Reviewing a recently published collection of essays by the noted historian Daniel Pipes, Edward Alexander reflects on his contribution to the study of the Islamic world:

More doggedly than any other expert on Middle East affairs, Daniel Pipes has riveted his attention upon the threat that radical Islam poses to civilized life in nearly every corner of the globe. . . . He is the polar opposite to the willfully blind politicians who, as if to prove that the greatest deceivers are the self-deceivers, refuse even to identify the enemy by name and even (in Europe) impugn any criticism of the world’s most intolerant religion as a violation of “human rights.” . . .

In [one of the volume’s essays], Pipes demolishes the Muslim claim to Jerusalem as entirely political rather than historical or religious. “Jerusalem appears in the Hebrew Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem) 154 times. In contrast, Jerusalem appears . . . in the Quran . . . not once.”

Palestinian Arabs were, of course, keenly aware of the ancient Jewish and Christian attachment to Jerusalem, to say nothing of the fact that Palestine’s British colonial administrators and their children had for generations sung of their aspiration to “build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.” . . . Jerusalem did not become the focus of Arab political and religious activity until early in the 20th century, in response to both the Zionist movement and Britain’s assumption of the mandate for Palestine.

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.