Looks like in the eternal fight between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East, Israel is picking the Sunnis. From Justin Raimondo, at antiwar.com:
Remember the brouhaha a few months ago when it was revealed that fighters of the Nusra Front, the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, had seized territory adjacent to Israel? The “let’s intervene in Syria” crowd was up in arms: this supposedly proved the absolute necessity of going full-bore into the region, with US bombing raids and unrestrained support for “moderate” jihadists out to overthrow Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. After all, we can’t leave our loyal ally, Israel, at the mercy of Osama bin Laden’s heirs, can we?
As it turns out, however, Nusra has left the Israelis alone – and, indeed, it looks like there is a de facto alliance between bin Laden’s boys and Bibi’s bombardiers. As the Wall Street Journal reports:
“Nusra Front, however, hasn’t bothered Israel since seizing the border area last summer – and some of its severely wounded fighters are regularly taken across the frontier fence to receive treatment in Israeli hospitals.”
We are told by the Israelis that they don’t check the identities of these injured fighters: “We don’t ask who they are, we don’t do any screening… Once the treatment is done, we take them back to the border and they go on their way,” says one Israeli military official. This from a country one can’t enter from the United States without an extensive interrogation at the airport.
Like most reporting on Israel, this story is chock full of hasbara, with the disturbing news of terrorist fighters treated in Israeli hospitals leavened with a touching tale of a young Syrian boy given a prosthetic arm due to the beneficence of his Israeli hosts. Yet this is overlaid with some darker overtones. While reporter Yaroslav Trofimov is careful to note “it would be a stretch to say that the U.S. and Israel are backing different sides in this war,” he goes on to write:
“But there is clearly a growing divergence in US and Israeli approaches over who represents the biggest danger – and who should be seen, if not as an ally, at least as a lesser evil in the regional crisis sparked by the dual implosion of Syria and Iraq.”
Indeed, Trofimov’s reportage refutes his careful qualifications. He points out that, while leaving Nusra alone – its encampments are “yards” away from a border that is a frequent site of tours by Israeli schoolchildren – the Israelis have begun attacking Assad’s troops and their Hezbollah allies. He also cites Amos Yadlin, former chief of Israeli military intelligence and a likely defense minister if Bibi should lose the election, who avers:
“There is no doubt that Hezbollah and Iran are the major threat to Israel, much more than the radical Sunni Islamists, who are also an enemy. Those Sunni elements who control some two-thirds to 90% of the border on the Golan aren’t attacking Israel. This gives you some basis to think that they understand who is their real enemy – maybe it isn’t Israel.”
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/03/15/bin-laden-and-bibi-together-at-last/
To continue reading: Together At Last
