"But it was a trumped up attack. A pretext for hitting Iranian forces. Iran did not initiate this action. Israel claims it was retaliating against an unprovoked Iranian missile/rocket strike in the Golan Heights. "

The thing is, beside Israel's claim of "hitting Iranian targets" there is no proof to back this up. I am inclined to rather take Mr Fadel's word here, cynically sarcastic as it is:

https://twitter.com/leithfa...

After lying through their teeth about "sarin- and/or chlorine-laced barrel bombs", declaring Syrian positions to be Iranian seems to be the new casus belli to fall back on - entirely on the same level as Gleiwitz.

I entirely agree with that. How many Iranian targets were actually hit? Were any? All the details talk of the targets being Syrian, by their location or other details.

I'm waiting for Netanyahu to say that fragments from the 'Iranian' missiles intercepted by Iron Dome had traces of Sarin that matched Syria's stockpiles, uranium isotopes identical to those found at Parchin and Hassan Nasrallah's fingerprints.

I wonder if there is anything he could say that FOX would start to question before pounding the lectern. Of course they also have the same blind trust in anyone from the Pentagon or CIA.

no references except memory- Nasser asked the UN observers to leave, Egyptian airforce buzzed Dimona, other than that only thing UAR did was to mobilize and close the red sea port of Eilat , they did not initiate hostilities ,

"weak preemptive strikes"

It looks to me as though these strikes were never intended to accomplish anything substantive. This and other recent actions seem more like probing to see what works and what doesn't. The dismal reported performance of the recent US strikes in Syria has to have everyone wondering how much the balance of defense to offense has changed. So they are trying things, anlyzing the outcomes, and trying other things. This may be preparation for something big, but for now all I see is a frantic need to measure the capabilities of the different sides. The actual attacks so far wouldn't have accomplished anything much on the ground even if they had been fully successful.

PT,

Elijah Magnier says the Israelis are extra pissy because they just found out that Iran has been running 'pieces' to the Palestinians with low vis drones. He goes to say that Syria firing ballistic missiles into the Golan is a major escalation. One implication is that this time they fired at military installations, next time they could go after civilians.

What they should fear is Hizbullah.

They are mentioned in the larger context. I wonder what his sources are.

https://ejmagnier.com/2018/...

Monsieurs, have you read this article?
It seems that, really, the only ones at both the US and Israel in favor of withdrawing from the JCPOA are Trump, Bolton, Pompeo, Kushner, Netanyahu, and their dogs.....Clearly for spurious interest .....What´s your input on this?

(...)Because guess who won’t be celebrating? The entire U.S. military
establishment: Defense Secretary James Mattis, who says he has read the
text of the nuclear agreement three times and considers it to be
“pretty robust”; Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford,
who says, “Iran is adhering to its JCPOA obligations” and a U.S.
decision to quit the deal “would have an impact on others’ willingness
to sign agreements”; the head of U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. John
Hyten, who says, “Iran is in compliance with JCPOA” and argues “it’s our
job to live up to the terms of that agreement”; and the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen.Joseph Votel, who says the nuclear deal is “in our interest” because it “addresses one of the principle threats that we deal with from Iran.”

Those are just the generals who are still in uniform. In March, a statement
signed by 100 U.S. national security veterans from across the political
spectrum said the nuclear agreement “enhances U.S. and regional
security” and “ditching it would serve no national security purpose.”
Fifty of the 100 signatories were retired U.S. military officers, including
leading Republicans such as retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who served as
national security adviser to George H.W. Bush, and retired Gen. Michael
Hayden, who served as director of both the NSA and the CIA under George
W. Bush.

(...)Guess who else isn’t celebrating? The Israeli security establishment. Netanyahu may claim to possess thousands of “secret nuclear files” that show the JCPOA was
“built on lies,” but Israel’s generals and spymasters disagree, including: the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, who says the deal
“with all its faults is working”; the chair of the Israeli Space Agency and award-winning military scientist, Isaac Ben-Israel, who says “the agreement is not bad at all, it’s even good for Israel” because “it averts an atom bomb for 15 years”; the former director of the spy agency Mossad, Efraim Halevy, who says the JCPOA provides a “credible answer to the Iranian military threat, at least for a decade, if not longer”;
the former chief of domestic security agency Shin Bet, Carmi Gillon, who
says the nuclear agreement has helped “make the region, and the world, a
safer place”; the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, who says “tearing up the deal would create a dangerous void”; and former Israeli prime minister — and the country’s most decorated soldier — Ehud Barak, who says withdrawing from the deal would be a “mistake.”(...)

I forgot to also address the possible mesdames here, apologies, my bad.....

I note that on Tuesday Colonel Lang said this; "I am told that Israeli electronic counter-measure units started a massive jamming effort against air defense assets in Syria three days ago."

Is it possible that this short-sharp-exchange was really an attempt by the Syrian Arab Army to silence that Electronic Warfare?

As in: maybe the Israelis fired their pair of missiles at Damascus Airport - par for the course in their eyes, nothing out of the ordinary - and then were shocked when the Syrians responded by laying down artillery and rockets on all those IDF EW installations that had oh-so-conveniently been advertising their location for the past week?

Just a thought, and it may be nothing but wishful thinking, but I'd be interested to hear if Colonel Lang knows if all that Israeli jamming came to a very abrupt end on.... oh.... say.... Thursday morning?

Have the Israelis or the Americans released any satellite photos showing all those smashed-to-pieces Iranian bases? So far all I have seen is a single video taken from an Israeli drone as it made its death-dive onto an abandoned Syrian Pantsir-S1.

This Pantsir, apparently
https://www.reddit.com/r/sy...

It took the Americans less than a day to release photos of the sites they struck in their recent missile attack. Surely they have had enough time to collect all the photos they need to do a damage-assessment.

Odd that they haven't done so.

Not abandoned. It had shot all its missiles and was traveling to a recharge depot. The driver (Lt Colonel Ayham Habib) died on the spot and copilot (1st Lt. Ali Essa Mustafa) later in hospital.
Having its radar shut off it was not trackable, yet the drone had locked it before (when it was firing with radar on) and was visually following it.
Twitter user Walid says there was a misunderstanding with another AA operator (another Pantsir?) about providing cover when this one was defenseless.

Anyway, the astounding statements of Israeli military (depleted Iranian force - months back of timeline in build-up of Iranian infrastructure - blahblah) are crap.
My take is that Netanyahu had pressed Putin in that a powerful anti-Iranian action was unavoidable, and had been told something like "Iranians not my business, my 'red line' are Russian servicemen and Assad's life and palace".
Bibi expected the usual stroll through AD, killing some Syrians, hitting some Iranian/Hezbollah depots, coordinated Jihadists hopelessly attacking SAA checkpoints, back home for early breakfast.
Now they are in panic. SAA didn't just defended but retaliated! the much famed Iron Dome exposed as not-so-invulnerable! WTF...?
Israel can't afford having civilians in shelters all the time, it's a blow to the sense of military superiority that they had to rebuild after 2006 debâcle against Hezbollah.
That's why the boasting and bragging: "we destroyed The Iranian Threat, hence we need no more attacking at the moment". IKR?

If more attacks come soon, I am wrong. ATM I agree with some Syrian commentators: the Rules of Engagement are changed, Golan is now free game, Israel should adjust its plans to that for the immediate future.

PT

I think you raised a very important question: why? I studied this question as much as I could. The best answer to the question "why" is in history. Before WWI, in Germany was the situation the way that most money bags and other very influential people were strong supporters of Zionism and harshly suppressed any dissenting opinion. the famous German Rabbi Felix Goldmann, life-long figther against anti-semitism and nazism, therefore felt so threatened by Zionists and their collaborators, that he published his most important heritage, as I see it, not under his own name, but the anonymous label of an "Anti-zionist committee" in Berlin 1913. His most important insight, as I see it, was that the racist German and European stream of thought and Zionism, that later developed into German Nazism, shared the same ugly root: racism. A couple of years ago I translated a couple of sentences by Rabbi Goldmann into english. Quote begin:

If the “racial” moment has acquired a meaning in which nothing counts of everything else, merits, virtues, striving and disposition, if the Jew is outlawed, if you want to depress him into a pariah position, so it is a success, the national belief, the chauvinistic racial madness of our times, has won in diligent work.

And this chauvinist, national racist madness is the theoretical basis, the spiritual soil of Zionism! That’s where it borrowed the specific features of it’s being and it’s effectiveness! Even the utterance of this undeniable and undisputed fact contains the most damning criticism of this pseudo messianic movement. With all clarity the consequences must be imagined of what it must mean for the nature and manifestations of Zionism that it grew up on the same marsh soil as the racial anti-Semitism, this scourge, which we Jews are suffering under so horrible. And it’s always the same water, may it now be called Aryan anti-Semitic, or may it now be colored Jewish-national that comes from the same poisoned wells, and no staining of the world can make it a healthy drink.

If you stand on the position that the national hate speech and racial anti-Semitism is a crime against culture – and who would not – you must also condemn it’s brother in Jewish garb, the national Zionism, because it’s results will be as pernicious as those.

Quoet end.

I think that the most convincing answer to your question: why. Nazism and Zionism both come from the ugly tree of racism, the typical hubris of that, and while the Nazist branch of that school of thinking largely died with the German defeat in WWII, another branch of the same school of thinking, Zionism, sadly, still thrives, and it never went away from the ideological basics of racism, on what Zionism was founded on.

The booklet from Rabbi Felix Goldmann, which he published in the name of an Anti-zionist comitee in Berlin, is transcripted here.

https://nocheinparteibuch.w...

Later publications from major German libraries confirm that this is real, not fake history.

Alexander Mercouris weighs in on Israel's reasons for attacking Syria.

Explaining Israel’s Syrian strike: Israel tries to reverse shift in military balance
Latest Israeli strike primarily intended to defeat Syria’s increasingly effective air defence system; not targeted at Iran
http://theduran.com/israeli...

He believes the goal is mostly to redress the strategic balance. I think that's only a small part of it. In my view the strike is just one more in the Israel game of escalating military attacks on Syria until Syria responds sufficiently to enable Israel to entice the US to attack Syria in a full-scale air campaign.

Israel has been engaging in this pattern since the first couple years of the Syrian conflict. Israel repeatedly fired into Syria in alleged response to artillery and rocket attacks into its territory - no doubt fired by ihadists under Israel's support. But Assad's forces never returned fire until Russia entered the conflict. Now Syria is willing to fire back, but Russia is only involved peripherally by utilizing their superior radar systems integrated into the Syrian AD system.

Mercouris refers to this piece by Eric Zuess, which analyzes who is lying about who started the attack - and concludes that Israel is likely the one who initiated the situation.

Which side is lying about Israel’s missile attack on Syria?
Analysis of reports show Israel’s attack was ‘pre-emptive’ and unprovoked
http://theduran.com/which-l...

I agree. The proof is not irrefutable but there is reason to believe Israel started it. And the reason remains the same: start a war between the US/Israel and Syria.

Russia doesn't want a war with the US or Israel over Syria. Neither the US nor Israel wants a war with Russia over Syria. But Israel does want a war between the US and Syria, as well as between Israel/the US and Hizballah.

These attacks are yet another attempt to get that going. And they will continue until Russia is forced to engage Israel militarily over Syria.

To answer Mr. Tacitus' original question: "Why"?

Because they can.

For better or worse, it is not hard to train anyone or any organization to act in a manner indistinguishable from a sociopath.

@Pat Lang,
Monsieur, I just have posted two different versions of the same comment which were detected as spam by Disqus. I tried one with the link as it is, and the other with the link embedded.
I do not mind the comment not being published, but may be you, and your readers, could find the article referred to interesting, in case you had not already read it over there..... I found it at Mark Sleboda´s Twitter account....I think that it adds information we did not know so far, at least not me....which could contribute to calm moods at many locations, do not you think?

Two interesting pieces that take opposite views of the recent Israel-Syria back-and-forth:

Syria Imposes New Rules of Engagement on Israel
http://thesaker.is/syria-im...

The author discusses what got hit and what didn't by Israel and Syria. It's interesting that many of the targets of Syria missiles were apparently Israeli air defense, radars, and ELINT stations.

Quote:

The Syrian – and not Iranian – response consisted of more than fifty – and not twenty – rockets against four sensitive Israeli military bases in the occupied Golan, which caused material damage and even casualties according to Al-Manar, Hezbollah’s media. These were not reported by the Israeli press because of the draconian military censorship forbidding mentioning Israel’s initial aggression, more than twenty rockets fired on Israel, the identification of their targets and any hint to the damage inflicted, in
order to reassure the population inside and allow the vassal Western capitals to shout their sickening refrain of the sacrosanct-right-of-Israel-to-defend-itself. The Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen specifically identified the military posts struck: 1/ a military technical and electronic reconnaissance center; 2/ border security and intelligence station 9900; 3/ a military center for electronic jamming; 3/ a military spy center for wireless and wired networks; 4/ a transmission station; 5/ an observatory of precision weapons unit ; 6/ a combat heliport; 7/ the headquarters of the Regional Military Command of Brigade 810; 8/ the command center of the military battalion at Hermon; 9/ winter headquarters of a special alpine unit

End Quote

He also alleges that it had an effect on Israeli perceptions:

Quote:

The journalists and Israeli analysts also pointed out the psychological and economic repercussions of this incident, with more than 20,000 Golan settlers having had to hastily find their way back to the shelters in the middle of the night (how much will they be at the next escalation?), and the beginning of the summer period having been ushered in by a wave of hotel reservation deletions due to fears of a war between Israel and Iran. The Zionist entity, which unabashedly inflicts the greatest loss and damage to the Palestinians and its neighbors, is severely shaken by the slightest
losses, unbearable for Israeli society.

End Quote

The other article questions why the Syrian Pantsir AD unit was taken out, implying incompetence on the part of the Syrians.

Israel Took out a Syrian Pantsir Air Defense Unit, S-200 Radars. Russia: ‘No S-300 Transfer, Syria Has All It Needs’
Russia's exp