Intel Predictions

Alex Fishman

Military Intelligence foresees threats to Israel in 2015

Analysis: Top Shin Bet assessment predicts Middle East will remain dangerous and unstable: There is no international landlord, states are disintegrating, and enemies are honing tactics.

Published:  12.28.14, 00:01 / Israel

The Middle East is expected to be very bad place in which to live over the coming year – perhaps one of the worst and most dangerous places in the world. When Military Intelligence puts its feelers out across the borders – in the direction of Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and North Africa – it sees and describes a world gripped by social decay, crumbling politically, and becoming increasingly poor.

The chronic economic crisis that is affecting the Arab Spring countries, and continues to worsen in light of the falling oil prices, is accelerating the internal disintegration of major countries such as Syria, Libya and Iraq, and could undermine stabilizing regimes like Iran and Egypt.

Islamic State members in Iraq (Archive Photo: AP)

In Saudi Arabia alone, which is seen as a stable country, unemployment among the young will reach 30 percent in the coming year. No wonder there are so many Saudis in the global Jihad organizations.

Many more young individuals will fail to find their place in the Muslim societies, resulting in the rise of many more radical movements around Israel and the spilling by Muslims of a lot more Muslim blood in relation to previous years. And this tidal wave of violence could spill over into Israel. If there is a nightmarish scenario that's going to keep MI officials awake at night in 2015 it's the possibility that they won't be able to locate this tidal wave as it begins to form.

This gloomy outlook, in the drier and more professional terminology of the MI researchers, is the bottom line of the comprehensive document MI's Research Department submitted recently to senior General Staff officials in the traditional ceremony known as MI's Annual Assessment – a regular ritual designed to present the army chiefs and political leadership with a forecast outlining the expected political and military developments in the coming year.

This intelligence assessment, consisting essentially of a series of potential threats to which answers must be found, is supposed to serve as the foundation for the State of Israel's security-economic-political work plan for the year to come.

This time, however, this gloomy forecast will fall on the shoulders of a new government, a new cabinet, a new chief of staff and perhaps a new defense minister too, making the situation even more worrisome. The Middle East, after all, is not going to wait until the summer, until a new Israeli government settles in. The uncertainty, instability and volatility of the events taking place could shake the region without warning.

It's no wonder then that MI officials themselves are saying today that an intelligence assessment for an entire year is excessively pretentious. They say they can offer an assessment with a high degree of certainty only for the first few months of 2015…

Read more at: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4608294,00.html