Jerusalem Post: What Are The Top Five Challanges Facing Aviv Kochavi, The IDF’s New Chief تقرير من جيروزاليم بوست: الاحديات الخمسة التي ستواجة رئيس أركان الجيش الإسرائيلي الجديد افيف كوخافي

What Are The Top Five Challanges Facing Aviv Kochavi, The IDF’s New Chief
تقرير من جيروزاليم بوست: الاحديات الخمسة التي ستواجة رئيس أركان الجيش الإسرائيلي الجديد افيف كوخافي
Jerusalem Post/January 15/19

Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi was approved by the cabinet on Sunday, becoming the IDF’s 22nd chief of staff and replacing Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot. Here are the top five challenges he will face as the IDF’s top officer:

As chief of staff, Kochavi will have to continue his predecessor’s fight against the increased threats posed by Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East. With the presence of Iranian and Hezbollah forces, Israel’s northern front has become the IDF’s biggest priority.

Working to prevent the entrenchment of Iranian forces and the transfer of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah, the Israel Air Force has admitted to carrying out hundreds of air strikes in Syria. While Russia has recently provided the S-300 advanced anti-aircraft missile batteries to the Syrian regime, Israel has said that it will continue to operate in the war-torn country as long as Iran remains.

According to foreign reports, the military is also believed to have increased its covert operations in the area and increased ties with other states in the region that view Iran as a common threat. With the Syrian civil war winding down in favor of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israel’s military will need to contend with a stronger, more battleworn, Hezbollah in the next war in the North.

2/Gaza
The threat on Israel’s border with Gaza is the second challenge for Kochavi.
While Eisenkot did not oversee any wars during his tenure as chief of staff, terrorist groups in the blockaded coastal enclave have restored their military capabilities to their pre-2014 strength and have fired hundreds of rockets and mortars into southern Israel over the past four years.

While the military’s Iron Dome missile interception system continues to successfully shoot down a large majority of projectiles, Hamas and Islamic Jihad were able to overwhelm the system during the last escalation by firing large missile and mortar barrages at once.

The IDF expects that communities bordering the Strip will be incessantly pounded with rockets and mortar attacks in the next military confrontation and that the communities will need to be evacuated. During his tenure as chief of staff, Kochavi will also have to contend with the weekly border riots, which have seen the participation of thousands of Gazans who have launched incendiary and explosive aerial devices into southern Israel, burning hundreds of thousands of acres of territory. Kochavi will also oversee the completion of the IDF’s underground barrier, which expects to remove the threat posed by cross-border attack tunnels.

3/IDF preparedness
Despite constant threat by its enemies along both the northern and southern borders, serious concerns have been raised about possible weaknesses in Israel’s military preparedness by IDF Ombudsman Maj.-Gen.(res.) Yitzhak Brick.

According to Brick, who is set to resign after 10 years as IDF ombudsman, the military is in a dire state and is not fully prepared should another war break out. In June, he warned that there were “serious consequences” for the cutting of thousands of career soldiers under the army’s five-year-long Gideon Plan and was highly critical of the IDF’s training and the state of the weaponry used by the ground forces. Brick also warned about the imbalance between the manpower remaining after the cuts and the increase of tasks that not only places a “heavy burden” on the remaining personnel, but increased pressure that is “detrimental to the level of performance, discipline and motivation of the soldiers.”

While the military rejected most of the allegations made by Brick, Kochavi will have to make sure that Israel continues the procurement of arms and increases the motivation of troops in order to keep the IDF one step ahead of all of its neighbors and enemies.

4/Haredi enlistment bill
The bill in question, which Kochavi will have to deal with, sets targets that rise every year over the next decade for the enlistment in the IDF or national civilian service of men from the haredi community . The bill, which will sanction yeshivas if the targets are not met, has been in the works for several years and has raised concerns across the religious spectrum in the Jewish state.

Reforms passed in the Knesset in 2014, which aimed at gradually increasing ultra-Orthodox recruitment, has been met with stiff opposition from many in that community. Nonetheless, according to data released by the army last year, there are some 5,000 ultra-Orthodox men in the IDF. If the bill passes, the age of exemption for haredi men will rise until the age of 28, giving haredi men time to get married before joining the army and significantly increasing the number of haredim drafted.With more haredim in the army, not only will there be a need to create more tracks and open up more combat companies for the soldiers, but the already apparent religious tensions in the army may increase. Kochavi will have to walk a tightrope between the need to have a powerful army and one which respects the wishes of the haredi community and non-religious communities alike.

The bill in question, which Kochavi will have to deal with, sets targets that rise every year over the next decade for the enlistment in the IDF or national civilian service of men from the haredi community. The bill, which will sanction yeshivas if the targets are not met, has been in the works for several years and has raised concerns across the religious spectrum in the Jewish state.

Reforms passed in the Knesset in 2014, which aimed at gradually increasing ultra-Orthodox recruitment, has been met with stiff opposition from many in that community. Nonetheless, according to data released by the army last year, there are some 5,000 ultra-Orthodox men in the IDF. If the bill passes, the age of exemption for haredi men will rise until the age of 28, giving haredi men time to get married before joining the army and significantly increasing the number of haredim drafted.

With more haredim in the army, not only will there be a need to create more tracks and open up more combat companies for the soldiers, but the already apparent religious tensions in the army may increase. Kochavi will have to walk a tightrope between the need to have a powerful army and one which respects the wishes of the haredi community and non-religious communities alike.

5/Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Benjamin Netanyahu
Despite being appointed Sunday as IDF chief of staff, Kochavi was not the first pick of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently acting defense minister . Rumor has it that Netanyahu preferred Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir for the top position and scolded then-defense minister Avigdor Liberman when he was told that Kochavi would be recommended for the role.

While Netanyahu threatened that he would not bring Kochavi’s recommendation to the cabinet, Despite being appointed Sunday as IDF chief of staff, Kochavi was not the first pick of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently acting defense minister.

Rumor has it that Netanyahu preferred Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir for the top position and scolded then-defense minister Avigdor Liberman when he was told that Kochavi would be recommended for the role. While Netanyahu threatened that he would not bring Kochavi’s recommendation to the cabinet, the Prime Minister’s Office congratulated Kochavi a few hours after Liberman made the announcement.