War in Syria: No Good News for Israel?

Abstract

In the Middle East things are not always what they seem to be. It would appear that Israel and Syria are the odd couple in the Middle East. Although their relationship seems to be typical of sworn enemies, full of aggressive rhetoric, distrust and a hostile atmosphere, in fact, however, both countries were driven for decades by pragmatic security interests and they have managed to avoid a violent military clash. Yet the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011 created an opportunity for Israel to change the regime in Damascus and made it rethink its policy towards Syria. Therefore, Jerusalem had to decide whether to take the historical chance or stay passive. The goal of this paper is to answer a few questions – whether the war in Syria is a challenge or a threat for Israel? How Jerusalem has tried to balance the chance to get rid of its old enemy and the fundamental security concerns about getting involved into a massive regional conflict. The analysis finds that Israel has a limited impact on events in Syria, that it is able to react at most, and in no case to create facts on the Syrian battlefront. It is also remarkable that, paradoxically, the turmoil in the Middle East even along the Israeli borders has not directly undermined the Jewish state due to the complexity of a dynamic situation and the fact the at superpowers are embroiled into contradictory campaigns.