Syria. The role of Israel and contacts with Al Qaeda

(To Giampiero Venturi)
05/06/16

The role of Israel in the current Syrian crisis is essentially defunct. By extension, all of Tel Aviv's foreign policy directed at its neighbors (and the nearest neighbors) Arab countries seems to be sub-rumor for at least 4 years. If only for reasons of survival, the importance of relations with the opposite implies that behind the scenes, beyond the apparent inertia, important levers are moving.

The Syrian government's allegations to Israel to play a hidden role in favor of the rebels began to be explicit in the 2013, when the offensive from the south became so serious as to force the Syrian Armed Forces to a general withdrawal.

The voices were not just propaganda. A report of the 2014 of the UNDOF (the UN mission in charge of the Israeli and Syrian military disengagement in the Golan) identified contacts between Tsahal and rebel armed groups right in the hilly territory occupied in the 1967 by Israel with the Six-day war. By contacts, the report meant the logistical support provided to rebels wounded at the front, treated in ad hoc camps in the occupied Golan territory.

The reports have increased with the worsening of the crisis, when during the 2014 the southern Syrian front exploded and the rebel advance towards Damascus became an internationally acclaimed fact.

We specify that theUNDOF It is made up of soldiers from Canada, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, India and Nepal, non-Islamic countries and politically above any suspicion of partisanship (3 of them are also NATO members, therefore theoretically closer to Israel than to Syria).

The UN reports included the statements (issued to local undercover sources) of some rebels, one of whom is the high official of the so-called Free Syrian Army. According to the militia, the contacts between Israelis and Syrian rebels would have been and would continue and would particularly concern senior exponents of Al-Nusra Front (The Al Qaeda Syrian) e Ahara ash-Sham, both fundamentalist groups part of the galaxy of international Islamist terrorism. The declarations of the rebels (made under a false name) would also leave the strong embarrassment of many militiamen fundamentalists in accepting the support of Israel, considered for all a real betrayal of the Islamist cause.

Israel therefore supports Al-Nusra Front?

He has been talking about it for years. Without prejudice to the conspiracy theories and the "geopolitics of hearsay", from the 2011 is confirmed through reliable sources the effective participation of Tel Aviv in the Syrian conflict, but it is good to clarify starting from objective data, proven by UN reports.

The rebel offensive of the 2014 autumn in the Quneitra Governorate would be conducted with the direct military help of Tsahal committed to hitting Syrian army positions and providing tactical and logistical support. The city of Quneitra located in the far south of Syria was already a ghost town from the 1967, abandoned by the inhabitants at the end of the Six-day war. During the 45 military operations of theUNDOF they were captured by the Islamist militia supported by Israel and then released, after high-level agreements. 

What was and what is the goal of Israel?

As already discussed on these pages, it is presumable that if Tel Aviv had wanted to kick his hand to defeat Assad, he would have already done so: between the 2013 and 2014 the fate of the Damascus government seemed hanging by a thread. Syria, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state already at the time of Assad father, plays an essential role for Israel, especially if the alternative is chaos. The rule of the "Better a certain enemy possibly in the form of a state than armed militias without control" has a decisive weight in Israel's strategic decisions and has apparently influenced choices low profile of the last years. Everything makes sense in the light of three central points:

  • the enemy certainly must be strong enough to stand up, but not enough to be offensive;
  • enemies like Hezbollah, capable of striking the territory of Israel, must be neutralized or otherwise weakened;
  • the true and perhaps only regional enemy of Israel, Iran, must maintain a marginal role.

The three objectives have been at the center of the talks between Netanyahu and Putin of September 2015. Given the bad relations between the Likud and the Obama administration, the summit was held without US clearance (despite the White House's contrary statements). Tel Aviv, in exchange for the Russian military action against the Islamic State, has obtained a double guarantee: Hezbollah, committed in a declared way on the Syrian front, he would not have received heavy weapons to be reused against Israel itself; Iran would enter the Syrian territory only indirectly (counselors and volunteers yes, regular troops not).

In other words, in Tel Aviv it is good that Assad survives, possibly without returning to the military force preceding the 2011. Okay, as long as you turn a blind eye if the F-16 occasionally targets suspects of Shiite militiamen, especially on the border line between Syria and Lebanon, not far from Israeli territory.

In the 2014 the entry into the field of Russia, able to control Damascus and heavily influence Teheran, godmother of Hezbollah, it was not at all certain. Israeli operations in the Syrian territory were directed to the occupation of the entire Golan and to the neutralization of the Tal Hara observation center, used to monitor the movements of the Israeli air forces (according to rebel sources then spread to the West, also used by the CRANE Russian). The operation was not aimed as it seemed in appearance to stimulate the victory of the Islamists, but to increase the security cushion across the border in the event of the collapse of the government of Damascus. In short: a victory of Islamic fundamentalism is not in the interests of Israel; its annihilation not even ...

The current fragmentation of the Syrian front with the frontal clash between the Caliphate and Islamists of other origins (Al-Nusra Front above all), further makes the game of Israel, because it prevents in fact that emerges an absolute winner.

Contact with Al Qaeda continue?

For Israel, security is an absolute principle, at the top of the list of priorities. Cut a Gordian knot coming to terms with the devil, for Tel Aviv is not a problem.

(photo: IDF)