Though Israel was very supportive of the HTS regime change in Syria last month, Tel Aviv is now using that regime change as a pretext for open-ended occupation of more Syrian territory, above and beyond the occupied Golan Heights.
New reports citing unnamed senior Israeli officials express “shock” at Western nations embracing the Islamist leaders of post-Assad Syria, and accuse them of turning a blind eye to hypothetical future risks Syria could pose.
According to these officials, Israel’s plan is to create an occupied “control zone” inside Syria, stretching out 15 km from the already-occupied Golan Heights. This, they say, would prevent any future rocket fire against the Heights.
In addition to this expanded military occupation, Israel intends to have a 60-km deep “sphere of influence” in Syria under the control of Israeli intelligence agencies. The claim is this would prevent future threats from developing.
Israel invaded the demilitarized zone between the Golan Heights and the rest of Syria almost immediately upon the regime change. While Israeli troops have steadily moved deeper and deeper into southern Syria’s Quneitra and Daraa Province, it is only now that a potential permanent occupation of these areas is being talked about.
Israel has long considered its occupation of the Golan Heights since 1967 as permanent. While the international community overwhelmingly doesn’t recognize this, Israel annexed the Heights, and President Trump endorsed that annexation in 2019.
The Golan Heights annexation was supposedly a strategic matter, but the seizure of new territory overlooked by the Heights is based on the pretext of a “threat” posed by a new government that openly says it wants to be on positive terms with Israel.
“No one can guarantee that they will not eventually turn against us” appears to be the sum total of Israel’s new justification for the territory seizure. Given Israel’s overt hostility toward the Islamist government since the takeover, it’s hard to see Israeli leadership continuing to talk of “cordial” relations with the occupying power.
Israel was long hostile to former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and took credit for his ouster in favor of al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Still, being hostile to whomever is in power in Syria seems to be the underlying policy and the justification for continued military action on Syrian soil.
