Will Hamas and Hezbollah Try Again to Tear the Israeli Spiderweb?

From their earliest days, Hezbollah and Hamas have seen immense value in closely monitoring Israel’s media. However, their reliance on open source information has proven a double-edged sword, as both groups have been misled into making poor strategic decisions. Either Hezbollah or Hamas is likely to identify the current crisis in Israel over the new government’s proposed reform of Israel’s judiciary as an opportunity to act against it. They might be surprised, however, by Israel’s response.

The Folly of the “Economy for Peace” Thesis

Much like the Oslo illusion, which posited that territorial concessions to the PLO would bring about peace with the Palestinians, the hope that economic easing in the Gaza Strip will moderate Hamas terrorism is a mistaken attempt to apply a Western logic of conflict management to a Palestinian enemy whose definition of the end of the conflict with Israel is not in the West’s political-cultural lexicon.

The Real Lesson of the Afghanistan Debacle

Afghanistan has proved once again that even a superpower cannot win a war against a proxy as long as it refuses to confront the power that supports it. This is of vital importance to Israel, which is facing a proxy war being waged against it by Iran via its regional proxies Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Address for a Response to the Lebanese Attacks on Israel Is Gaza, Not Beirut

Even if Hezbollah is responsible for the latest rocket attack on the Galilee, Hamas is culpable for the security deterioration in southern Lebanon due to its efforts to expand its terrorist activities to the territory of neighboring Arab states. Israel must establish a new equation in which lack of peace in the north is met in kind in the Gaza Strip.

Rocket Fire from Lebanon and Its Implications

The recent rocket fire from Lebanon into Israeli territory connects with Hamas’s overall strategy of expanding the scope of the confrontation between itself and Israel that sharpened during the war in Gaza in May of this year. It is by no means clear that Israel is equipped to prevent this from becoming a regular event.

How Many Gaza Palestinians Were Killed by Hamas Rockets in May? An Estimate

Much of the coverage and commentary surrounding the fighting in May between Hamas and Israel has focused on numbers, especially the much larger number of Palestinians than Israelis killed. The number of deaths is actually very low for such an intense conflict, a testament to Israel’s Iron Dome and civil defense systems, and its use of precision weapons and warnings aimed at minimizing Palestinian civilian deaths. Of course, Hamas aims to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible, but its rockets place both Israelis and Palestinians in peril, because many of those rockets—in this case 680—misfire and explode inside Gaza. The death and destruction caused is, of course, usually blamed on Israel. The question addressed here is how many Palestinians are likely to have been killed by these errant Palestinian rockets in May. The estimate arrived at is 91, amounting to 36% of the alleged Palestinian death toll.

Challenges to Gaza Ceasefire Are Arising Quickly

Yaakov Lappin
June 24, 2021
Paper No. 2079

Hamas will always prioritize its radical ideological and political objectives over pragmatic considerations whenever those two factors come into conflict. As Israeli decision makers monitor Hamas’s renewed efforts at force build-up following Operation Guardian of the Walls, they face dilemmas as they look for “least-worst” options.

Concessions to Hamas Lead to Violence. Holding Firm Leads to Calm

Israeli concessions in Jerusalem led to the recent outbreak of serious fighting, but insisting on the flag parade led to relative calm. Will the new leadership of Bennett and Lapid take this to heart, or will Israelis pay the costs of a misguided belief in concessions?

As Gaza Truce Holds, Preventing Hamas from Re-Arming Takes Center Stage

Yaakov Lappin
June 10, 2021
Paper No. 2069

Now that the truce has taken hold in Gaza, efforts must be made by the international community as well as by Israel to ensure that Hamas does not once again exploit the flow of humanitarian aid and reconstruction supplies into Gaza to rebuild its terror infrastructure.

Israeli Sovereignty Is Being Tested by Extortion and Threats

Surrendering to Hamas threats and canceling the flag parade in Jerusalem constitutes a grave violation of Israeli sovereignty that will lead to no less serious acts of extortion on the political and security levels.