Dividing and taking apart an Islamic terrorist group.
by Daniel Greenfield
Some were shocked to learn that Israelâs successful âPagergeddonâ operation had been the work of a female intelligence operative under thirty. But they shouldnât have been.
Israelâs digital intelligence capabilities rely on the work of young women operating in arenas like Unit 8200 which monitors enemy communications, plants surveillance devices and puts together intel data to form a bigger picture, and Unit 414, the unarmed observers on the front line, many of whose members were killed and a number captured during the Hamas invasion on Oct 7.
Women from 8200 and 414 had sounded early warning alerts about Hamas training drills and movements that went unheard before Oct 7. And Unit 414 had lost 27 of its own on Oct 7.
Unit 8200, which is 55% female, had taken some of the blame for the failures on Oct 7. The assault on Hezbollah provided a unique opportunity for Israelâs women to strike back.
âPagergeddonâ went viral on social media but it was only a piece of a bigger puzzle. The Israelis had deconstructed the lessons of Oct 7 and turned them against the Islamic terrorists. Hamas and its Iranian masterminds had wrecked Israeli battlefield communications in the initial attack. Israeli military units were slow to respond, aerial units were unable to strike and hours passed before the military leadership understood the scope of the terrorist assault on the homeland.
The first thing Israel came after were Hezbollahâs communications. âPagergeddonâ was a crucial last step that began with Israel infiltrating Hezbollahâs landlines and then its other communications. When Hezbollah leaders fell back on the pagers and handheld radios, also favored by Hamas, that had been rigged to explode, communications were fatally scrambled.
Hezbollah leaders were forced to begin meeting in person and retreating to bunkers which made it all too easy to take them out. With a broken leadership and communications structure, Hezbollah lacked the ability to decisively move its forces and quickly respond. Within a week, its protectors at the UN and the White House were frantically urging a âceasefireâ.
Destroying communications and the chain of command is standard military doctrine, and Israelâs successful implementation of it within such a short time and against one of the worldâs largest Islamic terrorist groups will be studied in military academies for generations, but there was also something feminine about breaking apart Hezbollahâs social bonds before a bombing campaign.
While misleading photos and videos of female IDF soldiers carrying rifles circulate on social media, the burden of front line combat is largely handled by men. The killing and capture of unarmed Israeli female observers from Unit 414 remains a deep moral failure. The true role of Israeli women is to act as the invisible heart and soul of the countryâs national defense.
When Iron Dome and other interceptor systems take down incoming attacks, the odds are very good that the countryâs female air defense controllers are alert and responding. And the extent to which Hezbollahâs communications were penetrated and turned against the terror group owes much to nameless female âkeyboard warriorsâ who exposed the enemyâs weaknesses.
Hezbollah was uniquely vulnerable to these tactics because it was in the awkward stage between terror group and terror state, too big to hide in tunnels, too small to have an effective air defense system, and too dumb to realize that tens of thousands of rockets were still no match for what a first rate air force could do to all its infrastructure and weaponry.
