The Lavi – IDF’s Newest Training Aircraft

Earlier this month, the Israel Air Force grew significantly stronger with the arrival of its newest training aircraft: the “Lavi”. On the forefront of aerial technology, the Lavi allows pilots to acquire operational flight skills much faster resulting in a more efficient training process. Major A., the deputy commander of the Lavi Squadron, explains the enormous benefits of this new aircraft.

The first three models of this new trainer aircraft are officially in the hands of the Israel Air Force. The Lavi is designed to train pilots from the IAF Flight Academy, facilitating their transition from basic training models to advanced fighter aircraft like the F-15 and F-16I.

Major A., deputy commander of the Lavi Squadron explains, “This aircraft is revolutionary for the Flight Academy. Its flight characteristics are very similar to those of the F-16I and F-15. We can show students the possible maneuvers on their future fighter aircraft and thus shorten the training and adaptation processes significantly.”

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How did the Shin Bet fail to spot the Hebron kidnap cell in time?

Analysis

Israel’s intelligence services have a remarkable record of success in the West Bank. Not this time. Hard lessons will have to be learned about the failure to thwart the killings of the three Israeli teens

By Avi Issacharoff July 4, 2014, 11:55 am

An Israeli soldier patrols near the area where the bodies of three Israeli teenagers were found, in the village of Halhul, near the West Bank city of Hebron, Tuesday, July 1, 2014. (photo credit: AP/Majdi Mohammed)

Ibrahim Hamed, the former head of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, the man responsible for the murders of dozens of Israelis, was thought of as a “ghost” for many years. Almost a legend. The Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces were not able to catch up to him, as he slipped through their grasp time and again. Only after eight years of pursuit was he captured in 2006 in a safe house in Ramallah’s al-Balou neighborhood.

People involved in the search for “The Sheikh” — who is today 49 and serving 54 life sentences — say one of the basic things that allowed him to evade capture for so long was his refusal to use a mobile phone. Israel’s security establishment managed to track his calls only twice over all those years, and even those instances were calls made from public phones.

Satellite comms a "revelation" for the military, says former IDF chief

Contributor:  Andrew Elwell  Posted:  06/06/2012  12:00:00 AM EDT

INTERVIEW: Brigadier General Moshe (‘Chico’) Tamir

Tamir is Vice President of Defence and Homeland Security for Gilat having previously served for 28 years in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and held senior command posts including Brigade and Division Commander. Tamir is a graduate of IDF Command and US Army war college, and holds a BA in Middle East Affairs from the University of Haifa, and an MBA from the Interdisciplinary Centre Hertzelia.

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“This is the revelation of the next decade for the military; the need for satellite communications is rising,” according to Brigadier General Moshe (‘Chico’) Tamir.

Tamir is a former Israeli Defence Force special operations officer who has now stepped into the private sector as the Vice President of Defence and Homeland Security at Petah Tikva-based Gilat Satellite Networks (NASDAQ: GILT. TASE). In an interview with Defence IQ this week Tamir explained why the military satellite communications market is so coveted by the communications industry and what technological revolutions will drive the sector over the next decade.

“For many years Gilat was focused on commercial communications but we were looking at growing our business into other areas,” Tamir said. “After reviewing the strategic options a decision was taken to move into the defence and homeland security market [in 2010].”

The company did so quickly and aggressively following the acquisition of radio frequency amplifier designers Wavestream for $135 million and RaySat, an antenna systems developer, for $25 million.

Tamir said that satellite communications in the military only used to be at the Division level, but as the technology improves and becomes more accessible it is crossing boundaries and being used at the Platoon and Company levels too.

“When we looked at this market we asked ourselves what will be the main drivers for satellite communication requirements in the forthcoming years, and we found that what is really happening is that the need for communications – non-line-of-sight communications on the frontlines – is driving a requirement for terminals to be deployed at very low echelons.

“So the importance of satellite communications is growing for sure … everyone has to be connected in all areas at all times,” Tamir said.

What about the future? What direction is the market taking and how is Gilat positioning for the evolution?

“The big development will be in automated solutions such as UAS’s on the ground and in the air, self-controlled systems and guided munitions, which in the past have been very big platforms.

“The future is for very small platforms but in very big numbers … What we’re seeing is a requirement for much much smaller and lighter platforms.”

If “small” is the first keyword, “integrated” is the second. Tamir explained that “only an integrated system will work” so developing individual components will be ineffective, which is why Gilat is taking a more holistic approach. The terminal opposite is an example of Gilat’s integrated system development, with this specifically designed for a UAV.

The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference April 29, 2012, Marriott Times Square

The Jerusalem Post is holding its first annual conference in New York on Israel-US relations, featuring top personalities from Israel and the US, as well as the newspaper’s top editors and journalists. There will be key addresses and panel discussions on the major issues facing the Jewish people in the coming years. It promises to be a hugely important event for anyone interested in the future of the Jewish State.

“FOR ALMOST 80 YEARS, THE JERUSALEM POST HAS SERVED AS THE BEST “POST”
OF JERUSALEM. ALWAYS TRUSTWORTHY, ALWAYS CARING, ALWAYS REMEMBERING
ITS HISTORY, WITHOUT IGNORING ITS PRESENT, AND LOOKING FORWARD TO ITS FUTURE” PRESIDENT SHIMON PERES

Photo’s by: Reuters/Brian Snyder, Eladmkeren, Reuters /Kevin Lamarque, Marc Israel. CC-BY-SA Carl Lender, Commons Share Alike, Ariel Jerozolimski

Speakers

Steve Linde – Editor-in-Chief of The Jerusalem Post
Steve Linde was appointed editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post in July, 2011, after serving as managing editor, news editor and night editor at the paper over the past 14 years. He also served as director, editor, reporter and news reader for Israel Radio’s English News over a period of 21 years. Born in Zimbabwe and raised in South Africa, he has graduate degrees in sociology and journalism, the latter from the University of California at Berkeley. Linde made aliya in 1987, served in IDF artillery and has lived in Jerusalem for the past 21 years.

Special guest – Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert led Israel through two wars and attempted to make peace as Israel’s prime minister from 2006 to 2009. Prior to that he had a 30-year political career in which he served as mayor of Jerusalem for a decade after serving in the Knesset on the Foreign Affairs and Defense, Finance, Education and Defense Budget committees. He has also served as minister-without-portfolio responsible for minority affairs and as minister of health.

Gabi Ashkenazi – Former Chief of Staff of the IDF
Gabi Ashkenazi was the chief of staff of the Israel Defense forces from 2007 to 2011. He served in the IDF for almost 40 years and was also the director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Defense in 2006. He attended the US Marine Corps Unniversity’s Command and Staff College and is a graduate of Harvard Business School.

Israel + Egypt (+ the US too) coordinating Sinai moves – Bikya Masr

Image via Wikipedia

Commentary: Peace or war?

Published: May 12, 2009 at 10:15 AM

WASHINGTON, May 12 (UPI) — Jordan’s King Abdullah, in his 10th year on the Hashemite throne, warned that either a Palestinian state is created this year — or there will be another war in the Middle East in 2010.

If the king’s either/or prognostication proves accurate, war will come again next year because there isn’t a snowball’s chance in the Negev desert of a Palestinian state in the West Bank in 2009 — or 2010. The creation of such an entity would cost tens of billions of dollars that the United States would be expected to pay. The repatriation of some 300,000 Jewish settlers, now in 160 settlements, would entail billions more. And after what happened in Gaza in 2005, where 8,000 settlers who had occupied 40 percent of the 130-mile strip for 38 years were forcibly evicted by some 50,000 Israel Defense Forces troops and Israeli police, few, if any, are willing to be uprooted again.