Israel is rejecting reported Russian demands that Israel give the Russian military additional warning before carrying out airstrikes in Syria, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman claimed on October 25.
“We will not accept any restrictions on our freedom of operation, and when it comes to national security, we will take action,” the defense minister told Army Radio in an interview.
In an attempt to save face in front of the Israeli media, Liberman stated that the Israeli military has carried out more airstrikes on targets in Syria than have been attributed to it by media.
“Just because the media did not report on Syria strikes does not mean there were none,” Liberman said. “I don’t think it’s our duty to report what the army must do. An army needs to act.”
These remarks were clearly referring to to the fact that there have been no Israeli airstrikes on Syria since the delivery of Russian-made S-300 systems to the Syrian Air Defense Forces in late September.
On October 24, Hadashot news reported that Russia was seeking to re-shape the Israeli-Russian military contacts on the situation in Syria overhauling the existing coordination system. According to these speculations, Russia wanted to further advance warning of Israeli strikes, though the report did not say how much. In the framework of the existing hot line, Israel is set to inform Russia some time ahead of an airstrike.
Nonetheless, the incident with the Russian IL-20 military plane showed that Tel Aviv is violating the existing terms and conditions providing a false and untimely info on its actions.
Commentary by The Iranian
Despite the Israeli bravado cited in this report, they’ve been pretty timid/quiet of late in carrying out bombing excursions across Syria. It would appear that Moscow has (for now) tamed Israeli aggression.
Mood: ✌
