Ret. Israeli Gen.: Hezbollah Armed to the Hilt

JERUSALEM, Israel -- Former national security advisor Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror said Islamist extremists and a nuclear-armed Iran pose the biggest threats to Israel in 2015.

"Israel has moved into a different world," Amidror wrote in a position paper published by the Jerusalem-based Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, where he serves as a senior researcher.

"The current threat to Israel is different," he explained. "It consists of mainly non-state entities motivated by Islamic ideology."

Amidror believes Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Iranian proxy with its 150,000 missile cache, poses one of the greatest threats in the coming year.

"The strongest of them [Islamic groups] is Hezbollah, which was formed with a dual purpose in mind: It represents Iran's long reach in the area and against Israel, while at the same time it aims to control Lebanon, where the Shiites are the largest ethnic group," he wrote, defining it as a well-organized "military-style hierarchy."

Hezbollah's weapons cache includes long-range surface-to-sea missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles [drones] and modern anti-tank missiles.

Amidror says Hamas, the Islamist terror group ruling the Gaza Strip, also presents a "steadily rising threat to Israel."

"Hamas has the markings of a well-organized military organization, as well as an impressive ability to learn and improve," he wrote.

But of all the threats facing Israel, Iran tops the list.

"The most significant threat to Israel's very existence is the possibility that some time in 2015, Iran will reach a deal with the West that would allow it to pursue some form of nuclear military capability," he wrote.

Any deal between Iran and western powers will be difficult for Israel to deal with, Amidror wrote, concluding that "the Israeli military must be prepared for both large-scale ground warfare in Lebanon, attrition in Gaza and an operation in Iran," which he said would be "neither easy or cheap."