The Latest Attack Suggests Israel Is Changing Its Syria Strategy

June 14 2022

On Thursday, airstrikes at the Damascus airport, thought to have been carried out by the IDF, reportedly destroyed three arms depots used by Iranian proxy militias. While such attacks have become almost commonplace in what Jerusalem calls “the campaign between the wars,” this particular one stood out, in that serious damage was also done to the runways and even an observation tower, leading to a temporary suspension of flights. Yoav Limor believes this to be not mere collateral damage, but evidence of a shift in strategy:

The central goal of the Israeli Air Force’s alleged strike on Thursday night was not Iran, but Syria. . . . Israel may have sought to pressure the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad into adopting a more active and assertive position against Iran’s use of his territory and infrastructure to continue to smuggle arms to Hizballah and various other powerful elements inside Syria.

In the seven years since it began, the campaign between the wars has recorded quite a few achievements. The intelligence infiltration that allowed for hundreds of attacks did serious harm to Iran’s intentions of establishing permanent bases and armed militias inside Syria and significantly disrupted the weapons convoys to Hizballah. On the other hand, it failed to dissuade the Iranians from continuing their efforts.

The aim now, therefore, is to exert further pressure on them not from Israel, but from Syria. To lead Assad to draw the conclusion that the direct price he will pay for Iran’s continued activity in his country will be higher than the price he will pay for confronting them.

It is doubtful, [however], that Assad truly wants to restrict the Iranians. He owes them his life after they came to his defense with the funds and means necessary in his most difficult hour in the Syrian civil war. Even if Assad were interested in ousting Iran, . . . it’s unlikely he would succeed. Syria is weak, broken, and rotten from the inside, and Iran is now deeply entrenched in the country.

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Bashar al-Assad, Iran, Israeli Security, Syria

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023