National Interest: Hezbollah's cyber capabilities led to 2006 win

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: National Interest
4 Nov 2022 15:58
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The National Interest reports on the growing powers of Hezbollah's cyber capabilities.

Hezbollah in defeating "Israel" during the 2006 war through the use of asymmetric psychological warfare (Social Media)

In an arcticle titled Digital Hezbollah and Political Warfare in Cyberspace, the National Intercept argued that Hezbollah was able to blend irregular warfare and high-tech psychological methods.

In doing so, the group, according to the report, turned into a "pioneer in the art of multifaceted influence strategies enabling the promotion of strategic interests while avoiding head-on combat with militarily superior adversaries."

It also noted that Hezbollah shifted its tactics from "urban streets and battlefields to the routers of their Western adversaries.”

Ron Schleifer of Ariel University, an Israeli political scientist, the article revealed, had highlighted the great success of Hezbollah in defeating "Israel," during the 2006 war, through the use of asymmetric psychological warfare. Schleifer said that Hezbollah, which was weaker than its enemy in terms of numbers, combat experience, weapons quantity, and quality, was able to "level the playfield and seize the initiative at the expense of its conventional opponent."

Furthermore, Schleifer said that Hezbollah prevailed in the “war of images” by "focusing on communication techniques and methods of message dissemination, thus securing a key advantage over its powerful adversary despite its initial lack of brute force."

The Israeli war in 2006 on #Lebanon was a resounding failure for "Israel" and a victory for the #Lebanese Resistance. This is what Israeli officials and generals admitted to back then. #JulyWar pic.twitter.com/xFMdPeMo3h
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) August 1, 2022

The article argued that "short of weapons of mass destruction, Hezbollah relied on weapons of mass persuasion to emerge as the virtual winner of the Second Lebanon War," also saying that Hezbollah, at the time, "benefited from a powerful psychological warfare system overseen by a psywar unit specifically dedicated to the diffusion of doctrinal and symbolic imagery."

The piece's author, Pierre Pahlavi, cited the spokesperson for the Israeli army who had confessed that Hezbollah's special unit "enjoyed irrefutable expertise in the art of acting on the morale of key segments of local, regional, and international public opinions."

In conclusion, Pahlavi argued that "Hezbollah’s information-enabled capabilities have come to represent a growing “Quiet Force” which increasingly weighs in the international balance of soft power."