What next in the Lebanon?

Destruction of your enemy’s communications is usually a prelude to an all-out attack. But so far Israeli ground troops appear to be focused on Gaza.

Such an attack could provoke a violent response from Hezbollah. But so far they have been relatively restrained. Hezbollah’s 64-year-old leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that the exploding pagers and walkie talkies was a “severe blow” and that Israel had crossed a “red line.” But he made no explicit threats.

It is thought that the Israeli government is trying to decouple the tit for tat missile attacks on the Israeli-Lebanese border from the Gaza War so that it is not fighting on two fronts.

Hezbollah launched its attacks in support of Hamas on 8 October, the day after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. It said the missile attacks would continue until a permanent ceasefire is agreed in Gaza. The resultant tit-for-tat missile exchanges has led to the evacuation of 80,000 Israelis from the north of Israel and 90,000 Lebanese from the south of Lebanon.

Decoupling would imply that the Israeli government believes that Hezbollah could be persuaded through violence to stop its missile attacks. Based on past performance, the opposite seems more probable.

There is also the possibility that the Israeli government believes it has achieved enough of its goals in Gaza that it can concentrate on combatting Hezbollah. This appeared to be what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meant when he said after the explosions: “A new phase is starting in the war. Israel’s focus has moved to the northern front. The centre of gravity is moving north. We are diverting resources and energy towards the north.”

The incident started with an Israeli cabinet at which the main topic was Hezbollah missile attacks and the political fallout from the evacuation of Israelis from their homes in northern Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged from the meeting to declare that Israel will take action to “return the residents of the north safely to their homes.”

A few hours later thousands of pagers carried by Hezbollah activists exploded. The following day it was turn of the walkie-talkies. More than 3,000 have been injured. Many of them have been blinded for life. 17 have died so far.

The explosions occurred mid-afternoon. The men and women carrying the devices were walking through the markets, in offices or other public places. The pagers beeped for several seconds. The owners took them out to look at the message and the device exploded in their faces in front of hundreds of other people.

How Israeli intelligence managed to place several grams of explosive material and a triggering device in thousands of pagers and walkie talkies is a mystery. The Taiwanese and Hungarian companies involved the manufacture of the equipment deny any culpability. But a consultant who worked on the pagers has disappeared.

Israel has neither denied nor confirmed that it was behind the explosions. But no one else has either the means or motive for such an attack.

The explosions also raise questions about other electronic devices. What next? Hezbollah switched from mobile phones to pagers because they feared that they could be hacked by Mossad. What about personal computers? Could they blow up their owners’ faces. Israel has managed to plant the seeds of fear in the psyche of everyone in Lebanon.

Has violence become an accepted part of American politics?

There have been now been two attempts within the space of two months on the life of Donald Trump.

Violence has always been a part of American life. There are, after all, twice as many guns as people in the US, and the country has the highest homicide rate in the developed world. Since its inception in the 18th century, there have been four assassinations of presidents and innumerable attempted assassinations.

But there is little doubt that at least the threat of political assassination is spreading and it no longer confined to the person in the top job. In 2022 the political magazine The Hill conducted a survey of all members of Congress asking them if they had received a death threat. Of the 147 who responded, 110 said yes. Threatening members of Congress appears to be a bipartisan equal opportunity occupation. 74 percent of those threatened in The Hill survey were Republicans and 77 percent were Democrats.

There was no doubt that this was an increase because the survey was prompted by a report from Capitol Hill police that in 2021 they investigated 9,600 written, emailed or telephoned threats against members of Congress. This was up from 3,939 three years earlier.

Who is responsible? Donald Trump says that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are responsible for branding him as a “threat to Democracy.”

But a lot of the blame can be laid at Trump’s own door. He has lowered debate to the gutter and elevated anger as a political tool. Kamala and Biden are branded “the enemy within” and we all heard him call for his supporters to march on the Capitol on January 6.

The latest potential assassin was 58-year-old Ryan Routh who, armed with an AK-47, spent twelve hours hiding in the bushes on Trump’s golf course before being spotted by an eagle-eyed Secret Service agent.

Routh had a lengthy criminal record and had tried to sign up to fight for the Ukrainians against Russia. He also attempted to recruit Afghan fighters to fight in Ukraine. Routh’s connections with Ukraine meant he was vehemently opposed to Trump who has implied he would scrap US aid to Kyiv if he won the election. “You are free,” Routh wrote in his self-published book, “to assassinate Donald Trump.”

The two assassination attempts against Trump have led to questions about the effectiveness of the Secret Service. They clearly failed to protect him in Butler, Pennsylvania when he was hit in the ear. The latest foiled attempt could be called a success but then, it should be asked how Routh came to be in position for 12 hours and within a few minutes of being able to take a shot.

Following the second attempt, President Biden has called on the Secret Service to increase its protection of Trump. There are 3,000 Secret Service agents of which 80 have been assigned to Donald Trump. The levels candidates receive is not determined by the president, but by long-standing formulas based on experience which are determined by the service.

The Secret Service are probably the best law enforcement agency in the country. Their job is to protect the president and key members of his family, key members of the government and congress and major political candidates. Given the increasing divisions in American society and the rise in violence to address those divisions it is surprising that there Trump, Biden, Harris, et al, are still alive. Given the circumstances, the Secret Service does an excellent job. But then it cannot afford any failures.

Springfield is the home of the Simpson family.

It was chosen because it is a quiet out of the way All-American town.

That is the cartoon fictional municipality. In real life its 58,645 inhabitants have been at the centre of a vitriolic tornado following Donald Trump’s baseless claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating the pets of the town’s native residents.

There is hardly a greater sin in the minds of cat and dog-loving Americans than the murder of their pets. Trump knew it. That’s why he said it.

So what has been the result? “Absolute Hell,” City Manager Bryan Heck told America’s National Public Radio. There have been 33 bomb threats involving schools, the city hall, civic centres, universities and the homes of Haitian immigrants. A 20-year-old cultural festival was cancelled at the last minute because of the threats.

The Proud Boys organised an anti-immigrant march through the town and an organisation affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan distributed leaflets claiming that the Haitians are “disease-ridden filthy vermin” who are spreading tuberculosis and venereal disease

Haitians are living in constant fear. One told NPR: “We don’t go out. None of us go out. We are all afraid that people hate us and we don’t know who is going to hurt us.”

The bomb threats have all been hoaxes. But, as Bryan Heck, said, “You don’t know they are hoaxes until they are proven to be such. We have had to treat each threat as real which has been equally frightening and incredibly disruptive.”

The pet-eating story appears to have originated with Ohio’s junior senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance with a helping hand from conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.

In the wake of the pet-eating scare, Vance appears to be taking a leaf from the Trump playbook—never apologise, never back down, double down and then double down again. The vice presidential candidate has refused to apolgise and said creating the story was necessary to draw national attention to the wider problem of immigration.

As for the bomb threats. Trump claimed at first to know nothing about them and then dismissed any culpability because the FBI proved that they all originated from outside the US. “It doesn’t matter where the hoaxes came from,” said Mr. Heck. “They were caused by what Trump said.”

Trump said that he and Vance planned to visit to Springfield in the near future. The reaction of residents will be interesting.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain".