The missing link: Zionists panic over Syria’s unknown nuclear
Posted By George S. Hishmeh*
October 18, 2007
The continued give-and-take over the recent predawn Israeli air strike at an unmanned Syrian site, reportedly a nascent nuclear facility close to the Turkish border, remains a mystery several weeks after it took place.
Even the United Nations watchdog organisation handling nuclear issues, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has pleaded ignorance on the subject.
"The IAEA has no information about any undeclared nuclear facility in Syria and no information about recent reports (to this effect)," the IAEA said in a statement last Monday. The agency promised to investigate "any relevant information coming our way". It said it would ask the Syrians about these reports which were mainly published in the American and, belatedly due the military censors, in the Israeli press.
But what is intriguing about this mystery is the timing, coming on the eve of an international conference that the Bush administration hopes will lead to a final Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Some encouragement to this goal has been prompted by a comment in Israel from the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "Frankly, it's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state," she told Jewish leaders.
Lethargic
The secretary has also tried to draw a line between nuclear proliferation and the lethargic peace process which began about 25 years ago. "The issues of proliferation do not affect the Palestinian-Israel peace efforts we are making," she said, warning, as The New York Times puts it, against actions that could derail the peace effort. "This is the time to be extremely careful," she said.
Israel has often capitalised on big power (especially the US) involvement elsewhere to pursue its own objectives in the region, thereby derailing any attempts by Western powers to accommodate Arab and Palestinian objectives.
A case in point has been cited by Philip Mattar, a former senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took two actions more than 10 years ago that inflamed the Palestinians and derailed the Oslo Accords as when he began opening the tunnel to Al Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem in 1996 in which 80 Palestinians and 15 Israeli policemen were killed. A year later, he began construction of Har Homa colonies in order to separate East Jerusalem from the West Bank. The then British foreign secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, predicted, "The start of the construction can do nothing but harm the peace process." It did, Mattar stressed. In turn, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak is in the US to promote joint anti-missile projects that Israel considers a prerequisite for any future transfer of the West Bank to the Palestinians. He told the Israeli press in August that there can be no significant pullout from the West Bank before anti-rocket systems are in place.
The two Israeli missiles that Israel is developing, David's Sling and Iron Dome, will be ready in two years. At present, the Pentagon is a partner in Israel's Arrow II, a system designed to intercept ballistic missiles such as those deployed by Iran and Syria.
On the other hand, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, who has been meticulously cultivating his country's ties with neighbouring Turkey and which in turn has been promoting Syrian-Israeli negotiations, has said that Syria is still considering the appropriate response to the Israeli raid. He said it wouldn't have to be "missile-for-missile", but could be political. Whatever he has in mind has remained unclear.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, who was in Teheran this week for a conference of the leaders of the five nations bordering the Caspian Sea, took time to stress that all nations must be allowed "peaceful nuclear activities".
He also cautioned against using force to resolve the Western-led dispute with Iran over its nuclear programme.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was meanwhile assuring the influential Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs in Washington that among the US objectives in the Middle East is denying Iran the ability to build nuclear weapons or "hold Israel hostage with the threat of attack".
Although the Bush administration was said to be divided over the Israeli strike in Syria, many analysts here saw it as a dry run in the event either the US or Israel would want to snuff out a new nuclear project in the region. But, others argued, that since Israel's war on Lebanon last year was an embarrassing failure it could not undertake another risk without neutralising Lebanon's Hezbollah and Syria.
This being the situation, it would make sense that the upcoming Middle East peace conference in Annapolis would do well to add one more item on its agenda, namely a commitment by Israel to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Israel is the only Mideastern state which has not signed the accord and, curiously, it still escapes any retribution from any party. Such an achievement will add lustre to the anticipated peace trophy.
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