Oct. 7 lessons learned: Israel’s staggering steps in Syria since the fall of Assad

NATIONAL AFFAIRS: Israel, confronted with the bitter consequences of October 7, has chosen to act decisively rather than passively hope for the best – as it did with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah.

By HERB KEINON DECEMBER 13, 2024 09:47 Updated: DECEMBER 13, 2024 09:49

ISRAEL’S ATTACK on Syrian military bases was a preemptive move to prevent assets falling into Syrian rebel hands. Here, the remains of Syrian naval ships after destruction following an overnight Israeli attack on the port city of Latakia on Tuesday. (photo credit: AAREF WATAD/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel destroyed the Syrian military within 48 hours this week in a stunning operation echoing Operation Focus, which effectively neutralized the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian air forces on the first day of the 1967 Six Day War.

While the similarities are apparent – in both cases, Israel took out a significant military threat – the circumstances leading up to the action are dramatically different.

In 1967, the IAF acted preemptively against the Egyptian Air Force, followed by the Syrian, Jordanian, and even Iraqi air forces, to thwart their planned attack.

This week, Israel targeted assets belonging to the Syrian Armed Forces – planes, helicopters, ships, submarines, missiles, chemical weapons depots, air force bases, and ports – not because Syria was poised to attack, but to prevent that weaponry from falling into the hands of extremist Islamist forces who may attack in the future.In this sense, what Israel did this week is closer to what the British did to the French Navy 84 years ago at Mers-el-Kébir in what was then French Algeria.

On July 3, 1940, just two weeks after the French surrendered to the Nazis and the Vichy regime took over, the British faced a dire dilemma. They feared that the powerful French Navy would be seized and turned into a formidable asset for the Nazis.

IDF soldiers operate on Mount Hermon, on the border between Israel and Syria, December 12, 2024 (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

To prevent this, Winston Churchill ordered the sinking of the main French naval squadron in the Mediterranean. This decisive action, followed by a smaller attack days later at the French naval base in Dakar and the disarming of a French maritime squadron in Alexandria, effectively eliminated the French Navy as a strategic factor in World War II.With these moves, the British – who at the time seemed on the brink of defeat at the hands of the Nazis – sent a clear signal to the world and to the Americans of their resolve.

Lessons learned from October 7

ISRAEL SENT a similar signal this week to the world and the Jewish state’s many enemies. It has learned one of the key lessons of October 7 and will not sit back and allow an enemy bent on destroying it to build up immediately on its border with the capacity to do so.

It allowed this to happen in Gaza and Lebanon, with catastrophic results. It will not allow that to happen in Syria.So, as in 1967, Israel preempted this week – though this time not against an immediate threat but a potential one on the horizon.

Yet what is emerging in Syria is not just a theoretical threat. The “rebels” who have taken over the country are not all cut from the same cloth. Though some among those who make up the Syrian “rebels” – the Druze and the Kurds – may be positively predisposed toward Israel, the main faction – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – was not too long ago affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Even some of the “more moderate” factions in the rebel camp are Islamists of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ilk. From an Israeli perspective, MiG fighters and SA-5 and S-300 missiles falling into the hands of any of these rebels present – with October 7 fresh in the national consciousness – a clear and present danger.

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As a result, like the British in 1940, Israel took action to prevent strategic weapons from falling into enemy hands. In the British attack, more than 1,200 French sailors were killed. There have been no reports of casualties from Israel’s strikes.

Which, of course, hasn’t prevented the condemnations.

The UN’S Special Envoy for Syria, Norway’s Geir Pedersen, said that Israel’s bombings in Syria, as well as troop movements in the buffer zone along the Golan border and its takeover of the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, “needs to stop.

Along with destroying Assad’s army – officials estimate that 80% of its strategic capacities have been destroyed – Israel wasted no time after Damascus fell on Sunday to move into the 235-square-kilometer buffer zone established by the 1974 Disengagement Agreement between Israel and Syria that followed the Yom Kippur War.

According to the agreement, the zone would be patrolled by UN forces and remain free of both Israeli and Syrian troops. On Sunday, within hours of the fall of Damascus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border and said that with the abandonment of Syrian forces on the Syrian side of the border, the agreement had collapsed.

Israel moved troops into the area, as well as onto the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, in what Israeli officials described as temporary measures to prevent hostile forces from taking over these strategic positions.Pedersen charged that Israel was in violation of the disengagement agreement.

Does Pedersen really expect that, with the Syrian government’s collapse, Israel would leave the demilitarized zone empty, trusting the rebels – whoever they might be – to honor a UN disengagement agreement signed with Israel in 1974?

Really?

To those – specifically in France and Germany – equally appalled like Pedersen that Israel entered the demilitarized zone and who seem to trust that the rebels would not pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in the Golan, it is worth recalling Churchill’s words explaining his move against the French fleet in 1940, even though Hitler had “solemnly declared” he would not use the French vessels.

“Who in his senses would trust the word of Hitler after his shameful record and the facts of the hour?” Churchill asked. “At all costs, at all risks, in one way or another, we must make sure that the navy of France did not fall into the wrong hands, and then perhaps bring us and others to ruin.”

Likewise, were the massive quantity of sophisticated arms in Syria to fall into the wrong hands, Israel would not be the only country in the region to suffer.

Just look at what happened after the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Libya’s massive weapons stockpile has fueled extremism, insurgency, and crime in neighboring countries ever since.

In neighboring Mali, for instance, these weapons enabled jihadist groups to topple the democratically elected government, leading to a French military intervention in 2013 that ultimately failed to stabilize the situation – yes, the same France now condemning Israel’s actions in Syria.

It wasn’t only in Mali. Arms looted from Gaddafi’s warehouses fell into the hands of terrorists in Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Sinai, Gaza, and Syria. Reports indicate more than one million tons of Gaddafi’s weapons – including shoulder-launched missiles – were looted from arms depots, with British intelligence chiefs being quoted calling Libya the “supermarket of the world’s illicit arms trade.”

Terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, acquired these weapons.

In a 2017 edition of the national and international security affairs journal PRISM, Mokhtar Belmokhtar of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb was quoted as telling a Mauritanian news agency: “We have been one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world.... As for our acquisition of Libyan armaments, that is an absolutely natural thing.”It is to prevent such a scenario from repeating itself in Syria that Israel took swift action to destroy the military capabilities built up under Assad.

THE ARAB world, which suffered from Libya’s arms spillover, should have supported Israel’s actions in Syria. Instead, they condemned them, largely – but not solely – focusing on Israel’s movement into the buffer zone.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt issued statements slamming Israel’s actions, claiming violations of international law.Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying, “The assaults carried out by the Israeli occupation government, including the seizure of the buffer zone in the Golan Heights and the targeting of Syrian territories by Israeli occupation forces, affirm Israel’s continued violation of international law and its determination to undermine opportunities for Syria to restore its security, stability, and territorial integrity.”

Qatar and Egypt followed suit with similar condemnations.

The most audacious condemnation came from Turkey, which called on Israel to respect Syria’s territorial integrity – a statement dripping with hypocrisy, given Turkey’s occupation of some 9,000 square kilometers of northern Syria since 2016.

The Arab states, quick to denounce Israel this week, remained noticeably silent about Turkey’s actions. While some Arab states see Turkey’s influence in Syria and support for groups like HTS as potential threats, there hasn’t been the same unified outcry against Ankara as there has been against Israel.

This irony is glaring. Turkish-backed Sunni extremist groups pose a far greater threat to moderate Sunni regimes than Israel ever could. These countries – and the international community at large – should be thanking Israel for its decisive actions in Syria, not vilifying it.

Israel is not dismantling Syria’s military to assert dominance or pursue conquest. It is doing what the region’s powers failed to do after Libya’s collapse: preventing a flood of dangerous weapons into the hands of extremists who would, in addition to threatening Israel, destabilize the region.

The lesson is clear: Israel, confronted with the bitter consequences of October 7, has chosen to act decisively rather than passively hope for the best – as it did with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Those condemning Israel for its steps in Syria would do well to ask themselves whether they would dare place their trust in the good intentions of jihadist factions menacingly parked directly on their doorstep.