Syria

For The Past Three Decades, Syria has been Israel’s most obstinate foe. Syria’s unswerving anti-Israel stand, and its outspoken support for Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, has won praise in the Arab world for its long­ time ruler, the late Hafez Assad, but has proved much more difficult to manage for his son and successor, Basher Assad.

Golan heights

For the decade, Israel has been attempting to secure a peace deal with Syria. The major stumbling block centers around a small area of land in the northern part of Israel called the Golan heights, captured by Israel during the six-day war in 1967.

The Israelis have proposed to transfer the Golan heights back to Syria provided Syria would never use the area for military purposes. This proposal is similar to the agreement with Egypt when Sinai was transferred in that it, too, is effectively a de­militarized zone.

To those of us living outside Israel, the idea of relinquishing the Golan seems foolhardy, but the majority of the population favors this attempt to achieve peace. Even in the Golan itself, among the settlers who may be uprooted, there is support for this process. Past discussions with Syria have fallen apart simply because Israel has proposed to hand back the land as defined by internationally agreed boundaries in 1923. Conversely, Syria is pressing for the boundaries that existed immediately prior to the 1967 war. The difference is only 7 square miles, but from Israel’s position this small area of land is crucial as it offers control of most of Israel’s water resources.

Syria’s woes

On October 5, 2003, Syria’s woes increased dramatically with the incursion of Israeli war planes into Syrian territory. As reported in the New York Times, Israel launched a surprise air strike deep in Syrian territory bombing what it called a Palestinian terrorist training camp to retaliate for a suicide bombing in northern Israel the day before.

“The airstrike, a predawn raid at a site outside Damascus, was an abrupt change of military tactics for Israel and was the first Israeli attack inside Syria in 30 years. While Israeli officials described the attack as a measured response, it raised the possibility that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could widen to neighboring Arab states.” As is the usual modus operandi, Syria immediately protested the attack, denying that the bombed site was a terrorist camp and indicating that several people had been wounded.

During the past three years of Middle East bloodshed, Israel has battled Palestinians only in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They had not attacked targets in Syrian territory since the 1973 Middle East war. “Israel had to send the message it cannot be repeatedly struck with impunity,” said Dore Gold, an adviser to Prime Minister Sharon.

The air raid came about 14 hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad blew herself up at a crowded restaurant in Haifa, killing 19 people, both Jews and Arabs. Israel said the target, which it identified as the Ain Saheb camp, is about 10 miles northwest of Damascus, and had served as a training ground for several Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the groups behind most of the suicide bombings in Israel.

Current situation

During the Cold War, Syria was the Soviet Union’s major client state in the Middle East, receiving military hardware and training from Moscow. But Syria was slow to recognize the emergence of the United States as the world’s sole superpower, and its armed forces are today saddled with obsolete equipment, unable to fight a high-tech war against Israel.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq has proved even more problematic for the young Syrian president. Syria now finds itself surrounded not just by Israel, Turkey and Jordan, all close Washington allies, but by a U.S.­occupied neighbor to the east.

The American threat of invasion so unnerved Syrian President Assad that he became one of Saddam Hussein’s strongest Arab allies in the months before the war, despite Syria’s traditional enmity toward Iraq. Syria denounced the U.S. invasion and Syrian TV did not air the triumphant entry of U.S. troops into Baghdad, clearly worried that it might give its own population the wrong ideas.

Washington quickly made things more difficult for the Syrian president, cutting off an oil pipeline from Iraq that had provided Syria with an important source of cash. Starved of that money, Damascus has reportedly been forced to go to its traditional ally, Saudi Arabia, to make up the shortfall.

Damascus then faced the full rhetorical onslaught of the U.S. administration, which accused it of harboring Palestinian terrorist groups and giving shelter to members of Iraq’s deposed Hussein regime. Fearful of U.S. retaliation, Syria said it sealed its borders and shut down the Damascus offices of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other radical Palestinian groups, but refused to expel their leaders, who are apparently still working in the country.

For Israel to become a land of unwalled villages tempting the northern invader, the Syrian threat must be eliminated. The presence of U.S. forces in Iraq makes that development seem more likely than it had in decades. May this be another it had in decades. May this be another
sure herald of the Lord’s return.