MIDEAST UPDATE: 12.2.16 - Why Would Israel Strike Near the Heart of Damascus?

Why Would Israel Strike Near the Heart of Damascus? - Tzippe Barrow - http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2016/december/why-would-israel-strike-near-the-heart-of-damascus

 

In two separate sorties, Israeli fighter jets targeted a Syrian military convoy on the Damascus-Beirut highway and a weapons warehouse outside Damascus overnight Wednesday, the London-based Rai al-Youm reported.

 

If the report proves accurate, it won't be the first-time Israel has prevented weapons transfers to Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese-based terror proxy, and it probably won't be the last.

 

Israel has consistently stated it will not allow advanced weapons systems to be delivered to Hezbollah, including but not limited to long-range missiles and air defense systems.

 

Israel rarely owns up publicly to the airstrikes. For the most part, there's no need to. The Syrians (and Iranians) know who's responsible. But last April, during a visit to the northern border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an exception.

 

"We are proud that in the stormy and volatile Middle East we were able to maintain relative calm and relative safety in Israel," Netanyahu said publicly.

 

"We act when we should act, including here, across the border, in dozens of attacks, to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring game-changing weaponry," he said. "This is our country, and we need to defend it; nobody else will defend it except us."

 

The latest airstrikes took place days after ISIS terrorists opened fire on Givati Brigade soldiers patrolling the Golan Heights from a heavy machine gun mounted on a truck, followed by mortar shell attacks. In response, Israel targeted the vehicle, killing the four insurgents in the truck.

 

Not surprisingly, Syria blamed Israel for Wednesday's airstrikes.

 

"The criminal attack carried out by the Zionist entity's military was intended to divert attention from Syria's army's successes opposite the terrorists, Israel's allies, working in the country, with aim of boosting the morale of the terrorist organizations dealt defeats in the battles against the Syrian army," SANA (Syrian Arab News Agency) reported.

 

There was also media speculation that Israel coordinated the airstrikes with Russia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Russian President Vladimir Putin shortly after Russia announced its plans vis-� -vis Syria. They've met and spoken by phone several times since to avoid any mishap between Israeli and Russian air forces.

 

Abbas Vows Never to Recognize Jewish State - By Abra Forman - https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/79467/abbas-vows-never-recognize-jewish-state/#zOAbecDYRPqZo239.97

 

"The eternal God is a dwelling-place, and underneath are the everlasting arms; and He thrust out the enemy from before thee, and said: 'Destroy.'" Deuteronomy 33:27 (The Israel Bible�)

 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in his re-election speech on Wednesday that Palestinian Arabs will never agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or compromise on its peace demands, putting Western perception of the Palestinian leader as a "moderate" into question.

 

Abbas, the leader of Fatah, his political party, declared that the faction would not sacrifice its principles, character, or identity in order to achieve a free, independent Palestinian state, Arutz Sheva reported.

 

Speaking at the Seventh Fatah Congress in Ramallah a day after he was re-elected, Abbas said that he will not accept temporary borders or interim solutions, but is determined to push for an end to Jewish presence in the West Bank and the implementation of a two-state solution drawn up on the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative, without changes.

 

He said that Palestinians need only be "patient" as they wait for Israel to inevitably leave its communities in Judea and Samaria, pointing to the 2005 evacuation of Gaza as proof that it is possible and even likely.

 

Abbas promised his listeners that 2017 would be the "year of the Palestinian state and end of the Israeli occupation."

 

Next year, the annual Fatah Congress would be held in Jerusalem, he vowed, calling the city "the eternal capital of Palestine."

 

Abbas, who has been lauded by Western leaders as the best partner for peace that Israel has, invited representatives from terrorists groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad to attend the Congress. Both organizations have called openly for the destruction of Israel and routinely plan and carry out terror attacks within the Jewish state.

 

In response to the speech, Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) called Abbas "the number one enemy" of Israel, "Even worse than [former Palestinian leader Yassar] Arafat."

 

"Abbas is talking about stopping his recognition of Israel, but first he should start recognizing Israel. Abbas has never recognized Israel's right to exist. To this very day he rejects Israel's right to exist," MK Steinitz said in an interview with Israel Radio on Thursday.

 

"We should not kid ourselves. Abbas in his ideology is the number one enemy of the very existence of Israel."

 

 

Israel jets mark go-it-alone policy on Syria -  http://www.debka.com/article/25806/Israel-jets-mark-go-it-alone-policy-on-Syria

 

Arab media carried conflicting reports which described Israeli warplanes striking in and around Damascus overnight Tuesday, Nov. 29, with "four long-range Popeye" missiles fired from Lebanese air space on the government-held town of Al-Saboorah, a western suburb of Damascus, near the highway to Beirut.

 

A Lebanese newspaper reported that a Syrian army ammunition depot was destroyed in one of the raids, while other strikes hit and damaged a Hezbollah arms convoy bound for Lebanon on the Damascus-Beirut Highway. There was also speculation, later denied, that one of the air strikes aimed at assassinating a senior Hezbollah figure.

 

None of these reports were confirmed by Israel or any other official source.

 

Even so, Israel's reported military action against enemy targets in Syria is bound to have repercussions in the next 24 hours, since, whatever took place, broke out of the secret overarching understandings on Syria reached provisionally this month between US President elect Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

 

Those understandings hinged strongly on joint US-Russian cooperation in the war on the Islamic State in Syria, supported by the coalition fighting for the Assad regime, namely, the Syrian army and its allies, the Lebanese Hezbollah and foreign Shiite militias under the command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

 

As the sub-text of the "big power" understandings, an outline was drafted between the next US administration, Moscow, Jerusalem, Amman and the UAE on arrangements for stabilizing Syria's southern borders with Israel and Jordan.

 

Talks on these arrangements were first disclosed in an exclusive debkafile report on Nov. 21, after they had already produced the unheralded return of the UN observers to the Golan demilitarized zone outside Quneitra.

 

But then, Sunday, Nov. 27, Russian warplanes staged a sudden series of airstrikes against Syrian rebel concentrations in the very region under discussion, southern Syria. After a three-month pause in these attacks, Moscow appeared to have waited for major Syrian government progress in Aleppo, to go against those understandings and send Russian jets into action over Jasim and Daraa in order to wipe out the rebel forces holding out in the South. Heavy casualties were sustained by those forces.

 

The Russian action was seen by the incoming Trump administration and Jerusalem as presaging the next danger-fraught step: To round out the raids, the Syrian army would come flooding into the South, along with Hezbollah and other Shiite militias fighting under Iranian Revolutionary Guards command.

 

Tuesday saw two further ruptures in the trilateral understandings on Syria.

 

Assad announced he was gearing up for a decisive victory in Aleppo, notwithstanding a request from Trump's advisers to Putin to hold back from the final step and refrain from retaking every last eastern district from rebel hands..

 

This was followed by an unforeseen statement by Erdogan: "The Turkish military launched its operations in Syria to end the rule of President Bashar al-Assad."

 

This sentiment pivoted sharply away from the secret Trump-Putin understandings endorsed by the Turkish leader that was contingent on Assad remaining in power.

 

Although Erdogan is notorious for his wildly unpredictable decision-making, it is more than likely that before going public on his radical change of heart on Assad, he was in touch with the new national security team taking shape in Washington. If that was the case, then Donald Trump was using Erdogan to notify Putin that the entire architecture of their understandings on Syria was now at risk.

 

If the Arab media reporting on Israeli air attacks on Syrian military and Hezbollah targets in Damascus from Lebanese air space are confirmed, Jerusalem will be shown to have followed Ankara in backing away from those short-lived, understandings, opting instead for an independent policy in its own security interests with regard to Syria.

 

 

Defense minister: Israel will respond with 'full force' to IS attacks - By Raoul Wootliff - http://www.timesofisrael.com/defense-minister-israel-will-respond-with-full-force-to-is-attacks/

 

In first comments since clash on Syrian border, Liberman says aggression against IDF soldiers will face 'immediate' retaliation

 

In his first public comments after IDF troops killed four Islamic State fighters in a confrontation along the northern border with Syria, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said Monday that Israel would not tolerate any provocations by the group and would respond unilaterally to attacks with "full force."

 

Speaking at his Yisrael Beytenu's weekly faction meeting at the Knesset, Liberman said aggression against IDF soldiers would be met with an "immediate" response, and without coordination with other countries fighting in Syria.

 

"For the first time an Islamic State force attacked our soldiers and we replied appropriately - with a powerful response," Liberman said. "Israel is not looking for a fight but when we are faced with provocation - in Gaza, on the Syrian or Lebanese borders - we will respond with full force, as was done here."

 

Sunday saw the first case of an IS affiliate deliberately attacking Israeli troops inside Israel. Numerous mortar shells have fallen inside Israel, some of which may have been fired by these terrorist groups, though most were likely spillover from the fighting in Syria rather than a directed attack.

 

The incident was sparked when soldiers from the Golani Brigade's reconnaissance unit crossed the security fence with Syria to conduct an "ambush operation," while remaining inside Israeli territory. The troops came under small arms fire from members of the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army, formerly known as the Yarmouk Martyr's Brigade, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said.

 

They returned fire, but soon came under attack from mortar shells. In response, the Israel Air Force targeted a truck "that had some sort of machine gun on top of it" and killed the four terrorists who were riding in it, the spokesperson said.

 

Military officials have since described the incident as a one-off, saying they did not expect the jihadists to press ahead with more attacks on Israeli troops.

 

Asked if Israel had coordinated with other countries fighting in Syria or planned to in the future, Liberman said that when attacked on its sovereign territory, Israel had no need to coordinate with anyone else and would respond "immediately."

 

"When we identify the source of fire, we respond to it. If not, then the sovereign is Assad's army and we will respond there," he added.

 

Echoing Liberman, Netanyahu told his own Likud faction that Israel would not allow any Islamic extremist groups to open a new front on the country's borders.

 

"There have been several attempts to attack Israel's forces along the border," the prime minister said. "We will not allow any drizzle [of assaults], and if necessary, we will attack the enemy."

 

Both the IS-affiliated Khalid ibn al-Walid Army and the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly the al-Nusra Front, which is linked to al-Qaeda, have been present on Israel's borders for years, though they and the IDF had maintained a "live and let live" relationship until Sunday.

 

Since March 2011, when the war broke out, dozens of mortars have landed in Israeli territory as a result of spillover fighting. The IDF often responds to fire that crosses into Israel by striking Syrian army posts.

 

Israel has maintained a policy of holding Damascus responsible for all fire from Syria into Israel regardless of the source.

 

Israel has also reportedly carried out airstrikes against Hezbollah and the Syrian Army deep inside the country to prevent arms transfers, with some of those reportedly coordinated with the US.

 

Since Russia became heavily involved in Syria, Jerusalem and Moscow have held several top-level meetings aimed at making sure their forces do not become entangled in the labyrinthine civil war.

 

As Israel burns, are we looking at a new form of eco-terrorism? - http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Are-we-looking-at-a-new-form-of-terrorism-473566

 

With wildfires currently raging across Israel for a third consecutive day, many are concerned that this may be a new form of terrorism.

 

Fires from an estimated 220 points of origin have broken out throughout central and northern Israel since Wednesday and assessments by police have strengthened suspicions that many were deliberately set and were nationalistically motivated.

 

Boaz Ganor, founder and executive director of the International Institute for Counter- Terrorism, told The Jerusalem Post that, "even if a portion are intentional, it is not organized.

 

It's not that you have a terrorist organization giving orders to their members to carry out fire attacks, though maybe in a few hours you can have groups like Hamas claiming the fires."

 

But "one thing is clear," Ganor said. "It is not a new form of terrorism. Arson attacks and setting fires in populated areas or forests are a well known modus operandi of terrorist groups, and not only in Israel.

 

In the ninth issue of the English-language Inspire magazine, released by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in 2012, a significant portion was dedicated to attacking the United States by starting wildfires. The magazine listed instructions on how to ignite forest fires and the materials required, and instructs readers to look for two factors needed for a successful wildfire: dry conditions and high winds.

 

"When we define this phenomenon as 'fire intifada' - words used by the media, politicians and laypeople - we are overestimating the phenomenon," Ganor told the Post. Nevertheless, Ganor explained that the pictures on social media networks of flames in the center of Haifa and surrounding Jerusalem are "heaven for those who may want to join the so-called 'fire intifada,' especially if you add the false reasoning of revenge for banning the call to prayer."

 

Yoram Schweitzer, head of the program on terrorism and low-intensity conflict at the Institute for National Security Studies, told the Post that the term "fire intifada" should not be used, stressing that before accusing anyone there should be a full investigation into the fires.

 

The wildfires have been cheered by many on social media using the hashtag #IsraelBurns. Many postings saying that this is divine retribution for the pending controversial law to ban mosque loudspeakers for the Muslim call to prayer.

 

Last week Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said that, "What the Israeli occupation state is doing at al-Aksa Mosque, as well as preventing the call to prayer in Jerusalem, is playing with fire. This created a fierce reaction in the Palestinian community and the whole of the Islamic nation."

 

Ganor says "we should not exaggerate the terrorist motivation behind the wildfires," stressing that "the conditions right now are perfect for fires, with an extended period of dry weather and strong winds."

 

Michael Horowitz, director of intelligence at Prime Source, a Middle East-based geopolitical consultancy firm, agreed. "It is too early to conclude that this is a "new form of terrorism," but it definitely can turn into that because of the virality of the trend," he told the Post, adding that "it's been praised by Hamas, and the hashtag "Israel is burning" is trending in Arabic. The mere perception of success can be enough to encourage copycat attacks."

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday visited the Fire and Rescue Service's coastal district forward command center, where was briefed on the efforts to put out the fires, many of which he said are "deliberate acts of arson."

 

In Haifa, senior firefighter Shimon Ben Ner, told Army Radio that "I know for a fact that they tried to set fire to the department's station in Haifa deliberately, to cause the Haifa fire department to be paralyzed."

 

In 2010, 44 people were killed in Israel's worst forest fire. The three-day Mount Carmel forest fire destroyed thousands of hectares of land and forced some 17,000 people to be evacuated from their homes, as well as various prisons, hospitals and military jails.

 

Two residents of the Druse town of Daliat al-Carmel were arrested for allegedly attempting to start a fire in the Mount Carmel area. While police officials later said no wrongdoing had been established with certainty, many believe that arson was behind the Carmel forest blaze.