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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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January 5, 2016
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Iranian-Saudi
Tensions May Distract Iran's Efforts to Attack Israel
by IPT News • Jan 5, 2016 at 3:06
pm
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The dramatic escalation in the Iranian-Saudi Arabian rivalry poses
critical potential ramifications for Israeli national security, according
to the former head of Israel's National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror.
Amidror – also formerly the head of Israeli military intelligence – told the Jerusalem Post that he expects the
Iranian-Saudi crisis to prolong the Syrian civil war, leading both sides to
increase support for their respective proxies in that country.
Such a scenario can intensify Israeli concerns of unpredictable and
radical terrorist organizations consolidating bases of operations on the
Jewish state's northern borders.
However, other analysts view Syrian fragmentation as a strategic benefit
– at least temporarily removing Syria as a conventional military threat and
forcing Iranian proxies, including Hizballah, to divert resources and
manpower to the Syrian front instead of conducting major attacks against
Israel.
According to this perspective, Iran will also be more preoccupied with
confronting Saudi Arabia in other regional theaters – including Bahrain,
Yemen, and Iraq.
"That doesn't meant they won't do anything [toward Israel]. This
doesn't mean, for instance, that this will influence Hezbollah [backed by
Iran] not to carry out revenge attacks against Israel. But it means that
whenever there is something, there will be someone in Iran who will say
that they have other problems to think about; we will not be the only issue
they will be focusing on," Amidror said.
This assessment supports other analyses that believe Hizballah failed to effectively retaliate to Israel's reported
assassination of arch-terrorist Samir Kuntar. On Monday, Hizballah detonated a large explosive on the Israel-Lebanon
border, targeting two military vehicles. Israel said it suffered no casualties.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) followed with artillery fire against
Hizballah targets in Lebanon, but limited its response to avoid escalating
tensions.
The relatively weak show of force from Hizballah suggests that the
terrorist organization continues to be bogged down in the Syrian civil war,
unwilling and incapable of seriously challenging Israel at the moment.
Fighting in Syria has cost Hizballah as much as a quarter of its fighters,
Israeli military affairs journalist Yossi Melman points out.
Those losses "neutralized the Shi'ite-Lebanese organization's
ability to act against Israel," he writes.
At the least, it makes the prospect of opening a second front with Israel
less appealing. Hizballah still enjoys an arsenal of more
than 100,000 rockets it can fire at Israel when it opts for a confrontation.
Even though Hizballah and other Iranian proxies continue to enhance their presence in the Golan Heights for the
purposes of targeting Israel, recent Iranian-Saudi tensions will likely
force terrorist organizations at Iran's behest to focus more of their
efforts and resources on other fronts beyond the Jewish state.
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