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By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
Haaretz
Saturday 02 December 2006
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1. The Third Lebanon War
There will be a war next summer. Only the sector has not been chosen yet. The atmosphere in the Israel Defense Forces
in the past month has been very pessimistic. The latest rounds in the campaigns on both fronts, Lebanon and the Gaza
Strip, have left too many issues undecided, too many potential detonators that could cause a new conflagration. The
army's conclusion from this is that a war in the new future is a reasonable possibility. As Amir Oren reported in
Haaretz several weeks ago, the IDF's operative assumption is that during the coming summer months, a war will break out
against Hezbollah and perhaps against Syria as well.
At the same time, the IDF does not anticipate a long life for the cease-fire achieved last Saturday night with the
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. When the present tahdiya (lull) joins its predecessors that fell apart - the hudna
(cease-fire) of summer 2003 (which lasted for a month and a half) and the tahdiya of winter 2005 (which was in its death
throes for months until its final burial at the end of the disengagement) - there is a danger that the big bang will
take place in Gaza. At its conclusion, like a self- fulfilling prophecy, IDF soldiers will return to the heart of Rafah
for the first time in 13 years.
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ENDS