'Israel saw a vacuum caused by the end of the Assad regime'

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00:00Right.

00:01Good morning.

00:02Well, Israel saw an opportunity in the vacuum caused by the end of the Assad regime to get

00:09rid of weapons that it considered threatening just across its own border.

00:14So the chemical weapons, those were the airstrikes in Damascus.

00:19Also weapons factories.

00:22Basically Israel's trying to take Syria back to the period before Iran began using Syria

00:29as a weapons hub for the transmission of armaments to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

00:36And secondly, Israel is reacting, as the prime minister, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin

00:41Tam said yesterday, to prevent what he called any possibly antagonistic new government of

00:49Syria from being able to take advantage of the Syrian army's weapons against Israel.

00:55So in that context, the Israeli air force struck more than 400 planes.

01:02Basically what used to be Assad's air force is gone.

01:05Similarly, much of the Navy is gone.

01:08The Israeli army yesterday declared that it believed that in 48 hours it had gotten rid

01:15or destroyed between 70 and 80 percent of the Syrian weaponry.

01:22And if that is true, we should see a very radical halt or a very radical diminution

01:31in the amount of Israeli strikes, because most of their targets will have already been

01:37eliminated.

01:40The other matter touches on the buffer zone on the border between Israel and Syria.

01:49There Israel was accused of having overstepped even the buffer zone.

01:52In other words, the buffer zone is a no man's land between two countries.

01:56It was determined by the ceasefire agreement of 1973, and no army had previously stepped

02:03into it.

02:04This was a quiet, if not a peaceful border.

02:08The Israeli army yesterday put out an official statement saying that it had not gone beyond

02:14the borders of the buffer zone, and that this was temporary and a defensive measure.

02:20Well, some in the international community have condemned Israel's going into that buffer

02:25zone and potentially further, including some members, actors in the region.

02:31Does Israel then risk alienating partners in the Middle East and the Gulf?

02:36Absolutely, risks alienating partners and it risks provoking antagonists.

02:42The EU representative in Syria has decried this move, as has Egypt, as has the United

02:50Arab Emirates.

02:51That's an important regional diplomatic ally for Israel.

02:55I think that's probably the reason that the Israeli army issued such an unequivocal statement

03:02yesterday saying we have not taken one step beyond the borders of the buffer zone and

03:08it's only defensive.

03:09But the most important criticism has come from the brand new Syrian temporary government,

03:15the one that was just installed yesterday.

03:18It was a threatening message and it said in response to the Israeli army messages in which

03:24Israel conveyed that if you turn against us, we have a very massive counterattack ready,

03:31the Syrian rebels who are taking over power said the road to Jerusalem is open to us.

03:38So we do risk right now a flare up on what would be an inconceivable eighth front to

03:46this war that Israel is waging with so many of its regional neighbors.

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