WarSclerotic

No longer quiet on Israel’s northern front – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

For more than two years, Israel has avoided the troubled waters of the changing Arab world. The recent attacks in Syria may herald the end of that period.

IDF soldiers on the Syria-Israel border. Photo by Yaron Kaminsky

If we ignore Jerusalem’s deafening silence and accept the foreign media’s assumption that Israel was behind two aerial attacks in Syria within less than 48 hours, we must assume that there was something near Damascus that Israel urgently felt it had to keep from being transferred to Hezbollah.

For 40 years, Israel has seen Syria as a heavyweight foe, but one usually held in check by the deterrence Israel created to prevent a military attack. Suddenly, we have shifted to a pace of attacks more characteristic of the operations in Gaza or Lebanon.

According to the New York Times, the reason for the attack was a shipment of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles that was on its way to Lebanon. The disturbing thing about these missiles is not their range, but their accuracy. The Fateh-110 missile could be the most accurate weapon Hezbollah has.

Of course, the sequence of attacks — the one near Damascus last night was the third this year — heightens the risk of a response from Syria or Hezbollah. The first time, Damascus complained and promised an appropriate military response. The second time, it simply ignored the attack. As Israeli activity in its territory become harsher, Syria faces an urgent dilemma.

Israel has entered an extremely sensitive period on the northern border without the Israeli public being completely aware of it and certainly without knowing the details. If a more significant escalation erupts there, the security of citizens could be affected.

It seems this kind of escalation between Israel and Syria has been simmering behind the scenes for quite some time. Over the past year, Bashar Assad’s regime has steadily been losing its hold in Syria. Assad’s loyalists are throwing everything they have into near-desperate attempts to save what is left of his regime — the capital, Damascus, the Alawite salient in northwestern Syria and the narrow corridor between them. Assad is highly dependent on Hezbollah’s aid in this fight. Perhaps because of that, he cannot really refuse when Hezbollah asks him to transfer arms into Lebanon — and the Lebanese allow this because they believe Assad cannot hold out much longer.

Then there’s the question of where the Americans stand. The Obama administration must admit, too little and too late, the high likelihood that Assad’s loyalists used chemical weapons against their opponents twice in March, once near Damascus and once near Aleppo. Despite President Barack Obama’s reservations about increased American involvement in the war itself, the discoveries could encourage the transfer of significant military aid from the United States to the rebels. This, too, could lead to the tie-breaking action so long delayed in the brutal fight between Assad and his opponents.

At a press conference in Costa Rica Saturday, Obama refused to speak directly about the attack early last Friday morning, but said that Israel had the right to defend itself against the transfer of advanced weapons from Syria to Hezbollah.

For now, this looks like across-the-board American support of Israel’s actions.
The question is how far Israel intends to go in this effort, and whether Syria will eventually decide to respond despite the regime’s fear that a conflict with Israel could lead to its final collapse.

According to a report by the Reuters news agency, the first attack was preceded by a dramatic meeting of the security cabinet Thursday night. The Israeli media is only quoting the foreign press because all the decisions here are made under a heavy cloak of censorship.

For more than two years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has succeeded in navigating these troubled waters with enough caution to keep Israel from being too directly involved in the turmoil that has been changing the power structure in the Arab world from the ground up. The two attacks in Syria — particularly if a response should come — may herald the end of this period. At some point in the near future, Netanyahu will have to explain to his citizens exactly what is going on here.

This entry was posted on May 5, 2013 at 9:19 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.