A precise attack

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 19th of September.

We’re glad you’ve joined us for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Up first, a novel way to deter war.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of people were injured and at least 14 killed after electronic pagers and walkie talkies exploded in southern Lebanon. The terror group Hezbollah purchased the devices months ago.

What do these attacks mean for Israel and the Middle East?

REICHARD: Joining us now is Enia Krivine. She is with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, senior director of its Israel, Programs and National Security Network.

Enia, good morning.

ENIA KRIVINE: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: So glad you’re here. Well, let’s set up some context first. Before the events of this week, what tensions existed between Israel and Hezbollah?

KRIVINE: So Israel and Hezbollah are in the midst of what has been an almost 12 month conflict on the background of years of tensions, and what we've seen in the past week and days has been a sort of a crescendo where both sides have taken one step closer to what might be an all out war.

REICHARD: Well the word of the day seems to be escalation. I’m wondering how do these explosions benefit Israel, strategically?

KRIVINE: After the attacks of October 7, 2023 when Hamas invaded Israel's southern border communities and massacred 1,200 people, Israel declared war. And the very day after, on October 8, Hezbollah also began attacking Israel from the north. So fast forward 11 months, Israel has evacuated tens of thousands of people from their northern communities, and over a million people have been living under intermittent rocket fire from Hezbollah for almost a year now. So Israel has got is looking at this situation and trying to figure out how to get its people back to the northern communities. So what you're seeing now is an Israeli attempt to try and push Hezbollah back, to convince Hezbollah to end this war, to return a sense of security and safety to the north of Israel that would allow these tens of thousands of citizens who have been internally displaced for almost a year to finally return to their home. Now it's going to take a lot more than these deeper explosions and communication infiltration in order to give Israelis the security they need to make that move and to go home. But what I believe if Israel is responsible for this attack---of course, they haven't taken responsibility for this attack on the communications devices of Hezbollah members in Lebanon. But if Israel is responsible, it fits with this goal of weakening Hezbollah so that they are the terror organization, Lebanese terror organization is less combat ready and allowing their north, northern residents an opportunity to go home.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about the tactic used now. The UN Human Rights Chief is looking into whether Israel crossed a line with these attacks…and Enia, we do have international laws of war, the Geneva Convention protocols. How do these actions apply to the Geneva Convention?

KRIVINE: Well, the Geneva Convention has nothing in it that talks about the potential use of, you know, communications device being exploded on a designated terror organization. So this is an unprecedented territory that we're in, and I'll leave it up to international lawyers to litigate that. But what we've seen is that the north of Israel has been under attack on almost a daily basis from a designated terrorist organization in Lebanon. Hezbollah has the blood of hundreds of Israelis on its hand from this conflict and previous conflicts, not to mention the blood of hundreds of Americans on its hands. So when Israel, facing this terrorist threat, is trying to figure out again how to return sovereignty, safety, security to its northern regions, and it occurs to me that, if this was an attack by Israel, there's probably no more precise munition that you can get to than placing a small explosive device in the pockets of these terrorist members, you know, on their person, essentially. So again, this is something that I'm sure is going to be discussed and litigated with international lawyers, but it looks to me as if it's about as precise of a response to 11 months of shelling that you can get.

REICHARD: Enia, we’ve heard mixed reports about what and when Israel told the United States about its plans for this attack. Do you think this will change U.S. support for Israel?

KRIVINE: So the U.S. has a long history with Hezbollah. In the early 80s, the Lebanese terrorist organization that was the precursor of Hezbollah, killed 200 over 240 US Marines in southern Lebanon. So this is not an organization that the US and that this government is going to go out on a limb to try and defend Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, again designated in the U.S. and Western countries. This is an organization that specifically targets civilians with a lot of American and and Israeli and indeed Jewish blood on their hands from lots of different places. So I'm sure that America wants calm. I know that D.C. does not want an escalation in the north. But what I think that right now, folks in Washington are probably trying to look at the results, see how accurate these attacks were, see what the collateral damage was, and my guess is that this, if it was, indeed as precise as it looks like it was, and if this is going to deter Hezbollah from this ongoing escalation that it's been ratcheting up on a daily and weekly basis with Israel, then it is in the U.S. interest to try and deter what an all out, full scale war would look like, and the humanitarian catastrophe that it could involve.

REICHARD: Enia Krivine senior director with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thank you so much.

KRIVINE: Thanks so much.

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