The Times of Israel reports: Israel conveyed a series of bitter protests to the White House and to others in the US administration over the weekend over the Obama administration’s confirmation that it was the Israeli Air Force that struck a military base near the Syrian port city of Latakia last Wednesday.
Israel has not acknowledged carrying out the strike, one of half a dozen such attacks widely ascribed to Israel in recent months, but an Obama administration official told CNN on Thursday that Israeli warplanes had indeed attacked the Syrian base, and that the target was “missiles and related equipment” set for delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This US confirmation, which was not the first case of the administration leaking word of Israeli strikes in Syria, risked causing a flare-up that could “endanger the security of Israel and the region as a whole,” Israel claimed in its protest messages to the US according to a report in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Sunday.
Israel’s fury was conveyed directly to the White House, as well as during meetings and conversations between senior Israeli officials and their US counterparts in the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department, the report said.
Israel’s shocked complaints produced no American explanation or reaction whatsoever, the report went on, which Israeli officials ascribe to embarrassment on behalf of the administration. Israel believes the leaks may be “a consequence of negligence.” [Continue reading…]
QUOTE: This US confirmation, which was not the first case of the administration leaking word of Israeli strikes in Syria, risked causing a flare-up that could “endanger the security of Israel and the region as a whole,” Israel claimed in its protest messages to the US according to a report in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Sunday.
QUESTION: Is it the “confirmation” (of, of course, what everybody would have known or guessed: who else would be bombing Syria?) or the act itself — if either would have done so — that would have “risked causing a flare-up that could “endanger the security of Israel and the region as a whole”.
In case Israel has missed it, the region as a whole has been in nturmoil a long time, since 1948 (for instance). Since 1967 Israel has held the Golan, which syria would dearly like to have returned. Israel has repeatedly attacked Lebanon. There is no lack of causi belli to account for an attack upon derl little Israel, but no such attack has ever materialized. Neither Lebanon nor Syria have attacked Israel, rahter the other way around. SO WHAT IS ISSRAEL YAMMERING ABOUT?
Maybe it is merely trying to test its power over the USA? Is that poower slipping? First no war on Iran. Next, tattle-tale about bombijg Syria.
I sure do hope that Israel’s veto on USA is slipping, but at UNSC and within WH and elsewhere (Congress, NYC electoral campaigns) there is no sign of it.