On July 12, 2006 Hizballah operatives crossed into Israel and kidnapped and then killed two soldiers, sparking a 34-day war. Contrary to the claims of the Lebanon-backed terrorist group’s own leaders, Raphael Ofek and Pesach Malovany painstakingly lay out the case that Hizballah deliberately sought to provoke a serious conflict with the Jewish state at the behest of its masters in Tehran. The Islamic Republic, which sent soldiers and advisers from its Revolutionary Guard Corps to supervise and assist in the fighting, was at the time primarily concerned by growing scrutiny from Europe and the U.S. regarding its nuclear program:

Iran was seeking to divert world attention from UN Security Council Resolution 1696, which was due to be adopted the same month, on July 31. This resolution approved the International Atomic Energy Agency’s demand that Tehran completely suspend nuclear activities that could be used to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons. These activities included uranium enrichment and plutonium production through the reprocessing of nuclear fuel irradiated in a reactor.

According to various sources, the Revolutionary Guards arrived in Lebanon before the abduction of the Israeli soldiers and supervised its execution. Iran trained Hizballah fighters in its territory, including preparation for their participation in the abduction of the soldiers, and was involved in the Second Lebanon War alongside Hizballah. Hundreds of Iranian fighters from the Revolutionary Guards operated at Hizballah outposts in Lebanon, where they launched rockets and missiles at Israel. They also took part in launching an Iranian-made missile at the Hanit missile ship of the Israel navy. There were reports that some Revolutionary Guards were killed in Lebanon during the war.

This counters the version presented by Hizballah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, who was quoted after the war as saying that if he had known what Israel’s response was going to be to the abductions he would have refrained from ordering them, and that the harsh Israeli response surprised him. Those statements were intended for domestic purposes. They were meant for the Lebanese government and the Lebanese public, neither of which accepted the extensive destruction caused to the country following the Hizballah operation.

Could similar motivations lead Iran to start another war at some point in the future? Certainly, write Ofek and Malovany, but the likelihood is low in the immediate future given the Islamic Republic’s own financial difficulties and the current unpopularity of Hizballah in Lebanon.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.