Comments on: Israel should stand by Syrian rebels

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:23:29 +0000

An old oriental proverb says: “the enemy of my enemy is my freind”. That may be so in theory, but when implemented into real life this can turn out quite tricky.
So what happends if we give the players names? For sure Syria and Israel are not exactly known to be great freinds. Or if we differentiate it a bit, the syrian regime/current government and Isreal are not the best of freinds. Same goes for the Hisbolla and Israel. On the other hand one can assume that Israel would be quite happy if it didn’t have to watch both borders so closely. And while Hisbolla and the Assad government seem to play fore the same team (not to ferget Iran) there now is a new player in the game that could share the liberal ideology of the west – the syrian opposition.
So if Israel were to support the syrian opposition it could hit two or actually three or maybe ever four birds with one stone. Why?
Well, first it would form a partner on the other side of teh border it can talk to on equal and freindly terms once teh regime falls and a new freele elected government might arrise.
Second, with a friendly government in Damascus, the loop around Hisbolla in Libanon would tighten cutting them off from (re)supplies from Iran and thus also help the moderate forces in Lebanon to appease this county – this being point three.
and four, of course push back the irans sphere of power and interest further away from teh mediterran.
With all these advantages at hand Israel should just not forget to act as a “follower” of the revolution and not as a leader that might be iterpreted as Zioniostic surge for powen and influence. Israel should rather offer its help and see if the opposition accepts and then treat them on equal terms, treat honestly them as possible friends right from the start without and backthoughts. For with such friends at hand, Syria and israel might develop a truly great cooperation after the revolution, because Syria will need help to restructure and rebuild its economy and its sociaty.
I’m sure israel can help with irrigation technology, Solar power, and most important help find inverstors willing to invest in Syria.

By: max

max — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:01:32 +0000

@Richardl, I was surprised by the numbers you provided to explain your virulent attack on the idea of foreign intervention, and looked up the numbers.
The estimates range from 2,000 to 30,000 casualties, and only a few hundreds attributed to the foreign intervention.
Interestingly, the estimates got higher in accordance to the political motivation of the assessor. For example the lowest estimate was given by the World Health Organization (WHO) while the higher ones by the National Transitional Council. Also interesting: the highest estimate is twice as high as the next highest.
In short: enough options to choose whatever fits an agenda, very little to base an objective view on, and no indication that the cause of the deaths is related to the foreign intervention.
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ON the subject of the post: I think that diplomacy isn’t about venting but influencing, and Israel’s venting here is likely to produce a negative influence

By: Gerald Sobel

Gerald Sobel — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:53:18 +0000

Let’s just “do the right thing” and trust in God, or Providence, that doing the right thing will be the best thing we Jews and we Israelis can possibly do. Don’t worry about the baloney about playing into Assad’s hand. Assad is going to be finished off like all the other dictators of history and it’s better to be rooting for, and helping the righteous winning side. Deep down, the Syrians are our brothers and sisters, and if you don’t know that, it’s because you’ve socialized with any of them, really nice people.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:53:05 +0000

Are the Syrian rebels in favor of peace with Israel? Or do they want to destroy it like the other radicals?

By: RichardL

RichardL — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 08:09:17 +0000

SH: Obviously I have to agree with you about crackpots in the Knesset. Neither do I enjoy taking pot shots at Uri Avnery who has been working for peace since before I was born. However I remain appalled that this prominent peace activist supported the attack on Libya and appears to have expressed no regret since the country has been devastated with a loss of life at least three times that which has occurred to date in Syria. Yes the UNSC veto has been much abused but I wonder what might have happened to Libya had Russia and China vetoed the application of a no-fly zone. Perhaps there would have been no aerial bombardment, perhaps the death toll would have been less than one-tenth of what has occurred and perhaps Libya’s infrastructure would have survived and much misery amongst ordinary people might have been avoided. Where I disagree with Avnery is that he was happy to see Libya devastated to get rid of Gaddafi, and apparently would accept the same equation for Syria. That is not my idea of peace, and the present state of Libya convinces me that Avnery was always wrong. There has to be a different approach in Syria, and the appointment of Kofi Annan brings the tiniest glimmer of hope that perhaps some sanity can be negotiated in that entrenched bloodbath.

Finally, apologies for my awful typos. NPC should of course been NTC, and 1976 is a dyslexic 1967. Shame on me.

By: sh

sh — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:25:36 +0000

@RichardL – “Avnery means well and he is a brave man, but he is a crank and a crackpot who would set the whole of the Middle East on fire with his mad ideas. You must consider what people do, not what they say.”
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The reason you (and we) know all the things you said about Avnery before you came up with the above is because he writes about them and the way his thinking and activities evolved over time. I don’t see that drawing conclusions from one’s experiences that modify one’s opinions and broaden one’s horizons is negative, quite the contrary. Thanks for your advice, but if the flames were not already crackling I’d suggest you look no further than the Knesset for crackpots who would set the whole of the Middle East on fire with their mad ideas.

By: RichardL

RichardL — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:17:34 +0000

SH: You mention Uri Avnery. That is the same guy who was involved in looting and war crimes in 1948 (read ‘A Soldier’s Tale’), who voted for the annexation of East Jerusalem when he was in the Knesset, who opposes BDS without giving a viable alternative, who said he would support the devil himself in order to get rid of Gaddafi (and so supported NATO who defied and abused UNSC resolutions 1970 and 1973 with the result that even the NPC admits to 30,000 deaths -remember we are talking about 8000 in Syria so far). Avnery means well and he is a brave man, but he is a crank and a crackpot who would set the whole of the Middle East on fire with his mad ideas. You must consider what people do, not what they say.

Noam: Israel should aid refugees from Syria. You’re joking surely? Which refugees would that be – the 125,000 that Israel evicted from the Golan in 1976 by any chance? And remember too what happened on Nakba Day at Majdal Shams only last year. Time to come back to planet earth my friend. Sinjim as ever is spot on again. Israel has no place in this and neither has NATO. Until there is a serious debate in the UNSC with no hidden agendas and no lobbying beforehand, no Western Special Forces meddling in Homs and elsewhere, until that time the present ugly status quo is the best of an appalling bad set of options.

By: Philos

Philos — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:37:07 +0000

Assad now feels confident enough to use fixed-wing aircraft against his own people. That’s the redline that requires Western intervention.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:38:38 +0000

Disagree. Nothing will unite Syrians and play into Assad’s hands more than Israel butting in. It’s not your fight. Let the Arabs take the lead on this. Syrians are there “Arab brothers.”

By: Piotr Berman

Piotr Berman — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 01:29:32 +0000

Lieberman is sometimes right, especially if he is not watching Haneen Zoabi — that seems to unhinge him totally.

That said, the consequences of “being right” or “wrong” are minuscule. A statement is made. Between demolishing one village and another GoI can also express humanitarian impulses in an admirable show of multi-tasking. Due to superior levels of technology and organization, Israel can achieve supremacists goals while killing much fewer people than primitive Assad regime, something worth stressing.

But going beyond making a correct statement and getting a nice warm feeling (“yesterday I escorted a blind little old lady across a street and today I made a humanitarian statement”), it is hard to recommend something concrete. For example, Israel could ban the importation of books printed in Syria, but it is done already. Sending “help to wounded” across mine fields and concertina wires on the border may be difficult. Using airforce to deliver humanitarian aid can backfire.