Some Syrians support Israel’s strikes — but what was the target?
Some Syrians support Israel’s strikes — but what was the target? | The Times of Israel.
The regime and the opposition condemn the attack, while Hezbollah tries to sell the story that innocent facilities paid the price
A day after the Israeli Air Force bombed Syrian military targets near Damascus, the Arab world remains locked in a state of disagreement over how the Israeli raid should be perceived and, even, what exactly was attacked, the Arab press reports.
Although Western media outlets are unanimously reporting that Israel’s airstrike was launched against weapons that would have eventually reached the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, Syria’s official SANA news agency claims Israel actually hit the Jamraya scientific research center “in an attempt to boost the morale of the terrorists.”
Al-Manar, the media wing of Hezbollah, veers even farther from the officially accepted narrative of events, stating in a television report that Israel bombed “poultry farms and cement and tea factories managed by the Syrian military.”
According to Al-Manar’s Damascus-based correspondent, Israel’s attack resulted “in the martyrdom of a number of civilians, soldiers, and chickens.”
Israel’s attack resulted ‘in the martyrdom of a number of civilians, soldiers, and chickens’
The Dubai-based media network Al-Arabiya reveals that a number of skeptical Syrians opposed to the Assad regime posted sarcastic comments below the video clip on the Al-Manar website.
“The Israeli raid targeting a poultry farm shows that Israel does not want us Syrians to enjoy a good meal,” one person wrote.
“Assad wants us to believe the Israelis are determined to not let our bodies get the protein they require,” another post read.
The mainstream Arab press for the most part supports the Western version of what transpired and quotes leaders on both sides of the Syrian civil war who condemn Israel’s “blatant aggression.”
The Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat reports that while the Syrian government is claiming the attack proves that Syrian opposition forces, including al-Qaeda, are colluding with Israel, representatives of the Syrian opposition have been quick to issue statements of their own denouncing the attacks.
“This is an act of aggression aimed at the Syrian state’s land and people,” the statement reads. “We call on all Syrian political factions to stand up to this brutal aggression, which affects the prestige of the Syrian state.”
Colonel Qassim Saad Eddin, the spokesman for the High Command of the Free Syria Army, says that “Israel has not carried out its raids in defense of the Syrian people. . . Any talk of cooperation between the opposition and Israel is a mystification of the facts.”
If the Syrian regime and Syrian opposition are in such agreement, then is there a chance that the competing forces will work together to strike back at “the Zionist entity”?
The odds are slim to none, but some prominent Arab commentators are saying they wish they would.
“The Syrian regime should announce a comprehensive moratorium on military actions against its opponents in order to concentrate on the Israeli aggression,” writes Abdel Bari Atwan, the outgoing editor-in-chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi and a strong critic of the Jewish state.
“The Syrian regime’s reasons for not responding to these humiliating Israeli raids have evaporated completely. The people do not understand the Syrian government’s refusal to defend itself in the face of such overarching aggression.”
Not surprisingly, many Arab observers feel Atwan’s words are a reflection of someone living on the moon or just hiding from reality. In recent days, widespread reports have come out of ethnic cleaning of Sunni Muslims along the Syrian coast by forces loyal to Bashar Assad.
The Doha-based media station Al-Jazeera states that over the weekend, 200 civilians, including women and children, were massacred in suburbs of the city of Banias. The Syrian opposition alleges that Assad’s forces are trying to carve out a “state within a state” of territory from the Syrian coast to Damascus with a solid Alawite majority. The attacks are geared to encourage Sunnis and other non-Alawite Syrians to flee.
The Syrian government’s continued policy of massacring its own people have led some Arab commentators to actually support Israel’s recent military strikes.
“We should be happy about the Israeli attack on Assad’s forces and warehouses because it will accelerate his fall and prevent the killing of more Syrians,” says Abdel Rahman Al-Rashed, the former editor-in-chief of A-Sharq Al-Awsat in an op-ed in that paper called “Whom to support? Israel or Assad.”
“The greatest lie in the history of the Syrian nation is that past two years of massacres were about fighting Israel. Hezbollah and its operations against Israel have nothing to do with the protection of Lebanon or the defense of Palestine.”
“It is certain that the Syrian people are happy when Israel bombs Assad’s headquarters, regardless of Israel’s reasons or goals. The Syrians would be even happier if Turkey also attacked Assad instead of merely issuing weak verbal statements.”
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