Sabotaging Syria's fresh start is a strategic mistake

As families were reunited, thousands of exiled Syrians returned home and prisoners were released from hellish captivity this week, Israel launched more than 100 air strikes on military targets inside Syria on Monday. This was followed by dozens more strikes on Damascus and surrounding areas overnight on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Israel expanded its invasion of southern Syria, moving troops into the buffer zone on the edge of the occupied Golan Heights, just 30km south-west of Damascus. In a letter sent to the UN Security Council , Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said his country had undertaken “limited and temporary measures to counter any further threat to its citizens”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar both used the same words to describe the latest illegal incursion into Syrian territory. However, Mr Netanyahu sent a very different signal on Tuesday when he used a media conference in Jerusalem to thank the US for recognising Israeli “sovereignty” in the Golan in 2019, adding that “the Golan Heights will forever be an inseparable part of the state of Israel”. Israel’s tactical justifications for its renewed attacks on Syrian territory are not reassuring. For a country with a track record of creating “facts on the ground” to excuse continued occupation and expansion, it is notable that its operation to “temporarily” send troops and armour into yet more foreign territory does not come with a detailed plan for leaving. Given this, observers would be right to question Israel’s bone fides. For Syria to lose control of more territory, have its capital repeatedly struck by air strikes and endure renewed fighting in the north-east does not bode well for the new start many in the country want. The situation is highly combustible and the machinations of neighbouring powers threaten to sabotage the nascent administration taking shape in Damascus. On Monday, Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, urged the Security Council to press for de-escalation amid increasing tension in the region – sadly, his appeal appears to be going unheeded. For years, Israel said that its interest in Syria was to counter Iranian and Hezbollah forces. These have gone or are in retreat. On Sunday, Mr Netanyahu said that “if we can establish neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that's our desire”. If this is what Israel’s leadership truly wants, then it would be better served by not creating further instability during this precarious transition. “Neighbourly relations” can never be built on invasions, bombings and violations.