“On Sunday, for the first time in 38 years, the uneasy peace on the border between Israel and Syria was breached. Israeli troops fired on a group of Palestinian protesters, who broke into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to mark the anniversary of the nakba, or expulsion of Palestinians from the newly-formed state of Israel in 1948. Two demonstrators were killed. Ten more died in a similar incident on the Lebanese border, although it remains unclear whether at the hands of Lebanese or Israeli forces.

It is highly unlikely that the protesters were able to pass through the maze of blast walls and razor wire guarding the Golan Heights without a nod from Damascus. For Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian tyrant clinging to power by ever more brutal assaults on his own people, a skirmish with Israel serves as a useful distraction. It is also yet another rendition of the tired old refrain that despots across the Middle East have chorused to the outside world for 40 years: oust me, and chaos will follow.”

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