It may have escaped your attention, but AIPAC is a domestic American lobby group. Israelis have their own agenda.
What Israelis care about is not Syria, but Iran. They care nothing for attacking Assad, but they do not want the US to publicly be humilated by backing down once they have committed themselves to “red line” rhetoric, because they see US guarantees of response to Iranian attacks as a powerful deterrent. The value of that deterrent would be eroded if the US claims a “red line”, gas attacks ensue, and the US does … bugger all.
What I’m not seeing, is any motive for the Israelis to force the issue by faking a gas attack, thus leading to a situation where the US is forced to put up or shut up - where shutting up will weaken the deterrence Israel is counting on versus Iran. Why, exactly, would Israel do that?
You do understand that Syria is one of Iran’s closest allies and could likely be involved in any Iranian strikes against Israel?
And that Syria borders Israel?
And that the fall of Assad would further dilute the cohesion of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, all of which are interested in Israel’s annihilation?
Yes, the Israelis care about Syria and want regime change there.
Syria is in no position to be involved in strikes against anyone, except geographically.
Yes. So? Do you have a point, other than snark?
Syria is being propped up by Iran and Hezbollah is actively fighting for the regime, but that does not automatically mean that Israel is for the rebels. It is a case of two sets clashing, neither of which likes Israel one bit.
Israel would be in no better position, should the rebels win - and possibly in a worse position.
As for Hamas and Syria - Hamas has sided with the rebels.
That means, no matter what happens, their cohesion is being weakened.
The fact that the current backers of Syria hate Israel and long for its destruction does not mean that important factions of the rebels do not also hate Israel and long for its destruction. And if they win, there is every chance that they would be a lot more active in attempting to bring that about than Assad, with whom the Israelis are quite familiar over many years.
In short - “better the devil you know”.
Or put another way - if Assad survives this, doesn’t get the good old bayonet-up-the-ass treatment like in Lybia, chances are he’s going to be way too weak to do squat about attacking Israel for years to come.
Of course the Israelis “care about Syria”, but do you have any actual evidernce that they are actively rooting for “regime change there”, other than your assertion?
Israel/Syria border was quiet for almost 40 years. No incidents. No terrorist crossings. No rockets. Nothing. And during a lot of those 40 years Syria was “one of Iran’s closest allies”.
Israelis do care about Syria. And yes, if it was possible to change the regime to a democratic one, I am sure Israelis would be very happy with that. Maybe that counts as “wanting regime change”.
You know, it’s even simpler than that. Assad has thousands of ballistic missiles pointed at Israel. So long as he still has something to lose, he won’t launch them, because he knows Israel will kill him if he does. If he’s about to fall, though, then he’ll give the order, and even if none of those missiles have chemical warheads, thousands of Israelis will die, and untold millions of dollars of damage will be done to the Israeli economy. No theoretical gain is worth that.
Agreed. What you say, simply makes sense. So why isn’t Israel, this time, either “whispering” (to keep the facade) to Obama to chill, or just comes out and says they don’t support the strikes? Not like Israel hasn’t been blunt to the US before.
I know, I know, you’re both used to treating each other with white gloves – but fuck! You’re first on the front line on this one…and, again, not by your doing. No doubt you can wipe Syria off the map, but you’ll suffer tons more grief than the US will if this fishing expedition goes sideways.
Unless, of course, this is a way to “get” Iran. If so, all bets are off
Israel cannot come out and say they don’t support the US president. Israel can (and does) keep quiet about it. And as for “whispering” - Obama is not very friendly to Israel. You can “whisper” all you want, but no one is listening.
Because missile strikes against Syria (no matter how ‘limited’) would breathe life into the struggling insurgency there, prolonging the conflict and letting it hemorrhage.
Perpetual civil war in Syria would be the most desirable outcome for Israel, and when it comes time for one side to win they would much rather it be the disorganized, rag-tag rebels (who will proceed to fight and kill each other to fill the power vacuum) than the guy who is allied with Iran.
Two reasons - first, the Israelis don’t want to piss off the Americans; and second, the Americans having made this an issue of their credibility, the Israelis don’t want the Americans to be seen as not credible in threatening retailation for bad behaviour in the ME, for obvious reasons.
In short, the Israelis have no interest in eliminating Assad; they have no interest in creating the current situation; but it being what it is, they also stand to lose in the Americans are visibly seen to have promised retaliation if a ME bad boy did X, and then fail to follow through …
Nope. Continuing instability in Syria is not in Israeli interests. Assad, even allied to Iran, has kept the peace for decades. Israel would rather deal with a strong-man, whom they know they can beat like a drum if necessary and who as a result talks loudly and does nothing, than with insurgent groups, of the sort that have caused them endless trouble elsewhere.
OK. Best friends till death do us apart. Makes sense looking back.
Bt by the same token, I also think Israel has a lot to gain by making a semi-against Obama’s (Nota bene, didn’t say America) current blindfolded stance. In fact, they might even put some sense into him. Which, IMHO, he badly needs – as opposed to “Yes Men.” He’s got too many of them as is.
By “Americans” I meant in context “current American government foreign policy administration, headed by President Obama”, not “American people”.
Point is, the Israelis now have an interest in “Obama” following through on his threat - the Israelis stand to lose if he doesn’t.
The strategic dilemma for Israel is that they do not want the effect of American action to destabilize Assad, but they also don’t want “Obama” to be seen as a paper tiger dispensing threats “he” is unwilling to carry out, because that erodes the credibility of “his” threats generally.
Yes and no. Criticizing Obama is less domestically damaging to Netanyahu then criticizing Israel is for any US President, but at a certain point being against the Amerucan government is vastly worse.
The last Israeli PM who openly butted heads with the American Presudent was Shamir with GHWB and he got put out to pasture.
In the end, the US values Israel, but they don’t NEED Israel. Israel NEEDS the US and every Israeli PM knows that one of their jobs is keeping their patron happy.
Here is a line from the report that claims very solid evidence …
“Satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred – including Kafr Batna, Jawbar, ‘Ayn Tarma, Darayya, and Mu’addamiyah.”
Sounds kind of incredible, that we know they launched projectiles at the very neighborhoods in question, but of course we haven’t seen any of this, classified you know, and there has been no discussion that I am aware of.
Some congressmen who have had the ‘classified’ briefing have come away unimpressed.
