Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the man who has turned psychological warfare into an art form, is facing perhaps his darkest hour in the wake of the massive explosion that decimated the Port of Beirut on Aug. 4. But that is still not enough to spell his downfall.
At this point, Israel should deviate from its policy of not intervening in the waves on unrest rattling the Arab world and it should make public – to the world in general but particularly to the Lebanese people – intelligence it has about additional Hezbollah weapons depots hidden under residential neighborhoods, mosques, schools, and the Beirut airport. Israel must urge the Lebanese people to demand the immediate expulsion of Hezbollah from their country. Otherwise, the blast that reduced the Beirut harbor into rubble is just the beginning.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Israel's intelligence capabilities can shed light on the residential areas where the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group has been concealing its missiles. This will also debunk Nasrallah's assertion that Hezbollah "has no weapons" stored in the Lebanese capital.
The fact of the matter is that Hezbollah has literally turned Lebanon as a whole into a powder keg, and Israeli military intelligence can pinpoint those locations, something the Lebanese people can't do.
Hezbollah was directly involved in the explosion in Beirut. The 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that all but wiped out the port were stored there so Hezbollah could use them in its next war with Israel. The fact that this arsenal was hidden in a civilian area and endangered the population meant nothing to Hezbollah, which is all too keen to employ the strategy of using human shields to protect its interest.
Senior Hezbollah officials know that the Israeli Air Force's moral and ethical guidelines would make it hesitate to target missile silos nestled in residential areas. They also know that the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Criminal Court in The Hague will not hesitate to accuse Israel of committing war crimes.
One must ask: Where do the UN, EU, and ICC stand on what was surely a catastrophe foretold in Beirut?
Hezbollah has been consistently involved in attempts to obtain and store ammonium nitrate for the purpose of carrying out terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets. From the 1994 terrorist attack on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, to ammonium nitrate repositories discovered in London and Cyprus, to the Mossad intelligence agency's warnings to the German government about three tons of ammonium nitrate hidden in a warehouse in Berlin, – information that led Germany to outlaw Hezbollah.
If anything, the UN-backed tribunal's decision on convict only one Hezbollah operatives in the 2005 assassination of beloved Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has enhanced the Lebanese people's understanding that this is a brutal terrorist group that, despite professing to be "the defender of Lebanon," is actually hurting it.
The verdict infuriated many in Lebanon, who know that Hezbollah planned and executed Hariri's murder on the behest of Iran and Syria. The tribunal, served with thousands of documents and pieces of evidence, was wary of setting that fact in stone.
Israel must use the simmering unrest in Lebanon to deal Hezbollah a crippling blow in terms of psychological warfare. Not one bullet needs to be fired. This is also our moral duty vis-à-vis civilians being used as human shields by living in very close proximity to chemical warehouses and missile depots.
Militarily speaking, the value of the intelligence Israel holds is lower than the impact it could have on Lebanese public opinion, especially when the voices asserting that Hezbollah is dooming the Lebanese people to death and destruction are growing louder.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
