Notice the outcome of this strengthening alliance: As usual, it involves mutual hatred against Israel:
Israel’s alleged attack against Syria seems to have led President Bashar Assad to hunker down and more fully align his regime with the Iran-Hezbollah axis.
As he fights for his regime’s survival, holding on to what some analysts say could become an Alawite ministate, he is publicly moving to a more hostile position vis-à-vis Israel and the West.
Assad told a local Lebanese paper that Syria was becoming a resistance state similar to the one Hezbollah has created in Lebanon.
He added that Syria would be cooperating more closely with Hezbollah, stating, “That’s why we have decided to give them everything.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah echoed this sentiment, with the Now Lebanon website quoting him as stating on Thursday that Syria’s role in the resistance against Israel was important and strategic. He then moved to accept Syria’s offer for new arms, saying, “We are ready to receive any sort of physical weaponry, even if it is going to disturb the balance [in the region].”
Now we see the inevitable link to Israel:
“With regards to the Israeli strikes on Syria, the Israeli enemy is seeking to achieve its aims, one of which is to exclude Syria from the equation and eliminate it as a factor within the ongoing conflict with Israel,” he said.
“Over the course of the history of Arab history,” he added, “no regime offered as much to the Palestinian cause as Syria did.”
Such rhetoric aims to take advantage of the alleged Israeli strikes for public relations purposes and shift the focus from the Syrian civil war and sectarian conflict, to a conflict with Israel.
This is not good news for Israel, which may face a more hostile Assad than it has in the past; however, he knows well that any attacks launched against Israel from Syria would be met with a strong Israeli response.
“Israel is saying, ‘We could destroy you, but we don’t want to right now.’” However, analysts believe that more attacks against Syria could put the country in a position where it would feel an obligation to respond, even though it is busy dealing with its own civil war. Reflecting such a mood was an editorial by Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in- chief of the London-based daily Al-Quds al- Arabi, who welcomed Syria’s statements in recent days that it was planning to open up a new front against Israel in the Golan.
“We say that opening this front, with or without a decision by Assad, will push hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians and Arabs in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan to take up arms again to face the occupation on any front that is opened for them,” stated Atwan.
No comments:
Post a Comment