By C.J. Atkins
Peace forces around the world are on guard, warning against Israeli and US interference in the Syrian people’s right to determine their own future in the wake of the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Inside Israel, activists are condemning the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over its invasion of Syria in the days since Assad fled the country. The Biden administration, meanwhile, joined in Israel’s effort by bombing a number of weapons depots and Islamic State operatives in central Syria over the last few days.
Apparently not content with eliminating much of the population of Gaza and annexing their land, the Israeli leader is now taking advantage of the instability he helped create in Syria to potentially seize swathes of territory in that country.
Al-Ittihad reported that Israeli tanks had advanced to less than 20 kilometers of Damascus as of December 10. “The occupation army launched an aggression at dawn…targeting the vicinity of Salamiyah in the eastern countryside of the city of Hama,” according to a dispatch from the paper. Israeli bombers also targeted an airport near Homs as well as a variety of other military sites, including in the capital city.
Egypt, Iraq and the Arab League all issued statements criticizing Israel for using Assad’s downfall as an opportunity to launch an invasion and illegally occupy more of Syria’s territory.
US holds onto oil
At the same time that Israel’s actions were underway, a spokesperson for the US military said its forces were focused on “securing” chemical weapons in Syria that will now likely be controlled by the victorious Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel forces. It was unclear what these “securing” actions entailed. The US Air Force also attacked several armed groups affiliated with HTS’ rivals in the Islamic State.
Syria’s civil war, along with the variety of foreign actors who’ve become involved, stemmed from the early 2010s “Arab Spring” uprisings against a number of autocratic governments in the Arab world, often with the encouragement or direct support of the US and other Western powers. In some countries, like Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, the government was overthrown; in Syria, it resulted in a prolonged war that saw fundamentalist jihadist forces from around the world converged on the country in hopes of establishing an Islamic state.
There are currently an estimated 900 US troops occupying oil fields in eastern Syria, where they’ve been stationed since 2014 after being sent by President Barack Obama. By holding onto the oil, the Pentagon pursued a long-term strategy of starving the Assad government of revenue and aiding rebel forces. US forces are one group among many foreign contingents that have operated in Syria over the past decade; Russia deployed troops of its own to the country in 2015 to help combat the fundamentalist fighters at the request of the Assad government. Iranian or Iran-backed fighters have also had a presence.
In the years that followed, the US spent billions of dollars arming and training various “rebel” groups under an anti-Assad pretext; many of them eventually joined or merged with Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated factions. The effort was designated “Operation Timber Sycamore” and was the largest covert CIA operation since the 1980s anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan, which saw the US provide military and financial support to groups that eventually became Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
While US operations in Syria have often been framed as encouraging democracy and aiding the resistance against Assad, former President Donald Trump was more honest about the role of the US military in Syria. In 2020, he boasted, “They say, ‘He left troops in Syria.’ You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil. The only troops I have are taking the oil. They’re protecting the oil. I took over the oil.”
Israeli peace movement reacts
The latest moves follow Israel’s December 8 ground invasion of the buffer zone in the Golan Heights, a zone established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement after the 1973 war.
Standing on the border between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Netanyahu declared the 50-year-old peace agreement null and void since the government with which it was signed no longer existed.
The Golan Heights was captured and annexed by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, but most countries of the world – other than the US – continue to recognize it as Syrian territory.
In other remarks, Netanyahu claimed credit for the overthrow of Assad, calling the former Syrian government “a central link in Iran’s axis of evil.”
Without commenting on the fact that religious reactionaries may now be in charge of Syria, the Israeli leader could not help but show his excitement over what he declared “new, very important opportunities for the State of Israel.”
The Communist Party of Israel and the Hadash electoral coalition (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) issued a joint statement in response to Israel’s invasion of Syria. Published by Zo Haderekh, the organizations’ analysis said Netanyahu’s conduct “points to the long-term ambitions of Israel and its regional and global allies, starting with the Turkish regime, Arab reactionary states, and ending with the United States.”
The CPI and Hadash emphasized that the US has “for decades embraced and even financed fundamentalist terrorist gangs that are engaged in destabilizing the region.”
Israel’s communists said that there is now “a real danger that the US will play a central role in running the Syrian state after the fall of Assad.” They expressed hope that the Syrian people will succeed in rejecting US control and “preserve their own interests…and…fulfill the aspirations of Syrians for freedom and a life of dignity” in a civil and democratic state that guarantees social, cultural and religious pluralism.
Syria post-Assad
As unpopular as the Assad government was, CPI and Hadash said that official Israeli and US cheering for the end of tyranny in the country rings hollow.
“It was not concern for the peace of the Syrian people” that guided Netanyahu and Biden, but “the fact that the previous Syrian regime refused to cooperate with the regional plans of the US and Israel.”
They said adherence to such a view would be “just as absurd as claiming that the US occupied and destroyed Iraq, killing millions of Iraqis, out of concern for the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, or that France, Italy, Britain and the U. destroyed Libya because of Gadhafi’s dictatorship rather than their desire to control its strategic capabilities.”
In the US, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said the most important task is to “reject attempts to circumvent Syrian self-determination by the US, its allies or any foreign powers with their own agendas to expand their power and territory.”
People’s World
Edited slightly for length
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