Israel's new IDF chiefs must take next prospective war with Hezbollah onto enemy ground - http://www.debka.com/article/24279/Israel's-new-IDF-chiefs-must-take-next-prospective-war-with-Hizballah-onto-enemy-ground
In Israel's Defensive Edge campaign that wound down three months ago, its defense forces under Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and his deputy and successor Maj. Gen. Gady Eizenkott were found wanting by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He found they lacked the operational and tactical capabilities needed for winning the far more extensive conflicts with Iran and Hezbollah which, according to military intelligence forecasts, confront Israel in the spring.
Compared with Hezbollah, the IDF appeared under-prepared for taking the fight deep inside its foe's territory. Netanyahu therefore preferred Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, 52, to lead Israel's armed forces in the contests ahead. He accordingly dragged out his confirmation of Eizenkott, 54 and father of five, as Israel's 21st chief of staff as of next February out of political considerations, in deference to Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and the army hierarchy. They compromised by approving Golan, former OC Northern Command, as Deputy Chief of Staff.
It was Golan who on Oct. 29 issued a public warning of the preparations Iran's Lebanese surrogate, the Shiite Hezbollah was putting in place for war against Israel - possibly as soon as April 2015. Gen. Golan had this to say. "We have no positive information that there are tunnels... That said, the idea of going below ground is not foreign to Lebanon and is not foreign to Hezbollah. And so we have to suppose as a working assumption that there are tunnels [leading under the border into Israel]. They have to be looked for and prepared for," said the Israeli general.
debkafile's sources cite Israelis living near the Lebanese border as reporting mysterious noises of digging and blasting under their feet in the last six months.
Confirmation that Hezbollah plans to fight Israel on the Jewish state's home ground came from the horse's mouth on Nov. 4, when Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah shouted: "You should close all your airports and ports, because there is no place... in the land of occupied Palestine that the resistance's rockets cannot reach."
Tehran later confirmed that Hezbollah had been supplied with the new Iranian surface rockets, Fatah the Conqueror, which are fitted with warheads weighing half a ton, have a range of 350 km and a speed of 1.5 km per second.
As part of these preparations, our military and intelligence sources disclose that Hezbollah troops have begun peeling away from the Syrian military units fighting to repulse rebel forces advancing from the South and threatening bases defending southern Damascus. These rebels are backed by the US and more discreetly by Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Hezbollah has separated its units from the Syrian conflict for two objectives:
1. To regroup in the Syrian-Lebanese border Qalamoun mountain region, where its strategists and those of Iran's Revolutionary Guards forecast the next clashes will erupt between Hezbollah and Israel and Hezbollah and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - ISIS.
2. To transform its Qalamoun bases into launching pads for shooting rockets against Israel from Syrian soil.
With its Qalamoun base of operations in place, Hezbollah is getting set for a major all-out war that could involve Iran, the Syrian army, Al Qaeda and ISIS and Hamas in Gaza - or a running conflict that occurs as a series of drawn-out skirmishes against Israel erupting from diverse quarters.
Moscow took a hand in developing this blueprint and augmenting its backing for Syrian ruler Bashar Assad with a pledge, announced Sunday, Nov. 30, to let Damascus have advanced S-300 anti-air missiles systems, as well as other weaponry needed by his army to throw back the Syrian rebel advance on the capital.
Netanyahu, while himself restraining generals Benny Gantz and Gady Eizenkott from deep incursions into the Gaza Strip in the recent conflict, nevertheless judged them short of the level of assertiveness and scope for taking on the conflicts predicted for the coming year. He does attribute to Gen. Golan the required qualities for fighting a lightening war deep inside enemy territory. He therefore insisted on having Golan appointed as Deputy C-of-S in the belief that the Eizenkott-Golan duo would offer an assertive military leadership capable of rapid offensive tactics.
Golan is in line for the top slot when Eizenkott retires in 2018.
However, this is the second time that the prime minister has backed down on his choice of chief of staff under political heat - the first was over Gen. Yoav Galant in 2010. This may also be a measure of his own assertiveness against political pressure.
Arabs to push for UN Security Council resolution on Palestinian state - http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4597482,00.html
Arab League foreign ministers agreed on Saturday to formally present a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council that will set a timeframe for the creation of a Palestinian state.
The ministers set up a committee comprised of Kuwait, Mauritania, Jordan and Arab League chief Nabil al-Araby to begin seeking international backing for the resolution, they said in their closing statement.
The statement did not specify when the resolution would be presented but diplomatic sources have said Jordan, an Arab member in the Security Council, could present the draft within days.
In October, the Palestinians informally shared a draft resolution with Arab states and some council members, calling for an Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the West Bank by November 2016.
The text was not formally circulated to the full 15-nation Security Council, a move that can only be done by a council member. It was unclear at the time if it would be put to a vote.
Arab states have already given their blessings to the idea of presenting a resolution to the Security Council but had yet to agree a finalized draft and set a date to present it.
Speaking at the opening of an Arab League session in Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the resolution would be discussed "in order to deliver it to the Security Council."
Abbas determined that "the American mediation has failed" and threatened to "stop the security coordination with Israel if real negotiations don't take place."
The Palestinian president said he was "willing to recognize the State of Israel, but under no circumstance willing to recognize a Jewish state."
He went on to say that he demanded US Secretary of State John Kerry "to formulate a resolution draft to the UN Security Council that will press Israel to stop settlement construction."
Arab League chief Nabil al-Araby appeared to suggest that the final draft would be endorsed and sent to a vote.
"It is natural that Palestine is heading to the UN Security Council to issue a resolution setting a deadline for ending the occupation," he said.
Palestinians seek statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as their capital - lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israel accepts the idea of a "two-state solution" of an independent and democratic Palestinian state living alongside Israel, but has not accepted the 1967 borders as the basis for final negotiations, citing security and other concerns.
The latest round of efforts to forge a two-state solution collapsed in April and relations between the two sides have worsened since a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip this summer. Palestinians have since said they see little choice but to push unilaterally for statehood.
Diplomats have said that France, Britain and Germany are preparing a separate text to end the conflict, which could be accelerated if the Palestinian draft is put forward.
France warned on Friday it would recognize a Palestinian state if a final international effort to overcome the impasse between Israelis and Palestinians failed.
French parliamentarians will hold a symbolic vote on December 2 on whether the French government should recognize Palestine as a state, after similar moves in Sweden, Britain, Ireland and Spain.
http://rt.com/news/210099-abbas-recognize-israel-state/
Palestinians will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, President Mahmoud Abbas said at an emergency session of the Arab League, hot on the heels of PM Benjamin Netanyahu's approving the disputed bill to enshrine Israel's status as such.
Speaking to leaders of the Arab world in Cairo, the Palestinian leader stated: "We will never recognize the Jewishness of the state of Israel."
The statement reported by Israel's Channel 10 followed warnings that if the United Nations fails to adopt a resolution that would recognize Palestinian statehood and make Israel cease building settlements on Palestinian land, the Palestinian Authority will go ahead with seeking membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC), with the intention of prosecuting.
Now Abbas is threatening all security relations with Israel will be cut unless peace negotiations that collapsed in April are revived. The Arab foreign ministers in Cairo are behind him in seeking Israel's withdrawal beyond the pre-1967 lines, as well as the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Israel has been refusing any negotiations lately on the grounds that Abbas will not disassociate himself from the Hamas militant group in a Palestinian unity government.
Calling it an "apartheid state," Abbas, for his part, accused Israel of trying to set up a Jewish-only state, with things like Jewish-only buses, building settlements in the West Bank, as well as the aforementioned proposal for a Jewish state.
"Return to negotiations is possible if Israel agrees to a full freeze of settlement [construction], including Jerusalem, release of the fourth group of long-term prisoners, and setting a timetable for negotiations, which will begin with setting borders," he said on Saturday.
In August, Palestine announced it would be asking the UN Security Council for a "timetable" for Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, warning that denying the request would end in them looking to put Israel on trial for the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians. In October, it proposed a timeline of November 2016.
"It's impossible for us to wait any longer, because Israel continues its aggression and expropriation of lands and setting facts on the ground by continuing to build settlements," Abbas declared. "The government of Israel doesn't want, for internal reasons, to define its borders and we can't continue with this situation."
The Palestinian leader is expected to launch an official UN petition in the near future, with no date given at this time, pending Arab League approval. According to Channel 10, Abbas will be seeking US Secretary of State John Kerry's help in drafting the UNSC proposal.
"The situation in the [West] Bank is dangerous, and can't continue," Abbas said. "All signs point to [the fact that] the American mediation [of peace talks] failed with the end of the negotiations."
A number of European states have recently opted to grant the Palestinian state symbolic recognition. Denmark was the latest nation to hold the vote, following on from Britain and Spain, with their non-binding agreements.
France, which is working with the UN to end the conflict through a resolution, has said that "if this final effort to reach a negotiated solution fails, then France will have to do what it takes by recognizing without delay the Palestinian state."
However, Sweden went a step further in becoming the first EU member in Western Europe to officially recognize Palestine, incurring Israeli condemnation.
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