Since its inception in 1948, Israel has been at war with Syria four times – in 1948, 1967, 1973, and 1982. In 1967, Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria and annexed them in 1981. Over the years, Israel offered to return the Golan Heights in exchange for a lasting peace, most recently in 2000, but were rebuffed time and time again. In 2019, the U.S. officially recognized the Golan Heights as being under Israeli sovereignty. In 2007, Israel destroyed an undeclared nuclear reactor that Syria was in the process of building. The Syrian Civil War that has been raging since 2011 has taken a toll on Syria’s military capability. While its army is but a shadow of once it once was, it still remains a force to be reckoned with. The Israeli nightmare scenario of swarms of Syrian tanks coming down the Golan Heights into the Galilee still has an effect upon its defense posture.
In the Middle East, things happen very quickly. Over the weekend of December 6-8, 2024, the Syrian Regime crashed and burned. Syrian rebels captured the Syrian capital of Damascus with next to no resistance. Syrian soldiers cast off their uniforms and ran. The government collapsed. President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia where he and his family were granted asylum.
Who are these “rebels” that overthrew Assad? Rather than a homogenous army, they are a diverse group of factions that vary widely in their ideologies, goals, and affiliations. The most prominent of these groups is called “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)” – “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant” – a coalition of northern Syria-based Sunni Islamist insurgent groups that evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front,” al-Qa‘ida’s former branch in Syria. Although HTS has distanced itself from al-Qaeda, it remains a devoutly Jihadist organization. HTS has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council and by the U.S. HTS is led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani, a man who has been designated a global terrorist by the U.S. and who has a $10 million bounty on his head. HTS has been accused of an assortment of human rights abuses, including arbitrary detentions and execution. Recently, HTS has attempted to present itself as a more pragmatic and locally focused organization, distancing itself from global jihadist ambitions. Al-Julani is trying to reinvent himself. Once clad in traditional jihadist militant attire and an uncut bushy beard, he has adopted a more Western-style wardrobe in the past years. His beard is well-kept, and he often wears a jacket. After HTS captured Damascus, al-Julani took to the radio and urged his followers not to fire their machine guns in the air as a sign of their joy, lest an innocent bystander be injured by a stray bullet. HTS has granted general amnesty to soldiers in the Syrian Army. Yet at the same time, the internet is flooded with videos of executions of Assad officials and their bodies thrown into mass graves. Needless to say, the burden of proof is on HTS.
So, as Israelis are prone to ask, is the new Syrian government good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?
The Israelis have offered a very Israeli answer to this question: “What will be in the future is far less important than what we can do now to shape what will be.” To this end, Israel has embarked upon “Operation Bashan Arrow,” aimed at neutralizing current and future threats by destroying military assets that could be used by a future foe – whoever that may be – to threaten or to harm the State of Israel.
On the morning of December 8, Avri Gilead, a well-known Israeli pundit, wrote in his column in the Hebrew daily Yisrael Hayom, “Bashar has left, and it is highly doubtful that he will return. The regime in Syria is falling. Syria is falling apart. Its parts are lying on the floor, and all we have to do is bend over and pick them up.” I thought that these words coming from Gilead, who is not known as a hawk, made a lot of sense. But then reality caught up. In which universe does Israel carry out an unprovoked attack on Syria?
In our universe, apparently. Seeing as Syria had no longer had an acting government, Israel announced that the Disengagement Agreement of 1974 reached with Syria was null and void until order is restored. Israel announced that it would do all that was necessary to prevent Syria from becoming a staging ground for attacks from Syria into Israel. Over the next three days, Israel carried out a set of massive air strikes, essentially destroying the Syrian Air force and Navy:
Modern Fighter Bombers: Over 90% of the Russian-supplied MiG-29 aircraft and about 80% of the Sukhoi-24 aircraft were destroyed. Videos of Israel UAV operators “plinking” parked aircraft with their signature “2-3-fi-re (sha-geir)” are all over YouTube.
Air Defense: More than 80% of the Syrian air defense systems have been destroyed. The country-wide integrated Syrian anti-aircraft system, which was once considered the densest in the world, particularly around Damascus, has fired hundreds of times at Israeli aircraft in recent years. The Israel Air Force (IAF) placed emphasis on the two most advanced systems, which managed to shoot down some of the Israeli missiles used to attack Syria – the medium-range SA-17 “Buk” system, of which 80% were estimated to have been destroyed, and the short-range SA-22 “Pantsir” system, of which 86% were destroyed. Whether or not Syria’s S-300 long-range systems have been destroyed remains unclear. In October, the IAF destroyed the radars of all 4 of Iran’s S-300, leaving the country open to attack at any time. This explains Iran’s hesitance to return fire to Israel’s October attack. Without the S-300, Syria suffers the same fate.
Rockets and Missiles: Here, the achievements are more modest: certain missile arrays were destroyed in high percentages (80-90%), but there are other arrays that were damaged to a much lesser extent (20-30%). The IDF estimates that it is certainly possible that advanced weapons, missiles, and other military capabilities that Israel does not know about could fall into the hands of HTS and so the hunting continues.
Research and Development: The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, Syria’s version of RAFAEL, was destroyed as was its national laboratory for chemical weapons.
Strategic Targets: More than 300 strategic targets, including arms depots, command and control centers, and potential storehouses for chemical weapons were wiped off the face of the earth.
In total, in the operation to destroy Assad's army, the IAF attacked more than 500 targets and used 1,800 munitions. The IAF admits that until a few days before the operation began, it had not been planned at all, and certainly not the extensive use of munitions that were intended for other fronts. Necessity is the mother of innovation.
At the same time, the Israeli Army crossed the border into the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria, capturing the Syrian Hermon Mountain, Syria’s tallest peak, without firing a shot. Tanks moved into Syria, capturing towns and military installations. Israel told the United Nations Security Council that it was taking “limited and temporary measures… to counter any threats to the Israeli Golan Heights.”
The importance of Operation Bashan Arrow cannot be overestimated. First and foremost, the operation will ensure that Syria will not become a military threat anytime in the next generation. If HTS, or any other Syrian organization, wants to wage war against Israel, they’ll be doing it with Kalashnikov rifles and pickup trucks and they’ll be facing F-35 stealth fighters armed with JDAM one-ton GPS-guided bombs, Merkava IV tanks and precision guided tactical missiles.
Another important outcome is the exiting of foreign forces from Syria. After the U.S. ceded control in Syria to Russia in 2011, the Russian military firmly ensconced itself. Russia took over the Tartus Naval Base on the Mediterranean, turning it into a crucial refueling and repair station for Russian naval vessels, and the Hmeimim Air Base, basing its top of the line Sukhoi SU-35 fighter bombers. In order for Israel to strike targets in Syria, it had to deconflict with Russian forces so as not to accidentally cause the downing of a Russian aircraft. Indeed, in 2018 Syria accidentally shot down a Russian aircraft after mistaking it for an Israeli jet, killing all 15 on board. Russian freighters were seen leaving Tartus before Operation Bashan Arrow began, and Russian forces have continued leaving the country ever since. Regardless of Russia’s recent pledge to return to Syria, it is safe to assume that they will play the same wait-and-see game that the rest of the world is playing. And not only did Russia leave Syria, Shiite Iranian and Hezbollah forces ran for their lives from the Sunni onslaught, showing themselves to be paper tigers.
But by far the most important outcome of the HTS victory is the severing of the Iranian land-bridge that runs from Tehran to Lebanon. For the past 25 years, Iran has been arming Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy, to the teeth, transferring large amounts of munitions, including the latest guided anti-tank missiles and ballistic surface-to-surface missiles that can strike any point in Israel with high precision. Broadly speaking, weapons are transferred in one of two routes: Either they are transported by ship to Latakia port in Syria and then smuggled into Lebanon through its northern border, or they are transported by truck to Lebanon’s eastern border where they are smuggled in via Hezbollah’s “Land of Tunnels,” a massive underground tunnel network capable of moving heavy vehicles and missiles that was recently discovered and destroyed by the Israelis. With Syria now under sole control of HTS, those routes are no longer available. Iran can no longer rearm Hezbollah, an organization that is already reeling from Israeli attacks that have decapitated its political and military leadership and destroyed a large majority of its rockets and missiles. Without any new resources, Hezbollah finds itself with a limited supply of weapons, such that even if it wants to renew its war against Israel, it will soon run out of bullets. On December 14, Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem, in his “face the nation” speech, stated this openly when he admitted to his great regret, “Hezbollah has lost its land military supply route in Syria.”
An old Jewish adage roughly reads, “The work of the righteous is performed by others.” What Israel unsuccessfully tried to do for the past twenty years was done successfully by HTS in just two weeks. The Middle East is a changing place and it just so happens that Israel is leveraging that change, setting itself up for forty years of peace and quiet. Now if we could only figure out what to do about Iran…
Good things,
Ari Sacher
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