WASHINGTON – A senior Israeli official
signaled on Wednesday that Israel was considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants, and he warned the Syrian president, Pencilneck Bashar al-Assad, that his government would face crippling consequences if it retaliated against Israel.
| By 'crippling' I think he means "y'all be dead"... |
The Israeli official said: “Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah. The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region.”
“If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies,” the official said, “he will risk forfeiting his life regime, for Israel will retaliate.”
The Israeli official, who has been briefed by high-level officials on the Syria situation in the past two days, declined to be identified, citing the need to protect internal Israeli deliberations. He contacted The New York Times on Wednesday.
| If he's so intent on protecting internal deliberations you'd think he'd keep his mouth shut. Unless Bibi asked him to make the call... |
The precise motives for IsraelÂ’s warning were uncertain:
| That's not true at all. It's completely clear: if you give Hezbollah more missiles we'll whack them. If you resist we'll whack you. What could be clearer than that? |
Israel could be trying to restrain SyriaÂ’s behavior without undertaking further military action, or alerting other countries to another strike. That would ratchet up the tension in an already fraught situation in Syria, where a civil war has been raging for more than two years.
Mr. Assad and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, have both said in recent days that the Israeli-Syrian border, which has been relatively quiet despite the more than two years of civil war inside Syria, could become a “resistance front,” in response to Israeli aggression.
| Nasty and Pencilneck would so like to distract the world, and their neighbors, and the rebels, any way possible. Playing the Joooo card is predictable... |
In his comments, the Israeli official noted that “Israel has so far refrained from intervening in Syria’s civil war and will maintain this policy as long as Assad refrains from attacking Israel directly or indirectly.”
“Israel,” he said, “will continue its policy of interdicting attempts to strengthen Hezbollah, but will not intercede in the Syrian civil war as long as Assad desists from direct or indirect attacks against Israel.”
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declined to discuss the meaning of the Israeli official’s statement. “We’re not going to comment on the story,” he said.
| Meaning, "The story and the message are perfectly clear, and we need say nothing further"... |
American and Israeli political analysts agree that Israel has little motive to intervene in SyriaÂ’s civil war, but is deeply concerned about the transfer of advanced weapons, as well as the danger that Mr. AssadÂ’s stockpiles of chemical weapons could be used against Israel. |