Thursday, May 8, 2008

The March to War: Israel Prepares for War against Lebanon and Syria

By the start of 2007, reports about major upgrades to the Syrian military, including advances in missile technology, with Iranian help were widespread in Israel. The impression of an imminent war existed across much of the Middle East. Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran were reported in Israel to be preparing for a war to spark in the Levant.
 
It was also claimed in Israel that Damascus had sent secret messages to Tel Aviv that should Israel continue to reject Syria's peace overtures, a war would breakout in the Golan Heights and that Syrian reservists were forbidden from leaving Syria because of the possibility of combat.

In June, 2007, an inner circle of the Israeli government that would form a "war cabinet" in a Middle Eastern war scenario was categorically informed that a war with Syria would absolutely involve Iranian military intervention.
 
It is now 2008 and the spectre of war has remerged in the Middle East. Syrian President Basher Al-Assad revealed that his country is uneasy and prepared for the worst once again. Despite Tehran's position that the U.S. would not dare launch a war against Iran, the Iranian military is on standby. The Lebanese military and Hezbollah have also been placed on alert.
 
 "While war is not a preferable option, if Israel declares war on Syria and Lebanon or if America declares war on Iran, Syria would be prepared," the Syrian President told a gathering of Arab intellectuals according to Al-Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper, on April 16, 2008. "We should analyze the situation from the perspective of American interests, because the last war in Lebanon has shown that at some point Israel wanted to stop the fighting, but was forced by the [Bush Jr. Administration] to pursue it further," Basher Al-Assad continued. Thus the threat of war lives on in the Middle East in 2008…
 
"Miscalculations" in the Levant: Setting the Stage for War?
 
Hereto, Tel Aviv has been deliberately promoting tensions with Syria and Lebanon. In 2007, Major-General Moshe Kaplinsky, the former deputy chief of staff for the Israeli military, stated during a press briefing that war between Syria and Israel was unlikely as an answer to growing rumours of war that started since late-2006 and the commencement of 2007. The Israeli flag officer however did not rule out an eventual Israeli-Syrian conflict. Major-General Kaplinsky along with many other Israeli commanders and officials repeatedly stressed that a "miscalculation on the border" could spark a conflict between Syria and Israel sometime in the future.
 
Not long after the 2006 Israeli defeat in Lebanon, Tel Aviv started crafting the "justifications" for more wars in its surrounding neighbourhood, the Levant. The Israeli definitions of "miscalculation" have been extremely vague and ominous.

Tel Aviv has been involved in the process of creating a military carte blanche, allowing for "flexibility" in its regional approach towards Lebanon and Syria.
 
"Miscalculations" in the eyes of Tel Aviv range from the domestic affairs of the Lebanese and the events in the occupied Palestinian Territories to the most audacious and bellicose of definitions, such as the reaction of the Syrians to Israeli hostilities.
 
The secretive air assault, later revealed by the codename Operation Orchard, made by the 69th Squadron of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) against an unheard of facility in Deir ez-Zoir Governorate of Syria on September 6, 2007 could have become a "miscalculation" on the part of Syria had it responded to Israeli provocations.
 
The Israeli definition of a "miscalculation" also means any arbitrary fire into Israel. The Jerusalem Post defined a "miscalculation" that could spark a war with Syria as an incident "along the border, in the form of a terrorist attack that escalates into a larger conflict." Such an incident could easily be sparked through conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
 
A false flag operation could also bring such an incident about. On July 18, 2007 there was rocket fire from South Lebanon into Israel by an unknown group, something that could have been used as a pretext for war. In Syria, Lebanon, and the Arab World the incident was believed to be the work of the Israelis and their allies in an effort to justify a future war.
 
Tel Aviv's Orwellian talk of Peace
 
In May, 2008 the head of the Mossad, the intelligence service of Israeli, said that talks of peace with Syria would lead to war. [10] Le Nouvel Observateur reported in July 2007 that the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, ruled out the resumption of peace talks with Syria while stressing that she believed Damascus posed a problem that must be tackled on a regional scale. When asked about the prospects of peace with Syria, Tzipi Livni responded, "Absolutely not. Syria is pursuing the dangerous game it plays in the region [Middle East]," and added that Syria "remains a threat" to Israel. These statements reveal the conduct of Tel Aviv and its hidden agenda. Within the context of a public declaration of peace during the summer of 2007, they also reveal Tel Aviv's duplicity.
 
While Tzipi Livni stated that there would be no peace between Israel and Syria, Ehud Olmert stated in a televised interview with the Al-Arabiya News Channel, that he personally wanted peace with Syria. Prime Minister Olmert addressed President Basher Al-Assad, the head of Syria, directly, saying "you know that I am ready for direct talks with you" and added that "I am ready to sit with you and talk about peace, not war." Several days later, Ehud Olmert also stated in Orwellian fashion that he wanted peace with the Syrians, but that peace did not equate to immediate peace negotiations between Syria and Israel and could mean a continuation of the "status quo."

Olmert's statement is doublespeak. Hereto, according to the Israelis, the threat of war exists as a result of the status quo between Syria and Israel. This statement is very important to keep in mind because it indicates that Israel did not want to return the Golan Heights, but wanted something else from Syria as the condition of peace. This is where Tehran comes into the picture.
 
 

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