The past year has not been a bad one for Israel’s national security. The wave of individual terror attacks, which emerged in October 2015, continued to die down. The “battles between the wars” conducted secretly by Israel against developments in the Middle East that threaten its security have been largely successful. US President Donald Trump entered the White House and started to make good on his pro-Israeli promises. On the “negative” side is the end of the war in Syria, with a clear victory of the Shiite axis.

One dilemma of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) — which is worse, Iran or the Islamic State (IS) — has long since been decided. (This dilemma was discussed in several earlier Al-Monitor articles.) Now there is a consensus among the Israeli security experts that Iran poses more dangers to Israel and the region than the expansion of IS. “IS was a passing fad,” a senior Israeli security source told Al-Monitor recently on condition of anonymity.

“Iran is a powerful system, with a strong economy, much influence, culture, science, academia and human resources and the ability to activate these resources. Iran today pulls all the terror-strings in the region,” the source said. “Ever since the war in Syria started to die down, Iran also began to oversee Sunni terror and send millions of dollars to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

Israeli pundits estimate that the Iranians have about 200,000 Shiite fighters on their payroll in the area between Iran and the Mediterranean Sea. These fighters are Hezbollah men or are part of militias of the Shiites, Houthis or other groups affiliated with this terror network.