The Syrian government has reportedly issued a warning to the Israeli government through a Russian mediator, cautioning them against continued airstrikes against Syrian military targets and threatening to retaliate with Scud missiles against Israeli military bases if they continue.
Israel had been intermittently attacking Syrian military targets throughout the Syrian Civil War, but that conflict has escalated dramatically in recent weeks, with Syria resisting larger Israeli strikes with anti-aircraft missiles, and Israel continuing to strike, and threatening to wipe out Syria’s air defenses outright.
Syria has a considerable cache of Scud missiles, which it acquired over the years in large part related to their ongoing arms race with Israel. Syrian officials reportedly threatened to hit military bases in northern Israel, and potentially strikes against the Haifa Port if Israel attacks civilian targets in Syria.
This would obviously set the stage for a huge escalation of fighting between Israel and Syria, and the Assad government appears to be betting Israel wont risk that with further attacks. At the same time, the far-right coalition in Israel has been eager to challenge Syria militarily, and may feel obliged to attack Syria, even at the risk of retaliation, just to prove that they retain “operational freedom” to attack who they want.
Makes me laugh
Our “friend” Israel has been helping the same terrorist group “Al-Qaeda” that has been maiming & murder Syrian Christians and other various innocent Syrian peoples, that we were told did 9/11, dancing Israeli’s & Mysterious Art Students be damned!
An attack on Syria would necessarily run right over Russian troops and bases.
This is the exact same situation as the US so deliberately creates elsewhere, “tripwire” forces that ensure the US will become involved. It works the same way with Russian forces and bases.
Would Israel blast through the Russian trip wire? What happens then? We saw someone risk that in Georgia, and we saw how Putin responded. We say someone risk that trying to grab the Crimean bases, and we saw how Putin responded.
In each case our own hawks and neocons denied what they did, and blamed Russia. That fantasy did not change the Russian reaction.
“According to the message, delivered via Russian mediators”
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201703261051967762-syria-israel-scuds-response/
Russian mediators delivered this message to Israel, that Syria will respond. I think Israel will listen.
The threat is the right thing to say however iescalation with Israel is something Damascus doesn’t need or want at this point. It’s becoming clear that the Syrian Army is struggling to control more than one flash point at a time along it’s front, even with the Russian air support and a small degree of burden-sharing against ISIS by the Kurds and Turkey. They can ill afford to suffer more damage and so must weight strictly the military costs of leaving these Israeli operations unchallenged as compared to the costs of an escalation, without considering matters of sovereignty or face.