Citing Iran and its proxy terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, as the greatest existential threats to Israel, former Shin Bet head and current chairman of the Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee, Avi Dichter, said the Middle East is undergoing “tectonic movements. We used to have three enemy countries: Syria, Jordan and Egypt,” said Dichter during a recent international press briefing. “We signed a peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan, and today we have four enemy countries – Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, which has an army of terrorists, and Iran, an enemy state.” While Israel has historically engendered a robust level of deterrence against hostile neighbors by winning several damaging wars, he contended that a recently empowered Iran, aided by its allies, now poses the most imminent danger to Israel’s security. “I think that we all understand that Iran learned that the best way to gain support among the Arab countries in general, and the Arab people in particular, is by creating hatred, or launching attacks against Israel,” he said. “They know that directly attacking Israel is very complicated. They have seen that it is a lot easier to do it by proxy.” (J.Post)