Almanar
Hussein Assi
Readers Number : 1029
13/02/2010 While the Israelis and Syrians entered in an unprecedented "war of words" changing the whole "balance" in any upcoming war in the region, a "message" sent by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to his Syrian counterpart Bachar Assad was enough to "provoke" the Israeli and "worry" them.
Ahmadinejad has told Assad that the Zionist entity should be resisted and finished off if it launched military action in the region, state broadcaster IRIB reported on Thursday. "We have reliable information ... that the Zionist regime is after finding a way to compensate for its ridiculous defeats from the people of Gaza and Lebanon's Hezbollah," he said in a telephone conversation with Assad. "If the Zionist regime should repeat its mistakes and initiate a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all," Ahmadinejad said in the telephone conversation on Wednesday evening.
The Iranian call to "finish off" Israel is not the first of its kind. For instance, the Iranian President has often predicted the imminent demise of the Zionist entity. He has even pledged to wipe it out. Yet, this "message" seemed to be a "source of concern" for the Israelis who felt "provoked" by its content, especially in relation to the existential "obsession" of the Zionist entity.
Israeli daily Yedihot Ahronot asked the big question: Is Syria capable of carrying out such threats?
To find the answer, the daily interviewed three former defense officials who agreed that Syria is not capable to finish off Israel but acknowledged that it's able to cause a huge damage to the Zionist entity.
"Though the Syrians are not capable of wiping us off the map as they would like to, they can still cause great damage to our home front, our cities and towns," Alexander Bligh, Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, US, admitted. "The Syrian regime has always tried to walk a thin line with Israel. But despite its relatively inferior military capabilities, we should not test its strength," he pointed out, stressing the necessity to take diplomatic steps to prevents such testing.
For his part, Professor Moshe Maoz, of the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University, agreed with Bligh although he claimed that Syria has more to lose than Israel in case of war. However, he admitted that Israel would also sustain significant damage. "In case of a conflict, both sides will suffer. Syria may sustain more damage, but its missiles can reach any city in Israel, and our anti-missile systems will not stop them all," he said.
Meanwhile, Oren Shahor, a former coordinator of government activities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip and a chief negotiator with the Palestinians under Rabin, stressed both sides would not rush into military conflict. "The Syrians will not dare clash with Israel, there is no way," he said. "They are not Hezbollah," he added.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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