WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | 2014 political forecast.

Obama will cut whatever deals necessary to postpone Iran’s nuclear bomb production until after he leaves office.

David Weinberg

Successful Arrow 3 missile interceptor trial carried out – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Second interceptor test was conducted Friday morning from Palmachim IAF base. System is designed to reinforce Israel’s protective layer against long-ranged missile threats

Yoav Zitun

Another successful trial of the Arrow 3 interceptor was carried out at 8 am Friday morning. It was the interceptor’s second flight test and it was conducted within a trials field in the Palmachim Air Force base.

The main advantage of the Arrow 3 interceptor is in its ability to perform a change of flight direction while flying towards long-ranged target missiles.

The test was performed jointly by the Israeli Defense Ministry and the American Missile Defense Agency.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the security establishment for its successful trial of the Arrow 3 system, “a trial that results from American-Israeli cooperation.”

Netanyahu, who met with US Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Barrasso, added: “We will continue developing the means to protect the citizens of Israel and to secure the future of the state of Israel.”

Among those who closely followed the flight trial were Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) CEO Joseph Weiss, IAI’s Malam factory workers who produced the missile and IAI’s Elta company workers who created the system’s radar system Green Pine.

The trial tested the capabilities and performance of the new Arrow 3 interceptor, which is considered innovative and evolutionary among worldwide interceptors. These capabilities will allow the existing operational Arrow system components to more effectively deal with future threats on the State of Israel.

Arrow 3 trial (Photo: Defense Ministry)

The interceptor was successfully launched and performed all flight phases in the atmosphere and space, according to plan and pre-defined trial objectives. The Arrow 3 system is a central part in the multi-layered defense system, which is designed and led by the Defense Ministry.

‘Israeli operational milestone’

The multi-layered system includes four levels of defense: Iron Dome (operational), Magic Wand (in development), Arrow 2 (operational) and Arrow 3 (in development).

The Defense Ministry said: “The trial’s success is an important milestone in the operational capability of the State of Israel to protect itself against expected threats in the region. It is another trial in the development process, which will be continued in the next few years.” It was further added that in the future, additional trials will be conducted prior to the operation service of the system.

The main contractor for the development of the Arrow weapons and interception system is the IAI’s Malam, which work in cooperation with Beoing.

Last February, a first successful trial of the Arrow 3 system was carried out. Within the previous trial, the missile was launched from the Palmachin base towards the Mediterranean Sea, stayed in mid-air for six minutes and at its peak crossed the atmosphere and opened its second rocket engine.

Arrow 3 is the Israeli solution to intercepting long-ranged missiles that exit the atmosphere. The improved missile will be able to stand a future scenario of Iranian launch of a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead.

The Arrow 3 missile is not intended for intercepting Syrian Scud missiles. In order to deal with that threat, Arrow 2 batteries were deployed in central and northern Israel.

Hezbollah moved advanced antiship missile systems into Lebanon, U.S. officials say – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz.

Iran-backed organization smuggling powerful guided-missile systems piece by piece from Syria in order to evade secretive Israeli air campaign designed to stop them, U.S. officials say.

By Barak Ravid | Jan. 3, 2014 | 7:45 AM

The P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missile.

U.S. officials believe members of Hezbollah, the militant group backed by Iran, are smuggling advanced guided-missile systems into Lebanon from Syria piece by piece to evade a secretive Israeli air campaign designed to stop them.

Some components of a powerful antiship missile system have already been moved to Lebanon, according to previously undisclosed intelligence, while other systems that could target Israeli aircraft, ships and bases are being stored in expanded weapons depots under Hezbollah control in Syria, say current and former U.S. officials.

U.S. and Israeli officials say the airstrikes have stopped shipments of ground-to-air SA-17 antiaircraft weapons and ground-to-ground Fateh-110 rockets to Hezbollah locations in Lebanon. Some originated from Iran, others from Syria itself.

Nonetheless, as many as 12 antiship guided-missile systems may now be in Hezbollah’s possession inside Syria, according to U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence. Israel targeted those Russian-made systems in July and again in October with mixed results, according to U.S. damage assessments.

The U.S. believes Hezbollah has smuggled at least some components from those systems into Lebanon within the past year, including supersonic Yakhont rockets, but that it doesn’t yet have all the parts needed there. “To make it lethal, a system needs to be complete,” said a senior defense official.

On July 5, Israel targeted some of the Yakhonts at a Syrian base outside the coastal city of Latakia. Afterward, Israeli and U.S. spy satellites saw something unexpected. Ground forces destroyed military equipment at the bombing site to try to trick Israel into believing it had successfully taken out the launchers, officials briefed on the intelligence say.

A U.S. damage assessment concluded that Israel had taken out only part of its target, and that the Yakhont missiles and launchers appeared to have been moved out of the line of fire. On October 30, Israel targeted them again, U.S. officials said.

Israeli officials have told their U.S. counterparts that the strikes damaged some Yakhont components, while others are stuck in warehouses in Syria.

“We don’t think they have all the components in Lebanon to have a complete system,” said a senior U.S. defense official.

U.S. defense officials said they believe Hezbollah has tried to throw off Israel’s high-tech hunt by switching off and on communications and power networks along the border.

Hezbollah Moving Long-Range Missiles From Syria to Lebanon, an Analyst Says – NYTimes.com.

By ANNE BARNARD and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: January 2, 2014

The analyst, Ronen Bergman, who has close contacts with Israeli intelligence officials, said Thursday that despite Israel’s undeclared campaign of airstrikes in Syria to stop new deliveries, most of the long-range surface-to-surface missiles given to Hezbollah by its allies Iran and Syria have been disassembled and moved to Lebanon.

American intelligence analysts have also concluded that members of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, are smuggling components of advanced Russian-made antiship missile systems piecemeal into Lebanon from war-stricken Syria to avoid an Israeli air campaign, a United States official said Thursday.

As many as 12 Russian-made antiship cruise missile systems may now be in Hezbollah’s possession inside Syria, according to the American official, who said that the organization had smuggled at least some components from those systems into Lebanon within the past year, but that it did not yet have all the parts needed there. The transfers were first reported Thursday night by The Wall Street Journal.

Hezbollah, which is also Lebanon’s strongest political party, has a network of bases that were built inside Syria, near the border with Lebanon, to give the group strategic depth and to store the missiles, Mr. Bergman said. But with a nearly three-year insurgency threatening President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, an ally of Hezbollah, keeping the missiles in Syria is no longer as secure, Mr. Bergman said.

The missiles being moved, he said, include Scud D’s, shorter-range Scud C’s, medium-range Fateh rockets that were made in Iran, Fajr rockets and antiaircraft weapons that are fired from the shoulder.

Israel has struck inside Syria at least five times in 2013, seeking to destroy weapons systems bound for Hezbollah.

Israel carried out an air attack in Syria in July that targeted advanced Yakhont antiship cruise missiles, which could threaten Israeli naval forces. American analysts later determined that the strikes did not destroy all the missiles systems.

In addition to targeting the Yakhont missiles, Israel carried out an airstrike in late January 2013 aimed at another system provided by Russia: a convoy of SA-17 surface-to-air missiles that Israeli officials believed were destined for Hezbollah.

In May 2013, Israeli warplanes conducted two days of airstrikes that targeted, among other things, a shipment of Fateh-110 missiles — mobile surface-to-surface missiles that had been provided by Iran and flown to Damascus, Syria, on transport planes that passed through Iraqi airspace.

Israel is concerned that Hezbollah not acquire what it considers game-changing strategic weapons during the Syria chaos.

Mr. Bergman said that on the first day of the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, the chief of the intelligence agency Mossad at the time, Meir Dagan, advised the government not to start an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon without first hitting the militia’s bases in Syria, which were built on the strategy that Israel would not dare to strike Syria. The bases were believed to contain much of Hezbollah’s long-range missile capability, Mr. Bergman said.

Mr. Bergman’s account corroborated one given by a Syrian military officer in December 2012, at a time when rebels seemed to have momentum in their advances on Damascus.

The officer, who spoke over Skype from Damascus, said he no longer supported the government and wanted to defect but was waiting for the right moment, in the meantime acting as an informant for the rebels. He said government forces were dismantling strategic weapons and sending them to two locations “for safekeeping”: the coastal province of Tartus that the government holds and south Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway.

The weapons, he said, were being sent in tractor-trailers with special coolers. The officer said his information came from another officer who was loyal to the government and with whom he had close relations, and from his own limited observations of the trucks being used to move the weapons.

After several contacts, the officer could no longer be reached, and the information could not be verified.

IAF strikes Gaza in response to rocket fire | The Times of Israel.

After rocket explodes in southern Israel, rocket launchers targeted in north of strip

By Times of Israel staff January 3, 2014, 12:52 am

Illustrative photo of IAF F-15s flying in formation. (photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)

Arms cache found at Prague home of dead Palestinian envoy | The Times of Israel.

( Just another “work accident.” Guess who the explosives were meant for? – JW )

Illegal arsenal contained enough weapons for 10 men; Palestinians change story about safe in explosion which killed Jamel al-Jamal Wednesday

By Times of Israel staff January 2, 2014, 5:29 pm

A file photo of Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic Jamal Al Jamal, who was killed in an explosion in his residence in Prague-Suchdol, Thursday, January 1, 2014 (photo credit: AP/CTK, Krumphanzl Michal)

A large, illegal weapons stockpile was found Thursday at the home of the Palestinian ambassador in Prague, Jamel al-Jamal, Czech media reported, a day after al-Jamal was killed in an explosion there.

Respekt, a Czech weekly newspaper, reported that the arsenal was enough to arm a unit of ten men.

Czech police spokeswoman Andrea Zoulova confirmed that arms had been found in the ambassador’s residence, which is located within a newly constructed Palestinian diplomatic mission in the city.

Channel 2 News reported that the stockpile included heavy firearms, that it was held illegally, and that its existence had not been previously known to the Czech authorities.

Reuters quoted an unnamed Palestinian official claiming that the mission’s staff had submitted the weapons to Czech authorities. He said they had been retrieved from an old sack, untouched since the era of the Cold War. But Prague police chief Martin Vondrasek told local radio that the weapons “have not gone through a registration process in the Czech Republic.”

Al-Jamal, 56, was killed Wednesday when a safe at his home exploded. He and his wife were at home at the time of the safe’s explosion, according to Palestinian Embassy spokesman Nabil El-Fahel. Al-Jamal was seriously injured and rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short while later.

Policemen observe the situation near the residence, back, of Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic Jamal Al Jamal, who was killed in an explosion in a diplomatic flat in Prague-Suchdol, Wednesday, January 1, 2014 (photo credit: AP/CTK, Katerina Sulova)

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki said no foul play was suspected, and claimed that the safe had been left untouched for more than 20 years.

Later, however, El-Fahel told Czech radio that the safe had been in regular use. ”[The safe] was used on a daily basis at the embassy and it was opened and closed almost every day,” the embassy spokesman said.

The safe was recently moved from the old embassy building, Malki had claimed, adding that it had come from a building that used to house the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s offices in the 1980s. “The ambassador decided to open it. After he opened it, apparently something happened inside (the safe) and went off,” Malki said.

Al-Jamal was born in 1957, in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp. His family is originally from Jaffa in what is now Israel.

He joined Fatah in 1975. In 1979, he was appointed deputy ambassador in Bulgaria.

Starting in 1984, he served as a diplomat in Prague, eventually as acting ambassador. From 2005-2013, he served as consul general in Alexandria, Egypt.

In October 2013, he was appointed ambassador in Prague.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

IDF barely ready for 2014 – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Analysis: ‘Jihadist tsunami’ on Israel’s borders, Hamas’ underground system, renewed threat to strike Iran and possible violent conflict this summer are just some of challenges facing Israeli army in coming year

The second half of next year, it seems, will be a challenging period. We’ll have to deal with the consequences of political-diplomatic processes which will reach maturity towards June 2014. Unfortunately, it’s reasonable to assume that most will end in failure or in an unstable compromise hiding the seeds of the next conflict.

The negotiators will of course market the unsatisfactory results as “a small step forward,” as a stage in a long road, but the implications are clear – the second half of 2014 will be an explosive period filled with dilemmas.

The forecast: A quiet winter, a tense spring and a summer which could be stormy.

The global framework for the Middle Eastern processes will not be much different. The Barack Obama administration, despite criticism, will continue running a compromising foreign policy zigzagging between a desire to implement supreme principles and utilitarian pragmatism. The result: A significant erosion in the United States’ status as a leading and influential power in the international and Middle Eastern arena.

Russia will continue its neo-imperial policy, taking advantage of the conflicts and tensions as it is doing in Syria now. Vladimir Putin will gain prestige and make a profit from weapon sales but won’t even get close to the status the US still enjoys in the region.

The European Union will continue focusing its efforts on getting out of the economic crisis hitting its countries, but at the same time will not let go of its active involvement in the affairs of the Middle East and Africa.

China’s activity here will be based almost only on its economic interests, while in Asia it will act aggressively out of clear nationalistic motives – which are already raising heavy concerns among its neighbors. Especially in Japan, which has launched an accelerated armament process.

Putin, Assad, Rohani and Obama (Photo: AP)

The Middle Eastern processes will take place within this framework: US-brokered Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on a peace agreement; negotiations between Iran and world powers over dismantling or “turning back” the military nuclear program in exchange for lifting the sanctions; disarming Syria of its chemical weapons and destroying them; an international conference in Geneva in the presence of the fighting parties, aiming to put an end to the bloodshed in Syria; the rise in power of the al-Qaeda-inspired jihadist Islam at the expense of the political Islam like the Muslim Brotherhood; the new Egyptian regime’s effort to move to normalcy and a democratic civilian regime including the approval of a constitution, parliament elections and presidential elections; as well as the internal battles in Turkey between the supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his opponents, which will reach their peak in the municipal elections this spring.

Potential for violent conflict

The dilemmas which will challenge all of us this year are led by two diplomatic issues which also have the potential of turning into a violent conflict in the summer: The Palestinian issue and the Iranian nuclear issue.

The current effort to reach an Israeli-Palestinian agreement is quickly approaching a crossroad which will require decision making. Israel is facing three options which each carry a painful price:

1. An agreement on a permanent settlement which will be carried out in stages based on the 1967 borders with land exchanges (including dividing Jerusalem). This will force Netanyahu not only to make painful, emotional territorial concessions, but also to dissolve and rebuild his coalition.
2. Netanyahu will approve the framework agreement – “the guidelines for continuing the negotiations” – which Kerry will present as early as this week in Jerusalem and Ramallah. If Abbas approves it too, the negotiations will continue beyond April.
3. The sides will reject the framework agreement presented by Kerry, which will lead to the failure of the negotiations in the spring. Such an event will most likely lead to Israel’s isolation, an international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, a growing flow of boycotts and international sanctions, and a violent unrest in the territories.

It’s safe to assume already that Netanyahu and the cabinet will choose the second option.

Arak reactor which may produce plutonium for a bomb (Photo: Getty Images)

The second dilemma has to do with Iran. It’s already clear to Western intelligence communities that Tehran, despite its smile offensive, has not given up on its intention to become a nuclear threshold country which can produce a reliable nuclear explosive device within several weeks.

Moreover, President Rohani and his camp are facing tough opposition to their policy from the Revolutionary Guards and the conservative Ayatollahs. This can be seen in the Iranian foot dragging in the current preliminary negotiations on the implementation of the interim agreement signed in Geneva in November.

But the real test will be in June: If a permanent agreement is even signed between the powers and Iran, and if it is – what will be its nature.

It’s reasonable to assume that Israel will not be satisfied and will not receive the minimum it is demanding: Setting Iran’s military nuclear program at least two years back. In such a situation Netanyahu, Ya’alon and Lieberman, and perhaps the other cabinet ministers as well, will face quite a difficult dilemma: Accepting the outcome and a gradual easement of the sanctions as the lesser of two evils, or launching an open political conflict with the world powers and the US president and administration.

The conflict will also require recruiting Israel’s friends in the Congress against their president and may also entail a renewed threat of a military strike on the nuclear facilities. Neither side will benefit from such a conflict, especially not Israel which is risking losing defense aid and public support in the US, and a war, if Netanyahu decides on a military operation. Yes, as far as Israel is concerned the military option exists and can be expected to be put on the table again in June.

IAF jets. Military option to make a comeback? (Photo: AFP)

In the national security area, alongside “old” and known challenges, the security forces will be dealing with some new challenges in the coming year.

1. A jihadist tsunami

The IDF and intelligence community must prepare an intelligence and operational infrastructure and develop fighting methods which will allow them to deal with a “jihadist tsunami” piling up on Israel’s borders, mainly in Syria.

We are talking about fanatic Salafi Sunnis operating as part of al-Qaeda or inspired by al-Qaeda, who are succeeding in laying their hands on huge amounts of modern weapons from the depositories of the Syrian army which Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic fronts have taken control of, and on Libyan weapons which keep flowing into the hands of Salafi groups operating in Sinai and Gaza.

The Israeli intelligence community is mainly concerned about Jabhat al-Nusra, which is active in Syria and includes some 10,000 motivated and experienced fighters, including about 1,000 foreigners from Europe and Asia. This is the biggest fighting system directly affiliated with al-Qaeda. If and when its people take over Syria, for example, they will direct their full fanatic passion and the weapons they have accumulated against us, in a way which will make us long for Hezbollah. The Americans, and mainly the Europeans, are also concerned about the al-Qaeda base which has taken its place on their doorstep.

Al-Qaeda fighters’ course in Syria (Photo: Reuters)

2. Israel no longer making an impression

A second challenge is dealing with the “terror without an address.” Not only Judea and Samaria, but also in Gaza and the Lebanon and Syria borders, have seen more cases of terror attacks of all types this year, from murder and kidnapping to rocket fire, which no one has taken responsibility for. Worse, the terrorists did not leave an “intelligence signature,” preventing the Shin Bet and IDF from thwarting or punishing after the attack in a way which would deter additional “lone” perpetrators.

With the absence of organizations claiming responsibility or a clear identification, Israel is using a worn-out pattern of operation which is no longer impressing anyone and is inefficient, according to which whoever controls the area the terror attack came out of is responsible for it.

According to this worn-out mantra, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government are responsible for any incident of fire from Lebanon, even if it’s clear that whoever launched the Katyusha rockets did it in order to get them into trouble. The same applies to Hamas in Gaza. The IDF’s retaliatory artillery fire or air strikes have no effect and sometimes even act as a boomerang against us and encourage revenge attacks.

This situation requires the IDF and intelligence community to engage in creative thinking: How to thwart and mainly how to deter the terrorists without an address, without getting into a wide-scale operation which will lead to a major flare-up.

3. The underground

A third new challenge is what the IDF calls “the underground”: A system which includes attack, fighting and rocket launching tunnels which Hamas has prepared ahead of the next conflict, on the Gaza border and within the Strip. There are signs that Hezbollah is also going underground.

The Southern Command is mainly concerned about the attack tunnels, through which Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are planning to smuggle fighters into our territory in order to storm communities and posts near the fence, kidnap and carry out mass killings. Southern Command chief Sami Turgeman is not the only one losing sleep over this threat. So is the entire General Staff, which is working vigorously to find a answer.

Terror tunnel unearthed on Gaza border (Photo: EPA)

4. Winning from the sea

A fourth challenge is building an ability for the Navy to participate in the land fight as an important factor. Until now, the Navy has mainly served as a defender of the coasts and sails to and from Israel. Intensive work is now taking place to allow Navy vessels to hit targets on the ground with masses of accurate fire and help field units with other forms of battle.

5. Where is the money?

The real challenge Chief of Staff Benny Gantz will have to deal with in the fourth year of his term (which begins next month) is preserving the IDF’s preparedness and competence within the limits of the budget he has received.

Reserve units which do not belong to the first attacking ranks of the field command will not be practicing in the coming year; very few reservists will engage in operational activity in the territories and along the borders, and all the burden will fall on the soldiers of the regular brigades’ fighters, who will engage in nine months of operational activity. They will be left with very little time for training and maintaining their fitness. The stock of arms and spare parts will also face erosion.

Head of the IDF’s Planning Directorate, Major General Nimrod Shefer, is saying openly that 2014 will be a year of minimum preparedness. The chief of staff has taken quite a significant but calculated risk here in light of the budget cuts forced on him in the middle of the year and in light of the government’s commitment that starting in 2005, the IDF budget will resume its growth.

The absurdity is that the government has in fact already canceled the defense budget cut for 2014 because this year’s deficit was smaller than expected. But the army, which has sent home 1,000 career soldiers in the past two months, did not receive an addition of one shekel for training or equipment.

It turns out that most of the money returned to the defense budget disappeared into the salary, pension and rehabilitation (disabled soldiers and bereaved families) clauses; the defense industries received advance payments too. Who has been left with nothing? That’s right, the army and reserve forces. We have already been through all this: Remember the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006? The summer of 2014 is just around the corner.