Hamas, Abbas, Flirting With Syria's Assad

...The two rival Palestinian parties are hoping that Assad will forgive them for failing to support his regime against the rebels – a move that has resulted, since the beginning of the civil war, in the displacement and death of tens of thousands of Palestinians living in Syria.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
23 October '13..

Recently, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas seem to have changed their policy toward the Syrian conflict. Neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority wants to be seen as siding with Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, most likely out of fear that such support would cost the Palestinians Western sympathy and funding.

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, relations between the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad regime and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have been tense. Hamas's public support for the opposition forces led to the expulsion of its leaders from Syria; and the Palestinian Authority's failure to support publicly the Assad regime resulted in tensions between Damascus and Ramallah.

After losing faith in the Syrian opposition, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are now trying to mend fences with the regime of Syria's President, Bashar Assad.

The two rival Palestinian parties are hoping that Assad will forgive them for failing to support his regime against the rebels – a move that has resulted, since the beginning of the civil war, in the displacement and death of tens of thousands of Palestinians living in Syria. More than 200,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes in several refugee camps in Syria, while another 2,000 have been killed in the fighting between the Syrian army and the opposition forces.

This time indeed Israel has made it clear

...Much of the babble is superfluous. Regardless of what eventually transpires, all Israelis should be deeply troubled by the profound indifference abroad to our lot – blameless as we are in the internecine Syrian strife. The very fact, that a neighboring state could be presumed to be held to ransom for occurrences entirely out of its control, should shock world opinion. But it does not.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
29 August '13..

“If Damascus is attacked, Tel Aviv will burn,” a Syrian higher-up bristled this week. Israel, therefore, cannot watch the escalating cliffhanger with detached equanimity from the sidelines.

There can be no passivity when potent threats are hurled at Israel from a coterie of evil powers in the context of a struggle in which Israel is uninvolved. In a fairer existence, this very fact alone ought to have acutely unsettled the international community. But it’s almost futile to expect a modicum of fair-mindedness where Israel is concerned.

So far the anti-Israel bluster from Damascus, Tehran and Hizbullah strongholds in Lebanon appear to have disturbed none of the foreign statesmen or opinion-molders, whose alacrity to condemn Israel for any perceived transgression is nothing short of remarkable. Moreover, the veiled hints from Moscow about dire repercussions for the entire region in the event of an American attack, might also imply warnings about impending punishment for Israel.

All the while, Israeli commentators strive to outdo each other with educated guesses about whether or not we are vulnerable, whether it would serve Bashar Assad’s interests to fire at us, whether we should retaliate and how.

Much of the babble is superfluous. Regardless of what eventually transpires, all Israelis should be deeply troubled by the profound indifference abroad to our lot – blameless as we are in the internecine Syrian strife. The very fact, that a neighboring state could be presumed to be held to ransom for occurrences entirely out of its control, should shock world opinion. But it does not.

Israelis might be forgiven for suspecting that the reaction would be radically different had any other country been similarly threatened for no fault of its own. Sadly we must come to terms with the likelihood that different criteria are applied to the Jewish state.

Syria and Israel’s Interests

...The Middle East must be approached with humility, particularly by small states such as Israel. Jerusalem cannot choose its neighbors and their regimes; it can only minimize their abilities to harm Israel. Therefore, Israel’s interests are very clear: stay out of the domestic struggles in Syria, and destroy any enemy military capabilities there that have a significant potential for harming Israelis.

Prof. Efraim Inbar..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 205..
20 May '13..

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: It is a mistake for Israelis to express support for Bashar Assad’s victory in Syria. Israel should stay out of the Syrian conflict altogether while hoping for the fall of Assad. Ultimately Israel would be better served by having a failed state next door than by having a strong, Iranian-backed entity there.

Several prominent Israelis have expressed their preference for a Bashar Assad victory in the civil war in Syria. This is a mistaken attitude for moral and strategic reasons.

First, siding with a dictator that butchers his own people, and even uses chemical weapons in order to stay in power, is morally disgusting. At the normative level, Assad’s brutal dictatorship is not an acceptable preference for a democratic state like Israel, even if the alternatives to Assad are not very enticing. (The Syrian opposition includes radical Sunni elements – such as al-Qaeda – that have not displayed great sensitivity to human rights either.) In the real world there is sometimes a tacit necessity to tolerate a dictatorship for a variety of reasons, but explicit support for it is a moral embarrassment.

Second, Israeli statements that favor a side in the domestic struggles within Arab entities are always a mixed blessing. Nobody in the Arab world wants to be “tainted” by an association with the Jewish or Zionist state. While links with Israel could be very useful, explicit closeness to Israel has an undesirable delegitimizing effect. Therefore, even if Israel has its favorites, Israeli leaders should keep their mouths shut.

Third, the idea that Israel can help engineer a certain political outcome among its unruly neighbors displays incredible intellectual and historical ignorance. Great Britain and France ruled the Middle East for decades and were not very successful in changing the ways the “natives” ran their affairs. In 1982, Israel was tempted to create a new political order in Lebanon and failed miserably. Additional grand failures include the twenty-first century efforts of the US to create an Iraq and an Afghanistan in its image. Change in this part of the world can come only from within by local leaders. Unfortunately, the Middle East has bred only despots of the worst kind, such as Saddam Hussein and the Assads, hardly leadership material that this region desperately needs to escape obscurantism, poverty, and oppression. The notable exception is Kemal Atatürk, whose accomplishments are currently being eroded by the AKP-led government in Turkey.

Syria, America and Israel's strategic clarity

Tony Badran..
NOW Lebanon/FDD..
09 May '13..

It was perhaps fitting that the multiple Israeli strikes in Damascus last week followed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s address from Tehran. Nasrallah had warned last Tuesday that the “resistance” was ready to face any Israeli assault and would emerge victorious in any confrontation. Instead, Nasrallah returned from Tehran just in time to witness Israel destroy multiple consignments of Iranian ballistic missiles intended for his group. The Israeli raids provide much needed strategic clarity to the conflict in Syria, throwing into sharp relief two basic points: Israel is not about to let the balance of power with Iran change. In addition, Iran’s ability to strike back has been shown to be decidedly limited.

There’s been some confusion in some of the media commentary as to the purpose and meaning of Israel’s aerial attack in Syria. However, the targets – long-range rockets and ballistic missiles storage sites – are enough of a clue to understand Israel’s objective. The Israeli government’s calculus is rather clear: It will not allow the transfer of Iranian strategic weapons to Hezbollah. In other words, in contrast with the Obama administration, Israel is thinking about the regional balance of power – which is being fought out in Syria – in strategic terms.

Former Mossad operations officer Michael Ross further pressed this point to me in an email. The Israeli Air Force attack, he wrote, “underscores how differently the dynamics of the Syrian conflict are perceived by the Israelis and the rest of the world.” The Obama administration, for instance, has found it politically expedient to emphasize that its primary preoccupation is with the rise of Sunni extremists and the possibility of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons “falling into the wrong hands,” namely those same Sunni extremist groups.

However, these are not Israel’s strategic priorities regarding Syria, Ross explained. “While the issues of ascendant jihadism and chemical weapons are important,” he wrote, “the absolute top priority of the Israeli government – and by extension the intelligence community and the military – is the prevention of a first strike weapons capability that threatens Israel’s population centers from reaching the hands of Hezbollah.”

The busy and not so little neighborhood that Israel resides in.

Shoshana Bryen..
Gatestone Institute..
21 February '13..

Bashar Assad faces a hard reckoning. Not the one that comes from rebels battling for control of key Syrian assets, or the one that may come some day from charges of genocide at the International Criminal Court. The reckoning that comes from understanding that your key ally, Iran, has interests in your country other than you, and regional interests bigger than you.

Iran connects with a variety of countries and non-state actors to advance its worldwide interests; Assad's Syria is only part of the equation. Iran continues to supply the Syrian army and has military forces of its own there, but Iran is also moving to protect and preserve its Mediterranean proxy Hezbollah. Weapons are already moving into Hezbollah hands in Lebanon, which may have prompted an Israeli air strike late last month. Iranian and Hezbollah commanders appear to be building militias within Syria to retain a presence if Assad falls or leaves the country. Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen said Iranian and Hezbollah commanders oversee the Jaysh fighters, one of many groups that have sprung up as Syria disintegrates. In response, Syrian rebel forces are threatening to take the fight to Hezbollah directly, but the revelation means Syria may be on the path to resemble the morass of Lebanon during the 1970s.

A little history helps here.

The Alawite minority that has ruled Syria for decades is not of the Shiite mainstream; Alawites have been called "idol worshippers" -- the worst possible sobriquet -- by some Shiite religious authorities. For the details see Martin Kramer, but the short form is that a marriage of convenience began in the 1970s between Hafez Assad, by most accounts a more clever despot than his son, and Iranian Shiite religious leaders. It expanded after the Iranian Revolution brought those religious leaders to power, and it continues to this day. In the early days of the Iran-Iraq war, Assad did side with fellow secular Ba'athist Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But by 1982 (some sources put the timing after the Syrian massacre of 20-35,000 Sunnis in Hama to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood) relations between the two soured, leaving an opening for improved Syrian-Iranian ties.

According to CIA reports of the time, Iran and Syria agreed that Syria would close the Iraqi pipeline through its territory in exchange for subsidized Iranian oil. Shortly thereafter, Iran was known to have sent 2,000 Iranian Guard Corps troops to Syria and from there to Lebanon in support of Hezbollah, which was just emerging as a power center after the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war. Syria has been a passageway for Iranian arms to Hezbollah, both by sea, and through the Damascus airport and overland, giving Iran influence in the internal affairs of Lebanon as Hezbollah continued to grow, particularly after Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

The Bigger Threat - Gaza Missiles

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
12 November '12..

Over the weekend, provocations on two of Israel’s borders presented the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with new challenges. In the Golan Heights, what was described in reports as “erratic mortar fire” from Syrian army positions brought a sharp, though limited, response from the Israel Defense Forces. In the south, Hamas launched a rocket offensive aimed at Israeli civilian targets. But while the Syrian incident made headlines in the international press since it threatened to drag Israel into the Syrian civil war, it was the situation in Gaza that was the more troubling.

As troubling as the possibility that Israel could be dragged into the ongoing chaos of Syria is, the country’s Gaza dilemma is far more worrisome. Rockets continued to fall on Israel Monday as the Hamas rulers of Gaza continued their own attempt to provoke Israel into an offensive. While both Israel and neighboring Egypt have little to gain from either a repeat of the 2008 Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel knocked out terrorist positions inside Gaza, or a more far-reaching offensive, in which the Islamist terrorist group would actually be deposed, the possibility that at some point Netanyahu will have to do something to stop the rain of fire on his country is very real.

Israelis don’t know for sure whether, as some observers seem to think, the fire from Syria was an attempt by the faltering Assad regime to portray its struggle as one against Israel rather than its own people. Given that such a ploy is a tried and true standby for Arab dictators, it seems logical to think that a desperate Bashar Assad thinks involving Israel in the fighting will bolster support for his embattled government. Yet it is just as likely that the fire into the Golan was unintentional spillover from that war. Certainly it was nothing comparable to the deliberate attacks from the regime on the Turkish border, which is actually a transit and supply route for the rebels who have the support of Ankara.

While Israel has no love for Assad and would be happy to see Iran’s ally fall, it must also ponder whether his replacement by a weak rebel regime would lead to more conflict in the future. Israel is likely to do just about anything to stay out of that mess, and it will take more than a few stray mortar shells to drag it into that war.

But Netanyahu’s choices with regards to Gaza are not so easy. Though Israel’s main strategic focus in the last year has understandably been on the Iranian nuclear threat, Hamas’ ability to make the lives of Israelis living in the south a living hell is a reminder that the enemies on the Jewish state’s border can’t be ignored. Since Saturday, more than 160 rockets have fallen on the region bordering Gaza. Their motives for this offensive are complex.

Shelly’s macho-man mentor who would've given Assad the Golan

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
09 November '12..

Hanna Rovina, the late-great first lady of the Israeli theater, once quipped: “people with connections don’t need protectzia” (“favoritism,” in Israeli parlance).

This is perhaps why in days bygone retiring IDF generals invariably gravitated to the Labor Party, where they had ample connections which guaranteed them a helpful leg-up to the top of the political hierarchy.

It was all mutually advantageous – symbiotic, in fact. Star officers were fast-tracked to prominence, while Labor basked in their military glory. The effect lent authority to the party’s claim to be the ultimate arbiter of what’s good for our national security. We had whom to count on and the-generals-turned-politicians couldn’t agree more. They profusely sang their own praises.

But nothing is what it used to be, particularly not in Labor. And so the heiress to David Ben-Gurion’s mantle, ex-radio presenter Shelly Yacimovich, found herself without a pivotal vote-getting ex-general figurehead. She had to have one, even if thereby she admits her own lack of experience and need to rely on the mentoring of a macho-man.

So she looked and looked and finally came up with… Uri Sagi. Two weeks on, Sagi withdrew from the Labor race citing “personal reasons.” Shelly is now looking again.

But Sagi’s short-lived political dabble isn’t a negligible footnote. If anything, this brief, embarrassing episode is emblematic because Sagi is hardly in a class of his own. He is garden- variety common.

For those who don’t recall, Sagi, nearly 70, is the ex-OC Military Intelligence who for years has been bewailing the failure to cede the Golan to the Assad clan. His oft-repeated refrain is that this was “a huge historical miss, a mistake of massive strategic proportions.” Even the bloody upheavals in Syria didn’t suffice to change his tune – the one he has been humming incessantly.

An Iran-Hamas Split? Don’t Be Misled.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
04 October '12..

For most of the last decade, Iran treated Hamas as its Palestinian auxiliary force. Iran helped fund the group, and once it seized power in Gaza in a violent coup, it established a steady flow of arms into the enclave to challenge Israel in conjunction with its other Syrian and Lebanese allies. But the Iranians’ decision to pull out all the stops to save another ally, Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime, has helped break up their romance with the Palestinian terror group. Tension between Iran and Hamas has escalated in recent months after the latter’s international leader, Khaled Meshaal, shifted his headquarters from Damascus to Qatar. Faced with the choice between its old funder in Tehran and the whims of its Egyptian and Turkish allies, Hamas seems to have definitively chosen the embrace of the latter. The loss of Hamas is a blow to Iran’s hopes to become the dominant force in the region, and they are not taking it lying down. As the Times of Israel reports, an Iranian government newspaper this week threw the ultimate insult at Meshaal by calling him, wait for it, “a Zionist agent.”

While the spat between two groups of violent Islamist extremists can be viewed with schadenfreude, if not amusement, the West should not be fooled by this development into buying into some incorrect assumptions about Iran, Hamas or the situation in Syria. We should not be deceived into viewing Hamas’s decision as a harbinger of moderate behavior by the terrorist group. Nor should we be gulled into thinking Hamas’s defection from the Iranian fold will materially damage Iran’s hopes to keep Assad in power or lessen the need for a greater Western effort to end his reign of terror in Damascus.

Us? Wrong about peace with Syria?

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
24 August '12..

In the spring of 2007, just a few years before the Arab Spring proved to be a winter of misery, a few dozen artists, former lawmakers, writers, and former defense establishment officials gathered on the infamous “Hill of Screams,” adjacent to the Druze village of Majdal Shams atop the Golan Heights. They had gathered there to “wave” a greeting of peace to Bashar al-Assad.

These retired defense officials and intellectuals demanded that the Israeli government view Assad as a partner and worthy interlocutor. The price that we would be required to pay as part of any agreement was obvious to all: a withdrawal from almost all, if not the entire Golan Heights, right down to the last centimeter.

The website Occupation Magazine, which closely covered and touted the group’s efforts, blasted the Israeli government’s “blind leadership” for its aversion to dealing with Assad. One anonymous poster to the site likened Assad to the late Anwar Sadat, going so far as to superimpose their names atop each other for effect. “Bashar is the gateway to Europe,” the poster wrote, before seeking to appeal to Israelis’ appetite for Middle Eastern cuisine. “I have an itch to eat hummus in Damascus and sip salep in Aleppo,” the writer declared.

The most prominent figures in this movement were author Sami Michael, former Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Yaakov Peri, and Middle East studies Professor Moshe Maoz. Spearheading the effort was Alon Liel, a retired diplomat who served as director-general of the Foreign Ministry.

Yuli Tamir, who was education minister in the government of Ehud Olmert, aimed her fury at U.S. President George W. Bush, who turned Israel away from the Syrian channel due to Assad’s ties with Hezbollah and Iran. “Syria is a pivotal axis among Middle Eastern countries,” the former minister said of the state which would eventually become an albatross even to its Arab allies. “We need to make clear to the Americans that we are not their frontier outposts in the Middle East,” she added.

At the time, Dan Meridor (now a minister without portfolio in the current government) likened the Israeli government’s refusal to negotiate with Syria to the Arab states’ refusal to talk peace with Israel, while former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (or Fouad, as he is known) submitted his view that “Syria was the key to regional change.”

“If I were prime minister, I would put all of my energies into Syria,” he recommended.

“The question of whether the Syrians can dip their toes in the Sea of Galilee is a childish one,” the former minister Yossi Beilin said at the time. “The enormous strategic benefit that would come with a peace treaty with Syria dwarfs any discomfort that may arise from the prospect of the Syrians coming down to the lake just as they did before the Six-Day War.”

It is hard to find an instance in which such a long list of varied individuals and technocrats who hold an array of political views turned out to be so colossally wrong on an issue like they were with Syria. Author Aharon Meged said that Israel’s avoidance of peace talks with Assad was a kind of “rose-colored blindness” which stemmed from the mistaken view that everything would remain as is.

Kushner - From Israel: The Picture at Present

Arlene Kushner..
17 July '12..

This may be a new record for brevity in terms of the length of time that a party has participated in a coalition. Today the Kadima party took a vote and decided, 24 MKs to three (Avi Dichter, Otniel Schneller and Yulia Shamalov-Berkovich), to quit the government.

The issue was the legal replacement for the Tal Law, with Likud and Kadima unable to find a satisfactory compromise: The most recent attempt at forging an agreement had just failed, and that was it.

Shaul Mofaz has submitted his resignation.

Here is an excerpt from the response Prime Minister Netanyahu sent to Mofaz:

"I regret your decision to give up on an opportunity to make an historic change. After 64 years, we were very close to a substantial change in the division of the burden. I gave you a proposal that would have led to the conscription of ultra-orthodox and Arabs from the age of 18. I explained to you that the only way to implement this on the ground is gradually and without tearing Israeli society apart, especially at a time when the State of Israel is facing many significant challenges. I will continue to work toward the responsible solution that Israeli society expects."

http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=57507

Sounding good to me.

Now They Are Slaughtering Palestinians. Not Israel? Never Mind.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
17 July '12..

The world has become used to hearing and watching stories about massacres against civilians in Syria. But until recently, almost all the victims were Syrian citizens.

Last week, however, it turned out that in Syria, they are also massacring Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in a number of refugee camps in and around the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Earlier this week, the bodies of 16 Palestinians whose throats had been slashed were discovered in Syria.

The victims had been kidnapped while on their way by bus to their refugee camp Nairab.

According to Palestinian sources, unidentified militiamen stopped the bus, kidnapped the Palestinian men and took them to an unknown destination. A few days later the Syrian authorities announced that they had discovered the bodies of the victims in a field.

The men had been shot in the legs and chest before they were slaughtered like cattle, the Palestinian sources said.

Glick - Syria's rival hegemons

Caroline B. Glick
Jewish World Review
07 July '11

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0711/glick070811.php3

Assad's overthrow would start a domino effect, which will benefit the West

Last Saturday Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah gave Hizbullah-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati the political equivalent of a public thrashing. Last Thursday Mikati gave a speech in which he tried to project an image of a leader of a government that has not abandoned the Western world completely. Mikati gave the impression that his Hizbullah-controlled government is not averse to cooperating with the UN Special tribunal for Lebanon. The Special Tribunal just indicted four Hizbullah operatives for their role in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

But on Saturday night, Nasrallah gave a speech in which he made clear that he has no intention whatsoever of cooperating with the Special Tribunal and that since he runs the show in Lebanon, Lebanon will not cooperate in any way with the UN judicial body. As an editorial at the NOW Lebanon website run by the anti-Hizbullah March 14 movement wrote, last Saturday night Nasrallah “demolished Mikati’s authority and the office from whence it comes, and used it as a rag to mop up what is left of Lebanese dignity.”

The March 14 movement has tried to make the Special Tribunal the litmus test for Mikati’s legitimacy demanding that his government either cooperate with the UN Special Tribunal or resign. But the fact is that the March 14 movement is no match for Hizbullah. Its protests are not capable of dislodging the Iranian-controlled jihadist movement from power.

Just as it always has, the fate of Lebanon today lies in the hands of outside powers. Hizbullah rules the roost in Lebanon because it is backed by Syria and Iran. Unlike the US and France, Iran and Syria are willing to fight for their proxy’s control over Lebanon. And so their proxy controls Lebanon. It follows then that assuming the US and France will continue to betray their allies in the March 14 democracy movement, Hizbullah will be removed from power in Lebanon only if its outside sponsors are unseated.

Oren: the devil Israel knows is worse than the one it doesn’t

Fresnozionism.org
06 June '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/06/oren-the-devil-israel-knows-is-worse-than-the-one-it-doesnt/



President Obama said in his May 19 speech, that

President Assad now has a choice: He can lead that transition [to democracy], or get out of the way.

Since then, security forces have murdered even more Syrians, including the well-documented case of a 13-year old boy who was brutally tortured to death.

Yesterday, Syrian buses transported rioters to the Israeli border in the Golan. They were paid to be there and to throw themselves at the border, with promises to pay even more to the families of any who were killed. Syrian TV reported that 19 (some reports say 23) were killed by Israeli soldiers, and the US media dutifully repeated this. But all we know for certain is that some rioters were killed when their Molotov cocktails ignited a brush fire which caused old, unstable Syrian mines to detonate.

Assad is trying to use the old trick of deflecting opposition to his regime by creating anger against Israel. But it isn’t working. Anti-Assad dissidents know who is killing, raping and torturing them, and it isn’t Israel.

Here is a video of Syrian security men planting weapons and ammunition on the bodies of protesters that they’d just killed. I won’t embed it, but if you have a strong stomach you can see it here.

So you would think that by now the Obama Administration would be calling for Bashar al-Assad to be thrown out and prosecuted as the mass murderer that he is. Not quite. Here is the statement by Secretary of State Clinton on Thursday (remember, last month she famously referred to Assad as a ‘reformer’):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday the international community needs to be more united in pressuring the Syrian government to end its lethal crackdown on demonstrators. Clinton says the legitimacy of President Bashar al-Assad’s government has “nearly run out.”


Clinton says a Human Rights Watch report this week, framing Syrian actions against protestors as crimes against humanity, is in line with the State Department’s own reporting on the events.


She is lamenting the lack of an international consensus for stronger steps against the Assad government, including a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Damascus…


“If he cannot end the violence against his own people, take meaningful steps to start a process of reform, then he needs to get out of the way. And every day that he stays in office and the violence continues, he’s basically making that choice by default,” she said.

One gets the feeling that someone else is perpetrating the violence! How many chances are we going to give this butcher?

But suggestions abound that the US is going easy on Assad to … get ready … help Israel, which supposedly wants Assad to stay in power! The Zionist conspiracy, apparently, is pulling strings at the friendly State Department, as well as influencing friendly Russia and China to oppose sanctions in the Security Council. Sure.

The administration is hanging on to Assad for its own mysterious reasons, and it’s not Israel’s fault. Here is a letter published today in the Wall St. Journal:

For the second time, a recent Journal article (“Syrian Violence Tests U.S.,” page one, June 3) asserts that Israel has expressed fears of instability in Syria if leader Bashar al-Assad is overthrown. I emphatically denied this the first time (“U.S. Seeks to Raise Heat on Syria,” page one, April 25) and categorically deny it again. Israel has expressed no such concerns. Allied with Iran, Mr. Assad has helped supply 55,000 rockets to Hezbollah and 10,000 to Hamas, very likely established a clandestine nuclear arms program and profoundly destabilized the region. The violence he has unleashed on his own people demonstrating for freedoms confirms Israel’s fears that the devil we know in Syria is worse than the devil we don’t.


Ambassador Michael Oren
Israeli Embassy
Washington

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Quotes of the week: Barry Rubin and Emet m’Tsiyon on Syria

Fresnozionism.org
08 May '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/05/quotes-of-the-week-barry-rubin-and-emet-mtsiyon-on-syria/



Barry Rubin:

There is no excuse for President Obama not to utter six simple words: The Assad dictatorship must go now.

Perhaps a thousand Syrians have been killed so far in the ruthless suppression of dissent orchestrated by Bashar al-Assad. I suppose the administration plans to wait until Bashar surpasses the record set by his father Hafez, who put down the 1982 revolt in Hama at a cost estimated between 17,000 and 40,000 dead.

But it’s not like the Syrian regime is such a bargain for the rest of the world, either. Recently, Hillary Clinton reiterated her remarkable judgment that Assad could be a reformer. Here’s how one Israeli blogger responds:

This would pathetic and laughable if were not so sad and dangerous. The sanctions that [Clinton] mentioned were mild and toothless. She says all this after a host of Syrian/Assadian deeds demonstrating the bloodthirsty, tyrannical nature of the Syrian/Assadian regime. Has she forgotten the murder of Rafiq Hariri in Beirut, only six years ago, together with two dozen other people?? How about all the murders of the anti-Syrian leaders in Lebanon, members of parliament and journalists, etc? What about the short-lived Lebanese president, Rene Mu`awad, 20 years ago, after the Taif Accord? What about Kamal Jumblatt and Bashir Jemayel? What about the 20,000 to 30,000 Syrians slaughtered by Junior Assad’s father, Hafiz, in Hama in 1982? And Bashar who shows no mercy to his own people eagerly helps the Hizbullah in Lebanon to kill as many Jews in Israel as possible. Does any of that make an impression in Washington?

Apparently not. Nor, says Barry Rubin, does this:

Syria’s government has allied itself and helps in every way the terrorists who have killed hundreds of Americans in Iraq. And those terrorists belong to al-Qaida. Remember them? The group until recently headed by Usama bin Laden that carried out the September 11 attacks. This is also the strongest and most significant remaining al-Qaida member group.

What is there about the Assad regime that the US doesn’t get? Why did we return our ambassador (who was withdrawn as a result of the Hariri murder) while Assad was helping insurgents enter Iraq and supplying Hizballah?

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am not too paranoid. But if you wanted to react to the upheavals in the Middle East in the absolutely worst possible way for Israel, you might do this:

1) Fail to support Iranian dissidents or take effective action against the Iranian nuclear program.


2) Fail to take action against the Hizballah takeover in Lebanon.


3) But do encourage the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, so that it can be replaced by one which will be friendlier to Iran and Hamas and which is likely to throw away the peace treaty.


4)And do allow your enemy and Israel’s, Bashar Assad, to put down the challenge to his dictatorship.

And do these other things:

1) Prevent Israel from a) overthrowing Hamas in Operation Cast Lead and b) defeating it by economic warfare.


2) Help the PLO build an army to fight Israel with.


3) Support the Palestinian position that the lack of negotiations is Israel’s fault.

Is that how you support an ally that is more reliable, militarily stronger, and closer to your democratic values than any Arab nation? And is that the way to look after American interests?

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Syria exposes Iranian arms shipment to Hezbullah

Carl
Israel Matzav
12 November '10

Things apparently aren't so good anymore among the tall guy, the fat guy and the midget. Syria is distressed enough by Iran's attempts to control Lebanon through Hezbullah that in September, Syria exposed a plastic explosives shipment from Iran to Hezbullah to Italian authorities. The result was that not only was the shipment discovered, but at least as important, Iran's methods of shipping weapons to Hezbullah were exposed.

In a long and detailed article published last week in the Saudi-owned and London-based newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, she explains that not only were senior Syrian officials far from enthusiastic about Hezbollah's grandiose performance for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the Iranian president visited Lebanon last month, but Syria also appears to have been responsible for confiscating a large shipment of explosives that Iran was planning to send to Hezbollah via Italy.

(Read full post)

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Focus on Syria - using terror for political gains in the Middle East

IsraeliGirl
08 November '10

In the complicated realm of the Middle East, Syria plays a central role. Giyus.org sat down with Professor Eyal Zisser, an expert on the modern history of Syria and Lebanon, to get a better understanding of Syria and the way it uses terror to advance its political goals in the region. Prof. Zisser is the head the department of Humanities Studies in Tel Aviv University; he is a frequent speaker and writer on this subject.

Giyus.org: What's Syria role in the region and how is it impacted by the rising power of Iran?

Professor Zisser: Syria has a central role in the Middle East. First of all, it has a central geographic location practically at the heart of the region. Secondly, Syria borders Israel and plays a major part in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its conflict with Israel allows Syria to maintain close relationship with Hamas and Hezbollah and help them out.

The Assad family has been in power since 1970. During this period Syria became a stable country, strong from the military and political perspective. Syria is involved in Lebanon and with the Palestinians, but most of the attention it gets from the Western world is due to its close ties with Iran.

This Syria-Iran alliance allows Iran to benefit from Syria's central location and provides a gateway for Iran to Israel's immediate vicinity. Syria, on the other hand, benefit from the rising power of Iran. By partnering with Iran, Syria seems stronger in the eyes of the West.

Giyus.org: Iran is ruled by a deeply religious Islamic regime, while Syria is completely secular – does that impact the relations between the states?

Professor Zisser: At the moment the political gains for both countries outweighs the religious differences. In the long term this is definitely an issue that can cause tension between Syria and Iran. However, since this alliance was forged 30 years ago, both countries have dealt with much greater threats to their existence so it is in their best interests to partner and over look the religious issue.

Giyus.org: What are some of the major threats facing Syria in recent years?

Professor Zisser: The list is very long. In the 80s Israel entered Lebanon in the first Lebanon war. This then created problems in Lebanon, the front yard of Syria. This last decade since September 11th attacks was marked by the war on Terror. Bush invaded Iraq and was considering an invasion to Syria as well.

In light of these threats Syria needs Iran as an ally to back her up. In the eyes of Syria, Israel and the US are a strategic threat, much more so than Iran.

Giyus.org: What are the motivations behind Syria's support of terror organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah?

Professor Zisser: Syria views terror as a tool to achieve its political goals. Syria does not have a strong army and is using its terror support to show its presence and make the West take it into account as a major player in the Middle East.

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U.S. Government "Threatens" Syria: Promote Terrorism, Take Over Lebanon, Block Peace, and We Won't Let You Make Apple ipads!

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
01 November '10

If you think I'm exaggerating about the current administration's cluelessness toward the Middle East just read the State Department daily press conference transcripts. Even journalists covering these events are often shocked by what they hear.

Today's topic is Syria, but it's just an example and many others could be found. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley begins by referring to a speech by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice in which she says:

"We continue to have deep concerns about Hezbollah’s destructive and destabilizing influence in the region, as well as attempts by other foreign players, including Syria and Iran, to undermine Lebanon’s independence and endanger its stability."

In saying this, Rice is praising a UN report about what's going on in Lebanon which reveals, though nobody makes this point, the total failure of the organization and the United States to keep the promises made in 2006 in order to end the Israel-Hizballah war.

So given this situation one would think U.S. policy is now prepared to do something about Lebanon's becoming an Iran-Syria puppet, Syria's continued support for anti-American terrorists in Iraq and sabotage of any peace process, and the obviously failed U.S. effort at engaging Syria.

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Iran-Syria Bloc Consolidates Alliance With Turkish Regime and Hold Over Lebanon

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
14 October '10

Here's one more in a whole series of Iranian and Syrian statements that Turkey--which means the current Islamist-oriented regime in Ankara--is now a strategic ally of these two radical states.

Question: Can you be simultaneously an ally of the United States and an ally of Iran? Sounds hard to pull off, doesn't it?

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad added Lebanon, which is now close to being an Iran-Syria satellite, and--perhaps based on wishful thinking--Jordan to that list. The statement came during meetings he held with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan during the latter's visit to Damascus and the first meeting of the Syrian-Turkish High Level Strategic Cooperation Council during which 51 agreements for cooperation were signed.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Lebanon As he visits the Lebanon-Israel border, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is making a statement that he is the leader of the Arab world. After all, Ahmadinejad has to overcome two problems: one is that he’s Persian; the other is that he’s a Shia Muslim. Iran has been making a lot of progress on these fronts though it still faces powerful limits to exerting influence in the Arabic-speaking world.

In effect, Ahmadinejad is saying: I insult America! I am leader of the Palestinian struggle! I'm going to get nuclear weapons! I’ve got it all!

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Don’t Chicken Out with Turkey

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
o3 June '10

At the height of the war between Israel and Hezbollah in July 2006, George W. Bush was caught telling Tony Blair in what was thought to be an off-the-record conversation during the G8 Summit in Saint Petersburg that the war would not have escalated had Syria put pressure on Hezbollah “to stop doing this sh*t.” Bush and Blair didn’t know they were being taped but they certainly knew that Hezbollah, acting as Iran’s proxy and with Syria’s support, was responsible for the war.

By contrast, Turkey has so far been off the hook despite its attempts to turn Gaza into another Southern Lebanon. Erdogan is personally responsible for the death of his co-citizens aboard the “Mavi Marmara.” He is the one who sent out his jihadist organization Insani Yardim Vakfi (or IHH) to militarize Gaza under Turkey’s aegis. Far from scolding him and from asking him to “stop doing this shit,” Western leaders have fallen in the trap of his “humanitarian” propaganda. Worse, they still treat Turkey as if it hadn’t become an Iranian surrogate.

For the past eight years, Erdogan has been provoking Israel. His strategy has consistently been the same: encouraging jihadist attacks against Israel, reacting hysterically to Israel’s responses, and “warning” the West that letting Israel get away with its “crimes” would have the effect of pushing Turkey into Iran’s arms.

In 2004, Erdogan called Israel a “terrorist state” after we eliminated Sheikh Yassin. In February 2006, he hosted Hamas leader Haled Mashal in Ankara. In January 2009, he staged a temper tantrum at the Davos Conference calling Shimon Peres an expert killer. In October 2009, the Turkish state television started airing fiction series showing Israeli soldiers intentionally murdering Palestinian children. In November 2009, Erdogan declared that he’d rather meet with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (accused of war crimes and genocide by the International Criminal Court) than with Benjamin Netanyahu. In March 2010, Erdogan claimed that the Temple Mount, Hebron and Rachel’s tomb were never Jewish sites. The list goes on.

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An American Jew in Damascus

Bataween
Point of No Return
24 May '10

(Even though I'm not Jewish, reading this by an American Jew who spent eight months in Syria makes me glad I chose to study the Middle East in Beirut, in Jerusalem, and even in Baghdad. Michael J. Totten)

Awash with conspiracy theories about Zionist power, Syria is not a comfortable place to be a Jew. Any mention of the suffering of Syrian Jews is met with blank stares. But in this fascinating account of his eight months in Damascus, specially written for Point of No Return, this young student of Arabic from Denver, Colorado found empathy from oppressed Kurds and other minorities:

"Most young American Jews that I know have chosen to visit or live in Israel at some point in their lives, not only as a way of familiarizing themselves with Eretz Yisrael or Judaism, but as an introduction to the broader Middle East. I too just finished living in the region for eight months, although my country of choice was not Israel, it was Syria.

"This was a shocking choice for family and friends. Even my Arabic professor, who is an Armenian Christian from Syria, gravely warned me to never mention my religion or any prior travel to Israel, let alone his name in case the secret police are watching me. His admonitions were not at all surprising given his recollections of growing up in Aleppo and on class trips with his school to watch the authorities hang Jews.

"My experiences in Syria, as well as my travel throughout Lebanon, Jordan, and Kurdish Iraq, ranged from the absurdly predictable to the wonderfully unexpected and surprising. My first observation upon arriving in Damascus was how Palestinian flags almost outnumber Syrian flags across the country. At the government subsidized Arabic language center, uncritically profiled by the New York Times, there is a map in every classroom of Palestine (without Israel, although Tel-Abeeb is on the map), some making dubious land claims to Lebanon and Turkey as well, while many teachers teach propaganda to students from all over the world. This can range from learning Palestinian resistance songs to learning about IDF 'massacres' and teaching the students about their perspectives on Zionism. This is done while extolling the Arab armies for their superior ethics in battle, which Judaism does not have, according to my teacher, and their "meticulous" distinctions between Jew, Israeli and Zionist.

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