[News] 'Israel’s' support for Syrian opposition exposed

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/-israel-s--support-for-syrian-opposition-exposed>
'Israel’s' support for Syrian opposition exposed
Kit Klarenberg
December 14, 2024
------------------------------

While never acknowledged in the mainstream, the Zionist entity’s sinister
alliance with extremist opposition groups arrayed against Damascus has long
laid in plain sight.

   - [image: 'Israel’s' support for Syrian opposition exposed]
   <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2024/12/14/07baf5a0-edb4-4cf9-bc4b-d77aadcfcf81.png?v=4&width=1000>
   After all, they were coordinating directly with the Zionist entity at every
   step of their struggle. (Illustrated by Ali al-Hadi Shmeiss; Al Mayadeen
   English)

In the wake of ultra-extremist militants of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham seizing
Damascus, Zionist entity premier Benjamin Netanyahu gave a smug address
<https://x.com/dancohen3000/status/1865746536744792150> from the Golan
Heights, Syrian territory illegally occupied ever since 1967. Along the
way, he took personal credit
<https://www.npr.org/2024/12/10/nx-s1-5221635/israel-takes-credit-in-part-for-the-fall-of-the-assad-regime-but-what-now>
for the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government and the Syrian Arab Army’s
defeat, while pledging that the ground on which he stood would be part of
"Israel “for eternity”. Ever since, Israeli occupation forces have pushed
ever deeper
<https://www.politico.eu/article/israeli-military-golan-heights-benjamin-netanyahu-militants-damascus-border-idf-airstrikes/>
into Golan, unimpeded and unopposed.

Tel Aviv’s criminal seizure of yet further territory from its neighbors was
an absolutely inevitable upshot of Syria’s collapse. However, some Western
journalists and politicians have expressed dismay
<https://x.com/zarahsultana/status/1866167684607430940> - in many cases,
the same figures <https://x.com/KitKlarenberg/status/1866197656248479890>
were cheering al-Assad’s fall just 24 hours prior. Consternation has also
widely abounded over the foreign-dominated
<https://x.com/Aldanmarki/status/1865164166048157910> and controlled
opposition groups that overran Damascus, effusively praising the Zionist
entity’s assistance in their offensive against the SAA.

Speaking to Israeli TV on December 2, one rebel fighter thanked Tel Aviv
for striking Hezbollah and other Resistance groups, stating the opposition
was “very satisfied” with the support. They added, “We love Israel and we
were never its enemies…[Tel Aviv] isn’t hostile to those who are not
hostile toward it. We don’t hate you, we love you very much.”
‘Striking deeper’

While never acknowledged in the mainstream, the Zionist entity’s sinister
alliance with extremist opposition groups arrayed against Damascus has long
laid in plain sight. A September 2018
<https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/06/in-secret-program-israel-armed-and-funded-rebel-groups-in-southern-syria/>
investigation by the US empire house journal *Foreign Policy* spelled out
in detail “Israel’s secret program to back Syrian rebels.” It documented
how, since 2013, Tel Aviv “armed and funded at least 12 rebel groups” in
the country. The ostensible purpose was to “prevent Iran-backed fighters
and militants of the Islamic State from taking up positions near the
Israeli border.”

The entity’s “military transfers” to anti-Assad opposition groups were
vast. They “included assault rifles, machine guns, mortar launchers, and
transport vehicles.” The material was funneled via the illegally occupied
Golan Heights. "Israel" even “provided salaries to rebel fighters… and
supplied additional money the groups used to buy arms on the Syrian black
market.” Initially, arms transferred were “mostly US-manufactured," but
these were later “switched” to “non-American weapons…apparently to conceal
the source of the assistance.”

Every step of the way, "Israel’s" backing of the Syrian opposition
ratcheted.* Foreign Policy* attributes this ever-aggressive stance to Tel
Aviv’s failed “appeals” to the US and Russia “to secure a deal that would
ensure that Iranian-backed militias would be kept away from southern
Syria.” This prompted the entity to “[begin] striking deeper inside Syrian
territory, targeting not just individual weapons shipments from Iran to
Hezbollah but also Iranian bases across the country.”

In providing this largesse, Tel Aviv “relied on relationships it developed
with individual commanders” of extremist militias, sending “assistance
directly to them.” Representatives of these factions “would communicate
with Israeli officials by phone and occasionally meet them face to face” in
the Golan Heights. “When commanders switched groups and locations, Israeli
assistance followed them” - and the entity’s chosen proxies frequently
served as distributors of Zionist-supplied weaponry “to other groups,"
giving them “outsized influence” in the dirty war.

*Foreign Policy* records, “As a result of Israel’s humanitarian and
military assistance, many residents of southern Syria came to perceive it
as an ally.” An anonymous opposition fighter told the outlet, “Israel is
the only one with interests in the region and a little bit of humanity and
[provides] assistance to civilians.” However, “As troops loyal to Assad,
aided by Russian and Iranian forces, reasserted control over more and more
areas of Syria,” Tel Aviv cut a secret deal with Moscow, to the
opposition’s detriment.

Under its auspices, SAA forces returned to “areas adjacent to the Golan
Heights” while Russia promised “to keep Iran-backed militias 80 kilometers”
from the area “and not to start hindering Israeli strikes on Iranian
targets across Syria.” Despite this, Tel Aviv didn’t desert its murderous
surrogates. As government forces closed in, “rebels reached out to their
Israeli contacts and asked for asylum.” They and “their immediate family
members” were duly permitted to flee to "Israel", Jordan, and Turkey, with
Tel Aviv’s assistance and protection.

With eerie foresight, Foreign Policy concluded that "Israel’s" policy of
backing the rebels would contribute to significant and enduring unresolved
security problems not only in Damascus but throughout West Asia more widely:

“[This] raises questions about the balance of power in Syria as the civil
war there finally winds down. With the Iranian forces that helped Assad
defeat the rebels showing no inclination to withdraw from Syria, the
potential for the country to become a flash point between Israel and Iran
looms large. Without deft diplomacy, confrontations in Syria, protests in
Gaza, and tensions over the Iran nuclear deal could plunge the Middle East
into chaos.”
‘Military capabilities’

*Foreign Policy* was at pains to portray "Israel’s" assistance to the
Syrian opposition as being predominantly informed by a desire to crush
ISIS. For example, the outlet claimed Tel Aviv “provided fire support to
rebel factions” fighting an Islamic State affiliate near the Yarmouk River.
This purportedly extended to drone strikes targeting ISIS commanders “and
precision-missile strikes against the group’s personnel, fortifications,
and vehicles during battles with the rebels.” Meanwhile, the Zionist entity
“did not extend similar fire support for rebel assaults on regime forces.”

Yet, such an exculpatory narrative is at glaring odds with multiple public
admissions by Israeli officials. For example, in April 2017, former entity
Security Minister Moshe Ya’alon revealed that “recently”, ISIS had
“apologized” after “[opening] fire” on Tel Aviv’s forces in the Golan
Heights. This contrition was expressed by the terror group despite the IOF
responding to this broadside by bombarding Islamic State fighters with
airstrikes and tank fire, killing four of them.

One might reasonably ponder why, despite these casualties, ISIS felt the
need to say sorry. An obvious explanation is the hyper-militant faction did
not wish to offend Tel Aviv, lest the entity’s long-running operation to
provide medical assistance to insurgents wounded in the Syrian dirty war in
field hospitals dotted across Golan be terminated. From 2012 onward, UN
peacekeeping forces consistently testified
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-has-israel-embraced-al-qaidas-branch-syria/14619>
to witnessing injured Al Qaeda, al-Nusra, and ISIS fighters being treated
by Israeli military doctors across the region.

Along the way, documentary filmmakers even captured video evidence
<https://youtu.be/G785kB8OKcU?si=SJRi69BlSNCPDIJG> of this practice. Once
tended to, these belligerents were sent straight back into battle by their
Zionist protectors to fight Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army. These
astonishing scenes went largely unremarked upon in the Western media
although in May 2016, ex-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy proudly boasted that
Tel Aviv was committed to a strategy of “the enemy of my enemy is my
friend” in its crusade to neutralize Assad:

“It’s always useful to deal with your enemies in a humane way. When you
have people who are wounded, considerations of whether to take them in are
not simply whether it’s politically useful…I didn’t say there was no
tactical [consideration]. I don’t think there’s going to be blowback…Al
Qaeda to the best of my recollection hasn’t specifically targeted Israel…As
Hezbollah fighters are concerned, we have a different account.”

Fast forward to today, and ever since al-Assad’s fall, "Israel" has
relentlessly
blitzed <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx921zreweo> SAA sites in
Syria. Entity officials boast the “historic” campaign has “destroyed most
of the former [Assad] regime’s strategic military capabilities," decimating
up to 80% of the fallen government’s “strategic weapons stockpiles."
Markedly, there has been no attempt whatsoever by HTS to deter or respond
to this bombardment, despite Damascus now being completely defenseless
against future incursions from its adversaries. Group spokespeople have
moreover actively refused
<https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1866943522609463346> to denounce the
attacks.

Nonetheless, longtime Syrian “revolution” activists have expressed
<https://x.com/nedalalamari/status/1865886351419121825> shock at "Israel’s"
onslaught against the “newly liberated” country and further illegal
"annexation" of its territory, demanding Tel Aviv cease its inexorable
assaults forthwith. One wonders whether such public reactions are truly
borne of ignorance and naivety about "Israel’s" rapacious expansionism. The
reality may be that the opposition knew all along precisely what would be
unleashed following al-Assad’s ouster and still welcome it. After all, they
were coordinating directly with the Zionist entity at every step of their
struggle.
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