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Speaker 1: This is quite extraordinary. I couldn't believe it when I

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Speaker 1: came into work and caught up with a story this morning.

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Speaker 1: But three thousand people have been injured, nine people have died.

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Speaker 1: Those numbers expected to rise. But video showing in some

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Speaker 1: cases anyway, pages as in message pages, electronic pages that

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Speaker 1: we probably all carried before mobile phones on the belt

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Speaker 1: or whatever in the bag, you'd get a message on it.

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Speaker 1: It was sort of early texting one way you'd get

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Speaker 1: an incoming message. Well, these pages have exploded across Lebanon

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Speaker 1: and they are believed to be pages used by Hezbollah

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Speaker 1: right across I don't know if it's limited to Lebanon,

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Speaker 1: it might be across the Middle East. The terror group

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Speaker 1: now vowing revenge on Israel. What does this mean going forward?

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Speaker 1: And how did they orchestrate this if it is Israel.

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Speaker 1: Professor Greg Barton, the chair of Global Islamic Studies, d

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Speaker 1: coon Uni.

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Speaker 2: Great, good morning, good good morning, Mathew, could be with you.

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Speaker 1: This is the stuff of James Bond.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's what the intelligence calls black ops.

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Speaker 2: It's an offensive operation almost certainly launched by Mossad, the

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Speaker 2: overseas intelligence agency of Israels there's no one else has

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Speaker 2: the capacity and the motivation in the region that would

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Speaker 2: do this. But of course that's not confirmed. That they'll

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Speaker 2: never be confirmed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how would they have done it? Is it a

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Speaker 1: signal to the pages? Did they have the numbers? Specifically?

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Speaker 1: How's it? Did we know any more about it?

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Speaker 2: We well, we don't know with certainly the New York

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Speaker 2: Times and other outlet so reporting that five months ago

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Speaker 2: his will I received the shipments of pages from a

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Speaker 2: Taiwanese company. These were manufacturer in Taiwan. Back in February,

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Speaker 2: Hassan Nasu, last the head of his blust they don't

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Speaker 2: use your iPhones cell phones because the Israel has got

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Speaker 2: into our system. They can track your location and they

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Speaker 2: can use spyware, so give up your phones. Were to

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Speaker 2: communicate with pages. These pages are old school nineteen nineties pages,

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Speaker 2: as say, pre mobile phone. So they work on a

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Speaker 2: wireless not a Wi Fi but you know old school radio,

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Speaker 2: right like a wireless transmission. One way, the network doesn't

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Speaker 2: know the location of the pages. The pages received text messages,

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Speaker 2: but they can also you know, that could be a

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Speaker 2: form of code. So it appears that if it is

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Speaker 2: MOS said they got inside his bulach with human security.

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Speaker 2: They had compromised the network. They found out about this

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Speaker 2: plan to import pages in the Taiwanese company. They intercepted

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Speaker 2: the pages either at the factory or before they were shipped.

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Speaker 2: It's thought they added ten or twenty gramps of plastic explosive.

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Speaker 2: It's not enough to necessarily be lethal, but enough to

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Speaker 2: make a bigger explosion than say, for example, a battery exploding,

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Speaker 2: and set up some sort of code. So when there

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Speaker 2: was a wireless transmission with that code and all the

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Speaker 2: pages received that code, which was three thirty in the afternoon,

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Speaker 2: they route these devices exploded sometimes if depending where, they

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Speaker 2: were enough to be fatal, but you know, we're not

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Speaker 2: intended to be necessarily be guaranteed fatal charges. Given that

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Speaker 2: perhaps Isman is four thousand people injured, there may have

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Speaker 2: been thousands of these pages compromised in this way, and

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Speaker 2: they were They were carried by his Bela operatives. We're

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Speaker 2: seeing mostly military, but some perhaps political, because this is

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Speaker 2: a hybrid military political organization, and there were some HISBULA

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Speaker 2: people or allies in Syria at least as far as that.

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Speaker 2: So the the technical and intelligence success here tactically is

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Speaker 2: remarkable this would destabilize his means they don't trust their technology,

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Speaker 2: they're compromised when it comes to communications as a psychological blow.

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Speaker 2: But it's also understood this is a provocation that means

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Speaker 2: of his below is even more like this strike back. Now,

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Speaker 2: possibly the calculations they won't strike back with all of

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Speaker 2: their force, but that's a risky calculation. So it's not

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Speaker 2: clear whether strategically this has been a a great success.

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Speaker 2: Technically it certainly looks impressive, but strategically it may lead

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Speaker 2: Israel into a world of trouble with its own security

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Speaker 2: if things go out of control with his buller at Lebanon.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting, Matthew that the field or Roosevelt, the nuclear

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Speaker 2: powered aircraft carrier and its strike group that were stationed

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Speaker 2: off Lebanon for the last eight months five days ago

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Speaker 2: sailed through the Sewers Canal and the Red Sea heading

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Speaker 2: to the Pacific. So that's you know, the operations end.

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Speaker 2: But I think we can read in a signal from

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Speaker 2: the US saying we're not going to stand by waiting

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Speaker 2: to back you up to Israel. You need to step

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Speaker 2: down and de escalate. Of course, we've got elections coming

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Speaker 2: up November fourth, So there's a strange kind of lanes

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Speaker 2: up aspect to Biden's presidency degree of uncertainty. No great

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Speaker 2: success was persuading Prime Minister Benjamin they know who to

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Speaker 2: do what White House asked.

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Speaker 1: Him to do.

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Speaker 2: So there is perhaps a sense this is a window

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Speaker 2: opportunity for Israel to engage in a war with Lebanon.

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Speaker 2: No doubt the intentions have been limited, but this is

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Speaker 2: a risky moment.

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Speaker 1: Well, so my question was going to be, well, where

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Speaker 1: to now. I suppose we just have to wait and

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Speaker 1: see what the response is and you know, retaliation probably

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Speaker 1: on both sides.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the reasonable assumption is that Israel expects this to

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Speaker 2: be seen as provocaty of to provoke a response, and

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Speaker 2: then its shaping the battlefield ahead of an upcoming war.

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Speaker 2: So be stabilizing people are crippling and the communications network,

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Speaker 2: but of course at the risk of provoking them and

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Speaker 2: doing something perhaps even more rationally might have done.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, unreal. I mean, you'd think they know exactly what

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Speaker 1: they're doing and what this would mean in terms of

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Speaker 1: you know, come back, retaliation, all of that. And I

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Speaker 1: just wonder you talk about Joe Biden and the lame

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Speaker 1: duck presidency. At the moment, Kamala Harris winning would probably

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Speaker 1: be status quo as to where we're at today. Come

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Speaker 1: January twenty, when she's sworn in Donald Trump winning, what

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Speaker 1: would that mean for Israel, for the region.

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Speaker 2: I think Nanna, who's hanging on for November fourth, you know,

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Speaker 2: if this war stops, we're coming up to, of course, tragically,

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Speaker 2: twelve months of operation since the October seventh terrorist attack

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Speaker 2: by her mask, so that's not far off that anniversary.

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Speaker 2: I think Natana who wants to hang on and hope

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Speaker 2: that the Donald Trump victory. His hope is that Trump

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Speaker 2: agrees with him politically and will will act it away.

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Speaker 2: That helps then Yahu. But of course Donald Trump is

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Speaker 2: like like Metna, who himself is an opportunistic narcissist, is

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Speaker 2: out for number one for himself. Though I don't think

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Speaker 2: either man can count on each other. Trump's instincts, as

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Speaker 2: far as we can read them to remove American troops

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Speaker 2: from foreign operations and take an isolationist approach that may

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Speaker 2: not work the way that Nania who wants it to work.

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Speaker 2: Kamala Harris, I think we can safely assume, as you say,

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Speaker 2: status quo she's not going to let Israel down comes

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Speaker 2: to self defense, but she will hold it to a

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Speaker 2: harder line than Biden's been able to do, at least

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Speaker 2: with net Who. And at some point Netta Who's leadership

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Speaker 2: will end and there will be a different configuration politics there.

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Speaker 2: So we're sort of in this period at the moment

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Speaker 2: where it's possible that could be a retaliation from his

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Speaker 2: blah and that's what mattna Who wants and then we

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Speaker 2: unfortunately gets their estillation into a major war. That's what

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Speaker 2: no one wants. But it's you know, the signal to

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Speaker 2: detonate these pages came at a time when we've got

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Speaker 2: this interregnant. The US aircraft Carrier Strike Group has sailed.

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Speaker 2: There's not that immediate presence of the ability to launch

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Speaker 2: aircraft with with cruise missiles to target his blow targets.

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Speaker 2: That's what's required. That capacity is much diminished now, so

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Speaker 2: you know, it is a dangerous moment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. We'll wait and see. Greg. Appreciate your insights.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, good good chatting. Thanks very much. Ma.

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Speaker 1: Think Professor Greg Marton, Chair of Global Islamic Studies, that

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Speaker 1: the con universe versity