Israel’s massive attack on free Syria: Background and motivations
First published at Their Anti-imperialism and Ours.
It didn’t take long: from the moment the Assad regime collapsed and the rebels entered Damascus, Israel’s massive land and air attack began. As long as all these arms depots, military airports, intelligence centres, scientific research centres, air bases, air defence systems, ammunition manufacturing facilities, “ small stockpiles of chemical weapons,” and Syria’s entire naval force were safely in the hands of the Assad regime, Israel never touched them. As Syrian revolutionary commentator Rami puts it, Israel has “known their location the whole time but felt safe knowing that they were in Assad’s hands, who uses them exclusively on Syrians,” and certainly never against Israel. “Now that Free Syrians are in control Israel panics and starts bombing them all,” in order to prevent, as countless Israeli leaders have declared, these weapons falling into the hands of the former rebels, who Israeli leaders have described as a “hostile entity.”
According to Ben Caspit writing for al-Monitor, since the rebels took control of Syria, “Israel says it has attacked some 500 regime targets, dropped 1,800 precision bombs, destroyed about half of Assad’s air force, much of the regime’s tanks and missile launch capabilities, 80% of its air defense systems, all its explosive UAVs and 90% of its radar systems as well as the chemical weapons still held in Syria.” The open source intelligence monitor OSINTdefender claims the IDF has eliminated some 70-80 percent of Syria’s military capacity, the locations including “anti-aircraft batteries, Syrian Air Force airfields, naval bases, and dozens of weapons production sites in Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia, and Palmyra,” resulting in the destruction of “Scud Tactical-Ballistic Missiles, Cruise Missiles, Surface-to-Sea, Sea-to-Sea, Surface-to-Air and Surface-to-Surface Missiles, UAVs, Fighter Jets, Attack Helicopters, Ships, Radars, Tanks, Hangars, and more.”
“ Israeli warplanes bombed the intelligence and customs buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus.” The intelligence buildings? Wonder what deals between Israel and the Assad regime they did not want anyone to find there? The Golan sale, perhaps? The dealings between Israel and the Assad regime over Israel’s bombing of Iranian and Hezbollah targets? Indeed, it is feared that Israel may be destroying evidence against Assad that could be used by the new authorities to place charges against him in the International Criminal Court.
Israel then went right on to completely destroy Syria’s naval fleet, under the nose of Russia’s still present air and naval bases in Tartous and Latakia. The massive strikes Israel launched on Tartous on December 15 were described by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights the “most violent strikes” in the region since 2012. A gigantic mushroom cloud fireball blew up over the region, “the explosion was so powerful that it was measured as a 3.1 magnitude earthquake on the seismic sensor.”
Israel expands into the Golan
Israel has also invaded further into the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan to create a “buffer zone” (for its already Golan “buffer zone” 57-year occupation) against the Syrian rebel forces. While it is unclear exactly how much territory has been seized, a map from The New York Times shows the territory held by the IDF as of December 13.
It is clear Israel intends to keep much of the new territory it has conquered. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF would stay on “the Syrian side” of Mount Hermon “during the coming winter months as Israel aims to prevent the border region from falling into the wrong hands.” For Israel, a “temporary” stay has traditionally meant forever, as with the main part of Syria’s Golan Heights which Israel conquered in 1967 and illegally annexed in 1981. According to Ben Caspit writing for al-Monitor, a senior Israeli military source said that Israeli troops “will not retreat until the threat to Israel’s border is removed, which could take “ between four days and four years.”
According to Al Jazeera’s Muntasir Abou Nabout, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have also destroyed roads, power lines, and water networks in Quneitra province (the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan) when people refused to evacuate. “Israeli tanks are now stationed in towns and villages in Syria’s southwest as the Israeli military expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.”
In the villages of the al-Rafid region of Quneitra, Israel cut water and electricity to pressure the people to leave, but they refused, and demanded all weapons be handed over. According to one local interviewed by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, “no one knows what their aim is, but for sure they have created a new enemy in the future for themselves.” The local also claimed “they [the IDF] removed the people of the village of Rasm al-Rawadhi under threats, and they prevented those who left the village of al-Hamidiya from returning.”
The IDF also invaded Daraa province, troops deploying in Ma’aryah village in Al-Yarmouk Basin, “patrolling and searching some residents.” They also attempted to enter Abdeen village, “but the residents confronted them and prevented them from entering the village.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli government “unanimously approved” a plan to double the 31,000 Israeli settler population in the Golan Heights itself. When Israel seized the territory in 1967, some 130,000 Syrians were expelled, but some 20,000 Syrian Druze still remain amidst the settlers and steadfastly refuse Israeli citizenship. Yet now Israel is attempting to stir up separatism among the Syrian Druze in the Hader region of the Golan, claiming they want to join Israel out of fear of the new Syrian authorities, despite the strong participation of the Druze in their main region of Suweida and their leaderships in the revolution.
Arab League condemns, US supports Israel; Russia hands over posts to Israel
On December 13, the Arab League strongly condemned this Israeli aggression, and separately Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia Egypt and the UAE have issued strong statements.
Not surprisingly, the US has supported Israel’s aggression, National Security Adviser Sullivan claiming “ 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 Israel destroys virtually the entire Syrian arsenal with its US-supplied weaponry. The US also supported Israel’s expansion into the Syrian Golan, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller explaining the collapse of the Assad regime “created a potential vacuum that could’ve been filled by terror organizations that threaten Israel.” Sure, he stressed that Israel’s stay should be “temporary,” but the world knows that US words mean nothing in relation to Israel’s actions – indeed Israel’s occupation of the rest of the Golan in 1967 was also supposed to be temporary.
Meanwhile, it was reported on December 9, just as the Israeli attack was mounting, that Russia, as it withdrew from the south, handed over to Israel two facilities in Daraa, and an observatory on Mount Tel Al-Hara. As Russian forces have been based in the Golan region since 2018 under a Putin-Trump-Netanyahu-Assad agreement to keep both Syrian rebels and Iran-backed forces away – to protect both the Assad regime and the Israeli occupation concurrently – this story rings likely.
Israeli leaders explain their aggression
As the revolution took Damascus and Assad fled early on December 8, IDF Chief Herzi Halevi announced that “combat operations” in Syria were to begin, stating that Israel was now fighting on a “fourth front” in Syria in addition to Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon. Israel’s massive attack on Syria had begun. On December 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz “announced that he had directed the army to establish a “safe zone” on the Syrian side, free of weapons and “terrorist” infrastructure, as he put it,.
Most memes did not go past Israeli propaganda such as Netanyahu’s claim that these events are a “direct result” of Israel’s military campaign against Iran and Hezbollah and his assertion that “this is a historic day in the history of the Middle East.” Sure, who wouldn’t want to feign happiness and try to take credit for the collapse of such a monstrous regime. More important however was what Netanyahu also said: “We gave the Israeli army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel.” On December 15, Netanyahu followed this up claiming that Israel’s actions in Syria were intended to “thwart the potential threats from Syria and to prevent the takeover of terrorist elements near our border”.
Katz also doubled down, declaring on December 15 that “The immediate risks to the country have not disappeared and the recent developments in Syria are increasing the intensity of the threat, despite the rebel leaders seeking to present a semblance of moderation.” On December 18, Israel’s deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel described HTS as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” and stated “we are not going to be fooled by nice talk,” claiming “these rebel groups are in fact terrorist groups” and went on to remind about Jolani’s past al-Qaeda links.
Likudist Diaspora Affairs Minister Amachai Chikli made the case more openly, stating that “ the events in Syria are far from being a cause for celebration. Despite the rebranding of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its leader Ahmed al-Shara, the bottom line is that most of Syria is now under the control of affiliates of al-Qaeda and Daesh. The good news is the strengthening of the Kurds and the expansion of their control in the north-east of the country (Deir ez-Zor area). Operatively, Israel must renew its control at the height of the Hermon … we must not allow jihadists to establish themselves near our settlements.”
The Israeli calculus in the days before the fall
All of this was already discussed in the uncertain days between the first offensive that took Aleppo and the collapse of the regime ten days later. As we will see, Israeli leaders were not exactly “delighted,” as a somewhat unfortunate piece by Juan Cole claimed.
Israel has always supported the Assad regime against the opposition (see next section); this put it on the same side as its Iranian enemy, with the difference that it preferred the regime without Iran – hence Israel’s strong decade-long partnership with Russia starting with its 2015 intervention to save Assad; since then, the Israel-Russia agreement has allowed Israel to bomb Iranian and Hezbollah targets anywhere in Syria at will, and the world-class Russian S-400 air defence system will not touch them. But Israel always left the Assadist war machine intact.
During Israel’s devastating war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime did nothing to come to the aid of its ally at its moment of existential need, indeed it closed Hezbollah recruitment offices, banned Syrian citizens from fighting abroad, prohibited the traditionally Iran-connected Fourth Division from transferring weapons or providing accommodation to Hezbollah or Iranian forces, confiscated Hezbollah ammunition depots in rural Damascus. The regime even took 48 hours to comment on Israel’s murder of Nasrallah. From the beginning of the Gaza genocide, the Assad regime refused to open a front on the Golan like Hezbollah did in southern Lebanon, as has been widely noted in many reports; the Syrian regime, according to the Lebanese al-Modon, instructed its forces in the Golan “ not to engage in any hostilities, including firing bullets or shells toward Israel.” Palestinians were arrested for attempting to hold rallies in solidarity with Gaza.
Since Israel had just come through a war with Hezbollah, it could see the opportunity presented by Assad’s treachery to pressure Assad for more, ie, to completely cut the Iranian weapons transfers to Lebanon. During his November visit to Moscow, Netanyahu’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer told his Russian hosts that Israel would propose to the US to lift or freeze sanctions on the Assad regime in exchange for any such efforts to prevent the flow of weapons to Hezbollah (indeed this demonstrates how outside of reality are the conspiracy theories that claim, with zero evidence, that Israel was somehow “behind” the HTS offensive that led to fall of Assad, whatever that even means).
As such, taken by surprise, like everyone else, by the rapid successes of the Syrian revolution, Israel tended to adopt a plague on both your houses view, ie, withholding support for Assad in order to pressure his regime for more in its moment of weakness, while warning of the dangers from the other side. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar’s view expressed on December 3 that “Israel doesn’t take sides” as “ there is no good side there” was probably closest to the mainstream Israeli view. Saar also said that Israel should “ explore ways to increase cooperation” with the Kurds, “we need to focus on their interests.”
On November 29, Netanyahu held a security consultation with “defence” chiefs. He was told that Hezbollah’s forces will now likely shift to Syria, “in order to defend the Assad regime,” which they assessed would “bolster the likelihood of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire holding,” making these developments “appear to be positive” in the short-term, but “the collapse of the Assad regime would likely create chaos in which military threats against Israel would develop.” The first point, that the blows suffered by the Assad regime “forces all members of the axis to focus on another theater that is not Israel,” is likewise considered “a net positive for Israel” by Nadav Pollak, a former Israeli intelligence official at Reichman University in Israel. In other words, both sources suggest that Israel saw Iran and Hezbollah being in Syria, fighting for Assad, as a “positive” because they are thereby not focused on Israel.
Regarding the second point, the “military threats” which may arise, Channel 12, reporting that the meeting also raised concerns that “strategic capabilities” of the Assad regime, including “the remnants of [its] chemical weapons,” could fall into the jihadists’ hands, so the IDF “is said to be preparing for a scenario where Israel would be required to act,” ie to destroy this weaponry before it falls into rebel hands, which of course is exactly what has come to pass.
A number of prominent right-wing Israeli spokespeople or security spooks made the case for supporting Assad more forcefully. For example, on November 29, Dr. Yaron Friedman at the University of Haifa penned an article in Maariv claiming that HTS “controls internal terrorism over the entire province of Idlib” and “like Hamas,” receives the support of Turkey and Qatar. He notes that “the opposition consists mostly of Sunni fanatics from the Salafi Jihadi stream” who “look like Hamas terrorists.” He stressed that while “Assad is far from being Israel’s friend … he is the old and familiar enemy” under whom “Syria has not waged a war against Israel for more than fifty years,” while “ Bashar al-Assad has not lifted a finger in favor of Hamas or Hezbollah since the beginning of the war in Gaza.” Therefore, “the Islamic opposition that aims to turn Syria into a center of global jihad is a much more dangerous enemy. The option of Syria under the rule of Assad under the auspices of Russia is still the least bad from Israel’s point of view.”
Eliyahu Yosian, former intelligence officer from Israel’s notorious Unit 8200 – suspected of being behind Israel’s massive cyber-terrorist attack on Hezbollah members pagers which blew off people’s faces and hands – explained on December 5, “Personally, I support Assad’s rule, because he is a weak enemy and a weak enemy serves our interests. No-ne can guarantee who will come after Assad’s fall.” He noted that Israel can attack in Syria “every so often in coordination with Russia and without any threat.” Therefore “ We must support Assad’s existence.”
One possibility discussed was for Israel to invade and establish a “buffer zone” in southern Syria if the regime collapsed or was close to collapsing.
This view was put forcefully by Lt.-Col. Amit Yagur, another former senior intelligence officer (who had earlier called for Israel to “ drive Iran out of Syria”). On December 6, he claimed that what the rebels had achieved constituted “a tectonic collapse of the Sykes-Pilot agreement, a major collapse of the foundations of the old order,” and therefore “we need to ensure there is a buffer zone between us and the Sunnis.” This buffer zone “could be fully secured by IDF officers,” which however was “less realistic,” or “ guarded by forces of Assad’s regime,” which presumably he thought was more realistic, “so that we don’t end up with a shared border with these guys,” making reference to October 7.
Not all Zionist commentators held these views. Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University, explained that there are voices now challenging the “ the traditional Israeli approach of preferring Assad — the devil we know,” with a view of delivering a blow to Iran by getting rid of the Assad regime. In fact, one of the problems for Israel was the same problem for Russia and Iran – if the despot you have relied on for decades to service your varied and even opposing interests can no longer maintain that “stability,” but on the contrary, his house collapses like a pack of cards, then continued support would not just be a bad investment, but be utterly pointless.
In this light, what is striking about all these views expressed above – even just days before the regime’s collapse – is how extraordinarily unrealistic they were; they all seemed to imagine that Assad still had a chance! Such blindness at such a late date suggests wilfulness, ie, Israel was so invested in the regime’s survival that it impossible to imagine it not being there, even if only running the buffer zone! Indeed, even Zisser notes of the move among some Zionists towards accepting Assad’s downfall as a defeat for Iran, “for the moment at least, the Israeli leadership is not considering such a possibility.”
Background: Israel and the Syrian revolution 2011-2018
Anyone confused about this should not be. If you have been exposed to either mainstream media or tankie propaganda depicting Israel and the Assad regime to be enemies, this documentation below will demonstrate that throughout the Syrian conflict, Israeli leaders (political, military and intelligence) and think tanks continually expressed their preference for the Assad regime prevailing against its opponents, and were especially appreciative of Assad’s decades of non-resistance on the occupied Golan frontier.
Of course that does make them friends, but the “conflict” between Israel and Syria is quite simple: Israel seized Syria’s Golan in 1967 and has steadfastly refused to ever negotiate it back. That is not an Assad issue; it is a Syrian issue, the opposition has made continual statements on Syria’s right to use all legitimate means to regain the Golan. When asked if he would follow his close Arab allies – Egypt, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan – in establishing relations with Israel, Assad’s response noted only the Golan, avoiding mention of ‘resistance’ or Palestine: “Our position has been very clear since the beginning of the peace talks in the 1990s … We can establish normal relations with Israel only when we regain our land … Therefore, it is possible when Israel is ready, but it is not and it was never ready … Therefore, theoretically yes, but practically, so far the answer is no.” Assad, in other words, wanted to be Sadat, but Israel didn’t let him.
From 2012:
Israel’s intelligence chief, Major General Aviv Kochavi, “ warned that “radical Islam” was gaining ground in Syria, saying the country was undergoing a process of “Iraqisation”, with militant and tribal factions controlling different sectors of the country”, and claiming there was “an ongoing flow of Al-Qaeda and global jihad activists into Syria”. He said that with the Assad regime weakening, “the Golan Heights could become an arena of activity against Israel, similar to the situation in Sinai, as a result of growing jihad movement in Syria.”
From 2013:
“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel would erect a new security fence along its armistice line with Syria because “We know that on the other side of our border with Syria today, the Syrian army has moved away, and global jihad forces have moved in.” “We must therefore protect this border from infiltrations and terror, as we have successfully been doing along the Sinai border.”
In an interview with BBC TV, Netanyahu called the Syrian rebel groups among “the worst Islamist radicals in the world… So obviously we are concerned that weapons that are ground-breaking, that can change the balance of power in the Middle East, would fall into the hands of these terrorists,” he said.
“Israel’s military chief of staff has warned that some of the rebel forces trying to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may soon turn their attention southward and attack Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights. We see terror organisations that are increasingly gaining footholds in the territory and they are fighting against Assad,” Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz said at a conference in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. “Guess what? We’ll be next in line.”
Israel also “worries that whoever comes out on top in the civil war will be a much more dangerous adversary” than Assad has ever been. “The military predicts all that (the 40-year peaceful border) will soon change as it prepares for the worst.” The region near the occupied Golan has become “a huge ungoverned area and inside an ungoverned area many, many players want to be inside and want to play their own role and to work for their own interests,” said Gal Hirsch, a reserve Israeli brigadier general, claiming Syria has now become “a big threat to Israel” over the last two years.
‘Israel’s Man in Damascus – Why Jerusalem Doesn’t Want the Assad Regime to Fall’ – heading in Foreign Affairs (May 10, 2013), article by Efraim Halevy, who served as chief of the Mossad from 1998 to 2002.
Israeli defence ministry strategist Amos Gilad stressed that while Israel “is prepared to resort to force to prevent advanced Syrian weapons reaching Hezbollah or jihadi rebels”, Israel was not interested in attacking Syria’s chemical weapons at present because “ the good news is that this is under full control (of the Syrian government).”
[comment: as we can see, the Israeli view that chemical weapons were no problem in Assad’s hands but must be destroyed if he falls, being enacted now, goes way back]
From early 2015:
Dan Halutz, former Chief of Staff of the IDF, claimed that Assad was the least harmful choice in Syria, so western powers and Israel “should strengthen the Syrian regime’s steadfastness in the face of its opponents.” Allowing Assad to fall would be “the most egregious mistake.”
From 2015 (shortly before the Russian intervention to save Assad which Israel supported):
IDF spokesperson Alon Ben-David stated that “The Israeli military intelligence confirms that the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s ability to protect the Syrian regime has dramatically declined, making the Israeli military command more cautious of a sudden fall of the Syrian regime which will let battle-hardened jihadist groups rule near the Israeli border;” as a result, military intelligence services are “working on the **preparation of a list of targets** that are likely to be struck inside Syria, **after a possible fall of the Assad regime**.”
[two points: first, clearly, that “list of targets” has come in handy now that “the fall of the Assad regime” has come about; second, this also suggests that Israel was not against Iran and Hezbollah being in Syria as long as they were only defending Assad, rather than delivering missiles to Lebanon]
From 2015 (after onset of Russian intervention):
At the time when Israel is getting ready for the first coordination meeting with Russia over their joint intervention in Syria, Israeli military sources have confirmed the existence of consensus within Tel Aviv’s decision making circles over the importance of the continuation of the Assad regime. Military affairs commentator Alon Ben-David quoted a source within the Israeli Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying “the best option for Israel would be for the Assad regime to remain and for the internal fighting to continue for as long as possible.” In an article published in Maariv newspaper, the military source pointed out that the continuation of the Assad regime, which enjoys international recognition, relieves Israel of the burden of direct intervention and of deep involvement in the ongoing war. He noted that Israel agrees with both Russia and Iran on this matter.
Israel will provide Russia with intelligence information about opposition sites in Syria to facilitate Moscow’s military operations, Channel 2TV reported, noting that a delegation of Russian army officials will arrive in Israel to coordinate the military cooperation.
From 2017:
The ‘Begin-Sadat Centre’ think tank published an article claiming that as Israel is “surrounded by enemies,” it “needs those enemies to be led by strong, stable rulers who will control their armies and prevent both the firing on, and infiltrations into, Israeli territory,” noting that both Assads had always performed this role. The fact that “Syria is no longer able to function as a sovereign state … is bad for Israel” and therefore “ a strong Syrian president with firm control over the state is a vital interest for Israel. Given the Islamist alternatives to his rule, Syria’s neighbours, including Israel, may well come to miss him as Syria is rapidly Lebanonised.”
From 2018 (as Assad regime re-took the south all the way to the Golan “border” with Israel from the rebels, with the support of Trump, Putin and Netanyahu):
Israel’s National Security Adviser, Meir Ben Shabat, declared in early June that Israel has no problem with Assad remaining in power as long as the Iranians leave; Knesset member Eyal Ben Reuven stressed that the stability of the Assad regime was “pure Israeli interest.” Another Israeli politician told Al-Hurra TV that “ There’s no animosity nor disagreement between us and Bashar al-Assad … he protects Israel’s interests … We now will return to the situation as it was before the revolution.”
Not to be outdone, Netanyahu declared “ We haven’t had a problem with the Assad regime, for 40 years not a single bullet was fired on the Golan Heights.”
In case this was not yet clear enough, at a July meeting with his US counterpart, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot stressed that Israel will allow “only” Assad regime forces to occupy the Golan “border”.
After noting that “the Syrian front will be calmer with the return of the Assad rule,” the fascistic Lieberman stressed that “Israel prefers to see Syria returning to the situation before the civil war, with the central rule under Assad leadership.” Further, he noted that “ we are not ruling anything out” regarding the possibility of Israel and the Assad regime establishing “some kind of relationship.”
It is clear from this summary that Israel’s attack today as soon as Assad was overthrown has been planned for years for precisely such a time precisely because Israel wanted his rule to continue.
Syria’s condemnation of Israel to UN Security Council – and demands that Syria “fight Israel”
In a joint letter to the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly dated December 9, the new Syrian government stated that it “ condemns in the strongest terms this Israeli aggression, which represents a serious violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement … It also constitutes a violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic, the unity and integrity of its territories, and contradicts the principles and Charter of the United Nations, the provisions of international law, and Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, and 497.” The letter then “renews its call on the United Nations and the Security Council to assume their responsibilities and take firm measures to compel Israel to immediately cease its ongoing attacks on Syrian territory, ensure that they are not repeated, and withdraw immediately.”
Much has been made of the fact that, while condemning the Israeli aggression in the UN, the new government has not been very vocal otherwise. There are also literal mountains of disinformation around in social media, in mindless memes and photoshop cut-up jobs, claiming the new government wants to “make peace” with Israel and so on (some useful rebuttals here). Many Assad-loving keyboard warriors are condemning the new government for not “fighting” the Israeli attack.
After 50 years of the Assad regime never firing a shot across the Golan demarcation line, these heroes now condemn a government for not “fighting Israel” in 10 days in power.
One might have noticed that the first thing Israel did was to destroy Syria’s entire military arsenal before it could do anything at all, a military arsenal that Assad never once used against the occupation regime. Presumably they expect Syria to fight the neighbouring genocidal military powerhouse, its warplanes and missiles, with sticks and stones.
As Jolani put it, quite logically, “the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war and conflict does not allow us to enter new conflicts.” That is not a call for a “peace” treaty with the occupation, but a statement of fact. The Syrian people have just come through a 14-year war against their own genocidal regime, the regime of Sednaya-Auschwitz, but these western keyboard heroes now believe that the only way the new Syrian government can show its mettle to them (since this is what is important) is by plunging into war with another genocidal regime.
What they might also consider is that while it is Russia that has been bombing the Syrian people for a decade, the new leadership came to an agreement with Russia that it could keep its naval base in Tartous for now, committing itself to not allowing it to be attacked! That’s because they don’t want conflict with that nuclear-armed genocidal power either. This follows HTS’s overtures to Russia earlier in the offensive, when it declared “the Syrian revolution has never been against any state or people, including Russia, calling on Russia “not to tie [its] interests to the Assad regime or the persona of Bashar, but rather with the Syrian people in its history, civilisation and future” as “ we consider [Russia] a potential partner in building a bright future for free Syria.” The government has also made direct contact with Iran, pledging to protect Shiite shrines, but also giving safe passage to exiting Iranian forces, despite their years of crimes in Syria.
If anything, Jolani’s statement that Syria is in no state to enter a new conflict just now due to exhaustion could well be interpreted by Israel as a medium-term threat. The statements by Israeli leaders justifying their aggression suggest that’s how they view it. Right now, the important thing is for Israeli aggression, destruction and occupation to end, and shooting your mouth off with jihadist slogans, where Israeli leaders and many world leaders and media keep reminding everyone of HTS’s distant past “al-Qaeda” links, would be extremely foolish. No doubt Israel would prefer they did, so it could then bomb Damascus and receive congratulations from its uncritical US backer.
For the entire year since October 7, the Assad regime and Russia had bombed the liberated enclave of Idlib where HTS was ruling, under the cover of Gaza. The entire time, people in Idlib and other opposition-controlled regions were out demonstrating their support for Gaza, while being bombed. The charges against HTS in particular make even less sense, given its strong support for Hamas and for October 7, for better or worse. Jolani has also been filmed boasting that “ after Damascus comes Jerusalem,” but of course this kind of rhetoric, so reminiscent of similar Iranian rhetoric, should be taken metaphorically. Yes, any new regime can sell out – there are no guarantees about anything – but if it did, it would face a Syrian population overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian, and there is little point in idle speculation now.
Rather, when Jolani says the focus right now is on stabilising the situation in Syria, this is completely logical. A fractured Syria, getting even more destroyed by foolishness, would have no ability to help Palestinians or to revive its place in the Arab world. More importantly, this is a very critical and dangerous time for the Syrian revolution, when putting a step wrong can have devastating consequences.
With Russia cutting off wheat supplies, Syria is looking for food; the search for literally hundreds of thousands missing is still going on, with the most horrific discoveries turning up in slaughterhouses like Sednaya; people are having to face the grim reality that the majority will not be found alive, as enormous mass graves are being discovered; hundreds of the released have lost their memories and their minds; basic services have had to be restored; the rush is on to preserve as much intelligence information as possible, before being stolen by looters or destroyed by Israeli bombs; the mass return of millions of Syrians has begun. This is what is important; this is what Israel is trying to disrupt with its aggression.
The way in which the Sunni-majority led revolution has made overtures to Christians, Shiites, Alawites, Druze and Kurds has to date been exceptional and has been key to the success of the revolution. The main fault line at present is in the northeast, largely controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Two things are happening. On the one hand, some of the Arab-majority regions within the SDF-run autonomous statelet have revolted against the SDF and joined the main body of Syrian governance, particularly in Deir Ezzor and Raqqa. On the other hand, Turkey, via its proxy SNA, is also attacking Kurdish regions aiming to destroy Kurdish self-rule; while Manbij, which they took from the SDF via a US-negotiated agreement, is a majority Arab city, they are now threatening to move on iconic Kurdish Kobani. To date, HTS has had a much better approach to the Kurdish question and to relations with the SDF than Turkey and the SNA have, but the future is uncertain.
This Turkey-Kurdish question cannot be dealt with in this essay, but how the government deals with it is crucial to the revolution. Israel sees division as a means of entry, Israeli propaganda projecting the Druze and Kurds as Israel’s natural allies. As seen in some of the statements above from Israeli leaders such as Amachai Chikli and Gideon Saar, supporting “the Kurds” is promoted as a key Israeli geopolitical interest; meanwhile, Israel is trying to get the Druze in the Golan to join Israel. There are even fantastic ideas of a ‘Druze state’ in southern Suweida, and a Kurdish state in the east, forming a bridge to Iraqi Kurdistan, with an oil pipeline joining them to Israel; “by leveraging ties with the Syrian Druze and fostering collaboration with Israel’s Kurdish allies, the foundation for this corridor can begin to take shape,” claims the Jerusalem Post. Both the main Druze leadership in Suweida – a key part of the revolution – and the Druze spiritual leadership in Hader itself, along with the Kurdish SDF leadership, completely reject such ideas. But this demonstrates how an increased Turkish-SNA attack on the Kurds, or any step wrong by HTS on religious minorities such as the Druze, could be exploited by Syria’s enemies.
Israel’s interests
This example suggests one important Israeli interest – using the instability and moment of weakness of a revolution to make a land grab – no need to explain why the permanent ‘Greater Israel’ project would want to do that – and extending its hegemony into a chunk of the Arab region via “minorities.” However, this exploitation of minority issues is not only about fostering its influence, but also a means to undermine the revolution. There is no mystery about Israel wanting to do this: genocidal colonial settler-regimes like Israel – like other imperialist states – hate popular revolutions, especially in the Arab world. Not only did Israel have a good working relationship with the Assad regime as demonstrated above, but more generally the mutual existence of apartheid Israel and Arab dictatorships has always been symbiotic.
Many “left” Assad apologists, who are embarrassed that Israel has only attacked after the downfall of Assad, are trying to save face by saying “see, Assad’s fall makes Syria weak and Israel can do what it wants.” Think of that for a moment: it is an argument that people should not overthrow dictators, even genocidal ones, because when you make a revolution you get attacked by imperialist powers or other powerful reactionary states. Perhaps Russians should not have made a revolution because Russia first temporarily lost a great chunk of territory to the invading German army at Brest-Litovsk, and then had to face another 20 or so western armies of invasion. The argument is ludicrous, and counterrevolutionary.
Let’s look at three aspects that make Israel terrified of the Syrian revolution.
Concern about ‘jihadists’ and ‘terrorists’
The first, the most superficial, is the one that Israeli leaders promote, and is most useful for mass consumption: as seen in so many of the quotes above, Israel does not want “terrorists” or “jihadists” to get their hands on weapons that were previously safely in the hands of the Assad regime, because they might use them to launch attacks “on Israel” (or more likely, the occupied Golan). This cannot be dismissed out of hand. At an immediate level, Israel would have such a fear, especially in times of “chaos,” when a new government does not have clear control of all armed forces and so on.
But any such attacks would do nothing to help Syria, let alone Palestine, whatever the illusions in certain quarters. On the contrary, it would simply be grist in the mill of Zionist propaganda about being “under attack by terrorists” and allow Israel to destroy the whole of Syria, with full US support. Whatever the past rhetoric of HTS, the fact that it has pledged not to do that is entirely logical, especially in current circumstances, and politically defangs Israel’s arguments.
Threat of spread of uprising via regional Sunni Islamist populism
The second aspect is the regional Sunni ‘Islamist’ aspect, not meaning fanatical ‘jihadism’ but more the populist Muslim Brotherhood-type connections between these activists in Sunni majority countries Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Palestine and the Gulf. HTS’s marked ‘softening’ puts it more in this camp than anything related to its distant past al-Qaeda connections. The support given by Hamas – the Palestinian MB – to the Syrian revolution both in 2011-2018 and now flows quite organicially from these connections, as does the support given to Gaza by HTS and other Syrian rebel groups and a year of demonstrations in Idlib and northern Aleppo. The MB has been a major opposition force in Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere, and in Jordan in particular it has played a major role in mobilising against the Jordanian regime’s collaboration with Israel.
Put simply, a popular revolution in one Arab country may be just too good an example for people suffering under other Arab dictators whose relationships with Israel are more out in the open than the one it had with Assad, and these religious-political connections may facilitate this. The fact that the ‘Abrahams Accord’ countries (in its broadest sense, all who had relations with Israel) and the ‘Assad Accord’ countries were the same – Egypt, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan etc, with Saudi Arabia supportive but more reticent on both – can be best understood as both an alliance for counterrevolution generally, and an anti-MB alliance in particular. The overthrow of the Jordanian or Egyptian regimes in particular would be a huge boost to the Palestinian struggle.
In this light, we read that Israel’s Security Agency (Shin Bet) Director Ronen Bar and IDF Military Intelligence Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder visited Jordan on December 13 to meet Maj. Gen. Ahmad Husni, director of Jordan’s General Intelligence Department, “ amid concerns the unrest in Syria could spill over to the Hashemite Kingdom.” According to the Jewish News Syndicate, “Jerusalem is worried that the overthrow of the Assad regime by Syrian rebel factions including terrorist elements led by the Sunni Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham could destabilize Jordan … The talks come against the backdrop of fears in Jerusalem that extremist groups in Jordan could try to replicate the swift ouster of Bashar Assad by attempting to remove King Abdullah II from power.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, “Arab diplomats have also expressed alarm over a potential “domino effect” in the region. … An Arab diplomat from the region said this week that authorities in Egypt, Jordan, and neighboring states are monitoring Syria closely. There is growing apprehension that the Syrian rebellion could inspire Islamist movements elsewhere.” Meanwhile, Anwar Gargash, an adviser to the UAE president, has stated that “ the nature of the new forces, the affiliation with the [Muslim] Brotherhood, the affiliation with Al-Qaeda, I think these are all indicators that are quite worrying.”
In this light, the Biden administration has just asked Israel to approve U.S. military assistance to the Palestinian Authority’s security forces for a major operation they are conducting to regain control of Jenin in the West Bank. According to Axios, the PA “launched the operation out of fear that Islamist militants — emboldened after armed rebels took control of Syria — could try to overthrow the Palestinian Authority.” One Palestinian official said “It was a Syria effect. Abbas and his team were concerned that what happened in Aleppo and Damascus will inspire Palestinian Islamist groups,” also claiming that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia support the operation in Jenin to prevent “a Muslim-brotherhood style or an Iranian-funded takeover” of the PA.
At this stage it is unclear to what extent such ‘fears’ will eventuate, but these moves, visits, talks and statements suggest there is concern within the local ruling classes.
More dangerous threat of democratic, non-sectarian revolution to Zionist project
The third and most fundamental aspect is, once again, related to the spread of revolution, but not specifically the Sunni ‘Islamist’ connection. On the contrary, the extent to which the Syrian revolution can maintain its current popular, democratic and non-sectarian potential could have a dramatic impact on the region – including Israel. It was counterintuitive that a former Sunni jihadist organisation like HTS would lead with the outreach to Christians, Shiites, Alawites, Druze and Kurds, yet it happened. And while the complete hollowness of the regime was the main secret to the rapid success of the revolution, the other crucial ingredient was precisely this non-sectarian element; the descent into sectarianism, deliberately fostered by the Assad regime, was a crucial cause of the failure last time.
Israel’s bluster about being “the only democracy in the region,” while an obvious nonsense in relation to its subjected Palestinian population, holds some truth regarding the Israeli population. By being able to point at ugly dictatorships in the Arab and neighbouring Muslim world, Israeli leaders promote the idea that their anti-Israel agendas are the work of evil tyrants who want to drive out Jews. The fact that many are also run on a sectarian basis – including those are democratic such as Lebanon – further mirrors and is used to further justify Israel’s own racist, sectarian system.
The Arab Spring was the first region-wide attempt at democratic revolution, which however was largely destroyed. In 2019 there was a second round, in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and Algeria. What was very pronounced in the first three in particular was their specifically anti-sectarian content. In both Iraq and Lebanon, the movements against sectarian rule were put down, in Iraq brutally crushed by the ‘axis of resistance’ Shiite militia at a cost of hundreds of lives, while in Lebanon Hezbollah also used violence against the movement, thereby saving the rule of all the sectarian elites; in Sudan the democratic opening was overthrown by the military; a few years later, we also saw the Iranian regime crush its own ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement. All of this made the region safer for Israel’s own racist, sectarian project.
By contrast, the victory of democratic, non-sectarian forces in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Sudan and elsewhere would have represented a far larger political challenge to Zionism than harsh but hollow words from ugly regimes, which only facilitate Zionist siege ideology.
It may well be a struggle for the Syrian revolution to maintain the course; the mobilised Syrian revolutionary population will need to fight all attempts to restrict democratic space or to stir sectarianism tooth and nail. But if their struggle does succeed, a democratic, non-sectarian Syria could likewise have an electrifying regional impact.
Israel is trying its hardest to make sure it does not succeed.