Russian President warns Israeli leader against ‘steps
that could lead to a new round of confrontation’
February 12, 2018, 07:34
In the aftermath of the shooting down by Syria of an
Israeli F-16 fighter bomber, President Putin of Russia and Prime Minister
Netanyahu of Israel had a telephone conversation with each other.
The Kremlin’s summary of
the conversation is even by its standards extremely short.
The discussion focused on the actions
of the Israeli Air Force, which has carried out missile strikes
in Syria.
The President of Russia spoke out
in favour of avoiding any steps that could lead to a new
round of confrontation, which would be dangerous for everyone
in the region.
This pithy report of the conversation between the
Russian and Israeli leaders matches the scant information the Russians have provided of the
talks between Putin and Netanyahu in January.
However it it is not difficult to understand current
Russian policy with respect to the conflict between Syria and Israel, and it
puzzles me that there is so much confusion about it.
The first point to make is that Russia has now become
the guarantor of the survival of President Assad and of his government.
Constant speculation that the Russians might be
prepared to abandon President Assad in order to achieve peace in Syria, or
might be prepared to force a loose decentralised structure upon Syria which the
Syrian government does not want, is misplaced.
Prior to Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict
in September 2015 the Russians had consistently resisted pressure from the US
and its allies to agree to the ousting of President Assad.
Russia repeatedly vetoed Resolutions presented to the
UN Security Council by the Western Powers which were intended to achieve the
aim of ousting President Assad.
After Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict in
2015, the Russians resisted further pressure from the US to agree to President
Assad’s ouster, whether in return for a junior place in the US’s anti-ISIS
coalition, or in return for the promise of joint military operations between
Russia and the US against Al-Qaeda.
I discussed the failure of former US Secretary of
State John Kerry’s attempt in Moscow in July 2016 to get the Russians to agree
to the ouster of President Assad here.
In a follow up article I said this
……the story of the diplomacy of the Syrian conflict
has been a continuous repetition of the same happening: the US pushes the
Russians to agree to have President Assad removed. The US make various
offers or threats to the Russians to buy or force their agreement. The
Russians respond that President Assad’s future is a strictly Syrian internal
matter, which they will not involve themselves in. The US walks away,
baffled and angry…..
In truth the inability of the US and its Western and
Arab allies to accept that Russian opposition to their regime policy in Syria
and elsewhere is for real, and that the Russians cannot be bullied or bribed to
change it, is one of the oddest things about the whole Syrian conflict. Despite
the fact the Russians have gone repeatedly out of their way to explain their
policy, the US and its allies seem incapable of believing that the Russians are
really serious about it. They always seem to think that the Russians
are really just playing some cynical game, and that if they are made the
right sort of offer, or put under the right sort of pressure, they can be
brought round and made to agree to let Assad go.
If the Russians were not prepared to agree to force
President Assad’s ouster when the territory controlled by his government had
been reduced to a small strip of territory along Syria’s coast, and when Aleppo
– Syria’s biggest city – seemed to be about to slip out of President Assad’s
control, then they are not going to agree to force President Assad’s ouster
now, when they have helped him secure control of all of Syria’s main cities –
including Damascus and Aleppo – and when his armies have reached the Iraqi
border in Syria’s farthest east.
After having invested so much in President Assad’s
survival and in the survival of his government, it is inconceivable that the
Russians would abandon him now, and I am sure that no one in any position of
authority in Moscow is considering it.
At the same time no one in Moscow wants to see Russia
become embroiled in the Syrian-Israeli conflict, which far predates Russia’s
intervention in Syria, and which goes back all the way to the foundation of the
State of Israel in 1948.
When following the 1967 Six Days War the Russians did
commit themselves wholeheartedly to one side in the Arab-Israeli conflict –
backing the Arabs diplomatically, arming the Arabs intensively, sending a
strong military force to defend Egypt in 1970 from Israeli air attacks, and
breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel – the result for Moscow was a
catastrophe.
The USSR’s large Jewish community became alienated,
the USSR found that by making an enemy of Israel it had further poisoned its
relations with the Western powers at precisely the time when it was seeking
detente with them, and the USSR quickly discovered that its Arab ‘allies’ in
whom it had invested so much were both ungrateful and treacherous, so that by
1980 the USSR’s entire position in the Middle East had completely collapsed.
The final straw came after the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan in 1979, when volunteers from across the Arab world rushed to fight
the Russians in Afghanistan, in a way that they had never shown the slightest
indication of wanting to do against Israel on behalf of the Palestinians.
Not surprisingly, the Russians have therefore since
the mid-1980s been determined never to become directly involved in any part of
the Arab-Israel conflict again.
Thus whilst Russia maintains good relations with the
Arab states, and whilst Russia continues to voice support for the Palestinians,
Russia has always striven to maintain good relations with Israel as well, and
has forged significant economic links with Israel.
Beyond this, given that Russia already has its hands
full in Syria, fighting all sorts of Jihadi and proxy forces there on behalf of
President Assad and his government, it has no wish or need to complicate this
already hugely complicated task further by taking on Israel – the Middle East’s
military giant, with nuclear weapons and the Middle East’s strongest air force
– on behalf of Syria as well.
Provided therefore Israeli attacks on Syria do not go
beyond the routine attacks which the Israelis have been undertaking against Syria
for decades, and which long predate Russia’s intervention in Syria, and
provided the Israelis take no step which threatens the existence of the Syrian
government or interferes in Syrian military operations against the Jihadi
groups the Russians are fighting, the Russians will do nothing about them.
However conversely, if Israeli attacks on Syria
threaten either the Syrian government or interfere in Syrian military
operations against the Jihadi groups the Russians are fighting, then the
Russians will respond sharply, as they did in March last year when they summoned the Israeli ambassador for a dressing down at the
Foreign Ministry after an Israeli air strike against Syria’s Tiyas air
base, which appeared to be intended to interfere in the Syrian army offensive
against ISIS.
Right at the start of the Russian intervention in
Syria, on 21st September 2015, Russian President Putin had a series of meetings
and conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over the course of
which Russian policy would have been carefully explained to the Israeli leader,
and the ground rules would have been set out.
That the Russians made clear over the course of that
meeting that they were not interested in and would not interfere in ‘routine’
Israeli air strikes against Syria is confirmed by the agreement for a
‘deconfliction’ mechanism that the Russian and Israeli leaders agreed during
that summit.
Here is how Reuters reported it
Israel and Russia agreed on Monday to coordinate
military actions over Syria in order to avoid accidentally trading fire, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to Moscow. Recent Russian
reinforcements for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which regional sources say
include warplanes and anti-aircraft systems, worry Israel, whose
jets have on occasion bombed the neighboring Arab country to foil
suspected handovers of advanced arms to Assad’s Lebanese guerrilla ally
Hezbollah.
Briefing Israeli reporters after he met Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu said he had come with the goal of “prevent(ing)
misunderstandings between IDF (Israel Defense Force) units and Russian forces”
in Syria, where Assad is fighting Islamist-dominated insurgents in a civil war.
Netanyahu added that he and Putin “agreed on a
mechanism to prevent such misunderstandings”. He did not elaborate. There
was no immediate comment from the Kremlin.
In earlier remarks as he welcomed Netanyahu to the
presidential residence of Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow, Putin said Russian
actions in the Middle East would always be “responsible”.
Underlining the importance of Netanyahu’s one-day
visit to Moscow, Israel’s premier took along the chief of its armed
forces and the general in charge of Israeli military intelligence.
Putin, who shares Western concern about the spread of
Islamic State influence, has pledged to continue military support for Assad,
assistance that Russia says is in line with international law. Russia has been
focusing forces on Syria’s coast, where Moscow keeps a big Mediterranean naval
base.
The United States, which along with its allies has
been flying missions against Islamic State insurgents in Syria, has also been
holding so-called “deconfliction” talks with Russia.
(bold italics added)
This report of the agreement Putin and Netanyahu reached
on 21st September 2015 confirms that the Russians made clear to the Israelis
that they had no interest in preventing ‘routine’ Israeli strikes against
Syria, and that their intervention in Syria was not intended to prevent such
strikes. Note specifically the words I have highlighted in the Reuters
report, which confirm this and which show the nature of the agreement the
Russians and the Israelis agreed with each other.
The Russians at the time would also have said the same
thing to President Assad and to the Iranian government: Russia was intervening
in Syria to save the Syrian government which was being attacked by Jihadi
terrorists and which was being threatened with regime change by the US; not to
help Syria prosecute its longstanding conflict with Israel.
However the other side of the coin is that just as the
Russians will not act to stop ‘routine’ Israeli air strikes against Syria, so
they will not act to stop whatever actions the Syrians take to defend
themselves from such strikes.
Both ‘routine’ Israeli actions, and Syrian
counter-actions, are part of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Israel-Syria
conflict, in which Russia is not involved.
Certainly the Russians were not involved in the recent
Syrian shooting down of the Israeli F-16 and no one concerned – not the Syrians
and not the Israelis – is saying that they were.
At the same time, and consistent with their policy,
whilst the Russians will not act to stop the Israelis carrying out ‘routine’
air strikes against Syria or the Syrians shooting down Israeli aircraft which
take part in such strikes, the Russians will react sharply to any Israeli
action that threatens the existence of the Syrian government or which
interferes in Syrian military operations against the Jihadis the Russians are
fighting, just as they did last March.
That Putin reminded Netanyahu of this over the course
of their recent call is confirmed by the following words in the Kremlin summary
The President of Russia spoke out
in favour of avoiding any steps that could lead to a new round
of confrontation, which would be dangerous for everyone
in the region.
In other words Putin told Netanyahu to moderate his
reaction to the shooting down of the F-16, and Israel’s relatively mild
reaction to the shooting down of the F-16 – the retaliatory air strikes Israel
launched after the shoot-down did not go beyond the level of ‘routine’ strikes,
and did not threaten Syrian military operations against the Jihadis (which
continue unabated) or the existence of the Syrian government – shows that despite
his public bluster Netanyahu heeded Putin’s call.
The Russians have almost certainly balanced this
warning to Netanyahu with equivalent warnings to Damascus and Tehran, warning
them that further escalation should be avoided.
Since it is not in Syria’s or Iran’s interests that
Syria – which is still in a state of internal war, with large areas of the
country still controlled by the Kurds and by the Syrian government’s Jihadi
enemies, and which is currently threatened by the presence of US and Turkish
troops on its territory – should find itself in an all-out conflict with
Israel, it is a certainty that these Russian warnings are being heeded.
If Russia is loathe to take sides in the Arab-Israeli
conflict or in the conflict between Israel and Syria, the events of the last
few days shows how the mere fact of its presence in Syria is nonetheless
changing the dynamics of the conflict.
As I have recently written, Syria’s success in shooting down an
Israeli F-16 provides confirmation that the military balance in the Middle East
is shifting.
Something that was beyond Syria’s capabilities until
very recently – the shooting down of an Israeli fighter jet in Israeli
controlled air space – has now happened.
It is Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict
which has brought this about.
Without Russia’s intervention there would be no Syrian
military to shoot down Israeli aircraft, and it is Russian training, advice and
technical support which has given the Syrian military the ability to shoot down
Israeli aircraft.
Shifting the balance of military power in the Middle
East was not the intention behind Russia’s intervention in Syria; however it is
the product of it.
Similarly, Russia’s warning Israel against taking
action in response to the shooting down of the F-16 which might escalate the
situation is not a case of Russia taking sides in the longstanding conflict
between Israel and Syria; however its effect is to protect Syria from Israeli
actions which might have happened in response to the shooting down of the F-16
as part of that conflict, if Russia had not been present in Syria and had not
given Israel its warning.
The result is that Syria has successfully shot down an
Israeli F-16 and has suffered no significant consequences from it.
Though the Arab-Israeli conflict continues, and though
Israel and Syria will continue to take actions against each other, the dynamic
of the conflict has changed.
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