Israel Owns Syria's Military: Netanyahu Claims Golan Heights Forever and Destroys Syria's Military Might in Two Days

Granted Israel is nowhere near ruling over Syria, and it surely knows that would never work. Millions of Syrians would never subject themselves to rule within a Jewish state. That would be a much harder war to win. However, the fall of Bashar al Assad at the hands of revolutionaries who don’t, yet, have what it takes to assume full control of the country, and especially the military they fought against, gave Israel the opportunity to seize a major strategic military territory and occupy some land it has long claimed belongs to it and to wipe out nearly all of Syria’s heavy military assets.

Look at all that Israel has taken “ownership” of in the past forty-eight hours based on the stories carried in The Daily Doom’s headline section below. It’s almost as stunning as the Six-Day War:

• Israel has attacked Syria’s navy, taking out fifteen vessels in two ports. Israel has released photos of the sunken ships, their badly scorched decks just visible beneath the surface of the water. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has claimed the entire Syrian navy has been taken out by Israel, but photos stopped far from proving that.

• Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes on ground facilities, including inside Syria’s capital, Damascus, which were described as “the most violent in Damascus in 15 years.” Most of the strikes across the country were on weapons facilities, including chemical weapon sites that have been disabled. (Stockpiles, of course, must be dealt with slowly and safely, so they’re not dispersed.) One report says the air raids “left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets.” Nevertheless, the pounding across the nation continues, so there must be some things left to take control of.

• IDF tanks have advance to within 25 kilometers of Damascus, which is the closest they’ve been in history.

• Israel has also released photos of its troops on the ground crossing from the Golan Heights into the demilitarized buffer zone in Syria where UN peacekeepers are based with Netanyahu announcing the military had temporarily seized control of the area, claiming the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria had "collapsed" with the rebel takeover of the country and that Israel has taken Golan forever. Israel says its troops will not pass beyond the buffer zone.

• All of that, and it appears none of those forces fought back in any significant way now that they have been decapitated by the Syrian rebels. It was almost a costless victory in terms of Israeli lives or lost Israeli military equipment, outside of the munitions used.

It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, of course

The fat lady being the UN, which will oppose any effort to try to turn Syria into Netanyahu’s vision of Greater Israel. That includes the Golan Heights, which Israel has always claimed belonged to Israel, and which the UN has never accepted as being part of Israel. That global political reality doesn’t change for Israel just because Jewish soldiers now fill the military posts of the Golan Heights or because Netanyahu repeats the claim.

Israel has also stated it has no interest in seizing all of Syria to become part of Israel (because it surely knows it would be ungovernable) or in meddling with Syrian affairs, but it’s not clear how much Israel will seize. Its focus now is on destroying the rest of Syria’s military capabilities.

"The [UN Security] council, I think, was more or less united on the need to preserve the territorial integrity and unity of Syria, to ensure the protection of civilians, to ensure that humanitarian aid is coming to the needy population," Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters….

According to the UN's chemical watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) … the OPCW said it had contacted Syria "with a view to emphasising the paramount importance of ensuring the safety and security of all chemical weapons related materials and facilities" in the country….

On Sunday, Netanyahu branded the collapse of the Assad regime a "historic day in the Middle East" and insisted Israel would "send a hand of peace" to Syrians who wanted to live in peace with Israel.

He said the IDF presence in the buffer zone was a "temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found".

"If we can establish neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that's our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel," he said.

Several Arab states in the region are already accusing Israel of exploiting the instability in Syria to execute a “land grab” in order “to occupy more Syrian territories.”

With Assad overthrown and Syria in shambles, Israel has declared the permanent annexation of the Golan Heights. "The Golan Heights," announced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "will forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel."

He said that control over this historical Syrian territory "guarantees" Israel's security and sovereignty and is of "great importance". The announcement came as Israel pounded with airstrikes numerous Syrian bases, abandoned army assets, parked warplanes and helicopters, and even naval ships off Latakia….

Regional security sources and officers within the now-fallen Syrian army who spoke to Reuters described Tuesday morning’s airstrikes as the heaviest yet, hitting military installations and airbases across Syria, destroying dozens of helicopters and jets, as well as Republican Guard assets in and around Damascus.

"The rough tally of 200 raids overnight had left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets, said the sources," the report adds…. [Later tallies are now over 480 and climbing.]

Netanyahu further hailed that this signals the start of a "new and dramatic chapter" in the history of the Middle East. He called Assad a "central element of Iran’s axis of evil" but that Iran over-invested and everything collapsed….

Some critics of the now ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have pointed out that this supposed "revolution" has resulted in a situation where Turkey is carving up the north and Israel is carving up the south, while the whole country is defenseless, without anti-air protection, against Israeli strikes….

Meanwhile Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also had a message in the wake of the dramatic changes in Syria. He warned HTS and the armed factions now in control, saying that if they threaten Israel they will be attacked relentlessly:

"The IDF has acted in the last few days to attack and destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel," Katz says, warning the rebels that "whoever follows [ousted president Bashar] al-Assad’s footsteps will end up like Assad did. We won’t allow an extremist Islamic terror entity to act against Israel from beyond its borders… we will do anything to remove the threat."

“We are changing the face of the Middle East.”

—Netanyahu

---