Ryan Girdusky clashed with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan on Monday night.
CNN has banned a conservative commentator from appearing on the network again after he told a Muslim journalist “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” an apparent reference to the spate of exploding pagers in Lebanon that killed members of the Hezbollah militant group last month.
Ryan Girdusky made the comment during a heated debate with Mehdi Hasan, a prominent British-American broadcaster and an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, on “CNN Newsnight” with host Abby Phillip.
The guests were discussing the racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, which overshadowed former President Donald Trump’s rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday and continue to make headlines two days later.
As the debate turned fractious, Girdusky and Hasan sparred over whether the latter had been labeled an anti-Semite. “I’m a supporter of the Palestinians, I’m used to it,” Hasan said.
Girdusky replied: “Well I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
A supply chain of a terrorist organisations was infiltrated and they where sold devices fitted with explosives and then distributed it within their organisation.
Everyone with a pager (and later also other devices) fell within the Hezbollah hierachy. The fact Hezbollah has infiltrated every level of society and has Docters and many others in their ranks does not make them invalid targets.
Besides, judging from the videos, we saw people standing next to whoever had the pager where mostly fine. The children dieing is horrible.
So calling it indiscriminate is more than a stretch. And the collateral damage is wayyyyy lower than with the rest of how Israël behaves.
Israel has never stopped ethnic cleansing of native populations
Hezbollah exists out of resistance to Occupation and Invasion by Israel
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/09/lebanon-establish-international-investigation-into-deadly-attacks-using-exploding-portable-devices/
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pagers-and-radios-terrifying-violation-international-law-say-un
Just because Israel routinely violates international humanitarian law and targets civilians doesn’t make this any less of a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime
The settler colonial project of Israel is filled with rabid fascists, I agree whole heartedly. The current government of Israel is peak of that performance.
But trying to paint this as a boobytrap, and targeting civilians. I don’t think anyone buys that for a minute.
And this was hardly indiscriminate. It was pagers that where handed directly to Hezbollah and distributed by Hezbollah through their network. It’s not as if these where sold by shops in Lebanon to normal Lebanese.
And collateral sucks, but this still had less than the bomb that was dropped on the appartment complex with the command bunker under it filled with Hezbollah staff.
Well, human rights organizations and international law disagree, and I agree with them. Both those articles discuss that in detail, including how it was a booby trap and indiscriminate.
Nor is Hezbollah solely an armed resistance militant group. They are also a prominent political group and maintain a multitude of social services like hospitals, those people are civilians not militants. This did not solely target militants, in fact is mostly didn’t.