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

[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.