LISTEN: Israel's War on Lebanon with Abdi Latif Dahir

Israel styles this a war against Hezbollah—a Shia group that has considerable political clout inside Lebanon and wields de facto control over much of its territory, and which is closely aligned with the clerical-Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps regime in Tehran.Following a practice that was honed in the Gaza War, the Israeli military invariably justifies attacks on what are plainly civilian targets, like apartment blocks, by saying that they had a legitimate military target. Perhaps a Hezbollah commander lived in the apartment block, for instance. But the destruction in many parts of Lebanon, particularly the area around and south of the Litani River and the heavily Shia southern part of Beirut, is so extensive that this sort of justification raises obvious objection among independent observers about Israel’s actual intentions.With this in mind, we settled on the best war correspondent now reporting out of Lebanon, Abdi Latif Dahir of the New York Times, for our first podcast interview, and made the war in Lebanon the subject.Editors’ note—This episode of The Horton-Kaiser Report was recorded on April 5th, 2026, before Trump’s genocidal Truth posts and the so-called ceasefire which Israel has ignored when it comes to incessantly bombing Lebanon.Please power through the audio quality, we promise the content is good and important.--CreditsHostScott Horton and Charles KaiserProducerImogen Sayers, Scott Horton and Charles KaiserField recordingAbdi Latif DahirMusicKinan Azmeh--The Horton-Kaiser Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at horton-kaiser.com. Get full access to The Horton-Kaiser Report at www.horton-kaiser.com/subscribe