Prof. Moshe Maoz, an expert on Syria and Hezbollah from the Political Science Department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said on Sunday he believes four rockets from Syriawhich exploded in the Golan Heights on Saturday were accidental spillover from the Syrian civil war.
"This firing, I estimate, happened accidentally. Syria has no interest in provoking us because we will respond with force,” Maoz told Arutz Sheva, though he added that "in strategic terms, the great danger is from Syria as an important link of the Shiite axis that is being led by Iran, and this is Israel's greatest enemy.”
"This axis potentially includes Iraq, Lebanon-Hezbollah and Yemen. This is the danger and the Iranians may provoke us in the future, and they have already expressed this, but this firing does not seem to me to be more than accidental fire that happens from time to time,” he continued.
Referring to Iran, Prof. Maoz said, "In their view, we are provoking them and their allies the Syrians, and we are bombing military positions and cannons. The Iranians feel, and have expressed themselves in this way, that Israel cannot do whatever it wants in the skies of their Syrian allies. Their patience will expire and the question is how they will act, and this is where a third factor comes in to play, and that is the Russians who control the skies of Syria. They have agreements and disagreements with the Iranians and the question is what they will do, mainly because they have the means to prevent Israeli flights and bombings. There appears to be an understanding between the Russians and us, and they allow us to hit Hezbollah's weapons convoys, but if it spreads further, it will be considered a blow to the Russian honor.”
"Beyond that, they have modern means to prevent our airstrikes,” noted Maoz. “They have S-400 systems, beyond the S-300s they provided to the Iranians, which they can use to prevent and intercept any aircraft coming from Israel. This is the most critical point, and it is no coincidence that Netanyahu has been to Russia six or seven times in recent months. Moreover, the Americans are not helping, Trump has given up on Syria and Russia is the potential ruler in this region. We're in a pretty delicate state of affairs." READ MORE
