by Dr. Yehuda Balanga
If [Hezbollah] indeed manages to entrench itself in Syria and accomplish its goal of conquering Quneitra (situated near the Israeli border) from the rebels, the threat level to Israel will increase along three parameters.
Ever since the uprising
in Syria began four years ago, the border area with Israel has been
exceedingly volatile, carrying with it the potential to drag multiple
players into the violent fray. The arrival of the Islamic State group on
the scene along with the actions of the Nusra Front (initially under
the IS umbrella but now a rival), completely altered both Israel's
deployment on the border and the Syrian regime and its allies' need to
respond to the burgeoning Islamist threat. At this juncture, Iran and
Hezbollah entered the picture.
In the first year of
the Syrian conflict, Iran and Hezbollah refrained from intervening.
Since July of 2012, however, after the Assad regime suffered a major
blow in the deadly bombing attack at Syrian National Security
Headquarters in Damascus, the regime in Tehran and Hezbollah became
increasingly involved. For them, the survival of Syrian President Bashar
Assad was of critical importance, due to Syria playing a vital
strategic role in the "axis of resistance" and providing Iran with a
foothold further afield in the Middle East and greater influence. That
being the case, thousands of fighters quickly began crossing the border
from Lebanon into Syria, including members of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard, to defend the Assad regime.
The fall of the city of
Quneitra to a coalition of rebel groups, headed by the Nusra Front and
the Free Syrian Army, sparked two important countermeasures taken by the
Assad regime and its allies. First, a combined Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah
force was formed to retake the city; an effort that until now has been
only partially successful. Secondly, the threat posed by the Nusra
Front, representing the long arm of al-Qaida, has been exploited to
garner the support of the minorities in the Quneitra area specifically
and across southern Syria in general. Thus, looking to survive and
sharing the fear of the radical Sunni Islamist threat, Christians and
Druze received training from Hezbollah and Iran and began fighting
alongside Syrian soldiers against the rebels.
The primary consequence
of these developments for Israel is that for the first time in the
ongoing conflict with Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist group has a
presence on another front, in Syria, beyond its traditional arena of
operations in Lebanon. If it indeed manages to entrench itself in Syria
and accomplish its goal of conquering Quneitra (situated near the
Israeli border) from the rebels, the threat level to Israel will
increase along three parameters. One, Hezbollah will expand its
intelligence gathering capabilities against the IDF and Israeli
communities on the strategic Golan Heights. Two, it will attempt to
upgrade its ability to threaten Israeli civilians by extending its
rocket launching threat to this arena. Three, it will try recruiting
fighters from the minority population in Israel -- Druze, Palestinians
and Arab Israelis -- to form another arm with which to carry out
terrorist attacks inside Israel. The tangible proof of this is that two
of the four terrorists killed in an air force strike near the border
fence on Sunday were members of a large family from Majdal Shams, an
Israeli Druze town near the Syrian border known for its loyalty to the
Assad regime.
However, as stated, it
is not just Hezbollah that poses a threat to Israel, but also the
combustible reality of a rebel presence on the Golan Heights.
Ultimately, these rebels are a coalition of forces comprised of various
terrorist groups, which see Israel as one of several future targets.
Nusra Front fighters,
on more than one occasion, have revealed their intent by standing in
view of the Israeli border while shooting into the air. Meanwhile, the
following scenario could also unfold: In a situation of distress due to
the ongoing fighting with the Syrian army and Hezbollah, the rebels
could seek to perpetrate a terrorist attack on the Israeli border in an
attempt to drag the IDF into a war with the Syrian sovereign -- in other
words, with Assad and his Hezbollah ally. The knowledge that only the
IDF is strong enough to stop Hezbollah, and according to many
assessments, to also deliver a fatal blow to the Assad regime and
expedite its downfall, is a central component in the array of
considerations being weighed by the rebels, radical Islamists and
seculars alike.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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