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The Tikvah Podcast

Matthew Levitt on Israel’s War with Hizballah: How the terrorist group continues on despite its catastrophic losses.

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6620 Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On October 25 of this year, Israel carried out a series of retaliatory strikes on military targets in Iran. The Iranian supreme leader has made public pronouncements ordering his military to prepare a series of counterstrikes, though, as of this recording, those counterstrikes have not yet commenced. The prospect of a continued exchange of aerial attacks between Israel and Iran has captured the world’s attention, and for good reason: Iran is a nuclear-threshold state operating in close coordination with Russia.

This shift in attention has taken media coverage away from Lebanon, but in fact, the Israeli military’s operational successes in that country over the last month raise some very important questions. Hizballah has been degraded significantly—its arsenal diminished, its leadership eliminated, its command structure disrupted, its lines of communication fractured, its decision-making process broken, its finances destroyed.

How, in light of this, does Hizballah continue to operate? And how does Israel leverage these impressive tactical successes into a strategic victory that will allow the citizens of the Galilee and the Golan to return to their homes?

Matthew Levitt, a former U.S. Treasury Department senior official and the author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God, discusses these questions and others with Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver.

Transcript

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0:00.0

On October 25th of this year, Israel carried out a series of retaliatory strikes on military targets in Iran.

0:14.2

The Iranian supreme leader has made public pronouncements ordering his military to prepare a series of counter-attacks, though as of this recording,

0:22.1

those counter-attacks have not yet commenced. The prospect of continued exchange of aerial attacks

0:27.4

between Israel and Iran has captured all the attention, and for good reason. Iran is a nuclear

0:32.5

threshold state operating in close coordination with Russia. This shift in attention has taken some of the media

0:38.6

coverage away from Lebanon, but in fact, the Israeli military's operational successes in Lebanon

0:43.9

over the last month raised some very important questions. Hizbullah has been degraded significantly.

0:50.7

Its arsenal diminished. Its leadership eliminated. Its command structure disrupted. Its lines of

0:56.9

communication fractured. Its decision-making process broken. Its finances destroyed. So how, in light of all

1:04.8

this, does Hezbollah continue to operate? Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan

1:10.2

Silver. Not only how does

1:11.8

Hisbela continue to operate, but how does Israel leverage these unbelievable tactical successes

1:17.0

into a strategic victory that will allow the citizens of the Galilee and the Golan to return

1:22.3

to their homes. To help us think about these and related questions, I'm joined this week by

1:27.0

Matthew Levitt,

1:27.9

the Fromer Wexler Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

1:32.5

Matthew is not only a former senior official in the United States Treasury Department.

1:36.4

He's also the author of a book about Hezbollah,

1:38.8

Hezbollah, the global footprint of Lebanon's Party of God.

1:42.7

If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on Apple Podcasts,

1:46.9

Google Play, and Spotify.

1:48.4

I hope you'll leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas.

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