by Prof. Eyal Zisser
Israel's unequivocal demand that the Iranians and their lackeys -- Shiite fighters and Hezbollah operatives imported by Iran from Lebanon -- be kept away has still not been met.
Fifty years after the
Israel Defense Forces captured the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War,
fighting has reignited in the very same battlefields where Israeli
soldiers fought the Syrians in June 1967. Media reports describe fierce
fighting around Quneitra and intense efforts by the Syrian army to fend
off the enemy -- only this time, the enemy is not Israel, but the Syrian
rebels.
Now, as the Syrian war
approaches its conclusion, and Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime,
with the help of Russia and Iran, is establishing control over large
parts of the country, the rebels in the Syrian Golan Heights have
launched an offensive to cement and even expand their control of the
area and prevent it from being captured by the Shiite militias Iran has
thrown into the Syrian war. Soon, world powers will begin drawing up
borders between areas controlled by the Syrian regime and those
controlled by the rebels, which will eventually be protected areas, and
all the sides fighting in Syria want to gain an edge before the
situation on the battlefield is frozen.
The battle now is over
the stretch of territory south of Damascus that passes through Quneitra
all the way to Daraa, close to the Jordanian border. This area is
important to Jordan, which wants to expel the Islamic State operatives
-- who are still in control of small pockets around the Yarmouk Basin --
but mostly Iran and its satellites, members of the Shiite militias and
Hezbollah.
But it's clear that the area is also, and mainly, of importance to Israel, which shares a border with this battle zone.
The battles that have
erupted in the Golan Heights illustrate how shaky the Syrian regime is,
despite the victorious front Assad presents, suggesting that the fire
could easily start up again and engulf all of Syria. The battle for the
Golan is important to both the regime and the rebels, which explains the
relative intensity of the firefights and the constant artillery and
mortar spillover that has been hitting Israel. No one on the other side
of the border has any interest in an entanglement with Israel, but
someone, possibly from the rebel ranks, isn't being careful enough or
isn't trained well enough or doesn't care enough not to aim their salvos
at the Israeli side.
Israel has opted for
restraint and has thus far responded to the spillover fire from Syria
with limited, targeted strikes on Syrian army positions. This response
is necessary, since shutting its eyes to isolated incidents of mortar
fire would eventually expose Israel to constant shooting -- just as
Israel's turning a blind eye when the Iranians smuggled the first few
missiles to Hezbollah led eventually to the organization's arsenal
reaching about 100,000 projectiles.
Still, it is clear that
Israel's moderate, restrained response will not be enough to ensure
long-term calm on the Golan Heights.
The battles there are
part of the bigger war for Syria's future. Thus far, Israel has stayed
out of world powers' discussions on dividing Syria and protecting the
interests of the various actors. There has been no response to
Jerusalem's demand that its presence on the Golan be recognized. Even
worse, Israel's unequivocal demand that the Iranians and their lackeys
-- Shiite fighters and Hezbollah operatives imported by Iran from
Lebanon -- be kept away has still not been met.
So Israel not only has
to keep tabs on what is happening around Quneitra and on local
skirmishes between rebels and Assad's troops, but also look ahead to
what happens next, when various agreements will determine the reality
along its northern border for years to come. Will the border be calm and
tension-free, as it was until the Syrian uprising broke out? Or will it
be tense, like Israel's border with Lebanon? Or will it be a border
with permanent conditions including demilitarized zones and security
buffer zones that would guarantee calm for many years?
Until these agreements
are in place, Israel must stick to clear red lines and avoid hollow or
self-contradictory announcements. The red lines must be clear, and the
other side must understand and respect them.
Prof. Eyal Zisser
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19345
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