So Israel Really Is Above the Law – No Matter What (#212)
- taru19
- Feb 12, 2018
- 6 min read
Recently in a news article on BBC* we were informed:: ‘an Iranian drone had flown into Israeli air space from Syria which Israel shot down’, then as additional retaliation to the drone being launched, an 8 plane bombing mission was carried out by Israel to attack ‘Iranian’ positions in Syria’ from where the drone was suspected to have been launched. During this bombing mission an Israeli warplane, an F-16 Fighter Jet, was shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft missile defences. The two pilots flying the plane ejected, but according to the report, were injured, one critically. Israel then retaliated more vigorously the ‘most significant attack since 1982 Lebanon war’, sending another air raid to strike both Syrian and Iranian positions inside Syria.
Throughout this article Iranian presence in Syria was given as the reason for Israel’s angst and resultant bombing missions. Not much was mentioned about Syrian sovereignty and Syrian forces, and even more importantly, nothing at all about Russia being in Syria as the prime supporter of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. No mention is made of the casualties caused in Syria by the intense Israeli air raids that caused ‘extensive damage to military installations’; all of this for a purported drone flight into Israeli air space that apparently caused no damage. If this ‘air space’ was the Golan Heights, which it seems as they mention Northern Israel, then it is the very large Syrian territory that Israel captured and kept during the first Arab-Israel war.
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is quoted as saying that Israel wants peace but will retaliate in its defence against any attack or any attempt by Iran to establish itself against Israel. [For the ‘Record’, we agree that Israel has absolute right to defend itself.] But Netanyahu’s protestations of peace are always accompanied by actions that not only have no possibilities of peace attached to them, but are usually highly damaging to the other party, be it the Palestinians or the Syrians, from both of which huge tracts of lands and rights have been annexed, but who also are subject to constant pre-emptive attacks, covert, and overt, such as this double air raids into Syrian territory, for the slight of a drone flight into its air space. And, by the way, if drone flights into other country’s air space were a crime, U.S.A. would be the most guilty of all. Yet, the U.S.A. considers it its inalienable right to surveil and attack others all the time with drones. And it would stand to reason that Israel also uses drones extensively.
Still, there are some more troubling aspects to this news story.
If a ‘drone’ was launched from Syria and it flew into ‘Israeli air-space’, Israel exercised its absolute right to shoot it down, which it successfully did.
But then it used that incident, where it had already shot down the drone (no damage by the drone was mentioned), to additionally retaliate and sent war planes in to bomb the ‘Iranian positions’ in Syria, presumably from where the drone was launched. In which case, it violated and entered Syrian air space with multiple war planes. Normally, anywhere in the World that is considered an ‘Act of War’, but in Iraq, and now Syria, who is there to complain, as both countries have been shattered beyond recognition for the purposes of ‘Regime Change’, a favourite past time of America’s. This of course usually doesn’t turn out too well for the citizens of those countries, as has been amply proven in Iraq and Syria, whose people have been made homeless refugees by the Millions, seeking shelter in other countries.
Israel obviously expected no retaliation ‘in defence’ by the Syrian forces for their heavy-handed air raid. When the Syrians did retaliate (there were enemy war planes attacking them in their country after all), Israel took exception to Syria’s temerity and bombed them heavily, twice!
In other words, Israel expects to be able to attack and retaliate-at-will, regardless of damage incurred or not, and does not expect Syria, a Sovereign Country, to retaliate at all, even in its own defence. Not taking anything away from Israel’s right to defend it-self, there still should be some element of proportionate response and at least a ‘nudge-and-a-wink’ towards ‘International Law’, or, as it seems to be the case here, it’s pure bullying because of superior military power with the usual unconditional backing of the ever supportive United State of America.
The mundane question therefore arises, should Syria retaliate to the repeated air strikes on its territory? According to international law it should have the right. But then that is not how things have worked in Syria or the greater Middle East over the past decades, have they?
Apparently, Israel has felt free to launch pre-emptive or retaliatory air strikes into Syria for years now (by some estimations well over a hundred). It obviously does not expect Syria to react in kind because then it gets really mad and bombs even harder, and with full U.S.A. backing of course.
Nobody is a fan of Bashar al-Assad, who has proven to be an awful dictator, and downright evil in the merciless and cruel suppression of his people’s legitimate grievances. But does that give other countries the right to attack, bomb and destroy within the Syrian territory at will, for their own interests? If so, should Syria and other targeted countries also have that same right?
If International Law does not apply except when it is favourable to certain favoured countries, then there really is no law. Only the law of convenience and the law of ‘might is right’.
The other troubling aspect of this story is that it was skewed to portray the Iranians as the bad guys, solely. Iran has acted in its own interests, as all countries do, and some of those actions have been objectionable, as has Israel’s and America’s. That puts Iran solidly among all the other nations that are acting in their own interest by participating in external actions and wars. Highest on that list is the U.S.A., Russia, Israel, and even Saudi Arabia.
It is also obvious that the joint mission of the U.S.A., Israel and Saudi (the ‘Coalition’), to destroy all countries with Shia leadership (who are the minority in the Islamic World to the overwhelming Sunni majority), at any pretext, is fully on.
Iraq and Syria have been destroyed; Yemen is in the process of being destroyed; so that leaves Iran as the biggest, strongest Shia Country in the World still intact. That is an untenable situation for the coalition, so the propaganda against Iran has been relentless. Everything from it being the sole major sponsor of global Islamic terrorism, even of the Sunni Al Qaida and ISIS (Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson’s recent assertion), which everyone who is even marginally familiar with the politics of that region would know is wrong, because the most powerful and globally active terror groups are inspired and sponsored by the extremist Wahhabi Islamic tradition, which is of Saudi ‘Sunni’ origin, not of ‘Shia’ Iran; to the U.S.A., under Trump and Tillerson, claiming that Iran is the sponsor of global terrorism and is in violation of its Nuclear Agreement ‘in spirit’, if not in law, and other such nonsense, is just the means to cater to their uninformed home base and builds a case to attack Iran (all of this is reminiscent of the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ excuse which the Bush administration used to destroy Iraq and now admit that they were in the wrong).
It is no secret that the West, led by U.S.A., Israel, Saudi, and other major Sunni nations like Egypt and Pakistan, would have liked Assad removed from Syria, permanently. Who wouldn’t have? Well, Putin wouldn’t have. And just in the nick of time, just when Assad was literally done for, Putin and his Russia rode to the rescue, and very effectively rescued him.
Iran and its proxies and partners, Hezbollah and Hamas, joined the rescue, and formed the opposing coalition to U.S.A. and Saudi’s coalition. They collectively rescued Assad, re-established him in Syria and have been fighting the ‘rebels’ (the U.S.A., Saudi - Sunni-Groups, along with Israel). They (Russia, Assad’s Syrian Army, Iran and its partners) also fought ISIS, and in a large measure helped defeat it in Syria. Irani forces also fought alongside the Iraqi forces to defeat and remove ISIS from parts of the shattered Iraq.
So while Iran is no innocent, it is fighting alongside the Russians, the Syrian Army and its partners in Syria, just like the U.S.A., the Saudi sponsored Sunni rebel groups and Israel are fighting inside Syria, to control and carve up what’s left of Syria, to keep greater control in the region. It is what all countries involved there are doing. The only question is, why is it right for some to do it with impunity and not for others? And why can’t Syria a Sovereign Country defend itself without it being punished over and over. And we are talking just conventional weapons here, not lethal and banned chemical weapons of any kind, which were manufactured and first used in the West anyway, just like the nuclear weapons, and then exported around the World. And this is not a defence of Assad, but the defence of a Country’s sovereign rights, and its right to defend itself, just like Israel’s rights.
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