Gantz was the first Israeli office-holder to state explicitly that Israel and its military were planning armed action against Iran.
He also leveled on another score: Iran and its allies have gained at least one major advantage over Israel, said the general. Their acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles means there is no point on the Israeli map which is not exposed to attack
The Israel Navy has also been reinforced and submarines added to its Red Sea fleet.
In a pep talk Wednesday, Feb. 1, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said the country must muster all its military resources for action in case economic sanctions fail to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons. There is very little time to play with, he said, because Iran may be no more than a year away from a nuclear weapons capability.
It also demonstrated that Maj. Gen. Shai Avital, former chief of an elite reconnaissance squad, who was appointed commander of the newly-established IDF Depth Corps on Jan. 19, has enough manpower available for a free hand. The new outfit has absorbed the covert operations units scattered among the various commands: Shaldag which was transferred from the Air Force; Sayeret Matkal, which was moved out of Military Intelligence, and Shayetet 13 which was detached from the Navy.
The drop was widely reported and screened on television.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report it was a signal to Iran, Syria and Hizballah that the Israeli military has ample commando troops highly-trained for operations deep inside their borders and well able to reach nuclear and missile targets.
Paratrooper Brigade Commander Col. Amir Baram told the men: "At the door of the plane, the paratrooper is quite alone. But down on the ground, the entire brigade comes together and prepares for attack." The IDF Paratroopers Brigade last performed a massed operational drop 56 years ago over the Suez Canal.
The drill simulated missile bombardments from three directions, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.
Two weeks earlier, the IDF Paratrooper Brigade staged its biggest exercise in over 15 years: More than 1,000 paratroopers jumped from the sky over southern Israel together with their department and squadron commanders.
On Tuesday, Jan. 31, a division exercise was held to ensure that the drafting of reservists would go forward under attack without disruptions. "The wars we fought in the past did not reach into the home front. We understand the next war will be different," division commander Brig.-Gen. Agay Yehezkel explained. "Next time, reserve mobilization centers in the cities and induction centers can expect to function under fire."
Reservists of the IDF Home Front Command received letters this week urging them to collect their gas masks by the end of February.
“There is only a limited number of gas masks left and if you don't collect yours now, you could be left without," Col. Sagi Tirosh wrote in the letter.
Israel's military (the IDF) is no longer hiding from view its preparations for an attack on Iran's nuclear program – most probably in the spring – and its expectation of armed hostilities erupting consequently on at least three fronts, Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Asher Yadlin, until last year Israel chief of military intelligence, maintained in a detailed article in the Tel Aviv daily Maariv: "If Iranian leaders were to convene tonight and decide to go ahead with the secret production of a nuclear bomb, they already possess the resources and components for doing so. [As matters stand] now, Iran's nuclear timeline no longer hinges on the calendar; it rest entirely on a decision in Tehran."
The Obama administration disputes the Israeli prime minister on both points, insisting there is still time for tough sanctions to incapacitate the Iranian economy in time to stop Tehran before it reaches the point of no return. Israel insists this pivotal point was reached four years ago in 2008.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu advised visiting Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey Friday, Jan. 20 that the time for action against Iran was now - for two reasons: First, Iran has passed the point of no return for developing a nuclear weapon; second, the US-led embargo on Iranian oil is not catching on. debkafile: China, Japan, South Korea, India, Turkey and the European Union members, which buy 85 percent of Iran's exported oil, are dilly-dallying
Netanyahu is of the opinion that Israel cannot afford to lose credibility in the eyes of Iran. He also thinks that by letting these Iranian provocations go by without response, Washington is not only encouraging Iran to persevere in its course but also strengthening the hands of its allies, Syrian President Bashar Assad and the radical Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
3. Three months ago, Defense Minister Barak warned twice that Israel would not be able to live with the wholesale transfer of Iran's forbidden nuclear facilities underground, starting when Fordo went on stream. Barak noted that from that moment on, neither the US nor Israel would have access to those sites for surveillance. They would find themselves totally in the dark about Iran's nuclear activities. Before that happened, he warned, Israel would have to take action.
Israel committed to action after Fordo went on stream
Israel finds it hard to understand why Obama administration officials made such a hullabaloo about the assassination of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist Prof. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, deputy chief of the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, in North Tehran on Jan. 11. Their emphatic condemnation and denial of responsibility implicitly directed the finger at Israel.
So far, no American aircraft carriers have put the Iranian threat to the test, notwithstanding Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's definition of freedom of navigation through the strategic strait as a red line for the United States.
The Iranians didn't bother to answer the letter President Obama sent their Supreme Leader last week.
For three weeks, Washington has avoided challenging the threat made on Jan. 3 by Lt.-Gen. Ataollah Salehi, commander of the Iranian Army, to forcibly bar the USS Stennis aircraft carrier or "any enemy ships" access to the Strait of Hormuz.
Tuesday, Jan. 17, Tehran after ignoring President Obama's demand Dec. 12 for the drone's return, made a sneering offer to send Washington a small toy model of the missing drone in red plastic.
The Obama administration also turned the other cheek to the announcement on Jan. 9 that 20-percent grade uranium enrichment had begun at the underground Fordo plant.
The prime minister is utterly convinced that Israel cannot afford to let Iran attain nuclear weapons. He is also aware of the solemn pledges he made in his 2008 election campaign and thereafter to stop Iran going nuclear. Breaking this pledge after nearly three years at the helm would discredit him in the eyes of the Israeli voter and very likely cost him his chances of being returned to power in the 2013 general election.
1. Netanyahu does not trust American and European sanctions to produce the desired result of slowing Iran's momentum toward a nuclear weapon, or believe that President Obama will ever give the order to strike Iranian nuclear sites. And even if he does at some point, it will be too late: Once Iran starts building its first nuke, it will have the capacity to produce at least three more every year and build a veritable nuclear arsenal.
But Washington is fully aware that until the US general hears these words from the horse's mouth, i.e., Prime Minister Netanyahu neither he nor Washington can be sure whether Barak spoke for himself or represented Netanyahu.
As to the prime minister's motives in calling off the joint exercise, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources report that it was his way of "banging on the table" over what he sees as US procrastination on Iran on several counts:
On Wednesday, Jan. 18, Defense Minister Barak tried to limit some of the damage to US-Israel relations. He told an Armed Forces Radio interviewer that the government was still "very far from a decision" about attacking Iran over its nuclear program.
He was trying to smooth the path to the talks ahead of Gen. Dempsey with Israel's security and military chiefs.
It looked to Israel's defense and military chiefs like a serious and dangerous diversion of US military plans for war with Iran and/or a potential regional flare-up in its wake.
Israel's security elite received its third shock Tuesday, Jan. 17, when debkafile's military sources revealed for the first time that it was Netanyahu who called off the exercise - not President Obama.
Netanyahu does not trust sanctions to work or Obama to strike
But Netanyahu did not have to check with the defense minister before he informed President Barak Obama in their late night phone conversation Thursday Jan. 15, that Israel was canceling the Austere Challenge 12 joint US Israeli war game scheduled for April So when word of the exercise's postponement was announced from Washington last weekend it sent shock waves through Israel's military & security establishment They had received the impression that the Obama administration had made the decision
@MandegiMishkan shalom aleichem Mandegi, how are you? hope you are well and May peace and prosperity be yours from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
Barak's only card is that the prime minister is constitutionally barred from picking up the phone to the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, or any other general, and giving them direct orders, the way the US President as commander-in-chief can call top American generals. Netanyahu can only communicate instructions to the chief of staff after first obtaining the defense minister's consent and approval.
2. None of the spokesmen or pundits on the Iranian issue knows exactly where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stands on the Iranian nuclear program or is in a position to judge whether, when or how he may order the Israeli Air Force and missiles to go into action against Iran's nuclear sites.
Netanyahu's only confidant on his military plans is Defense Minister Ehud Barak. But our sources say that even he has been kept in the dark on Iran.
In any case, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources in Jerusalem and Washington advised taking these assertions with a large pinch of salt for two reasons:
1. When an informed Israeli official talks about Iran not yet building a nuclear weapon, he means that Tehran has not yet begun fitting a combat-ready nuclear warhead atop a missile.
Because Netanyahu has kept the Iranian cards close to his chest, his words caught his own ministers, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, wrong-footed when in the last 48 hours they asserted that Iran had not yet decided whether to build a nuclear bomb and there was still time for US-led sanctions to work.
This statement came at the end of his talks in Holland with Dutch leaders Thursday, Jan. 19. It reached Gen. Martin Dempsey, who had just arrived on his first visit to Israel as Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and gave him due notice of the subject of his conversation with the prime minister the next day.
This was also the message conveyed to President Barack Obama.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated that Iran has already decided to become a nuclear state. He urged action before it is too late, indicating that Iran must be stopped before it crosses the threshold to complete the construction of a nuclear weapon.
It's only speculations about Iran will use the bomb against us or UK. Intact the US drop the bomb to iroshima The US provoke Japan to stack iroshima same as the 911 false flag to invade irak and still the oil. Now Iran ? I am In Mexico and we know the greed of the US. They bring guns to the drug cartels and start the hell to my Mexico.150k souls dead for US guns ..kids and good people
Gantz was the first Israeli office-holder to state explicitly that Israel and its military were planning armed action against Iran.
He also leveled on another score: Iran and its allies have gained at least one major advantage over Israel, said the general. Their acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles means there is no point on the Israeli map which is not exposed to attack
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
The Israel Navy has also been reinforced and submarines added to its Red Sea fleet.
In a pep talk Wednesday, Feb. 1, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said the country must muster all its military resources for action in case economic sanctions fail to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons. There is very little time to play with, he said, because Iran may be no more than a year away from a nuclear weapons capability.
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
It also demonstrated that Maj. Gen. Shai Avital, former chief of an elite reconnaissance squad, who was appointed commander of the newly-established IDF Depth Corps on Jan. 19, has enough manpower available for a free hand. The new outfit has absorbed the covert operations units scattered among the various commands: Shaldag which was transferred from the Air Force; Sayeret Matkal, which was moved out of Military Intelligence, and Shayetet 13 which was detached from the Navy.
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
The drop was widely reported and screened on television.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report it was a signal to Iran, Syria and Hizballah that the Israeli military has ample commando troops highly-trained for operations deep inside their borders and well able to reach nuclear and missile targets.
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
Paratrooper Brigade Commander Col. Amir Baram told the men: "At the door of the plane, the paratrooper is quite alone. But down on the ground, the entire brigade comes together and prepares for attack." The IDF Paratroopers Brigade last performed a massed operational drop 56 years ago over the Suez Canal.
Israel gathers in and overhauls its armed forces
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
The drill simulated missile bombardments from three directions, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.
Two weeks earlier, the IDF Paratrooper Brigade staged its biggest exercise in over 15 years: More than 1,000 paratroopers jumped from the sky over southern Israel together with their department and squadron commanders.
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
On Tuesday, Jan. 31, a division exercise was held to ensure that the drafting of reservists would go forward under attack without disruptions. "The wars we fought in the past did not reach into the home front. We understand the next war will be different," division commander Brig.-Gen. Agay Yehezkel explained. "Next time, reserve mobilization centers in the cities and induction centers can expect to function under fire."
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
Reservists of the IDF Home Front Command received letters this week urging them to collect their gas masks by the end of February.
“There is only a limited number of gas masks left and if you don't collect yours now, you could be left without," Col. Sagi Tirosh wrote in the letter.
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
Israel's military (the IDF) is no longer hiding from view its preparations for an attack on Iran's nuclear program – most probably in the spring – and its expectation of armed hostilities erupting consequently on at least three fronts, Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.
benzion888 3 weeks ago in playlist Bible in the News
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Asher Yadlin, until last year Israel chief of military intelligence, maintained in a detailed article in the Tel Aviv daily Maariv: "If Iranian leaders were to convene tonight and decide to go ahead with the secret production of a nuclear bomb, they already possess the resources and components for doing so. [As matters stand] now, Iran's nuclear timeline no longer hinges on the calendar; it rest entirely on a decision in Tehran."
benzion888 4 weeks ago
The Obama administration disputes the Israeli prime minister on both points, insisting there is still time for tough sanctions to incapacitate the Iranian economy in time to stop Tehran before it reaches the point of no return. Israel insists this pivotal point was reached four years ago in 2008.
benzion888 4 weeks ago
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu advised visiting Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey Friday, Jan. 20 that the time for action against Iran was now - for two reasons: First, Iran has passed the point of no return for developing a nuclear weapon; second, the US-led embargo on Iranian oil is not catching on. debkafile: China, Japan, South Korea, India, Turkey and the European Union members, which buy 85 percent of Iran's exported oil, are dilly-dallying
benzion888 4 weeks ago
Netanyahu is of the opinion that Israel cannot afford to lose credibility in the eyes of Iran. He also thinks that by letting these Iranian provocations go by without response, Washington is not only encouraging Iran to persevere in its course but also strengthening the hands of its allies, Syrian President Bashar Assad and the radical Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
benzion888 1 month ago
3. Three months ago, Defense Minister Barak warned twice that Israel would not be able to live with the wholesale transfer of Iran's forbidden nuclear facilities underground, starting when Fordo went on stream. Barak noted that from that moment on, neither the US nor Israel would have access to those sites for surveillance. They would find themselves totally in the dark about Iran's nuclear activities. Before that happened, he warned, Israel would have to take action.
benzion888 1 month ago
Israel committed to action after Fordo went on stream
Israel finds it hard to understand why Obama administration officials made such a hullabaloo about the assassination of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist Prof. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, deputy chief of the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, in North Tehran on Jan. 11. Their emphatic condemnation and denial of responsibility implicitly directed the finger at Israel.
benzion888 1 month ago
So far, no American aircraft carriers have put the Iranian threat to the test, notwithstanding Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's definition of freedom of navigation through the strategic strait as a red line for the United States.
The Iranians didn't bother to answer the letter President Obama sent their Supreme Leader last week.
benzion888 1 month ago
For three weeks, Washington has avoided challenging the threat made on Jan. 3 by Lt.-Gen. Ataollah Salehi, commander of the Iranian Army, to forcibly bar the USS Stennis aircraft carrier or "any enemy ships" access to the Strait of Hormuz.
benzion888 1 month ago
Tuesday, Jan. 17, Tehran after ignoring President Obama's demand Dec. 12 for the drone's return, made a sneering offer to send Washington a small toy model of the missing drone in red plastic.
The Obama administration also turned the other cheek to the announcement on Jan. 9 that 20-percent grade uranium enrichment had begun at the underground Fordo plant.
benzion888 1 month ago
The prime minister is utterly convinced that Israel cannot afford to let Iran attain nuclear weapons. He is also aware of the solemn pledges he made in his 2008 election campaign and thereafter to stop Iran going nuclear. Breaking this pledge after nearly three years at the helm would discredit him in the eyes of the Israeli voter and very likely cost him his chances of being returned to power in the 2013 general election.
benzion888 1 month ago
1. Netanyahu does not trust American and European sanctions to produce the desired result of slowing Iran's momentum toward a nuclear weapon, or believe that President Obama will ever give the order to strike Iranian nuclear sites. And even if he does at some point, it will be too late: Once Iran starts building its first nuke, it will have the capacity to produce at least three more every year and build a veritable nuclear arsenal.
benzion888 1 month ago
But Washington is fully aware that until the US general hears these words from the horse's mouth, i.e., Prime Minister Netanyahu neither he nor Washington can be sure whether Barak spoke for himself or represented Netanyahu.
As to the prime minister's motives in calling off the joint exercise, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources report that it was his way of "banging on the table" over what he sees as US procrastination on Iran on several counts:
benzion888 1 month ago
On Wednesday, Jan. 18, Defense Minister Barak tried to limit some of the damage to US-Israel relations. He told an Armed Forces Radio interviewer that the government was still "very far from a decision" about attacking Iran over its nuclear program.
He was trying to smooth the path to the talks ahead of Gen. Dempsey with Israel's security and military chiefs.
benzion888 1 month ago
It looked to Israel's defense and military chiefs like a serious and dangerous diversion of US military plans for war with Iran and/or a potential regional flare-up in its wake.
Israel's security elite received its third shock Tuesday, Jan. 17, when debkafile's military sources revealed for the first time that it was Netanyahu who called off the exercise - not President Obama.
Netanyahu does not trust sanctions to work or Obama to strike
benzion888 1 month ago
But Netanyahu did not have to check with the defense minister before he informed President Barak Obama in their late night phone conversation Thursday Jan. 15, that Israel was canceling the Austere Challenge 12 joint US Israeli war game scheduled for April So when word of the exercise's postponement was announced from Washington last weekend it sent shock waves through Israel's military & security establishment They had received the impression that the Obama administration had made the decision
benzion888 1 month ago
shalom simon
MandegiMishkan 1 month ago
@MandegiMishkan shalom aleichem Mandegi, how are you? hope you are well and May peace and prosperity be yours from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
benzion888 1 month ago
Barak's only card is that the prime minister is constitutionally barred from picking up the phone to the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, or any other general, and giving them direct orders, the way the US President as commander-in-chief can call top American generals. Netanyahu can only communicate instructions to the chief of staff after first obtaining the defense minister's consent and approval.
benzion888 1 month ago
2. None of the spokesmen or pundits on the Iranian issue knows exactly where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stands on the Iranian nuclear program or is in a position to judge whether, when or how he may order the Israeli Air Force and missiles to go into action against Iran's nuclear sites.
Netanyahu's only confidant on his military plans is Defense Minister Ehud Barak. But our sources say that even he has been kept in the dark on Iran.
Netanyahu keeps his own counsel on Iran
benzion888 1 month ago
In any case, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources in Jerusalem and Washington advised taking these assertions with a large pinch of salt for two reasons:
1. When an informed Israeli official talks about Iran not yet building a nuclear weapon, he means that Tehran has not yet begun fitting a combat-ready nuclear warhead atop a missile.
benzion888 1 month ago
Because Netanyahu has kept the Iranian cards close to his chest, his words caught his own ministers, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, wrong-footed when in the last 48 hours they asserted that Iran had not yet decided whether to build a nuclear bomb and there was still time for US-led sanctions to work.
benzion888 1 month ago
This statement came at the end of his talks in Holland with Dutch leaders Thursday, Jan. 19. It reached Gen. Martin Dempsey, who had just arrived on his first visit to Israel as Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and gave him due notice of the subject of his conversation with the prime minister the next day.
This was also the message conveyed to President Barack Obama.
benzion888 1 month ago
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated that Iran has already decided to become a nuclear state. He urged action before it is too late, indicating that Iran must be stopped before it crosses the threshold to complete the construction of a nuclear weapon.
benzion888 1 month ago
God save Israel
AndrewForster100 1 month ago
Ezekiel 38/39
jefferylake62 1 month ago
We don't dare wait a year for bomb assembly Iran must be delt with ASAP.
jefferylake62 1 month ago
@jefferylake62 I do not think that the USA or Israel will attack iran it will be with Gog at the time of the end
benzion888 1 month ago
It's only speculations about Iran will use the bomb against us or UK. Intact the US drop the bomb to iroshima The US provoke Japan to stack iroshima same as the 911 false flag to invade irak and still the oil. Now Iran ? I am In Mexico and we know the greed of the US. They bring guns to the drug cartels and start the hell to my Mexico.150k souls dead for US guns ..kids and good people
gobiernopodrido 1 month ago
@gobiernopodrido I think they will use the bomb to attack israel and 911 is not false the USA was attacked however they were wrong to go in to iraq
benzion888 1 month ago
@benzion888 You need to make more research about the 911.. its many documentation pointing the lie from the 911.. Please open your eyes God Bless
gobiernopodrido 1 month ago
Way Iran can't have a nuclear bomb and the US can have one? Can you tell ?
gobiernopodrido 1 month ago
@gobiernopodrido Iran would use it against Israel and any one else whothey do not like (eg UK, USA)
benzion888 1 month ago
@benzion888 You don't answer my question >
gobiernopodrido 1 month ago
great work
raw28832 1 month ago
God save Israel
rabbisimon1 1 month ago
Ezekiel 38
AndrewForster100 1 month ago
Iran/Israel war coming 2012
lyndaleigh1 1 month ago