Analysis

As Iran’s network of proxies withers, Israel has an opening to revive its own

Tehran dominated much of the region through loyal armed groups; burned by Lebanon trauma, Israel moved away from that approach, but now leaders talk of alliances with minorities

Lazar Berman

Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

A member of the Kurdish Internal Security Force known as Asayesh stands guard during a protest against the Turkish military offensive in northeastern Syria, in the town of Qamishli on October 23, 2019. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)
A member of the Kurdish Internal Security Force known as Asayesh stands guard during a protest against the Turkish military offensive in northeastern Syria, in the town of Qamishli on October 23, 2019. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)

Israeli leaders have been boasting effusively about the country’s success in degrading Iran’s proxies in recent months.

“We knocked down Hezbollah, which was supposed to protect Iran,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month. “And Iran didn’t protect Hezbollah either. And neither of them protected [Syria’s Bashar al-] Assad.”

“We just split that whole axis right down the middle,” he said. Iran “spent probably $30 billion in Syria, another $20 billion in Lebanon, God knows how much on Hamas. And it’s all gone down the tubes.”

Indeed, since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has invested heavily in developing a network of loyal armed groups across the region. In addition to those described by Netanyahu, Tehran has also created powerful Shiite militias in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

Until October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war, Iran’s proxies were central to its ability to influence — often dominate — developments in the Middle East, and to threaten its adversaries.

But after years on the defensive, Israel is now on the march against those proxies. Its success in rolling them back has opened up new opportunities for Israel. To take advantage of the reality emerging in the Middle East, should Israel imitate its archenemy and develop its own network of minority allies across the region?

A unique partnership

Broadly, a patron-proxy partnership is a relationship between two entities — states or non-state actors — in which the more powerful “patron” uses the other to accomplish its foreign policy goals; the less powerful “proxy” is fighting in a local conflict that the patron wants to influence; the two share a common enemy; and they coordinate operations.

Vehicles move along a road underneath a pedestrian overpass with a large banner depicting the assassinated commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force Qasem Soleimani (C-R), and assassinated figures of Iran-backed groups, including Palestinian Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh (C), Iraqi Hashed al-Shabi’s Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (C-L), Lebanese Hezbollah’s Imad Mughnieh (3rd-R), in Tehran on August 14, 2024. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

The interests of the patron are self-evident. Better to have a proxy fight your enemies than expend your own forces. Local proxies can also offer a measure of deniability to states that have reputations to protect. And proxies often have intelligence and tactical capabilities on the ground that a distant patron might lack.

The proxy force, meanwhile, enjoys material backing, access to advanced weapons, diplomatic support, and sometimes a powerful military fighting alongside its own force.

Iran has enjoyed a relatively comfortable playing field for developing proxies. With aggrieved or oppressed Shiite communities across the region, Iran finds allies eager to cooperate. It uses religious education, social services, and eventually military training to create a lasting presence on the ground.

Shiite worshipers attend Laylat al-Qadr, or Qadr Night prayer during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, in Najaf, Iraq, April 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Anmar Khalil)

This model works well in weak states with significant Shiite populations like Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. In relatively coherent states with large Shiite communities like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Iran has failed to develop an influential proxy force. And where there are no Shiites, Iran has struggled to find loyal proxies over the long term. Hamas, a Sunni terror group, is the exception, but even there, the relationship with Iran has seen significant ups and downs.

Tehran’s success in building loyal proxies is facilitated by the fact that it has a dedicated organization — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force — in charge of an integrated religious, political and military effort.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah long held sway over security services, monitored government institutions, ran its own ports, and used threats and violence to keep rivals out of important positions.

This photo taken on September 22, 2018, shows members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) marching during the annual military parade that marks the anniversary of the outbreak of the devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in the capital Tehran. (Stringer/AFP)

In Iraq, Iran used Shiite militias to threaten politicians opposed to its influence, attack US troops and establish deep roots inside the country’s energy and military sectors.

Assad’s Syria, dependent on Iran for support, represented an important conduit for Iranian weapons to reach Hezbollah over land, fought against jihadist groups hostile to Tehran, and hosted strategic bases for Iran’s great power ally Russia.

At first blush, it would seem that Israel has no business searching for proxies in the region…But history indicates otherwise.

At first blush, it would seem that Israel has no business searching for proxies in the region. There are certainly no significant Jewish communities left in the Middle East waiting for its patronage, and the Arab street is largely hostile to Israel and often to Jews.

But history indicates otherwise.

Though it has moved away from the approach, for much of its existence, Israel aggressively developed and effectively utilized minority communities to weaken its enemies and protect its borders.

Allies on the edge

In the 1960s, surrounded by hostile powers, Israel saw ties with players on the periphery of the Arab Middle East as central to its security doctrine.

“The alliance, which was fused through informal covert contacts between Israel and each of the three peripheral countries [Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia], focused firstly on military and intelligence collaboration and subsequently expanded into technical assistance, mainly in agriculture, water management, sanitation, and medicine,” Yogev Elbaz of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, wrote in a 2022 study.

“Through it, Israel gained a foothold in Africa and nurtured relationships with several newly independent African countries, and later on reached out to various minorities in the Middle East, such as the Kurds in Iraq, the Maronites in Lebanon, the Druze in the Levant, and the non-Muslims in South Sudan.”

In the 1960s, the Iraqi Kurds — on the edge of the Arab world — were interested in driving Iraqi forces out of the Kurdish north to achieve an autonomous region.

Kurdish nationalist leader Mustafa Barzani visiting Israel in the 1970s (IDF)

The first Kurdish rebellion, led by Mullah Mustafa Barzani, broke out in 1961. Two years later, Barzani began actively looking for contact with Israel.

Israel saw Iraq as one of its most dangerous foes. Baghdad sent some 18,000 troops to fight Israel in the 1948 War of Independence, making it the largest single Arab force in the war, which even achieved a victory over Israeli forces in Jenin. Israel hoped to limit Iraq’s ability to send troops in future conflicts, and to bleed Iraq’s forces in the meantime.

Israel developed a plan with its then-close ally, Iran, which was interested in using the Kurds as leverage to force Iraq into relinquishing strategic islands and waterways. The two countries sent small teams into Iraqi Kurdistan to train fighters. Israel also sent arms, food, and medical gear, reportedly worth some $50,000 a month.

Kurds and Israelis against the backdrop of an Israeli-military field hospital established by Israel in Kurdistan. In the photo are Israeli doctors and medics, Maj. Gen. Rehavam Ze’evi (Gandhi), Mullah Mustafa Barzani in the center, General Yoav Har-Even (IDF)

By 1965, Israel had a permanent presence in the Kurdish mountains, which led to tangible successes by the Kurds against Iraq. In a brilliant battle conceived by Israeli adviser Sagi Chori, an entire Iraqi brigade was destroyed at Mount Handrin in 1966.

The Iraqis were bloodied by the Kurds, but Barzani did not come through on Israel’s primary interest. During both the 1967 and 1973 wars, the Kurds did not open an offensive to keep Iraq from deploying forces to Israel. During the Yom Kippur War, Iraq sent three-quarters of its air force, two-thirds of its tanks, and a fifth of its infantry to fight the IDF on the Syrian front.

The relationship with the Kurds finally fell apart in 1975, when Iran and Iraq reached a settlement, and Tehran cut Barzani off. Israel had no choice but to follow the shah’s lead, and the uprising fell apart.

Muhammad al-Badr praying with his guards, 1962 (Public domain/Wikimedia Commons)

Yemen involvement

A similar logic brought Israel into covert involvement in the Yemeni Civil War in the 1960s.

At the time, Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser sent tens of thousands of troops to Yemen to back military officers who overthrew imam Mohamed al-Badr in 1962. Badr fled to northern Yemen, where Shiite tribes — including the Houthis — supported him in a bitter civil war against the new Cairo-backed Yemen Arab Republic.

Israel joined Britain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia in backing the royalists against the Nasserite republicans. It saw a golden opportunity to not only bog down Egyptian troops, but also to gain intelligence on their capabilities. The revelation to Israel from Egyptian Air Force defector Mahmoud Abbas Hilmi that Egypt had used chemical weapons on the tribes removed any doubt among Israeli decision-makers that they should aid the monarchists, who had been inconsistently supplied by Saudi camel convoys.

At the request of the UK, coordinating with British mercenaries on the ground — and using bonfires lit by tribal forces as guides — the IAF began flying weapons and other supplies (plus some booze for the parched British fighters) into Yemen in 1964, using unmarked Boeing 377 Stratocruisers.

Royalist Yemeni fighters and their families (Unknown author – http://alamree.net/alboum-sanaa_9.htm, Public Domain)

In total, Israel flew 14 covert airlifts to Yemen known only to the British and royalist leadership over a period of two years, including one airdrop that took place just as Badr was meeting with tribal leaders in a cave. Seeing weapons fall out of the sky convinced the tribes that Badr had Western — even divine — support, and many pledged their loyalty.

Israel ended the mission after receiving intelligence that Egypt had learned about the airdrops and was looking to intercept them.

Though the republicans eventually emerged victorious in 1970, the Israeli mission was considered a success. It cost very little and extended the war, keeping Egyptian troops stuck in their own “Vietnam.” Up to 26,000 Egyptian troops died, and the losses were seen as a contributing factor to the Egyptian army’s ineffectual performance in the 1967 Six Day War.

Drawn into Lebanon

Israel’s most famous and overt proxy relationship was with the Maronites in southern Lebanon. The ties go back to the pre-state period, as the two communities shared a natural kinship. In 1946, Maronite patriarch Antoine Arida signed a treaty with the Jewish Agency supporting a Jewish state.

Two female Phalangist soldiers, Lebanese Christian Militia, talking with two Israeli soldiers in a street in Jounieh, on August 3, 1982. (AP Photo/Nash)

In exchange for intelligence, in the 1950s Israel sent weapons to Christian villages over the border and sent captured Egyptian weapons to Beirut on Iranian planes. The relationship became more important in Israel’s eyes as the Palestine Liberation Organization — a mutual enemy — moved its center of operations to southern Lebanon in the early 1970s, using it as its new base of attacks against Israel.

When the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975, Israel backed the Maronites against their Palestinian enemies. Initially, Israel provided artillery support, communications equipment, and weapons as part of its “Enclave Initiative” just over the border in Lebanon.

Christian Lebanese Forces fighters standing in formation during the Lebanese Civil War. (screen capture: YouTube)

Not surprisingly, Israel found itself being drawn further into the interreligious conflict in Lebanon, as Christians further north hurried to Israeli commanders to request military support as well. In 1977, under the first Likud government, an IDF column entered Lebanon to fight the PLO alongside the Christians for the first time.

Israel’s involvement kept expanding. After a brutal PLO terror attack in 1978, Israel responded with Operation Litani inside Lebanon. And in 1981, Israel began thinking big, hoping for the expulsion of not only the PLO but also the Syrian army from Lebanon, Christian control of the Lebanese state, and a full peace agreement.

Illustrative: Recruits in the Phalange Party militia go through training procedures at the Christina Militia Security Garrison in Beirut, on January 3, 1977. (AP Photo)

To achieve those goals, Israel embarked in June 1982 on Operation Peace for Galilee — known nowadays in the Jewish state as the First Lebanon War. But after months of conflict, an assassin’s bomb put an end to the effort of installing a friendly government under Bashir Gemayel. Days later, the Israel-backed Christian Phalange militia massacred thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, solidifying the failure of the Israeli campaign.

Troops were maintained on the ground, and by 1985 Israel had settled on establishing a security zone in southern Lebanon, which was meant to be managed and secured by local forces with a minimal Israel presence. But when the Maronite South Lebanon Army started to collapse in the face of Hezbollah attacks, Israel could not help but be sucked in. The next 15 years of conflict against Hezbollah would cost hundreds of Israeli lives, and the trauma is still palpable decades after the IDF’s humiliating withdrawal in 2000.

Then-prime minister Menachem Begin, right, and defense minister Ariel Sharon, center, visiting the Beaufort Fortress in south Lebanon on the second day of the Lebanon War, June 7, 1982. (Eran Yanai/IDF Spokesperson’s Unit/CC BY-SA)

Israel unilaterally abandoned the security zone in May of that year. It left the SLA to fight on its own against Hezbollah, but the SLA quickly collapsed, with thousands fleeing into Israel. Hezbollah gained control of southern Lebanon and to a large degree the Lebanese state, and went on to present a serious deterrent to Israel until the recent IDF campaign whittled the terror organization down.

A minority alliance?

Israel’s experience in southern Lebanon is remembered as one long trauma that has colored the way the country thinks about the possibility of developing its own proxies to counter Iran. Indeed, in the quarter-century since its withdrawal, Jerusalem has refrained from seeking such partnerships, even as the Islamic Republic has poured weapons and money into armed proxies on Israel’s borders.

But there are signs that the country has moved beyond the Lebanon wound.

At the height of the Syrian civil war, Israel gave military aid to rebel groups in southern Syria, who kept Iran-backed groups off the border. Operation Good Neighbor saw thousands of Syrians treated in Israeli clinics and hospitals as part of that effort.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar gives a press conference on November 28, 2024, in Prague, Czech Republic. (Michal Cizek / AFP)

Since he rejoined the government in September, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has been calling for Israel to strengthen ties with Kurds and Druze abroad in order to create an “alliance of minorities” against Iran.

At his handover ceremony from outgoing minister Israel Katz, Sa’ar presented a vision of alliances with communities across the Middle East, saying minorities in the region must stick together.

“In a region where we will always be a minority – natural alliances will be with other minorities,” he said.

Netanyahu, who openly backed Kurdish independence in Iraq in the past, has been less explicit, only saying, “We offer a hand of peace to all those beyond our border in Syria: to the Druze, to the Kurds, to the Christians, and to the Muslims who want to live in peace with Israel.”

There seems to be at least some receptiveness to the idea. Earlier this month, an unverified video circulating on social media purported to show a member of the Druze community in the southern Syrian village of Hader calling for the community to be annexed to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

This week, Syrian Kurds reached out to Israel to establish a channel of communication, The Times of Israel learned.

Syrian Kurds wave independence-era flags during a demonstration in support of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeastern city of Qamishli, on December 19, 2024. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)

If Israeli leaders recognize the opportunity created by their military successes, there is much to glean from the country’s experience with Middle Eastern proxies.

In a diverse region with perpetually shifting alliances, Israel always has potential partners, even among Arab communities. It doesn’t have to go it alone, as other regional and Western partners have overlapping interests. And in many cases, Israel’s capabilities, location, and derring-do means it can support proxies in ways others can’t

Still, the approach comes with risks. Proxy interests don’t line up entirely with those of the patron, and the two can find themselves working at cross-purposes. If Israel isn’t careful, it can find itself being sucked into conflicts against its better judgment. And it could be blamed for crimes committed by a proxy.

“I think there are opportunities,” said Elbaz. “What will limit us is our fear of going in too deep.”

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