Seth J. Frantzman
Jerusalem Post, May 9, 2023
“Tehran must tread carefully as it considers its next steps and how it wants to make moves relating to Israel’s operation.”
Operation Shield and Arrow may be the first test for Iran’s ‘unity of fronts’ project, which is designed to ring Israel with threats and cause Israel to collapse internally. Iran has been working on this project for years but has recently increased its messaging about how it believes Israel’s internal political squabbles make Israel a ripe target.
Iran’s messaging in this regard includes claims that Iran will continue to work on the “unity” of various proxies and groups it works with.
In Tehran’s view, it has achieved great success in Syria, helping the Syrian regime normalize with the Arab League. Iran sent its president to Syria recently. Iran has also continued to transfer arms to Syria via Aleppo in the wake of the February earthquake. Iran has also continued to operationalize groups and threats in Syria. It flew a drone into Israeli airspace in early April. It also encouraged the small Palestinian group Liwa al-Quds to fire rockets at Israel over Passover.
Iran has also worked to increase the terror infrastructure of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A recent report at the Post noted that Hamas could threaten to stage a coup in the West Bank. Iran believes it can transfer illegal weapons to the West Bank to begin the process of taking advantage of any situation in which the Palestinian Authority Security Forces are weakened.
It has supported the flooding of Jenin and Nablus with weapons, including numerous M-4 and M-16 style rifles now in the hands of gangs, armed groups and terrorists. … [To read the full article, click here]