AP Photo

On 13 April 2010 Israeli President Shimon Peres gave public voice to serious Israeli concerns that Syria had recently supplied Scud missiles to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Damascus dismissed the charge as a fabrication designed to justify Israeli aggression against Lebanon, a line echoed by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. But on 27 April, while not repeating Peres’s specific allegation, United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned of the destabilising impact of such an acquisition by Hizbullah.

Scuds in Hizbullah’s hands would pose an increased threat to Israel, though the degree of added danger would depend on the way in...