Syria Continues to Crumble
Secondly, Syria is crumbling. While the West focuses on the chemical stockpiles, Israel is no less focused on the regime’s abundance of other strategic weapons, including radars, ground-to-ground missiles and rockets, and sophisticated ground-to-air and ground-to-sea rockets.
When Assad falls, the security situation will no doubt deteriorate on Syria’s border with Israel. In fact, the most likely post-Assad scenario is the emergence of a fragmented, decentralized and dysfunctional Syria. As this present civil war decimates Syria and the West does nothing, al-Qaida and other jihadists are pouring into the country. Iran and Hezbollah are establishing their own jihadist militias so they can actively keep the pot boiling after Assad’s fall. In fact, some Israeli officials fear Syria could turn into another Afghanistan.
The Washington Post reported that Iranian-backed militias are fighting alongside Syrian government forces to keep Assad in power. But officials think Iran’s long-term goal is to have reliable operatives throughout Syria in case the country fractures into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.
Most important to Tehran will be to keep control of an airport or seaport so Hezbollah will have a supply route to bring in Iranian weapons to Lebanon.
The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
As far as the Palestinians are concerned, most Israelis have grown skeptical of the possibility of peace. Whenever a poll is taken, a majority of Israelis will answer “yes” to paying a high price for peace with the Palestinians. In the same poll a majority will reply that they do not believe peace is possible. In fact, the Palestinian conflict was barely mentioned by any party platform in the last election. Israelis have just given up hope.
The main sticking points are the same as they have been for decades:
- No Palestinian leader will recognize the right of a Jewish state to exist.
- Palestinian leaders demand the “eternal right” for five million Muslim “refugees” to “return” to all the areas where the State of Israel now exists.
- Jerusalem will be the capital of a Muslim Palestinian state.
- Israel must return to the 1949 cease-fire lines (euphemistically called the 1967 borders).
- All of the 600,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) including Jerusalem must leave.
None of these demands are acceptable to Israelis. Besides there are constant attempts between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza to reunite as one government. It is likely that in the next few months there will be Palestinian elections, and Hamas could certainly take over the West Bank by a free election or by force, just as it did in Gaza.
This would mean that Hamas would make the West Bank the next launching pad for rockets into Tel Aviv. Hamas clearly, continually and publically says it will never accept the existence of Israel, and will continue its war against the Jewish state until it is destroyed.
The Past Cannot Be Repeated
Israelis remember what happened when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pulled out of Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah took over and became a state within a state, and now has more weapons than most countries do! Its aim is to destroy Israel.
When Israel pulled out of Gaza, it became “Hamastan,” a launching pad to send 8,000 rockets into Israel. Its aim is to destroy Israel.
Israel gave Egypt the Sinai Desert in return for a peace agreement. It is now a wild and wooly lawless land with jihadists running wild, killing and kidnapping—and looking for more sophisticated ways to terrorize Israel.
Just this week it has been reported in the Iraqi Azzaman newspaper that al-Qaida has three training camps in Sinai. The Israeli government has just spent $270 million building a border fence to keep terrorists from crossing over the Israel-Sinai border. Indeed, what will come of the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty with Muslim Brotherhood leaders at the head of an Egypt in chaos?
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