Not Your Grandfather's War: What Israel's Next Military Conflict Will Look Like

The outgoing head of the IDF's computers and communications branch outlines the army's approach to cyber warfare and dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah in future confrontations.

Amos Harel Apr 28, 2016 12:30 PM,haaretz


An Israel Defense Forces cyber war room.
An Israel Defense Forces cyber war room.IDF Spokesperson


Maj. Gen. Uzi Moscovitch, who this month concluded four and a half years as head of the Israel Defense Forces’ C4I branch – the IDF’s teleprocessing directorate – was never one for caution or diplomatic restraint. Now that he’s on discharge leave, at the age of 52, wrapping up 34 years in the army, a conversation with him can be conducted more openly. Moscovitch tells Haaretz about the place of cyber operations, defensively and offensively, in the General Staff’s current plans, and describes the next possible confrontation, as he and his colleagues see it.

“We can predict with high probability that in the next five to seven years, there will not be a war here of conventional armies, of the kind we became accustomed to in the past and which the IDF was designed to face,” Moscovitch asserts. “There are no conventional wars today: Countries are not conquered. Even great powers almost never conquer territories openly anymore. A revolution has taken place: From clashes between the great industrial armies, we have reverted to war against organizations and militia forces – even if in the case of Hezbollah, the organization has steep-trajectory firing capabilities at the level of a state, if not a great power.

“We see a similar pattern in the Gaza Strip,” he continues, “with the whole alignment of defense and steep-trajectory munitions concealed amid civilian surroundings and underground. If in the past, we were called on to cope with an enemy capable of concentrating a force and attacking powerfully on the ground, with the ability to seize territory, today we are facing dozens of smaller organizations. It’s not an existential threat, but it's become more difficult to pinpoint the enemies and deal with them.”

A different response was required for the new military reality, for which the IDF did not begin to deploy until after its relative failure vis-a-vis Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. A key feature is a change in the way intelligence is collected, and more particularly in its dissemination to the units – a development that was of great significance in Moscovitch’s realm of responsibility.

In the past few years, as a result of a process spearheaded by Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the former director of Military Intelligence (now head of Northern Command), the IDF formulated a new concept of intelligence warfare. Its main feature is rapid integration of intelligence and other information on a vast scale, from diverse sources, and then “pushing” a large part of it forward, to the combat units. MI was partly influenced by the trauma of 2006, when it emerged that not enough information was available about Hezbollah’s deployment and that an important segment of the intelligence that did exist was not transferred to the field units in time, for fear it would leak to the enemy.

The change, whose roots lie with then-Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and then-MI chief Amos Yadlin, was given great momentum under Kochavi, during the term of Benny Gantz as chief of staff, and was first put to the test in Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 war in Gaza. “From the moment that MI connects with the end units and doesn’t make do with having intelligence sit in GHQ [general headquarters], the implementation of the concept depends on teleprocessing,” Moscovitch says. “You need a teleprocessing infrastructure, information systems, the ability to integrate and filter information.”

The model is already working well, but a reverse risk is now developing, he notes. “In my view, we are flooding the company commander at the end of the chain with too much information. The same problem exists in the business world – ‘big data’ – where more information is collected than the end user can filter and handle efficiently in real time.”


Concrete wall near border with Lebanon.
Concrete wall near border with Lebanon. Noa Shpigel

Even though a clash with Hezbollah does not appear to be an immediate danger, given the Shi’ite organization’s continued involvement in the civil war in Syria, a war in Lebanon is the primary operational challenge that the IDF is preparing for.

“When you look at southern Lebanon,” says Moscovitch, “you see 150 to 170 villages in which Hezbollah has built combat systems since 2006. According to a cautious estimate, each such village has 40 to 50 areas that you will have to deal with in a war. It can no longer be the rake-up method that the IDF used in the first Lebanon war, in 1982. At that time, the chief of staff, Raful [Rafael Eitan], told division commanders: Within a week you are positioned on this-and-this line. Today, the enemy is scattered and decentralized. The fact that you have crossed the rocket-launching space with an IDF ground force doesn’t mean they will stop using that space. The old method will not reduce the threat to the Israeli civilian rear within a reasonable time. The problem is that the home front is taking punishment and bleeding, and it’s possible that a confrontation will be dual-sector [including also rocket fire from Gaza].”

Intelligence was transmitted effectively in the Gaza Strip in 2014, but the IDF suffered from other problems there: flawed operational plans, disparities in the General Staff’s fire plan, and hesitation at the senior political and military levels. Dragged into a war against Hamas, both senior echelons had difficulty deciding on the primary goal: to cripple Hamas’ rocket-launching capabilities; to destroy the organization’s tunnels (a goal that was set only after 10 days of fighting); or to end its rule (an idea to which the leadership, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu down, objected).

Moscovitch, who declines to comment on this analysis of the Gaza war – even though he is considered one of the war’s harshest critics in internal General Staff forums – maintains that the IDF will be better prepared in a future confrontation with Hezbollah, but admits that obstacles still loom. “There are thousands of targets there that we know about – we have extraordinary intelligence. Let’s say that under optimal conditions, most of the civilian population in southern Lebanon flees to the north. Even then, after a short period, you have already attacked most of the targets known to you, but rockets still continue to be fired at the civilian rear. Here you’ll need intelligence and the ability to deal rapidly with time-sensitive targets” – in other words, mobile rocket launchers or embedded launchers whose location is only revealed after rockets have been fired from them into Israel.

That, says Moscovitch, “will be the tipping point in the campaign. Intelligence will go on working, but a great deal will depend on the effectiveness of the teleprocessing systems: on the ability to transmit rapidly, in real time, information from the sensor that identifies the launcher, to intelligence, which analyzes the image, to the computer of the plane that will bomb the target. The C4I branch has been engaged with this a great deal in recent years, together with the other in-laws of the process: MI, the air force and Ground Forces Command.”

The prevailing view in Western armies is that, with regard to inter-branch capability and the real-time integration of intelligence and firepower, the IDF is at the forefront of the technology, ahead of most armies. The concluding element of that capability is related to everyday life, to what’s known as “networked IDF” – the systematic removal of blockages, which is supposed to make possible more efficient coordination between the General Staff and the various branches and units, while also saving large amounts of money that were wasted on dualities (similar capabilities that the different corps and branches created separately). Moscovitch, who presented the plan to the General Staff forum three years ago, argued that the continuation of the makeshift approach pursued by C4I for years in order to bridge parallel systems would lead the IDF to a dead end.

“The most significant development since then is that we removed some of the walls between the branches, though we haven’t toppled them completely,” Moscovitch reveals. “I can at least guarantee that the blockages that were removed will not return. In the past, it operated like a relay race, in which the baton somehow always fell near the end. For many years, each branch lay its own fiber-optics communications network, irrespective of the fact that another branch was doing the same thing a kilometer away. If a kilometer of fiber optics costs nearly 200,000 shekels [$53,000], we lost a great deal of money. Unifying the activity will save hundreds of millions of shekels and also serves military activity, such as by heightening the coordination with MI.” The close friendship between Moscovitch and Kochavi also helped advance these moves.

This means cyber warfare

The third level of the changes, and perhaps the most sensitive of them all in terms of organizational politics in the IDF, relates to the future of cyber operations. In this regard, an unavoidable dispute sprang up between Moscovitch and Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, the current MI chief, owing to the natures of their respective duties. At present, cyber warfare is divided between defensive capability, which falls under the purview of the C4I branch, and collection and attack capability, for which MI – and in particular its Unit 8200 (focusing on signals intelligence) – is responsible.

Last July, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot decided that a cyber warfare branch would be created. Because of opposition by MI, the new branch was not designated as autonomous. In the meantime, while discussions over the final format continue, the existing gulf between C4I and MI remains intact, and a cyber warfare unit headed by a brigadier general (Yaron Rozen, from the air force) was established, which is accountable to the deputy chief of staff.


Maj. Gen. Uzi Moscovitch.
Maj. Gen. Uzi Moscovitch.David Bachar

The final decision that will be made is “critical,” Moscovitch says, adding, “It’s far more important for the IDF’s future than the unification that was decided on between Ground Forces Command and the technological and logistics directorate.” Shortly before his retirement from the IDF, Moscovitch submitted four possible solutions to Eisenkot and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. He favors the fourth, most far-reaching option: an independent cyber warfare branch.

MI advocates a different proposal, in which a cyber warfare branch, headed by a major general, would be subordinate to the MI chief. Moscovitch makes no secret of his view that this proposal “would be worse than leaving things as they are. We preferred to make the move in two steps, but now it’s necessary to prepare for its completion through the establishment of an independent branch. That is obligatory given the importance of cyber operations in future wars – the first signs of which are already visible internationally.”

Without saying so explicitly, Moscovitch is apparently referring to the recent cyber attacks that international media attributed to Russia: Disconnecting Turkey from the Internet for a full day, followed by serious disruptions to the country’s banking system for three weeks, apparently in revenge for the downing of a Russian fighter jet on the Syria-Turkey border last November. Shortly afterward, on Christmas Eve, a third of Ukraine’s territory was cut off from the electrical power grid for a week – a mysterious attack that was also viewed in the context of Ukraine’s conflict with Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Israel’s future clashes with its enemies will also take place in those realms, in both defense and offense. “At present,” says Moscovitch, “when we talk about offensive cyber warfare, it’s mostly in regard to collecting intelligence. Ten years down the line, things will look different. In a world that is increasingly opposed to the use of kinetic military power [attack by firepower, and even more, offensive ground maneuvers], we will see a transition to softer patterns of the use of force. And the more technological and communications-oriented the adversary becomes, the more you can do against him.”

Moscovitch is hinting that the IDF’s ability in this realm does not lie where most Israelis might expect it to, given Israel’s branding as the “startup nation” and the admiring reports in foreign media outlets about the impact of the Stuxnet computer virus – a joint Israeli-American operation against the Iranian nuclear project a few years ago.

“Based on what I read in the media,” says Moscovitch, “when it comes to offensive capability, there is Russia, and only afterward the rest of the world. As a country that is a cyber power and has no special desire to get entangled in unnecessary wars, we need to be, and are capable of being, in a different place. Cyber operations will not be a substitute for combat in an anti-tank trench, for a tank in narrow alleys, for a pilot or for drone operators. But it can facilitate their activity and perhaps partly spare the use of military power.”

Moscovitch spent most of his IDF career – he was drafted into the Armored Corps as a combat soldier at the start of the first Lebanon war in 1982 – in the field, in armored units. He commanded a regular armored brigade in 2002’s Operation Defensive Shield, during the second intifada, and afterward, unusually, served as the commander of three armored divisions consecutively. He came to C4I on a professional basis (he’s an aeronautical engineering graduate from Haifa’s Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and also holds an MBA), but after four and a half years, it seems as if one’s perspective on the character of wars changes a little – even if the IDF is still occupied for much of the time in the pursuit of knife-carriers or in uncovering the latest armed Palestinian in Hebron or Nablus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4I_Corps

Smanjen broj napada-kako se to desilo?Komandanti sektora Judeja i Samarija govore

Broj terorističkih napada u Izraelu se značajno smanjio.Kombinacija pritiska,motivacije i dobrog menadžmenta dovela je do povećanja bezbednosti.Komandanti sektora Judeja i Smarija govore o poteškoćama i iskustvima u postizanju ovog značajnog rezultata

ynetnews.com

"The quiet isn't stable.” This is how Col. Shay Klapper, a battalion commander in the Samaria region describes the decrease in the number of terrorist attacks over the past few weeks. “When the wave is renewed, it will be at a much higher pace will be raised a few notches. It won’t return to be 13 year olds with knives," he predicts.

"This wave of terror isn't really behind us. The explosion on the bus in Jerusalem took us all back to the beginning of the 2000s.”

Col. Klapper, 40, is not alone is his evaluation. His five colleagues, also senior commanders of Judea and Samaria battalions, hold similar views. “Many measures are being undertaken at different levels, and that is what's bringing the quiet.”

Samaria commander, Col. Yariv Ben-Ezra, 40, said “The number has significantly decreased, but only for now,” he said.

 
Undoubtedly, while Hamas is continuously digging tunnels in the south, and Hezbollah has been rearming for years in the north, the most intense area for the IDF over the past few months has been in the West Bank, which large security forces and personnel resources have been forced to address.

 
Only the relative calm in recent weeks (five attacks since the beginning of April compared with 72 in October, 47 in November, 42 in December, 21 in January, 20 in February and 23 in March) enabled Yedioth Achronoth to meet with the six busiest battalion commanders in the IDF. For several hours they discussed almost everything pertaining to the wave of terror: they provided explanations for the sharp decline in terror, shared the methods which were formulated to cope with it, and did spoke candidly about the most sensitive issues such as Elior Azaria who shot to death a neutralized terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack in Hebron.

 
Heads of the Judia and Samaria Division (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
Heads of the Judia and Samaria Division (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
 
In October 2015, with the murder of the Henkin family (FIND LINK) which ignited the current wave of terror, security forces broadcast an almost helpless message. “This is a lone attack,” the security officials claimed. “We have no way of preventing a Palestinian who works in a Tel Aviv building from suddenly taking a screwdriver and stabbing people in the street because of something they read that morning on Facebook.”

 
“Very quickly at the outset of the violence we understood that we were facing a different kind of threat.” explained Col. Roman Gofma, 39, commander of the Etzion battalion.

 
“The lone terrorist is basically everything. They're the planner, the supplier of their own weapons, and the one who carries out the attack. They don’t need directives, infrastructure or intelligence. Even the weaponry which they use is the simplest there is, as simple as a vehicle used for a car-ramming attack."

 
"We began defining the problem," the colonel continued. "Until then, this problem didn't exist, and if it did, it was only on the margins. However, it became a critical threat the moment that we officially labeled them as ‘lone attackers.'”

How can an attacker be prevented from carrying out an attack?

Gofman: “We began to analyze and build an 'attacker profile' according to the attack that they carried out. Where did they come from? What age were they? What motivated them? With these criteria we began implementing comprehensive and focused action. We realized, for instance, that between 50 and 60 per cent of the attacks were not the first instances of friction between the attackers and the security forces. Many of the attackers, such as the murderer of Hadar Bukris (FIND LINK), were people who had engaged in rock throwing. Most of them had been arrested in the past. The majority had been stopped for illegally staying in Israel. We began to check the list of people who we had arrested and created a list of dangerous groups comprising young people between the ages of 15 and 25. We searched people of this age group who were previously arrested for rock throwing incidents, for being in Israel illegally or for disruption of public order and we began checking their Facebook pages.”

And when you locate them?

“We started to target them directly. We compiled a list of around 100-150 such people who matched our criteria in every village; in Beit Ummar or in Beit Fajjar for example. Those that we could arrest, we arrested. For those who we had no reason to arrest, we warned, and for others we mapped their homes - every night we went to their houses and searched them. We also exerted pressure on their families. We made it clear that if their child involves themselves in terror, the equipment they used to provide for themselves - be it farming equipment or engineering tools - would be confiscated."

 
"When we carry out these measures without stopping, every night, it has an effect," the Colonel says, continuing that "it also affects those whom we haven't visited yet. The statistics began to illustrate a decline.”

Kfir Brigade soldier on patrol in West Bank Arab village (Photo: Yoav Zeitun)

“The number of comprehensive measures done during the last few months is astonishing.” says Col. Israel Shomer, 38, from the Binyamin brigade.

“I personally, every night and including weekends, am deep in the field. We operate with the Shin Bet and with the police. In Qalandiya, Silwad. Arrests, weapon searches, inspections, warning the families of wanted suspects. With intelligence or without, we operate in every case without a break.”

Is this what causes young people who have heard incitement to stop?

“It hasn’t altered the motivation of the young people, but it did sharpen the elders’ understanding that it's worthwhile for them to exert greater pressure (on young people to not commit attacks).”

The hot map works

A few hours before the meeting took place, Col. Shomer met with all brigade officers, from the rank of platoon commander and above.” We made an evaluation of the situation. We spoke about the decline in the number of terrorist attacks in all the divisions and in the Binyamin division in particular.” he explained.

 
And what are the conclusions?

“The quality of defense has greatly improved. The method of ‘Hot mapping’ works. In places where there were soldiers, there were no attacks, or they were directed at them only and not towards civilians. That is why we began stationing soldiers in many places in the (Binyamin) area for longer periods of time. The stationing of security inflicted a great cost to the other side. It took time but they internalized that the heavy presence of soldiers in the field greatly increased the chances that they would be seriously injured or killed.”

 
“The security and civilian coordination with the Palestinian security forces is extremely significant and, of course, maintaining the differential work - there were villages that didn't support terror that not only did we not enter them, but we also gave them permits and concessions. They see these as payoffs.”

 
“Twelve terrorists for example,” Etzion commander Gofman added, “came from Sair village in two-and-a-half months. We checked into which of the clans (in the village) they belonged to and focused in on (those clans) alone. Meanwhile we provided concessions to the remainder of the clans (in the village). They (the problematic clans) quickly recognized this and stopped the people that they needed to.”

 
“Economic levers have a massive influence,” explained Hazi Nehama from the Menashe brigade (located between Jenin and Tul Karem.) “This is an extremely efficient way of sending a message. After one of the incidents a decision was taken by a major-general to close the Jalamah checkpoint for a day or two and the result was immediately felt. The authorities understood that it was worth their while to take care of the problem. The began receiving reports every day from schools of children who had not arrived to school the same morning and even located Palestinian policemen who had conducted preliminary checks before they (potential terrorists) arrived at the checkpoints. According to them (the Palestinian Security Services), they caught dozens of youths who had arrived with the intention of carrying out an attack.”

 
“One day,” Klapper reminded, “the governor of Nablus publicly called on parents to protect their children, and declared that in all of the (security) incidents, they (the perpatrators) are injured or killed. This was in a city home to 200,000 Palestinians. When it's closed off because of a terror attack, it cannot exist.”

 
Efriam Battalion Commander, Colonel Roi Strait gave the example of the village of Budrus north of Ramallah. “This small village with about 2,500 residents caused a lot of problems,” he said. “But the moment that we began to pave a road in the center of the town, the mayor and the principal of a school came and stopped a demonstration that had erupted.”

Does the demolition of terrorists’ homes have any influence?

“This is part of the warning process,” Klapper replied. “We have to establish a situation in which a terrorist who leaves Hebron, Nablus or Jenin knows that even if they're prepared to die, they'll lose something else besides their lives. Two weeks ago I toured all of the homes that we demolished, and none of them were renovated. We are talking about renovation, collection of money, but it isn’t pleasant to have your home destroyed. Home demolition is a tool which has been proven to be effective.”

 
“This is one step which influences others and it is a good thing in our opinion,” agreed Col. Shomer.

The IDF DNA

Shomer knows the importance of deterrence all too well. Ten months ago he almost experienced terror firsthand when he stumbled into a Palestinian ambush whereby Palestinians threw boulders at his vehicle in the Qalandiya area. The military courts recently closed the investigation against him after he shot and killed one of the rock throwers.

 
“That was during Ramadan on a Friday at 06:30, when I opened the checkpoint in order to allow Palestinians to pray,” he recalled. “We drove in a convoy of three military vehicles and found that they set up an ambush. My jeep was struck by a boulder at point blank range on the front windshield which got smashed. The jeep that was travelling in front of me got stuck, and the rocks continued to fly at us. I felt like I was in mortal danger. I knew that there was no choice. I enacted the Rules of Engagement procedures towards those throwing the boulders, and one of them was mortally wounded."

Weren't you afraid of getting in trouble for firing your weapon?

“When they're waiting for you at 06:30am in an ambush and with another two hurling rocks at you from point blank range, I expect every IDF soldier to respond. The Rules of Engagement aren't merely an option - they're obligated to respond. You can’t just stand there when you're in a situation in which you know that if you don’t respond, it's you or them. I'm extremely satisfied with how I reacted. Immediately after I shot him we called the Red Crescent to tend to him.” Despite this, the incident was investigated.

 
“I was appropriately investigated" the Colonel said. "It was legitimate and a good thing that they looked into it. That's procedure.

 
He continued saying "I'm proud of the fact that despite the fact that I'm a colonel, my case was checked in exactly the same way as other regular soldiers are checked. Obviously the investigations of the military criminal investigation division (CID) aren't pleasant, but my belief in the prevailing of justice and the support which I received outweighed the unpleasantness.”

The closure of the case against you was announced shortly before the arrest of Elior Azaria, the soldier who shot a neutralized terrorist in Hebron.

“I don’t think that there was any connection whatsoever between the Hebron soldier’s case and timing of the announcement about the conclusion of the case against me.”

DF Pillbox in the West Bank (Photo: Yoav Zeitun)
 

Do you think that the investigative procedures you, as a battalion commander, underwent will make others hesitate before they shoot?

“I don’t believe so and we see this in practice. They continue to respond and respond professionally.”

“In the moment you don’t hesitate,” Gofman concurred. “I was an Operations Branch officer in Division 36 during Operation Protective Edge, and during the operation, I saw several commanders taking decisions which fell well outside the Rules of Engagement which we delineated before the operation. For example, artillery fire in built-up areas. At the same time, in operational reality, they didn’t hesitate to act even if they knew that later they would have to explain their actions. The prospect of investigation didn't influence the commanders’ decisions to deviate from the rules when the time came. The investigations that come afterward are positive things. They are necessary for balance. Our army is proactive, offensive and active י. This is our DNA, and it is a good and important that there are limits within the military system.

Many say that Elior Azaria’s actions in Hebron were also justified.
“The incident in Hebron has to be divided into two,” says Col. Ben-Ezra, commander of the Hebron battalion. “From an operational perspective it was a good thing. Two soldiers thwarted an attack and two of the assailants were neutralized. At this point the second part of the affair began, which was not a good thing. Contrary to what was publicized and the claims that we heard about this from B’tselem, we understood directly from the field what happened. I received a report from the regiment. I also heard from one of the residents who came up and told me. We understood everything even though we didn’t have a video. But we had a full verbal description. The incident was handled by me personally and those above me even before anyone else had come to us.

 
Col. Ben-Ezra said that there could be no doubt as to the incident. “It was a bad thing. There was no need to shoot. What caused him to shoot? That is what they are investigating right now. As I understand it, from a military aspect, the situation didn't require any shooting. That's not what we expect from our soldiers, and these aren't the Rules of Engagement. There wasn't a single person who, after they understood the facts, asked why it wasn't a good thing that he shot.”

On social media there's massive support for Azaria. There was a demonstration of support for him.

“We can't ignore the conversations on social media,” he says Col. Ben-Ezra. “This is a command challenge, a leadership challenge but at the end of the day it only builds the resilience of the army and its commanders. I believe that we will emerge from this stronger as an army.”

 
But it wasn't only a few people in the public who supported Azaria. The battalion commanders were surprised to hear that Col. Nehama along with one for the his regiment commanders at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, didn't immediately understand theseverity of the incident and wondered, of all things, about the response of the IDF to the altercation.

“Two days after the incident in Hebron the division commander instructed us to discuss the matter with the subordinate commanders from the rank of junior commander,” Nehama said.

 
“In the beginning I didn’t understand why this was necessary,” explained Colonel Hazi Nehama, a commander of the Menasheh Brigade. “I was sure that they read the investigation and passed it along to their soldiers. Then suddenly one of the battalion commanders stood up and asked: ‘How did the IDF not support the soldier? How can the chief of staff not support him? Why is he being indicted for murder?’”

What did you answer?

“You have to understand that the soldiers receive a lot of information via social media. We have no control over this. What goes up isn't verified information, but statements and responses. Obviously I explained that the chief of staff is not the person who decides if the soldier is to be investigated or not. Nor is he the one who determines the clauses according to which he will be indicted. It's done by the military system and is totally unconnected with the commanding ranks. I presented all of the specific facts of the incident and the things said by the senior military officials and the commanders, including the battalion commander, understood what exactly happened. I, as a battalion commander, do not see any difference between the Rules of Engagement and the option of implementing them in the field. I've never found myself asked a question on this subject in a briefing before a military operation that I don’t have an answer to. This includes very opinionated reserve battalions. If your life is in danger - you shoot to remove the threat. The subjectivity of the danger is permissible.”

 
That aside, it seems that this affair has cracked the public’s faith in the army.“A month ago the Supreme Court prevented a gas deal and the entire country got involved in it,” explained Col. Ben-Ezra. “I haven't met one person who can explain what exactly the gas plan is. The public discourse has become one between extreme camps without understanding the meaning. A public crisis of faith? The children of the same public are the soldiers in the army, and I don’t think that the public doesn't believe in their children. We aren't even close to that. In a situation where there's a genuine public crisis of faith, soldiers won't turn up to base on Sunday mornings. In the meantime, the motivation to serve is only rising.”

Heads of the Judia and Samaria Division (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

“The incident such as what took place in Hebron exemplifies the complexity which exists in Judea and Samaria,” explains Col. Strait. “The public asks: ‘Why are you commenting on it in public? The soldier made a mistake. Why burn him at the stake?’ We interpret what transpired differently. We didn’t become confused - and I say this based on my discussions with Col. Ben-Ezra (Hebron battalion commander) during the initial hours after the incident. It's clear to us how to operate. These are short incidents which last between 10-15 seconds. Take the example of what happened at the entrance to Ariel. The soldier who was there saw the terrorists and calmly closed the distance between them and it was finished. Then he ran to save the life of the female soldier who was stabbed. Everything is extremely precise, extremely surgical. I see the soldier in that video and I feel like kissing him in the spot.”

 
“The army is the country,” added Ben-Ezra. “It's not disconnected from it. Our soldiers go home at the end of the week and hear the opinions outside. The Hebron affair happened just before the end of the week of Purim. On Sunday, when the soldiers returned, there was a need to ‘reset the system’. All of the discourse today reaches the soldiers with a much higher intensity. When we were soldiers we would receive a weekly briefing. The commander of the platoon would read us sections of the paper from the week and we would talk about them. This is how we were updated. Today, in the space of one second on social media, they already know everything.”

 
This wasn't the only problem in the area. In Har Brakha soldiers were attacked by terrorists and fled their post. At Awarta checkpost, soldiers burned the Palestinian flag. This are already a number of incidents.

 
“Seven months, tens of thousands of soldiers, police, border police, the Shin Bet, more than 1,000 complicated situations. That is how our days look,” said Col. Ben-Ezra. “Obviously that amongst such a large proportion of incidents there will be a number individual cases which aren't good. But we put them on the table and deal with them.”

 
“This week we investigated the case of the burning of the flag at the checkpoint,” Col. Gofman said. “Among other things, we looked into the measures that we took to prevent such incidents and their effectiveness. I organized a discussion with the commanders of the division. We discovered that we undertook measures, but that they weren't sufficiently effective. When we speak with soldiers, when the platoon or regiment commanders speak with them, they lay out a clear direction. They expect that from us. Apparently we didn't explain well enough.”

 
“The purity of arms,” he continued, “is the backbone of the IDF. If something is damaged in it we walk with our heads down. Since the IDF was established, it has prided itself on its morals and values. That notwithstanding, even to this day we have fought, on a daily basis, for our existence and to protect our citizens. In incidents such as Har Brakha, Hebron, or the flag incident, the soldiers found themselves in an extremely difficult position and in such circumstances the soldiers do not always act according to what we desire. In my opinion the problem is not with the soldier but with the commander. In the Har brakha incident for instance, as commander, we didn't successfully instill the soldiers with the values to which they should have adhered to."

 
"To my delight," he continued, "despite the failures of this incident, no civilians were harmed. Our job as leaders is to leverage events like this, talk about them, and make sure they never happen again. We, as fighters, grew up with the story of Midhat Yusef or with the story of the soldier from the elite paratroopers unit who did not attack during a firefight and his commander Eitan Balahsan was killed.”

 
Midhat Yusef was a Druze Border Policeman who died as a result of getting shot in the neck while defending Joseph's Tomb during the Second Intifada. His death led to the IDF policy of not leaving wounded on the battlefield.

Col. Ben-Ezra expressed his unequivocal agreement: “We are tested precisely by these sorts of incidents. Values manifest themselves during combat. Over the past two months many soldiers have found themselves in the midst of terrorism. Our obligation is to talk about the negative incidents and deal with them. If we don’t do that there will be problems. Our responsibility is to inform the soldiers of exactly what is expected of them. The Rules of Engagement are well defined. If we wish to preserve our values, our norms, our discipline and our orders in the long run then we, as leaders, cannot permit our soldiers to become confused by a speech or a discussion or anything else.”

 
Head of the Givati Battalion in the West Bank (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
Head of the Givati Battalion in the West Bank (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Songs of Gush Etzion Junction

Perhaps the most important subject to the battalion commanders in the area is the connection with the settlements. “When the wave of terror began and grew, there was widespread anger toward us from the residents of the settlements which were well justified from their points of view,” says Col. Shomer. “One attack followed another. Yanai Weissman was murdered in a Rami Levy supermarket branch as he ran, exposed, to fight terrorists. Most people wouldn't do such a thing. The residents felt that the state of their security was harmed. The murder of the Henkin family engendered a lot of frustration. There were protests and, to be perfectly honest, we didn’t give them an answer. However, there was no crisis with the settlements’ residents. At the end of the day, they're very supportive, Zionistic, nationalistic and cooperative.”

It is dangerous to be at Gush Etzion Junction?

“Gush Etzion Junction has become a symbol of struggle,” says Gofman, whose battalion controls the junction. “There are already songs written about. The Palestinians call it ‘death square.’ The reasons for the repeated attacks there are first and foremost based on practicality. It's a crowded place where many people pass through, and there are many people to harm. It's a central area, it's easy to get to, and it's a large commercial area (where loitering) doesn't arouse suspicion. There's also the element of contagious success - if they've already succeeded, why not do it again? However there's another reason: The junction has come to symbolize the values of the Gush Etzion settlements for years. Take the Rami Levy supermarket branch at the junction as an example – there, one can see a Christian Arab buying groceries next to a (Jewish) resident of Alon Shvut receiving service from a (Muslim) cashier from Beit Ummar wearing traditional clothing. What's been done at the junction is the meaning of coexistence. That's why to strike there is to strike a symbol. The terrorist who goes there doesn’t only do it for tactical purposes. He also wants to kill the coexistence. This is something we also need to defend.

 
“We're here for the settlements,” emphasized Klapper. “It is the object of our defense and our job is to give the residents security. Their sense of security declined recently and this is our opportunity to try and improve that. The settlements have withstood significant challenges and demonstrated their resilience and strength in recent months.”

And the nationalist criminal networks?

“There are very few problematic people in the settlements,” Col. Ben-Ezra replied. “I can count them on three fingers. The rest are exemplary civilians. All of the territorial defense forces – it's them. Our responsibility is to do everything possible in order to ensure that the relative quiet will remain.”

In the meantime, we see that this is succeeding

“This is a slight decrease but the wave hasn't finished yet,” Ben-Ezra insisted. The other battalion commanders nod in agreement. “The business is not yet over. The beginnings of the wave of terror began at the beginning of Ramadan,” Klapper pointed out. “Independence Day still lies ahead, Shavuot and then Ramadan once again. We're still very far from being able to breathe a sigh of relief.”

As if to reinforce what the commanders say, a man then walked into the room and hands Col. Shomer a note before he stands up and rushes out. There's a warning that one of the residents in the area are planning an attack.

89 Oz brigada-Brigada komandosa

Prvi trening nove brigade komandosa simulirao je zajedničku akciju u kojoj,probijajući duboko iza neprijateljskih pozicija nanosi štetu protivniku.



Oznaka jedinice uvek dosta govori o onome što ona predstavlja,kao na primer usamljeno drvo kao oznaka Golanske prve brigade ili stilizovani broj 7 na znaku Sedme oklopne brigade.Oznaka nove brigade komandosa,koja se razlikuje znatno od ostalih,izgleda treba da kaže celu priču:u centru je nagore okrenut nož i dvosmerna strelica iznad koja simbolizuje napad i sa zemlje i iz vazduha u dubini neprijateljske teritorije.Nož i strelice su u obliku jevrejskog slova Kof(prvo slovo reči komandos),a crna i bela pozadina znaka simbolizuje to da je jedinica 24 sata u pokretu.



U ranom februaru 2016,vizija nekoliko prethodnih načelnika generalštaba IDF-a koju nisu ostvarili,materijalizovana je od strane ovog aktuelnog general-pukovnika Gadi Ejzenkota,početkom vežbe nove brigade komandosa u dolini Jordana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oz_Brigade

Zadatak nije bio nimalo jednostavan,spojiti 4 različite specijalne jedinice,svaka od njih trenirana za potpuno različite zadatke,ima potpuno različitu tradiciju,različitu komandnu strukturu,i na samom kraju i različite uniforme i sve to spojiti u jednu brigadu.To je ustvari bio izazov kog se uhvatio brigadni general Uri Gordin,komandant 98-e divizije IDF-a(elitne padobranske divizije) kome je dodeljena komanda nad novom brigadom.Gordin je i komandovao vežbom u dolini Jordana zajedno sa komandantom brigade pukovnikom Davidom Zinijem.

IDF je ovu vežbu nazvao „Leil HaGsharim“ (noć mostova) : četiri dana tokom kojih su četiri specijalne jedinice,Duvdevan,Maglan,Egoz i Rimon ujedinili snage i izvodili simulaciju zajedničkog napada u dubinu neprijateljske teritorije.Simulacija vežbe je bila u dolini Jordana,ali jasno je da se jedinica sprema za nešto što je malo severnije-Hezbolah.Ukoliko bi se desio rat,znajući za hiljade raketa koje su u posedu Hezbolaha,i pretnju koju one znače za zaledje Izraela,IDF-ove instalacije i baze,jedinica komandosa će biti medju prvim koji će marširati na Hezbolah u pokušaju da ih spreče da upotrebe svoj arsenal.

Brigadni general Uri Gordin zna ponešto o specijalnim jedinicama.Napredovao je kroz činove u Sajeret Matkalu(Amanova specijalna jedinica) sve do komandanta jedinice(izmedju 2007 I 2010).Načelnik generalštaba Gabi Aškenazi mu je lično dodelio čin pukovnika kao komandantu Sajeret Matkala za akciju koju je ta jedinica sprovodila.Dva meseca pre početka operacije „Zaštitna ivica“[1],Uri Gordin je postao komandant pešadijske brigade Nahal,i vodio je brigadu u borbama sa Hamasom u severnom sektoru pojasa Gaze.Godinu dana nakon te operacije,u julu 2015,današnji načelni Gadi Ejzenkot je odlučio da ga unapredi u komandanta IDF-ove vatrene formacije-elitne 98-e divizije.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict

Čak i nakon 4 dana bez mnogo sna,brigadni general sa velikom pažnjom nam priča o vežbi : „Ovo nam je prva velika vežba.Nazvali smo je "Noć mostova" upravo iz razloga naše stalne aktivnosti kao male snage,koja ima zadatak da postigne važnu premoć nad neprijateljem.Ova brigada je novi operativni element IDF-a koja treba da bude dodatna operativna oštrica naše vojske."


Uri Gordin

"Prema mom shvatanju,brigada se dosta razlikuje od brigade Nahal kojom sam komandovao tokom operacije „Zaštitna ivica“ kao i Sajeret Matkala kojim sam komandovao tokom operacije „Liveno olovo“(Rat u Gazi 2008)[2].Sve ove jedinice su ustvari bile deo operacije "Zaštitna Ivica",ali svaka od njih je bila deo druge brigade,svi oni su pripadali različitim pešadijskim brigadama i izvršavali zadatke u njima.Kroz ovu unifikaciju,mi smo rešeni da stvorimo novu vrednost,novu prednost,povećamo naše operativne sposobnosti i budemo značajna prednost naše vojske.

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_%282008%E2%80%9309%29

Samo uspostavljanje nove brigade nam daje mogućnost da se suočimo sa izazovima na nov način,sa više fokusa i opcija sa rešenjima na date izazove.U isto vreme pokušaćemo da razvijemo nove sposobnosti brigade,ovo je samo prvi od mnogih poteza kojim razvijamo nove mogućnosti naših snaga.Za početak ćemo pokušati da sve naše zajedničke sposobnosti primenimo u pravljenju naših operativnih planova.“



Da li svaki bataljon izvršava različitu misiju?Ili radite zajednički?Kako bi ova brigada izgledala u ratu?

Brigada ima četiri operativne jedinice,medicinski tim i tim za komunikaciju,i oni saradjuju nekad funkcionišu zajedno nekad individualno,u zavisnosti od operativnih zadataka.Kada su stigli u trening kamp prošli su 4 dana neprekidnih vežbi neke delove su delovali zajedno neke potpuno razdvojeno.

Koje oružje jedinica koristi I koja je formacija ove brigade?Vod,četa,bataljon?

Primarno oružje ove jedinice su ljudi.Oni su specijalci,utrenirani vojnici koji su prošli ratna dejstva i imaju sposobnost da odgovore na sve izazove i improvizuju u datim okolnostima.Što se tiče formacije ono što mi pokušavamo je da čak i na nivou najmanjih grupa oni budu sposobni da izvedu najširi mogući dijapazon zadataka.S druge strane razumemo da u slučaju većih sukoba naravno moramo biti u većoj formaciji i u tom slučaju naša primarna formacija bi bila trupa.Ali mislim da je ono što će biti naša najveća vrednost biti upravo to što možemo da funkcionišemo u rasponu od malih grupa do velikih kombinovanih jedinica.

Kako ćete izbeći da se izgube operativne sposobnosti tajnog delovanja jedinice Duvdevan,ili taktika i znanje sa oružjem jedinice Maglan?Kako će se to sve uklopiti u novu jedinicu?

Pa to je jedan od naših glavnih zadataka,da sačuvamo koliko možemo njihovu nezavisnost,da sačuvamo njihova prethodna znanja i taktike.Mislim da se IDF po prvi put suočava sa ovakvim zadatkom i izazovom da upotrebimo specijalce koji će nastaviti da dejstvuju kao specijalci,a ne da prerastu u običnu pešadijsku jedinicu.Ovo je jedinstvena šansa da na primeru ove jedinice pronadjemo rešenja i pretvorimo je u dodatnu snagu IDF,a ne kao u mnogim slučajevima do sad još jednu standardnu jednicu u nizu.



Hoće li brigada komandosa biti manevarska brigada u okviru IDF-a?

"Mi nećemo biti još jedna manevarska brigada.Mi ćemo biti specijalna jedinica koja će raditi ono što takve jedinice rade,napadamo strateške tačke,najvažnije objekte neprijatelja.Mislim da je način na koji smo upotrebljavali naše jedinice u prošlosti bio neadekvatan i da nismo koristili pun potencijal tih jedinica.Mislim da je ovo njihovo kombinovanje u cilju daljeg razvoja njihovih operativnih sposobnosti različito od svega što smo dosad radili."

Gordin smatra da je formiranje brigade strateški potez-“Mislim da je ovo organizaciona odluka koja se može nazvati istorijskom.Posebna brigada specijalnih jedinica,nešto nalik američkoj JSOC(Joint special operation command),koja operiše iz Fort Brega u Severnoj Karolini.Kao i mnoge druge ideje IDF-a,i u ovom slučaju mi pažljivo pratimo šta Amerikanci rade.

Nova brigada komandosa uključuje 4 posebne specijalne jedinice:Maglan-koji je specijalizovan za delovanje iza neprijateljskih linija,tajna specijalna jedinica Duvdevan-koja je specijalizovana za tajne operacije protiv najtraženijih terorista,Egoz koja je formirana devedesetih je jedinica za gerilsko ratovanje oformljena za borbu protiv Hezbolaha u Libanu i Rimon koja je ponovo uspostavljena 2010(i uzela ime mitske jedinice Rimon koja je ratovala u Gazi 70-ih) kao pustinjska specijalna jedinica kako bi se borila protiv ISIS-a i ostalih neprijatelja duž egipatske granice i pojasa Gaze.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoz_Reconnaissance_Unit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvdevan_Unit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglan

Izazov je veliki Ejzenkot je izvadio četiri jedinice iz različitih regionalnih komandi,i iz različitih brigada,sa različitim metodima delovanja,funkcije i subordinacije i sve ih stavio pod komandu jednog čoveka pukovnika Davida Zinija koji je dovbio činove u Golanskoj pešadijskoj brigadi i bio komandant jedinice Egoz u prošlosti.Tokom operacije "Zaštitna ivica" Zini je prinudno postao komandant Golanske brigade,zbog ranjavanja pukovnika Gasana Alijana tokom bitke kod Sajaijeha.Zinijev životni san kao oficira koji je sve činove zaradio u Golanskoj brigadi bio je da jednog dana i postane komandant te brigade.Medjutim prošlog leta je stigao poziv od veterana br. 1 Golanske brigade,načelnika generalštaba Gadija Ejzenkota,koji je Ziniju dugo godina bio komandant i dobro ga poznaje,koji mu je kratko rekao :”Ne dobijaš Golansku.Dobijaš nešto mnogo teže od Golanske!”


David Zini i Uri Gordin(levo)

Sami ljudi u jedinicama su zabrinuti.U Egozu brinu da će njihova gerilska taktika i doktrina biti promenjeni.U Duvdevanu da će njihova decenijska tradicija tajnih operacija biti zabravljena i izbrisana.Tradicija gradjena decenijama je jednim potezom vraćena na poečetak i karte su podeljene nanovo.

Uprkos ovom najelitnije i najprestižnije specijalne jedinice ostaju nezavisne ili pod komandom obaveštajnog direktorata,vazduhoplovstva,mornarice ili samog generalštaba.Dok najvažniji zadatak brigade komandosa ostaje da uspostavi novu dektrinu koja odgovara novom vremenu.Nema više regularnih vojnih snaga,oklopnih divizija opremljenih sovjetskim oružjem.Imamo ISIS,Hamas i Hezbolah.Organizacije bez vojne gravitacije,bez bilo kakavog lanca komande,utopljene u civilnu populaciju.Čitava ideja je stvoriti jednu gvozdenu pesnicu od specijalaca sposobnu da u velikim formatima i u dugom periodu vremena budu iza neprijateljskih linija.

Israel defence

"Jedinica komandosa" zvanično postala operativna završnom vežbom na ulicama Tel Aviva

Spajanje četiri posebne specijalne jedinice u jednu je deo šireg petogodišnjeg plana reforme izraelske vojske pod nazivom Gideon

Urban military exercise brings IDF's most elite units to Tel Aviv

A special urban training exercise took place about a year after the founding of a new IDF commando brigade that includes the military's most elite forces:"Maglan," "Duvdevan," "Egoz," and "Rimon." The commando brigade commander, Col. David Zini said, "I think this sends a strong message about Israel's security and especially for our enemies."

The IDF's new commando brigade held this past week their third training exercise since its founding last December. The drill involved many missions, beginning in north Tel Aviv and ending in the Galilee and Golan. With the completion of this drill, the brigade's status became operational.

The commando brigade was established as part of the recurring program "Gideon" with the intention to create a cutting edge unit within the IDF. Under Col. David Zini's command, the brigade includes the following IDF's elite ground force units: "Maglan," "Duvdevan," "Egoz," and "Rimon."



During the past year the commando brigade went through a significant journey both operationally and organizationally. The brigade held many training exercises that included unit and divisional training and tests in order to certify as "commando warriors." Also during the year, the following units were added to the commando brigade division: a new military medical unit, a technology development unit and reserve units for Maglan and Duvdevan. In addition, the process of establishing headquarters for the division is still being completed.



"This week includes various paths and configurations," said the brigade commander, Col. Zini to his soldiers on the eve of their training exercise. "We, the commando warriors, must always be able to quickly switch between different combat formations during varying situations.  We have outstanding soldiers led by commanders with the utmost professional values, control and integrity, able to withstand any challenge they may face. I am proud to be a part of this company and I think this sends a strong message about Israel's security and especially for our enemies."

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/politics-and-military/military/watch-idf-commando-takes-over-tel-aviv-25018

IDF chief introduces 5-year efficiency plan

Plan led by Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot includes dismissal of an additional 2,500 professional soldiers, discharge of 100,000 reserve soldiers, reducing commanders' age, cutting back on major-general positions and integration of citizens into the army.

The IDF is going to look completely different in 2020: The fighting corps will undergo a revolution and all the other units will shrink, according to a five-year plan led by IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gadi Eisenkot, which was revealed Monday ahead of the expected publication of the Locker Committee's report that outlines the State of Israel's defense budget.



Upon taking office, Eisenkot began making changes in the army. The main changes will affect the IDF in the next five years if the new Gideon Plan is approved. These are its main objectives:

 

    Dismissing another 2,500 professional soldiers.
    Reducing the commanders' age: Regiment commanders will be 32 years old instead of 35-37; the brigade commanders' age will drop from 45-46 to 40-42.
    Cutting down the reserve force by 100,000 soldiers, cutting down artillery brigades and light infantry brigades. The reserve soldiers who will remain will be trained, equipped and qualified for a war.
    Cutting down the commands by about 6%.
    Shutting down systems and cancelling redundant positions: Cutting down and adjusting systems which are not at the core of the IDF like the Education Corps, Military Rabbinate, Chief Reserve Officer, the chief of staff's advisor on women's affairs, Army Radio and the Military Censor, combining the Northern Corps commander with the Ground Forces command.
    Establishing a cyber wing.
    Purchasing surface combatants and introducing a submarine towards the end of the year.
    Purchasing F-35 planes, introducing an unmanned aircraft lineup and multi-layer protection.

'Each unemployed reserve unit saves NIS 70 million'

A senior officer elaborated on the main objectives of the new plan, which aims to adjust the army to the current threats.

 

"We have reduced the tank forces order by 75% since 1985, and reduced the number of warplanes and surface combatant by 50% since the 1990s," he said. "The number of professional soldiers went up by 8% in the past 30 years. We will shut down the reserve Home Front Command brigades and a few other artillery units, and discharge 100,000 reserve soldiers. We will implement a 6% in all headquarters. In the General Staff this is already being implemented by dropping four major-general positions."

The multi-year plan also includes an increase in the number of brigades for routine security measures. This way, the officer noted, the summons to operational activities of reserve regiments will be reduced. "Every reserve regiment which doesn’t appear on the annual operations graph 'saves' NIS 70 million (about $18 million)," he said. In the next six month, not a single reserve regiment will be summoned to operation activity.

 
The plan was concocted by six General Staff teams led by officers in the ranks of brigadier-general and major-general. They outlines the patterns of training, manpower and strategy according to which the IDF will be managed in the next five years, hoping that this time the multi-year plan will be approved by the government.


 'Professional soldiers at the bottom of public service'

The Locker Report, prepared by a governmental committee led by Major-General (res.) Yohanan Locker which was appointed to look into the defense budget, was submitted to the prime minister and defense minister about two weeks ago for their comments ahead of its submission to the government's approval.

 The report raised concerns in the IDF due to a significant cut in the pensions of most career officers and the plan to dismiss thousands of them. IDF chief Eisenkot had a lot of criticism against considerable parts of the report, and he therefore presented the IDF's senior command with a multi-year plan.

One of the most explosive issues in the Locker Report and the Gideon Plan has to do with the manpower issue and the pension terms of professional soldiers. The Locker Report asserts, according to recent reports, that the combat professional soldiers, such as brigade or regiment commanders and squadron commanders, should be separated from the ones stationed in the home front.

 
The report suggests that the combat soldiers will continue to enjoy a bridging pension upon retiring from the army (in their early 40s) until the retirement age (67), while those in the home front are offered to retire from the army from their mid 30s to their early 40s for a grant of NIS 600-800,000.

 
This recommendation angered professional soldiers, who are expected to lose 40-60% of the pension funds they were promised.

 
"The meaning of Locker's outline is that 3,300 majors, for example, will be told tomorrow morning that everything they were told they would receive at the age of 39 won't happen. Doing something like that is like shooting a bullet between one's eyes in terms of the IDF's abilities in the future. It has a high risk potential to the state's security," a very senior officer told reporters.

 
"The IDF will be discriminated against compared to the other emergency organizations and government ministries, where the bridging pension will continue. The professional soldiers will be placed at the bottom of public service."


'IDF is State of Israel's insurance policy'

According to the officer, the proposal formed by IDF Personnel Directorate head Major-General Hagai Topolansky in the Gideon Plan states that only one in 10 soldiers will retire at the IDF retirement age. In addition, the ages of officers in the medium ranks will be reduced from 35-37 for a regiment commander today to 32.

 
"We will leave high-quality professional soldiers in the intelligence and technology fields and build a service plan for those who want to come to the army for a short while, for example from the age of 28 to 35 with a release grant. We will make positions in the different systems, such as the Military Advocate General, available to citizens, and continue with the plan from two years ago to cut more than 5,000 professional soldiers. The key is that 1,000 retiring professional soldiers 'save' NIS 1 billion in the multi-year plan."



The senior officer slammed recent publications about professional soldiers' salaries. "This attack harms the army's main objective – the public's trust in the IDF. Whoever thinks that the Klos C ship was raided by only 20 fighters is wrong. There are thousands of other soldiers in the home front who the operation wouldn't have succeeded without.

 
"Cancelling the pension of anyone who is not a brigade or regiment commander, or telling them to continue until age 42 and leave without a bridging pension is a joke. Who will he compete against in the labor market at this age? A young 28-year-old?

 
"How will we activate the entire Air Force within hours and strike thousands of targets a day? The army is not a high-tech company which aims to make a profit, but the State of Israel's insurance policy."

 
'Shortening service is unrealistic'

According to the officer, another part in the Locker Report has to do with shortening military service to only two years, after the army already began shortening the service to 32 months in order to reduce the order of battle by one-third.

 
"It's baseless. It simply doesn’t make sense in the current security reality, and not even in 10-20-30 years," he said. "Whoever thinks the youth can enlist for two years is experiencing a reality of Switzerland here."

The IDF's goal is that the political echelon will approve the multi-year plan and determine a uniform index-linked budget for the army according to it. If the leaks from the Locker Report are accurate and different budgets from the defense budgets will indeed be split, the IDF aspires to receive a net budget of NIS 30 billion a year, about NIS 1 billion less than the average in recent years.

 
This refers to the army's budget only, covering its routine existence (medicine, fuel, food, uniform, transport, etc), the soldiers' salaries, training and arming as part of major purchase contracts. "This way, the total defense budget will range from NIS 60 billion to NIS 64 billion a year," the officer estimated.


 
'Iran will remain the IDF's main task'

The officer also provided a first comment from a senior military official on the nuclear agreement with Iran and its effect on the army in the coming years: "Our working premise is that the IDF will set its power in motion in the next multi-year plan. Iran will remain the IDF's main task, as defined since 2006, through the monitoring of their centers of activity by the Military Intelligence Directorate.

 
"This mission will require aerial and intelligence resources. Our working premise is that there will be a secret Iranian pattern of action, and there is no doubt that the removal of the sanctions will allow Iran to invest more money in the region, beyond the $4-5 billion it is investing today."

 
In the Lebanese and Syrian context, the officer noted that "Hezbollah is in the greatest breaking point since its establishment, after losing 1,300 of its members who were killed and 5,000 others who were injured.

 
"About a month and a half ago, the IDF stopped bringing injured from the Jabhat al-Nusra organization into Israel for medical treatment, and even before that there were only few cases. We haven't helped them, neither with one shekel nor with one bullet."

 ynetnews

Izrael kupuje 17 dodatnih F-35 Adir



Vlada Izraela odobrila je kupovinu 17 dodatnih borbenih aviona Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Odobrenjem, objavio je u saopštenju ured premijera Benjamina Netanyahua, ukupan broj izraelskih F-35 aviona dostiže brojku 50. Zvaničnici još nisu naveli cijenu paketa. Izrael je ušao u program F-35 u listopadu 2010. godine, te je postao prva zemlja kupac pete generacije aviona posredstvom američkog programa FMS. Izraelsko ratno vazduhoplovstvo dobilo je svoj prvi F-35 ove godine, 22. lipnja 2016. , do kraja godine se očekuje da stigne još jedan, a narednih godina se očekuje isporuka 6 do 7 aviona godišnje. Zemlja se nada kako će novi zrakoplovi zamijeniti flotu borbenih aviona F-15 i F-16.

Iako vlada nije saopštila koliko će koštati nabavka aviona, procena je, s obzirom da po komadu avion košta oko 100 miliona $, da će ukupna cena biti oko 1,7 milijardi $ ne uključujući troškove održavanja i dodatne opreme.

Defender

Peti po redu F-35I u Izraelu

Želja da se postane elita u armiji i društvu

Politika

Kako su Izraelske odbrambene snage (IDF) postale vojna i privredna uzdanica i ko može da izdrži prijemni za specijalne snage: jedanaest vežbi od po nekoliko sati koje se ponavljaju u toku pet dana, pod velikim pritiskom, uz kratak odmor, bez hrane i spavanja, sata i mobilnog.




Mogu li političke propovedi da usprave srpski rod na noge lagane, ima li nam napretka bez uskrsnuća privrede i jačanja odbrambenih snaga? Teško. To svedoči primer Izraela, makar bio po svemu drugome sa Srbijom neuporediv, ali ima isti broj stanovnika, oko osam miliona.

Naša javnost u novije doba, uglavnom preko pojedinačnih izjava, osluškuje da li bi u nacionalni život trebalo vratiti redovno služenje vojnog roka, pa se onda starija pokolenja obavezno sete krilatice „Rado ide Srbin u vojnike”.

To vreme je, izgleda, iza nas. Neka. A šta je ispred?

Evo kako su Izraelci sagradili uređeno društvo, danas među deset privredno najjačih na planeti, iako su ne tako davno, 1973. na početku Jomkipurskog rata protiv Egipta i Sirije doživeli debakl, s brojnim žrtvama. Sve što se pre i kasnije događalo opisano je u knjizi „Nacija u usponu” (autori Dan Senor i Pol Singer) koju nam je poklonio Itaj Milner, zamenik ambasadora Izraela u Srbiji.

Od osnivanja svoje države (1948), Izraelci su svesni da je njihova budućnost, i dalja i bliža, uvek pod znakom pitanja. I, dok je učenicima u drugim zemljama glavna preokupacija koji će koledž da pohađaju, žitelji Davidove odmeravaju prednost različitih vojnih jedinica, priželjkujući da se regrutuju u elitni sastav Izraelskih odbrambenih snaga (IDF).

Recimo, pilot u IDF-u David Amir je već u dvanaestoj godini počeo da uči arapski jezik, jer je još tada znao da bi ga zbog tog znanja lakše prihvatile najbolje obaveštajne jedinice.

Pritisak da se u te jedinice uđe raste kada Izraelci napune 17 godina, i svakog proleća diže se galama među učenicima trećeg i četvrtog razreda gimnazije. Ko je dobio poziv da se prijavi za pilotski kurs? Ko da konkuriše za elitnu obaveštajnu jedinicu 8200 ili Mamram, diviziju kompjuterskih sistema IDF-a? Ili za Talpiot?

Svi sedamnaestogodišnjaci, i devojke i mladići, u Izraelu dobijaju poziv da se prijave regrutnim centrima za prvo celodnevno testiranje koje obuhvata ispitivanje sposobnosti i psihološke provere, intervjue i medicinski pregled. Na kraju se određuje zdravstvena i psihometrijska klasifikacija i mladom kandidatu se tada uživo predočava koje su njegove mogućnosti za služenje vojske. Onima koji zadovoljavaju zdravstvena merila i zahteve u vezi sa sposobnostima i tipom ličnosti nudi se prilika da izađu na dodatne testove za prijem u jednu od elitnih jedinica ili divizija.

Na primer, testovi za prijem u padobransku brigadu održavaju se tri puta godišnje, često nekoliko meseci pre redovnih vojnih rokova kandidata. Mladi civili podvrgavaju se dvodnevnom, strogom fizičkom i mentalnom testiranju prilikom kojeg se početna grupa od oko 4.000 kandidata svodi na 400 budućih vojnih obveznika u različitim jedinicama. Tih četiri stotine padobranaca može dobrovoljno da učestvuje u terenskim testovima i ispitivanjima za prijem u specijalne snage, što podrazumeva intenzivan niz od jedanaest vojnih vežbi koje se ponavljaju tokom pet dana. Svaka od njih traje nekoliko sati, a izvode se pod žestokim pritiskom zbog vremenskih rokova, i rastućim fizičkim i psihičkim. Za sve to vreme dozvole za odmor su kratke a spavanja gotovo i da nema, kao ni hrane. Tih pet dana, kako kažu učesnici, ne mogu se razlikovati dan i noć. Nije dozvoljeno imati sat, kao ni mobilni telefon, jer oni koji vode testiranje žele da subjekti budu što je moguće više dezorijentisani. Nakon tih pet dana, svi vojnici su poređani po vrednosti na rang-listi.

Prvih 20 rangiranih za svaku jedinicu odmah idu na 20 meseci obuke. Oni koji je zajedno završe ostaju kao tim angažovani u redovnoj vojsci i rezervnim snagama, njihova jedinica postaje im druga porodica, a u rezervnim jedinicama ostaju do 35. godine.

Iako nije lako upisati se na pet najboljih fakulteta u Izraelu – u toj zemlji jednakost za Harvard, Priston, i Jejl jesu, ipak, elitne jedinice IDF-a. Podatak u kom je sastavu podnosilac molbe služio vojsku govori potencijalnom poslodavcu kroz kakav oblik selekcije je prošao i o njegovim veštinama i sposobnosti.



U Izraelu je akademska prošlost manje bitna od vojne, jedno od pitanja na razgovorima za posao jeste gde ste služili vojsku – pričao je Gil Kerbs, bivši pripadnik obaveštajne jedinice 8200. Na internetu ima ponuda za posao i oglasa u kojima je posebno naznačeno – namenjeno za bivše pripadnike jedinice 8200. Oni se sada okupljaju na nacionalnom nivou, ali to vreme ne koriste za osvrt na bitke iz prošlosti i vojnu nostalgiju, okreću se planovima za budućnost i poslovno umrežavanje, predstavljaju svoje kompanije i industriju na tim skupovima.

Izraelske odbrambene snage imaju jedinicu koja je ekstremno selektivna i sprovodi opsežnu obuku, naročito u oblasti tehnoloških inovacija. To je Talpiot, a naziv potiče iz stiha Pesme nad pesmama u Bibliji i označava vrhunac dostignuća. Jedinica je karakteristična po tome što njeni vojnici prolaze kroz najdužu obuku u IDF-u koja traje 41 mesec, što je duže nego celokupan vojni rok većine vojnika. Oni koji uđu u program potpisuju ugovor koji ih obavezuje na još šest godina u vojsci, tako da u vojnim okvirima provedu najmanje devet leta. Program su osmislili Feliks Dotan i Šol Jaciv, profesori Hebrejskog univerziteta, nakon početnog poraza 1973. godine.

Svake godine, dva procenta najboljih učenika izraelskih gimnazija, ili njih 2.000, dobija poziv da se prijavi za kadete Talpiota, svaki deseti položi jedan broj testova, uglavnom iz fizike i matematike, a onda tih 200 prolaze dvodnevno testiranje ličnosti i sposobnosti. Oni, u poređenju s vršnjacima, nauče više za manje vremena i steknu široko znanje, kako bi postali lideri sposobni da rešavaju probleme. To se postiže dodeljivanjem zadataka, a jedan od njih je, recimo, provala u telekomunikacionu mrežu žive terorističke ćelije.

Od tih studenata traži se odgonetnu specifične vojne probleme. Na primer, jedan tim kadeta morao je da nađe rešenje za jak bol u leđima koji osećaju piloti helikoptera IDF-a usled vibracija letelica. I uspeli su, prvi, da pronađu metod za procenu uticaja vibracija letelica na kičmeni pršljen. Oni su prekrojili sedište, ugradili ga u simulator helikoptera i u naslonu izbušili rupu. Zatim su stavili olovku na pilotova leđa, pokrenuli simulator tako što je ubrzo „leteo”, te su brzom video-kamerom, ugrađenom u rupu u naslonu, uslikali tragove koje olovka ostavlja zbog vibracija. Posle toga izučili su kompjuterizovane podatke dobijene po tragovima na fotografiji i pokrete, i redizajnirali sedišta letelica.

Talpioni, ako izdrže prve dve ili tri godine kursa, postaju prestižno zvanje u vojničkom i civilnom životu. Oni su elita u armiji i društvu.

Izraelci sa 18 godina odlaze u vojsku na minimalni period od tri (momci) i dve godine (devojke). Na naročitoj ceni regruta je elitna vojna obaveštajna jedinica 8200. U tradicionalnim rodovima vojske, komandiri četa sa 100 redova i 20 starešina su poručnici koji, najčešće, imaju samo 23 godine, ali su im data prava i obaveze da samostalno vode toliku jedinicu i odlučuju na terenu.

Ako se posle redovnog vojnog roka mladići i devojke ne pridruže IDF-u, obično se upisuju na fakultete, pa čak 45 odsto Izraelaca danas ima visoku školu.

Na današnji dan, pre 50 godina, počeo je šestodnevni rat ili junski rat

Sve to fino na slici ali puknu i oni i nisu bas svi nesto orni za vojsku al znaju, mora se, al onako se gleda da se vata krivina negde u ladovini, ako se moze. Posle sluzenja VJ dosta njih odlaze u Indiju da odlepe u Goji.
A sad porediti Izraelce sa Srbijom jedino moguce da je Srbija okruzena Albancima koji svako malo urade neki napad...

Čitam šta si napisao i ništa mi nije jasno o čemu govoriš, tek ukapirah da si komentarisao ovaj tekst iz Politike gore

Dobar je ovo program oni jednostavno imaju novac da to isfinansiraju, to ti je otprilikie kao kad bi mi selektirali krem maturanata srednjih škola i onda ih ubacili u program koji bi sprovodile vojna kademija FON i PMF i onda kad završe naravno popunjavaš sa njima maltene sve pozicije u vojsci u vojnotehničkom institu, fakultetima itd razmišljaju ljudi 10 godina unapred jbg.