Speaker 1: All right, I'm joined here by Moen Robini, a midist
Speaker 1: analysts to talk about Israel's devastating strike on the Israeli suburbs,
Speaker 1: which they are claiming or we'll talk about this in
Speaker 1: a moment to have taken out hesbilas Secretary General Hassan Ustrala.
Speaker 1: We'll also talk about the threat that the IDEAF has
Speaker 1: been making to the Dahiya suburbs, ordering a massive evacuation
Speaker 1: of civilians, presaging what could be a Gaza like assault
Speaker 1: on southern leban And So Mouen, first of all, thank
Speaker 1: you for joining me today.
Speaker 2: Good to be with you.
Speaker 1: So the way that this works on YouTube and wherever
Speaker 1: else people are watching this is that many of you,
Speaker 1: by the time you're watching this may know a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the precise outcome of this attack than
Speaker 1: we do. As we're speaking now at five h six
Speaker 1: pm Eastern on Friday, we're gonna let's let's have the
Speaker 1: first part of this conversation on the assumption that the
Speaker 1: Israeli confidence that Nasraula has been killed is accurate. Now
Speaker 1: we don't know if that's true, but that is what
Speaker 1: the that is what the claims are.
Speaker 2: So we'll have that cover.
Speaker 1: We'll have a conversation based on that possibility, allowing for
Speaker 1: the other possibility, uh that he that he survived this
Speaker 1: attack and will know more in the coming days, hours,
Speaker 1: and even minutes.
Speaker 2: This is a developing story.
Speaker 1: So Mowen, what what do we know so far?
Speaker 2: My understanding is that this was a.
Speaker 1: Block wide most of the block iss has Bela headquarters,
Speaker 1: and that some of the Hesbela operations were in bunkers
Speaker 1: underneath that Israel is saying that nos Raala was in
Speaker 1: they had evidence that he was inside the building. What
Speaker 1: do we know so far? And also what do we
Speaker 1: know about the destruction? Because what we're looking at is
Speaker 1: unlike anything we've even seen in Gaza.
Speaker 2: From a single strike, it appears.
Speaker 3: Well, this was an unprecedentedly intense air raid even by
Speaker 3: Israeli standards, and it hit an area at least as
Speaker 3: large as a city block in the very densely populated
Speaker 3: southern suburbs of Beirut. And Israel's claim is that it
Speaker 3: was targeting Hasbudlah's central command headquarters, which it insists was
Speaker 3: located beneath one or more of these buildings so underground.
Speaker 3: Israel claims that it successfully targeted this headquarters and that
Speaker 3: it had precise intelligence that the General Secretary of Hasbudlah Hasasla,
Speaker 3: along with a number of other senior leaders of the
Speaker 3: movement were there at the time, and is expressing high
Speaker 3: confidence that they were killed. As of now, we have
Speaker 3: no verification from Israel that this was indeed a successful attack.
Speaker 3: At the same time, has Buddah and its media have
Speaker 3: maintained strict radio silence. There could be various explanations for that.
Speaker 3: It could mean that the strike was indeed successful and
Speaker 3: that they won't be making any statement until they actually
Speaker 3: find his remains. It could mean that the strike was
Speaker 3: a failure and they're not making any statements to keep
Speaker 3: his real off balance, perhaps to spirit him to safety.
Speaker 3: We just don't know. So I think there are two
Speaker 3: issues here. One concern is Hasbudlah as a movement, and
Speaker 3: the other concerns the broader strategic picture regarding regarding hasbud
Speaker 3: as a movement has suffered a series of assassinations over
Speaker 3: the past two weeks of some very senior commanders and
Speaker 3: if it's general secretary, who was an iconic charismatic figure,
Speaker 3: was indeed assassinated to day and even more so along
Speaker 3: with other senior figures. It's it's tantamount to a decapitation strike,
Speaker 3: which will obviously, at least in the short term, severely
Speaker 3: undermine the movement and its ability to act and its
Speaker 3: organizational integrity, and will throw it into chaos and so on.
Speaker 3: But having said that, I also would not jump to
Speaker 3: any conclusions about Hasabuda's future as a movement by losing
Speaker 3: these cadres and commanders. I mean, uh No SODA's two
Speaker 3: predecessors best MUSSOI and if I'm not mistaken, we're also assassinated.
Speaker 3: And it's true that Nosrela has been a particularly effective, iconic,
Speaker 3: charismatic figure within the movement, but Hasabelda also has what's
Speaker 3: called a very deep bench. It's a very deeply entrenched, various,
Speaker 3: sophisticated organization. Even though I should add that these latest
Speaker 3: assassinations do speak to complacency, to infiltration and so on,
Speaker 3: So as far as has Buddla is concerned, it would
Speaker 3: be a very severe blow in terms of the wider
Speaker 3: strategic picture is concerned. It almost doesn't matter whether this
Speaker 3: attack was successful or not, because what Israel has now
Speaker 3: done has launched arguably the most intensive air raid in
Speaker 3: the history of the Arab Israeli conflict at a very
Speaker 3: densely populated suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. And since
Speaker 3: then it has given additional evacuation orders to hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of residents in the same uh in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 3: And I think quite clearly Israel is dead set on
Speaker 3: regional escalation. It sought to provoke a very widespread response
Speaker 3: by Hasbuda, which in turn will be used as a
Speaker 3: pretext to essentially flatten large parts of the Lebanese capital
Speaker 3: and perhaps other parts of Lebanon. And I think it's
Speaker 3: quite clearly trying to draw Iran directly into this conflict.
Speaker 3: In the remaining months of the Biden administration, in my view,
Speaker 3: Israel sees a unique opportunity to engineer a direct military
Speaker 3: confrontation between the United States and Iran, and it has
Speaker 3: determined that the road to Tehran leads through the southern
Speaker 3: suburbs of Beirut.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was an Israeli official who was quoted, I
Speaker 1: think today saying, in response to the twenty one day
Speaker 1: ceasefire that the United States have proposed, we can't stop now.
Speaker 1: We've been waiting years for this, which goes to your point,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to pick up on something that you
Speaker 1: will dose to there about the daya doctrine. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about what that doctrine is and
Speaker 1: with the irony that it appears to be that they're
Speaker 1: about to apply it to this area that it is
Speaker 1: named after, it seems like this strike that we're talking
Speaker 1: about now maybe just the beginning of a massive assault
Speaker 1: that's coming.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, the Dahia doctrine so named by former Israeli
Speaker 3: military officer Gadi Eisenkote, who was also a member of
Speaker 3: Israel's war cabinet after October seventh until he resigned a
Speaker 3: few months ago. The Daha doctrine is an Israeli military
Speaker 3: doctrine whereby Israel and its armed confrontations with its enemies
Speaker 3: deliberately and disproportionately targets civilians and civilian infrastructure with the
Speaker 3: aim of creating pressure on its military advert series from
Speaker 3: their constituencies. Isis unquote first enunciated this in two thousand
Speaker 3: and eight, but in fact goes back decades. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you think about the late nineteen sixties, when various
Speaker 3: plo guerrilla movements were ensconced in Jordan in the Jordan Valley.
Speaker 3: Israel essentially depopulated the Jordan Valley and destroyed irrigation works
Speaker 3: in the Jordan Valley southern Lebanon. From the late nineteen
Speaker 3: sixties onwards, Israel has always, in fact had this approach
Speaker 3: that when faced with a military adversary, you not only
Speaker 3: seek to attack that adversary directly and seek to defeat
Speaker 3: it militarily, but at the same time you try to
Speaker 3: extract an intolerable price from its civilian support base, from
Speaker 3: its constituency, and from the infrastructure of the territory or
Speaker 3: state concerned, in order to generate political pressure upon that
Speaker 3: military adversary. And that's essentially what we've been seeing in
Speaker 3: the Gaza Strip for the past year and what we're
Speaker 3: now increasingly seeing in Lebanon.
Speaker 1: You also mentioned the infiltration that Hesbela has suffered at
Speaker 1: the hands of Israeli intelligence, and I've seen some speculation
Speaker 1: that that Syria may be the weak link here in
Speaker 1: the in the chain and the axis between you know, Iran, Hesbola,
Speaker 1: Syria and Hamas. You know famously, of course, Hesbel and
Speaker 1: Hamas split for a while over Hesbola's support for serious
Speaker 1: dictator Charles Sad, who I would argue is has no
Speaker 1: ideology whatsoever. His his his goal is to remain in power,
Speaker 1: and he's going to decide with whoever he can to
Speaker 1: remain in power, and so he would be it seems
Speaker 1: to me the most susceptible or his or entities with
Speaker 1: factions within his operation might be the most susceptible to
Speaker 1: Israeli infiltration if if he believes that that's his path forward.
Speaker 1: What is your sense of why you know Hamas has
Speaker 1: been able to resist that type of infiltrate intelligence. I
Speaker 1: think Hamas has been able to resist it, but Hesbla
Speaker 1: has not.
Speaker 2: I'm curious why you think.
Speaker 3: That is Well, there's several issues here. First of all,
Speaker 3: regarding Hasbudla and Lebanon, remains unclear whether Israel's ability to
Speaker 3: target has Bula cadres and commanders as a result of
Speaker 3: signals intelligence or human intelligence, in other words, actual penetration
Speaker 3: of spies and collaborators, or perhaps a combination of the two.
Speaker 3: Regarding the Syrian government, I don't think the Syrian government
Speaker 3: as such would be playing a role in this, for
Speaker 3: the simple reason that it sees both On and has
Speaker 3: Buddah as bulwarks that it believes are necessary for its
Speaker 3: defense and survival. So it's very unlikely that the Syrian
Speaker 3: government would be shooting itself in the foot this way.
Speaker 3: But I think what you can say is that you know,
Speaker 3: Syria has been at war for over a decade, has
Speaker 3: witnessed a profound economic collapse. The same can be said
Speaker 3: about Lebanon obviously in recent years, and has Budda does
Speaker 3: have enemies in both Syria and Lebanon and elsewhere, and
Speaker 3: under such circumstances, it's entirely plausible that Israel and or
Speaker 3: the United States, particularly with the US now maintaining also
Speaker 3: a direct military presence in Syria, would have been able
Speaker 3: to identify and recruit a number of as and collaborators.
Speaker 3: So I certainly I wouldn't exclude that, But again we
Speaker 3: don't really know to what extent this is Israel I presume,
Speaker 3: with the support of the United States, Great Britain, Germany
Speaker 3: and perhaps others, being able to successfully tap into Hazabadlah's
Speaker 3: communication networks, and to what extent it is a result
Speaker 3: of individuals penetrating the organization. I think Hamas is a
Speaker 3: somewhat different kettle of fish. The reason being that since
Speaker 3: Hamas sees power in the Gaza Strip in two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, there has been increasingly restricted passage of individuals
Speaker 3: into and out of the Gaza Strip, primarily because of
Speaker 3: Israel's blockade, and this has really reduced the opportunities for
Speaker 3: Israel to recruit Palestinian collaborators. Secondly, Hamas, like Hasbuda, placed
Speaker 3: a lot of emphasis on counterintelligence and was screening and
Speaker 3: monitoring individuals who, for whatever reason, did have contact with
Speaker 3: the Israeli and for that matter, Egyptian authorities quite closely.
Speaker 3: And although Hamas obviously also has opponents and enemies within
Speaker 3: the Gaza Strip, it's a much smaller territory. It's a
Speaker 3: much smaller society where essentially everyone knows everyone else. It's
Speaker 3: not too much of an exaggeration, and so it was
Speaker 3: easier for Hamas to keep tabs on Palestinian society in
Speaker 3: Gaza than it would have been for Hasbunda to do
Speaker 3: the same in Lebanon.
Speaker 1: I want to play quickly for you the response of
Speaker 1: the Pentagon to.
Speaker 2: The strike and get your reaction to that. Let me
Speaker 2: me figure out how to do this here we go.
Speaker 2: I'm a novice at this.
Speaker 3: Okay here, you just called on both sides to not
Speaker 3: escalate the situation.
Speaker 2: Is this an escalation?
Speaker 4: Yeah, again, that remains to be seen. We're still assessing.
Speaker 4: Six apartment buildings in the southern suburbs of Bayvord have
Speaker 4: been leveled.
Speaker 2: That's not you.
Speaker 3: You have to assess whether that's an escalation.
Speaker 4: You're telling me that I do not know that to
Speaker 4: be true. So again, we are still assessing the situation.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: We are going to continue to have our calls with
Speaker 4: our you know, the Israelis to get more details. I
Speaker 4: appreciate the question. I hope you would also appreciate that
Speaker 4: this just happened a few hours ago. So yes, we
Speaker 4: are still doing an assessment for you.
Speaker 1: So you can you can have an escalation. Uh. And
Speaker 1: obviously leveling an entire steady block and killing hundreds upon
Speaker 1: hundreds of people is an escalation. But can you have
Speaker 1: an escalation if if the other side just refuses to
Speaker 1: escalate with you, where do you see this going?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, if Hasbulah would have so much as
Speaker 3: thrown a pebble across the Israeli Lebanese border, this spokesperson
Speaker 3: along with all their colleagues, would have wasted about a
Speaker 3: millisecond to decry has Bulah's unconscionable escalation and illegitimate warfare
Speaker 3: against Israel. But in this case, if ten years from
Speaker 3: now Israel has yet to confirm that it escalated today,
Speaker 3: the official US position will be worth still looking into it.
Speaker 3: We're consulting with our Israeli partners and so on. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, the same government the United States, which spent
Speaker 3: months warning the world about the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 3: supposedly has absolutely no idea what Israel, a very close
Speaker 3: ally with whom it has extremely close intelligence links, in
Speaker 3: this case, it supposedly has no idea what's going on,
Speaker 3: has absolutely no involvement in anything, only learned about it,
Speaker 3: not through its own sources, but when the Israelis decided
Speaker 3: to inform them during or after the fact. So I
Speaker 3: think Washington is playing this double game of being very
Speaker 3: deeply involved in Israel's activities, and I would suspect helping
Speaker 3: to plan them with provision of superior intelligence capabilities of course,
Speaker 3: all the arms and weapons that were used to carry
Speaker 3: out this attack, and not least providing diplomatic and pr cover,
Speaker 3: but at the same time feigning ignorance, seeking to distance
Speaker 3: itself from these from these things. As far as escalation
Speaker 3: is concerned, I mean, a number of people have pointed
Speaker 3: out that, in fact, Hasbudah has been behaving with relative
Speaker 3: restraint in the past two or three months, where it's
Speaker 3: responses to Israel's clear steps up the escalation ladder to
Speaker 3: the extent that it has simply incinerated the ladder. You know,
Speaker 3: it hasn't yet responded with let's say, full skill attacks
Speaker 3: on Israeli civilian infrastructure. It's been quite measured and seeking
Speaker 3: to limit its targeting to Israeli military and intelligence facilities.
Speaker 3: I suspect that's no longer going to be the case,
Speaker 3: and it's now going to engage in more widespread and
Speaker 3: more comprehensive attacks on Israel. And in a sense, this
Speaker 3: will play right into Israel's hands if one accepts the premise,
Speaker 3: which I certainly do, that Israel's strategic goal is to
Speaker 3: push the region towards a full skill are conflagration with
Speaker 3: the intent of producing a direct US Iranian confrontation in
Speaker 3: the few months that Biden is still in office. Because
Speaker 3: Biden is someone whom has proven time and again that
Speaker 3: he will stop at absolutely nothing to support Israel, even
Speaker 3: where it contradicts the US's own stated preferences, and we'll
Speaker 3: ensure that Israel is immune from any consequences for its actions,
Speaker 3: irrespective of what it does. I'm sorry, I can't hear you.
Speaker 1: I've muted myself. Mowen Rabini, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today. People can find you on Twitter dot
Speaker 1: com slash Moween Rabini excellent person to follow and where
Speaker 1: else can they catch you?
Speaker 3: I publish most of my material on Jadelia, a website
Speaker 3: where I'm co editor, and that's w d w W
Speaker 3: dot j A d A l I y y a
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: Excellent. Thank you so much, Thank you,