Hezbollah's Drone and the Strategic Balance

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

In his speech of 11 October 2012, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah confirmed that the unmanned drone which the Zionist enemy shot down over the Negev had been dispatched by Hezbollah across the Mediterranean Sea. The drone entered occupied Palestine from the south, and reached the area of the Dimona nuclear reactor, where it was brought down. Sayyid Hassan affirmed that it is Hezbollah’s right to continue such reconnaissance flights over occupied Palestine, and even to reach as far as the Straits of Tiran, in order to survey the situation on the two Saudi Arabian islands of Sanafir and Tiran, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Several conclusions can be drawn from Sayyid Hassan’s remarks:

First, an affirmation of the enormous technical progress the resistance has achieved, progress unique in the history of revolutions and resistance movements. Sayyid Hassan affirms that Hezbollah is keeping pace with electronic developments, and that the next war will not be fought electronically by only one side — Hezbollah, too, will be an electronic party to it.

Second, if Hezbollah possesses this technology, then Iran possesses something even more advanced and sophisticated, which means that the threat of an electronic war at the regional level will not go unmatched by an electronic response.

Third, Hezbollah is capable of striking Israeli installations at sea, gas-extraction platforms chief among them, and on land, the Dimona nuclear reactor chief among them.

Fourth, if the drone was capable of flying hundreds of kilometers across the Mediterranean, it is, by the same tactic, capable of flying hundreds of kilometers over Palestinian land. In other words, the threat to Zionist installations is no longer confined to the missile threat, but now includes the threat from the air as well. That is to say, the Iron Dome, developed to counter missiles, has already been outflanked, reduced to a conventional weapon incapable of countering unconventional aircraft.

This major strategic development carries messages to several parties:

To the Arabs and Muslims committed to Arab causes, so that they may take reassurance in the strength of the resistance and the solidity of its military position. Hezbollah lifts the morale of the Arab and Muslim masses.

To the Americans, and the Arabs and pseudo-Muslims who march with them, so that they take warning against military adventures. Through this message, the party is saying that technical development in the region is vast and immense, and that what has now been revealed is only a small fraction of what the resistance, and certain regional powers, actually possess.

To the Arab governments that still imagine that confronting Israel militarily is too difficult a matter, and that it is better to head toward the negotiating tables under American leadership — and to those governments that have remained silent over the occupation of their own territory since 1967, Saudi Arabia in particular, which has not lifted a finger against Israel.

To the Palestinians who are still panting after the so-called two-state solution.

And, most important of all, a message to Turkey and to every power intervening in Syria: that any military intervention in Syria will face a war that goes far beyond counting tanks, planes, and ships. This will be a war of a different order altogether from anything the world has witnessed in the region until now.

In the end, Hezbollah succeeded in taking to the skies over Palestine — a success never before achieved — and managed to bring to an end the era of calm skies under which the Zionists once stood. The Zionists had been reassured about their own airspace, right up until 6 October 2012. Israel now stands before a new strategic shift.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “طائرة حزب الله والتوازن الاستراتيجي” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.