Yom Kippur War vets: IDF is better prepared now
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Forty-two years after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, only a handful of officers who served then remain in the Israel Defense Forces. Several of them gathered on the anniversary of the war to speak about their difficult experiences decades ago.
Legendary drill sergeant of the Bahad 1 training base, Yitzhak Taito, now 74, remembers the outbreak of the war: “On Friday, we sent the cadets home at 7:30 a.m., [hours later] the silent call-up began and we called the soldiers back. By Saturday morning, we understood that there was a war.”
Tiato said that the most crucial lesson of the war was the importance of discipline. “The whole year, we teach, educate and explain,” he said. “As soon as a war breaks out, there is no time to learn—you must act. If the routine was properly structured the rest of the year, you will act properly during the war. The outcome of a war depends on discipline.”
Shmuel Zoro, 60, who is head of communications logistics instruction at a Communications Corps training base, remembers being called up to war while he was praying in synagogue.
“Buses pulled up to the synagogue and we were told there was a general call-up,” he said. “People just got on the buses in their jeans and white shirts and went straight to the battlefield.”
According to Zoro, the IDF has made strides since the Yom Kippur War. “The military learned a lot from the battles of Yom Kippur. Nowadays, the equipment is different, more advanced, digital,” he said.
Shmuel Okravi, 62, who is in charge of battle equipment in the Logistics Brigade, agreed. “Today, the army is much better prepared and emphasizes the importance of preparedness in the units,” he said.
Tzvi Arzi, 68, a discipline officer in the Intelligence Brigade’s detection unit, served at a base in central Israel during the Yom Kippur War. “We were responsible for issues relating to injured soldiers and we pulled the files for all the fallen and injured soldiers,” he recalled, adding, “I remember a terrible moment when a soldier picked up a file and saw her brother’s name, and that is how she realized he had been killed.”
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Arab arsonists who torched Jerusalem synagogue jailed for 2 to 5 years
(JNS.org) A Jerusalem District Court Judge on Monday issued prison sentences ranging between two years and five and a half years to members of a terrorist cell from the village of Issawiya, who were found guilty of setting a synagogue in Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood ablaze.
The court also ordered the defendants to reimburse the victims of their various crimes upwards of thousands of shekels. In April 2014, prosecuting attorney Yifat Pinhasi issued an indictment against Mohammad Abid, Ibrahim Darbas, Mohammad Alian, and Walid Alian, all 18 years old, for arson, premeditated and aggravated destruction of property, weapons manufacturing, carrying illegal firearms, attempted aggravated assault of a police officer, and other offenses.
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Safeguarding Temple Mount is ‘your responsibility,’ Israel tells Jordan
(JNS.org) Israel responded to Jordanian King Abdullah’s criticism of the Jewish state over the Temple Mount, telling the Jordanian leader it is Jordan itself that is violating the status quo at the holy site by allowing armed rioters there.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 2 on Monday, the Israeli government told King Abdullah to not “run away from your responsibility” in safeguarding the Temple Mount.
“The Waqf (a Jordanian-run Islamic trust that oversees the Temple Mount) broke the status quo by letting rioters armed with stones sleep in the al-Aqsa Mosque,” the Israeli government said.
King Abdullah has been highly critical of Israel’s actions on the Temple Mount. On Sunday, Abdullah told a visiting delegation of Arab members of the Israeli Knesset that the site was a place for “Muslim prayer only.” Last week, Abdullah warned Israel against any further “provocation” at the holy site that could ruin relations between the two countries.
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Israeli and Russian military chiefs meet for first time
(JNS.org) The heads of the Israeli and Russian militaries met for the first time Monday as the two countries announced further joint coordination of their Syria-related activities.
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot met with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army General Valery Vasilevich Gerasimov following a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the Netanyahu-Putin meeting, the two nations agreed to form a “joint mechanism” in order to prevent any potential clashes between Israeli and Russian forces in Syria.
An Israeli source said both sides agreed to coordinate in “air, naval, and electromagnetic areas,” and that the first joint working group between the two militaries will meet in two weeks, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Israel has become increasingly concerned about the activity of Iran and its proxy—the Hezbollah terrorist group—in Syria, while Russia has been moving to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his fight against the Islamic State terrorist organization and other rebel groups.
“I would say that the importance of preventing misunderstandings [between Israeli and Russian forces] is very big,” Netanyahu said after his meeting with Putin. “Israel is constantly working to prevent the transfer of advanced and deadly weaponry from Syrian territory to Hezbollah. Israel is not prepared to accept a second terrorist front that Iran is trying build on the Golan Heights.”
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More than half of Palestinians oppose two-state solution, survey shows
(JNS.org) Fifty-one percent of Palestinians now oppose a two-state solution with Israel, according to the results of a survey conducted among 1,270 people in the West Bank and Gaza from Sept. 17-19 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Though 48 percent do support two states, according to the poll released Monday, that figure is down from from 51 percent support and 48 percent opposition among Palestinians three months ago. In addition, 65 percent of those surveyed said they did not believe a two-state solution was practical given the existence of Israeli villages in Judea and Samaria.
The survey was conducted during a period of tension among Muslims and Jews with regards to the Temple Mount holy site, as well as the ongoing friction between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group.
“Additionally, the developments indicated in this poll might have also been triggered by anger at the Arab world as the overwhelming majority believes that Arabs no longer care about the fate of the Palestinians,” wrote the director of the poll, Khalil Shikaki, Reuters reported.
Sixty-five percent of respondents reported wanting Abbas to resign. If new elections were held in the Palestinian territories, 35 percent said they would vote for Hamas, and another 35 percent would vote for Fatah. The latter figure is down from 39 percent three months ago. Forty-two percent reported that armed action is the most effective way to establish a Palestinian state—up from 36 percent three months ago. Seventy-eight percent reported believing the chance of seeing a Palestinian state in the next five years as “slim to non-existent.”
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