Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah presented his party's case against Israel in the matter of 2005 assassination of billionaire former Pm Rafiq al-Hariri.

The Best Defense
Posted By Elias Muhanna. Monday, August 9, 2010

This evening, in Lebanon's most widely anticipated press conference in recent memory, Hizbullah secretary-general Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah presented his party's case against Israel in the matter of the 2005 assassination of billionaire former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.

Even by Nasrallah's standards, who is one of his generation's most gifted orators, the event was a masterpiece of political theater. Over the course of two hours, Nasrallah presented "material evidence" suggesting that Israel had been engaged in preparations for some sort of covert operation in Lebanon immediately prior to al-Hariri's assassination on Feb. 14, 2005.

The most significant and surprising piece of evidence came in the form of footage obtained from Israeli unmanned surveillance drones. Nasrallah revealed that Hizbullah had acquired the technical ability, some time in the early 1990s, to tap into the direct video feeds that passed from the many reconnaissance drones circulating in Lebanon's skies to the Israeli military command. What kind of qualitative edge did this breakthrough afford the party, and what implications would it have upon the five-year-long investigation into Hariri's murder.