Israel’s options vary. One possibility could potentially be to attack convoys of chemical weapons or bases where the weapons are stored from the air. While this would be seen as an act of aggression by Israel, if done in the twilight of Assad’s regime, the chances that it would spark an all-out war would be slim.
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“This is a major concern for the IDF which is seriously looking at the threat and considering a variety of scenarios,” a senior defense official explained.
Concern is also growing within Israel over the possibility that Syrian nationals will rush the border in the Golan Heights in an attempt to escape Assad’s continued violent crackdown.
Israel is concerned with two scenarios – firstly that Syrian civilians from cities like Hama or Houla, which have seen some of the worst fighting in recent weeks, would rush the border. The other scenario is that following Assad’s downfall, his former loyalists – mostly of Alawite origin – will also try fleeing to Israel to escape possible retaliation.
A senior IDF officer said over the weekend that the military has obtained video recordings of the violence in Syria from villages and cities “close to the border with Israel.”
Over the past year, the IDF has beefed up its defenses along the border, laying new minefields and fortifying the security fence separating both sides of the Golan. In addition, there are increased IDF patrols to prevent infiltrations as well as possible terror attacks against Israel.
Oh joy. More illegal immigrants. What could go wrong?
IDF calls up reserves for Egyptian and Syrian border duty
When I ran this story, I didn't think it was such a big deal.
Drudge apparently thinks it is (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved the request recently, enabling the IDF to summon up to 22 battalions for active duty for the second time in three years. Already, the army has called up six of them.
“This signifies that the IDF regards the Egyptian and Syrian borders as the potential source of a greater threat than in the past,” the former deputy chief of staff, Dan Harel, said on Wednesday night.
“The army needs a better ‘answer’ than in the past to the threat,” he said, citing Egypt’s deteriorating control over the Sinai, marked by an upsurge in Bedouin smuggling of weapons and other goods. He also spoke of the growing threat of terrorism from Sinai, as exemplified by an infiltration last August in which eight Israelis were killed.
The Syrian situation was also highly combustible, Harel said, “and it could explode at any moment… and pose a direct challenge to us.”
Maariv said the army had to decide whether to cancel training sessions for enlisted soldiers or to summon additional reserve units, and it chose the latter; canceling training would mean soldiers would not be prepared in the case of an all-out war.
The IDF has approved the call-up of 22 reserve battalions, including reserves soldiers who have already been called for active duty in the past three years, Maariv reports. Reservists may be sent for active service more than once in three years only with special authorization.
Commanders said the move was necessary due to security threats along the Egyptian and Syrian borders.
Or maybe this is just preparation for Naqba Day on the 14th of May. Hmmm.
Two million people to crash Israel's borders next Friday?
Hamas' website is reporting that some two million people will attempt to crash Israel's borders next Friday as part of the 'Global March to Jerusalem.'
The organizing committee of the Global March to Jerusalem expects the participation of more than two million people in the march which will be started from the surrounding countries of Palestine, the Palestinian territories, and some other capitals on March 30, 2012.
"Several international personalities and organizations will join the Global March to Jerusalem that will take place in Jordon and the other surrounding countries except Syria», said the GMJ's chief executive and coordinator Dr Ribhi Haloum in a press conference held on Tuesday evening .
Halloum added that the Prime Minister Awn Al-Khasawneh expressed satisfaction about the march's preparation as a peaceful and civilized march offering the government's help to the organizers.
The PM also said that the Israelis are worried about the march and that they phoned him several times to ask about the route the march will take. Another indication of the Israelis taking this march seriously is the formation of a mini-cabinet to deal with it, according to the PM.
For his part, the president of the national preparatory committee for the Global March to Jerusalem Abdullah Obeidat confirmed the Prime Minister Awn Al-Khasawneh's aid to the preparations efforts adding that this will be an annual activity to stress the necessity to end the occupation and free Jerusalem.
Representatives of the participating delegations will present their speeches in a festival which will be held on the same day with the attendance of about 500 guests from outside the Kingdom.
Israel Radio reported on Friday (2:00 news) that the London-based pan-Arabic daily A-Sharq Al-Awswat is reporting that Israel has warned neighboring countries that anyone breaching the border will be treated as an infiltrator. I'm not sure what that means, but presumably it means they'll be shot. Not that their being shot would bother the rulers of any of our neighbors.
The Meir Amit terrorism information center has some details about our enemies' plans for the coming months.
3. Thus a number of propaganda events are planned for the upcoming months, the most prominent of which are marches originating in the Arab states bordering on Israel, and possibly also from the Palestinian Authority, to be held on or around the Israeli Arab "Land Day" (March 30); a protest fly-in to Ben-Gurion International Airport (April 15, a week after Easter); and the "Israeli apartheid week" in various Western and other countries, especially on college campuses (February and March). There are also plans to reach the Gaza Strip by sea with a large flotilla (the idea is still being examined) or with lone boats (logistically and politically easier to send than a large flotilla).
4. Beyond the showcase events, the delegitimization campaign's routine anti-Israeli activities continue unabated, especially in the West (particularly Britain and the United States). They include the BDS campaign, which is gaining momentum and is waged in the Palestinian Authority as well; lawfare, manifested by the continuing attempts to bring senior Israeli figures to trial in Western countries and by possible appeals (lodged by both the delegitimization campaign and Palestinian Authority) to international legal forums such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
5. Of all the events, the most at this stage significant is the plan to hold marches from the Arab states to the borders of the State of Israel (mentioned were Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority). Hamas activists in the Gaza Strip and Britain are also involved in the media preparations, among them Ismail Haniya and Mahmoud al-Zahar, who made a public appeal for people to march to the borders of Israel on "Land Day" to "forcefully push the Palestinian cause back [to center stage]" (YouTube). Muhammad Sawalha and Zaher Birawi, two prominent Hamas activists in Britain who are participating in the campaign to delegitimize Israel, also appeared in a video posted on YouTube to promote the marches (see below). In addition, Zaher Birawi gave an interview in which he represented himself as the spokesman for the "global march to Jerusalem" (GMJ) (Al-Quds TV, January 17, 2012). Hamas' public involvement in the marches is exceptional because so far its public attention has focused on the land and sea convoys to the Gaza Strip.
6. The following is initial information about the various events currently being organized:
As you might expect, many of those behind these activities have long histories of involvement in terrorism. Read the whole thing.
IDF preparing for scenario where Syrian army backs border breachers
You might think that the Syrian army is too busy trying to retain Bashar al-Assad in power to bother with Israel right now. The IDF disagrees. After all, a confrontation with the Jooos would be a great distraction from Assad's troubles. And so the IDF is preparing for a scenario where Syrians try to breach their border with Israel (as happened in May) in September in connection with the UN vote on the 'state' of 'Palestine.' Except that this time the IDF is assuming they will be backed up by the Syrian army.
The IDF has been training forces for a scenario during which soldiers from the Syrian military will also approach the border and try to actively defend protesters attempting to infiltrate Israeli territory.
“We could face civilians who start a demonstration and are then joined by the military as part of the regime’s so-called desire to protect its civilians,” one IDF officer explained.
Due to this possibility, the IDF will likely deploy tanks along the border with troops to prevent a violation of Israeli sovereignty and confront the Syrian soldiers if necessary. The IDF has held a number of exercises recently including the use of tanks to enable soldiers to practice how they will respond in such a scenario.
“The number one goal will be to deescalate the situation and try to defuse tensions to prevent a larger conflict,” another defense official explained.
Part of the IDF’s strategy is to contact various international organizations and governments to work together to contain the demonstrations. The IDF is holding talks with UNIFIL in Lebanon and UNDOF in Syria in an effort to get the two peacekeeping forces to deploy along their respective borders.
Last week, The Jerusalem Post reported the army was procuring new non-lethal weapons that will help disperse large demonstrations and marches that could break out in the West Bank and along the borders in the North. The Ground Forces Command has also instituted new rules of engagement for snipers who will be deployed to stop demonstrations and marches, including at what distance they are allowed to open fire.
Sorry it took me so long to get back online. I landed about six hours ago, and have been busy ever since with unpacking and things like that.
Syrian opposition groups say that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad paid 'protesters' $1,000 each to 'protest' at Israel's borders. To put that in perspective, the average Syrian earned $242 per month in 2009. So Assad was offering more than four months' salary (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Demonstrators along the Syria-Israel border were paid thousands of dollars by President Bashar Assad's regime to take part in Sunday's riots, Syrian opposition activists charge.
Israeli officials later reinforced the claims, accusing the Syrian regime of encouraging protests along the northern border.
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Washington-based members of the Reform Party of Syria said intelligence sources close to the Syrian government in Lebanon informed them that the protesters on the Syrian side of the Druze community of Majdal Shams were in fact poverty-stricken farmers paid by the Assad regime.
According to the sources, the farmers migrated over the last few years from drought-stricken northeast Syria to the south. They reached the Israel-Syria border on Sunday in the aims of reenact "Nakba Day" events, the sources said.
The Syrian opposition group claimed that each farmer was promised $1,000 for showing up at the rally and $10,000 to their families if they are killed by IDF fire.
According to the report, the average salary of a Syrian citizen is about $200 per month, meaning that participation in Sunday's demonstration could provide a protester and his family with five months worth of financial relief.
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Opposition activists noted that such tactics were previously used by Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein when the Ba'ath Party leader offered a $25,000 reward to the families of Palestinians who died while hurling stones at Israelis during the Intifada.
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The opposition group stressed that while it believes that the Golan Heights belong to Syria, it wishes to return the land through peaceful negotiations.
"If Assad really wanted the Golan Heights, he would walk the same peaceful path Anwar Sadat walked long before him," the group said in a statement.
The most interesting thing about this is that the source of the story is the Syrian opposition. Maybe they're hoping that Israel will help them out. Hmmm.
By the way, Israel Radio reports this morning that the Golan Heights is a closed military zone and that only residents are being allowed to enter. if that continues, it will kill the tourist trade here this summer.
4 dead, 12 wounded in 'Naqsa day' violence on Syrian border
Syrian television is claiming four dead and 12 wounded in yet another attempt to breach the Syrian-Israeli border on the Golan Heights. The IDF is confirming the injuries but not the deaths.
Syrian television on Sunday reported that four people were killed and 10 injured along the Syria-Israel border in the Golan Heights near Majdal Shams, reportedly from IDF fire. The IDF spokesperson said that the only information it had on deaths on the border were Syrian reports and therefore, it could not confirm the number of people killed or if there were any deaths.
Two armed suspects were identified near the border fence in Kunetra, on the Syrian side of the border, the IDF Spokesman told The Jerusalem Post Sunday afternoon.
Prior to spotting the armed men, according to the IDF spokesperson, around 150 people managed to cross to the Syrian side of the fence, entering a mined zone between the two fences in the Majdal Shams area.
"We issued warnings for them to stop advancing. When they continued, we fired warning shots in the air," an IDF spokeswoman told The Jerusalem Post.
When the demonstrators continued toward the Israeli fence, they said, shots were fired at their lower bodies. "We know of 12 injuries," she added.
A second demonstration was observed on the Syrian border in Kunetra, where 200 to 300 demonstrators amassed. The IDF said there was no attempt to cross the border at that event, and no injuries were recorded
IDF forces were sending Arabic-language messages through loudspeakers over the border, warning that anyone approaching the fence would be killed.
Syrian television also reported that demonstrators were attempting to breach the fence at several other points in the Golan Heights, Channel 2 reported.
What the West doesn't understand is that the Arabs want people to be killed and wounded. They're using these people as cannon fodder and then they hope to use their deaths or injuries against Israel as propaganda.
"Palestinian activists on the "Third Intifada" Facebook page called for marking the anniversary of the [Israeli] occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip [i.e., the Six-Day War], as on [the anniversary of] the Palestinian catastrophe [i.e., Palestinian term for the creation of the State of Israel], when demonstrations were held - one of which succeeded in crossing the border between Israel and Syria... The activists said, in their Internet announcement: "Out of loyalty to the Shahids (Martyrs), and in order to continue the path and to base ourselves upon the achievements of the revolutionaries and those who rose up, we announce forcefully and loudly that June 7th - the anniversary of the theft of Jerusalem, the 'flower of cities', by the Zionists - is the day for swearing loyalty to Jerusalem in every country of the world.'"
Building on the successful breach of Israel's borders with Syria on Sunday, the 'Palestinians' are putting out the call for a massive effort to approach and cross the Arab countries' borders with Israel.
The effort is scheduled for Friday and has nearly 100,000 'likes' on Facebook. The group – "Third Palestinian Intifada" – urges Arab activists in neighboring countries to storm Israel's borders in reaction to the recent "Nakba Day" events and ensuing casualties.
Several Facebook groups urge a third mass popular uprising against Israel, and one of them sports a "Friday of response" page, bearing the date May 20. The page, which currently has 100,000 "Like's", does not however give any details on how or exactly when these marches should take place.
Still, various reports in the Arab media, including in al-Jazeera, suggest that activists in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon plan to march on the Israel's borders; and that Palestinians from Gaza Strip and the West Bank are also expected to stage such marches.
Meanwhile, the United Nations, the Europeans and the shmuck in the White House, all of whom are pretending that if only Israel would return to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines all of this would stop, are ignoring the fact that there is precedent for breaching borders in this region and that it's considered an act of war.
For this is not the first time in modern Middle Eastern affairs that an Arab autocracy has used massive marches of nominally civilian personnel to invade and undermine a neighboring state. In the past, such attempts have been denounced by the international community for what they are: a use of force against the territory of another state in violation of the U.N. Charter. International law is based on practical precedents, on the way given actions were legally judged by the world community in the past. It is a testament to the selective use of international law in the case of Israel that Morocco’s “Green March” into Western Sahara, by far the closest parallel to this week’s events, has not even been mentioned by world leaders.
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The press has taken to calling the Arabs marching across the Israeli frontier “protesters.” In fact, “protests” are contained within a country; the organized crossing of a frontier is an invasion. In 1975, when Western Sahara was the victim, the world community was clear on this point (even though the Moroccans were unarmed, while the Syrians and Lebanese attacked Israeli soldiers with stones and other objects). Other Arab leaders called the Green March “a violation of the sovereignty of” Western Sahara and “an act contrary to international law.” Prominent international scholars described it as an illegal use of force, a “stealing of the Sahara,” in the words of one of the leading international lawyers of the time. The U.N. Security Council passed a measure that “deplored” Morocco’s invasion.
Moreover, despite the nominally civilian character of the marchers, several U.N. General Assembly resolutions recognized that the enterprise constituted a military occupation by Morocco. Observers noted that the march could not have gone off without the permission, and indeed encouragement, of King Hassan of Morocco, and thus he must take responsibility as if he had ordered army units across the border. It was a conquest despite the lack of arms: A large organized mob can be as forceful as an armed military unit. Indeed, as the Spanish capitulation proved, a march could be a more effective tool of conquest than a military strike against Western armies reluctant to fire on civilians.
Perhaps world leaders today would rather not remind anyone of the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, which in many ways showcases how the international rules applied to Israel are not those that govern the rest of the world. Rabat has occupied Western Sahara almost as long as Israel has occupied the West Bank, and with much less legal pedigree. Yet international efforts to end Morocco’s occupation have been scant and half-hearted. The occupation has been effectively accepted since the “peace process” in the region collapsed in 2004, when Morocco rejected a peace plan endorsed by the Security Council, with no damage to its international relations. Moreover, Morocco has implemented a massive policy of government-orchestrated settlement of Western Sahara. Yet the failed U.N. peace proposals did not contemplate uprooting a single Moroccan settler. Indeed, in the Security Council’s failed plan, the settlers, who now outnumber the natives, would get to vote in a plebiscite on the territory’s future.
Many observers have suggested that infiltrations represent a powerful new Arab tool for influencing world opinion against Israel. Yet the march tactic is not civil disobedience: It is an attempt at foreign conquest by the Arab states, just as when Morocco did it.
This is video of the Syrian breach of the border with Israel on Sunday. The video was obviously taken from the Israeli side of the border.
What's missing in this video is the IDF. Where are they? Why weren't they there? We're way into this video before we see what looks like IDF troops (I think I see them coming from the right around the 7:30 mark). Where were they? Heads ought to roll for this.
This video also puts the lie to the claim that 'only' 150 Syrians breached the border. It looks like a lot more than that.
Let's go to the videotape.
There are also dozens of pictures of the rally in Majdal Shams, which can be found here.
Arab commentators agree: Assad behind Naqba day events
Arab commentators agree that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was behind Sunday's events at Majdal Shams on the Syrian border.
The Syrian government "made use" of Sunday's rallies to "divert attention from... the Syrian uprising which has been the main event in Syria for months," said Burhan Ghalioun, director of the Centre for Contemporary Eastern Studies.
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Sunday's protesters -- most of them Palestinian refugees living in Syria -- would have never made it across the armistice line without a nod of approval from President Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime, analysts said.
"Neither the Syrians nor the Palestinians in Syria can move alone. Syrian security services use people as tools. They inspire, organise and point out" to people what to do, said Ghalioun.
"If the Syrian regime was in a different situation, it would have not allowed the protesters to enter through the Golan," he said.
What happened Sunday "fell right within the regime's will."
Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, agreed that the protesters could not have done it without the regime's support.
This is risk free for Assad. Israel isn't going to start a war over an invasion that looks mostly like civilians. Assad gets his crackdown out of the headlines for a day or so. And if someone happens to steal his way in long enough to bring back some intelligence, all the better.
Earlier on Tuesday, I saw a tweet that claimed that Haaretz had reported that the decision to try to jump the Syrian border fence on Sunday was 'spontaneous.' When I went to Haaretz to check it out (having lost the original tweet), I found a far different story. It seems that the IDF had intelligence that something was up and ignored it.
Sources in the Northern Command confirmed the existence of intelligence indicating that Nakba Day demonstrators planned to try to cross the border near the "Shouting Hill," across from Majdal Shams. However, they said, the IDF had based its deployment on past experience, and expected the Syrian army to prevent the demonstrators from breaching the border.
The IDF's initial investigation of the Nakba Day incidents, carried out Sunday night and yesterday, determined that the reserve battalion stationed in the Majdal Shams sector did not have the backup forces necessary to respond to a mass border crossing attempt. In addition, they lacked sufficient crowd control equipment to disperse such demonstrations.
Such equipment is routinely provided to IDF troops in the West Bank.
The army officially acknowledges that 137 people crossed the border, all of whom were either returned to Syria or arrested. But IDF sources say the true number is probably closer to 150, and that some individuals apparently evaded the police roadblocks around Majdal Shams and traveled further into Israel.
Lenny Ben David has a series of pictures that show how Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon were breached. The picture above - of Lebanese Armed Forces troops making a half-hearted effort to stop Lebanese infiltrators from approaching the border fence - is just one of many. But to me, the key point that needs to be learned on a long-term basis from Sunday's events is this one:
View the pictures of the UN peacekeeping forces along Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria -- UNIFIL and UNDOF -- trying to stop the incursions and protect the peace. Oh, wait, there are no such pictures because the force mandated to keep peace was nowhere to be seen when Israel's sovereignty and security were under attack. So much for the idea floating around Washington to meet Israel's security demands in a peace agreement with the Palestinians by providing a foreign peacekeeping force on the West Bank.
The JPost publishes the pontifications of one Dr. Daphne Richmond-Barak on the 'international law' implications of IDF troops opening fire on invading Syrians on Sunday.
The breach of the Israeli border by Syrian protesters was an unprecedented act in modern history and a clear violation of Israeli sovereignty as determined by article 51 of the UN Charter, an international law expert said on Sunday.
At the same time, Dr. Daphne Richmond-Barak from the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, said that firing on civilians was also a breach of international law, and that once the details of the event were made clear, Israel would have to explain its actions.
“Most of the details surrounding the shooting are not yet known. Important considerations are whether the protesters were armed or not, whether they were an organized association of a paramilitary nature, whether the soldiers who fired felt they were in immediate danger and shot out of self-defense, and a series of other possibilities that are too vague to judge,” said Richmond-Barak.
While there were legal questions to be considered, the most urgent concern was a deterioration of the relations between the countries, she added.
“We must remember the current situation in Syria, where there is an absence of law and order because of the popular uprising against [President Bashar] Assad. It is conceivable that the guards who were supposed to man the border on the Syrian side were not at their posts because of the uprising,” she said.
The uncertainty in Syria could be a mitigating factor in allowing the soldiers to shoot at the protesters, Richmond-Barak, but she stressed that it was completely illegal for anyone to order the firing on unarmed civilians. Other factors that need to be considered are the number of people who tried to cross the border and the manner in which they did so.
Please tell me this woman isn't representing us in any international forum. How the heck is the IDF supposed to know who is coming over a hostile border at them, whether they are armed or unarmed, who might have allowed or ordered them to cross the border and what their intentions might be? Are the troops supposed to try to arrest them and take them in for questioning before deciding to open fire? What if a few of them are suicide bombers - do we have to question them first too? Are we supposed to wait to see the whites of their eyes to try to make a determination as to their intent? And then will we Goldstone the IDF to examine their actions with 20-20 hindsight?
Absurd. Completely, totally and utterly absurd. These people are living in a laboratory and they need a lobotomy.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
The IDF is beefing up its defenses along its border with Syria to block the entry of chemical weapons into Israel if the Assad regime falls. 
