Israel Won’t Discuss Attacks in Syria, But ‘Will Not Stop’

DM says Israel must force Iran out of Syria

Israel attacks Syria several times a month lately, and Israeli media outlets aren’t shy about discussing it, even if officially the government doesn’t address the strikes. Defense Minister Naftali Bennett issued a statement continuing this trend on Tuesday.

Bennett did not confirm recent Israeli strikes, the most recent one on Sunday, but didn’t deny them either. He said, however, that Israel “will not stop” with the attacks, and continued to present the strikes as aimed at “blocking Iran’s entrenchment in Syria.”

This has long been Israel’s talking point on these attacks, but while in practice the strikes on Syria often kill foreigners, they are almost never actually from Iran, and Israeli media has taken to treating anyone from any Shi’ite group as “Iranian” for the purposes of reporting.

Syria has tried to scale up its air defenses to intercept Israeli strikes, with some success, but Israel tends to just attack more and more, and so long as they use the Iran excuse, there seems to be little in the way of ramifications for the attacks.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.