Tag: Syria

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TRUMP’S FINAL GIFT? Israel’s Massive Strike On Syria’s Iraqi Border Came With US Help

With days to go until the Biden administration officially takes over at the White House, Israel launched another air attack on Iranian forces in Syria. While an attack on Syria by the IAF has become standard in the remaining days of the Trump administration, this time the IAF struck closer to the Iraqi border in Eastern Syria.

The attack targeted at least 15 installations housing Iranian weapons and acted as the main transit hub for the IRCG into Western Syria. There are claims that it killed 57 people – mostly IRCG members or affiliates.

Syria’s official SANA news agency said the following:

“A military source told SANA in a statement that at 01:10 on Wednesday dawn, the Israeli enemy carried out air aggression on Deir Ezzor City and al-Bukamal area.”

WATCH THE ATTACK ABOVE

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From the outset of reports last night, it was already assumed that the US had given Israel the intelligence it needed to successfully carry out such an attack, which essentially crippled the Iranian forces in the area.

The AP has claimed the following in an article published today:

“The U.S. official, who requested anonymity to speak about the matter, said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed Tuesday’s airstrike with Yossi Cohen, chief of Israel’s spy agency Mossad, at a public meeting in the popular Washington restaurant Café Milano on Monday.”

It has been assumed that the Trump Administration would continue to give Israel the green light to take out as much Iranian hardware and personnel as possible before Biden is installed. After January 20th the sinophilic nature of Biden’s regime will make Israel’s overt strikes very hard to carry out. China wants a strong Iran and if past is prescience then so does the Biden administration.

With the region on high alert after the strike, the question remains whether Iran will hold back for a few more days until the Biden administration takes over or retaliate now. Most observers believe the Mullahs in Tehran will refrain from attacking, but if this is not Trump’s final gift to the Jewish state, then expect something far larger to test the Ayatollah’s resolve

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“We will not accept any such violation”

Tensions continue to rise on the Golan Heights after Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet, which crossed into its airspace.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said the following on the incident:

“Our air defense systems identified a Syrian Air Force jet that took off from the T-4 Syrian Air Force base and penetrated Israeli airspace. This is a gross violation of the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement with Syria. I have reiterated and made clear that we will not accept any such violation. We will not accept any such penetration of, or spillover into, our territory, neither on the ground nor in the air. Our forces acted appropriately. We insist that the Syrians strictly abide by the Separation of Forces Agreement between us and them.”

With the rebel collapse in the Syrian occupied Golan Heights, regime soldiers as well as Iranian and Hezbollah forces are closing in on Israel’s territory.

 

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Bibi Netanyahu: “We will not tolerate the establishment of a military presence by Iran and its proxies anywhere in Syria”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Sunday, 8 July 2018), at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, made the following remarks:

“This week I will fly to Moscow for an important meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We meet from time-to-time in order to ensure security coordination and, of course, to discuss regional developments.

At the meeting I will reiterate the two basic principles of Israel’s policy: First, we will not tolerate the establishment of a military presence by Iran and its proxies anywhere in Syria – not close to the border and not far away from it. Second, we will demand that Syria, and the Syrian military, strictly uphold the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement.

It is self-evident that I am in regular contact with the American administration. These links with the two great powers are very important to the security of Israel at all times and especially at present.

Regarding the Polish law, the goal of the contacts with the Polish government was to abrogate the criminal clauses in the Polish law that cast a pall of fear over research and free discourse regarding the Holocaust. This goal was achieved. I thank the team of Joseph Ciechanover and Jacob Nagel for succeeding in removing the criminal clauses from the Polish law.

The declaration that was published following the change in the law was overseen by a senior historian.

However, various comments were made after its publication. I have listened intently to the comments of the historians, including about several things that were not included in the declaration. I respect this and I will give expression to it.

We are marking 78 years since the passing of Zeev Jabotinsky (the Cabinet will hear a briefing). I think that with the perspective of history it is possible to understand the magnitude of his contribution to the Zionist enterprise. First of all, before anything else, there was the establishment of a Jewish fighting force after generations in which we did not have the strength to wield the sword and defend ourselves. His great work in establishing combat brigades [click here for details] in the British army during the First World War, in effect, laid the important foundations for the establishment of the IDF.

All of this started with the effort of Jabotinsky and Trumpledor with the British authorities during the First World War and, of course, in cooperation with the legendary commander of these forces, Col. John Henry Patterson, whom my family knew well. Today we will receive a new addition of Jabotinsky’s writings; I would be pleased if you could display it.”

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PACKERS CORNER: Trouble Brewing on the Israeli-Syrian border

We join the entire (normal) world in praying for the rescue of the boys in Thailand. And like good Jews, we humbly point out that it was donated Israeli technology that allowed them to be found in the first place.
Things are still quite hot along the Syrian border with Israel. Russian continues to destroy the rebel resistance to Bashar Assad’s rule in Syria. To be clear, Assad’s army had ZERO chance of ever being able to retake all these areas by themselves. This is totally Russia, and specifically their air force. Tens of thousands of Sunni Syrians have evacuated their villages. Both Israel and Jordan have said that they won’t allow them to enter their countries. Although, Israel has continued to help Syrians in need of medical attention.
Trouble is brewing in the Israeli coalition government. However, it is difficult to know how serious it is and how much is just political posturing. Since the previous law was deemed illegal by the supreme court, the Government must now pass a new law dealing with ultra-orthodox yeshiva student enlistment in the army. Its a bit of a complicated issue, but in short, nothing will change, regardless of any of this. Actually, more ultra-orthodox would go to the army if the issue was just ignored, but that’s the last thing the “proponents” of the draft actually want. Its a great political/vote-getting issue for them, but in reality, hundreds or thousands of ultra-orthodox with machine guns would probably scare the hell out of them.
This could cause national elections to be moved up from the currently scheduled end of 2019. This could potentially have an effect on the Jerusalem mayoral race as the current mayor would probably need to resign to run for the Knesset, as he has said he wants. This would make one of the deputy mayors the mayor and it would be quite weird for the then current mayor not to run for “re-election”. This is exactly how the last ultra-orthodox mayor was elected.
As was mentioned the past few weeks here, the Israeli government has been enforcing demolition rulings from the supreme court for Jews, but not for arabs. Now it finally looks like an illegally built arab/bedouin encampment, located right next to a major highway, will be demolished in the near future. The hundred or so residents have already been allocated separate;plots to build houses in a legal arab village, closer to Jerusalem. Should take all of 15 minutes to knock the place down completely. We will wait and see. Another illegal arab encampment next to Susiya has also been ruled to be demolished. Maybe we’ll make it a double-header.
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Does Russia Really See Iran as an Ally in Syria?

Despite the constant drumbeat of pseudo-security blogs and magazines like SouthFront, ZeroHedge, and SputnikNews claiming that the Russian and Iranian partnership is something akin to a strategic alliance, that if one relies only on those sorts of sites for regional affairs they come off baffled by Putin’s agreeable attitude towards Israel’s security demands visa vi Iran.

Regardless of the desires of most of these pro-Iranian English media outlets there has never been reason to believe that Russia and especially Putin saw Iran as anything more than a tool to clean out the Western back jihadists who came onto the scene under Obama.  Putin approached Syria carefully without a strong desire to place meaningful troops on the ground.  Assad was close to being toppled so the only real foot soldiers available at the time were Hezbollah and Iran.

Now that Assad is comfortably in control of the southwestern part of Syria, minus Darra and the Golan area, Iranian troops as well as Hezbollah are far less useful to Putin whose only interest is holding onto Syria as a strategic location for his fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean.  More so, Putin has a strong distrust of Iranian goals in the region and ultimately sees Tehran as a competitor on the energy production scene.

Putin and the Russian military do not see Iran as a reliable strategic ally.  They do however, see Israel as a stabilizing force in the region and although at odds with its Western bent, Putin and his team trust Israeli intentions not to inflame the region.  More so, they believe Prime Minister Netanyahu’s intent to stop Iran at all costs, which would ultimately send the region into a period chaos.  This is something Russia cannot afford at this point.

It is also key to look at the historical relationship between Russia and Persia (Iran).  Between the 17th and 19th centuries they fought a total of five wars, which ultimately saw Russia overpower the Persian empire.

In short, Putin’s strategic goals line up far more with Israel’s security needs than they do with Iran’s hegemonic desires.  Couple this with a negative history between Iran and Russia and it is easy to see why Putin is ready to encourage the Ayatollahs to leave Syria.