WarSclerotic

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Ukraine’s newly elected president Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday and invited him to visit Israel.

Netanyahu “congratulated him for his victory, expressed his hope to continue the good relations between our countries and invited him to visit Israel,” according to Israel’s Ambassador to Ukraine Joel Lion.

“In another phone call, Netanyahu thanked outgoing Ukrainian President Poroshenko for his friendship toward the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” he added.

Israel and Ukraine in January signed a free trade agreement as Poroshenko visited Jerusalem.

Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, left, shakes hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the signing of a free trade agreement in the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, January 21, 2019. (Jim Hollander/Pool via AP)

Zelensky, a 41-year-old comic with no political experience, was elected Sunday on promises of change but has generally stood by the Western-oriented course of defeated president Poroshenko. Zelensky hailed his victory as a sign to people in post-Soviet nations that “everything is possible,” but he also has said he wants better relations with Russia.

The leaders of the United States, the European Union, Germany and France also phoned Zelenskiy, who is Jewish, to give their congratulations.

US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said that Zelensky’s victory showed Ukraine’s “vibrant democracy” after “five years of unrelenting Russian aggression.”

“The United States maintains steadfast support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its international borders and will continue to stand with Ukraine as it undertakes essential reforms,” she said in a statement.

“We look forward to working with President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky to advance our two nations’ shared goal of a secure, prosperous, democratic and free Ukraine,” she said.

Russia has taken a wait-and-watch approach to Zelensky, with the Kremlin saying it was too early for President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him.

Moscow “respects the choice of the Ukrainian people” and will wait for concrete steps by the new Ukrainian leader before making judgments, Peskov said.

Following the victory of Zelensky, Ukraine will become the only country in the world besides Israel whose president and prime minister are both Jewish.

When Zelensky is sworn in as president, his prime minister — at least for a while and possibly until the parliamentary elections scheduled to take place sometime later this year — will be Volodymyr Groysman, a Jewish politician who was the mayor of the city of Vinnytsia.

Last year, Israel’s government singled out Ukraine as a regional trouble spot in the Israeli government’s annual report on anti-Semitism.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman gestures as he speaks at a meeting of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s supporters in Kiev, Ukraine, on January 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Poroshenko’s government greatly encouraged glorification of those troops and leaders as fighters for Ukrainian freedom who it insisted sided with Germany only in order to fight against the Russian-controlled Soviet Union.

Zelensky has said only that he personally does not favor the veneration of people like Bandera, whom he described as “a hero to some Ukrainians.” It was a markedly reserved formulation compared to the unreserved endorsement of figures like Bandera by officials under Poroshenko.

In 2016, Netanyahu canceled the Israel visit of Groysman as a consequence of Kiev voting in a favor of an anti-settlements resolution at the United Nations Security Council.

The two countries, however, later reconciled.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Monday claimed Israel’s ground forces were unprepared for a military offensive in Lebanon and the Jewish state could no longer win battles solely from the air.

In a speech, he estimated that Israel would not seek to initiate a conflict with the neighboring country, as its home front is not prepared to withstand missiles fired by Hezbollah at its major cities.

“I lean in the direction that Israel is unlikely to carry out a war on Lebanon,” mused Nasrallah, whose Iran-backed terror group last fought with Israel in 2006. “This is my personal opinion.”

“The Israelis say the home front is not ready. Any theoretical Israeli war needs a ground operation to achieve its desired goal. The era in which the air force decides the battle is over. This has become one of the military axioms in the world. If Israel starts a war, it needs a ground operation to achieve its goal for the war,” he continued.

To underline his view, the Hezbollah chief mocked the Israeli response to two rounds of rocket fire at Tel Aviv and the area in mid-March, which were not intercepted by the missile defense system Iron Dome.

“We saw how two missiles were fired by mistake from Gaza and landed in the Tel Aviv surroundings, and then another missile was shot off from Gaza and landed north of Tel Aviv; all the Israeli measures were not able to do anything,” he said.

During his speech, Nasrallah rebuffed as false a report that he had met with senior commanders and warned that the likelihood of war with Israel over the summer was high. According to the Kuwaiti report, he said Hezbollah could suffer severe casualties and he himself might be killed.

Nasrallah also condemned the United States for ending sanction waiversfor countries that purchase oil from Iran on Monday, calling it a reminder that the US “is the real enemy, the first enemy, and the biggest enemy.”

“Israel, the takfiri organizations, terrorists, murderers, and those who launch wars are nothing more than tools of the American project, aggression and tyranny,” he said.

Nasrallah’s speech came days after the new commander of the IDF’s Ground Forces said Hezbollah was still planning to carry out a surprise invasion of northern Israel, despite the recent Israeli operation to uncover and destroy an extensive network of cross-border attack tunnels dug by the militia.

Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick was tapped to lead the military’s Ground Forces in February, amid increased criticism charging that Israeli troops were not prepared for war. His comments came less than four months months after the IDF concluded its anti-tunnel operation along the Lebanese border.

Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick, head of the IDF Northern Command, in an undated photograph. (Israel Defense Forces)

“Hezbollah still has plans to invade the Galilee,” he told the Ynet news site, in an interview on Thursday, referring to entering Israeli territory through a cross-border tunnel network. “Of course, we won’t allow that to happen. We will thwart these plans.”

In December, Israel accused Hezbollah of digging cross-border tunnels into its territory from southern Lebanon and launched an operation to destroy them.

According to the army, Hezbollah had planned to use the tunnels to kidnap or kill civilians or soldiers, and to seize a slice of Israeli territory in the event of any hostilities.

The IDF did not give a total figure for the tunnels found, though it announced in January that six were destroyed during the course of the operation.

Strick also voiced support for declaring war on Lebanon as a whole in Israel’s next fight against Hezbollah.

“In the next war, it would be a mistake for us to distinguish between the state of Lebanon and Hezbollah, since Hezbollah is a political actor and part of the government,” Strick said.

In such a conflict, “if it were up to me, I would recommend declaring war on Lebanon and Hezbollah,” he said. “I have no doubt what the outcome will be… It will be a decisive victory.”

In March, recently retired IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot said that Israel came close to all-out conflict with Hezbollah during his tenure.

Israel last fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006, but tensions along the northern border have remained high. Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syria for years, to prevent weapons transfers to the Iran-backed terror group.

“The Hezbollah threat is a serious threat,” Eisenkot told the conference. “It is a strong organization that has gained experience in running large operations and wants to prepare an attack plan to conquer the Galilee and bring 5,000 fighters underground” into Israel.

The threat of war with Hezbollah had increased during the last three years, he said.