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MEPP Update: Israel and Syria - 'The Incident'

Submitted by Davis Lewin on October 5, 2007 - 9:35am.
 
A roundup of information relating to the September 6th incident between Israel and Syria compiled for our members
 
(Please note, due to the nature of events discussed in this update, I am taking the freedom to take a more personal tone.  NCF as an organisation does not take positions on these matters and I would welcome your reactions to what are explicitly my own views in my capacity as Director of the MEPP programme.  I trust you will find the main updateas neutral as ever.) 
 
Rather than link to all the speculative analyses, I will provide my own roundup, embellished by the information available through our membership.  Let's start at the very top.  One of our most senior members in London, whom I contacted as the story broke said: "It's very strange, because the Syrians could have really used this as a pretext, even for war, but at the very least to ruffle some feathers.  Yet they clearly do not want the details to get out".  A friend of mine has just taken up a post at the UN.  His first email spoke of the UK civil service (his previous post) being 'an ultra efficient private company' in comparison.  Most people I spoke to agreed with my tongue in-cheek-assessment.  What do you do if you don't want anything to be done about it?  Complain to the UN.  And so the Syrians did.  Without providing photos.  And according to at least one source not even directly, but 'having a complaint passed to the UN'.  Clearly, whatever happened was so sensitive as to suppress the 'blame Israel' drive.  And our Syrian friends have a strong one.  Didn't the Mossad kill Hariri?  And now - with Jets to shoot at and Zionists to chide - not a word? Someone is extremely uncomfortable.
 
But it get's stranger.  Israel has very little rain, but in the words of one recent guest of NCF, Ambassador Alon Liel, 'everything leaks'.  And so it does.  Indeed, a good diplomatic history about relations between Israel and Syria would certainly have to flag up that substantative issues aside, in terms of process, Israel has a lot to answer for in that arena.  The Syrians are right not to trust the Israelis on secrecy, a fact that makes peace between the two all the harder to effect.  And NCF is engaging here on the second track all the time, but confidence building takes time.  Which is of course once again moving ever further into the realm of the MEPP fantasists.  And there are so many.  Leave it to the Jerusalem Post then, to point out that this goes to show that the recent Israeli-Syrian 'peace manoeuverings' are all conducted in a context of the ugly elephant of war in the region.  What the Jerusalem Post has absolutely correct, is that we are witnessing a dynamic now that hinges entirely on the outcome of the confrontation with Iran.  And all NCF's friends are uneasy.  But dream we may - of a Syria prized away from Tehran, at peace with a tamer Israel, an independent Lebanon at peace with both - and prosperity for a Gaza not run by people who throw their rivals from buildings.  Back to reality.
 
So the leaks?  A source I am proud to call a friend, an award winning Journalist whose insights into Israel usually bring on the kind of feeling where years of study are suplanted by a half hour of informative chat, says it is almost unprecedented.  Him and his colleagues know nothing.  And in his words: 'I don't remember ever seeing the censor acting so stringently.  Every little hole, no stone unturned, nothing get's out.  Nothing'.  Senior British journalists who are members of NCF report much the same reaction from their colleagues in Israel.  Something major happened.  Alex Brummer in Friday's Jewish Chronicle says the Observer was the first in our press to flag up the significance of the incident.  Brummer explains why, what one senior editor described to him as 'the sort of event having the potential to start World War three', is not being written about.  It's because even in the age of 24 hour news, when push comes to shove on national security, the Israelis can keep shtumm. 
 
And so they did.  Until Bibi couldn't take it anymore and went on National TV.  Olmert's office had a heart attack (in the process describing him as 'sick and dangerous') and, a quick whip-around shows, Netanyahu did himself no favours with others either.  In the words of Eitan Cabel (Labor Secretary General): "Bibi hasn't changed," he said. "I have no idea if this is stupidity, foolishness, an attempt to jump on the bandwagon, to steal credit, or whatever else. Netanyahu's attitude is clearly dangerous. He is simply unworthy of leadership." Bibi's man Yuval Steinitz, responding to his friends call for defensive quotes to the press, could only bring himself to say that the 'unfortunate' comments had not caused 'real damage'.  What one rather smart observer pointed out is this:  Netanyahu might be desperate to show he is still 'in' on security issues at the highest level, but the incident was clearly worthy of cross-party discussion.
Israel, like Syria, does not want you to know what happened.
 
So what do we know? 
 
Here is what I can piece together - all of which is unconfirmed.  There was a ship from North Korea, reliably tracked by an enterprising Israeli Journalist as having docked in Syria (twice).  It is claimed that the 'cement' that it delivered was transferred to the location that was subsequently hit.  My sources in Israel are beginning to settle on this as an explanation, in light of the statements emanating from US diplomats (who began briefing tidbits after a while), a strange concern over events in Syria emanating from North Korea, and because they figure that the sensitivities involved are too high both for a testing of air defenses  (analysts are on the record as stating that the Syrian air defenses are the same Russian built ones as Iran has at its nuclear instalations, and this raid has proven that it is possible to successfully get in, hit, and leave unharmed), or a disruption of arms-supplies from Syria to Hizballah. 
 
The assumption, again fuelled by briefings from the US, is that there was a nuclear weapons programme component to the target.  This could be a delivery to Iran via Syria, or a Syrian programme, something that seems less likely.  North Korean Diplomats have protested, Russia has been made uneasy by having been shown to produce ineffective weapons, and Israel's leadership is (extremely) quietly smug. 
 
There is also a noteworthy Turkish aspect to this story (with thanks to two highly capable respective sources who pointed this out to me).  Apparently, the Israelis, who had to fly over Turkey to get as deeply into Syrian territory as they wished ( the operation took place in the north of the country), must have had at the very least the tacit cooperation of the Turkish military.  This is said to have come explicitly against the Turkish government's wishes. 
 
And then there was the Sunday Times article last weekend.  Claiming that the Israelis first stole some material from the site to prove the North Korean connection to their US allies, who then blessed the subsequent destruction of the site, the Sunday Times produced one of their by now near obligatory weekly centre-spread sensationalist stories about Israeli military operations, accompanied by the usual graphic.  It pieced together as fact what many had taken to be the story. (Read it HERE)  The only problem is, my senior sources in Israel rate the credibility of the Sunday Times reporting team as rather low, and point to the exclusive use of unnamed sources. 
 
Today, John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN, has a piece in the WSJ about 'the incident' and it's implications for US diplomacy towards Syria, Iran and North Korea.  (Full Article, subscription required, free after October 1st).  Later, the Jerusalem Post got him on the phone, and his quotes indicate that he is also hearing the rough story laid out above. (Full Article) 
 
But still, twenty days since 'the incident', we still don't know what happened.  It seems clear thought that 'the incident' was a substantial one, the best indication for which remains the silence of these two notoriously talkative adversaries. 
 
 
 
Compiled by Davis Lewin on behalf of the NCF MEPP Working Group - with best wishes to all our members

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