Two mortar shells fired into the Golan Heights near the Quneitra Crossing Tuesday afternoon. The Quneitra Crossing is a ceasefire line crossing between Syrian controlled territory and the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights and is the only access point between Israel and Syria.
The rounds landed shortly after a secret visit from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The projectiles hit the Golan without causing any injury or damage and IDF soldiers searched the area. However, beyond Israel’s northern boarder a battle is raging and Syria’s civil war is in full throttle. The mortars came from a village located only five miles from Quneitra.
This strategic area that is being fought over by rebels and Syrian forces is located only 25 miles from the Syrian capitol Damascus. If rebels take control of the border area they could use it as a base as they move toward the capitol.
The village also lies a short distance from the Jordan border. In recent months, there have been reports of rebel forces being trained in Jordan for operations against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces just over the boarder in Syria.
During Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit He underlined the Golan Heights importance to Israel. “Here’s the dividing line, on the Golan Heights, between the good and the bad,” he said. “The bad is what is happening on the Syrian side of the border.”
In March 2011 what began as peaceful protests, have since morphed into a civil war that has claimed more then 100,000 lives. In the past year Israel has taken in injured people brought across the boarder between Israel and Syria. Dozens of injured are taken in each month and brought to Israeli medical facilities. One of these facilities is a field hospital located on the Israeli side of the boarder. Netanyahu visited this hospital while he was in the area on Tuesday morning, where many of the injured are being treated.
A 21-year-old Syrian man from Daraa was among those receiving treatment at the Israeli field hospital. He has been recovering from a leg injury for three weeks and was released Tuesday morning. Before going back to war torn Syria, the man was asked if his view of Israel had changed. He replied: “It turns out to be the best State…the regime used to make us hate it, but it turned out to be the best country.”
Israel continues to show strong leadership from within, while it maintains strong humanitarian response in conflicts too close for comfort. Meanwhile its enemies fight amongst themselves failing to protect their citizens costing innocent people their lives. Despite what the State of Israel’s critics claim it is still the center of peace in the Middle East.
Haiti, the tiny Caribbean country, almost the exact same size as Israel, has gathered together to support Israel today.
Israel Natural Gas
There’s a new European natural gas kid on the block – Israel.
Israel’s global position is changing rapidly as the discovery of 36 trillion cubic feet of gas off its coast in the eastern Mediterranean is coming into political and public knowledge. The two main natural gas fields that are being developed and prepared for export are the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields, located near Haifa. Russia, the monopoly holder of natural gas for Europe will most certainly want to get in on the action.
Israel’s goal is not just to be energy-independent, but to become a major energy exporter. Its ultimate objective is to transport the bulk of its gas to Europe, but it aims to sell locally to the Palestinians, and to Jordan—a diversification strategy inspired, in part, by its long experience with disruptions to gas pipelines in the Sinai.
Turkey has, meanwhile, gone to great lengths to quench its thirst for energy, perhaps best epitomized by its sanction-busting purchases of Iranian gas. An energy importer with a huge account-deficit related to mismanagement in the natural-gas sector, Turkey was previously slated to be a recipient of Israel’s new gas finds and the host of the pipeline essential to European exports. However, Turkey’s foundering relationship with Israel and its longstanding territorial dispute with Cyprus over what Turkey, and only Turkey, calls the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus—land Turkey acquired by force from Cyprus in 1974—has turned the potential for collaboration and mutual advantage into a source of antagonism and possible armed conflict.
Meanwhile, Israel is engaged in a dispute with Lebanon over Jerusalem’s claim to an off-shore Exclusive Economic Zone, known as an EEZ, covering the Tamar and Leviathan fields. With U.S. mediation efforts at a standstill and Lebanon’s economy sinking into the abyss, Lebanon is poised to begin offering exploration licenses to firms that would be encroaching on what Israel claims is its territory. These two states are still in a de jure state of war, and a recent border clash left one Israeli soldier dead. If these licenses are granted and there is a breach of Israel’s EEZ, Israel could very well deem it a casus belli worthy of a military response. While the assets of the Lebanese Armed Forces are vastly inferior to those of the Israel Defense Forces, the December 2013 pledge by Saudi Arabia to provide $3 billion to upgrade the LAF’s capabilities—widely seen as an effort by the Saudis to counter the power of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia—could tip this balance of power, rendering the possibility of a large-scale confrontation more likely in the future.
With or without the cooperation or consent of the LAF, Hezbollah could seek to disrupt Israel’s off-shore venture by targeting rigs and Israeli naval patrols. Hezbollah is already in possession of Chinese C-802 anti-ship missiles and is believed to have been given Russian Yakhont missiles by Syria. These massive missiles, powered by ramjet engines and capable of reaching supersonic speeds and hitting targets up to 180 miles from shore, are a potential risk to all Israeli and Cypriot assets. Hezbollah has engaged Israel’s navy in the past with success: During the Second Lebanon War in July 2006, Hezbollah fired a missile at the INS Hanit corvette, killing four sailors and causing extensive damage. Another missile sank a nearby cargo freighter. Hezbollah’s waning support in Lebanon due to blowback from its role in Syria could push the organization to reclaim its populist role as the only resistance force capable of defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression. Fighting for Lebanese rights in the eastern Mediterranean could provide the pretext needed for Hezbollah to reestablish its credibility and raison d’être in the eyes of the Lebanese masses.
As usual, Israel has a blessing from above that all the surrounding bully’s want and there will be a fight to defend it.