http://www.debka.com has a vital analysis of the new Israeli Government starting today March 18, 2013. This analysis centres on 4 vital areas, almost 4 vital Ministries:
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1. Ehud Barak’s successor as defense minister, commando and former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon: He has won a chance, which any professional soldier must envy, to remold the Israeli Defense Forces into a national army better suited to the exigencies of the first half of the 21st century and the wars of the future.
In line with his vision, he would scrap the present structure of corps, divisions, brigades and battalions in favor of an army based on compact fighting units – mostly of special forces – each capable of acting autonomously and independent of other forces.
If Yaalon gets his way, the massive ground forces and heavy theater tanks corps will be relegated to the past. The air force and navy, with their long range missiles, submarines and fast assault ships, will no longer be structured as professional corps but revamped as forces taxed with guarding Israel’s vital strategic depth by sea and air.
However, Defense Minister Yaalon may not get the time, money or trained manpower he needs for his program, given the rapid changes overtaking the Middle East and the advances Iran is making in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
For US President Barack Obama, when he comes to Israel for a visit Wednesday, March 20, Yaalon’s selection as defense minister is not altogether bad news, despite his pessimism about any dealing with the Palestinians: As Strategic Affairs Minister in the previous Netanyahu government, he insisted that it was essential for any Israeli attack on Iran to have the full cooperation of the United States.
2. The former TV anchor Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid – Future) has made his political debut with a leap to the top government echelon as finance minister and carved out plum spots for his previously unknown faction members, who are as untried in government as himself.
They campaigned vigorously for military service for all, including the ultra-Orthodox and Israeli Arabs, and benefits for the middle class.
Now he must sit down to the forbidding task of drafting the next state budget at top speed. Netanyahu jokes about heading a provisional administration, whereas Lapid speaks seriously of the government lasting eighteen months to two years at most before it falls and an early election which dumps the prime minister of today and installs him in his place.
This calculus presents the Yesh Atid leader with a dilemma: He could try designing a popular budget, but then Netanyahu would reap the same benefits as himself in the coming election. On the other hand, he might decide to prove he is a statesman and compose a responsibly balanced budget, incorporating essential spending cuts and painful measures for the very classes he pledged to promote.
But then, he would be a fool to face the voter precipitately.
His political fortunes in the foreseeable future are therefore tied to those of the prime minister he aspires to displace, like it or not.
3. Former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, came in from the political cold to join the government as Justice Minister claiming that all she really wanted was to promote and lead peace talks with the Palestinians. This mission is likely to prove elusive. Not a single Palestinian official of any rank is willing to talk to her. She would also have to overcome obstacles placed in her path by many of her new colleagues in cabinet. Such as he next new minister.
4. Naftali Bennett, a software tycoon, was able to revive the fortunes of the veteran National Religious Party and repackage it as the pro-settlement Habayit Hayehudi (the Jewish Home). For the horse trading with Netanyahu, he formed an alliance with Lapid and came away with a fistful of high-wire jobs: minister of industry, trade and labor, he is also tabbed to head the cabinet committees charged with finding ways and means of reducing the cost of living and breaking up the concentration of economic power, and even has also won a coveted place on the inner security cabinet now pared down from 15 to 7 members.
What Bennett has clearly demonstrated is that he wants a finger in every pie
http://debka.com/article/22833/Netanyahu-keeps-hand-on-security-foreign-relations-energy-levers
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So, a completely new army and approach under Moshe Yaalon. I think that this can have the most extraordinary influence on events. Yaalon will meet also extraordinary opposition from a bureaucracy.
The days for massing reserves a la Barak and then not following through may be over.
Yaalon may be entering a situation where the Israelis will not allow even ONE rocket from the enemy Palestinian Arabs fall on Israelis. That is the meaning of the autonomopusly acting special units that Debka is suggesting and the end to the British inspired battalions and all that crap which the Israelis under Barak were full of.
It is also the case in relation to the other 3 Ministries that Netanyahu gave very little to Obama and the EU Antisemites…he talked and talked…but gave no concessions. That is his style, not one I like, but better than sellout.
As for Livni…that is still the weakness of netanyahu. he is saying to the BBc, yes you can carry on interviewing Livni interminably and passing the Big Lie. The BBC will keep representing Livni as representing the majority, while she only is followed by 5 per cent of the Israeli population.
But stopping Antisemitism, just as stopping Hitler and Fascism was, is a task that only the revolutionary aims of the socialist revolution can solve. And here the left Stalinists and Revisionists must be smashed and replaced by a true Trotskyist leadership.
4international 