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Russia's Impact on Israel's Security Interests in Syria

(JNS.org) Ariel Ben Solomon - Iran and Hizbullah have taken advantage of the cover of war in Syria to try to smuggle advanced weapons through Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Yet Israeli attacks against Iranian and Hizbullah targets in Syria must take into account the military presence of Russian forces in the country. Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said that Russian air defenses based in Syria cover most of Israeli territory, severely impeding the Israeli Air Force's freedom of operation. Russia is in a much better position to collect military intelligence on Israel, and the Russian presence in Syria makes the Levant safe for Iran, which presents a strategic and existential threat to the Jewish state. "All this puts Russia in a position of a strategic adjudicator vis-a-vis Jerusalem - allowing it to decide, to a degree, the extent of Israel's freedom to maneuver in the region." "For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow is almost on par with Washington in terms of dictating its political [and] military agendas in the Eastern Mediterranean region." Anna Borshchevskaya, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Russia's Middle East policy, said, "It's doubtful that Putin wants a bilateral crisis with Israel; to the contrary, good relations with Israel are important to him, but it's also unclear how long he can keep the balancing act he's maintained so far in terms of good relations with both Iran and Israel." Yuri Teper, until recently a postdoctoral fellow at the Kennan Institute at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, noted, "By allowing Israel to attack Hizbullah's strategic capabilities and infrastructure, Russia is in a way putting a check on Iran's influence and makes the Syrian regime more dependent on Russian air-force capabilities."
2018-02-06 00:00:00
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