On Tuesday, hundreds of encrypted pagers in Lebanon and Syria began exploding at the same time. Lebanon’s health minister said Tuesday that at least nine people were killed and 2,800 were injured. The tiny country’s hospitals were overwhelmed with patients suffering from burn wounds, blown-up hands, and groin injuries. The pagers belonged to members of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
Then, just 24 hours later, a second wave of thousands more explosions again went off simultaneously in Lebanon: This time not only pagers, but also walkie-talkies all belonging to Hezbollah terrorists.
It was the stuff of spy movies—an incredibly sophisticated and precise operation unlike anything we’ve seen before. And while Israel has not officially taken responsibility, this kind of imaginative sabotage has Mossad written all over it. Hezbollah has vowed retaliation against Israel.
This comes after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets into northern Israel. Since October 7, the constant barrage of attacks has forced some 100,000 Israelis to flee their homes on Israel’s northern border. Nearly a year later, they still cannot return.
All of this, of course, is part of a much larger, more dangerous game being played across the region—Israel’s shadow war with Iran, its most formidable adversary. For years, Israel and Iran have avoided direct conflict, preferring to fight through Iran’s regional surrogates—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen. All of them fueled by Iranian money, weapons, and ideology.
Will Israel’s alleged tactical brilliance this week—jokingly dubbed as Operation Below the Belt on social media—deter Hezbollah from continuing to launch the missiles and rockets into Israel that make it impossible for Israeli citizens to return home? Or is military intervention—a ground invasion—inevitable?
As Eli Lake wrote in The Free Press today, “Israel cannot defeat its enemies by waging war only in the shadows.”
Today, I sat down with journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Dexter Filkins to talk about all of it. Dexter has been covering wars in the Middle East for decades for The New York Times and The NewYorker, and has been called “the premier combat journalist of his generation.”
In our conversation, we discussed the state of the war, political divisions within Lebanon, Iran’s nuclear program, the viability of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, and the difficulties for the United States of disengaging from Middle East conflicts.
If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.
The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army (Reaktion, 2024) exposes the history and the future of the Wagner Group, Russia’s notorious and secretive mercenary army, revealing details of their operations never documented before.
Using extensive leaks, first-hand accounts, and the byzantine paper trail left in its wake, Jack Margolin traces the Wagner Group from its roots as a battlefield rumour to a private military enterprise tens of thousands-strong that eventually comes to threaten Putin himself. He follows individual commanders and foot soldiers within the group as they fight in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa, sometimes alongside fellow military contractors from the United Kingdom and the US. He shows Wagner mercenaries committing atrocities, plundering oil, diamonds, and gold, and changing the course of conflicts from Europe to Africa in the name of the Kremlin’s strategic aims.
In documenting the Wagner Group’s story up to the dramatic demise of its chief director, Evgeniy Prigozhin, Margolin demonstrates that Wagner was not an aberration, but a manifestation of the new geopolitical order of global capital, global crime and of the entrepreneurs that thrive in it.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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In the week since the presidential debate, former President Donald Trump’s lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have sown chaos in the small city. Members of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, started showing up. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said more than 30 fake bomb threats have been called in, forcing schools, government buildings and stores to close temporarily. Dr. Robert Baker, a political science professor at Springfield’s Wittenberg University, talks about how Trump’s debate comment is disrupting life in the city. Later, Miami Herald Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles talks about how the situation on the ground in Haiti is driving people out of the country.
And in headlines: House Speaker Mike Johnson failed to rally his conference to pass a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, the U.S. Justice Department filed a $100 million legal claim against the owner and operator of the cargo ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order banning the use of conversion therapy on LGBTQ minors.
The news to know for Thursday, September 19, 2024!
We'll tell you about the Federal Reserve’s big interest rate cut this week, and what the central bank is watching for next.
Also, why a major labor union said it will not endorse either presidential candidate.
Plus, what’s changed about how you can now renew your passport, why contestants from Mr. Beast’s new reality show are suing him, and what caused the earth to shake for nine days...
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com.
Election denialism and myths of voter fraud have long been part of the history of the United States. In their new book, Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote, Michael Eric Dyson and Marc Favreau trace the contentious battle for democratic representation from the American Revolution to the present day–up to the 2024 election. In today's episode, Dyson and Favreau speak with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about lesser-known heroes in the struggle for voting rights, the political impact of non-voters and the legacy of recent events like the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
Paris Marx is joined by Rob Larson to discuss the recent ruling that Google is a monopolist, what consequences it might face, and what lessons we can learn from the Microsoft antitrust case in the early 2000s.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
