Is Raf OK? -- Installment #258

2026-05-12 -- Tel Aviv

May 12, 2026

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Read This Entry, #258, in Web Browser

First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with the expanded Gaza Explainer in #133 and #120.
Top Ten IsRafOK Entries (revised April, 2026!): All Time Most Viral: #234; Second Most Viral: #237; #85; #136; #128; #140; #144; #180; #161; #238

Tags: 9 Min Read; Raf Analysis; “Foreign Affairs from 2030”

Flights are flying--all Israeli airlines and a handful of non-Israeli airlines. Tour groups are coming (a tour-guide friend is booked with multiple multi-week groups). Not to say it is full-on tourist season--it isn’t, but there is life.

The crazy strong Shekel is a bit of a damper... for some of us!

I am heading out on travel, and will hopefully be posting less!

Dept of The Invisible

Items invisible/less-visible in the Western media. (Starts to the north of Israel and goes, clockwise, around the region, ending up in Gaza and then Israel. Not all countries appear in every entry.)

Lebanon

Hezbollah launched rockets and explosive drones at northern Israel. The IDF continues to take casualties in combat with Hezbollah.

The News

Watching Lebanese television these days is excellent entertainment, the discussions surrounding the issue of negotiations, the prospect of peace and normalization are only increasing and it seems that many Lebanese are beginning to feel that the era of Iranian occupation [via Hezbollah] of Lebanon is coming to an end.
Just last week, Lebanon commemorated the events of May 7, 2008, which is the day Hezbollah captured Beirut at the cost of over 70 Lebanese deaths and since then consolidated its position and rule in the country until Israel came and did everyone a huge favor.
On Marcel Ghanem’s popular program “The Time Has Come” that aired yesterday, a young man, a lawyer by training named Johnny Fakhri, rose from the audience and spoke to the public of Hezbollah supporters, and along the way dropped several “bunker-busting bombs.” [Saying things that... are not said in the Muslim world.] 1 Min. Arabic w/English & Hebrew subs. [English subs by Raf]

[I learned recently that a major artifact of Hezbollah’s 2008 “capture” of Beirut has been ongoing control over the Beirut airport—Lebanon’s primary international airport. This control allowed Iran to fund, supply and staff Hezbollah all these years. Reportedly, there are visible signs in and around the airport that Hezbollah’s control is slipping.]

Historical references made above:

Peace & Cooperation Treaty of 622 by The Prophet with the neighboring Jewish community (aka The Medina Treaty)
In 628, Mohammad made a peace agreement with the tribes around Medina, including the then-Jewish settlement of Khaybar. Some time after the agreement, Mohammad’s followers attacked and sacked Khaybar. Even after the sack, Mohammad offered the Jewish community peaceful coexistence in exchange for neutrality and tribute.
The slogan “Al Khaybar,” reportedly coined by Hamas terror leader Sheikh Yassin in the 1980’s, refers to this massacre (e.g. “Let’s Massacre Jews Like Mohammad Did in 628!).

So what we have in the video above:

First, he makes fun of Hezbollah for shouting Al Khaybar! when they agitate against Israel, because even in 628 “sack” of the Jewish community, there were very few fatalities and the Jewish community was given an explicit right to remain... (though not many years later they were expelled by a Muslim caliph who succeeded Mohammad).
Then, the apparently Christian speaker gives Mohammad credit for two peace treaties with Jewish communities: In 622 & 628 and says to effect, “Come on you Islamists! You aren’t even being consistent with what Mohammad did with the Jews!”

and

Khalifa Khalifa, a Druze Lebanon-watcher, says:

Why am I optimistic about what is happening in Lebanon and is there a chance of disarming Hezbollah?
I know that it is not that popular to talk about “peace” in Israel, certainly not after October 7th, and the reasons for this are completely justified.
Personally, I quite believe in the opinion that the people of Israel will have to live by their swords forever, and woe to us if we freeze on our laurels.
But at the same time, Lebanon is a different case, if only because Lebanese society is diverse and has a Christian component that desires peace, peace, and a love of life itself, in contrast to the culture of death that has taken root among Hezbollah’s Shiites.
The change required to reach a ceasefire agreement and pursue peace negotiations comes from the change in consciousness. Hezbollah managed to impose its will on all Lebanese by force of arms and by the power of its dominance for a very long time, but today’s Hezbollah is not what it used to be and its weakness dismantles the narratives on which it relies.
[Below] I bring you some translations from the MTV bonfire that aired just yesterday, which contains several quotes and claims that are not found parallel anywhere else, not in Gaza, not in the West Bank, and certainly not in Syria.
The speaker is Dr. Eli Elias, a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, who says that people in Lebanon are beginning to wake up to the fact that it is not Israel that is destroying the homes of the Shiites, but rather Hezbollah that is using them as human shields. He even calls on the President of the Republic, Joseph Aoun, to fight Hezbollah’s false narrative and call on them to stop using civilian areas as human shields in order to prevent harm to Lebanese civilians and communities.
This is a conversation that is not heard in Gaza, and in my opinion, this is a very big difference. 3 Min. Arabic w/English & Hebrew subs [English subs by Raf]

Syrian sources report on a May 8 visit by IDF Major General Ghassan Alian to the Syrian village of Al-Rima, in the Damascus district, at the foot of the Syrian Hermon – where he was received warmly. Alian serves as the IDF coordinator for Druze affairs in the Middle East.

Iran

The IRGC still has the internet turned off. For two and half months now...

You Heard It First... Where?

May 9: The reporter Anat Peled (formerly a reporter for Haaretz) reveals in an article in the American Wall Street Journal that Israel established a secret military base in the desert in Iraq, at the beginning of the operation against Iran, with the knowledge of the US in order to assist in strikes on Iran.

This is more fully discussed here.

I discussed this likelihood in March in #238.

Above: Following the publication in the Wall Street Journal, Arab OSINT experts published last night aids and maps in which, according to them, one can see a landing strip that was established about 70 km north of the border with Saudi Arabia, inside Iraqi territory.
According to these sources, the strip, about 1.7 km long, was established a few days before Operation “Lion’s Roar”.
This publication was circulated this morning on the Iraqi Sabereen channel—which is affiliated with the Shiite militias loyal to Iran.
The exposé in the Wall Street Journal sparked great interest on social networks and, as a result, investigation and further scrutiny.

Undersea Cable Warfare

Chinese and Russian actors have damaged and destroyed some number of undersea cables in recent years. These cables carry 99% of all data between continents. It is easy to do: A large vessel simply drops anchor and drags it. No special equipment or expertise required.

Iranian media outlets affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards are calling to collect “protection fees” – “protection money” – from the West for the undersea internet cables passing through Hormuz.
The Iranian news agency “Tasnim,” which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported that the undersea fiber optic cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz transmit more than $10 trillion in American financial transactions every day, including SWIFT system orders [which Iran cannot access due to sanctions], stock market transactions, and money transfers.
The agency added that these cables connect Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, and that any damage to them could cause widespread disruptions to the internet and the global digital economy.
According to Tasnim, Iran relies on what it defines as its “sovereignty” over the seabed and water column in the Strait of Hormuz, in accordance with Article 34 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Accordingly, Tasnim called to impose initial licensing fees and annual payments on foreign companies, and to require technology giants such as “Meta,” “Amazon,” and “Microsoft” to operate according to Iranian law, alongside granting exclusivity to Iranian companies for cable maintenance and repair.
The “Fars” agency, affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, published similar warnings regarding the possibility of widespread disruptions if these cables are damaged.

UAE

May 10: Iran launched 2 UAVs at the UAE. The poster includes the count of all the munitions Iran has fired at UAE since February 28 (the beginning of this Iran war).

More have been fired since.

It gets “better:”

That is war the middle eastern way: No press conferences. No social media. Just strikes… at the critical stuff.

To The Future!

Want to “write” two paragraphs with me for a future issue of Foreign Affairs? Say in 2030? Here we go!

The 2026 Iran War was characterized at the time as an American and/or Israeli initiative. Iranian and Russian propaganda mobilized opposition, and nearly halted the War via successful influence operations on American Democrats and political parties in Europe. When the dust cleared, a more nuanced picture was visible: Hatred and rivalry in the Gulf had reached a flashpoint. Iran had incrementally extended its footprint in the Gulf, for example by extending military arms in Iraq, and had built an “infrastructure of control” over the Strait of Hormuz. The world at large was … “largely” oblivious. (The parallel to drug users being too hard to handle and too obvious to ignore… The world was addicted to Gulf oil, ignoring that it’s supplier was dysfunctional, abusive and, in the most essential way, unreliable—all the intentions and effects of the Ayatollah’s aggressive, militant ideology.)
During the 2026 conflict, the Western Press was uninhibited in its narcissism: Obsessed with prices, inflation and other impacts but oblivious to the simple fact that the “easy times” of unfettered Gulf access were, historically speaking, exceptional and the exception. [The ignored lesson? Choke points attract stranglers… Just ask the Somali Pirates.]
Iran’s multi-decade strategy of “containing” Israel can be seen, in this light, as an attempt to prevent an Israel-Sunni alliance in the Persian Gulf, which would have had the potential to counter Iran’s power-grab/world-by-the-balls throttle of the Strait. [Not that the West could have stomached a Semitic center of control in the Gulf—the caricatures leap from the mind’s eye.]

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Gaza

May 9: IDF Spokesperson on the unusual strike last night in the Shati refugee camp in western Gaza City: The IDF and Shin Bet destroyed an explosives manufacturing site and a weapons storage facility belonging to the PIJ terrorist organization in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hamas & PIJ are still in business.

Gazans -- Trapped In Gaza

From the Gaza Strip border fence to the electronic ankle bracelet in Europe
In the 2018-2020 frame Gazans protested at the border fence with Israel. A colorful leader of these riots was Abu Wadi’ al-Aqsas.
After leading the clashes at the fence during 2018–2020, he left the Strip to try his luck in Europe.
In a recent video he published yesterday, he complains that the authorities in Europe want to deport him and whines about “discrimination against Palestinians, especially Gazans, in Europe.”

Someone want to send him #257 that has links to countries he can go to?

Below: One of the many clips of Abu Wadi’ al-Aqsas at the riots at the fence (could such a clip affect his chances for refugee status?):

Aid Trucks

Gazan sources report successful smuggling of 11,000 cartons of cigarettes into Gaza Estimated street value: Tens of millions of Shekels (current exchange rate: 3 Shekels per US Dollar).

Tunnels

More tunnels found and destroyed in southern Gaza. Specifically, 2+km in eastern Rafah:

May 10: East of the Yellow Line, another 2km of tunnel:

May 11: Another 4km of Hamas tunnels destroyed in the Khan Younis area:

Conflation

Before 2026, when someone would call Israel a U.S. army base, I would laugh. Israel, as a matter of national policy, never allowed any other military to have a combat presence. There were many reasons for this, but it was clear policy.

The Gaza Board of Peace base in Kiryat Gat, agreed to as part of the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire, was an unprecedented foreign political/military presence on Israeli territory.

Then came the war on Iran.

For the first time, the U.S. military put its own assets on Israeli airfields.

So many that civilian flights at Ben Gurion airport are crowded out and there isn’t room for Israel’s domestic airlines to park planes overnight.

Crazy.

IDF Dogs

Decades ago, I was told that when either a combat dog or his handler is killed in action that the partner immediately retires from combat.

I don’t know how such things are handled today. But pictures of a dog cemetery are oddly moving. This post has stories and pictures (use your browser’s translate function to read in English).

Relief Area

Alef - May 7 - Mount Gerizim, West Bank

Photographer Reut Shimoni documents the Passover ceremonies of the Samaritan community on Mount Gerizim yesterday.

Bet

Comedian Ami Kozak highlights the absurdity in the claims of many Israel critics, including Tucker Carlson, who on the one hand say that Israel is incapable of doing anything without the US and that the US decides for Israel what to do and when to attack, while also frequently asserting that Israel controls the US.

Gimmel

Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, publishes a photo of graffiti on one of the walls in Tehran that reads:
Strait of Hormuz – No entry for dogs and Americans.

(Recall that in Islam, dogs are considered ritually unclean [najis], particularly their saliva, so keeping them inside homes is off limits. C.f. the phrase “Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs” —documented in Palestinian protests and anti-Zionist slogans in the Middle East since the early 1920s)

Hey - Wikipedia Style

Referencing To The Future above:

In addition to legal medical cannabis, I was told that MDMA and Ketamine assisted PTSD therapy are above the board in Israel. (A therapist friend says: Don’t get so excited... non-pharma therapies have evolved to be just as effective. I don’t know either way!)

To Peace,

Raf