cemetery in Mashad.[46] The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center has stated that they are concerned for the safety of the Bahá'ís, and that the recent events are similar to the disappearance of 25 Bahá'í leaders in the early 1980s.[46] In May Amnesty International also announced an Action Alert about the arrests.[47][48] At year's end all seven members of the Bahá'í national leadership and a total of at least 40 Bahá'ís were imprisoned in Iran.[49] On February 17, 2009, Iranian state run news agency, IRNA, reported that the Bahá'í leaders had been officially accused of espionage.[50]

Arrest of Bahá'í leaders

In 2004, Iranian authorities demolished the shrine and grave site of Muhammad-Ali Barfurushi (Quddús), a Bábí leader.[2] In late 2005, an anti-Bahá'í media campaign was launched in Iran, asserting that theIsraeli soldiers take part in a military exercise, which includes infantry, tanks and artillery units, in the northern part of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria on June 23, 2016. / AFP / MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIRUT -- How does Israel read the Middle East these days? Few details on its national security strategy are explicitly and publicly expressed. But at the annual Herzliya Security Conference in mid-June, it was possible to read between the lines of officials' speeches and form a fairly accurate picture of the way those officials interpret the Middle East.

The gist of the Israeli Defense Forces' analysis came from Major General Herzl Halevi, the chief of the IDF's military intelligence directorate. As with most political speeches,