Israel, the Arabs and Iran by Ehud Eilam

Author:Ehud Eilam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2017-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

How would a possible Israeli intervention in the civil war in Syria be executed?

“Israel is an extreme case of a regional military powerhouse” that lacks political connections among Arabs.10 Israel has been well aware that the Arabs have been divided due to various disputes that sometimes have deteriorated into wars among Arabs, and in some of those confrontations Israel was involved. Egypt’s intervention in the civil war in Yemen in the 1960s distracted Egypt, then Israel’s main foe, from focusing on Israel. This is why the latter assisted Egypt’s enemies in Yemen. In 1970, during the civil war in Jordan between the local government and the PLO, Israel intervened indirectly, without actually fighting, by deterring Syria, causing it to discontinue its invasion into Jordan. This enabled the Jordanian forces to beat the PLO. In 1982 Israel was heavily involved in the civil war in Lebanon, following Israel’s struggle against both the PLO and Syria. That Israeli intervention entangled it in the Lebanese quagmire for eighteen years.

Israel could have been involved in the civil war in Syria in several scenarios.11 There “has been a tension between the temptation for Israel to take advantage of the chaos wrought by the civil war to try to influence the outcome and the sobering realization that Israel’s track record in such efforts has been dismal.”12 Israel would rather have its enemies there, Assad and his allies on the one side and radical Islamists on the other clash with each other instead of aiming for Israel, which might happen if the latter joins the fight.

On 3 March 2012 Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, called the international community to end the war in Syria.13 Some 1,200 American government officials and experts assumed that one of the worrisome issues for the United States in 2014 is “intensification of the Syrian civil war including possible limited military intervention.”14 The United States and Israel want neither Assad nor Islamic extremists like ISIS or Al-Qaida to have the upper hand in Syria. This policy requires blocking and containing both Assad’s coalition and Islamic extremists by turning them against each other and by helping their foes, the more moderate Syrian rebels. In 2014 from Western and Israeli perspectives there are “bad” rebels, radical Islamists including those who are affiliated with Al-Qaida and ISIS, and “good” rebels, all the rest.

In early June 2014 Brig. Gen. Itay Baron, head of the IDF military intelligence research section, estimated that out of about 120,000 Syrian rebels, only 20 percent are considered to be moderate and have no religious agenda. The achievements of both Assad and radical Islamists caused the United States to provide moderate rebels with antitank weapons in mid-2014. Until then the American aid to those fighters was limited to nonlethal measures. The American dilemma has been if and how much to trust and therefore to assist their Syrian protégés.15 Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon called on 24 October 2014 to support the Free Syrian Army.16 Yet money, equipment and weapons could find their way to the extremists and could be turned against Western targets.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.