Mokhaberat
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On Wednesday, Israeli paratroopers staged an elaborate military exercise on the Golan Heights. The brigade strength war games were part of the renewed emphasis on training by the Israeli Defense Forces following last summer's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Pictures of the IDF's new chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, in the field appeared in several Israeli newspapers. The pictures were certainly aimed at feeding Israelis hungry for confidence in its armed forces following what many felt was a debacle last year. The exercises also sent a signal to both Syria and Iran that the IDF is ready for a future Middle East war and is specifically ready to fight over the Golan Heights. Following Wednesday's exercise, and adding up all the military maneuvers in the Middle East, it's hard to dismiss that something is afoot. Here are just some of the developments: . Iran is holding its own war games with at least one goal in mind. According to Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh in an AP interview, Iran ". threaten to close the Straits of Hormuz." The Straits are a strategic choke point at the southern end of the Persian Gulf where about one-fifth of the world's oil passes through. . The U.S.S. John Stennis arrived in the Gulf on Monday. It's the first time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq that two carriers have been in the region. . According to published reports, Syria is close to buying several thousand sophisticated anti-tank missiles from Russia. Some military analysts believe Syria learned a lesson from Hezbollah during last year's war with Israel. Then, Hezbollah used those kinds of anti-tank missiles against Israel's main battle tank, the Merkerva, with great success. . Other reports state Syria is replenishing its supply of long-range rockets. . Enormous amounts of arms, explosives, and weapons are being smuggled into the Gaza Strip, leading many in Israeli intelligence to warn that the Gaza Strip is fast becoming a second Lebanon. . While there is some disagreement within the Israeli Defense establishment, some believe that Hezbollah is as strong as or stronger than it was before last summer's war with Israel. At the very least, they are actively being re-supplied by both Iran and Syria. All these signs and more point to the possibility of a looming Middle East conflict. In this light, we recently interviewed one of Israel's leading defense officials, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh. For more than thirty years, Sneh has found himself at the center of some of the historic crossroads of Israel's modern history: the Yom Kippur War, the 1976 raid on Entebbe in Uganda and the 1982 Lebanon War. Today, Sneh considers Iran's potential to get a nuclear bomb to be one of the greatest threats to the state of Israel and to the rest of the world. Watch these sobering excerpts from this wide-ranging interview. http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/108453.aspx
