Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud, Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has repealed your sentence; he has driven your enemies away.
– Zephaniah 3:14-18
It is better to have friends than enemies. But if you are to have enemies, let them be powerless.
A few days ago, having watched the Syrian military cease to exist, abandoning their bases and weapon systems to try and escape the wrath that would be visited upon them as defenders of Assad, Israel decided to do the opposite of what the US had done in withdrawing from Afghanistan (Quartered Safe Out Here) and not allow those weapons to be left hanging around for use by whatever Islamic Jihadist nutters take over Syria.
In a massive, coordinated series of naval and air force strikes (more than 350 of the latter), they wiped out some 80% of the Syrian military capability.
The Syrian Navy
The Syrian Air Force
Plus the entire fleet of Syrian Mig-29’s at the Al-Suwayda West Air Base, plus multiple types of other aircraft at other air bases.
Not just the Syrian air force and navy but the air defense network of SAM missiles, ammunition dumps, communication networks, intelligence and logistics nodes, even defense-related factories, have ceased to exist.
Basically everything military.
There have been no reports of casualties that I’ve seen, mainly because there was no longer anybody at these bases, less because there was no longer Syrian propaganda organs to push such claims. The HST Islamic Jihadist group that’s just beaten Assad couldn’t care less either it would seem.
Not only that but the Israeli government dumped the 1974 Peace Deal it had with Syria (arranged following the Yom Kippur War) and promptly occupied the buffer zone on the Golan Heights that had also been abandoned by the Syrian military. How permanent that will be remains to be seen, but it included Mount Hermon, the highest peak in Israel, Jordan, and Syria, allowing the Israelis to have almost total observation capabilities into Syria, especially allowing continuous surveillance of the routes used by Iran and Hezbollah to move weapons into Lebanon. Those routes are now just kill zones.
But there’s one more aspect to the latter and it involves Iran:
Israel now has a secure and unimpeded air corridor from Israel to Iran for the first time in its history. In the past, Israeli aircraft had to avoid Syrian fighter interceptors and surface-to-air missiles, while Syrian radar provided invaluable information to Iran about incoming Israeli attacks.
It should be noted that when Israel launched air attacks on Iran in late October, following the two huge missile attacks Iran had made on Israel in the previous two months, they did so successfully even with the Syrians in the way.
Now it’s just become easier and that’s in addition to that Israeli attack stripping Iran of almost all air defence systems, certainly the most dangerous ones in the form of Russian S-300 and S-400 SAM batteries. They also launched massive cyber-attacks on the Iranian government.
Iran is basically naked to Israel now.
The Israelis must have been planning these attacks on Syria for a long time: they were likely part of a standard war plan if Syria attacked as she had in the past, as unlikely as that might have been as the years passed. The plans simply had to be dusted off and applied slightly differently given that there would be no defence.
But that also implies that there are plans to take out Iran’s nuclear weapons program – and possibly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well in an attempt to enable the Iranian people to overthrow the regime, something Netanyahu has openly talked about, repeating the message again just the other day.
People of Iran, as we see history unfold before our very eyes, I can only imagine what you’re feeling right now. Your oppressors spent over 30 billion supporting Assad in Syria. Today, after only 11 days of fighting, his regime collapsed into the dust. Your presence spent billions supporting Hamas and Gaza. Today their regime lies in ruins…. In a matter of weeks, most of Hezbollah’s leaders, its rockets, and thousands of its terrorists went up in smoke. The money your oppressors stole from you literally went up in smoke. You must be furious imagining the new roads, schools, hospitals, that could have been built with the tens of billions of dollars your dictators wasted backing terrorists who lose over and over and over again.
No Minister 
You should actually take the time to step back and consider exactly what you are celebrating.
Syria is now in the hands of Al-Qaeda.
This isn’t a victory for democracy, human rights, peace or development, not even for secular nationalism but a victory for the absolute worst of the fanatical homicidal takfiri jihadists Islamist.
And this is what Israel wants, they paid for it, the worked towards it and the achieved it. Previously they paid for and supported Hamas to counter Fatah and now they supported the Al-Nusra Front, AKA Hayat tahrir Al-sham, to stop Assad.
This is why Israel is wrong and this is why Israel is doomed. They aren’t helping people to become better, wiser more enlightened and developed, they are encouraging them to be worse, more ignorant, more vicious, superstitious and cruel.
All contrary to the laws of nature and of God
“When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” Proverbs 16:7
And as for Zephaniah, well he had plenty more to say (on behalf of the LORD of course)
“I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem. I will destroy every remnant of Baal worship in this place, the very names of the idolatrous priests”—Zephaniah 1:4
Which I think is fair comment. Too many idolatrous priest in Jerusalem, far too many.
Thanks Jake , always good to hear the other side of the argument no matter how misguided and ignorant. Utopia is several thousands of years away, just in case you are interested.
Its not Israel’s job as a democratic state, an island, in a sea of despotic nations, “to help people to become better, wiser more enlightened and developed,etc”
As a state it is there to protect its borders and people from evil. To do that they have to carry out evil deeds, or justified homicide or whatever you want to call it. History teaches us very clearly, if you take the time to study it, that turning the other cheek never works.
For instance, the British didnt need to wipe out the Maori in 1840. The maori realised they wanted to live in peace and take on the form of modern society.
I suspect most Arabs, ordinary people, in most of these despotic countries would love to do the same thing but the despots who rule them have other ideas. These leaders follow a horrific religious cult that encourages extermination of others.
The Ukrainians are following the same principle, just ask Andre, who has lived in despotic Russia, now ruled by the Czar Putin.
It is Israel’s job to make people better, more enlightened and more civilized. It is a moral obligation upon every human and every group of humans. I am consistently amazed at those people who give Israel a Zionist free pass, as if they are excluded from the usual moral laws and may be judged against an entirely different set of rules from the rest of humanity.
Helping others and trying to make things better for EVERYONE is how we got out of the trees and started to walk upright like men and not like dammed dirty apes. Moral codes aren’t just harsh taxation placed on us by an unfeeling and indifferent God, it is practical advice on how to live and how to live well.
Why shouldn’t I poop in the river? I’m not living downstream and if those downstream people don’t know how to boil their water and get sick well that’s what they get for being stupid. There is both a moral code and sensible advice in all of this.
You don’t live downstream from your poop but someone does, and you and yours will be much better off if they and theirs are strong and healthy rather than weak and sick.
What happened in the European colonization of New Zealand is instructive on this point. Certainly the British came with smallpox and muskets, that sort of thing is inevitable, but they came with much more besides and as a result of both the active and passive measures of a civilizational project the Maori achieved more that 10,000 years of social progress in less than two centuries. Quite impressive.
In a great empire the barbarians on the fringes become less barbarous over time. But not around the fringes of Greater Israel, people are becoming worse over time and if the safety, peace and prosperity of one person requires the fear, danger and immiserating of 10 other people or even 2 other people, then the system is unstable and it will collapse.
Israel is heaping up the fire wood for its own funeral pyre and the flames aren’t going to start sometime in the future, they are burning right now.
Would not disagree with your comments about the Maori, they were given an opportunity and took it. Some didnt, such as Te Rauparaha and some Waikato chiefs. The Waikato chiefs were quite content to raid, invade and pillage Taranaki, take what land and resources they could but weren’t so happy when the big boys came to play. But thats another story where a one sided story is attempted to be used for political and monetary gain.
Meanwhile back in the Middle East,. Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and a few other Arab countries all co -exist with Israel. I think at least 9 nine peace treaties were offered to the so called Palestinians over the years, including their own state. All turned down by despotic leaders.
And as you will know from close study, only Gaza revolted in October last year, not the West Bank. And as you will also know Gaza political system was over thrown in 2009 , I think, by the despots.
So you are partially right, Israel does have some responsibility to bring civilization to the Arab savages but your argument falls down because the other side didn’t reciprocate. Of course, the countries I mention above, Egypt, etc did.
As for Syria, ruled by a vicious despot, despite being trained as a doctor, who used his country as a conduit for terror supplied by Iran. Iran will now reap the whirlwind and one hopes its people will be free.
Syria is a shithole. I suspect the new leader will be in the same mold as others of his faith, and if he starts down that road I’m sure countries like Israel, Turkey, and the US will quickly make an example of him “pour encourager les autres”.
We will see, but I’m sure most commentators would agree what’s happening now is far superior to the status quo of yesterday.
One can only admire the Israelis and the Ukrainians, fighting for what they believe in against the oppressor.