Reuters reports this morning: “Israel will face ‘more surprises’ should it again attack Syrian territory, Damascus said on Tuesday, after Syria’s air defenses shot down an advanced Israeli warplane during the fiercest flare-up between the old foes in 36 years.”

JAFAR JAFARI, jijafari at yahoo.com
Jafari is with Al-Mayadeen, a Beirut-based pan-Arab news channel. He said today: “Israel has of course been trying to destabilize Syria for some time. Israel’s protests that its sovereignty is under attack are completely backwards. Israel regularly attacks Syria (and violates Lebanese airspace as well).

“As the blog Moon of Alabama recently noted: ‘This escalation comes after a series of recent provocations against the Russian forces in Syria, [Friday’s] U.S. attack on Syrian forces, last week’s Israeli threats against Lebanon and dozens of Israeli air attacks on alleged Hizbullah or Iranian installations in Syria.’

“Hizbullah seems to be succeeding in creating a united front against Israel in both Lebanon and Syria.

“This does seem to come at a bad time for Israel, with U.S. envoys in the region, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. One thing on his agenda: Getting Lebanon to accede to Israeli demands regarding oil drilling disputes off their coasts.

“One goal that Israel seems to be pursuing is to have al Nusra — the Syrian branch of al Qaeda — as a buffer proxy force inside Syria. This is similar to what Israel did in southern Lebanon with the South Lebanon Army.”

Al-Mayadeen was founded by Ghassan bin Jiddo, who gained much acclaim for his coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah war of 2006 and was host of “Open Dialogue” on Al-Jazeera. Jiddo resigned from Al-Jazeera in 2011, accusing it of betraying its journalistic mission after the Arab uprisings began.

See Institute for Public Accuracy news release: “The Israeli-ISIS Accommodation and Other Inconvenient Realities.”