fears of an expanding conflict in the Middle East. After Israel's foreign minister warns Hezbollah it would be destroyed if all out war breaks out. Israel Katz his comments online follow Hezbollah's release of a purported nine minute drone video that shows sensitive military locations and civilian areas in Haifa and other Israeli cities. And while tensions percolate along the northern border with Lebanon, there's a brewing diplomatic rift between the Netanyahu government and the white House. We are connecting the dots on this for you with Ben Wedeman back with us this hour from Beirut. Paula Hancocks is in Jerusalem, and Loren Fox is in Washington on Capitol Hill. Let me start with you, Ben. just describe to us the importance of this purported video, shot by, drones. Hezbollah says, from Lebanon over Israeli cities, including Haifa, which of course, serves as a crucial gateway to the rest of the world. And maybe more importantly, for Israel. How does Hezbollah manage to fly a drone in such strategic locations? And is this psychological warfare that we're looking at here? Well, basically, I think the Israelis are also trying to figure out how it is that Hezbollah was able to fly those drones over some very sensitive military, positions, military industries, the port, where we see huge oil storage facilities. They got it all. Now, for one thing. What we've been seeing from almost the beginning of the back and forth skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israel, is that Hezbollah has been targeting Israel surveillance and observation equipment all along the border. The Israelis, in fact, in brought in cranes to replace the destroyed surveillance equipment. And Hezbollah took those out as well. So clearly, there are holes in their ability to see what enters Israeli, airspace. But above and beyond that, clearly Hezbollah has the technical capabilities, to collect this sort of sensitive information. Well, inside, Israeli territory, it's about 30km from the nearest point on the Lebanese Israeli border, to Haifa. Was it a propaganda video? Well, the actually, if you looked at the text in the video, there wasn't anything about attacks. It was just very sort of factual explaining what this location is, what it served, what you're seeing. And it really is a message to the Israelis, that, you know, don't don't mess with us. We not only have the ability to collect intelligence inside, deep inside your territory on very sensitive, sites, but along with that probably comes other capabilities that we've seen slowly unveiled in the last few weeks. For instance, Hezbollah in the last few months has been able to that fire shoot down three Hermes 900 Israeli drones, very sophisticated drones that can fly as high as 30,000ft. They took those out with anti-aircraft missiles two weeks ago. They were able to strike according to Hezbollah. But the video would also seem to confirm that an Israeli Iron Dome battery, the Iron Dome, is really the back backbone of Israel's missile defense system. So even though Israeli officials like the foreign minister talking about destroying, Hezbollah, Hezbollah is showing that it's, not a foe that should be underestimated in any sense of the word. Becky. Yeah. This is, this is not Hamas we are speaking about here. Paula, let me bring you in here because as we discuss with Ben, what is going on on that northern front, which is a, you know, a clear issue. for the Israelis, there is a serious rift beginning to open up now between Benjamin Netanyahu and the Biden administration. So listen to what he had to say about Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday. It's inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunition stores from Israel, America's closest ally, fighting for its ally, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies. Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks. I certainly hope that's the case. It should be the case. What's the perspective in Israel about why it is that Benjamin Netanyahu, released that video yesterday very pointedly, speaking there about a conversation with Antony Blinken. And speaking in English, Becky. So it's very clear that the audience is American. The audience is international. This is not for domestic considerations. Now, it's it's no secret that there are differences between the Israeli leader and the the US president, Joe Biden. They've certainly had their differences over recent months, not least because the U.S. has been pushing Israel to to be more careful in Gaza to to push for this cease fire, something that the Israeli prime minister has not openly said that he will agree to this ceasefire hostage deal and also pushing for a Palestinian state, something that the Israeli prime minister has said he does not support. So the differences between these two sides, are very pronounced. It is surprising, though, that he would come out and and do this so publicly washing dirty laundry in public, if you like. And and it did have, quite a surprised response from the Biden administration as well. Listen to this. We, as you know, are continuing to review one shipment, that President Biden has talked about, with regard to 2,000 pound bombs because of our concerns about their use in a densely populated area like Rafah. That remains other, under review. but everything else is moving as it normally would move. We generally do not know what he's talking about. we just don't. And there's no Israeli official at this point that's going on the record to speak about this. No one appears to want to have their name next to this video. Becky. So, I mean, Lauren, let me bring you in, at this point, because all of this happening just ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, in July to address Congress, we have seen some pushback already with some lawmakers saying that they will boycott that. Have a listen to Senator Elizabeth Warren earlier. Do you plan to attend Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to Congress? No. Look, we need a cease fire. We need to get those hostages back. We need humanitarian relief, and we need to be giving both parties a big shove toward getting to the negotiating table and working out a peaceful solution to the president made clear that he should not address Congress. Netanyahu. Like that's up to the president. But I'm not going. Well, Joe Biden facing some quite serious backlash within his own party, on this, isn't it? And he's really looking at a dilemma ahead of November's election. Explain, if you will. Yeah. I mean, this is still a month away, and I think it's clear that there are many progressive Democrats who plan to boycott Netanyahu's speech when he comes to address Congress in July. But this is really coming from two different places. You know, on the one hand, there is just disagreement with Netanyahu's handling of this conflict in the Middle East. On the other, there's also this feeling from some liberals that you are putting Joe Biden in this position where someone who has been critical of the president is coming and addressing Congress just months before the November election. So it's really sort of the politics abroad and also the politics at home that they don't agree with. You have to keep in mind, this is happening in the context in which the House speaker, Mike Johnson, has put a series of really tough votes on the floor that have fractured Democrats in some cases. Now, there's really typically just a small number of Democrats that vote with Republicans on some of those proposals. But it has been one of the most difficult conflicts for the leader, the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, to manage within his conference. And so, you know, I expect that there's going to be a large number of Democrats boycotting Netanyahu's address to Congress. We should note that about a decade ago, when he came to Capitol Hill, there were also dozens of Democrats who boycotted the speech. So that's not precisely new, but I think the numbers might be larger. It's also possible that they have press conferences or some kind of other counter programing when he comes to speak. So it would go beyond just not showing up for the speech. It would be sort of more of a tacit opposition as well.
