Weekend long read

1) Jonathan Spyer analyses The Surrender of Deraa.

“The shifting balance of power in this south western Syrian province matters to Israel, because Deraa Province borders the Golan Heights.  It is the location of an Iranian strategic project to establish and deploy forces under its control in the area, with the intention that these may be used in a future clash between Jerusalem and Teheran, or Iran’s local proxy, Lebanese Hizballah.”

2) At the Tablet magazine Matti Friedman looks at The Next Lebanon War.

“Hezbollah, like Hamas and like the Iranians who support them both, have an acute grasp of the addled intellectual moment in the United States and of the ideological confusion of what remains of the Western press.

They understand that the rocket launch from the civilian backyard in Gaza or Lebanon won’t be filmed; the innocent people killed in the Israeli counterstrike will be captured by a dozen film crews, then tweeted by supermodels and a few members of Congress as #IsraeliGenocide. A Hezbollah weapons warehouse located next to a school elicits a shrug; its destruction by an Israeli jet will be the subject of an “investigation” by Human Rights Watch and a photo essay in The New York Times in which a single empty school desk stands, undamaged and picturesque, in the rubble. The script is already written.”

3) The ITIC documents Palestinian reactions to the escape of six terrorists from Israel’s maximum security Gilboa prison.

“The PA leadership, headed by PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, sympathized with and supported the jailbreak, stating that Israel was fully responsible for the lives of the escaped prisoners. He said every Palestinian prisoner wanted to be free and every Palestinian prisoner had the right to look for every way to gain his freedom. He demanded Israel release all the prisoners, especially women, children and the ill. Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammad Shtayyeh had the PA foreign ministry instruct all its legations around the globe to enlist international support to end Israel’s [alleged] “aggression” against the prisoners.”

4) At the JISS Prof. Efraim Inbar explains The Egypt-Israel Common Strategic Agenda.

“Undoubtedly, Cairo and Jerusalem think alike about the Afghanistan debacle and the regional implications of American retreat from the Middle East, primarily the reinvigoration of Moslem extremists around the world.

At the regional level, Jerusalem and Cairo share a concern about Iran’s aggressive policies, although Israel’s threat perception is greater. Yet, they are fully in sync about Turkey’s promotion of Islamic extremism (with Qatar) and its neo-Ottoman aspirations. Egypt and Israel also are in alliance against growing Turkish assertiveness in the eastern Mediterranean. Egypt is a key member of the strategic alignment embodied in the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), alongside Greece, Cyprus, nd Israel – an alignment which is designed inter alia to contain Turkish quest for hegemony in the region.”

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2 Comments

  1. says: Gimey

    One way to counter that propaganda threat could be for Israel to mock up the empty school desk with the dead child in the rubble NOW and circulate it to the world media (including the moribund BBC) NOW – with the appropriate mocked-up advance news wording. I can help with that if asked.

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