WarSclerotic

Lebanon news – NOW Lebanon -Why Israel keeps quiet on Syria.

It is all about Iran and Hezbollah in Tel Aviv, but Syria can also mean trouble. While the Israeli government is pushing for more action on Iran and its nuclear program, the powder keg right next door is on the verge of exploding.

 

While touring the Golan Heights this week, Israeli President Shimon Peres voiced his concern. “Whatever happens in Syria will affect Israel’s defense campaign,” Peres said.

 

Other politicians say it would serve Israel’s interest if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has been battling a yearlong uprising, falls. “Assad’s fall would be a major blow to Iran… It would weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. It would be very positive,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on CNN on Thursday after a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

 

While some Israeli analysts and politicians have voiced concerns about human rights violations in Syria and have criticized the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters, others talk about the destabilization of Syria, hinting that Assad’s iron hand made Israel feel secure and that the Baath regime kept the border quiet for four decades.

 

But the Syrian story is developing in the background of more important events as far as Israel in concerned. “For Israel, Syria is a side show right now. Iran is the main stage,” Michael Weiss, Communications Director of the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank based in London, told NOW Lebanon. “[Israel’s] strategy right now is to sit and wait,” he said, adding that there is little that the Israeli government can do to influence the fate of Syria without the help of the United States. “Right now there is slight contradiction between the intention of the Obama administration to intervene and put an end to the violence in Syria and Israel’s pressure to divert the focus toward Iran,” Weiss pointed out.

 

David Pollock, Kaufman fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told NOW Lebanon, “Syria is stealing the spotlight on the international scene, and I think the Israeli government wants the international community to concentrate more on Iran and its nuclear program,” he said.

 

But Tel Aviv does have its security concerns when it comes to Syria. First, it fears a rocket attack from Hezbollah at Syria’s request and with Iran’s blessing, and second, it fears jihadists infiltrating Syria.  “Assad’s fall will be a death blow to Hezbollah. So far we have avoided attacking strategic targets in Lebanon, but if missiles are fired at us, we will know how to respond,” Peres stated.

 

Major General Yair Golan, who heads the IDF’s Northern Command at the border with Syria, explained in an interview with Israeli publication Hayom that he still expects the Assad regime to stand for many months, while the security situation at the Lebanese-Israeli border might deteriorate. He also says that he believes both Iran and Hezbollah are involved in the crackdown on the uprising “up to their necks.”

Golan also pointed out in the same interview that it is particularly worrying for his country that Syria might become a failed state. “When I see these terror attacks by Al-Qaeda in Aleppo and Damascus, I understand that from a law-and-order standpoint something is amiss. Today it is happening within the context of a civil war, but tomorrow it could be on our border,” he said.

 

But when it comes to concrete plans, Israel is still slow to act. There is no troop movement toward the northern border with Lebanon and Syria. Pollock said there is an explanation for Israel’s relative silence on Syria. “Tel Aviv needs Russia and China on its side in the Iranian nuclear file and would rather not risk interfering in the debate on intervention in Syria, which both Moscow and Beijing oppose,” he said.

 

Weiss also thinks that in the short term, Israel is happy with the stalemate in Syria.

 

He also says that the Israeli government changed its opinion on the Syrian uprising in the past year from actually pressuring the Obama administration to not oust Assad, to hoping for Assad’s fall, as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad’s direct finance and weapons-delivery link with Tehran would be disrupted.

 

But for the moment, acting to solve the Syrian problem is not in Israel’s interest. “[Israel] would be very upset if the United States intervened militarily in Syria, because that would mean less chance for a possible military campaign in Iran, and it would lose its leverage,” Weiss concluded.

 

There is still time for Israel to decide on a strategy. “They think that Assad can hold onto power at least till 2013,” Weiss said. This leaves enough time for negotiations on Iran, and Tel Aviv will deal with the Syrian problem later on, when things are clearer and when it suits it better.

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