The London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat reported Wednesday that Tehran has convinced Syria to allow Hezbollah to open a “new front” against Israel in the Golan Heights.
Tehran, seeking to prevent the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, asked Damascus if Hezbollah could set up a new military front against Israel in the Golan.
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“All Arabs and Muslims” are requested to join the fight against Israel, Tehran said, according to Israel Radio.
The Palestinian newspaper al-Quds reported Wednesday that Tehran had persuaded Damascus “to open the door to jihad” in the Golan Heights in an effort enable Arab and Muslim fighters to unite and confront Israel, so that they’re “ready” if Israel strikes Syria again.
According to unnamed Israeli and American sources, Israeli planes struck sites outside Damascus twice during the first weekend in May, targeting weapons transfers from Iran to Hezbollah. The Syrian regime warned a few days later that it would retaliate immediately to future Israeli attacks on its soil.
The al-Quds website wrote that Iran also discussed the issue with other Arab leaders, namely Jordan’s King Abdullah, who expressed his own “concerns” about the surge of radical Islamist groups, such as the Jabhat al-Nusra, in Syria.
The Lebanese daily al-Akhbar suggested last week that Iran had “reached a final decision” to respond to Israel’s reported strike on Syria by “turning the Golan into a new Fatah-land. The front has become open to Syrians and Palestinians and anyone who wants to fight Israel.”
A message to that effect was conveyed to Assad by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on behalf of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reported al-Akhbar.
Arabic media reports also suggested Syria had allowed Palestinians living there to attack Israel from the Golan Heights. However, Fatah spokesman Amad Assaf dismissed the claim by saying that Palestinians don’t take their orders from the Syrian president, according to al-Quds al-Arabi, another London-based paper.
Earlier this week, the Syrian government announced that it reserves the right to invade the Israeli-held Golan Heights at any time, and accused Jerusalem of violating the terms of the 1974 ceasefire that ended the Yom Kippur War.
During a speech in Damascus, Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi accused Israel of attacking sites near the Syrian capital, allowing rebel groups to operate in the demilitarized zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, and letting those groups kidnap UN observers on multiple occasions.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Tuesday in what was described as a bid to prevent Moscow from selling the cutting-edge missile defense system, the S-300, to Damascus. Jerusalem fears that the advanced weaponry could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, Syria’s key ally in neighboring Lebanon.
Elhanan Miller and Ilan Ben Zion contributed to this report.
WarSclerotic 
May 15, 2013 at 12:51 PM
Damascus Tehran and Moscow will burn soon
May 15, 2013 at 3:00 PM
I dont know about Moscow , but Iran will feel the long arm of IDF upon them. If hostile activities will spark on the Golan Heights, anybody here believes that it will be a limited conflict? The iranians are talking nonsenses, Assad is embarrassed and Israel should take care about its own business; the actual situation in the Middle East is like a brawl which sparked into a saloon, in the Wild West. This is the time to finish unfinished business.
May 15, 2013 at 3:18 PM
i was saying to jw before thats you have no idea of the hatred towards russia i europe and the usa russia is now at the top of the list,Puketin has miscalculated in a big way bibi needs to hit syria again and send a message because if russia even twitches nato will hit russia,i and defense have been trying to warn every one for two years about russia we knew it was russia behind iran from the start we hope you take us more seriously now,Russia is your real enemy hurt Syria and Iran it will cut russsias tiny little balls off
May 15, 2013 at 3:33 PM
Yet they still have the second largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. In fact, I recently read an article that said the Ruskies are upgrading their arsenal as we speak while President Obunghole is paring ours down.
May 15, 2013 at 5:37 PM
truthfully at this moment they have very few missiles that they could attack us with,as there are countermeasures for most of there missiles but the new ones,we dont know,at the end of the day it never bothered when russia was the ussr and russia is a antmso we think hitting russia is worth the risk as russia is a sitting duck,it wo0uld be wiped out,we would sustain re cvoverable damage ,but there would be no russia left,in effect russia has no nuclear card to play,its all bluff,it is russia who should watch out