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As Threat of Hezbollah War Rises, Here’s What You Should Know About Israeli-Lebanese Relations
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
Israel’s relations with Lebanon have historically been less hostile than with some of its other neighbors — despite having no formal diplomatic ties. Today, however, the Israeli-Lebanese border is an extremely dangerous place, with widespread concerns about a major war breaking out in the near future.
So, how did we get here?
Israel’s War of Independence began in 1947 as a civil war between Palestinian Arabs, supported by irregular Arab forces from across the region, and Jews. After David Ben-Gurion declared the Jewish state on May 14, 1948, the armies of five neighboring states, including Lebanon, attacked Israel. The pretext was to “protect Palestine” — but they had their own agendas, which was to destroy Israel and grab as much land as they could.
After the war, Israel reached an armistice agreement with Lebanon on March 23, 1949. Israel’s armistice agreements with Arab states were not final peace treaties, because Arab leaders still refused to accept the Jewish State’s existence.
For decades, Israel heard little from Lebanon, the only neighbor that did not attack Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. One reason Lebanon was the least antagonistic was its significant Christian population, which made the Lebanese leadership less susceptible to the anti-Israel hostility in other parts of the region.
The 1970s were a terrible era for Lebanon, for a myriad of reasons. The country effectively lost its independence and became dominated by Syria, a Soviet client state. Making matters worse, Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) settled in Lebanon after being expelled from Jordan.
The PLO wreaked havoc in various ways, including targeting Israeli communities near the border with rocket fire and other attacks. This provoked the devastating 1982 Lebanon War between Israel and the PLO, which was fought on Lebanese territory.
While the IDF was successful in compelling Arafat and the PLO to leave Lebanon for Tunisia, a new force filled the vacuum in southern Lebanon: Hezbollah, a terrorist group and proxy of Iran’s extremist regime.
Hezbollah wasted no time creating terror locally and internationally. On October 23, 1983, just a year after the conclusion of Israel’s war with the PLO, a Hezbollah suicide bombing at an American Marine barracks in Beirut murdered 241 American service members. The attack is just one of several devastating suicide bombings that have been carried out by Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s suicide bombing murdered 85 people at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994. That Argentina has never successfully prosecuted anyone for the crime is indicative of the depth of Hezbollah’s penetration in South America.
As the culmination of meetings beginning with the Declaration of Principles in September 1993 and the Oslo Accords, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat met at the Camp David Summit in July 2000, to negotiate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Arafat ultimately rejected a proposed two-state solution that would have established an independent Palestinian state in all of Gaza and almost all of the West Bank — a decision President Clinton called a “colossal historical blunder.”
Two months earlier, the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon, after spending nearly two decades keeping terrorist threats away from Israel’s northern border. Some analysts believe Israel’s unilateral disengagement played a role in stiffening Arafat’s resolve to reject a final peace agreement. Wait long enough, his thinking went, and the Israelis will simply abandon territory. The upside of Israel’s withdrawal was that withdrawal fulfilled UN Security Council Resolution 425.
The next major flashpoint in Israeli-Lebanese relations was in 2006, when Hezbollah kidnapped and killed three Israeli soldiers while simultaneously launching rockets into Israeli communities as a diversion. This aggression sparked a 34-day conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that was also fought in Lebanon, and constituted the most recent major escalation in the area, until October 7.
Lebanon hasn’t been a fully independent state since the 1970s due to Syrian and Iranian (Hezbollah) interference. In their effort to destroy Israel, outside forces largely destroyed Lebanon.
To this day, more than 60,000 Israelis are internally displaced from their homes in the north due to over countless thousands of rocket, missile, and drone attacks in northern Israel, the vast majority of which were fired by Hezbollah, since October 7.
This is the picture that the American public should familiarize itself with as all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah looms.
The lack of historical context, media bias, and disinformation on social media has created mass confusion during this escalation, just as it has during the October 7th war. With a 24/7 news cycle bringing content without context, understanding this history is necessary to properly understand what Israel is up against in the region.
The post As Threat of Hezbollah War Rises, Here’s What You Should Know About Israeli-Lebanese Relations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘US/Zionist Attack’: Pro-Hamas Campus Groups Condemn Israeli Strikes on Iran
Rescuers work at the scene of a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters Connect.
Pro-Hamas campus groups denounced Israel’s military strikes on Iran on Friday while declaring solidarity with the Islamic Republic in a series of social media posts which called on far-left extremists to flood the streets with riotous demonstrations, reprising a role they played following Hamas’s Iran-backed massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israel Defense Forces carried out preemptive strikes on Iran’s military installations and nuclear facilities to neutralize top military leaders and quell the country’s efforts to enrich weapons-grade uranium, the key ingredient of their nuclear program. The move appears to have been a success, as Iranian state-controlled media confirmed that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Hossein Salami — as well as several other senior military leaders — and nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, are dead.
While many observers have cheered the strikes as a necessary act of deterrence which bolsters the credibility of the Western powers’ insisting that no measure will be spared to prevent Iran’s procuring nuclear weapons, pro-Hamas groups on US campuses accused both Israel and the US of inciting an unjust war.
“We reject the US/Zionist attack on Iran, and affirm Iran’s right to self-defense, sovereignty, and self-determination,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), one of higher education’s most notorious campus pro-Hamas student organizations, said on X following the strikes. “No to the imperialist was of encroachment — from Syria to Lebanon to Iran — and YES [sic] to the people’s struggle for Palestinian liberation.”
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) implored its followers to express their disapproval of the strikes by amassing at the John F. Kennedy Building in the Government Center section of Boston.
“No war with Iran, emergency rally,” the group said.
Meanwhile, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), SJP shared on Instagram a post by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), which, in addition to holding documented ties to the US-designated terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is a key organizer of anti-Israel campus activities.
“Reject the US-Israel war of aggression on Iran,” PYM wrote. “The Zionist occupation launches a series of air strikes across the Tehran [sic], an act of war that seeks to dramatically escalate Zionist and US aggression across the region.”
Off-campus groups embedded in the global network of pro-Hamas groups weighed in as well. In the United Kingdom, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) demanded that Parliament proscribe weapons transfers to Israel.
“As Israel carpet bombs and starves Gaza, intensifies its land grabs and attacks in the West Bank, and now launches major attacks in Iran, the responsibilities on the British government could not be clearer,” PSC said. “It must impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel.”
The statements are reminiscent of the hours following the Oct. 7 attack, in which pro-Hamas groups cheered the Palestinian terrorists and rooted for Israel to fail and be overrun by its enemies.
As scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting children and desecrating dead bodies circulated worldwide and invoked global outrage, dozens of SJP chapters at institutions such as Brown University, the University of Maryland, Tufts University, and UCLA described the attacks as a form of “resistance,” demanding acceptance what they said is “our right to liberate our homeland by any means necessary.”
Additionally, 31 student groups at Harvard University issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open-air prison” in Gaza, despite that the Israeli military withdrew from the territory in 2005.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” said the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee. “In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence.”
These activities are facilitated by an array of methods the campus groups use for spreading their extremist worldview, according to a new report published by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University, Bloomington.
The report — titled “Anti-Israel Campus Groups: Online Networks and Narratives” — explored the ways in which pro-Hamas student groups draw in the world beyond the campus to create an illusion of inexorable support for anti-Zionism. Key to this effort, the report explained, is a vast and ambitious network of non-campus anti-Israel organizations which ply them with logistical and financial resources that significantly boost their capabilities beyond those of normal student clubs.
“Social media platforms, particularly Instagram, play a critical role in mobilizing these groups, spreading radical narratives, and coordinating actions at both local and national levels,” report authors Gunther Jikeli and Daniel Miehling wrote. “Social media shapes perceptions of the Israel-Hamas conflict in significant ways, often through highly emotive and polarizing content that fuels activism and, at times, incitement.”
Social media, which has modernized the manufacturing and distribution of political propaganda by reducing complex subjects to “memes” — some involving humor or contemporary cultural references which appeal to the sensibilities of the youth — are the cheapest and most effective weapons in the arsenal of the pro-Hamas movement, the report went on, noting that this was true before the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel precipitated an explosion of anti-Israel activity online.
From 2013 to 2024, Students for Justice in Palestine, pro-Hamas faculty groups, and others posted over 76,000 posts on social media which were analyzed by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. Over half, 54.9 percent, included only a single, evocative image.
“In contrast, Reels (5.3 percent) and Videos (4.9 percent) are used far less frequently,” the report continued. “Based on these descriptions, we see a strong preference among campus-based anti-Israel groups for static visual formats, suggesting that this type of bimodal content represents the highest form of shareability within activists networks.”
To boost their audience and reach, pro-Hamas groups also post together in what Jikeli and Miehling described as “co-authored posts,” of which there were over 20,000 between 2013 and 2024. The content they contain elicits strong emotions in the individual users exposed to it, inciting incidents of antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and violence, the report continued. Such outrages increase in proportion to the concentration of anti-Israel groups on a single campus, as the report’s data showed a relationship that is “particularly strong.”
Of all the groups responsible for fostering a hostile campus environment, SJP stands out for being “the most frequent collaborator with other anti-Israel organizations,” the report went on. The group’s closest ally appears to be the Palestinian Youth movement.
“This close collaboration not only broadens SJP;s audience but also suggests that PYM’s radical anti-Zionist rhetoric and visual language may shape elements of SJP’s discourse,” Jikeli and Miehling explained. “PYM’s posts frequently incorporate imagery associated with socialist iconography, national liberation movements, and Islamist martyrdom. Such content often features slogans that reject the legitimacy of the Israeli state, depict convicted Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel as political prisoners, and glorify members of terrorist groups.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘US/Zionist Attack’: Pro-Hamas Campus Groups Condemn Israeli Strikes on Iran first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hezbollah Holds Fire After Israeli Strike on Iran, Signaling Weakened Posture Amid Pressure From Lebanese Gov’t
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers a speech from an unknown location, Nov. 20, 2024, in this still image from video. Photo: REUTERS TV/Al Manar TV via REUTERS.
The Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah announced it will not carry out a retaliatory strike against the Jewish state in support of Tehran, following a warning from the Lebanese government not to drag the country into a wider confrontation.
“Hezbollah will not initiate its own attack on Israel in retaliation for Israel’s strikes,” the Lebanon-based Islamist group told Reuters.
Israel launched a broad preemptive attack on Iran overnight on Friday, targeting military installations and nuclear sites across the country in what officials described as an effort to neutralize an imminent nuclear threat as nuclear negotiations between the United States and Tehran appear on the brink of collapse.
In an unexpected turn, the choice of Hezbollah, which for decades has been Iran’s chief proxy force in the Middle East, to hold back from retaliating against Israeli strikes on the Islamic regime reveals just how weakened the group is following last year’s Israeli operations in Lebanon — despite its threat of retaliation once serving as a key deterrent against attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.
Last fall, Israel decimated much of Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, which ended with a ceasefire that concluded a year of fighting between the Jewish state and the terrorist group.
In a statement released on Friday, Hezbollah condemned the Israeli attack on Iran, describing it as a dangerous escalation by “an enemy that understands only the language of killing, fire, and destruction.”
The Lebanese group also accused Washington of directly facilitating the attack and called on regional governments to show solidarity with the Iranian people.
“This aggression would not have taken place without direct US approval, coordination, and cover,” a Hezbollah official said in a statement, claiming the strikes are part of a broader effort to advance US and Israeli “hegemony.”
“Washington is now attempting to distance itself to avoid consequences,” the statement read. “If this aggression is not met with rejection, condemnation, and support for Iran and its people, this criminal entity will grow more aggressive and tyrannical.”
Iranian state television confirmed that the attack killed Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, along with several other high-ranking military officials.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said that the entire top command of Iran’s air force was killed, as well as the IRGC commander responsible for overseeing last year’s drone and missile attacks against Israeli territory.
In a separate statement, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem warned that Israel’s massive attack on Iran “will have major repercussions on the region’s stability, seeing as it will not pass without a response and punishment.”
“We in Hezbollah and our Islamic resistance and mujahid people are holding onto our approach and resistance, and we support the Islamic Republic of Iran in its rights and stance, and in any steps and measures it takes to defend itself and choices,” Qassem said.
According to the Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya, Lebanon’s government informed the Iranian terrorist proxy that it would not tolerate its involvement in Tehran’s response against Israel, warning it would bear responsibility for dragging the country into war.
“The time when the organization bypassed the state in deciding to go to war is over,” the terrorist group was told, according to the report. “The decision of war and peace is exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese state.”
Before Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah last year, the terrorist group enjoyed major political and military influence across Lebanon.
The post Hezbollah Holds Fire After Israeli Strike on Iran, Signaling Weakened Posture Amid Pressure From Lebanese Gov’t first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Commends Israel for Striking Iranian Nuclear Sites, Says He Gave Tehran ‘Chance to Make a Deal’
US President Trump speaks to the media at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, Washington, DC, April 21, 2025. Photo: Andrew Leyden/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump commended Israel for its successful strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities and military leaders in social media posts on Truth Social.
“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” Trump wrote Friday morning.
Trump warned that Iran will face more attacks in the coming days if Tehran does not strike an agreement to suspend all uranium enrichment efforts.
“Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse! There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” Trump continued.
In the early hours of Friday morning, Israel launched a large-scale military operation against Iran, named Operation Rising Lion, targeting key nuclear and military sites across the country. The strikes resulted in the deaths of several high-ranking Iranian officials, including Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Major General Hossein Salami, and two prominent nuclear scientists, Fereydoon Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi. Explosions were reported in Tehran and other provinces, with significant damage to facilities in Natanz, Isfahan, Khondab, and Khorramabad.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described the operation as a preemptive measure to prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear weapons program. In retaliation, Iran launched over 100 drones at Israel, most of which were intercepted. The United States condemned Iran’s actions and reaffirmed its commitment to Israel’s defense, while distancing itself from the Israeli strikes by saying it was not involved in the operation.
The strikes followed a series of negotiations between the US and Iran since April 2025 aimed at reaching a deal over the latter’s nuclear program, which many Western governments believe is ultimately meant to develop nuclear weapons. Iran claims its nuclear activities are for peaceful, civilina purposes. following a letter from President Donald Trump to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei initiating dialogue.
Despite five rounds of discussions, including meetings in Muscat and Rome, significant differences remained, particularly over Iran’s uranium enrichment levels and the scope of international inspections.
Last month, Trump warned that failure to reach an agreement could lead to severe consequences, emphasizing the urgency of a deal. However, Iran’s leadership expressed skepticism, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei labeling US demands as “outrageous nonsense” and reiterating his opposition to Israel’s existence.
The failure to reach a nuclear agreement has led to heightened tensions in the Middle East, with both sides accusing each other of undermining the diplomatic process.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed that the United States did not participate in the planning of the Israeli operation. “This evening, Israel acted independently in its strike on Iran. The United States played no role in the attack, and our foremost priority remains the safety of American personnel in the region,” Rubio said in a statement late Thursday.
However, Trump told Axios om Friday that he believes that the strikes might have improved the chances of the US striking a nuclear deal with Tehran.
“Maybe now they will negotiate seriously,” Trump said.
The post Trump Commends Israel for Striking Iranian Nuclear Sites, Says He Gave Tehran ‘Chance to Make a Deal’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.