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The Israel Defense Forces have been instructed to prepare for the possibility that the US will conduct a military strike against Iran before President Donald Trump leaves office, according to Axios. Israeli military and intelligence leaders are anticipating “a very sensitive period” until President-Elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.
The IDF’s preparedness measures relate to possible retaliation by the Islamic Republic against the Jewish state directly or through its proxies in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon.
This development comes on the heels of last Sunday’s historic first meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, where a top issue under discussion was collaborating against Iran. And over the last two weeks, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz spoke twice with Christopher Miller, Trump’s acting defense secretary. Among other things, they discussed Iran, Syria and defense cooperation.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces dropped leaflets in the Syrian Golan Heights on Wednesday warning the country’s military to halt its cooperation with Iran and the Hezbollah terror group. The move came hours after Israel reportedly conducted a number of airstrikes in southern Syria, striking areas associated with Tehran and its proxies.
“We will not allow anyone to upset the stability here,” read the fliers, which were stamped with an eagle, the symbol of the IDF’s 210th Division, which guards the Golan border.
The military dropped similar leaflets last month and has done so several times over the years during periods of heightened tensions along the border.
An official from the Iran-backed Houthi group fighting in Yemen said a long-range missile fired at Saudi Arabian oil facilities on Tuesday would someday be used against Israel. The Houthi rebels said they struck the facility in the city of Jiddah on Monday with a Quds-2 missile, as they step up attacks in retaliation for a five-year military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
“With regard to the targeting of the city of Jiddah, we believe that this missile (of ours) is meant to target Eilat and not Jiddah, but since the Saudi aggressors continue their suffocating attacks against us in Yemen, we are forced to confront this aggression, in order to force Saudi Arabia to stop its attacks against Yemen, and to lift its siege on Yemen,” Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Mahbashi told the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV station.
As Islamic Republic-fuelled tensions continue to escalate, the Trump Administration plans to tighten sanctions on Tehran during its final months in power as US Special Envoy for Iran Elliott Abrams urged President-elect Joe Biden to push for a nuclear deal that reduces the regional threat posed by the Islamic Republic.
“We will have next week, and the week after, and the week after — all through December and January, there will be sanctions that deal with arms, that deal with weapons of mass destruction, that deal with human rights. … So this will continue on for another couple of months, right until the end,” Abrams said.
Biden has said he will return the US to the Obama-era deal of 2015 that the Trump Administration abandoned if Iran resumes compliance.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly anticipated visits to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain will likely take place after Hanukkah. While Netanyahu had originally sought to visit next week, December 2 is the UAE’s National Day, and its leadership asked him to come at a later date.
In addition, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi’s plan to open the Israeli Embassy in Manama has been postponed until later in December.
Israeli delegations of senior unelected officials, led by National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat, have been to the UAE and Bahrain in recent months to negotiate the details of normalization between Israel and the countries.
Antisemitic incidents accounted for 22% of hate crimes recorded last year in the pan-European region, though Jews comprise less than 1% of the population.
The data on hate crimes comes from a new report about 5,954 incidents recorded in Europe, Russia and Central Asia by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The report is based on data transmitted by governments and watchdog groups.
Of the total incidents, 1,311 were antisemitic, according to 2019 Hate Crime Data.
With hate crimes often left unreported, the report said its figures are not definitive and may in fact be lower than the number of hate crimes committed or recorded in Europe.
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