Israel’s northern borders with Syria and Lebanon were on edge this week, as Prime Minister Binyamin prepared to raise Israel’s concerns about southern Syria at a critical meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, Aug. 23, at the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem noted that he would be accompanied by Mossad Director Yossie Cohen. He has just returned from a failed attempt in Washington to draw the Trump Administration’s attention to the deteriorating security situation on Israel’s northern borders, where Russian Muslim troops are already in position.
Our sources report that he left Washington empty-handed for three reasons:
1. The White House was inundated in political crises on the home front.
2. President Donald Trump had resolved to cut to the bone any US military involvement in the Syria conflict outside of the war on the Islamic State.
3. Trump refused to hear of any compromise on his deal with Putin for cooperating in Syria, especially in the creation of de-escalation zones for gradually winding down the conflict.
Israel, like Jordan, repeatedly put forward objections to this arrangement, especially in relation to its Golan border with Syria. Neither Washington nor Moscow was interested.
This week, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited Amman to discuss Jordan’s concerns about the pro-Iranian Shiite militias landing close to its border with Syria.
Both their concerns were borne out in the last few days, when the Syrian army and its pro-Iranian Shiite allies including Hizballah launched four simultaneous warfronts at Deir ez-Zor in the east, Sweida in the southeast, Hama in the center and the Qalamoun Mountains on the Syrian-Lebanese border in the west - all with Russian air support, often including paratroop drops. READ MORE
