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Newest Publications
Hassan Rowhani: A Honey Trap for Iran and the World?
Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira
Publications by Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira
Iran’s Plans to Take Over Syria
Iran sees the civil war in Syria as a war of survival against a radical Sunni uprising that views Iran and the Shiites as infidels to be annihilated. Read More »
Assassination of Iranian General in Syria
The death in Syria of Gen. Hassan Shateri of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps confirms that elements of the Iranian army are involved in Hizbullah’s activity. Read More »
Hizbullah Threatens to Strike Strategic Israeli Targets
in Response to an Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
Iran has given a green light for the immediate use of Hizbullah’s military force against Israel in response to an attack. Read More »
Will Lebanon Help Iran Circumvent Sanctions?
As part of its efforts to break the grip of Western sanctions, Iran is working intensively to develop its economic ties with Lebanon. Read More »
Iran: From Regional Challenge
to Global Threat
This anthology of 31 recent studies by eleven leading security and diplomatic experts outlines the Iranian threat to Israel, the Middle East region, and the West. Read More »
Hizbullah Discusses Its Operational Plan for War with Israel: Missile Fire on Tel Aviv and Conquest of the Galilee
The next military conflict with Israel, Hizbullah will hit Tel Aviv with missiles at the outset of the war, while dispatching forces to conquer the Galilee. Read More »
Hizbullah’s Predicament in Light of Syria’s Decline
Five years after the Second Lebanon War, a war whose results Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah considers a “divine victory,” Hizbullah has currently reached one of its lowest points due to the endangered survival of the Assad regime in Syria, as well as the international tribunal that has demanded the extradition of four Hizbullah members suspected of murdering former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Read More »
Countdown to a New Lebanon Crisis: Iran Sends a Signal to Obama through Beirut
There is a tendency in the West to underestimate the Iranian role in Hizbullah decision-making. _x000D_
Iran is signaling to the Obama administration that the main political developments in Lebanon are being decided today in Tehran and not in Washington. Iran is testing U.S. power and determination, and the states of the Middle East are closely following what will be the outcome. Read More »
Ahmadinejad in Lebanon
Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon constitutes an additional stage in the process of the Lebanese state’s collapse. From now on, Hizbullah supporters will find it difficult to argue that theirs is a national Lebanese party operating in the Lebanese reality on behalf of Lebanese objectives. Read More »
Lebanon: Ayatollah Fadlallah’s Death and the Expansion of Iranian Hegemony
Shiite religious leader Sayyed Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah played a leading role in the increasing Islamic radicalization of Lebanese Shiites and laid the foundations for Hizbullah’s ideology of violent struggle against the West and Israel. He supplied an organized doctrine for the mujahid who is ready to sacrifice his life. Yet he opposed the aspirations of Iran to establish an Islamic republic in Lebanon. Read More »
The Fantasy of Hizbullah Moderation
Hizbullah is not a national Lebanese movement, as has been frequently claimed in the West. Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and his men are not loyal to the president of Lebanon or to the government of Lebanon, but rather to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Read More »
Has Hizbullah Changed? The 7th Hizbullah General Conference and Its Continued Ideology of Resistance
Hizbullah’s alleged move toward pragmatism is based to a large extent on an Iranian decision to create a new atmosphere in Lebanon that will allow it to work unmolested. Iran is looking for strict silence in the Lebanese arena in order to enable Hizbullah to reconstruct its strategic capabilities (including long-range rockets and missiles) in Lebanon in order to make use of these capabilities at a time to be determined by Tehran. Read More »
Hizbullah’s Struggle to Change the Lebanese Regime
On April 3, 2009, Hizbullah published its political platform in advance of elections to the Lebanese parliament scheduled for June 7, 2009. The document calls for the abolition of sectarian politics and for the enactment of a new election law that would alter the equation of sectarian forces in Lebanon. The abolition of the existing political system will advance Hizbullah toward its fundamental goal: the establishment of an Islamic state and a complete Iranian takeover of Lebanon. Read More »
Averting Iranian Influence in Post-War Gaza: The Rehabilitation Issue
It is of prime importance to prevent Iran from acquiring influence in post-war Gaza through any assistance programs._x000D_
Israel and the international community should transform the Palestinian Authority into the principal factor, along with Egypt, entrusted with the rehabilitation work in Gaza. Read More »
Lebanon’s Ayatollahllah fadlallah and the Mercaz Ha-Rav Yeshiva Attack in Jerusalem
In recent years, an intense effort has been made by American-based academics to portray Ayatollah Mohamad Hussein Fadlallah, the most important religious authority among the Shiites of Lebanon and the Gulf states, as a moderate religious leader. Yet Fadlallah praised the massacre of eight Israeli students at Mercaz Ha-Rav Yeshiva in Jerusalem on March 6. Read More »
The Nexus Between Iranian National Banks and International Terrorist Financing
Iran has been using its state institutions as agents of the terror activity it perpetrates throughout the world. The funding for this terror activity is partly provided via Bank Melli and sometimes also via Bank Saderat. It would be extremely unfortunate if French courts decide to unfreeze Iranian funds in Paris that were originally frozen because of U.S. court rulings about Iranian funding of terrorist attacks. Read More »
Countdown to Conflict: Hizballah’s Military Buildup and the Need for Effective Disarmament
In May 2000, Israel completed a full withdrawal from Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425 from 1978. Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, however, the "liberator of the South," did not recognize the new border. His patrons in Iran ordered continued jihad against Israel. The Israeli withdrawal in 2000 did not lead Hizballah to become just another political party, and the belief that this would occur was an illusion._x000D_ Read More »