BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:05 P.M.) – The Israeli Air Defense almost shot down a Russian fighter jet that was flying close to the occupied Golan Heights, the former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told RIA Novosti on Saturday.

“In the very beginning of the Russian operation in Syria, there was a case when a Russian pilot almost crossed our border in the Golan Heights,” Ya’alon told the Russian publication.

“We used a hotline to contact the Khemeymim Airbase in Syria and told them ‘your plane is about to enter our airspace. Be careful!'”- the former Israeli DM stated..

Ya’alon was one of the founders of the “hot line”, which from the autumn of 2015 allowed the armed forces of the two countries to avoid accidental clashes and other dangerous incidents while conducting operations in Syria.

One year before this incident with the Russian Aerospace Forces, the Israeli Air Defense downed a similar Syrian Su-24 jet that was flying close to the occupied Golan Heights.

A direct channel of communication channel between the Khmeymim Airbase and the command center of Kiriya in Tel Aviv was established almost simultaneously with the arrival of Russian forces in Syria.

Advertisements</s>On April 9, 2018 at least 14 people were killed during the murderous strike bythe Israeli air force on the Syrian T-4 airfield at Homs.

Israeli F-15 fighter jets flew over Lebanese airspace, as they have done on many previous occasions, in total disregard of international law.

Both Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, and the latest action could easily be considered as yet another shameless provocation.Apparently, whatever terror Western allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel decide to spread throughout the region, their actions will always go unpunished.

To add insult to injury, instead of condemning Israel, the Western mass media outlets began theirpredictable and embarrassing servile howling against the government in Damascus, some ‘correspondents’ even calling President al-Assad an “animal” (The Sun, 9th April, 2018).

This time, Lebanon, which in the past suffered from several brutal Israeli invasions, and where Israel is commonly referred to as ‘Palestine’, decided not to protest too loudly against the violation of its airspace. There were some statements made by individual Lebanese politicians, as well as a statement by the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which objected to the attack against Syria, claiming that Lebanon will file a complaint to the UNSC. Most of the statements, however, appeared only in the Arabic language. There was definitely no robust national response, as one would have expected.

Ms. Zeinab Al-Saffar, an Iraqi educator and television anchor based in Beirut, Lebanon, shared her thoughts on the subject:

“It is not the first time that this is happening. Israeli forces have been violating the airspace of Lebanon, as well as the land and sea belonging to Lebanon. Violation of the territory of Lebanon [by Israel] became something ‘regular’. What happened recently is a flagrant intrusion which should not go unanswered, as they were using Lebanese air space in order to attack the Syrian land. I believe this isthe right time for the U.N. to do something more than just to make the reports and write numbers. This is an extremely serious situation; to use the territory of aneighboring country in order to attack a third nation; it is a barefaced crime.”

Why do Lebanon’s protests not resonate louder?

There are several reasons. One: the country recently ‘secured’ an enormous package of mostly loans from the West, at a ‘Paris conference’, amounting to more than 11 billion dollars.

Two: A great percentage of the ‘elites’ of Lebanon is accustomed to taking orders from the West. The West is where their villas are, where their relatives live, and their permanent residency cards issued.

A much greater war may be nearing; both the U.S. and Europe are now attacking Syria directly. In this decisive time, the Lebanese rulers are opportunistically showing where their allegiances lie: not with the people of the devastated Middle East, but with Paris, London, Riyadh and Washington.

But back to the first point – to money. As reported by Reuters on April 6, 2018:

“The pledges include $10.2 billion in loans and $860 million in grants, France’s ambassador to Lebanon Bruno Foucher said on Twitter…

Donors in turn want to see Lebanon commit to long-stalled reforms. In a nod to those demands, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri pledged to reduce the deficit of the budget as a percentage of GDP by 5 percent in the coming five years.

Macron told Hariri in a news conference the aid aimed to give Lebanon a fresh start, adding that it put “an unprecedented responsibility” on authorities there to carry out reforms and preserve peace in the country.

“It is important to continue reforms in the coming months,” Macron said, adding: “We’ll be by your side.” …

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the conference: “… Lebanon needs major reforms of its economy, structural and sectoral.””

‘Structural reforms’ is a key term. This shameful package of loans which will further tie the hands of Lebanon could insure the complacency of the country: both economic and political obedience at the time when the West is ready to unleash a new wave of its military onslaught in the region.

There is hardly any transparency in Lebanon, and therefore almost no guarantee that the loans will be used to improvethe standard of living of the suffering population. Corruption in Lebanon is endemic – it is institutionalized – to the point that it is often not even called ‘corruption’, anymore.

Social services are almost non-existent. Here, the contrasts are truly appalling. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, as well as outrageously expensive sailing boats, co-exist side-by-side with absolute misery and lack of social services, such as, at least periodically, garbage collection.

Hezbollah, a movement which is on the so-called terrorist list of many Western countries, is often the only reliable source of social services in the country.

The West will now demand more and more neo-liberal ‘reforms’. Almost nothing social will be build. Funds will disappear into the deep pockets of the shameless Lebanese ‘elites’ and ‘leaders’. It will be the poor, who will be expected to service the loans, as the rich in Lebanon hardly pay taxes.

In exchange for their booty, many Lebanese politicians will be further obliged to follow the Western line towards the region, including the neo-liberal and increasingly neo-colonialist policy of Washington and France (Lebanon’s former colonial master) towards Syria and the rest of the region.

And across the border line, the war is still raging. Washington and London fulfilled their shameful promises to perform ‘punitive actions’; to ‘chastise Syria’ for something that was clearly invented/manufactured just in order to justify an invasion, destabilization and in the end, the destruction, of this small but strong and proud nation.

A Syrian intellectual, who lives in both Beirut and Damascus, offered his analyses for this article. However, he requested not to be identified by his name, afraid of repercussions from both Lebanon and the West:

“The Israeli attack comes at a time when the Syrian army is winning its fight against terrorist groups in Damascus suburbs, and it could be read as an indirect answer to these wins. It is also a dangerous move since the T4 airbase is heavily involved in the fight against the remaining of ISIS in Syria. This attack is unacceptable aggression against a sovereign nation and it is a violation of international laws. It also shows that Israel is helping directly and indirectly various terrorists groups operating on the Syrian territory.”

However, the commentaries that are being spread by the Western mainstream press are increasingly defying all logic. They are progressively turning out to be racist, supremacist. Well, actually now they are what they have always been earlier, throughout the centuries of European and then North American colonialism.

Just read The Guardian article from April 9th, 2018- “Israel has launched countless strikes in Syria. What’s new is Russia’s response”:

“Israel has launched many previous strikes into Syria, mainly to protect its borders from a buildup of Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces and armaments on the Golan Heights. Israel, has not, as a rule, attacked al-Qaida or Islamic State positions in Syria.

On all previous occasions, Russia – which has controlled Syrian air space since it sent troops to defend the regime of Bashar al-Assad in 2015 – has turned a blind eye. There had been an understanding that Israeli interests in Syria would be preserved by Russia, primarily by limiting the presence of Iranian-backed troops in Syria’s south-west. The Israeli fear is that access to the Syrian side of the Golan Heightsallows Hezbollah to launch attacks into Israel.”

At least The Guardian does not pretend that it believes in the Western fabrications that President Assad is poisoning his own people…

But the article is clearly trying to justify and find logic behind the Israeli terrorist attacks against the independent nation.

‘Poor Israel – it is worried about ‘Hezbollah forces and armaments on the Golan Heights.’

But the Golan Heights is by international law an inseparable part of Syria. I repeat: by all international norms! Including, the United Nations Security Council UN Resolution 497. Golan Heights had been attacked, occupied and forcefully (and it looks like indefinitely) annexed by Israel, during the so-called ‘Six-Day War’ in 1981.

I visited the Golan Heights. I worked there, for several days, clandestinely, some 5 days ago. What I encountered there was true horror: ancient villages were totally destroyed, most of the original population deported from their land, Israeli-paid spies and provocateurs approaching and scrutinizing random visitors. All around – scattered rich Israeli agricultural enterprises protected by barbed wire and tall concrete walls. It all felt like working in Angola or Namibia, during the South African apartheid, or perhaps even worse; divided communities, stolen land, electric wire, and omnipresent fear and oppression.

But it is Israel which now has the right to ‘worry’ and to murder people in the name of its ‘security’. That is precisely what the tone of the Western mainstream periodicals clearly suggests.

Israel had stolen more than a thousand kilometers square of the Syrian territory in 1981, and now it is mercilessly bombing its victim; from Lebanese territory, in order to assure its ‘safety and security’. It is doing so from the territory of Lebanon, a country which was invaded by the Israeli military, on several occasions.

And the West is cheering.

Of course, Israel is acting with total impunity, because it enjoys both the support and encouragement from its allies: The United States, the U.K. and Macron’s France.

Lebanon is panicking. Its’ ‘elites’ aretrying to both survive, and not to anger the West.

Syrians have, it often appears, nerves of steel.

They worry butare determined not to give one single inch of their land to the invaders.

My friend in Damascus wrote to me, just a few hours before I submitted this report:

“People are worried and they constantly follow up the news. My brother asked us to go to Safita for one month, as it is safer there. I’m not sure if we do it, but we are closely monitoring the situation.”

My colleagues and comrades on the ground in Syria are angry, very angry. They can clearly see through the lies, which are being spread by the West.

On April 29, 2018, the Israeli attacks killed 26 Syrians and Iranians, just before Midnight, near Hama and Aleppo.

The U.S. and Europe are bombing and threatening to cause even more damage.

But this is 2018, not those dark years when the West could murder and rape without any consequences. If these attacks continue, there will be a counterpunch: fully justified, determined and powerful.

Then even the tiny Lebanon would have to decide where it stands.

[This essay is updated. First published by New Eastern Outlook – NEO]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.</s>Yaalon was one of the developers of the information-sharing mechanism, which has been preventing aerial clashes and other dangerous incidents between the two countries since 2015, when Moscow launched its aerial anti-terrorist campaigns in Syria.

"[The 'hotline'] saves lives, since it helps to avoid misunderstandings. In the beginning of the Russian operation in Syria, there was a case when a Russian pilot had almost crossed [Israel’s] border in the Golan Heights. If it had been a Syrian jet, we would have downed it. But we realized it was a Russian jet and used the 'hotline' to communicate with the Hmeymim [Russian airbase in Syria]. ‘Your jet is about to enter our airspace. Attention!’ The matter was solved immediately," Yaalon stated.

In September 2014, Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet which had infiltrated Israeli-controlled airspace over the Golan Heights.

The Israeli-Syrian relations are strained, particularly over the disputed region of Golan Heights. Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War with Syria and annexed the territory in 1981. The international community has not recognized the Israeli annexation.</s>The Israel Air Force almost shot down a Russian jet heading toward Israeli airspace, former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon said in an interview with a Russian news outlet Saturday.



“At the very beginning of the Russian presence [in Syria], there was a case where one Russian pilot almost crossed our border over the Golan Heights. If it were a Syrian plane, we would have shot it down,” Ya’alon told RIA Novosti news agency. 





According to Ya’alon, Israel identified the plane approaching, and while it had identified it as Russian, it was prepared to take it down if it did not change course. Ya’alon said contact was made with Russia’s Khmeimim airbase informing them of the danger the plane was in, and, following the warnings, the jet changed its course.“The issue was resolved immediately,” he said.Ya’alon was referring to an incident that occurred shortly after Moscow intervened in the Syrian conflict in September 2015. Israel and Russia implemented a de-confliction mechanism shortly after in order to avoid accidental clashes in Syrian airspace, where both are active.Over the course of Syria’s eight-year civil war, Israel has publicly admitted to having struck over 100 Hezbollah convoys and other targets in Syria, while keeping mum on hundreds of other strikes attributed to it."When, at the time of my being defense minister, we realized that Russia had decided to send its aircraft to Syria and later deployed S-300 and S-400 air defense systems, I invited the Russian military attaché in Tel Aviv to my office and told him: We know that you are planning to deploy troops to Syria, we are not going to interfere in the Syrian conflict, but we have our own interests there, 'red lines.' Do not bother us, and we will not interfere with you,” Ya’alon said.He added that since the implementation of the hotline, which is manned by a Russian-speaking officer on the Israeli side, there haven't been any other misunderstandings between the two armies, who have been able to identify each other's aircraft.Nevertheless, Ya’alon stressed, “We do not need to coordinate or report to the Russian headquarters that we are going to carry out an air strike. We understand that they are able to identify our aircraft. They do not interfere with us and we do not interfere with them.”According to Ya’alon, while Israel understands there is “no direct relationship” between Moscow and Hezbollah, in many cases, Russian-made weapons supplied to Syria ultimately end up in the hands of the Shiite Lebanese terror group.As an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Moscow finds itself part of an alliance between Damascus and Tehran, the patron of Hezbollah. Russia, which views Iran as a key player in resolving the crisis in Syria, has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the role the Islamic Republic plays in the war-torn country.As the war in Syria enters a new phase due to Moscow’s intervention, Israel fears that Iran will help Hezbollah produce accurate precision-guided missiles and help Hezbollah and other Shiite militias to strengthen their foothold in the Golan Heights, two “red lines” set by Jerusalem."We see that Iran is supplying weapons to our enemies in the region, primarily Hezbollah in Lebanon. Now they want to be on our border,” Ya’alon said, stressing that “this is the official position of the Israeli government, we will not tolerate an Iranian military presence in Syria which will threaten us.”</s>While Israel has repeatedly expressed concerns over Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and its alleged smuggling of weapons to the war-weary country, it appears that the Syrian army has identified and seized a huge cargo of Israeli-made arms, munitions, explosives, as well as digital equipment and drugs, as they were reportedly destined for the terrorists in the northern suburb of Homs.

Last month, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported explosions near the cities of Hama and Aleppo, which appeared to be missile strikes on arms depots that were allegedly being used by Iranian-backed forces. A report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz suggested that the IDF might be responsible for the incident, citing Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman saying that Tel Aviv would continue to declare that it had freedom to operate in Syria.

However, when speaking to Sputnik, a spokeswoman for the IDF, refused to comment on the attack.

READ MORE: Israel Refuses to Comment on Reported Missile Strikes Against Syria

This is not the first time that Israel is suspected of striking targets in Syria as tensions between the two countries have further escalated: on April 9, Israeli fighter jets hit the country’s T-4 airfield in the province of Homs, killing 14 people, including seven Iranian military advisers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

In February, Israeli Air Force carried out an attack on the same airbase, having struck 12 Syrian and “Iranian military targets” at T-4. Prior to the strikes, Tel Aviv reported that an Israeli Apache helicopter had intercepted an Iranian drone after it crossed into the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, and had struck at what the IDF called Iranian targets in Syria, provoking retaliatory fire from Syrian air defenses, which brought down an Israeli fighter jet.

READ MORE: US Mattis Says Washington 'Had Nothing to Do' With April 30 Strikes on Syria

According to recent report by CNN, referring to an unnamed source in the US administration, the intelligence services suspected that Iran might have been transferring weapons to Syria after the United States, France and the United Kingdom fired over a hundred of missiles at the war-ravaged country in response to an alleged use of chemical weapons by government forces in Douma.

In late February, SANA reported that the Syrian military had discovered warehouses in Deir ez-Zor filled with arms and ammunition, including those made in Israel.</s>Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon states that Israel does not want Syria to receive Russia’s S-300 surface-to-air missile systems and has channels of cooperation with Moscow to try to prevent such supplies. This claim does not comply with the recent statements of Tel-Aviv.

“If the Russian government asks us whether to supply the S-300 or not, we would like these systems not to fall into the hands of the Syrians. Earlier, when such questions arose, we used the appropriate channels to discuss them with the Russian leadership. Now it also receives signals from our authorities about the undesirability of such supplies,” former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, who left office in 2016, said in an interview.

Yaalon’s successor, Avigdor Lieberman, has repeatedly threatened to destroy the S-300 systems if Damascus uses them against Israeli aircraft that regularly strike targets in the neighboring country.

Yaalon himself believes Israeli forces are ready to bypass modern air defense systems.

“You know that the entire Syrian air defense system is based on Soviet or Russian equipment — SA-2, SA-5, SA-17, SA-22 [NATO reporting names for S-75, S-200, Buk and Pantsir systems]. The S-300 is a more powerful system, and we do not like it to appear in Syria, but just as we are ready and able to overcome the entire existing air defense of Syria, we should be ready to deal with the S-300,” Yaalon said.

Mutual understanding between Israeli and Russian army has significantly increased over last decades, he noted.

“We are glad that in the past there were times of the Cold War when Israeli pilots were confronted by Soviet pilots or SA-2, SA-3 [S-125] air defense systems under Soviet control. Since 1991, we have the official, open relations. That does not mean that we look at all the same questions, but we have channels to talk with each other… Therefore, we manage to find mutual understanding on many issues,” Yaalon stated.

On April 14, following US-led strikes on Syria, Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy said Russia might consider supplies of the S-300 air defense systems to Damascus.

After the attack, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik that Moscow was no longer bound by a moral duty not to supply Damascus with S-300 systems after Western strikes on Syria on April 14.

Back in 2010, Damascus contracted the supplies of S-300 systems, the contract was canceled at the request of Israel, which feared for its airspace.

The so-called hotline that has been used by the Israeli and Russian military in Syria over the past three years has helped prevent a Russian jet that almost entered Israel’s airspace from potentially being shot down, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told Sputnik.

“[The ‘hotline’] saves lives, since it helps to avoid misunderstandings. At the beginning of the Russian operation in Syria, there was a case when a Russian pilot had almost crossed [Israel’s] border in the Golan Heights. If it had been a Syrian jet, we would have downed it. But we realized it was a Russian jet and used the ‘hotline’ to communicate with the Hmeymim [Russian airbase in Syria]. ‘Your jet is about to enter our airspace. Attention!’ The matter was solved immediately,” Yaalon stated.

Yaalon was one of the developers of the information-sharing mechanism, which has been preventing aerial clashes and other dangerous incidents between the two countries since 2015 when Moscow launched its aerial anti-terrorist campaigns in Syria.

Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, with government forces fighting against opposition groups and terrorist organizations. In September 2015, Russia launched aerial campaigns against terrorists in Syria at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Russia and Israel have been in contact since the beginning of the operation and developed a mechanism to avoid accidental collisions between the forces of the two countries.

In September 2014, Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet which had infiltrated Israeli-controlled airspace over the Golan Heights.

Israeli-Syrian relations are strained, particularly over the disputed region of Golan Heights. Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the territory in 1981. The international community has not recognized the Israeli annexation.</s>Intro by the author: The IDF ground forces are nothing like what the average American assumes them to be. They are in fact an army that has been very lucky in the enemies that they have faced. Their present employment in the massacre of Palestinians at Gaza is the kind of thing that they are now good at. The fabled hard-assed kibbutzniks of long ago who won against Arab armies are gone, replaced by the Gucci generation. Israel should be wary of committing these people to combat against serious fighters. The Israeli Air Force is the real center of gravity of the country’s armed forces.

I worked with and conducted liaison with The Israel Defense Force (IDF) for many years. This activity occurred as part of my regular duties as a US Army officer and later as a civilian executive of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Since my retirement from US government service I have had many business or religious occasions to visit Israel and to watch the IDF in action against various groups of Palestinians all over the West Bank. I have many friends who are retired or reserve members of the IDF. My observations concerning the IDF are based on that experience.

I write here of the ground force. The air force and navy are unknown to me from personal experience except that I know some of their officers from their service in joint (inter-service) assignments like general staff intelligence.

In my opinion, the IDF is an army built to very specifically suit Israel’s individual circumstances, needs, and philosophy. It is in some ways, a singular force. It actually more closely resembles the Swiss military establishment than it does a large standing force backed by reserve units in the way that the US Army is built.

The IDF ground force is essentially a reserve or militia army that keeps most of its forces in inactive status while maintaining a handful of units on active duty as a training base and a force in being to meet short term contingencies.

In this essay I am writing of the “line” of the ground forces as represented by armor, infantry, paratroop and artillery units at brigade level and below, i.e., battalion and company.

 The special operations forces are a small part of Israeli capabilities and are manned and maintained on a very different basis. In many ways they are more like a “SWAT” team than a military force.

To understand the IDF ground forces as an institution, there are certain things that must be understood in order to “see” clearly the actual capabilities of this army:

– Because of the heavy reliance on reserve units filled with older, part time soldiers, any mobilization of a large number of ground force units for considerable periods of time places a heavy burden on the Israeli national economy. Mobilized reservists are lost to their jobs. Israeli soldiers are among the strongest and most skilled members of their society. They are typically well employed in the civilian world. When they are gone in military service the economy suffers. This automatically limits the scale and duration of reserve mobilizations.

– Older reserve soldiers serve in units made up almost entirely of similar reservists. These units are hard to maintain at a high level of training and readiness. Only limited amounts of training time and money are available for this necessity. As a result units are often unready for deployment into combat in an emergency. On a number of occasions this problem has caused IDF troops to be committed to combat in a less than “ready” status. In other words, troops have gone into combat with equipment not properly maintained and with insufficient unit training. It must be said that they have typically been lucky in their enemies and that if they had faced more serious enemies, they would have had a much different experience than the ones they had. In the Golan Heights the Syrians gave them a very difficult time in 1973 and in the same war their victory against Egypt featured a renewal of offensive activity under the cover a cease fire which they had accepted.

– There are no career ground force sergeants except as technicians. Unless the system has changed very recently, the IDF ground forces typically do not have career NCOs in the LINE of the combat arms. This is a structural tradition that derives originally from the Russian tsar’s army and which came to Palestine through Russian and Polish Zionist immigrants. This tradition of organization passed through the Hagenah into the IDF. The IDF “line” conscripts what amount to yearly classes of recruits and selects from them more promising soldiers who are given NCO level command responsibilities as; infantry leaders, tank commanders, artillery gun captains, etc. The IDF does have career NCOs but they are typically found in jobs of a more technical nature rather than junior combat command at the squad or platoon (section) level. As a result, junior officers (company grade) are required to perform duties that in more traditionally organized armies would be performed by sergeants. Leading a small combat or reconnaissance patrol would be an example. As a result, a non-reserve infantry or tank company in the field consists of people who are all about the same age (19-22) and commanded by a captain in his mid-20s. What is missing in this scene is the voice of grown up counsel provided by sergeants in their 30s and 40s telling these young people what it is that would be wise to do based on real experience and mature judgment. In contrast a 22 year old American platoon leader would have a mature platoon sergeant as his assistant and counselor.

– As a result of this system of manning, the IDF’s ground force is more unpredictable and volatile at the tactical (company) level than might be the case otherwise. The national government has a hard time knowing whether or not specific policies will be followed in the field. For example, the Israeli government’s policy in the present action in the Gaza Strip has been to avoid fatal shootings whenever possible. Based on personal experience of the behavior of IDF conscripts toward Palestinian civilians, I would say that the Israeli government has little control over what individual groups of these young Israeli soldiers may when given the chance to pick their own targets.

In the Christian Beit Sueur village outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank turret coaxial machine guns from within a dirt walled fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for the fun of it. In Bethlehem itself a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused him some trouble. I have seen a lot of things like that.

One might say that in war, bad things happen but is the Gaza massacre actually war by any standard. Such behavior is indicative of an army that is not well disciplined and not a completely reliably instrument of state policy. In my travels in the West Bank, it has been noticeable that the behavior towards Palestinian civilians of IDF troops at roadblocks is reminiscent of that of any group of post-adolescents given guns and allowed to bully the helpless in order to look tough for each other. I think the IDF would be well advised to grow some real sergeants.

All in all, I think the IDF ground forces can best be described as a specialized tool that reflects 20th century Zionist socialist and nationalist ideals, and which have military traditions that are in no way reflective of those of the United States. They can also be justly said to have been fortunate in their enemies. The Jordanians gave them a run for their money in 1948-49. Hezbollah delivered a hint of the inherent limits in such a socio-military system in 2006 and now we are seeing whatever it is that we will see at Gaza.</s>On April 9, 2018 at least 14 people were killed during the murderous strike by the Israeli air force on the Syrian T-4 airfield at Homs.

Israeli F-15 fighter jets flew over Lebanese airspace, as they have done on many previous occasions, in total disregard of international law.

Both Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, and the latest action could easily be considered as yet another shameless provocation. Apparently, whatever terror Western allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel decide to spread throughout the region, their actions will always go unpunished.

To add insult to injury, instead of condemning Israel, the Western mass media outlets began their predictable and embarrassing servile howling against the government in Damascus, some ‘correspondents’ even calling President al-Assad an “animal” (The Sun, 9th April, 2018).

This time, Lebanon, which in the past suffered from several brutal Israeli invasions, and where Israel is commonly referred to as ‘Palestine’, decided not to protest too loudly against the violation of its airspace. There were some statements made by individual Lebanese politicians, as well as a statement by the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which objected to the attack against Syria, claiming that Lebanon will file a complaint to the UNSC. Most of the statements, however, appeared only in the Arabic language. There was definitely no robust national response, as one would have expected.

Ms. Zeinab Al-Saffar, an Iraqi educator and television anchor based in Beirut, Lebanon, shared her thoughts on the subject:

Why do Lebanon’s protests not resonate louder?

There are several reasons. One: the country recently ‘secured’ an enormous package of mostly loans from the West, at a ‘Paris conference’, amounting to more than 11 billion dollars.

Two: A great percentage of the ‘elites’ of Lebanon is accustomed to taking orders from the West. The West is where their villas are, where their relatives live, and their permanent residency cards issued.

A much greater war may be nearing; both the U.S. and Europe are now attacking Syria directly. In this decisive time, the Lebanese rulers are opportunistically showing where their allegiances lie: not with the people of the devastated Middle East, but with Paris, London, Riyadh and Washington.

But back to the first point – to money. As reported by Reuters on April 6, 2018:

“The pledges include $10.2 billion in loans and $860 million in grants, France’s ambassador to Lebanon Bruno Foucher said on Twitter…”

Donors in turn want to see Lebanon commit to long-stalled reforms. In a nod to those demands, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri pledged to reduce the deficit of the budget as a percentage of GDP by 5 percent in the coming five years.

Macron told Hariri in a news conference the aid aimed to give Lebanon a fresh start, adding that it put “an unprecedented responsibility” on authorities there to carry out reforms and preserve peace in the country.

“It is important to continue reforms in the coming months,” Macron said, adding: “We’ll be by your side.” …

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the conference: “… Lebanon needs major reforms of its economy, structural and sectoral.””

‘Structural reforms’ is a key term. This shameful package of loans which will further tie the hands of Lebanon could insure the complacency of the country: both economic and political obedience at the time when the West is ready to unleash a new wave of its military onslaught in the region.

There is hardly any transparency in Lebanon, and therefore almost no guarantee that the loans will be used to improve the standard of living of the suffering population. Corruption in Lebanon is endemic – it is institutionalized – to the point that it is often not even called ‘corruption’ anymore.

Social services are almost non-existent. Here, the contrasts are truly appalling. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, as well as outrageously expensive sailing boats, co-exist side-by-side with absolute misery and lack of social services, such as, at least periodically, garbage collection.

Hezbollah, a movement which is on the so-called terrorist list of many Western countries, is often the only reliable source of social services in the country.

The West will now demand more and more neo-liberal ‘reforms’. Almost nothing social will be built. Funds will disappear into the deep pockets of the shameless Lebanese ‘elites’ and ‘leaders’. It will be the poor, who will be expected to service the loans, as the rich in Lebanon hardly pay taxes.

In exchange for their booty, many Lebanese politicians will be further obliged to follow the Western line towards the region, including the neo-liberal and increasingly neo-colonialist policy of Washington and France (Lebanon’s former colonial master) towards Syria and the rest of the region.

And across the border line, the war is still raging. Washington and London fulfilled their shameful promises to perform ‘punitive actions’; to ‘chastise Syria’ for something that was clearly invented/manufactured just in order to justify an invasion, destabilization and in the end, the destruction, of this small but strong and proud nation.

A Syrian intellectual, who lives in both Beirut and Damascus, offered his analyses for this article. However, he requested not to be identified by his name, afraid of repercussions from both Lebanon and the West:

However, the commentaries that are being spread by the Western mainstream press are increasingly defying all logic. They are progressively turning out to be racist, supremacist. Well, actually now they are what they have always been earlier, throughout the centuries of European and then North American colonialism.

In Damascus, shelling a park right next to the Four Seasons Hotel, the UN acommodation from East Ghouta

Just read The Guardian article from April 9th, 2018- “Israel has launched countless strikes in Syria. What’s new is Russia’s response”:

At least The Guardian does not pretend that it believes in the Western fabrications that President Assad is poisoning his own people…

But the article is clearly trying to justify and find logic behind the Israeli terrorist attacks against the independent nation.

‘Poor Israel – it is worried about ‘Hezbollah forces and armaments on the Golan Heights.’

But the Golan Heights is by international law an inseparable part of Syria. I repeat: by all international norms! Including, the United Nations Security Council UN Resolution 497. Golan Heights had been attacked, occupied and forcefully (and it looks like indefinitely) annexed by Israel, during the so-called ‘Six-Day War’ in 1981.

I visited the Golan Heights. I worked there, for several days, clandestinely, some 5 days ago. What I encountered there was true horror: ancient villages were totally destroyed, most of the original population deported from their land, Israeli-paid spies and provocateurs approaching and scrutinizing random visitors. All around – scattered rich Israeli agricultural enterprises protected by barbed wire and tall concrete walls. It all felt like working in Angola or Namibia, during the South African apartheid, or perhaps even worse; divided communities, stolen land, electric wire, and omnipresent fear and oppression.

But it is Israel which now has the right to ‘worry’ and to murder people in the name of its ‘security’. That is precisely what the tone of the Western mainstream periodicals clearly suggests.

Israel had stolen more than a thousand kilometers square of the Syrian territory in 1981, and now it is mercilessly bombing its victim; from Lebanese territory, in order to assure its ‘safety and security’. It is doing so from the territory of Lebanon, a country which was invaded by the Israeli military, on several occasions.

And the West is cheering.

Of course, Israel is acting with total impunity, because it enjoys both the support and encouragement from its allies: The United States, the U.K. and Macron’s France.

Lebanon is panicking. Its’ ‘elites’ are trying to both survive, and not to anger the West.

Syrians have, it often appears, nerves of steel.

They worry but are determined not to give one single inch of their land to the invaders.

My friend in Damascus wrote to me, just a few hours before I submitted this report:

My colleagues and comrades on the ground in Syria are angry, very angry. They can clearly see through the lies, which are being spread by the West.

On April 29, 2018, the Israeli attacks killed 26 Syrians and Iranians, just before Midnight, near Hama and Aleppo.

The U.S. and Europe are bombing and threatening to cause even more damage.

But this is 2018, not those dark years when the West could murder and rape without any consequences. If these attacks continue, there will be a counterpunch: fully justified, determined and powerful.

Then even the tiny Lebanon would have to decide where it stands.
• First published by New Eastern Outlook – NEO</s>Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman sought assurances from Russia on Thursday that its advanced missile defense systems won’t be used against Israeli jets over Syria, and he called on Moscow to condemn Iran for its repeated threats against the Jewish state.



“We have normal relations with Russia, and we take into account its interests,” he told Russian daily Kommersant. “We hope Russia will take into account our interests here in the Middle East.





We expect Russia’s understanding and support for our vital interests. Iran’s leaders come out every week with statements that they will destroy the Zionist entity. Unfortunately, we do not see an unequivocal reaction from Western Europe or Russia, which is very careful to remember everything that happened in World War II. And we expect a clear and unequivocal response by Russia to Iran’s declarations and actions.”Noting that Israel did not expel any Russian diplomats in response to an assassination attempt on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in England earlier this year, Liberman said Israel has “established special relations” with Moscow, which are effective and transparent.“We are not looking for any confrontation with Russia, and on the contrary, in recent years, an open, clear and transparent dialogue has been created with Russia, both when our opinions are compatible and incompatible,” he said.Russian and Israeli officials have met several times this year, as with Russia carrying out military operations in Syria, and Israel reportedly responsible for several hundred air strikes in the war-torn country, the two have implemented a system over Syria to coordinate their actions in order to avoid accidental clashes.Last week, the paper published a report saying Moscow was considering the possibility of supplying the advanced S-300 missile defense system to Syria free of charge following US-led strikes against several military sites after a deadly chemical weapons attack on Douma on April 7.“If [President Bashar] Assad does not intervene – it would be very wise of him not to, as we do not plan to interfere in Syria’s internal affairs. If his forces, his aerial defense systems, open fire against us – we will open fire against them,” Liberman said, echoing comments he made at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York last week.“As far as I am concerned, Assad is a war criminal, responsible for the deaths of more than half a million citizens of his country. But we are not going to interfere in Syria’s internal affairs. What we will not tolerate is Iran’s attempts to turn Syria into an outpost against Israel. Any attempt by Iran to establish itself in Syria will be thwarted,” Liberman said.With the war in Syria turning in Assad’s favor due to Moscow’s intervention, Israel fears Iran will help Hezbollah produce accurate precision-guided missiles and help Hezbollah and other Shi’ite militias to strengthen their foothold in the Golan Heights.Turning to the subject of Iran, the defense minister said the trove of documents obtained by the Mossad prove Tehran had been working on a nuclear program.“The published documents unequivocally prove Iran actively acted not only to enrich uranium but to create nuclear weapons,” he said. “They simply temporarily froze the program in order to obtain maximum benefit from the agreement so they could go on later to create nuclear weapons.Moreover, they froze the production of nuclear weapons until they could get maximum benefit from the agreement.”While Liberman did not comment on whether or not the documents proved the Islamic Republic had violated the Iranian deal, he asked why Tehran would need a nuclear program when it has a large number of natural resources.“We are talking about the Iranian nuclear program in general, not about two years or 12 years or 20 years,” he said. “Iran has always said it is developing a civilian nuclear program, but from the beginning, this was not its goal.”
The Israeli Air Force used a "hotline" to issue an urgent warning to Khemeymim Airbase in Syria when a Russian fighter jet strayed close to Israeli airspace near the Golan Heights. Last year a Syrian warplane was shot down in a similar incident.