Hezbollah Revisited: The Origins of Iran's Most Powerful Proxy
6/9/202644 min
To understand why Iran and Israel are fighting, you have to understand Hezbollah. Noam Weissman revisits the story of Iran's proxy in Lebanon, which has been causing trouble for Israel since its founding in 1982. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d68bkgIiKIwWRCn75DGaiWry9N3Oi_rPh6-X1fn_i8Q/edit This episode of Unpacking Israeli History is generously sponsored by Sarala and Danny Turkel. To sponsor an episode or to be in touch, please email noam@unpacked.media. Check out this episode on Youtube. This podcast is brought to you by Unpacked, an OpenDor Media brand.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsNoam Weissman· Host0:00
Hey everyone, it's Noam. Before we jump into today's episode, I wanna set the stage. If you've followed the news at all over the last year, you've heard a lot about Iran and Israel. You've heard about Iranian missile attacks. You've heard about Israel striking targets all over Iran. You've heard about the made-for-Hollywood pager operation that targeted Hezbollah operatives. You've heard about Hassan Nasrallah. You've heard about the possibility, and then the reality, of direct confrontation between Israel and Iran. Maybe you've heard about those topics, maybe not, but they're in the news a lot. And if you're like most people, you're probably thinking, "Hold up. Wait a minute. If Iran is the story, why does Lebanon keep showing up? Why does Israel keep finding itself fighting on its northern border? Why are tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese civilians caught in the middle of a conflict that seems, at first glance, to have very little to do with territory?" After all, unlike some of Israel's other conflicts, this isn't fundamentally a dispute over borders. Israel and Lebanon are not fighting over who gets Beirut or Tel Aviv. This isn't a story that begins with competing national movements claiming the same land. So what is it? Who exactly is Hezbollah? How did a Lebanese organization become one of the most powerful military forces in the Middle East? Why does Iran invest so much money, training, and weaponry into