Yourish.com

Ynet writer Guy Bechor says that Syria will not attack Israel, in spite of the actions—and messages—to the contrary seen lately.

Hizbullah’s success in paralyzing the north of Israel for over a month last summer left Bashar Assad with his mouth agape: He, with his lack of experience, saw this as proof that Israel could be defeated. This is why Assad has expedited Syria’s rearmament campaign in the past year.

Assad thought that in times of need he could reach some kind of victory over Israel by also paralyzing it through rocket fire, and in so doing would bring the issue of the Golan Heights on to the international agenda, getting it back “honorably” as one who did so through an impressive military maneuver.

The establishment of the international tribunal into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, set to commence shortly, is of great concern to Assad, as it poses an existential threat to him personally and to the minority Alawite regime that he heads. As it is the way of the Syrians to extinguish fires by creating even greater ones, Israel justifiably feared that Syria was preparing for war before being blamed for the Hariri murder.

The welcome outcome to these warnings was that the IDF significantly boosted its preparedness level on the Golan Heights. We all read about the series of large-scale exercises the army carried out on the Golan. These public exercises were welcome, and they should be continued, because they led to an important development. The Syrians have been deterred. Deterrence has been reinstated. The rules of the game have been reset.

Israel made it clear to the Syrians that if Assad thinks that an attack on its sovereignty would be a walk in the park and that Israel would suffice with the hesitant responses that characterized the last war, it is mistaken. The IDF is an army positioned at the gates of Damascus, and not the other way around.

I hope he’s right. The real testing time will be immediately before the UN Hariri investigation takes place. That is when Syria is most likely to launch hostile action, either against Lebanon or Israel.

Yet another example of Arab diplomacy:

In a secret message relayed to Jerusalem, Syria warned the Israeli government that should it continue to reject Damascus’ peace overtures, a war of attrition may break out in the Golan Heights, according to a report published Thursday.

Yedioth Ahronot has learned that in recent days Israel received reports of increased Syrian presence on its side of the Golan Heights in preparation for a possible war.

Interesting timing, isn’t it? Why, it comes mere days after Ahmadinejad went to Syria to talk to Assad and Nasrallah, and then threatened Israel and the U.S. with a hot summer.

During the past year the Syrian government has encouraged its citizens to settle in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights; Israel has recently learned that many of those who have made the Golan their new home were officers in active or reserve army duty who had lost their jobs following Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005.

Should a military conflict erupt in the region, these officers are expected to spearhead acts of attrition against Israel.

The Golan Heights are still extremely valuable militarily. Because this is what Syria did when the Golan was under Syrian control:

From 1948-67, when Syria controlled the Golan Heights, it used the area as a military stronghold from which its troops randomly sniped at Israeli civilians in the Huleh Valley below, forcing children living on kibbutzim to sleep in bomb shelters. In addition, many roads in northern Israel could be crossed only after probing by mine-detection vehicles. In late 1966, a youth was blown to pieces by a mine while playing football near the Lebanon border. In some cases, attacks were carried out by Yasir Arafat’s Fatah, which Syria allowed to operate from its territory.

Israel’s options for countering the Syrian attacks were constrained by the geography of the Heights. “Counterbattery fires were limited by the lack of observation from the Huleh Valley; air attacks were degraded by well-dug-in Syrian positions with strong overhead cover, and a ground attack against the positions…would require major forces with the attendant risks of heavy casualties and severe political repercussions,” U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) Irving Heymont observed.

Why would anyone believe it would be any different today, when Syria is working arm-in-arm with Iran? The world ignores the near-daily rocket bombardment from Gaza. It would also ignore bombardments from the Golan into Israel. It did before.

Israel repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, protested the Syrian bombardments to the UN Mixed Armistice Commission, which was charged with policing the cease-fire. For example, Israel went to the UN in October 1966 to demand a halt to the Fatah attacks. The response from Damascus was defiant. “It is not our duty to stop them, but to encourage and strengthen them,” the Syrian ambassador responded. Nothing was done to stop Syria’s aggression. A mild Security Council resolution expressing “regret” for such incidents was vetoed by the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Israel was condemned by the UN when it retaliated. “As far as the Security Council was officially concerned,” historian Netanel Lorch wrote, “there was an open season for killing Israelis on their own territory.”

I read recently an article that thinks August is the month for hostilities to break out. I’m wondering if that article wasn’t correct.