Israel’s Lies Catch up With It – Now it’s helping Al Qaeda to Protect the Druze!

 Israel acknowledges it is helping Syrian rebel fighters

Defense minister says Jerusalem assists insurgents in exchange for promise Druze will be kept out of harm’s way

By Raphael Ahren June 29, 2015, 2:26 pm 10

Druze watching fighting over border

 When your whole existence is one long lie, it’s no surprise if your lies begin to catch up with you.   In my first article on collaboration between Israel and ISIS Israel Supports ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria 

Syrian-rebels-in Idlib

I wrote about the arrest of Sedki al-Maket, a Druze living on the Golan Heights (which Israel illegally annexed from Syria) for exposing Israel’s duplicity. 

Sedki filmed Israel soldiers handing over boxes of ammunition to al-Nusra and this footage was given to the Syrian regime which broadcast it on TV.  I based this on an article from Richard Silversteine Israel Secretly Arrests Golani Druze, Accusing Him of Exposing Rebel-IDF Collaboration

Israeli military vehicle fired on

I also quoted from an article in Ha’aretz  in which a senior officer in the Northern Command was quoted as saying that ‘IDF Northern Command officer says he thinks the U.S.-led coalition intervened too early against the Sunni militants, and 'not necessarily in the right direction.' 

I also cited an article from the Jerusalem Post quoting the commander of the Syrian Armed forces Lt. General Ali Abdulla Ayoub that Israel working with ISIS and al-Qaida 

Aftermath of Israeli airstrike nr Damascus

There is no doubt that Israeli leaders and military were unhappy about the United State focussing on ISIS when in their eyes the enemy was Iran and what they called the Shi’ite Crescent.  This has become crystallised around the nuclear agreement that Obama is trying to negotiate with Iran.  During the Israeli election campaign, Netanyahu made an unprecedented attempt to undermine Obama by openly allying with his Republican critics by addressing Congress directly.

FSA fighters

The problem for the US is of course Iran is crucial to the defence of the Iraqi state.  Only the Shi’ite militias and their Iranian sponsor stands between an ISIS victory and the demise of the Iraqi state.  The Iraqi state has proved itself incapable of defeating ISIS for a whole series of reasons.  It’s army consists of thousands of ghost soldiers who don’t exist, many of those who do exist pay part of their salaries to officers in order not to have to actually take part in its activities, the supply of weapons and provisions to those who do fight often leaves a lot to be desired, it lacks motivation etc.  Iraq is a Shi’ite sectarian state that has failed to incorporate its Sunni citizens and has, in many cases, forced them into the tender hands of ISIS.  Until the US cuts its losses in Iraq it is caught between a rock and a hard place.

The same is true, to a lesser extent in Syria.  The ‘moderate’ armed opposition doesn’t exist and apart from the Kurds in the North, the anti-Assad coalition is made up of ISIS and al-Qaeda.  Israel is not unhappy about this, the US is unhappy but it unable to do a great deal    apart from bomb ISIS.  A strategy that is useless without forces on the ground.

Israel has always wanted to see a Syria divided into its confessional components.  The US may indeed settle for this but it is not happy about ISIS coming out on top, not least because the Saudi regime may be next on ISIS’s menu.

Tony Greenstein

Israel acknowledges it is helping Syrian rebel fighters

Defense minister says Jerusalem assists insurgents in exchange for promise Druze will be kept out of harm’s way

By Raphael Ahren June 29, 2015, 2:26 pm 10

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that Israel has been providing aid to Syrian rebels, thus keeping the Druze in Syria out of immediate danger. Israeli officials have previously balked at confirming on the record that the country has been helping forces that are fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.

During a briefing with Israel’s diplomatic correspondents at the IDF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, Ya’alon said that Israel’s ongoing humanitarian assistance to Syrian rebel fighters, a source of growing conflict between Israel and its own Druze population, safeguards the minority population in Syria.

“We’ve assisted them under two conditions,” Ya’alon said of the Israeli medical aid to the Syrian rebels, some of whom are presumably fighting with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. “That they don’t get too close to the border, and that they don’t touch the Druze.”

The Druze on Israel’s side of the Golan, Ya’alon charged, acted “irresponsibly” last week by attacking an Israeli ambulance carrying wounded Syrian rebel fighters. One person was killed and another wounded during what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed a “lynching.” The person in the Israeli ambulance was not affiliated with the al-Nusra Front, and his death would provoke calls for revenge, Ya’alon asserted.

Israel has treated over 1,000 wounded Syrians in its hospitals since the onset of the civil war in 2011.

Israel will continue to act with sensitivity regarding the Druze, Ya’alon said. “On the other side — the rebels on the other side feel that we’re acting sensitively,” he said.

Israel has provided humanitarian assistance to wounded Syrian fighters located near the shared border since the civil war stated, the defense minister said. He said that such aid is extended under two conditions – that the fighters don’t let Islamic extremists to get close to the border, and that they don’t hurt the local Druze population.

An IDF ambulance that was attacked by Druze Israeli residents in the Golan Heights as it ferried Syrian war casualties for medical treatment in Israel, June 22, 2015. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)

Jerusalem’s policy vis-à-vis the Druze in Syria “is very complicated and sensitive,” Ya’alon said, adding that it is not in the rebels’ interest to publicize the fact that Israel assists them.

“Our general policy is that we’re not getting involved in the Syrian war,” he stressed, although there were certain red lines Israel would act to maintain, such as the smuggling of so-called game-changing weapons to Israel’s enemies.

”We will not tolerate any violation of our sovereignty or even accidental fire from Syria into our territory. We will act immediately to strike at those who plant explosives near the border or fire at us,” he declared.

Ya’alon also reiterated his position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, repeating his belief that there will not be a permanent peace deal “in our generation.”

This, he said, was not because of any Israeli objection to Palestinian statehood, but rather due to the refusal of the Palestinian leadership to negotiate or make the necessary concessions.

Over the years, Jerusalem has taken several steps in a bid to renew the diplomatic process, including freezing settlement construction and releasing Palestinian terrorists, and has accepted in principle a US-brokered framework agreement, but Ramallah was and remains unwilling to negotiate earnestly, he said.

“The ball is not in our court,” Ya’alon declared. “There is much to do to advance issues, but whoever believes that with all kinds of pressure [from the international community] a permanent agreement can be imposed is mistaken.”

Rather than merely maintain the “status quo,” Ya’alon said, both sides could do much to find a “modus vivendi” to improve the lives of Palestinians living in the West Bank.

On the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Ya’alon said that he believes the world powers will sign a “bad” deal with Tehran, “if not this week then in the near future.”

The prospective agreement would not freeze Iran’s military nuclear program for a decade, as not a single facility would be closed and no centrifuges would be dismantled, he said.

“Even if there are inspections, they will only be in those facilities that the Iranian agree to,” he said, adding that Tehran has for decades managed to mislead inspectors, for instance by building a large secret enrichment facility in Qom.

“If this regime is emboldened by the sanctions relief [it is to receive as part of the deal, which will pump billions of dollars into the economy] before the 10-year period is over, then who will guarantee that they won’t try to break out to [reach for a bomb]?” he said.

Israel and the US differ fundamentally on the Iranian issue, he said. “They see Iran as a part of the solution; we see it as part of the problem.”

Israeli Lies About Support for Al Qaeda Fighters Exposed

Syrian Killed in Attack by Golani Druze Was Islamist Fighter, Not Civilian as IDF Claimed

by Richard Silverstein on June 26, 2015

in Mideast Peace

Munther Khalil - Al Qaeda terrorist Israel was conveying in ambulance, who was killed

This post expands on my original one reporting this incident.  Some of the material in it may look familiar to those who read the original post.  This one names, for the first time outside of Syrian sources, Munther Khalil, the Syrian Islamist killed by Golani Druze this week.  It also confirms that the IDF lied in claiming he was a civilian.

When Israel conquered the Golan in 1967, it launched a 50-year occupation of the Syrian Golan in which tens of thousands of Syrian Druze lived.  Though an armistice line now separates the Druze in Syrian and Israeli-occupied zones, both communities are deeply intertwined.  The sense of solidarity now, in the midst of a raging civil war, is no different than Diaspora Jews felt in 1967 before the war broke out.  Millions rallied around the world concerned about Israel’s fate.  Now the Druze in Israeli-held Golan are fearful for the fates of their brothers and sisters.

Israel's friends in al-Qaeda

Israel claims, falsely, that it is neutral in the Syrian civil war.  Unfortunately, the world media are taken in by this charade.  Israel intervenes regularly on behalf of the Syrian Islamist rebels.  The UN observed the IDF unloading supplies in boxes at the armistice fence, which were then picked up by Islamist fighters.  Al Monitor even reported that the IDF shells government positions inside Syria.  The Israelis meet regularly with al-Nusra commanders (who are affiliated with al-Qaeda) to offer intelligence.  A Syrian Druze videotaped one such meeting, which was aired on Syrian TV.  He was promptly secretly arrested by the Shabak.  The Israeli media was forbidden from reporting his name, Sedki al-Maket, thanks to a security gag order (I was the only journalist outside Syria who reported his name and story).

Netanyahu gives a pep talk to wounded al-Nusra terrorist

Israeli TV reported that Israel has built a camp for Syrian army deserters in Israeli occupied Golan.  Israel has also bombed Hezbollah and Iranian convoys inside Syria carrying advanced weaponry meant for the Lebanese front. It has assassinated several senior Iranian generals and Hezbollah commanders on Syrian soil as well.  It opposes Assad not so much for political or ideological reasons, but because the regime’s chief allies are Israel’s arch-nemeses, Iran and Hezbollah.

Israel's allies in al-Nusra

Israel’s alliance with Islamists makes for some strange bedfellows.  Prime Minister Netanyahu is the first to raise the rallying cry for western resistance to the tyranny of Islamism.  He regularly invokes the specter of the savagery of ISIS in counterpoint to the civilizing force of Israel.  But when it’s in Israel’s interest, it’s more than willing to make common cause with such forces.

Israeli soldiers stand on tanks in the Golan Heights

Not only is it hypocritical for Israel to join forces with Islamists; it’s likely that today’s allies will turn into tomorrow’s enemies.  Maariv journalist Jacki Hugi said it well:

…Jerusalem must ask itself some difficult questions: can its bet on the rebels pay off?  Or does stability on the northern border depend on the continuation of the regime?  Support for these sectarian groups carries many dangers.  Their trustworthiness fluctuates, as do the figures who lead them.  He who today will not act against Israel may change his spots [literally “shed his skin”] tomorrow.

…Israeli policy over the past few decades has been characterized by a series of bad bets.  At the end of the 1980s, it enabled Hamas to rise from the midst of Gaza’s Islamist groups.  It did this out of the flawed assumption that this was the proper way to weaken Fatah…As a result [Israel] created its own Trojan Horse [within Palestine].

With the IDF’s entrance [sic] into Lebanon in 1982, Israel disregarded the Shiites and rushed to ally itself with those it saw as the most powerful in the land: the Christians.  So it paved the way for Tehran to offer protection to the disadvantaged and enable the rise of Hezbollah.

Something very similar happened in Afghanistan when the mujahedeen were first our friends, and then morphed into the Taliban and became our sworn enemies.

So far, the Syrian Islamists have deliberately not targeted Israel.  This is no doubt due to the aid it offers them on the battlefield.  Further, al-Nusra knows that Hezbollah is Israel’s primary opponent.  The Lebanese militia constantly probes in this sector and mounts attacks against Israeli forces.  Al-Nusra doesn’t seek or need to compete with Hezbollah in that regard.  It would rather confine is efforts to the Syrian theater, than expand to attack Israel itself.

Recently, fighting on the Syrian side of Golan has heated up. There, the Druze villages have been largely loyal to the Assad regime over the decades.  When al-Nusra and FSA forces attacked Druze villages in northern Syria, killing 20 residents, those living on the Israeli-occupied side of the Golan became restive and angry.  They couldn’t sit back and watch as their cousins died at the hands of Islamists.

Not to mention that their religion, though an offshoot of Islam, is considered heretical by fundamentalist Islamists.  The Druze under threat rightly believe that they and their ancient religious traditions are in grave jeopardy.  Thus, Israel’s alliance with the al-Nusra front puts it diametrically at odds with the Golani Druze under Israeli Occupation.

In recent days, Israeli TV aired an interview (Hebrew, at the 2:00 mark) with a wounded Syrian fighter who was treated in Israel after being evacuated from the combat zone.  What he said raised the ire of the local Druze to the boiling point:

TV interview: “What would you do if you captured a Druze?” “It depends.”

In this context, the interview I mentioned above was a lightning bolt through the Druze community.  The interviewer asked the fighter (who was affiliated with the FSA):

Interviewer: [What would u do] if you caught an Alawite?

A: I would kill him

I: And if you caught a Druze?

A: It depends

I: And if you caught a Shiite?

A: I would kill the Shiite

This answer didn’t go down well among the Druze.  Sandwiched between this vow of murder directed at Syrian Alawites, the traditional Druze ally, is a temporizing claim that he might or might not kill a captured Druze.  This, with the backdrop of 20 Druze murdered only a few days earlier, was enough to mount a mini-revolt among Golani Druze.

Munther Khalil, Syrian Islamist fighter killed by Golani Druze

Israel regularly evacuates Islamist fighters wounded in the fighting against the regime in the region.  Angry local Druze intercepted an IDF ambulance carrying two wounded Syrians, whom the IDF claimed were civilians.  They beat the army medics, who were forced to flee.  They then beat one of the wounded Syrians to death and severely wounded the other, before the authorities intervened and rescued him.

Munther Khalil: the IDF’s Faux Syrian “Civilian”

Syrian Islamists calling themselves the Revolutionary Command Council in Quneitra and the Golan, published a Facebook memorial to the victim who was killed in the attack.  The page says in Arabic:

Munther Khalil – the wounded man who was killed by Druze people from  Majdal Shams in Israel

May Allah have mercy on you, and accept you as one of the Shahids

His picture features him brandishing a gun in full rebel garb.  He is clearly not a civilian.

Haaretz reporter Amos Harel also reports (Hebrew) that the two Syrians were Islamist rebels:

The two wounded were from one of the Syrian rebel organizations fighting in the heart of the Golan against the Syrian army.

The IDF lied in order to conceal its own contributing role in this tragic incident.  A common occurrence in such circumstances.

The Israeli military is aghast at the Druze attack, since it infringes on its right to meddle in Syrian internal affairs unmolested.  Defense minister Yaalon called the killing a “lynch.”  This is Israeli code for ‘Arab savagery.’  It is used to differentiate Israeli behavior, supposedly civilized and humane, from that of Palestinian (or Arab) militants.

In the case of the Golan killing, the IDF is attempting to paint the Golani Druze as uncivilized beasts when, in fact, they are legitimately angry at Israel’s new alliance with their enemies, the al-Nusra Front.  When Israel first occupied the Golan did it figure that the inhabitants would embrace the occupiers and become like them?  Did it give any thought to the views and interests of the occupied and how they differed from those of Israelis?  It’s doubtful.  Now they are paying the price for their obliviousness and for fifty years of military occupation of Syrian Druze.

The latter are now demanding that Israel intervene in the civil war to save their brethren under attack from al-Nusra.  This is the sort of insanely complex strategic dilemma that comes from playing with fire.  If Israel continues its “arrangement” with al-Nusra and the latter conquers Syrian Druze villages and imposes fundamentalist Islam replete with revenge killings and beheadings, then it risks igniting a tinderbox inside Israeli-occupied Golan.  If it takes the side of the Druze against al-Nusra it risks the leverage it has with the only viable force opposing Israel’s most dangerous enemies, Hezbollah and Iran.

When you play with matches, you’re bound to get burned.

Israel Supports ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria

Israel and ISIS - Butchers Together

It has become increasingly clear in recent months that Israel is unhappy with the attack on ISIS in Iraq.  This was demonstrated a few weeks ago with the Israeli missile attack which killed 6 members of Hezbollah and the Iranian military, including a General.

Now Israel has arrested Sedki al-Maket, a Druze living on the Golan Heights (which Israel illegally annexed from Syria) for exposing Israel’s duplicity.

The article below describes the arrest and the reasons for it.  Reporting of the arrest has been banned in the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ (Israel’s description of itself).

Syrian anti-aircraft fire in Damascus as Israeli fighters attack

The article below Richard Silverstein’s exposes the medical help given to ISIS fighters, including it would appear Israel supplying them with ammunition.  The article below this quotes an unnamed senior member of Israel’s Northern Command as to his view that the West is fighting the wrong target and an article in which the Syrians make the same accusations.

It is quite clear, as it has been for some time, that the Iranian regime is Israel’s main target in the region.  Israel isn’t happy with the tentative rapprochment between the Iranian regime and the West -  the talks over Iran’s nuclear capability and the British decision to reestablish diplomatic relations.  Yet in Iraq the USA and the Iranians are fighting on the same side as they are in Syria.  It is not surprising that  Israeli leaders are increasingly unhappy about this and are trying to make their views clear without openly speaking out.

Tony Greenstein

Israel Secretly Arrests Golani Druze, Accusing Him of Exposing Rebel-IDF Collaboration

by Richard Silverstein on February 28, 2015

in Mideast Peace

Sedki al-Maket, rearrested in secret by Israel’s Shin Bet for exposing collaboration between Syrian rebels and the IDF

Israel’s Shin Bet rearrested Golani Druze Sedki al-Maket (age 48).  Until his release in 2012 (Hebrew), he’d been the longest serving Israeli security prisoner, having spent 27 years detained.  News of his arrest is under gag order by Israeli media. The gag is laughable since the arrest has been reported not only by Syrian media, but in a Hebrew Facebook post.

Though Israeli security services haven’t offered any reason for his arrest, it’s likely they’re angered because a week ago he followed Syrian rebels to a meeting inside Israeli-occupied territory.  The rebels met with IDF forces who’ve previously been shown to receive logistical and intelligence support from Israel in previous reports here and in Israel and foreign media.  Al Maket filmed a video  while the meeting was underway, in which he described what he saw and offered it to Syrian TV.  It was aired to the entire nation and likely monitored by Israeli security.

The Shin Bet doesn’t want any further leaks about such collaboration because it allows the Syrian regime to paint the rebels as Israeli stooges.  It also gives the lie to those Israeli intelligence figures and journalists who’ve spoken falsely about Israel remaining neutral regarding the two sides fighting in Syria.  Despite numerous air attacks against Syrian government facilities, assassinations of Syrian, Hezbollah and Iranian military, and security cooperation with rebels, Israel continues to maintain the fiction it hasn’t chosen sides.

If anyone wonders why Islamists are beheading western journalists and occupying Iraq and Syria, while carefully avoiding Israeli targets, this will explain a lot.  It will also explain Israel’s approach which is to weaken central power in Syria, so that the Golan region closest to the border will become a protectorate, as was southern Lebanon until Israel’s withdrawal in 2000.  Having Syrian rebels under Israeli sponsorship ruling the Syrian Golan will be much more conducive to maintaining Israel control and occupation for years to come.

Meanwhile, the Israeli media is content to publish happy news about the Golani Druze village of Majd al-Shams (home to al-Maket), which apparently has become a playground for a certain hip Israeli scene which enjoys pub crawling in the midst of Israeli-occupied Golan.  If the report is to be believed, you can hardly tell the difference between it and Berlin or New York!  And let’s not forget the glorious skiing almost under the guns of those nasty Syrians who spoil all the fun with their inconvenient civil unrest.

Israel Supports Syrian Al Qaeda Rebels including the Islamic State (ISIS). UN Report -  Global Research

A report submitted to the United Nations Security Council by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months shows that Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have been in regular contact with Syrian rebels, including Islamic State (ISIS) militants.

Citing the UN report, Haaretz noted that there have been several instances detailed in the report that shows close ties between Syrian armed rebels and Israeli army.
According to the UN report, a person wounded on 15 September “was taken by armed members of the opposition across the ceasefire line, where he was transferred to a civilian ambulance escorted by an IDF vehicle.”

Moreover, from 9-19 November, the “UNDOF observed at least 10 wounded persons being transferred by armed members of the opposition from the Bravo side across the ceasefire line to IDF.”
As per the details released by the Israel’s health ministry, so far some 1,000 Syrians have been treated in four Israeli hospitals. Besides the civilians, some are members of the secular Free Syrian Army rebel group.

Israel initially had maintained that it was treating only civilians. However, reports claimed that earlier last month members of Israel’s Druze minority protested the hospitalisation of wounded Syrian fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front in Israel.

A statement issued by a group of Druze activists accused the Israeli government of supporting radical Sunni factions such as the Islamic State (ISIS).

Replying to a question by i24News on whether Israel has given medical assistance to members of al-Nusra and Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State (ISIS), a Israeli military spokesman’s office said: “In the past two years the Israel Defence Forces have been engaged in humanitarian, life-saving aid to wounded Syrians, irrespective of their identity.”

The UN report also laid out instances where in Israeli army was seen interacting with armed rebels. In one incident, the report claimed that the IDF gave some boxes to the Syrian armed rebels.

West making big mistake in fighting ISIS, says senior Israeli officer

IDF Northern Command officer says he thinks the U.S.-led coalition intervened too early against the Sunni militants, and 'not necessarily in the right direction.'

By Gili Cohen Ha'aretz Oct. 31, 2014 

A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq after conducting airstrikes in Syria, in this U.S. Air Force handout photo taken early in the morning of September 23, 2014. Photo by Reuters

A senior Northern Command officer said Thursday that the Western coalition is making a big mistake in fighting against ISIS.

Head of Syrian army after alleged airstrikes: Israelworking with ISIS and al-Qaida

Syrian state television said on Sunday that Israeli jets had bombed areas near Damascus international airport and in the town of Dimas, near the border with Lebanon.

The commander of the Syrian Armed forces Lt. General Ali Abdulla Ayoub claimed Israel was working with ISIS and al-Qaida to attack Syria, in the wake of Syrian government claims that Israeli planes attacked military sites near Damascus on Sunday night.

"This aggression confirms Israel directly supports terrorism in Syria, in addition to the known Western and regional countries, raising the morale of terrorist organizations, led by Jabhat al-Nusra, an arm of al-Qaida in the Levant, and ISIS," the head of the Syrian military said.