Were the pagers military grade? Hungarian company providing military equipment to Hezbollah would be a scandal on its own.
The EU now needs to do something about it, and do it fast. Or to pretend that nothing happened, surrender to Israel, create a dangerous legal precedent "for the cause" and send a clear message that EU manufacture laws are a joke: "All those security filters painfully raised around EU products worth zero and can be easily jumped over". This is a really bad message for all the EU makers.
A franchise of your brand also signed a contract to make your product. I assume that changing the functionality or specifications of your registered product is strictly forbidden in that contract. I bet that this move violated some laws on Taiwan also.
If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo I would be fuming and furious at this moment.
Israel not only pushed them into the middle of a war that is not their war, without their consent or knowledge; also destroyed the brand image and painted a target in the backs of each employee and reseller of Gold Apollo.
At this moment, nothing suggests that the Taiwan based company were part of this. They should apologize, clear things, and detach themselves from this PR mess as soon as possible.
I understand that from the Mossad point of view this can be a big success, but from the point of view of the companies that try to sell their legit products, this is an direct attack.
Weren’t they already selling pagers to Hezbollah? It seems like they were already in the war as a supplier of goods to a terrorist organization.
I wonder if this is why Israel made this move because the manufacturer was already breaking international sanction by supplying Hezbollah so they have little recourse.
If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo, I’d be investigating why my franchisee was selling stuff to Hezbollah in the first place.
But it’s beepers and only 5,000. How expensive is this at the end of the day? It’s probably the last time a company lends then brand name for a small amount.
I don't have info about those specific models, but this is pagers and not rockets. If someone makes an order for 5000 units I can't image you'd have an expectation to do a background check with references.
It's basically like ordering 5000 units of Raspberry Pi, would you consider that a military export?
Selling pagers to Lebanon citizens is legal if I'm not wrong.
Not necessarily. At this moment, all suggests that somebody (Ehem, Mossad) was impersonating a reseller of the brand [1]. How do they knew that the buyers were from Hezbollah?. Did the buyers wear a t-shirt?. What if somebody was buying it to resell it later and bank some profit?. This stuff could ended being sold to innocent people, or distributed by all the schools of Lebanon.
[1] New facts can change this picture and I may be wrong about this.
> If I was the CEO of Gold Apollo, I’d be investigating why my franchisee was selling stuff to Hezbollah in the first place.
Agree. Definitely, the maker should make a move about that, just to be sure. And to be very transparent about that investigation.
This is true. But only the thousands of Hezbollah pagers blew up, right? There are a lot of details needed to see if they knowingly supplied Hezbollah or just sold a big batch to a random customer. I assumed, perhaps falsely, that a 5000 pager order for Lebanon is pretty specific and does anyone really use pagers any more? My thinking was that this is a specific tech used by Hezbollah. Although it is a consumer tech, maybe pagers are super popular in Lebanon. But 3000 people were injured so I thought that the vast majority of these pagers were used exclusively by Hezbollah.
My point is their stuff was already in a war. Israel making them explode doesn’t seem to change that.
Hopefully! Just out of curiosity I had a look for that brand of pager on eBay, but didn't see any. I'd hate to think that there were a few rogue units out there that had potential to cause harm!
After ABC news, "an AP photographer in the city of Sidon saw a mobile phone shop damaged after devices exploded inside".
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/gold-apollo-p...
Apollo pagers are everywhere and sold through resellers through out the world, even in the US. Let’s not do Hasbara-style speculation
There is a federal Office of Anti boycott Compliance that any employee of any company can tip off and have the company punished if it's believed they did not give a fair shake to an Israeli supplier or bidder of any kind.
For products that can have dual-use capabilities, you need an export license that is given per customer (at least in the EU) where some due diligence is performed. If the company is a reseller in Lebanon and there are no export bans for that country, they can be sold/bought without an issue.
The fact that somewhere in transit they were modified, the manufacturer or seller cannot be held liable for it.
Sanctions violations are very much a "do not pass go" style crime, and this looks like it was an entire batch that was delivered directly to Hezbollah.
I don't mean to be "that guy", but "military grade" means nothing nowadays. It can mean anything from "made to exactly standards" to "made by the lowest bidder, and likely to fail the minute it's used".