In Another Act Of Aggression- Israel Bombs Syria
Israel Offensively Bombs Another Country.
Starting yet another offensive war, Israel began to bomb Syria’s capital of Damascus, bombing the country’s military headquarters, defence ministry, and Presidential Palace.
Using Sectarianism Created By Israel To Justify Bombing.
Israel’s official excuse for bombing Syria is sectarian clashes that took place between “Druze militias and neighbouring Bedouin tribes” and the security forces of the new Syrian government in the city of Sweida, with forces from the new Syrian government apparently siding against the Druze.
In reality, the sectarian strife in Syria has largely stemmed from the regime change war waged on Syria from 2011 to 2024, in which Israel played a large part.
According to the influential economist Jeffrey Sachs, the Western regime change policy in Syria came from “a desire from within that Israeli government that stretches back over 25 years. Netenyahu’s idea is to make the Middle East in Israel's image, overthrow every government that opposes Israel”. Sachs noted, “he’s had a friend in that, and that is the CIA and the United States government”.
Indeed, leaked documents show that the United States government was pushing for a regime change policy in Syria to benefit Israel.
In a 2012 email, Jake Sullivan, then advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wrote that Israel believed there was a “positive side to the civil war in Syria,” writing that Israel believed "the fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders, would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies”. The full email stated :
One particular source states that the British and French Intelligence services believe that their Israeli counterparts are convinced that there is a positive side to the civil war in Syria; if the Assad regime topples, Iran would lose its only ally in the Middle East and would be isolated. At the same time, the fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders, would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies. In the opinion of this individual, such a scenario would distract and might obstruct Iran from its nuclear activities for a good deal of time. In addition, certain senior Israeli intelligence analysts believe that this turn of events may even prove to be a factor in the eventual fall of the current government of Iran.
Another declassified State Department cable called to back rebels in Syria in order to “help Israel”.
The document stated, “The best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad…It is the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel’s security”.
It went on to state, “Victory will not come quickly or easily, but it will come. And the payoff will be substantial. Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East. The resulting regime in Syria will see the United States as a friend, not an enemy…And a new Syrian regime might well be open to early action on frozen peace talks with Israel. Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsors since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance, and missiles. America can and should help them [Syrian rebels] - and by doing so help Israel”.
Aside from pushing for Western regime change in Syria, Israel itself took part in the regime change war.
Throughout the war, Israel provided weapons to rebels fighting the Assad government from the occupied Goal Heights and conducted over 100 strikes on the former Syrian army and its ally Hezbollah in Syria.
Israel even backed ISIS in order to weaken the former Syrian government. As journalist Max Blumenthal documented in his book “The Management of Savagery”:
At the Likud Party-linked Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, its director, Efraim Inbar, promoted the Islamic State in Syria as a boon to Israel’s strategic deterrence. In an op-ed entitled ‘The Destruction of Islamic State Is a Strategic Mistake,’ Inbar argued, ‘The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction.’ Instead, he insisted, it should exploit ISIS as a ‘useful tool’ in the fight against Israel’s true enemy, Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, which operates on Israeli frontiers from southern Lebanon. ‘A weak IS is, counterintuitively, preferable to a destroyed IS,’ Inbar concluded. Inbar went on to argue for prolonging the conflict in Syria for as long as possible on the grounds that extended sectarian bloodshed would produce ‘positive change.’
While Israeli military honchos took satisfaction from the bloodshed of Syria’s civil war, ISIS commanders tiptoed around the Israeli military. During a public forum in Israel, the ever-candid former minister of defense, Ya’alon, revealed that an ISIS cell operating alongside the rebels in southern Syria had accidentally launched a mortar into Israeli-controlled territory. ‘On most occasions, firing comes from regions under the control of the regime,’ Ya’alon commented. ‘But once the firing came from ISIS positions—and it immediately apologized.’ Pushed by Israeli media to clarify his statement about ISIS formally apologizing to Israel—an open admission of an Israeli backchannel to the jihadists—Ya’alon refused further comment.
Journalist Robert Inlakesh documented Israel's long history of inciting sectarianism in Syria in order to justify further land grabs, writing:
Back in 2013, Israel began working on a project to expand its so-called “buffer zone” deep into southern Syria and for it to eventually seize more territory in the illegally occupied Golan Heights, which it formally annexed in 1981.
In order to do this, the Israelis drew up a number of plans, with the help of both Jordan and the United States. One major issue on Israel’s agenda was to back Druze separatists to carve out a pro-Israeli Druze ethno-State in southern Syria.
Also in 2013, Tel Aviv began backing some dozen Syrian opposition groups in south Syria, most of whom were tied to al-Qaeda, Daesh or both. One of those groups was Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch that was actively fighting alongside Daesh at the time, before falling out with the extremist group later.
Jabhat al-Nusra would later be rebranded as HTS, but back during the days when it was receiving Israel medical, financial and military support, it was also busy committing sectarian massacres against the Druze in Syria.
For Israel it was a simple formula, back the strongest groups fighting the Syrian State and those who were killing minorities, thus dividing the Syrian population, then also make inroads with the persecuted minority groups to use them against their own countrymen too.
Once the Assad regime fell in December of 2024 and was replaced by the former leader of Syria’s Al Qaeda offshoot, Ahmed al-Sharaa, Benjamin Netanyahu openly took credit for the operation, bragging, “This collapse is a direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's main supporters. It set off a chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression.”
Now that Israel has helped install sectarian insurgents as the leaders of Syria, it is now bombing the country over the exact sectarianism that it helped create and even encouraged.
Bombing Its Own Proxy.
What makes Israel’s bombing of Syria particularly outrageous is that the new Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has bent over backwards to appease Israel.
Despite the fact that Israel bombed and destroyed Syria’s military infrastructure in December of 2024, rendering the country basically defenseless, al-Sharaa has made a serious attempt to make friends with Israel.
His attempts have included:
Signaling support for joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel.
Suspending Palestinian resistance groups from the country.
Stating that Syria and Israel have “common enemies”, namely Iran and Hezbollah.
Stopping weapons shipments headed for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Allowing Israel to use Syrian airspace to bomb Iran.
Changing the status of Palestinian refugees in Syria from “Syrian Palestinian” to “Palestinian resident”, damaging how Palestinians are treated under Syrian law.
Despite all of this, Israel still dropped bombs on the Syrian capital with the official justification of protecting the Syrian Druze from sectarian violence.
But- as should be obvious- Israel's real motive is not humanitarian and is obviously political and geopolitical.
In this section, I will review some of the actual reasons Israel bombed Syria.
Land Grab for Greater Israel.
One of the more obvious motives for Israel's bombing of Syria is that it wants to take more land past the occupied Syrian goal heights and is opposed to normalization with the country, as it would mean giving back extra land seized since 2024.
As Dave Decamp of antiwar.com noted “While Israel is framing its attacks as support for the Druze, Israel’s real motive is likely that it doesn’t want to agree to a normalization deal with Syria since it would have to give up territory it has captured in its invasion of southern Syria, which was launched after the ousting of Assad. At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the regime change and took credit for helping set it in motion.”
Postponing the corruption trial
Another likely motive behind the bombing of Syria, like many other Israeli bombings, is that it has been used by Netanyahu to justify delaying his corruption trial.
On the day of the Syria bombing, Netanyahu was scheduled to testify in court over the charges of bribery and fraud, but it was suspended by the Tel Aviv District Court, “just hours after Israeli missiles struck Damascus”.
As Brett Wilkins noted in Common Dreams, “As was the case with Israel's June bombing of Iran and alleged stonewalling of an agreement to end the Gaza war and secure the return of Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas, numerous observers accused Netanyahu of bombing yet another country in a bid to stay in power by forestalling a reckoning in his three cases of alleged criminal bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. If fully convicted, the prime minister faces up to 10 years behind bars.”
Israel Ratcheting Up Tensions With Turkey.
Analyst Trita Parsi has argued that with Iran’s influence in the Middle East waning, Israel will turn to Turkey as the main obstacle in the way of its goal of regional supremacy.
Parsi noted:
Even though this rivalry is far from being over, and Israel is far from being the clear victor, it has already started glancing toward the next state that needs to be subjugated in order for Israel to achieve military hegemony in the Middle East: Turkey. (Israel's doctrine is to achieve security not through balance, but through domination).
Turkey's victory in Syria pushes it deeper into Israel's focus. But Turkey is different from Iran: It is a member of NATO and the G20, its economy cannot easily be sanctioned, it is a Sunni power with stronger soft power in the broader Middle East than Shia Iran has enjoyed for the past 10-15 years. Turkey, of course, has several vulnerabilities as well, including the Kurdish separatist movement.
But as long as Israel believes its security can only come through militarily dominating all its neighbors that can pose a challenge to it — that is, those who have the capacity to do so regardless of whether they have the intent or not — then Turkey's emergence as a major power in the region will put it into Israel's crosshairs, whether it likes it or not.
The often on-point geopolitical blogger Moon of Alabama argued that this is the context behind Israel’s bombing of Syria, writing, “The real aim of the Israeli government is not to protect the Druze or even to subjugate the Jihadi government of Syria. These are the opening shots of a war between the rivaling powers of the Zionist entity and Turkey”.
Moon of Alabama noted:
Today's Syria is a client state of Turkey, with al-Julani being the Turkish-controlled regent.
While Turkey's wannabe Sultan Erdogan has publicly spoken out against Israel's genocide in Gaza, he has silently cooperated with it by providing oil and other goods.
He probably thought that he could profit from the relation while ignoring the rivalry which is caused by the strategic expansion into the Levant, Turkey, and Israel, are seeking.
Today's strikes on Damascus might change his calculation.
With many of Israel’s previous enemies now being weakened, they will move on to new enemies in order to ensure they are the only power in the region and thus have regional dominance.
Note to readers: The Dissident is a reader-supported outlet. If you liked this article, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Distraction from his Knesset Coalition Disintegration
Disgusting