David's point of view

In these moments the hands of the clock that regulate world peace have slowed down the race. America and Russia are facing each other because of a country - Syria - that can not find peace and has not yet embarked on the right path to end the carnage of the last seven years. The aggressive attitude of Trump scares the world public opinion, but even more worries are the sly answers coming from the Kremlin whose government, between the two, seems to be more reasonable and less hasty. Donald Trump has accustomed us to his shouted and even little threats "politically correct", however, this time it seems to want to play the game on the razor's edge.

The alleged attack with gas by Assad is still to be refuted and despite the French president Macron is said to be ready to show the world the evidence, many shout to a classic case of "False Flag"where the accident seems to have been prepared and following the best practices to create the irremediable casus belli. Within hours we have watched with apprehension the mobilization of ships and planes and even the submarine fleet of Great Britain to deal with possible military crises. But in all this chaos of intimidating maneuvers, there is a small strip of Middle Eastern territory - Israel - which has been at the forefront of the Syrian conflict for some time. An uncomfortable and dangerous position that nevertheless revealed a remarkable Israeli diplomatic capacity in mediating between interventionism and opportunism.

The Syrian option

Here it is superfluous to bring back the discourse of relations between Syria and Israel at the dawn of time, investigating the roots of hatred between its states. For this there are pages and pages of history books and a situation - that of the Golan - that has never been archived. We are also used to considering the Jewish state as the home of unresolved issues which, although they drag on over the years, have never lost their charge of hatred needed to make sudden conflicts explode. Although the Israeli board is not famous for its wait-and-see policy, this time the stakes push for greater prudence, partly because, on the one hand, Knesset has advocated a certain equidistance from Russia, the discourse changes for Iran which, precisely in Syria, is building a very dangerous Shiite fiefdom. 

Israel, like many other states that have experienced the devastating threat of terrorism on its own, fears the voids of power, especially those that could be created by the cancellation of Assad from the Middle Eastern political scene. On the other hand, the establishment of Iranian headquarters behind the front door disturbs Netanyahu's sleep.

According to an analysis by Larry Hanauer, an analyst at RAND Corporation, Israel's primary objectives are essentially to contain Russian / Iranian influence in Syria, whose presence is facilitating the flow of weapons and vehicles to Hezbollah¹. This step would be doubly dangerous since the weapons put into circulation come from the Russian arsenal, therefore equipped with advanced technology. The existence of Hezbollah militias at the borders, encouraged by Russian / Syrian / Iranian support, undermines Israeli national security, although Prime Minister Netanyahu has demonstrated without hesitation that he does not passively accept events across the border. On April 10, for example, some IAF jets (Israeli Air Force) targeted a Syrian base in which there were weapons for Hezbollah, raising protests from Iran, but above all from Russia. The support of the "Party of God" in Assad, if evaluated over the long term, could be favorable to Israel as the participation of Shiite militias in the war in Syria is causing many losses and a consequent thinning of the actual combatant².

Israeli concerns primarily concern the possible role of Russia once the anti-Assad coalition has been defeated. Should Israel be attacked by either the Syrians or Hizbullah, the presence of the Russian military would weaken its reactive potential and it is the same problem, on a larger scale, that we are living in these moments when an American attack could hit by mistake or the Russians or Iranians . Fears confirmed by the fact that Hezbollah has never stopped firing on the Golan plateau and doing so with Syrian, Russian and Iranian support would tip the scales decisively against Israel.

The agreements signed by Russians and Americans in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, in July of the 2017 for a "ceasefire" in the southern sector of Syria, foresaw the establishment of a series of "buffer zones", including a vital close to Israel deep 40 km, within which every Iranian activity was forbidden. In spite of what was decided, however, at the end of the 2017 the sectors of Quneitra and Hermon suffered different assaults by Shiite militias without any guarantor power intervening³. Despite the ambiguities, the Russians nevertheless remain a precious interlocutor for Israel which, on several occasions, has winked out of issues such as that of Crimea and the related sanctions imposed by the G7⁴.

It also seems clear that Israel has every convenience for Syria to rebuild a policy independent of its allies, perhaps thinking of a resumption of dialogue between Jerusalem and Damascus. In this perspective, the operation "Good Neighbor"Started in June 2016, acquires a value not only humanitarian, but above all political and far from disinterested⁵.

The choice of "Bibi" Netanyahu appears Machiavellian, but at the moment it is the only viable since it leaves the front open to various resolutions: certainly eliminating Assad is not Israel's priority, while it is essential to limit Iranian interference in matters as much as possible. Syrian.