WarSclerotic

‘Iran staying clear of Israel’s red line’ | JPost | Israel News.

Netanyahu discusses Syria with Putin over the phone – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the telephone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the Sunday airstrike at a Syrian military facility, allegedly carried out by Israeli warplanes, and the tense security situation in the region.

A Kremlin spokesperson said the leaders discussed Mideast security, above all Syria. (AFP)

Israel strikes a blow to conventional Arab thinking | The Times of Israel.

‘Israel is still my enemy, but when my enemy does a neat job — I admit it,’ writes one Syrian commentator

The alleged Israeli strikes on Hezbollah weapons stashes in Syria over the weekend have left Arab observers baffled; for while many have been hoping — secretly or publicly — for a decisive military strike against President Bashar Assad, few expected or indeed wished for it to come from Israel.

Until Saturday night’s strike on two military targets near Damascus, conventional wisdom within the Syrian opposition was that Israel secretly supported Assad and was preventing his ouster. A Syrian Muslim Brotherhood official told The Times of Israel last year that Israel was pressuring the US and Russia to prop up Assad. A refugee from Daraa living in Jordan argued that Israel wanted Assad in power, because losing him would mean losing the Golan Heights, captured in 1967, and destabilizing Israel’s quietest border.

Reports to the contrary did little to change this impression. It was Israel which is said to have struck a nuclear facility under construction near the northeastern city of Deir Ezzor in 2007 and, more recently, Israel reportedly killed an Iranian general en route to Lebanon on Syrian soil. Israel never officially claimed responsibility for those strikes, but former Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak told CNN as early as May 2012 that Assad’s fall would help Israel by weakening Iran and Hezbollah. Such facts never seem to confuse the skeptics, however.

As the quintessential enemy of the Arab and Islamic world, Israel must be aligned with Assad, went the logic of many domestic Assad opponents. Israel’s brazen confrontation with the Assad regime — while many Arab leaders have spent the last two years verbally endorsing (or secretly dreaming) of such a move — has created something of a cognitive dissonance for these oppositionists.

‘[Israel] retaliated against the massacres in Baydha and Baniyas immediately. Where is your retaliation, Arabs?’

Different observers have dealt with this conundrum in different ways. Die-hard Israel critics like Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of leading Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, pounced at the opportunity to condemn Israel for its most recent “provocative” attack.

“If the Israeli missile strikes against Syria are not a declaration of war, flagrant aggression, and a violation of state sovereignty … what is war, then?” wrote Atwan in an op-ed Monday, echoing the reaction of Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad.

“The aggression against Syria is aggression against Syria and its people, not against the regime,” wrote Palestinian activist Abir Kopty on her Twitter page. “Even if it were aggression against the regime, it should not [come from] Israel, America or their Arab collaborators!”

But on the ground in Syria, attitudes may be changing.

“I don’t like Israel, there’s no question about that,” wrote one Damascus-based Twitter commentator who defines himself as “a devoted yogi, pianist, dancer and optimist. But right now, all I do is fight for a free Syria.”

“It is still my enemy, no argument. But when an enemy does a neat job, I admit it.”

A blogger from Homs who goes by the name of Kendeeel reported that his friend from Baniyas — a coastal city that experienced a regime-led massacre over the weekend — jokingly told him that Israel has more honor than Arab states (Arabic-language link).

“[Israel] retaliated against the massacres in Baydha and Baniyas immediately. Where is your retaliation, Arabs?” wrote Kendeeel on May 5, in a comment that was retweeted 107 times.

Yasser Al-Zaiat, a Damascus native studying sociology in Beirut, shared his inner distress following the Israeli strike.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t make up my mind between the Syrian army and the Israeli. The latter never harmed me, but the Arab inside me hates it; whereas everything inside me hates the former,” Al-Zaiat tweeted (Arabic-langage link).

No official Syrian movement would openly praise Israel for its strike against Assad’s military targets on Monday. The more prevalent attitude was to challenge the government to retaliate against the Zionist state, mockingly the ineptitude of a regime that prides itself on standing at the forefront of Arab resistance to Israel.

Benedetta Berti, an expert on Syria at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, said that, politically speaking, Israeli attacks on Syria are more of a liability than an an asset for the anti-Assad opposition.

“This is very tricky for the opposition, since it clearly gives the Assad regime political ammunition to claim the rebels are collaborating with Israel,” Berti said in an interview. “The best they can do is stand back and condemn the attacks as a violation of Syrian sovereignty.”

But that may change too. Some pro-opposition organizations said foreign intervention at this stage was imperative, irrespective of its source.

“I think we all wish the conflict would have remained contained within Syria without becoming more of an international threat necessitating military intervention,” wrote Dan Layman of the Syrian Support Group, a US-based pro-opposition organization, in an email correspondence.

“But unfortunately the reality on the ground has not afforded us that luxury. So we’re of course thankful that those particular threats were neutralized.”

Syrian official: We won’t respond immediately to Israeli ‘aggression’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

( Even their benighted “brothers in arms” will have trouble swallowing this ass-covering nonsense.  – JW )

Senior Syrian official says Syria ‘will respond to Israeli aggression’ when it chooses. Hezbollah ‘prepared to respond to any aggression’

Roi Kais and AFP

Damascus will respond to Israeli attacks against targets on its territory, but will “choose the moment” and may not do so immediately, a Syrian political official said on Monday.

“Syria will respond to the Israeli aggression and will choose the moment to do so,” the official close to the regime, who was speaking from Damascus, told AFP in Beirut.

“It might not be immediate because Israel now is on high alert,” he added. “We will wait but we will answer.”

Meanwhile, the deputy head of Hezbollah‘s Executive Council, Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, launched a threat towards Israel during an event in southern Lebanon. “We say to those who rely on the weakness and attrition of the resistance using Syria that the Lebanese resistance’s decision is to be prepared and respond to any Israeli aggression.” According to him, “the Israeli attacks on the outskirts of Damascus indicate the war on Syria’s targets are linked to the resistance and whoever fights Syria and its regime serves Israeli goals.”

Lebanese media published Monday that certain circles within Hezbollah say that there is a need to wait before setting any position beyond condemnation. “The situation is sensitive and there cannot be any quick steps against the aggression due to the sensitivity of the matter, and since a response is related to contacts and consultations between Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia,” one Hezbollah operative said, adding that “any decision will affect everyone.”

Site of alleged Israeli strike near Damascus (Photo: EPA)

At the same time, China and Russia sharply criticized on Monday the alleged Israeli airstrikes. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on an official visit to Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China opposes the use of force. The Chinese Foreign Ministry also added that restraint should be maintained and Syria’s sovereignty respected.

“We oppose the use of military force and believe any country’s sovereignty should be respected,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. “China calls on all relevant parties to begin from the basis of protecting regional peace and stability, maintain restraint, and avoid taking any actions that would escalate tensions.”

Russia also released a statement in which it expressed “serious concern” over the alleged Israeli strikes in Syria, and the increasing chances of international military intervention in the Syrian civil war. In a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry it was said that Moscow is certain that the attack could lead to an escalation in the region: “We are trying to identify and examine the circumstances regarding the Israeli attacks on May 4 and 5 on the outskirts of Damascus.”

In contrast, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned of the possibility of weapons reaching Syrian rebels connected to Al-Qaeda, saying it would risk regional democracies like Turkey and Israel. Westerwelle, who is in Budapest for the World Jewish Congress, added that if the weapons reach “the wrong hands, Damascus will only be a stop on the way to Jerusalem.”

Reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria could accelerate U.S. decision process – The Washington Post.

Syrian Arab News Agency/Via Reuters – Damage is seen in a purported ammunition depot following an airstrike near Damascus on Sunday, in this photo distributed by Syria’s national news agency. Israel reportedly carried out its second airstrike in recent days on Syria early Sunday.

By Karen DeYoung, Monday, May 6, 12:46 AM

Israel’s reported airstrikes in Syria — and the threat of a retaliatory strike by the Syrian government — are likely to accelerate the decision-making of the Obama administration, which was already moving toward a sharp escalation of U.S. involvement in the two-year-old crisis.

Senior officials said the deployment of U.S. troops to Syria remains unlikely, but they have indicated that a decision will come within weeks on options ranging from the supply of weapons to the Syrian rebels to the use of U.S. aircraft and missiles to ground President Bashar al-Assad’s air power by destroying planes, runways and missile sites inside Syria.

Neither Israeli nor U.S. officials confirmed an attack Sunday morning that reportedly hit a weapons shipment in Syria — including sophisticated missiles and air defense equipment — about to be transferred to Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

But President Obama, in an interview broadcast just hours later Sunday, said Israel is justified in preventing the provision of weapons to Hezbollah.

“We coordinate very closely with the Israelis, recognizing that . . . they are very close to Syria, they’re very close to Lebanon,” Obama said in the interview, recorded Saturday with the Spanish-language Telemundo, after an earlier Israeli attack reported late Friday.

Throughout the Syrian crisis, the administration has repeatedly voiced the belief that Syria is already awash in weapons and that sending more will not tip the balance in favor of the rebels.

Now, in part because of growing confidence in the rebel Free Syrian Army, “the national security team and the diplomatic team around the president” favor increased involvement, and their views are gaining momentum despite the caution expressed by Obama’s political advisers, according to a senior Western official whose government has closely coordinated its Syria policy with Washington and who spoke before the reported Israeli strikes. The official discussed sensitive diplomatic assessments on the condition of anonymity.

Even U.S. lawmakers who have expressed reservations about stepped-up U.S. involvement appeared to now see it as inevitable.

“If we are going to arm the rebels, we have to make sure those arms are not going to end up in the possession of al-Qaeda supporters,” Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) expressed similar concern but said he believes that Obama is moving toward action. “The idea of getting weapons in — if we know the right people to get them — my guess is we will give them to them,” Leahy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, urged that action be taken only with other partners. “We can’t be the sheriff to the whole world,” he said. “We have our own issues right now — Iraq, Afghanistan, we have sequestration, those type of issues. So when we make the move to get in, we have to do it with a coalition.”

The apparent Israeli strikes — following reports in recent weeks that Assad’s forces probably deployed chemical weapons in unknown quantities — appeared to bolster the case of those who have long favored direct U.S. support for the rebels.

“We need to have a game-changing action,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “And that is no American boots on the ground, establish a safe zone, and to protect it and to supply weapons to the right people in Syria who are fighting for, obviously, the things we believe in.”

The impunity with which the Israelis apparently struck targets in Damascus, McCain said on “Fox News Sunday,” undercut the argument of the U.S. military that Syrian air defenses would pose a formidable impediment to imposition of a no-fly zone over rebel-held areas of Syria.

“The Israelis seem to be able to penetrate it rather easily,” Mc­Cain said. The “red line” Obama drew, promising consequences for Assad if he used chemical weapons, “was apparently written in disappearing ink,” he said.

After Sunday’s strikes, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed “grave concern” and called on “all sides to exercise maximum calm and restraint, and to act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict,” according to Ban’s spokesman in New York.

The administration has long exercised caution out of fears that U.S. involvement could worsen the situation. But Obama’s reservations have been challenged by U.S. allies and partners who have urged the United States to take more of a leadership role over their disparate efforts to help the Syrian opposition. At the same time, U.S. confidence has been growing in the cohesiveness of the Free Syrian Army led by Gen. Salim Idris.

Idris, who met with Secretary of State John F. Kerry in Istanbul two weeks ago, pledged that no U.S.-supplied arms would go to Islamist extremist groups fighting for the same cause as the U.S.-backed rebels and said that all weapons would be carefully supervised and returned to donors at the end of the conflict.

Kerry will travel this week to Moscow to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to drop his support of Assad and join an international effort to prevent the spread of chemical weapons and stop the Syrian bloodshed. But senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity about those upcoming talks, expressed little optimism that those efforts would succeed.

Sean Sullivan contributed to this report.

© The Washington Post Company

LIVE BLOG: Aftermath of weekend airstrikes in Syria – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

LIVE BLOG

6:32 P.M. Israel launches complaint with United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) over mortar shells fired from Syria. (Haaretz)

5:51 P.M. Two mortar shells land in Golan Heights near border fence, in an apparent errant launch from Syria. No casualties reported. (Haaretz)

5:29 P.M.  The IDF has decided to significantly reduce the scope of an exercise planned this week for the Lebanese border in order to decrease regional tensions. The exercise, run by the Northern Command, will feature less traffic of military vehicles on northern roads.

5:03 P.M. Haifa airport reopens after day of closure due to security situation with Syria. Commercial flights to resume on Tuesday. (Haaretz)

4:39 P.M. Turkey launches a 10-day military exercise at Incirlik, a NATO air base near the border with Syria in the Adana province, where U.S. troops are also stationed. The exercise will test the military’s readiness for battle and coordination with government ministries, the general staff said in a statement. (Reuters).

4:32 P.M. Anti-regime activists say Israel’s weekend air strike on the military complex near Damascus killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers, citing information from military hospitals. The Syrian government has not released a death toll, but Syrian state media have reported casualties in Sunday’s pre-dawn airstrike. (AP)

3:29 P.M. Syrian rebels denied they were using chemical weapons, after a UN investigator said there were suspicions based upon interviews with victims that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin. “We do not have sarin gas and we do not aim to bring it under our control,” Luai al-Mekdad, spokesman for the Free Syrian Army said. (DPA)

2:40 P.M. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) urged both sides in Syria’s civil war on Monday to allow swift evacuation of the dead and wounded, many of them civilians, who often lie abandoned for days or months in intense
urban fighting.

The ICRC reminded the government and the rebels that international humanitarian law requires bodies to be removed promptly and respectfully, and the injured to be evacuated for treatment.(Reuters)

12:32 P.M. Russia said on Monday it was concerned the chances of foreign military intervention in Syria were growing following reports of Israeli airstrikes around Damascus which were a source of “particular alarm”. “We are seriously concerned by the signs of preparation of global public opinion for possible armed intervention in the long-running internal conflict in Syria,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement. (Reuters)

12:04 A.M. China issues veiled criticism of Israel over military strike in Syria as Netanyahu begins a five-day visit in the country. “We oppose the use of military force and believe any country’s sovereignty should be respected,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing. “China also calls on all relevant parties to begin from the basis of protecting regional peace and stability, maintain restraint and avoid taking any actions that would escalate tensions and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability,” Hua said. (Reuters)

11:30 A.M. Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yair Golan says there is no fear of war breaking out in Syria. Golan, who spoke during a Golani Brigade event, said that “it is always right to prepare and train, but there are no winds of war” along Israel’s northern border. (Haaretz)

9:01 A.M. Rebels claim to have shot down an army helicopter in eastern Syria. (Reuters)

Netanyahu visits China as planned, following two strikes in Syria over the weekend; U.S. received no early warning of attacks, American officials say; IDF Northern Command chief says war unlikely.

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, damaged buildings wrecked by an Israeli airstrike are seen in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, May 5, 2013. Photo by AP

Despite the tension along Israel’s northern border following two reported strikes in Syria over the weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left on Sunday as planned for a five-day tour in China, in effort to send a calming message to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Without confirming foreign reports saying Israel was behind both attacks, on Friday and Sunday, American officials said Monday morning that the U.S. received no early warning of the strikes. The New York Times quoted a Syrian official who claimed that the strike hit an elite military unit. A Syrian doctor told the paper that at least 100 soldiers were killed in the attack.

According to Sunday’s reports, the targets of both strikes were shipments of Iranian Fateh-100 missile en route to Lebanon’s Hezbollah. These missiles are said to be extremely accurate, with a range of up to 300 kilometers. One of the targets in Sunday’s attack was a site in Jamariyz, which was also hit in January.

Following the reports of a second strike, tensions increased along Israel’s northern border. Though Israeli authorities refused to comment on the attacks, the Israel Defense Forces deployed two Iron Dome batteries along the Lebanon border and the northern skies were closed to civilian flights.

Syrian Observatory: 42 soldiers killed in Israel strike | JPost | Israel News.

Opposition group says at least 42 soldiers killed in alleged IAF strikes in Damascus, more than 100 still missing; NYT quotes doctor at Syrian military hospital as saying at least 100 soldiers killed, dozens wounded.

Israel Hayom | Israel taking a necessary risk.

Dan Margalit

“The West is using Israel as a mercenary to undermine Assad’s regime, and to that end it is willing to back the IAF’s operations.”

Israel Hayom | Next strike not far off.

Yoav Limor

Israel Hayom | The West does not really want to intervene.

Dr. Ronen Yitzhak