Five EU countries call for new military 'structure'

BRUSSELS - Five leading EU countries, but not the UK, have said the Union needs a new military "structure" to manage overseas operations.

The foreign and defence ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain issued the call in a joint communique after a meeting in Paris on Thursday (15 November).

The paper says: "We are convinced that the EU must set up, within a framework yet to-be-defined, true civilian-military structures to plan and conduct missions and operations."

It adds: "We should show preparedness to hold available, train, deploy and sustain in theatre the necessary civilian and military means."


It lists a number of EU military priorities for the coming years: helping Somalia to fight Islamists and pirates; "a possible training mission to support the Malian armed forces" in reconquering north Mali; "assistance to support the new Libyan authorities" against Islamist militias; "normalisation" of the Western Balkans; "conflict resolution" in Georgia; and police training in Afghanistan.

The communique also calls for more "pooling and sharing" of EU defence hardware in the context of crisis-related budget cuts.

It identifies "space, ballistic-missile defence, drones, air-to-air refuelling, airlift capacities, medical support to operations [and] software defined radio" as pooling areas.

The reference to new "civilian-military structures" comes after the UK last year blocked the creation of a new operational headquarters (OHQ) in Brussels for EU military missions.

Britain's Telegraph newspaper earlier this week cited a "senior French source" as saying that EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton supports the idea of an OHQ, which will become a "ripe fruit" in the "long-term" as EU military operations multiply.

Ashton officials denied the report.

Meanwhile, the UK's role in future EU defence co-operation was a big topic at the Paris meeting.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said the UK can join the group-of-five at any time: "The text which we have developed is open to all of our colleagues, especially Great Britain."

French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the communique is designed to "create a movement" ahead of an EU summit on defence in 2013.

For his part, Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski said: "If the EU wants to become a superpower, and Poland supports this, then we must have the capability to exert influence in our neighbourhood ... Sometimes we must use force to back our diplomacy."

He called for an "ambitious" EU budget for 2014 to 2020 to help with defence co-ordination.

Speaking in a separate interview in UK newspaper The Times also on Thursday, Sikorski blamed British "nostalgia" for past greatness as a reason why it is pulling back from EU integration and why it wants to cut the EU budget.

He touched on historic sensitivities by describing EU spending as a kind of "Marshall plan."

He said Poland and other former-Soviet-controlled EU countries missed out on the plan - a massive injection of US money to rebuild Europe after World War II - because UK and US leaders at a summit in Yalta in 1945 gave the Soviet Union control of eastern Europe.

"We fought Hitler alone, giving you [the UK] valuable time to prepare for fighting. But we did not enjoy freedom after World War II ... Because of Yalta, we could not benefit [from the Marshall plan]. European cohesion funds are our Marshall plan for catching up with Europe," he noted.

EU Observer

Japan averts 'fiscal-cliff' as it passes financing bill

Japan's lawmakers have approved a crucial bill that will ensure that the government does not run out of money at the end of this month.

It will allow the government to borrow additional money by selling bonds to pay for a large chunk of its expenses.

The approval comes amid fears that Japan's economy may be heading towards a recession.

The opposition had previously delayed the bill, demanding that the government call for elections first.

On Friday, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda dissolved the parliament, paving the way for snap elections to be held next month.

'Signs of weakness'
In a separate move, Japan's government warned that the economy is showing "signs of weakness", adding to concerns about the health of the world's third-largest economy.

Concerning short-term prospects, weak movements would remain for the time being”Japan's Caninet Office

It said that industrial production is falling and exports continue to remain weak due to slowing global demand.

It added that private consumption and business investment also remain subdued.

Japan's economy shrunk 0.9% in the July to September quarter, from the previous three months, and there are fears it may contract further in the current quarter.

"Concerning short-term prospects, weak movements would remain for the time being," the Cabinet Office said in its monthly report.

This is the fourth successive month that Japan has lowered its assessment of the economy, the longest such streak since the 2008 - 2009 global financial crisis.

Stimulus hopes
One of the big concerns among policymakers in Japan has been continued deflation, or falling consumer prices, in the country.

That has hampered their efforts to boost domestic consumption as consumers tend to put off purchases in hopes of getting a better deal later on.
Consumer prices in Japan fell 0.1% in September, from a year earlier, the fifth straight month of decline.

The government said that it "strongly expects the Bank of Japan to continue powerful monetary easing" to help fight deflation.

Meanwhile, Shinzo Abe, the leader of the main opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has said the central bank needed to set an inflation target of 3% instead of its current 1% goal to help revive growth in the economy.

Mr Abe, who's party is widely expected to win a snap election, has said that if elected, he will put pressure on the bank to ease its policies further and has called for it to print "unlimited yen" to help fight deflation.

His comments have had an impact on the financial markets.

The yen has fallen to its lowest level against the US dollar in six-and-half-months. It was trading close to 80.97 yen against the US dollar in Asian trade.
BBC

Israel Air Force hits 70 Gaza Strip targets in an hour

The Israeli Air Force struck some 70 targets in the Gaza Strip in one hour's time, the IDF Spokesman's Office said shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday. Among the targets, the IDF statement said, were underground medium-range rocket launching pads. The most recent blitz of air strikes brought the total number to well over 300.

Palestinians have fired over 275 rockets from Gaza into the South since the IDF launched its operation. Two rockets triggered an air raid siren in Tel Aviv, marking the first time that a real siren was sounded in Tel Aviv since the Gulf War in the early 1990s.

According to Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency, 16 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the operation. At least two children, including an 11-month-old baby were among the casualties.

The IDF shifted infantry brigades and tank columns to the Gaza border, and announced the call-up of 30,000 reservists, as it made preparations for a possible ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.

“The aim of the attacks is to disrupt the ability of the terrorist organizations to fire rockets,” the IDF said. “Terrorist cells involved in firing rockets have also been hit.”

The targets were chosen after intelligence reports on their locations were gathered over recent months.

“The IDF is landing painful blows against Hamas and against terrorist infrastructure,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. He said the rocket fire on greater Tel Aviv was “an escalation, and the other side will have to pay a price for this escalation.
Jerusalem Post

First three Gaza missiles hit Tel Aviv. Israel drafts 30,000 reservists

The first three Palestinian missiles reached the Tel Aviv conurbation, Gush Dan, Thursday night, Nov. 15. shortly after a long-range missile exploded in Rishon Lezion southeast of Tel Aviv and sirens sounded in outlying towns of Holon, Ness Ziona, Gan Raveh and Beer Yacov. None report casualties or damage. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered 30,000 army reservists drafted. The IDF spokesmen earlier reported units of the elite paratroop and Givati Brigades were mustering outside the Gaza Strip on the second day of Israel's counter-terror operation Pillar of Cloud.

From DEBKAfile's earlier report Thursday: As the rockets kept coming through Wednesday night – and the first three fatalities Thursday morning, Nov. 15 - the cautious lift in Israeli spirits generated by the death of Ahmed Jabari, who fashioned Hamas into a paramilitary machine of terror, and the destruction of dozens of missile sites in Gaza, gave way to resignation for a long haul before southern Israel is free of its decade-long rocket nightmare.
Thursday morning, a rocket from Gaza killed three Israelis in Kiryat Malachi. By then, some 120 rockets – mostly targeting the major towns of Beersheba and Ashdod, but also smaller locations – had followed Jabari's death. Iron Dome intercepted 27.The first reserve units had been mobilized for possible ground action in Gaza to supplement the air offensive against the Palestinian missile arsenal.
But Operation Pillar of Cloud’s first part showed a favorable balance: Palestinian missile fire was as erratic as ever, although intense; Iron Dome filtered out the rockets aimed at Israel’s major towns; Israeli casualties were relatively low though painful; and the enemy in Gaza was decapitated – for now.
But most of all, the Palestinians and their allies in Tehran and Hizballah suddenly discovered that the old IDF had come roaring back.
In the only former major Israeli operation in Gaza, Cast Lead (late 2008, early 2009), the IDF was slow, unwieldy and unfocused. Its counter-terror offensive was foreshortened by heavy diplomatic pressure before achieving anything, owing to the government’s lack of resolve. In the 2006 Lebanon War, the army was stalled before developing an effective tactical offensive.

The IDF of 2012 is in a different class, recalling its rapid-fire performance in the Six-Day War then fought on multiple fronts.
In just a few hours late Wednesday, Nov. 14, Pillar of Cloud achieved more than Cast Lead managed in weeks: It was driven by clockwork, integrated intelligence by the Shin Bet and Military Intelligence, precise, surgical air force strikes and a command-and-control with fast reflexes which recalled Israel’s military skills of 45 years ago.
The rapid destruction of scores of Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets, whose respective ranges of 45 and 75 kilometers placed Israel’s heartland in line of Palestinian strikes, compared with the destruction of the Egyptian air force on the ground in the early hours of the 1967 war, rather than the bombardment of Hizballah’s long-range missiles in 2006 which failed to draw its sting.
In 1967, the Egyptian army had to fight in Sinai without air cover. In 2012, the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip were stripped of their key commander and terror strategist and lost substantial, though not all, its missile arsenal.
Wherever Operation Pillar of Cloud goes next – and the IDF is preparing for a long, hard haul – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz deserve kudos for their performance thus far.
It may be said that Israel’s Gaza operation did in fact start on Oct. 24 in Sudan with the attack on the Yarmouk complex manufacturing Iranian missiles near Khartoum. Former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin Wednesday confirmed DEBKAfile’s exclusive report that the factory had housed the emergency reserve stocks of the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami in the Gaza Strip.
Its destruction contributed to their loss of infrastructure.
The tough part of the Israeli operation to eliminate the terrorist war peril hovering over southern Israel from the Gaza Strip is still to come. For now, Hamas is at a loss for a strategic answer to the IDF offensive – unless one is provided by Tehran or Hizballah coming to its rescue.

DEBKAfile

How Raising Taxes Will Not Balance the Budget

IDF calling up reserves ahead of possible Gaza ground operation

The IDF has called up a limited number of reserve soldiers ahead of a possible ground incursion into Gaza as part of Operation Pillar of Defense, IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai said Thursday.

“It is a very limited call-up, with emphasis on Home Front Command units,” Mordechai said in an interview to Channel 2 News.

“IDF Chief of General Staff Benny Gantz has authorized the army’s regular units to prepare for a ground operation,” said Mordechai. Some of those called up for reserves would be dispatched to replace those units in their routine duties.

Mordechai said it was “far too early to talk about a ceasefire,” and that the army planned to continue its attacks on terror targets until the operation’s goals were met.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night announced the onset of a broad aerial and naval bombardment of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, and said the country’s military was ready to widen its operations until its objectives were reached.

Netanyahu’s national security cabinet also announced it had tasked the Israel Defense Forces with calling up extra reserve units, should the need arise, a possible precursor to a wider ground operation.

The military said it was ready, if necessary, to send ground troops into Gaza. The defense officials who said a ground operation was likely in the coming days spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing sensitive military plans.

The prime minister reiterated the IDF’s report that Israeli Air Force planes had “damaged strategic targets of Hamas in a precise fashion” and “substantially damaged the launch capabilities of rockets from Gaza” at central and southern Israel.

“The terror organizations hurt our citizens with premeditation, while they deliberately conceal themselves behind their own citizens,” he said.

Speaking after Netanyahu, Barak told reporters that “the accuracy of the Shin Bet’s information and the sharpness of the IDF’s operation brought about the assassination of Hamas chief of staff [Ahmed] Jabari and the neutralization of Fajr missiles and Hamas’s infrastructures.” He added that most of Hamas’s Fajr long-range rocket arsenal was destroyed in IAF airstrikes.

Barak noted that Operation Pillar of Defense would not be completed in “one fell swoop,” but that the objectives would be attained in due time.

The defense minister delineated the operation’s objectives as “strengthening deterrence, damaging the rocket arsenal, damaging and hurting Hamas and minimizing injury to the civilians on the homefront of the State of Israel.”

“The IDF will receive all of the support to do everything necessary in order to return calm to the South,” Barak said.

In an earlier address to the press, former deputy chief of General Staff Maj. Gen. (res.) Dan Harel said that “Hamas thought [Israel] would not retaliate” to rocket barrages in recent weeks. “They were wrong.”

Hamas has escalated its smuggling of high-quality weaponry recently, Harel explained, and “felt it has enough power to face down Israel,” Harel said. “We are in the early hours of the clash, and where it goes from here depends on Hamas’s activity.”

Besides the killing of Jabari, he added, “some of the long-range rockets of Hamas were destroyed. Fighter jets are bombing rocket cylinders buried in the ground. We’re trying to take away [Hamas’] launching capability. It will be difficult, but we’re doing our best.”

Israel does not wish to launch a ground operation, Harel said, but is willing to do so to stop the rocket fire.

“We’re not looking at going further on the ground, but if we have to do it, we will do it.”

The Times of Israel

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