Mossad calling: The Melbourne children’s pager party glorifying civilian deaths

Until we demand better, the normalisation of celebrating terrorism against civilians — as long as the “right” civilians are targeted — will continue on our own soil.

The pager themed pro IDF family event in Caufield has caused upraor across the secular Australian community. (Source: X)

A former Zionist fight club-cum-grassroots activist organisation has stirred controversy by hosting a ‘Beeper Operation’ all-ages family event in Caulfield on 7 December. The event is themed around the notorious September 2024 attacks in Lebanon, where thousands of civilian pagers and walkie-talkies detonated simultaneously, killing at least 37 people and wounding nearly 3000, including many innocent civilians and children.

The event flyer calls on parents to bring friends and families for a “day of skill-building, unity and learning”, where the organisers aim to teach impressionable children about the “bravery, cunning strategy and relentless execution” that define the legacy of the IDF and security forces. The family day features a Nerf battle game, Krav Maga training and a beeper-themed programme that seeks to “honour and inspire children with one of Mossad’s most cunning missions”. No mention of face painting or jumping castles.

The promotion features an image of a pager with the words ‘Mossad calling’ on the display. The day’s activities appear centred on glorifying violence — an odd fit among the summer-themed, family-friendly festival and event flyers that start to populate social-media timelines and community bulletin boards at this time of year. Under the guise of honouring children, a group that has supported the annihilation of children in Palestine now plans a children’s event to inspire their own kids to admire such things.

The Lions of Zion (TLOZ) is a pro-Israel, Zionist grassroots organisation in Australia focused on countering antisemitism through community events, protests and self-defence training. Founded in late 2024/early 2025 amid rising tensions after 7 October 2023, it emphasises Jewish unity and pride but has faced criticism for alleged ties to far-right groups and militant tactics. In an article in Michael West Media, Yaakov Aharon traced TLOZ from a ‘fight club’ with connections to Nazi groups to a registered organisation with charitable purposes that now attends rallies and counter-protests across Australia. The group’s founding member, Reuven ‘Rubi’ Flescher, was previously involved with far-right groups within the Victorian freedom movement. The strange bedfellows — antisemitic neo-Nazis organising alongside anti-Palestinian Kahanist Zionists — reveal both camps trying to impose a violent form of supremacy on secular Australian streets.

The discovery of the event by secular Australians hoping to use the same parkland with their kids on summer weekends triggered dumbfounded outrage and immediate questions about how something like this could even see the light of a summer’s day. In response to the public criticism, TLOZ issued a statement citing “Jewish resolve” and the need to affirm “the moral courage of Jewish defenders, the dignity of Jewish identity, and the responsibility we bear to pass strength and truth to the next generation”.

There have been national stories about Christian cults living in remote Australia abusing their congregations. The idea of coercion and control of children is abhorred amongst ordinary communities, and most of society rightly finds the indoctrination of children — especially around ancient and unreasonable hatreds that have no place in a secular nation — appalling. If the Indian Hindutva community were hosting a Gujarat massacre sack race in Dandenong, or Lashkar-e-Taiba were running an IED-themed pool party in Broadmeadows, there would be national outrage. So why can TLOZ celebrate a heinous and perfidious attack on a sovereign nation — an attack deliberately designed to appeal to children — that violated the principle of distinction, the principle of proportionality and breached the very international law our government keeps telling us is so important?

There is no strength and truth in indoctrinating Australian children to admire the explosive qualities of Israeli pagers, nor any need to lionise the cunning strategy and relentless execution associated with it. Beyond that, there is no place in Australia for intergenerational transfers of macabre supremacist hatred.

In a further statement responding to outrage over a children’s party celebrating an act of barbaric extrajudicial terrorism that maimed and killed innocent bystanders and children, the Lions of Zion again defended the event under the banner of “Jewish resolve in a time of rising hostility and confusion”, claiming victimhood while declaring dignity and moral courage as the reason the event will proceed. It is hard to see that angle when it comes from such unreasonable aggressors.

It is hard enough that the world has stood by and witnessed a declared genocide while Zionists eke their way toward goals ultimately destructive to human life on this planet — goals that have seen an entire people marked for erasure and contiguous neighbours attacked with far more than exploding pagers. In a highly connected digital world, after more than two years of constant death and displacement, Israel has lost the victim narrative. This shift is visible everywhere, including in the way Zionists now project their objectives. Before 7 October, a mainstream Australian Zionist movement might have refrained from celebrating such a grim operation among children; now it is pushed forward as a human right and moral obligation.

Such an event sits jarringly with any normal human being and, one suspects, with large sections of the Jewish community — including Zionists — who can see the dead end of an ethnic-nationalist supremacist project based in Israel.

Sarah Horowitz, former Obama staffer and speechwriter and the quintessential image of a liberal Zionist, has added her voice to a growing chorus of worried pro-Israel figures on the left and right. They have largely given up trying to win a losing war of public opinion with the global population and are now focused on the spot fires igniting within Jewish communities themselves. With global public opinion so low towards Zionism, the real fear of ultra-Zionists is no longer convincing a world that has turned away; it is the thousands of young Jewish people around the globe who have turned their backs on the Zionist project entirely. The Caulfield pager party is a desperate, reactive attempt to stem the exodus of Jews from the Zionist colonial project.

@the.lions.of.zion

The Lions of Zion on Instagram

So there is an event on in Australia in 2025, not far from the summer holidays, in a suburban park among the sunny streets of Melbourne — and it is not teaching kids how to play cricket, organising a treasure hunt or putting on a jumping castle with face painting. It is a party based on exploding pagers where kids join IDF-styled Nerf-gun battles and learn about exploding telecommunications equipment. We can only guess what the targets may be.

Why is it apparently acceptable for the Lions of Zion to hold a pager event in a sunny Caulfield family park? Many of us no longer need to ask that question, and that is an indictment on our leaders — and ultimately on us — that we could allow such a horrible event to be granted a permit in the first place. In a country where the Israeli-made missile that killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom can still be displayed at a weapons expo, and diplomatic, econmomic and military normalcy can be maintained mid-genicide between Canberra and Tel Aviv, the answer is painfully obvious. Until we demand better, the normalisation of celebrating terrorism against civilians — as long as the “right” civilians are targeted — will continue on our own soil.