Dr. Netanel Flamer
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,190, Mar. 28, 2023
“An infographic produced on March 1, 2023, in Al-Ahed, a website identified with Hezbollah, quotes senior Israeli officials on the struggle within Israeli society and reports on signs suggesting that that society is as fragile as a spiderweb, as suggested by the infographic’s heading.”
For the past few months, Israel’s political system and civil society have been wracked by a heated constitutional and political debate triggered by the new government’s proposed reform of Israel’s judiciary. The echoes of this internal crisis are inevitably reverberating beyond the country’s borders. Enemies of Israel, including Hamas and Hezbollah, are watching the crisis with close interest, and one or both is likely to view it as an opportunity to take hostile action.
In the modern era, information is transmitted throughout the world instantly, allowing anyone with any degree of interest in Israel to remain up-to-date and consume details of whatever crisis the country might be experiencing in real time. In the case of the current widespread public uproar regarding the government’s proposed reform of Israel’s judiciary, this information includes visual data, such as images of clashes between protesters and police; confrontations in the Knesset and its committees; and, of course, incessant quarrels among elected officials and the public on social media.
It is hardly surprising that Hezbollah and Hamas are focused on these events. From their earliest days, both organizations have understood the immense value of closely monitoring Israel’s media. Israel’s open press, which is based on the principles of free speech and the public’s right to know, offers these organizations access to a great deal of high-value information. As this information is both open and inexpensive to access, these entities can close information gaps they could not close in other ways.
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