Israeli Analysts Doubt Syria Will Get the Message on Terrorism

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - It is questionable whether Syria will get Israel's message to stop supporting terrorism - a message that Israel sent this weekend when it bombed a terrorist training camp outside of Damascus, experts here are saying.
Israeli fighter planes struck the Ayn Tzahab camp some 12 miles outside the Syrian capital early Sunday, less than a day after Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a restaurant in the northern Israeli coastal city of Haifa, killing 19 people.

Israeli officials said the strike -- the deepest inside Syrian territory since the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- was intended to send a signal to terror organizations. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged that Israel would go after terrorists wherever they are and by every means at its disposal.
The army later released a map of the Damascus area on which it had pinpointed the homes and offices terrorist leaders and organizations.

Initially, Syria turned to the United Nations Security Council seeking a resolution condemning the Israeli attack, which would likely be vetoed by the U.S., but the resolution is currently bogged down because of Syrian unwillingness to include a condemnation of the suicide bombing in Haifa.
But Mohsen Bilal, Syria's Ambassador to Spain, said on Wednesday that if Israel kept up its attacks against Syria, Damascus would have no choice but to react militarily.
Later, however, an unnamed official was quoted as saying that the possibility of a military reprisal was merely the ambassador's "personal understanding" of the official position of Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar Assad charged that Israel was trying to drag Syria and the region into war.
But Reserve Maj.-Gen. Amos Gilad, senior military and political affairs advisor to Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, said Israel is not looking to pick a fight with Syria, only to send a message that it must stop its extensive support of terrorism.
"We don't want any kind of war with Syria," Gilad told a briefing of reporters and diplomats at the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem.
"We don't want any kind of deterioration along our borders," Gilad said. "We sent Assad two messages."

The first message was sent some weeks ago, when Israeli fighter planes buzzed Assad's palace in the northern part of Syria. The second message was the bombing of the terrorist training camp, which Israel said was used by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups for advanced terrorist training.
"We didn't hit any Syrian targets," Gilad said. "The only target we hit was a camp of known terrorist organizations. And this is some kind of message."
Gilad said in the short term he did not believe that the air strikes would cause deterioration in the situation along Israel's northern border, but it was not clear if Assad even got the message Israel sent.
"I don't think there will be deterioration in the next weeks," Gilad said.
"Everybody understands the consequences but the main question here for the future is whether Syria will be convinced or not [to change its policy of support for terror groups]. For the time being I'm not sure but we are very serious about our intention to tackle the problem," he added.

Israeli experts on Syria also expressed their doubts that the singular Israeli air strike would force a change in Syrian policy to abandon its support of terror groups.
"I don't think Syria is interested in an escalation," said Dr. Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University. "[Syria] is not up to a military confrontation."
Nevertheless, Zisser said, Syria did not get this message.

Five months ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Damascus and presented Assad with an ultimatum - demanding that he close down the offices of terrorist organizations headquartered in Damascus. At the time, America was the big winner in Iraq and had a hundred thousand troops there, Zisser said.
"If that was not enough to persuade Syria, why should a limited air strike?" he asked.
Dr. Yossi Olmert, who participated in peace talks with the Syrians in the 1990s, said he doubts that Assad got the message.
"It's not the first message," Olmert said. Israel attacked Syrian installations in Lebanon in 2001 and flew over Assad's palace recently.
"I doubt they'll understand as we want them to understand," he said.

Both Zisser and Olmert noted that in the past, the Syrians gave up only under heavy pressure, not after a limited air strike.
They pointed to Turkey, which gave Syria an ultimatum of war after a decade of attacks from the Damascus-backed Kurdish group PKK. Only then did Syria expel the PKK leader, who was arrested and jailed in Turkey.
What could work is the "cumulative factor," Zisser said. "One strike Bashar can live with it, but if it will happen every week then he'll have a dilemma."
Olmert believes that the time for sending signals is past and with the apparent American backing, the time is now to take action.
"We're wasting time sending signals," he said. "It's about time to go beyond.... The Syrians are harboring terrorists in Damascus," he said, Israel needs to go after them.

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All Israel does is send stupid messages like "next time we'll kill or deport arabrat."

Well, Maxim's WAS next time, and in typical fashion, all Israel does is send another message.

Israel is a country that lacks the will to defend its citizens. No one knows this better than the arab muslim terrorists, which is why we'll see more dead Jews in the street again soon.

If the country of Israel had a collective testicle they would start killing their enemies. They don't and they won't.

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