OPINION: Israel is planning to attack Syria and Russia

Opinion: ISRAEL IS PLANNING TO ATTACK SYRIA & RUSSIA

By Mikhail Osherov

Fort-Russ,

9 October, 2018

By Mikhail Osherov – In recent days, political and military signs of preparation for the next attack by the State of Israel on Syria and Russia have appeared.

After the Russian leadership made a political decision to supply S-300 air defense systems and other various systems to Syria, as well as to strengthen electronic countermeasures, the tone of statements and interviews of representatives of the Israeli military-political leadership changed significantly.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not make any loud political statements after returning from the United States and his talks with Donald Trump. He made political statements in the United States, but then, probably, he still did not have a full picture and full information about Russia’s coming actions.

After the arrival of Netanyahu from the United States and after the three-hour meeting of the military-political bloc of the Israeli government held the next day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman were temporarily silenced.

Avigdor Lieberman has given two interviews in recent days – one on September 27 at the Kuneitra checkpoint in the Golan Heights occupied by Israel, and the other recently for the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.

In the Golan Heights, Lieberman bypassed the question of Israel’s policy in the new conditions, saying that the policy of the state of Israel would not change, and suggested that journalists turn to the press secretary of the Israeli army. In an interview with the newspaper Yediot Ahronot, nothing was published regarding Syria. Perhaps this is due to the prohibition of the publication of information about this by the Israeli state censorship.

Israel is one of the few countries in the world where preliminary state censorship is in force and where for the first time in history after Nazi Germany there is a ministry of state propaganda. But in a published interview with the newspaper Yediot Ahronot, the phrase of the Israeli Minister of Defense that “the combat readiness of the Israeli army is now the same as during the 1967 war” was preserved.

On October 6, an interview was given to the Ha’aretz newspaper by another Israeli government minister, Tzhahi Anegbi, in which he also announced the determination and intentions of the Israeli government to continue the aggression against Syria.

Such public behavior of Netanyahu, Lieberman and other Israeli ministers can only mean one thing – the Israeli leadership has not refused to continue the aggression against Syria and now there is a secret preparation of new attacks.

According to the October 5 news report of the Israeli Debka website, which is considered to be a website publishing information in the interests of the Israeli intelligence services, the US president ordered to transfer urgently to Israel several squadrons of the latest American F-35 aircraft from combat units, including those already based in the Middle East, United Arab Emirates.

The reason for the Israeli aggression against Syria is the presence of Iranian officers on the territory of Syria and the possibility of transferring certain types of weapons to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

From a legal point of view, the presence of Iranian officers in Syria and the presence of Iranian weapons, as well as Syria’s assistance to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, are absolutely legitimate. Iranian officers and volunteers are on the territory of Syria on a legal basis at the request of the Syrian government and make a significant contribution to the restoration of Syrian statehood.

In recent years, since the beginning of the events in Syria (since 2011), Israel has committed over 200 acts of aggression against Syria. Homes were destroyed, Syrian officers and soldiers, civilians were killed and wounded.

At the same time, there was not a single act of aggression against Israel from the territory of Syria; once, an Israeli plane was shot down with a response fire of Syrian air defense.

Continuing until recently, the constant attacks of Israeli aviation all this time did not meet with opposition from Russia. Instead of protecting the Syrian sky from all aggressors, Russia allowed Israel to attack any objects in Syria, and the United States to occupy territories in the south and east of Syria.

The tragic incident with the Russian Il-20 could have happened earlier at any time, and it is quite possible that such incidents happened before, just about them, probably, were not reported.

So, in 2013, after another Israeli aviation attack on Syria in the Latakia region in the immediate vicinity of the location of Russian military facilities, Russian President Vladimir Putin himself in the evening called the Israeli Prime Minister, who was on a weekly visit to China.

At that time, in 2013, US President Barack Obama had been unable to talk on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin for half a year due to the refusal of the Russian side in this. Israeli Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called himself.

The conversation held at 10 pm Beijing time (which indicates the urgency of the call) was so important for Netanyahu that he returned to Israel after a long visit and a long flight, at five o’clock in the morning on an important day of a religious holiday, without leaving airport, is transferred to another plane and flies to Sochi to meet with Vladimir Putin. And only after this meeting, which was partially one-on-one, Netanyahu returned to Israel, and the Israeli aggression against Syria, with the tacit consent of Russia, continued.

In this entire story of Israeli aggression against Syria, there is one crucial moral and political aspect. Roughly speaking, they do not do that to the allies – they protect them in one place and not in another. The rest of the allied countries of Russia will now know that, in the event of that, Russia will not defend them, proceeding from some incomprehensible interests of the country’s leadership, contrary to the national interests of Russia. It happened in the Donbass in 2014, it happened in Syria, starting in 2011, despite the existence of a treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between Russia and Syria.

And in 2014 in Ukraine and, starting in 2011 in Syria, Russia’s actions were partial, insufficient and not fully in line with Russia’s national interests.

The catastrophe of the Russian IL-20 electronic reconnaissance aircraft, which occurred primarily due to the non-resistance of Russia to Israeli aggression, has not yet received an adequate political response. Syria’s supply of various air defense systems and complexes is a half-time technical and half-political solution to the problem.

Russia cannot and will not be able to defend Syria and its interests in Syria without direct opposition to the Israeli and American-Turkish aggression, and this requires a political decision, which has not yet been made.

Translated by and for FRN, from rusvesna

‘The Israeli Debka website, which is considered to be a website publishing information in the interests of the Israeli intelligence services’

Good description.

Russia imports Iranian teams for S-300s in Syria – 24 launchers in all. Shocked alarm in US, Israel

Debka Files,

9 October, 2018

DEBKA Exclusive:  The US and Israel were alarmed to learn that Moscow had decided to man the S-300 anti-air missiles sent to Syria with Iranian teams, DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report. US and Israeli intelligence agencies which brought the news to Washington and Jerusalem also reported that the Russians had begun flying the Iranian operatives over to Syria.

Moscow announced the supply of S-300 air defense missiles to Syria in the wake of its row with Israel over the Russian Il-20 spy plane crash on Sept. 17. But, on the quiet, Moscow also decided that they would be operated by Iranian teams. And so Syria received the exact same air defense system that Russia sold to Iran two years ago – the S-300PMU-2 – which was installed for protecting its nuclear sites. American and Israeli military experts were caught by surprise by this discovery, but our sources reported the  Russians were giving Syria outdated batteries.

One of Moscow’s considerations was that Iranian crews operating the Syrian-based S-300s  will be in harm’s instead of Russian teams in the event of US or Israeli aircraft making direct hits on the systems.

For Israel this move has both good and bad aspects: On the one hand it will be a relief for Israeli air crews to know that when they go for Syria’s S-300 air defense batteries, they need not fear hurting Russian troops; but, on the other, by managing Syria’s air defenses, Iran further strengthens is military foothold in Syria, which the Netanyahu government is dedicated to rooting out. By the same token, Iran takes Moscow’s decision as an endorsement of its claim to a solid military presence in Syria.

Shortly after DEBKAfile published this revelation on Monday, our military and intelligence sources discovered further that Russia has supplied Syria with three S-300 battalion sets, each consisting of eight launchers with a 100 missiles per launcher. They all underwent major overhauls in Russia’s arms factories. Russia has therefore deployed to Syria a total of 300 anti-air missiles – albeit outdated but in tiptop condition.