The Golan Heights: a flashpoint coming?

[CrowBat]

Actually, Israel has the opportunity to win the hearts of all Syrians...

...Israel stands to lose the popular support it gained among the Syrian population of the Golan Heights because it has been allowing Assad regime aircraft to bomb opposition-held villages near the border in recent days, a Free Syrian Army commander told The Times of Israel on Tuesday, voicing dismay at the West’s reluctance to provide the moderate opposition with basic means of self-defense.

In recent days President Bashar Assad’s Syrian Army has intensified its airstrikes against villages along the Israeli border, captured by the opposition over the past few weeks. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, on Tuesday regime aircraft bombarded Syrian villages in the northern and central Golan Heights, including Ovania, Jubata al-Khashab, Turnejeh, Bir Ajam, Masharah and al-Breiqa.

Some of those villages are located within the buffer zone along the border with Israel, where no Syrian military presence is allowed under the Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria of May 1974, signed following the Yom Kippur War. Syrian oppositionists in the area have said that Israel’s reluctance to enforce the agreement against the regime’s army is tantamount to collaborating with Assad against the opposition.
...

... and is doing its best to miss that opportunity.

But then, why make peace, when wars are so much more profitable (for Israel)?

[davidbfpo]

A senior IDF officer serving on the Golan Heights told correspondents that the with the exception of Mt. Hermon, 95% of the border between Israel and Syria was controlled by various rebel groups. The dominant group is the Al-Nusra Front, which conquered the region of Quneitra two months ago (Haaretz.co.il, September 22, 2014).

Footnote 4 in a wider ICT paper on ISIS:http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/Dat..._163836165.pdf

[davidbfpo]

The first episode in a Vice News film report on the strange relationship underway on the Golan Heights, between the IDF and armed factions in Syria:https://news.vice.com/video/the-war-next-door-part-1

I missed the numbers involved, the casualties are 90% male; awhile ago I recall pregnant women were sometimes crossing the border to give birth.

There is a written article too; within there is this statistic on the UN presence:

As of early November, only 929 troops from Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, and the Netherlands remain.

Link:https://news.vice.com/article/new-ev...icenewsyoutube

[davidbfpo]

A longer segment of VICE film, which starts around 8 minutes and of value for the rare footage of the Israeli occupied Golan Heights which starts around 29 minutes. Short exercise shown of the IDF's Bedouin trackers.

Link:https://news.vice.com/video/the-war-...or-full-length

[davidbfpo]

As the civil war and multiple factions near Druze villages on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, there is the possibility of a new aspect:

For its part, the Israeli government is stressing that it does not want to get involved in the Syrian civil war; at the same time Israel is warning combatants on the Syria side it will not permit a massacre of Druze on the border and will aid refugees if necessary.

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...d4c_story.html

Note the "kith & kin" aspect:

The 170,000 Druze living in Israel, most of them citizens and including many active Israeli soldiers and veterans, warn that any day now besieged Druze towns on the Syrian side will be stormed by rebels battling to topple Bashar al-Assad.

[davidbfpo]

the IDF Central Command have changed their stance and refused to treat Jabhat Al-Nusra’s fighters in order to ease tensions with the Druze communities in the Golan Heights:
The change took place a month after Israeli Druze ambushed wounded Syrian rebels being transported in IDF ambulances, killing one of the men. Five members of the Druze community were later arrested on suspicion of murder.

Link:http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/...aeda-fighters/

also: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.666961?