Juan Cole: Syrian Regime Propaganda Coup as Israel Downs Syrian Plane Over Golan

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/26057-syrian-regime-propaganda-coup-as-israel-downs-syrian-plane-over-golan

The Golan Heights is a Syrian territory that overlooks Israel, most of which was occupied by Israel in 1967. A bit of the plateau is still under Syrian Government influence. The boundary between Syria and Israel on the heights is patrolled by a United Nations force of Irish, Filipinos and Fijians. The al-Qaeda affiliate, the Succor Front (Jabhat al-Nusra), took the Syrian Golan this summer and took the Fijian troops hostage. They were finally released. The Succor Front demanded that the Filipino troops surrender, but they deployed their arms to defend themselves and ultimately escaped back to Manila; there are no plans for them to return to the Golan. The Irish have just decided to return to the Golan, but are hinting that they will only do so if the soldiers can freely defend themselves from al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda’s control of a territory directly abutting Israel is unprecedented, and some Israeli officials are uneasy about it.

The US bombed Succor Front sites Tuesday in its effort to roll up extremists in northeast Syria

I can only guess, but I presume that the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus was flying surveillance over the Golan, keeping an eye on the al-Qaeda affiliate, when the pilot strayed into Israeli territory and paid the ultimate price.

Bashar may have thought the Israelis would not mind him finishing off the extremists. But by shooting down the plane, Israeli much strengthened Bashar. His claim that Israel behind the scenes supports the Muslim extremists is wild and implausible (or maybe reflection theory– he is accused of the same thing) to most people, but one-party Syria is a fertile ground for conspiracy theories.

Now among many Syrians the hated Bashar, who has committed many atrocities, is suddenly a hero ranged against Israel and the latter’s alleged allies, al-Qaeda. The more the West intervenes in Syria, the more the regime can depict itself as innocent victim of foreign plots.

[pampango]

1. There was a post recently asking why the US' "great ally" Israel doesn't join in the bombing.

I think this OP answers that question. Thanks for posting Coles' piece, eridani.

[KurtNYC]

2. what a pretzel that is

Let's look at the actions before guessing about reasons:

The plane allegedly strayed 800 meters but was not shot down over Israeli airspace. It was shot down after returning turning back.

On the ground, Jabhat al Nusra, who was the likely target of the plane, cheers the downing in their video of the event. Israel says:

Brigadier General Ram Shmueli, former head of the Israeli air force's intelligence unit, said the likely cause of the incident was pilot error.

"We believe (the pilot's) mission was to attack enemy forces - not ours - in the Syrian Golan Heights," he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29324424

Nentanyahu called it an "accident" (or, parsing, "may have been" implying 'may not have been' is also an option), at $4.3 million per missile and the first shoot down since the 1980s, it doesn't seem like an accident. What it seems like is so obvious it takes a pretzel like "shooting down the plane, Israel much strengthened Bashar" to avoid the more obvious conclusion.

When our own government tells us we are arming the good terrorists to fight the bad terrorists we have to know we are all the way down the rabbit hole. Now stopping Syrian airstrikes on Jabhat al Nusra supposedly "strengthened Bashar (Assad)". Curiouser and curiouser.

[eridani]

3. All excellent reasons for just butting out now n/t