Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett is calling for the world to recognize its 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights because “Syria no longer functions as a country that could reclaim the strategic plateau” according to the Jerusalem Post.
Mr. Bennett is taking advantage of Syrian government’s ongoing civil war with the rebels and the Islamic State known as ISIS or ISIL. Bennett is also “undermining support for Palestinian statehood on other land Israel occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War” according to the report. Bennett called on the international community to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel when he said “I call on the international community: Stand with us, recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights now,” Bennett said in a speech to the Herzliya Conference, an annual Israeli policy forum. “Borders are changing daily. Syria, as a state, no longer exists. So this is the time for initiative.”
It is coincidental that ISIS is also targeting Hamas, a long-time enemy of Israel according to an RT news report that a “jihadist group with ties to the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a mortar attack on a Hamas base in the Gaza Strip.”
The Jihadist group calls itself ‘Supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.’ An online statement posted by the terrorist group that they themselves fired mortar rounds at a Hamas base used by the armed wing ‘Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades’ in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza this past week according to the AFP who interviewed witnesses who heard several explosions close to the base. “It follows an attack earlier this week, which targeted Hamas’ security headquarters in Gaza” according to the RT news report “The attack followed the arrest of a Salafist leader by Hamas last month. The organization claimed he was an ISIS supporter who holds vast swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.” There were other arrests of affiliated members of the Islamic State in the Gaza Strip after a series of bombings in recent weeks. It is also important to note that Judicial Watch obtained documents produced in 2012 by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) through a lawsuit that the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and other puppet states would prefer Syria fragmented in order to further isolate the Assad government:
If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia Expansion (Iraq and Iran)
However, Israel is following developments as ISIS continues its assault against Syria and other neighboring countries including Iraq. For Israel, a Syria that “no longer exists” will expand its hegemony across the Arab world with of course U.S. support. Mr. Bennett’s statement reminds me of what Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said about the Palestinians in 1969 that “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” For Bennett, the Syrian state does not exist anymore; therefore the world should recognize Israel’s rights over the Golan Heights.
For Bennett, the state of Israel is the only entity that exists, not Syria nor the Palestinians. It is the Manifest Destiny of the Middle East led by a government with a Zionist ideology called Israel. Manifest Destiny was an idea that the Americans were destined by God to govern and control all of North America regardless that there were over 500 Native American nations that existed long before the arrival of the Europeans. Israel is doing the same. Israel wants to expand beyond its borders with help from the Syrian rebels, ISIS and several other splinter groups as the war continues within Syria’s borders. RT news reported on December 2014 that the Israeli Defense Forces dealt with the Syrian rebels on a number of occasions:
In a series of reports to the UN Security Council by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), there are a number of documented instances (March 2013 – December 2014) of Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) dealings with “armed members of the opposition” on the Israeli-Syrian border of the Golan Heights. The reports do not distinguish various Syrian militants fighting against President Bashar Assad, which range from West-supported Free Syrian Army to the radical Islamists of the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS
Israeli politicians are taking advantage of the opportunity to declare that Syria “does not exist” because the Assad government prevents Israel’s expansionist policies from moving forward. Declaring that they “do not exist” justifies Israel’s goals of expansion into Arab territories. Syria will continue to resist the terrorists who are supported by the U.S. and Israeli governments. But the question is, will Israel start its own war with Syria to further weaken President Assad? Not anytime soon, because Hezbollah is one obstacle that stands in the way of Israel’s expansionist policies.
