For Israel, the end of Assad's dictatorship is no cause for celebration

By Lubna Masarwa - MEE Jerusalem Bureau Chief

Within hours of Syrians taking to the streets to celebrate their newfound freedoms, Israel was on the offensive - relentlessly pounding the country, including the capital, Damascus, and raising new fears about the future of Syria and the wider region.

Joyful crowds had gathered in the capital’s central squares, waving the Syrian revolutionary flag after rebels ended the Assad family’s brutal half-century rule.

Syrians could be seen dancing, singing and playing drums, in scenes that recalled the early days of the Arab Spring uprising before a brutal crackdown and the rise of an insurgency plunged the country into a 13-year civil war.

But for Israel, such images were no cause for celebration.

After Assad’s ouster by Syrian rebels, Israel immediately took advantage of the power vacuum to destroy vast amounts of Syrian military infrastructure.

More than 500 aerial strikes destroyed warplanes, helicopters, weapons caches and the bulk of the country’s navy.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said it was launching the strikes to prevent advanced military equipment from falling into the hands of the rebels, but several Israeli officials were far more honest when describing the offensive.

If you want to receive this newsletter direct to your inbox, you can sign up here.

Yehuda Wald, the director general of the Religious Zionist Party, posted photos of Israeli soldiers with Israeli flags in Gaza, Lebanon and now Syria, writing: “The Israeli flag. Gaza. Lebanon. Syria. Who would have believed. Wild!”

Meanwhile, other Israeli officials couldn’t contain their joy after Israel captured Syria’s highest peak, the Mount Hermon summit, on the day the rebels stormed Damascus.

“The good news is the strengthening of the Kurds and the expansion of their control in the northeast of the country (the area around Deir Ezzor),” Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, said.

“Operationally, Israel must renew its control over Mount Hermon and stabilise a new line of defence based on the 1974 ceasefire. The jihadists must not be allowed to establish themselves near our communities.”

Even before Assad was toppled, several Syrian towns near the occupied Golan Heights lay abandoned, including the ruined city of Quneitra in the demilitarised zone that separates unoccupied Syrian territory from the Golan.

Israel had captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau in southwestern Syria, in the 1967 war and has occupied it ever since.

The occupation is illegal under international law, but the United States recognised Israel’s claim on the Golan during the Trump administration.

Israel fears democracies in the Arab world

Israel’s seizure of Mount Hermon has showed it isn’t just intent on grabbing land from its neighbours, but also hell-bent on dampening celebrations in the long fight for liberation and democracy in the Arab world.

“You see a neighbour of yours celebrating a humane moment, and you don’t see and understand this moment and what it means to them,” Amir Fakhory, a Palestinian academic and activist, told Middle East Eye.

“Instead, you [Israel] rush to bomb and attack it,” he added.

Within 72 hours of Assad’s ouster Israeli military and intelligence chiefs were meeting Egyptian officials in Cairo for urgent talks about regional stability.

According to Israel’s Maariv newspaper, the meeting was reportedly attended by Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency.

Whilst the details of Halevi and Bar’s trip haven't been released, it’s more than likely that they were dealing with concerns about the possible destabilisation of Jordan and local attempts to emulate the success of the rebels in Syria.

Maariv cited fears in official circles that the sudden collapse of the Assad dynasty could embolden calls for political change in other Arab states.

But according to Fakhory, Israel genuinely fears that a democracy could flourish in Syria and wants to undermine such a transition at any cost, fearing that could it could result in greater pro-Palestine solidarity.

“At the moment when an Arab nation wants to advance and when there is an opportunity for democracy, Israel wants to record it as a moment of humiliation and defeat,” Fakhory said.

“The destruction of the military force in Syria, so that this moment will not be recorded as a moment of glory and honour, but as a moment of humility and defeat, so that this is how it will be recorded in history.”