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I can't understand Israel's motives for their moves other than seeming to be Israeli experimentation with "peaceful" solutions that we are expected to pay for.

I still don't get how they think they are going to be better off without Assad.

The r-e-a-l-l-y puzzling thing is why Israel would align itself w/ the Christian-hating Muslim Brotherhood. Heck, Russia, China and even the Saudis backed Egyptian Gen al-Sisi in his effort to drive the Muslim Brotherhood from Egyptian politics. The military vowed to rebuild the 63 churches torched by the MB as they rampaged over Christiam homes and businesses.

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CBS' Bob Simon's “60 Minutes” segment, entitled “Christians in the Holy Land”-- wherein Simon, a Jewish American CBS correspondent, exposed the exodus of Christians a once-dominant community in Israel and laid it at the door of Israel’s policies toward all Palestinian-Christians.

CBS News---60 Minutes transcript--excerpt The exodus from the Holy Land of Palestinian Christians could eventually leave holy cities like Jerusalem and Bethlehem without a local Christian population, Bob Simon reports. Why are they leaving? For some, life in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become too difficult. Simon states: but Palestinian Christians have been leaving in large numbers for years. So many, the Christian population there is down to less than two percent, and the prospect of holy sites, like Jerusalem and Bethlehem, without local Christians is looming as a real possibility.

Simon asks Eastern Orthodox figure Theophilos: When you first came here in 1964 what was the percentage of Christians in the old city?

Theophilos: There were around 30,000 of-- Christians living in the Old City.

Bob Simon: And now how many are there?

Theophilos: Very few. So few, some 11,000 Christians out of a population of almost 800,000 -- just one and a half percent.

Simon cites not only the “occupation” but also the Jewish communities: Palestinian Christians, once a powerful minority, are becoming the invisible people, squeezed between a growing Muslim majority and burgeoning Israeli settlements…

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oron then told Bob Simon on-screen that lessening the Christian population in Israel was necessary---b/c "Israel has to defend its own interests."

For the record, Israel doesn't have a public position on Assad and regime change in Syria. They live with these people at close quarters. They know better than anyone else in the West what is going on over there.