BICOM

On 18 March four Israeli soldiers were wounded in a bomb attack on the Syrian border, triggering Israeli airstrikes against Syrian military targets. The attack on Israeli soldiers was the latest in a series of similar incidents. To discuss this development, BICOM’s Director of Research Dr. Toby Greene spoke with BICOM’s Senior Visiting Fellow, Brig. Gen. (res.) Michael Herzog, who is the author of an extensive new BICOM Expert View paper entitled, Navigating the Arab Storm Three Years On. This paper explores the implications of the dramatic changes taking place in the Arab world for regional security. The following is an edited transcript of the interview. You can listen to the interview in full on our BICOM Podcasts page.

Who do you think carried out the attack on 18 March and why?

While it is not yet clear who exactly perpetrated the attack, without doubt the attack was carried out by pro-Assad forces; it could be either Syrian forces or Hezbollah forces or affiliates. This is the third such incident in the last month on the Israeli-Syrian border. In all cases the Israeli government believes that pro-Assad or Hezbollah forces are responsible.

As for the why, the first reason probably has to do with wanting to respond to airstrikes attributed to Israel.  According to international media, Israel has carried out a series of strikes against strategic weapons being transferred from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The most recent (at the end of February) was slightly on the Lebanese side of the Syria-Lebanon border. Both Syria and Hezbollah probably felt the need to respond, following a series of strikes to which they did not respond.

Secondly both Syria and Hezbollah feel emboldened after a series of successes for Assad’s forces in the Syrian civil war – in the Damascus area, closer to the Lebanese border, in Homs, and elsewhere. Whilst they don’t control most of the country, in relative terms their position has improved.

None of these parties are interested in an escalation to an armed conflict with Israel, from which they stand much to lose.  They probably want to respond in a way that will not bring about an escalation. It is interesting to note that nobody has assumed responsibility for the attacks on Israeli soldiers, much as Israel has not assumed responsibility for its reported airstrikes against weapons convoys.

Will this change Israeli policy calculations?

I don’t think this will change Israeli policy. Israel has to be careful. It is also not interested in escalating the situation and does not want to be drawn into the war in Syria. But if Israel is aware of strategic weapons being transferred to Hezbollah, which could serve as game changers in the balance of power between Israel and Hezbollah, it will be prompted to act.

As noted, in all of these cases [when Israel reportedly targeted weapons convoys from Syria to Hezbollah] Israel has not assumed public responsibility. However there were leaks in the media. Usually the initial response of Syria and Hezbollah would be to say they are unaware of the incident, but once these incidents go public they feel compelled to respond.

Is Israel concerned about anti-Assad Jihadist forces in Syria trying to trigger a conflict between Israel and Syria and Hezbollah forces?

Israel is not aware of this happening so far but it might. Rebels now control most of the border between Syria and Israel. These are forces hostile to Israel and many of them are Jihadist.

There are also signs that Hezbollah is operating in the Golan Heights. This is very convenient for them, because they calculate that if things escalate they will do so on the Syrian side of the border and not in Lebanon.

Overall this means that Israel’s northern border is heating up. We had quiet for nearly 40 years on the border with Syria and now Israel is facing an unstable situation where it is faced with a variety of forces – Syrian army, Hezbollah, Jihadist forces – all of which are hostile to Israel.

You have just written a new BICOM paper on the broader regional trends taking place in the region, one of the most dramatic of which is the catastrophic civil war in Syria. How do you see yesterday’s events falling into a broader pattern of regional change?

What’s happening in Syria epitomises developments in the region as part of the so called ‘Arab Spring’. Namely, you see countries around Israel either turning into failed or weak states. In Syria you see this in the extreme. It is not only a civil war but a sectarian war between Shiites and Sunnis. There are tens of thousands of Sunni Jihadists entering from all over the world as well as thousands of Shiites from Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and other Shiite communities.

Syria is also a proxy war with Iran, Russia and other outside forces actively involved. For Israel this means that while the prospects of a traditional state to state war have diminished for the foreseeable future, this earthquake is empowering non-state actors who could get their hands on strategic weapons which could endanger Israel – including Hezbollah (already possessing over 100,000 projectiles) and Sunni Jihadist forces.

In a more immediate sense, Israel’s borders have become unstable. The long border with Egypt, quiet for many years following the peace agreement, has heated up over the past two and a half years, with numerous Jihadist groups operating in the Sinai. The same is now happening in Syria where the border was quiet for forty years.

Is there anything Western powers can do to stabilise the situation in Syria?

Unfortunately, the situation in Syria deteriorated into a war predominately between the Syrian regime and its allies (Iran and Hezbollah) on the one hand and the extreme Sunni Jihadists on the other, with the moderate anti-Assad forces marginalised. I hope it is not too late to turn the tide.

The first priority should be the catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Around one in three Syrians have either left the country or are internally displaced, with two and half million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries. The first priority should be to get humanitarian assistance into Syria as soon as possible; to secure even local ceasefires; and to deal with huge refugee communities in neighbouring countries.

Secondly, I hope it is not too late to help and embolden the more moderate rebel forces. One important measure is to help the moderate rebels to establish proper governance in those areas where there are no Jihadist groups in control. There are at least one or two areas where this could be done. If we give up on them, the war between Syria-Iran-Hezbollah on the one hand and Jihadists on the other hand will only exacerbate, with both sides extremely bad options for Israel and the West.

It is also important to avoid drawing the conclusion that since Jihadists have become the predominant force fighting Assad, that Assad is kosher and we should deal with him. Aside from the deal to remove chemical weapons, Assad and the Iranian-led radical axis is a major threat to Israel. It is backed by a regional power in Iran with ambitions to be a nuclear power. Our policy preference should continue to be to weaken if not dismantle this axis. That does not mean we should prefer Jihadists to them, but we should not legitimise them just because they are fighting Jihadists.