadow they cast, we cannot forget.

Israel is where the hegemonists meet their own shadow. It brings the blood-drenched past of the hegemonists to the present, before us. In Israel, colonizers, killers, and hegemonists fuse vividly once again.

Secretary of State Blinken and Netanyahu featured The Times of Israel

The reason why we cannot talk about Israel is because it shows everyone that colonization and slaughter are not in the past, but rather integral components of today’s “civilized” face of the hegemonists.

In fact, since the mid-20th century, political assassinations have been important tools for the hegemonists to maintain their global order. Starting from 1950, Israel has continuously carried out assassinations against Arab peoples and individuals supporting the Palestinian independence movement around the world:

• In 1956, the Israeli Defense Forces used a parcel bomb to assassinate two Egyptian officers.

• On September 11, 1962, Israeli Mossad assassinated German engineer Heinz Krug in West Germany for assisting Egypt in missile technology development.

• On November 28 of the same year, Israeli Mossad used a letter bomb to assassinate five workers at an Egyptian missile factory.

• On July 8, 1972, in Beirut, Israeli Mossad used a car bomb to assassinate the renowned Palestinian poet, novelist, and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ghassan Fayez Kanafani.

This blood-stained list has never ceased, up to this day.

The reason why we cannot talk about Israel is because before this, the hegemonists could still use terms like “humanitarian intervention,” “targeted killings,” and “war on terror” to cover up their killings.

In the 2006 “International Human Rights Law Yearbook,” a study was published on the Israeli Supreme Court’s rulings titled “Targeted Killing or a Less Harmful Means? – The Limiting Function of the Israeli Supreme Court on Targeted Killing and Military Necessity.” The study noted that since the start of the U.S. War on Terror, Western countries have increasingly leaned towards using “targeted killings” to achieve their “military objectives.” Western scholars, media, and politicians describe this war violence as a “more humane” act of war, using it to justify “humanitarian intervention,” which is essentially imperialistic aggression. However, even Western courts find it difficult to justify such arguments.

In reality, aside from the United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Germany, all former colonial powers have carried out these blatantly reactionary assassinations under the pretext of military operations under the name of “targeted killings” against former colonies. However, they mostly operate in secret and are never openly discussed. Israel became the first country to officially recognize the legality of such “targeted killings” in November 2000.

The recent incidents of pager explosions in Lebanon, however, are neither “targeted” nor “limited,” blatantly crossing the so-called legal lines used by Western colonial imperialists to embellish their facade.

The reason why we cannot talk about Israel is also because all platforms where Western society such as media, political parties, and other public voices could potentially speak out are strictly controlled by financial capitalists. They are like a “shadow empire,” restraining even a glimmer of hope for change in the Western world.

After Gaza and Lebanon, the hegemonists can no longer use “civilization,” “rule of law,” “democracy,” and “freedom” to gloss over their hegemony. There is no more tender globalization, no absolute security for ordinary people, no lives untouched by hegemonic slaughter, and no freedom without a state. “Supply chain security” from now on will be intimately linked to the survival and death of each and every one of us.

A safe, equal, free, and truly multilateral world will rise from a place where we can confront the hegemonists, resist their killings, aggressions, interferences, and deceptions.