[News] Inside Israel’s opportunistic invasion of Syria

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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Inside Israel’s opportunistic invasion of Syria
Mitchell Plitnick
December 13, 2024
------------------------------
[image: 091224_Israel_IPO_003.jpg]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Israel Katz visit
the Israeli border with Syria, accompanied by the commander of the Northern
Command Major General Ori Gordin and the 210th Division Commander Brigadier
General Yair Plai, on December 8, 2024. (Photo: Israeli Prime Minister
Office via APA Images)

Even as Bashar al-Assad was scrambling to get out of Syria, Israel was
mobilizing its military to take advantage of the power vacuum that Assad’s
ouster had created. After five decades of a low-level conflict between the
two countries, Israel saw an opportunity to change the calculus, and it
seized it.

As of Wednesday, Israel had struck Syria nearly 500 times
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/10/middleeast/israel-syria-assad-strikes-intl/index.html>.
Their goal with these attacks has been to essentially destroy Syria’s
military capability, and they have already succeeded. Reports by Israeli
media claim that well over 80%
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-833201> of Syria’s weaponry,
ships, missiles, aircraft, and other military supplies have been damaged or
destroyed.

In essence, Israel has rendered Syria completely defenseless.

Meanwhile, Israel has seized the de-militarized zone established in 1974.
They have taken the remainder of the Golan Heights, particularly the
strategic Mount Hermon, which Israel has coveted for its being the highest
point in the area and an ideal place for surveillance of both Syria and
Lebanon.

Too few are calling this what it is: an invasion. An unprovoked invasion.

There has been virtually no pushback from any sector in Israel against this
blatantly criminal act. That isn’t surprising, as even the Israeli left can
be expected to support the dubious “security” justification for the act.

What is more troubling is the insufficient pushback from other countries. Many
Arab states
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/9/qatar-saudi-arabia-iraq-condemn-israels-dangerous-land-grab-in-syria>
have condemned Israel’s actions, some even calling it a land grab. France
has condemned <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx921zreweo> it as well
and called on Israel to withdraw. Germany offered a rather tepid warning.

But where are the calls for sanctions, for freezing trade deals and,
especially, weapons sales, to Israel as it invades another sovereign state?
Indeed, where is the word “invasion” in much of the rhetoric?

Unsurprisingly, the United States
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-says-israel-has-right-defend-itself-after-seizing-buffer-zone-syria>
has called this blatant and wholly unprovoked aggression an “act of
self-defense” by Israel. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/sullivan-appears-to-back-israels-military-operations-in-syria/>
“What Israel is doing is trying to identify potential threats, both
conventional and weapons of mass destruction that could threaten Israel,
and, frankly, threaten others as well, and neutralize those threats.”

As with the genocide in Gaza, even where there is sharp criticism, there is
no threat of consequences. That’s true for the United States, and it’s also
true for the Arab states that have some means to impose consequences on
Israel: Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, none of whom
have even hinted they might consider severing their relations with Israel.

Ironically, the one Muslim country that did sever relations with Israel
over the genocide in Gaza was Türkiye, which is, itself, a U.S. ally that
is invading Syria in the wake of Assad’s fall.

International law and norms of international relations simply don’t exist
anymore, not even to the feeble extent they did once.

Given that it is already clear that no one is going to stop Israel, we have
to ask what Israel’s goals in Syria are.
*Israel’s initial strategic goals* [image: A photo that has gone viral on
social media allegedly shows Israeli forces occupying the peak of Syria’s
Mount Hermon on December 8, 2024. (Photo: Social Media)]A photo that has
gone viral on social media allegedly shows Israeli forces occupying the
peak of Syria’s Mount Hermon on December 8, 2024. (Photo: Social Media)

Bashar al-Assad’s relationship with Israel was complicated. He often
engaged in anti-Israel rhetoric, and his reliance on Hezbollah and Iran to
maintain his position created what was referred to as the “Shi’a Crescent,”
which Israel saw as a means to get Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Thus, Israel frequently attacked Syrian sites where it was usually
targeting Iranian or Hezbollah forces. They did that so often that it was
hardly reported, much less objected to anymore. It became completely
normalized in Israel and Washington.

But Assad also prevented attacks on Israel from Syrian territory. He
maintained quiet in the de-militarized zone next to the Golan Heights. This
may not seem strategically important, but for Israel—which had faced
frequent attacks from Syria for the first 25 years of its existence—it was
a big deal.

To Israel, Assad was no friend, but he was seen as preferable to likely
alternatives
<https://www.newarab.com/news/leaked-documents-suggest-secret-dealings-between-assad-israel>.
In Israel’s view, an embattled Assad, weakened but propped up in office
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-prefers-assad-to-islamist-rebels/>,
limited Syria as a strategic adversary to its being a land bridge between
Iran and Lebanon. That is why, regardless of Israel’s support for covert
CIA operations to support Syria’s rebels
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html>,
Israel did not press for those rebels to be recruited, armed, and trained
to a greater extent than they were, despite some in the U.S. pushing hard
for regime change in Syria.

The 1974 Agreement on Disengagement
<https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v26/d88> froze
the conflict between Israel and Syria that had reignited in the 1973 war.
It created a de-militarized buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan
Heights, most of which remained under illegal Israeli occupation.

That agreement held until this week, a period of 50 years, which is quite
remarkable when one considers all that has gone on in the region since.
Israel shattered it after Assad fell.

The Israeli claim that it was acting to keep the area secure after the
Syrian army abandoned its posts there is laughable. The United Nations
peacekeeping force, UNDOF (the UN Disengagement Observer Force) was still
there, and there was no threat in the area.

Israel’s “legal” justification is even more absurd. Agreements are not made
between regimes, nor between specific governments or rulers. They are made
between states. Israel’s claim that the fall of Assad means that the
Agreement on Disengagement is voided is not only wrong but also dangerous.

By this rationale, any agreement between two countries is meaningless as
soon as that government changes. This would imply, just to cite one
example, that Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt is invalid, as it was made
with the government of Anwar Sadat. When his successor, Hosni Mubarak, was
deposed by a popular uprising, the peace treaty should have been voided.
It’s a crazy contention, and it is doubtful that Israel, much less the
United States, would agree with it in that case, but Israel keeps a
straight face when it applies it in Syria. And the U.S. backs them up.

Israel’s goal in invading the DMZ was to capture Mount Hermon, the highest
point in Syria. It’s a mountain range that straddles the Syrian-Lebanese
border, so it’s a strategically important site not only because it can
conceal low-flying aircraft and some ground movement, but, more
importantly, is the ideal spot to spy on Damascus, a lot of the surrounding
Syrian territory, and much of Lebanon. It’s a strategic prize Israel has
desired ever since it agreed to withdraw to their side of the DMZ.

Whatever territory Israel eventually agrees to relinquish, if it agrees to
any at all, it will undoubtedly aim to keep Mount Hermon under occupation.
*Remaking the Middle East*

But Mount Hermon was only the beginning of Israel’s goals.

For the Israeli far right, as represented by the notorious Finance Minister
Bezalel Smotrich, the ideology of “Greater Israel” puts Israeli
expansionism in a religious context
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241013-smotrich-israels-future-is-to-expand-to-damascus/>.
But for Israel’s secular majority, its designs are much more grounded in
simple dominance, aiming at an unprecedented level of hegemony in the
Middle East.

During testimony at his trial on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
made his view of the current regional situation clear, saying
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-11/ty-article/.premium/from-mount-hermons-peaks-netanyahu-plots-his-vision-of-a-greater-israel/00000193-b61b-d5f3-a1f7-bf7b46b70000>,
“Something tectonic has happened here, an earthquake that hasn’t happened
in the 100 years since the Sykes-Picot Agreement.”

Plainly, Netanyahu sees this moment as an opportunity to redraw the entire
political map of the Middle East.

This is the idea behind the hundreds of attacks Israel has launched at
Syrian military targets. While Israel argues that this is being done for
“security reasons,” despite the complete absence of any threat emanating
from Syria. The U.S. has completely supported this argument, despite it
being transparently untrue.

While Israel initially hinted it was targeting chemical weapons sites that
still remained after Assad had been forced to destroy most of his
stockpile, the massive bombardment quickly proved that the real goal was to
completely destroy Syria’s ability to defend itself as stated above. So,
now that Israel has succeeded in eliminating Syria’s military capabilities,
what does it imply going forward?

One thing that is very clear is that Syria will be dependent for a long
time on other countries for its self-defense. Israel has been instrumental
over the years in supporting Arab rulers, even when they did not have
friendly relations (the most well-known example being Israel’s aid to Jordan
<https://justvision.org/glossary/black-september> in fighting the PLO in
the Black September massacre in 1970).

Given the way Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has
been reaching out to the West, and the way he has avoided speaking out
against Israel’s invasion, it may well be that Israel sees itself as a
potential “silent partner” supporting a new Syrian regime quietly, but
brutally.

This aligns well for Israel with Türkiye’s activities in the north of the
country, where they are pressing the U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic
Forces (SDF), as well as Turkiye’s support for HTS. While relations between
Israel and Turkiye have been severed again over Israel’s genocide in Gaza,
Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan is nothing if not a pragmatist when
it comes to Israel and the Kurds. If he sees an opportunity to work with
Israel to control a new Syria and make it less hospitable for Kurdish
nationalism, he will leap at it.

What Netanyahu wants to avoid at all costs is a democratic and independent
Syria. As with any Arab state, a state that reflects the will of its people
is going to support the Palestinian cause. Not only is that undesirable in
itself, but it would undermine the Israeli and Western narrative
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-fears-assads-fall-could-embolden-protesters-egypt-and-jordan>
that depicts support for the Palestinian people as support for terrorism
and authoritarianism.
*Targeting Iran*

Ultimately, Israel’s strategy, as always, centers on Iran. On Thursday, the
Times of Israel reported
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/iaf-says-preparing-for-strikes-on-iran-nuke-sites-after-knocking-out-syrias-air-defenses/>,
“…the (Israeli Air Force) said that after over a decade of evading air
defenses over the skies of Syria during a campaign against Iran’s supply of
weapons to Hezbollah, it had achieved total air superiority in the area.
This air superiority over Syria could enable safer passage for IAF aircraft
to carry out a strike on Iran, the military officials said.”

While the report does not necessarily indicate that an Israeli operation
targeting Iranian nuclear sites is imminent, it reflects an Israeli belief,
and likely an accurate one, that an Israeli attack on Iran that is
sufficiently powerful and sustained to damage or destroy the Islamic
Republic’s nuclear facilities, many of which are deep underground, is much
more feasible now.

Iran seems to have recognized this and is concerned. In recent weeks, they
have responded to the Israeli military successes, and to a resolution by
France, Britain, Germany, and the U.S. saying that Tehran was not
cooperating sufficiently with the IAEA, by doing the one thing they
can: increasing
their enrichment of uranium
<https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2024/12/06/iran-multiplying-pace-of-uranium-enrichment-to-near-bomb-grade>
.

A recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) complaint warned that
Iran was enriching to 60%, which is close to the 90% threshold needed for a
nuclear warhead. This prompted the E3/U.S. complaint.

On Thursday, Iran accepted greater IAEA scrutiny
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-accepts-tougher-oversight-fordow-enrichment-plant-iaea-reports-2024-12-12/>
of its nuclear facilities. While it is only one among several factors for
Iran’s decision, it is certain that Tehran’s concern not to give Israel an
excuse to launch an attack was one key reason for this reversal.

What this amounts to is a regime of terror that Israel, with full backing
from the United States and some of its European allies, is working to
completely alter the face of the entire Middle East. A Syrian state that
would rely on Western powers—which will inevitably mean Israel, even if
covertly—for its security is a first step in that regard.

Doubtless, Israel has no real plan for how to succeed, but it is gambling
on its ability to continue to live by the sword, with full American
support.
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