Strategic Assessment

Along with the peace feelers put out by Israel and Syria since the end of the Second Lebanon War, the fear of another war on the northern front against Syria has been part of the security and public discourse in Israel. The headline “War this Summer” became a regular feature in the media. Israel has anxiously followed the steps taken by Syria’s army toward increased preparedness and Syria’s tightened links with Iran (especially notable in the recent visit to Syria by Iranian president Ahmadinejad), and it is disturbed by the possibility that the last war harmed Israel’s deterrence image in Syrian eyes. The Syrians are fueling the fears in Israel with belligerent statements, warning Israel that if it rejects the hand offered it in peace, Syria, as President Bashar Asad put it, has “other options” for recovering the Golan Heights. However, there are those who see these declarations – which are intertwined with remonstrations of peace – as an expression of Damascus’s increasing distress and its desire to extricate itself at any price from the international isolation that is closing in on it.