Publications on Lebanon and Hezbollah

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently concluded a two-day trip to Lebanon (October 14 and 15, 2010). While there he paid a visit both to high officials of the Lebanese state, as well as to leaders and grassroots supporters of the Islamic Republic’s main local ally, Hizbollah. This trip, the first official visit by the Iranian president to Lebanon since 2005, provided the occasion for the Lebanese and the Iranian governments to sign seventeen documents on bilateral cooperation, strengthening the Lebanese-Iranian...

The August 3, 2010 exchange of fire between the Lebanese army and the IDF, which led to causalities on both sides, ostensibly demonstrates the fragility of the ceasefire on the Lebanon border, in effect since the end of the Second Lebanon War in August 2006. The current incident dramatizes a scenario in which an erroneous calculation by one of the sides might spark a far reaching military conflict between Lebanon and Israel. In the media and in the Israeli political arena there were those who were quick to allege a connecting thread...

In light of talk about the northern sector heating up and the possibility of a deterioration into war, the question of the change in the threat facing Israel – from the longstanding situation in which the state’s reference scenario was a surprise attack for the purpose of conquering either limited or more extended territory to the new reality that includes extensive rocket and missile fire at Israeli population centers together with the use of terrorism and guerilla tactics – again rises to the surface.

On August 12, 2006, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1701, paving the way for the end of 34 days of warfare between Israel and Hizbollah, a campaign later named the Second Lebanon War. Apart from the immediate need to establish a ceasefire, the Security Council hoped to change the security reality in southern Lebanon while neutralizing the elements that were responsible for the escalation, and prevent the repetition of another round of fighting between the sides. Accordingly, certain security arrangements were put in place,...

Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry’s political-security branch, testified before the Winograd Commission about grim words that do not describe any disaster in the military arena, rather the mindset and sense in Israel regarding the adoption of UN Security Resolution 1701. It seems that this testimony reflects to a large extent the lack of preparedness and thought characteristic of the political dimension – as well as the military level – in everything connected with the Second Lebanon War.

At the height of the Lebanese parliamentary elections campaign, Hassan Nasrallah addressed a conference in the Beqaa Valley. In an impassioned speech, he sought to enlist support for Hizbollah’s candidates by referring to the Israeli enemy.

It is very difficult to analyze and understand the Second Lebanon War without understanding how the IDF entered it. By this I am not referring to the moment the decision was made to attack on July 12, 2006, rather to the processes that occurred in the years leading up to the war. In this context, it is necessary to try to understand the fields where the military was focusing its endeavors, the topics with which the army was dealing, and the outlook of the IDF’s leadership at that time. It is necessary to focus on two central,...

The following article touches on seven points that are conclusions of sorts from three central military episodes of recent years: Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in April 2002, the Second Lebanon War, and Operation Cast Lead. A comparison of these events allows us to formulate general conclusions relevant to similar events in the future. Six of the issues refer primarily to the past and the present, but have ramifications for the future. The seventh is an attempt to assess what would happen should a Third Lebanon War...

In August 2009, Rawi Sultani, a young Arab resident of Taibe, was arrested on suspicion of having spied for Hizbollah. According to the indictment, Sultani contacted a Hizbollah agent last year while at a summer camp for nationalist Arab youth in Morocco as a member of the delegation of the Balad party. Sultani told his Hizbollah contact that he works out at the same gym as IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. The ensuing contact between Sultani and Hizbollah handlers, which lasted about a year, included a meeting in Poland and...

During his recent visit to Ghajar, Foreign Minister Lieberman said that a wall should be built between the two sections of the village, located respectively in Israeli and Lebanese territory. He added that concern for security is the leading consideration in such a move. Before examining the advantages of such a measure, it would be wise to understand how Israel arrived at a situation in which people who consider themselves Syrian, yet carry Israeli identification cards, may be forced to live in Lebanon

The parliamentary elections in Lebanon on June 7, 2009 featured two main electoral camps. One, the “March 14 alliance,” comprised the Sunnis, represented by the al-Mustaqbal (“Future Movement”) Party headed by Sa’ad al-Hariri; the Druze – the Progressive-Socialist Party headed by Walid Jumblatt; and various Christian elements, among them the Phalangists and the Lebanese Forces. Opposing them was the “March 8 alliance,” composed of the Shiites – Hizbollah and Amal; “The Free Patriotic...