Weekend long read

Our weekly round-up of Middle East related background reading.

1) At the JCPA Dr Shimon Shapira discusses “Hizbullah’s Operational Plan to Invade the Galilee through Underground Tunnels“.

“One of the main lessons Hizbullah learned from the Second Lebanon War in 2006 was the necessity of changing the aims of its next war with Israel. The new goals included building up its defensive capabilities and developing methods of attack that would allow Hizbullah to fight the war within Israeli territory. Hizbullah’s military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, led this process of integrating these lessons. He asserted that during the next war, Hizbullah would invade the northern Israeli Galilee region and conquer it. Hizbullah set its sights on regions which have topographical superiority in comparison to Israel’s inferior topographical positions near the border.”

2) The ITIC sums up the first day and a half of ‘Operation Northern Shield’, including Lebanese reactions.

“According to the IDF spokesman, since 2014 a joint military intelligence-Northern Command team has been dealing with the intelligence, technological and operational aspects of the issue of the tunnels. Large IDF forces are participating in the operation to remove the threat of Hezbollah tunnels on the norther border, which are a gross violation of Israeli sovereignty and UN resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The IDF has reinforced its forces in the north and is on high alert. The IDF spokesman in Arabic warned Hezbollah and the Lebanese army not to approach the attack tunnels being dealt with by the IDF.”

3) Jonathan Spyer takes a look at the situation in south-west Syria.

“Evidence is also emerging of the presence of Hizballah personnel and other pro-Iranian Shia militiamen in Syrian Arab Army uniforms among the regime forces returning to the border area with the Golan Heights. This is despite the nominal Russian commitment to keep such elements at least 85 kilometers from the border.  This Iranian activity close to the border goes hand in hand with Teheran’s activity further afield, including the transfer of Shias from southern Iraq to deserted Sunni neighborhoods.”

4) The CST has published its report on Antisemitic Discourse in Britain in 2017.

“Antisemitism played an unusually prominent role in British public life in 2017, both in the expression of antisemitic attitudes and in the discussion of antisemitism as an important part of national politics and media debate.

Explicit hostility to Jews is still rarely expressed in public life without condemnation, but the expression and transmission of antisemitic attitudes about “Zionists” or Israel, including conspiracy theories and the abuse of Holocaust memory, are more common, and on occasion were even defended as a legitimate part of mainstream politics during 2017. Alternatively, the issue of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is sometimes inserted into unrelated discussions about antisemitism or other Jewish-related issues.”

Related Articles:

CST report cites UK Media Watch’s critique of Financial Times’ dual loyalty trope  (UK Media Watch)

 

 

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