Hillel Frisch is professor emeritus at Bar-Ilan University, Israel and former Senior Researcher in the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. Amongst his latest studies are “Rethinking the “Arab Spring”: Winners and Losers,” Middle East Quarterly (2021) “The Palestinian Military, Two Not One,” Oxford Handbook on Military and Security Studies (2021), “Jordan and Hamas,” Handbook on Jordan, 2019, and “Assessing Iranian Soft Power in the Arab World from Google Trends,” The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies 2019.
Watch the recording of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center zoom event that took place October 30, 2023.
Given the very small dimensions of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, Hamas’ claims of around 500 deaths and a similar number of wounded cannot possibly be true. Such fake news fits squarely with overall casualty figures provided by the Hamas-dominated Ministry of Health during the conflict.
The Netanyahu Doctrine: Total War Only Against an Iranian Nuclear Breakout
Security fears of the last 10 days of Ramadan are hardly justified. Ramadan has hardly been the most violent month in the past, and the last 10 days are not necessarily the most violent of the month. Conceding to this fear out of tactical considerations of an overburdened Israeli police does not justify the strategic costs that impinge on Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount and its capital.
Netanyahu has developed an explicit doctrine of war avoidance in preparation for total war should Iran achieve nuclear breakout. That explains his many concessions on the Palestinian and Lebanese fronts. Paradoxically, Iran is on the same wavelength in bolstering the missile siege around Israel. Will Netanyahu be flexible to change the doctrine in the event the missile siege around Israel becomes more threatening than the Iranian nuclear threat?
Israeli officials and the media continuously warn about the dangers of the upcoming Ramadan, on the assumption that Palestinians are more violent during that period. However, this assumption is highly problematic in analyzing the data on Palestinian violence during Ramadan compared with the rest of the year.
Why do we in the West treat Qatar, the icon of evil, with kid gloves?
The Kingdom of Qatar, a repressive, discriminatory regime at home, promotes a cynical media policy abroad that lavishes support on a conservative, religiously-oriented Al Jazeera Arabic while simultaneously supporting a “progressive” media site AJ+ in English and other languages. Its themes contradict the regime’s nature and harsh domestic policies, as the recent criticism of Qatar came to bear during the recent soccer World Cup held there. Virulent hatred for Israel and a solid anti-US bias are the only common denominator between the two media sites.
Qatar seems hell-bent on promoting hatred against Israel. So why does Jerusalem allow Al Jazeera complete freedom of operation?
The photo of the two terrorists in the shootout with the IDF looked more like models than killers – well-groomed and affluent – and points to the limits of Israeli attempts to assure Palestinian economic well-being to reduce terrorism.
