Ezra was joined by Dr. Daniel Pipes, historian and president of The Middle East Forum. The two talked about Israel expanding its fights against radical Islam with targeted strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon. First, with explosive charges smuggled into Hezbollah member's pagers, and now, with targeted assassinations of the terrorist organization's key leaders.
Ezra asked Dr. Pipes how badly he thinks that Hezbollah's chain of command has been smashed. He answered:
It looks to me that the steps the Israelis have taken in recent days are quite effective. On the one hand, the pager and walkie-talkie explosions, on the second hand, the targeted assassination of senior Hezbollah figures. On the third hand, the destruction of missile launchers. You can't do much of missiles if you don't have the launchers. So it looks like Hezbollah is not as strong as it was a couple of weeks ago.
Now, it also appears that the Iranians, the leadership in Tehran, is worried that it's losing its Hezbollah asset that is in fact protecting Iran to some extent. So I would imagine there's a lot of disconcerting in the circles of Hezbollah and the Iranian Islamic Republic as to what to do next, go full force against Israel or not. I imagine it's very intensive discussions.
Ezra questioned: "Do you think it's likely that Israel would invade on the ground in Lebanon, or do you think it's more likely that they would just go in and root out some of these subterranean launch facilities and then they'll move right back out?" Dr. Pipes responded:
Actually, I think it's neither of those. Let me contrast Israel's war against Hamas with Israel's war against Hezbollah. Hamas is a Palestinian organization solely determined to destroy the state of Israel. It has no other purpose, it cannot do anything else. Therefore, Israel determined a year ago, as repeated many times by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others that it intends to destroy Hamas. It wants nothing left of Hamas. Now, whether it can achieve that or not, I can't tell you. I can tell you it's done a pretty good job but it's not fully finished.
But destruction, the ending of Hamas's existence is the goal and therefore a ceasefire is very inimical to Israel because it means it can't do that. In contrast, Israel's war on Hezbollah is not to destroy Hezbollah, it is to deter Hezbollah. Hezbollah exists to control Lebanon, and fighting Israel is a side venture, a very important venture, but side-controlling Lebanon is the key. Therefore the Israelis are not trying to destroy it and not trying to uproot it but simply get it to stop sending over the missiles and rockets so that the 60,000 or so Israelis in the north of Israel can return.
