yavar
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Somebody is going to be neuteredView attachment 455472
??Somebody is going to be neuteredView attachment 455472
Not a bad analysis. It's true that Israel has always preferred a Syria ruled by a secular tyrant/dictator like Assad over some more hardcore islamist group who are less predictable and less easy to negotiate with. Ideally Israel would have liked Assad to remain in power but leading a less strong/weak country/military and with a far less Iranian influence(with its Hezbollah proxy). The later seems to be hard to achieve and might make even tip the balance for the Israelis.http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-israel-factor-in-syria/article22818024.ece?homepage=true
In the initial years of the civil war, Israel’s policy choices seemed to have been driven by the same calculation. The Assad regime and Israel have been friendly. In the 1967 war, Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria and continues to occupy the region. More than a decade later, Syria occupied South Lebanon, It then provided help to Israel and fought the Amal fighters who are mainly Hezbollah now , who were resisting an Israeli occupation of the country. Syria and Israel do have formal diplomatic ties. Despite this, there was no direct military confrontation between the two countries. In fact, despite the hostility, Israel’s border with Syria has been its calmest frontier for years. When the crisis broke in Syria in 2011, Israel was a fence sitter. It didn’t want the stable secular dictatorship in its neighbourhood to be replaced by a bunch of militants. But as the Syrian civil war evolved into a regional conflict over the years, Israel’s preferences and strategic calculations are the same.
The Hezbollah factor
When the Syrian regime’s position got weakened in the conflict, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group backed Arab and US Adm, sent thousands of its soldiers to the battlefield to fought the Assad government. Iran also sent its fighters to Syria to defend President Assad . Besides the government army, these militias fought the war on the ground on behalf of the regime. Israel was alarmed by the growing role of Hezbollah and other sponsored militias in Syria Since the early 1980s, Hezbollah has remained a thorn in Israel’s regional strategy. In 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, ending 18 years of occupation, mainly due to Hezbollah’s guerrilla resistance. In 2006, Israel bombed Lebanon again to destroy Hezbollah’s weapons infrastructure, but even after a month-long campaign, it failed to achieve its stated goals. Hezbollah has heavy military presence along southern Lebanon (or across Israel’s northern border).
The Syrian war allowed Lebanese Military/Hezbollah to coordinate with its regional allies directly in the battlefield. Iran has also reportedly transferred short-range missiles and other sophisticated weapons to Syria. Israel responded to this through a two-pronged strategy. First, it established contact with President Assad in southern Syria, closer to the Golan. Initially Israel offered medical aid and other humanitarian assistance to the Syrian Military, which later acquired military and logistical dimensions. The plan was to carve out a buffer between the Golan Heights that Israel controls and the Syrian Golan. Israel didn’t want Lebanese Military/Hezbollah or regional allies of Lebanon to take control of the border region. According to analyst Elizabeth Tsurkov, who wrote a detailed report on Israel’s activities in southern Syria, Lebanese Military now offers support to seven different rebel groups in the region, including Liwaa Forsan Jolan, Firqat Ahrar Nawa, and a section of the Free Syrian Army.
Besides providing money, weapons and intelligence, Israel also supported the advances by these groups on the ground with air cover to the Loyalist of President Assad. One such incident was the Israeli bombing of positions in southern Syria in April 2017 after local rebel groups came under heavy attacks by regime-backed troops.
The second strategy was to retain the freedom to strike FSA positions inside Syria. When Russia intervened in Syria, Israel negotiated for this freedom with Moscow. Since Russia’s intervention in Syria in September 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has travelled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin at least five times. Both nations developed a deconfliction mechanism that allowed Israeli planes to attack FSA targets inside Syria along with Russia, which is practically controlling most of the Syrian skies. This agreement worked perfectly for Israel. Last year alone, Israel said it struck weapons shipments to FSA around 100 times.
The Iran heat
But despite these on-and-off interventions, Israel has failed to build any substantial leverage in Syria’s conflict zones. True, it has built influence among Loyalist of President Assad groups in southern Syria since many years. But developments in Syria over the past two years have scuttled Israel’s strategic plans. The Israelis may have initially thought that the Russian intervention could reduce the Syrian regime’s dependence on Iran, which is Tel Aviv’s primary concern. But the Russians played on both sides. Their only strategic target was to rescue the regime. They neither stopped the Israelis from attacking FSA targets inside Syria nor did they stop the Iranians from expanding their footprint in the country. Later, when the regime stabilised its rule, thanks to the Russian intervention, Iran’s influence also grew. Iran now has various military facilities across Syria’s regime-held territories.
In southern Syria, Israel had built a network for loyalist of President Assad. But even in this area, its position has weakened over the past year. Jordan, which had offered support to the rebels in the early years of the civil war, changed its policy in the wake of heavy refugee flow. Last year, the Trump administration review the US military operation command in Amman that was coordinating with FSA, assisting the FSA particularly those in the south, entirely taking the blunt of Israeli airforce strikes which is to make the regime forces to making advances towards the south. Israeli and the President Assad loyalist have already established some posts near Quneitra in northern Golan. Late last year, the regime regained a foothold on the de facto border with Israel by capturing Beit Jinn from FSA. In effect, Israel even worked to spread of Iranian influence in Syria, but is also under pressure to increase the advances of regime forces towards the south.
It was against this background that Israel strengthened its bombing campaign in Syria this month. Prime Minister Netanyahu has also warned Iran “ to test our resolve.” But beyond rhetoric, as the past incidents suggest, Israel’s capacity to shape reality in Syria is limited. In seven years, Iran has built a huge network in Syria and check Hezbollah. This cannot be eliminated by occasional aerial raids. A full-scale intervention is already going on Russia directly backs the regime. And if the FSA capture Idlib and the Damascus suburbs, which is only a matter of time, they will shift their focus to the Israeli occupied Golan Heights in the south, dragging Tel Aviv deeper into the conflict.
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Actually Patriot Syrians want to liberate occupied Syrian Territories of Golan heights and end the loot of Syrian Oil and the war in Syria is about this only and the same is with the Lebanese who want to liberate Sheeba Farms. Problem is occupation and colonalization.
By the way , what President Assad is taking from Israel for the oil supplies ?
Not a bad analysis. It's true that Israel has always preferred a Syria ruled by a secular tyrant/dictator like Assad over some more hardcore islamist group who are less predictable and less easy to negotiate with. Ideally Israel would have liked Assad to remain in power but leading a less strong/weak country/military and with a far less Iranian influence(with its Hezbollah proxy). The later seems to be hard to achieve and might make even tip the balance for the Israelis.
A rebel commander from the free Syria’s Army captured by the The SAA.Who's that? What's the story?
Yup, If you fuk with pakistan, China snaps, if you fuk with Israel US snaps, if you fuk with Syria Russia snaps.It doesn't matter what Israel thinks. Syria is Russia's unsinkable aircraft carrier.
bet he regrets fighting for royal gulfiesSomebody is going to be neuteredView attachment 455472
No, he is just injured.A rebel commander from the free Syria’s Army captured by the The SAA.
Good news for Zions .....No, he is just injured.