Hezbollah's conduct in recent months shows it has changed its policy and an attempt to alter the rules of the game that have been in place since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, a former senior IDF intelligence officer tells  Israel Hayom, adding that this suggests the Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has received a green light from Iran to shift gears from force buildup to a war-preparedness posture. 

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The officer, Col (res.) Ronen Cohen has been following Hezbollah for the past 40 years. He notes that "it doesn't mean that war will break out tomorrow morning, but the northern border could gradually become a fighting theater that is very similar to what the Security Zone in Southern Lebanon was before the IDF withdrew in 2000." According to Ronen, such a reality "could start from events, such as what has recently unfolded on the northern border – the pitching of tents, the firing of anti-tank missiles, and the infiltration into the Israeli heartland to place a bomb on a major road – and it could then intensify." 

Cohen, who is concerned over recent developments, says that decision-makers should pay attention to his sounding of the alarm, as someone who has gotten to know the Shiite terrorist organization since the 1980s, when it was still in its infancy. 

According to Cohen, the biggest problem facing the IDF in the event of a flare-up with Hezbollah is not the thousands of rockets it could fire but the "infiltration of the Radwan [elite] forces into Israel and occupying areas until hostilities end, with the IDF struggling to reclaim them before the ceasefire clock strikes." He warns that if Hezbollah fighters remain there, this would "pose a serious strategic predicament for Israel." 

Video: Hezbollah filming IDF chief Halevi touring the northern border

Unlike most of the IDF top brass, Cohen's days in uniform include the period when the IDF was still deployed in southern Lebanon, where clashes with Hezbollah terrorists in the Security Zone were a daily occurrence. Over time, in his various roles in the military, Cohen got to know the terrorist organization's modus operandi. As a senior officer in the IDF Intelligence Directorate Military Research Division, he knows how to pick up the various nuances in Hezbollah's speeches, having served as the head of the analysis department for the organization and the deputy commander of the Research Division. 

Cohen, who has continued to follow the organization even after his discharge, believes that its recent shift in behavior reflects a realization on the part of the Iranian regime that it is closer than ever to achieving nuclear capabilities and that the US has not been using its leverage to stop its progress. 

"Iran sees Hezbollah as its forward operating base against Israel, and has quickly learned the most important lesson of the Second Lebanon War – namely, that it must not let Hezbollah expend its arsenal on tactical matters but rather save it for the day when Iran becomes nuclear," he warns. 

Thus, he adds, the policy Iran has subscribed to seeks to avoid an escalation along the border with Israel so that there is no "deterioration into a war, so that the weapon systems get saved for the Day of Judgment." 

For some 17 years since the Second Lebanon War, the security establishment has held the view that the blows inflicted on Lebanon during the conflict created a strong deterrent effect on Nasrallah that has remained seared into his memory. But Cohen believes that it is just convenient for Israel to portray Nasrallah's lack of interest in a conflagration as deterrence, saying that in reality, the deterrence on the organization is – to a much larger extent – a product of Iran's wrath following that war.

"After the Second Lebanon War, Iran was outraged and Nasrallah got a spanking because he triggered the war; they almost 'fired' him," Cohen says. 

"After the war, the Iranian money was prioritized toward rebuilding Hezbollah, and only then to rebuilding Lebanon. This is the reason that even when we take forceful measures, it doesn't respond. Hezbollah is deterred much more from Iran than from us," he notes, adding that this has gradually changed as Iran has gotten more confident and turned into a nuclear-threshold state, to the point that it appears to have given Hezbollah a green light to prepare for war. 

According to Cohen, Iran used to keep "Nasrallah on a tight leash," but now that they have loosened the grip and have likely instructed him to prepare for war "this is a transition from force buildup to actual preparations for war; the Iranians are now on the cusp of being nuclear and are telling him that he should prepare for war, even if this takes him six months or a year." 

Cohen says that "slowly but surely, we could creep into a situation where we have an attrition war on the northern border, much like we had during the years of the Security Zone. This will allow Hezbollah a much easier path to enter a war." He cautions that "this won't happen now, but it's a matter of time; I can't recall such a complex picture in recent years involving so many multiple theaters: Golan Heights, Hamas, Gaza, and Judea and Samaria." He adds that alongside the changes in the military dimension, Nasrallah is working on establishing a justifiable narrative for what is happening on the northern border for domestic Lebanese and intra-Arab consumption, portraying it as a battle to reclaim land usurped by Israel in its founding. 

Cohen claims that "Nasrallah wants to change the reality on the border and is preparing for the implementation of the next phase in the organization's charter: reclaiming the land Israel took in 1948." He adds, "It's hardly a coincidence that he has been mentioning the border in his recent speeches." 

Israel's enemies are keeping a watchful eye on what is unfolding domestically, but "even if the protests end and things calm down in Israel, the strategic change Hezbollah has been pursuing with Iran transcends this; the internal Israeli protests [over the judicial reform] may have been a catalyst but they are just the icing on the cake." 

As for the nature of the next war against Hezbollah, Cohen says, "Ostensibly, the threats of sending the Radwan Force to capture Israeli territory are just complimentary to the missile fire, but this is not the case." He explains: "Let's think about how the next war ends; since the end of the big-war era in the 1980s, we have become used to flare-ups without victors. The most recent conflagrations in Gaza ended thanks to Egyptian mediation when Israel is begging Hamas to accept several terms. When we wanted to reach a decisive victory in the Second Lebanon War, we couldn't. But there is a big difference between finishing off a war with your troops on enemy territory and ending it the other way around. There has never been a situation in which a guerrilla group managed to conquer Israeli territory, definitely not that of a Western power like Israel.

"You can't rule out a situation in which the next war ends while Hezbollah is holding on to territory, after killing and injuring Israelis, as well as kidnapping some, including some from the border towns. This is a completely new ballgame. It is not just a tactical matter, it is strategic. Nasrallah believes that if he will have Hezbollah fighters on Israeli territory when the war ends, he will be able to have Israel enter talks over the redrawing of the international border." 

Learning from the Egyptian model 

Israel has to learn how Egypt entered the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he insists. "Then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and his military chief Saad el-Shazly had made sure Israel got used to having Egyptian forces deployed along the canal so that when the order came to cross it would be easy to launch an offensive, and indeed the commando did just that. This model is very much in line with Hezbollah's conduct today," Cohen notes.

"You have to take Nasrallah's words at face value, as the years have shown that he tells the truth; he likes to have the ability to tell Israel 'I told you so'," Cohen says. "This was the case with the abduction of soldiers and other matters."

Cohen says that despite the fact that the Israeli public has been told many times that Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets and precision-guided munitions, the problem that Israel would face in the event of a flare-up is the ground maneuvers of the Shiite fighters. 

Hezbollah can surprise Israel 

The IDF is fully aware of the threat that is developing and in recent years has been building a barrier along the border to prevent an invasion by the Radwan Force. But as we have already seen, Hezbollah knows how to surprise Israel and have its people cross the border – as demonstrated by the recent would-be attacker that infiltrated and made it all the way to the Jezreel Valley with a bomb before trying to return to Lebanon. 

Today's IDF – rank and file, as well as senior staff – don't know Lebanon; they did not fight there. I am not dismissing the special forces, but the situation among the ground forces is not great, as we have recently seen during the cross-border attack from Egypt. I don't think we will succeed in repelling the Radwan Force within two or three weeks. Our military may not be prepared for that." 

Cohen, based only on his own assessment and not on any intelligence, is not ruling out a scenario in which Hezbollah operatives have already carried out some cross-border raids to learn the terrain and set up positions for snipers and anti-tank launchers, or may have also placed IEDs underground that would be activated when war erupts.

"This is only my assessment," he notes. "In light of the tunnels that Hezbollah was found to have dug toward Israel, and the terrorist who managed to make it all the way to Megiddo using an electric bike while carrying an IED – I can't rule out the possibility that they have already made preparations inside Israel. I am a veteran of Lebanon. I remember their frightened squads after they crossed." 

High combat worthiness 

Cohen explains that When an Israeli soldier crosses into Lebanon for the first time, he also exhibits shock because he is not familiar with the lay of the land, but now we have had someone cross into Lebanon and make his way deep into Israeli territory and then, as if it was an afterthought, felt confident enough to make his way back home. They feel safe on our territory and I assess that they are well prepared for perpetrating an attack."

Cohen hopes this warning will be heeded by Israeli leaders. "Those who have not served in Lebanon like my generation, are not fully aware of the stakes. The more remote this era becomes, the IDF's ability to deal with Hezbollah gets further eroded. This has been demonstrated in 2006, but things are much worse today." 

"That is why there is a risk that Hezbollah's maneuver will succeed. The period that precedes the war could see a whole host of events take place, to the point that guerrilla warfare takes place along the border, and with Hezbollah no longer worried about the situation escalating into a full-fledged conflict," he concludes. 

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The Israel Defense Forces are developing upgraded intelligence and firepower strike capabilities, and is drilling these new abilities on a regular basis. At the same time, Israeli intelligence sources acknowledge that Hezbollah has morphed from a guerilla-terror organization into an organized terror army.

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These developments were clearly on display this month, during an extensive war drill conducted by the IDF's 36th Armored Division, a multi-arena division capable of maneuvering into enemy territory and attacking targets in a range of ways.

"We are preparing ourselves in better ways. We hope we don't have to get there,"  said Deputy Intelligence Officer for the 36th Armored Division Maj. A, during the drill.

When assessing Hezbollah, Maj. A stated that the Iranian-backed Shiite group has learned from its experience in Syria's battlefield how to go on the offensive.

As opposed to only trying to target IDF patrols with IEDs, anti-tank missiles and other guerilla tactics, Hezbollah of 2021 is focused on mobilizing forces into Israeli territory and employing tactical lessons it has learned from its partners in Syria since 2011.

"They will look to achieve a very big success early on in a conflict or a serious 'success' against the [Israeli] civilian front," he cautioned. This could mean attacking an Israeli village near the Lebanese border and holding families hostage, exploiting Israel's heightened sensitivity to the welfare of its civilians.

Hezbollah will "look to achieve its objective early on, allow the media coverage to go viral, and after that, it doesn't care what happens in the rest of the war. It will have its picture − Israelis embarrassed on the world stage," the intelligence officer said, providing an insight into Hezbollah's strategy.

Drawing on its experience in Syria, Hezbollah has spent the past decade planning attacks into the Galilee, deploying thousands of armed operatives "the second the war starts." The IDF's destruction of cross-border Hezbollah tunnels in 2018-19 put a dent in those plans, though Hezbollah is planning new overland attacks and collecting intelligence on the IDF's day-to-day activities as part of its "early achievement" strategy.

When it comes to Hezbollah's large projectile arsenal, estimated at 140,000-plus, the organization understands that rockets form a "very practical weapon" when fired from civilian areas at civilian areas, said Maj. A.

It has closely been studying Hamas' rocket attacks against Israel and "trying to understand what the best way to challenge us is in the next conflict," he added.

Hezbollah also has some 100,000 mortars deployed on the border, aimed at villages and frontline IDF posts within a 10-kilometer (six-mile) radius. "This is a rate of fire we are not used to."

'The strength of the urban system'

In light of this challenge, the IDF has not been resting on its laurels. In addition to developing unprecedented airpower strike capabilities – based on unleashing thousands of munitions every 24 hours – the IDF is planning its next ground offensive to be nothing like past operations and wars.

A core part of this change is the ability to gather the most precise intelligence in real time and send it to just the right company, battalion, brigade and division in the field, enabling the rapid, surgical destruction of enemy targets and minimal harm to noncombatants, explained Maj. A.

With Hezbollah deeply embedded in the Shiite civilian population of southern Lebanese villages, coupled with its fortifications and posts in those villages, the IDF's dependence on rapid, reliable intelligence is more important than ever.

The goal, said Maj. A, is for maneuvering forces to be able to see the enemy, tell it apart from noncombatants, and be precise and lethal all at the same time.

Much of the intelligence picture is "under the surface, in more ways than one," said Maj. A. Hezbollah is deployed both in Lebanon and in Syria, backed by the Iranians. The Islamic Republic is building a pipeline of munitions that travels from Iran into Iraq, and ends up in Syria and Lebanon, impacting the entire Middle East.

Hezbollah has amassed a drone fleet for intelligence and attack capabilities they can use against both Israeli civilians and the IDF.

"When you build a capability you believe in, this also makes you more ambitious. You develop it by yourself, see it succeed – and this gives you more nerve," Maj. A. said, providing a glimpse into Hezbollah's mindset.

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Using schools, mosques and hospitals is a core part of Hezbollah's modus operandi, as well as concealing itself with mass human-shielding tactics to make it harder for the IDF to respond.

Hezbollah looks "ahead of time at the terrain where it thinks we will enter certain areas from and make use of that terrain. It will set up observation posts in high access points. It will take anti-tank missiles … Russian products and places them in specific vantage points. It builds underground fortifications within the center of urban areas, next to civilian sites," said Maj. A. "That's the strength of the urban system we maneuver in, and the battleground is a civilian battleground whether we like it or not. That's the challenge that makes us have to be precise."

Hezbollah's capabilities also include making use of the electromagnetic spectrum for jamming and for intelligence collection.

'A war between two ideologies'

In light of the above, the IDF General Staff has instructed the military to build the ability to flow relevant intelligence directly down to the maneuvering units in a fast, accurate manner. Otherwise, the officer said, the intelligence will simply be irrelevant or will not enable effective action.

The division-wide exercise tests just this ability. End-to-end intelligence was streamed to the division's brigades, including through the use of a new intelligence center in central Israel that sifts through massive quantities of data and highlights relevant insights for those in the field.

Signals intelligence, human intelligence, visual intelligence – all are fused into a big picture of the combat arena, and teams put it together like a jigsaw puzzle into a relevant "product." This then turns into "targeting packages" that are sent with the press of a button" to the ground forces.

"This allows us to be more relevant against the enemy and more lethal. But more importantly, it allows us to avoid innocent casualties," said the source.

The exercise saw units examine terrain, enemy activity in civilian infrastructure and then initiate a full process of preparing strikes for the battlefield.

Many of these capabilities rely on new advances in digital combat capabilities and intelligence-gathering means. Asking the right questions and getting the relevant answers to those who need it in the line of fire is critical, said Maj. A, describing a shift towards "intelligence-oriented warfare."

"We're interested in peace, in the status quo," he said, adding that he assessed that Hezbollah is not interested in a conflict right now either. However, the history of this troubled region has already demonstrated that this is no guarantee that one won't erupt suddenly anyway.

The fact that Hezbollah has been seeking to develop precision-guided missiles, for example, is an explosive red line that Israel has said it will enforce. If Israel is forced to take preemptive action, that could form a trigger for a wider conflict.

Similarly, Iran's nuclear program continues to lurk in the background as a potential trigger point for regional conflict despite Israel's obvious preference for the status quo.

If Iran orders Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to act, he will most likely do so since Iran is the source of funding leading to Hezbollah's force build-up, and Iran is the party telling Hezbollah what to do in Syria.

"Nasrallah is a very religious man and will follow what the [Iranian] supreme leaders tell him," said Maj. A.

Israel is warier these days of attempting to predict Nasrallah's precise future moves after recent years have shown that he is more than capable of unexpected action, added to the very different cultural mentality that guides his worldview compared to the West.

The 36th Division's drill was joined by the IDF's Golani Brigade. During the drill, Col. Barak Hiram, brigade commander, stated: "The challenge isn't to win a battle against several Hezbollah fighters; we know how to do that very well. Western armies know how to do that. The main challenge is to win the entire war – and to stay humane. To win and to stay with our morals."

He pointed out that an Israel-Hezbollah war is not only an armed conflict but a war between two ideologies, with Israel at the forefront of Western modern democracies confronting Islamic fundamentalist ideologies.

"If we win the battle but lose the war because we become one of them; this is victory for their morals," he said, explaining just how critical it was for the IDF to strike the right balance between combat effectiveness and sticking to its own rules of engagement.

"In any escalation entering Lebanon, we very much will put the focus on how to kill as many Hezbollah combatants as possible and destroy military infrastructure without harming the civilian population," he added.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, in which Hiram was wounded, the Israeli government decided not to move forward into Lebanon, creating a static war in which the IDF held ground that it captured and stopped moving ahead.

"I think that most of our plans for the next time will be much more active, including maneuvering further on, which will take the Hezbollah organization to different dilemmas that it did not have in 2006," he said.

Asked by JNS whether this meant an IDF maneuver into Beirut, Hiram stated that no one knows for sure how wars end.

"We are here to stay for good. Lebanon is here to stay," said Hiram. "We are willing and hoping that one day, we'll be able to have peace with the Lebanese state that is on our northern border.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

The post 'In Syria, Hezbollah learned how to go on the offensive' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

If it hadn't been for a certain speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day five years ago, former GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. (res.) Yair Golan would have become IDF chief of staff. That is neither a guess nor an analysis. Golan has been told that explicitly by the person who decided to nominate Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, instead – former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

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Five years on, Golan admits for the first time that if he had known what the response to his remarks would be, he would have expressed himself differently. For anyone who might have forgotten, speaking at the Massuah International Institute for Holocaust Studies as then-deputy commander of the IDF, he said, "If there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe – particularly in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here (in Israel) among us in the year 2016."

"I didn't believe the speech would cause so much fuss," he tells Israel Hayom. "Call it naiveté, but I didn't realize I was heading into an incident like this. Who had ever heard of Massuah? I was speaking from my heart, because I had seen the insanity that unfolded here after the Elor Azaria incident [in which Azaria shot and killed a Palestinian man who was already restrained following an attempted attack on IDF troops in Hebron], the wave of nationalism that isn't us. If I had known that what I said would echo so loudly, I would have expressed myself differently."

Q: Now that time has passed, are those processes really happening with us?

"We are in the midst of very dangerous processes. We aren't unusual. Look at what is happening to democracies in the world. There is a book by two guys from Harvard, Jews, called How Democracies Die. They looked at over 40 countries in which there is a populist leadership – and Netanyahu is a populist leader – and you see how democracy is being shredded everywhere. So it's not that we're becoming Nazis, but rather that there are processes here of offensive nationalism and the destruction of democracy."

Q: Why do you think what you said created so much uproar?

"Because the politicians said to themselves, 'He sees us.' He sees what we try to hide. So they went after me so strongly. The approach of the Right today is to go full-steam against any opposition, including campaigns of slander and lies. They spread it around that I'm dismissive of soldiers' lives, that I told IDF soldiers they were Nazis. They signed 100 bereaved families on a petition not to appoint me chief of staff. It was a campaign to silence me."

Q: Because of it, you didn't become chief of staff.

"It doesn't consume me. I don't wake up frustrated. True, there was an element of unconscious choice, but the responsibility is mine and I feel fine with it."

'Don't fight the deal'

Yair Golan was the most militant of the generals in the General Staff. If anyone had asked back then what political party he would join upon retiring from the IDF, most people would have thought he was firmly on the Right. That image was built up not only from years of combat service in the toughest roles, but also because of his character.

When he was commander of the Judea Samaria Division, he approved the use of the "neighbor" policy in arresting Palestinian fugitives, in which the IDF has a neighbor or relative ask the fugitive to turn himself in, against the explicit ruling of the High Court of Justice. He paid for it by having a promotion delayed, but he was at peace with the decision – I did what I had to do to protect soldiers' lives, he said at the time. As GOC Northern Command, his role when the Syrian war erupted in 2011, he ran an independent policy that created major friction between him and then-chief of staff Benny Gantz. In this case, too, Golan was convinced he did the right thing for Israel's security.

His IDF colleagues find it difficult to explain the apparent discrepancy between the hard-core officer Golan was while in uniform and his almost opposite public image now. But for Golan, everything is clear: "When there's a need to fight – I fight. And I think I fight well. I know the profession pretty well. When you're dealing with things at the political level, it's political tactics, not a battle between thugs in a dark neighborhood," he says.

Q: Give an example.

"Take Iran. The idea that the only thing to be done is to threaten and attack is simply foolish. That's not how you manage a strategy. Anyone who has some understanding of the issue knows that it would be irresponsible for Israel to handle Iran without the US. What Netanyahu did with his speech to Congress in 2015 was irresponsible, and caused enormous damage. That's not how it works. You need to have the US with you.

"The nuclear deal, which Netanyahu condemns morning, noon, and night – joined, horrifyingly, by the chief of staff [Kochavi] – is a good deal. That doesn't mean it doesn't have flaws. We knew about them from the start. I was deputy chief of staff when the deal was signed, and I was responsible for Iran in the General Staff. When the deal arrived we held a discussion with all the officials and said to ourselves that if Iran complied with it, it would be an amazing achievement. The fact is that without the deal, they'd be closer to nuclear weapons than with it, so we need to take action to improve the deal and then create a new one, rather than fighting it and losing."

Golan does not hold back criticism. As a colonel, he was at his wits' end at how the 2006 Second Lebanon War was fought. As someone who grew up in the area, fought there, and was even wounded when serving in the security zone in southern Lebanon, he thought that the IDF was making every mistake possible. At the time, he was in charge of the Judea Samaria Division, but that didn't keep him from sending a harshly-worded letter to then-Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.

He did the same during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, of which he wasn't in charge. He had been made GOC Northern Command, but his opinion echoed in meetings of the General Staff.

"We were behaving hysterically from the moment the three teens were abducted. It was a terrible event, but the hysteria involved in the decision making was unneeded. I'm not squeamish about using force. And when there's a need to use force, I do. But how things were handled there was scandalous."

Golan does not direct his criticism at Netanyahu, of whom he expects nothing, and whose handling of strategic matters Golan does not admire. His criticism is aimed mainly at the military: How Gantz ran Operation Protective Edge, how Kochavi is dealing with the Iranian issue, and in general, what he calls "the paradigm of intelligence and fire." He says that Israel has learned nothing from the last four big events: The Second Lebanon War and the three major Gaza operations that followed it.

"Einstein defined foolishness as doing the same thing and expecting different results. That's what we do. Lebanon was a huge failure. We missed an opportunity to beat Hezbollah to a pulp. To send three divisions in and give it a real blow, explain to them that they don't mess with us. That's the kind of warfare I want to see. War comes with terrible costs, and we need to do everything possible to avoid them. But if we've made the decision to go to war – we wage war with all our might."

The same goes for the Gaza operations, he says. "Again, we're in the same pattern in which we bomb and get frustrated, bomb and get frustrated. What happens in these operations? The first day is always very successful, because you initiate it and come in with good intelligence, and achieve your goals. But it takes the enemy 24 hours to understand what's holding him back, and from then things start to die down, and tensions rise in the General Staff because the operation isn't succeeding. In Operation Protective Edge the IDF dug in and basically told Hamas how far they would be going, so Hamas went on a stronger offensive than us, the strongest army in the Middle East. How can that be?"

'The army doesn't have confidence'

Q: Who can guarantee that the next war or operation will look different?

"No one is guaranteeing that. When I see the direction in which the IDF is headed, I realize that it won't change. It's legitimate to say that we don't intend to maneuver, just attack and bomb. I don't agree with that approach, but I respect it as someone else's strategy. But that's not what they say – they talk about maneuvers, maneuvers, maneuvers, and it's all drivel.

"The investment in the ground forces is just lip service. The ground army isn't prepared, no one should have any doubt about that. It has units that are prepared, but on the whole, as an army, it isn't … How do I know that? Because if someone says repeatedly that they intend to maneuver, and never does, it's a sign that something's wrong. The ground forces have lost their confidence."

When Golan says, "the IDF today has no instinct for war," it should worry us.

"Show me a single division commander in the Second Lebanon War or in Protective Edge grabbed a GOC or the chief of staff and said, 'What is this?' Show me one of them who shut off the radio and went out to kill Hezbollah or Hamas. When there's an opportunity, you need to take it. Unfortunately, the army now says, 'Keep these people way, give me conformists.'"

'How many Israelis have been to Judea and Samaria?'

As someone who is willing to go as far as necessary in battle but will do everything to prevent another war, Golan is somewhat surprised that people are surprised he's on the Left of Israeli politics. As far as he's concerned, he's in exactly the same place as generations of generals before him, who saw Zionism like he does: "loyal to the original definition of Zionism as 'a national home for the Jewish people, a free and democratic state.'"

From that perspective, he thinks that Israel must not avoid the Palestinian issue and that Israel needs to take its fate into its own hands. If there is no partner for peace – and at the moment, there is not – it should take unilateral action. The idea that the problem will disappear he sees as absurd, and mostly, dangerous.

"The settlers are really pleased with themselves, but they don't have a reason to be. The settlement enterprise is a terrible failure. 215,000 of the people considered settlers live in Jerusalem. None of them is there for ideological reasons. Even the 200,000 who live in the big settlements don't care about territory, yes or no. The people who live in Modi'in Illit or Betar Illit lives there because they need a place to live. And anyone who lives in the settlements close to the Green Line doesn't understand the issue. They were given a gorgeous villa in Beit Arie at half price, so where does ideology come in? Under a permanent arrangement, they'll be within Israeli borders, anyway. In short, we're left with the Jewish parts of Hebron, and the hilltop settlements in Samaria. That's the heart of the problem, and for that they're demanding that the entire state of Israel come crashing down."

Golan is concerned that Israel isn't taking initiative when it comes to the Palestinians. "It's much more important than the Iranian issue. This is where our fate will be decided, not in Tehran. And we are running away from it. The right-wing leadership is really blind. And lacking in vision. All the people on the Right I talk to are talking about the dangers only. About 'What will happen it…' None of them has a plan. No solution. No long-term vision."

Golan says that the leadership is "taking advantage of the fact that Israelis don't' care about the settlements. For most citizens of Israel, they're the dark side of the moon. How many Israelis have ever been to Judea and Samaria? How many can take a map and point out Shilo or Eli? But the leadership should behave differently. It should lead. This problem won't go away. It will only get bigger, and Zionism cannot live in peace and be free and democratic if it controls another people."

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However, Golan also thinks that the Zionist Left is getting it wrong, and that there should be one large left-wing list in the upcoming election.

"This division between Meretz and Labor, and then [Ron] Huldai and [Ofer] Shelach is unparalleled stupidity. This has to change. That's why I got into politics, to create that unity, In the meantime, I'm sorry to say, I haven't succeeded."

Q: The Left is just getting weaker. Meretz is hovering around the minimum electoral threshold.

"We can't drop out. I believe we'll pass [the minimum threshold], and I'm working really hard to make that happen. But the Left is in trouble. Together with Labor, the base of the Israeli Left is 11-12 seats, on a good day. That's a base to start with. My job in politics is to shake up the Left, unite it, and get it started on a new path. I'll remind you that in 1992, when Rabin was elected, Labor had 44 seats and Meretz had 12. It's just insane what has happened to the Left since then."

Q: Oslo. Terrorist attacks. The Second Intifada.

"Oslo killed it. There's no doubt about that. But since then, the Left has been delegitimized, and it behaves likes its scared and doesn't put any effort into building political power. Ehud Barak, who was the most important figure on the Left from the time he was elected prime minister in 1999 until he left politics in the middle of the last decade, didn't focus on building power. That has to change."

Golan thinks that the path to this kind of change leads to an alliance with the Arab public. "They say we love Arabs. What is that nonsense? This isn't a romantic matter. They're 20% of the public, citizens of the state, and we have an interest in connecting with them. If we bring them in, we can ensure that there will never be a united Palestinian front against us."

However, most of these issues won't be in play in the upcoming election. Like the previous ones, the vote on March 23 will be primarily a referendum about Netanyahu. Golan is urging his fellow Meretz members, who think that the party must not join a government with Naftali Bennett or Avidgor Lieberman to stop being so self-righteous.

"Netanyahu is corrupt, and today he's the biggest danger to the state of Israel. If they want to get rid of him, we need to cooperate. I wouldn't rule out anyone, except for considerations of corruption, or someone like [Itamar] Ben-Gvir, who is an Israeli fascist. But other than them, I'm willing to sit with anyone – the Haredim, the Arabs, Bennett, Gideon Sa'ar. To agree about what we will be addressing and what we won't, and get started," he says.

Q: Some people would say this is a betrayal of the Meretz principles.

"A betrayal is doing something different than what you promised. Amir Peretz took his base of support and betrayed them. He violated his voters' trust, and I think that history will hold him accountable. You can't shave off your moustache and say that you won't join Netanyahu's government, and then join it. And he shouldn't tell me he had to – he didn't. He could have wished Blue and White luck and stayed in the opposition."

Q: And Benny Gantz?

"Benny Gantz has a weak character. He's a good man, wise, worthy, a good professional, but he's weak-willed. This stuck out in his military service, when I was his deputy. And because he has a weak character he gives in."

It's not easy for Golan to say this about Gantz – they have known each other for decades, fought side by side, lost mutual friends.

"What holds me up is the loyalty to what I see as the truth. I don't live with a lie, and I don't tell stories. I'm not Yoav Gallant, who built an image and feeds it, or Bennett, who is a fiction. He doesn't understand COVID, and he doesn't understand security. He was defense minister for six months, and behaves as if he invented the job. I think that after the army I'm the same person I was in the army, who is loyal to his truth, and I don't intend to change."

The post Left-wing former general: Division between Meretz and Labor 'stupid' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

In a statement, the IDF confirmed that "troops spotted a drone infiltrating Israeli airspace from Lebanon. The drone was monitored by [the soldiers], who deployed various means [to neutralize it]."

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Following the incident, Lebanon's National News Agency reported that the drone was for commercial use, and belonged to a Lebanese singer.

The singer reportedly used it for shooting a video clip, ahead of the anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, over Adisa Road which is adjacent to the border.

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The border along Israel's north has been a source of tensions in recent weeks, as infiltration attempts have increased lately, though primarily by foreign workers.

On June 17, a suspect was arrested in the northern Israeli town of Shlomi after having crossed the border from Lebanon. According to reports, the suspect was a Sudanese national and the IDF did not deem the incident to be linked with terrorism.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

The post IDF neutralizes drone hovering over Israel-Lebanon border appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.