At a widely-read blog about anthropology, posts attributed to one “Isaiah Silver” have been arguing for the American Anthropological Association to boycott Israeli scholars and institutions. “Isaiah Silver” is supposedly a pseudonym for two American Jewish archaeologists, (“proud Jews,” of course), who have spent time in Israel. David M. Rosen writes:

As a former “insider,” Isaiah Silver, the renegade “proud Jew,” lends the aura of authenticity to BDS’s accusations. . . . But why choose a pseudonym? After all, anyone remotely familiar with American anthropology knows that you don’t exactly need to be Braveheart to condemn Israel in front of a crowd of American anthropologists. But the pseudonym adds to the aura of staged victimhood, as these BDS propagandists demand that their identities be protected as they seek to destroy the careers of their Israeli colleagues. . . .

Israeli anthropologists, on the whole, are politically left, liberal, tolerant, and opposed to . . . the current right-wing government of Israel. . . . But instead of treating them as allies, “Isaiah Silver” and his ilk have invented . . . phony transgressions to be rectified by boycott. First and foremost is the charge that Israeli anthropology is responsible for the nationalist bent of some Israeli archaeology. Left unsaid is that in Israel, as in Europe, archaeology is not a subfield of anthropology. . . .

Secondly, BDS supporters charge Israeli anthropologists with “crimes of omission” in their work when they fail to engage the issue of the Palestinians. It is true that not all Israeli anthropologists are political, and many have engaged in research which has little or nothing to do with politics or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But anthropologists throughout the world engage in work that has scant connection to politics. How does the normal work of anthropology come to be characterized by BDS and its supporters . . . as a crime of omission? Even more problematic, how anyone can buy into this nonsense?

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.