>I hear tell from various sources that Al-Manar had a backup studio
>operating out of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, which is where Nasrallah is
>alleged to have sat out the war. One can understand why the Israelis would
>not target said building.
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It's not quite as self-evident to me, Joel, why the Israelis would balk at
doing so. There's a whole body of opinion which thinks Israel is just
itching to have a go at Iran, and if Israeli intelligence knew this was
where Nasrallah and Al-Manar were holed up, and blew up the place, wouldn't
this have restored domestic and international credibility to Israel's
military prowess, which took an incredible beating during the war? For sure,
the effect on its morale and on that of its enemies would have been
different than Qana, at any rate.
Even assuming Israel wouldn't have wanted to incite a wider war over it, I doubt the Iranians would have been provoked to start one either. What reprisals could they, in fact, have taken which would have outweighed the value of the strike to the Israelis - closing the Hormuz strait (unlikely)? Some missiles hitting Tel Aviv? As for making Nasrallah a martyr, he couldn't be more popular than he is now anyway.