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Ehud Ya'ari: The Northern Slippery Slope

Bashar al-Asad has, it seems, come to the conclusion that he doesn�t want to get into a military confrontation with Israel. That�s just as well. There�s no enthusiasm in Israel either for opening up a northern front. But the effort required to maintain an even keel is like walking a tightrope, with Syria�s support for terrorism constantly threatening to upset the balance.

For example, the Islamic Jihad tried to send a suicide bomber to blow up the ORT school in Yokne�am, near Haifa, in early December. Had the plot not been foiled by Israel�s capture of the terrorist at the very last minute, it could have led to harsh Israeli retaliation against Syria from the air. After all, the investigation proved beyond any doubt that the orders for the attack were sent directly from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad headquarters in Damascus -- the same HQ that Asad always insists is no more than an "information office." It is clear that Syrian consent and encouragement are part and parcel of the planning and implementation of such operations.

Such was the case with a number of other deadly attacks, including the October 5 blowing up of the Maxim restaurant in Haifa that left 21 Israelis dead, by a female suicide bomber who was not entirely mentally sound. The Maxim bombing was followed by an Israeli "warning" strike against a terrorist training base near Damascus. The Syrian-based Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdallah Shalah himself explained, in the wake of Operation Defensive Shield and the battle of Jenin, that the Damascus command maintains daily contact with the underground cells in the territories and guides their actions. The Syrian security services monitoring the Palestinians in Damascus closely follow this activity.

The same is true of Hamas. It has established its military command in Damascus with Emad al-Alami at its head. The strategy of attacks in the territories originates from there, sometimes over the heads and without the knowledge of the local leadership. One example was the August attack on the No. 2 bus leaving the Western Wall in Jerusalem that killed 23 and finally buried the last "hudna" cease-fire. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his colleagues in Gaza were genuinely surprised by the scale of the attack, which they had not been informed about ahead of time. The suicide bomber came from Hebron without their permission, and pressed the button on the orders of Damascus.

This state of affairs constantly overshadows the longstanding quiet on the Golan Heights and undermines the extreme caution that Hizballah is displaying along the Lebanese border. Hizballah has stopped firing anti-aircraft shells at Israeli communities in the north and has even pulled back much of its artillery after several positions were wiped out by the Israeli air force in retaliatory raids in the autumn. The Syrians raised the level of alert on their side of the Golan in a demonstrative step and increased their air patrols as a deterrent against Israeli attacks. But they quickly backed down from threats of a military response to any further punitive action by the Israeli Army.

The Israeli Air Force has carried out three warning missions in the last few months: In one, a fighter plane broke the sound barrier flying low over President Asad�s palace in Latakia at 1:07 one morning; another had planes flying low over Beirut late in the evening at the height of the tourist season there; and the third was the attack on the training base at Ein Saheb, 18 kilometers northwest of Damascus, in early October. Usually used by Islamic Jihad, the facility was empty at the time.

At first the Syrians issued threats that the next time, they would not be able to show restraint. Foreign Minister Farouk a-Shara even suggested Syria might consider launching a blow against Israeli homes on the Golan. But within two weeks the drums of war were replaced by more conciliatory signals such as the one conveyed by Asad in his early-December New York Times interview, indicating his desire to resume negotiations with Israel and giving semi-official clarifications that Syria is not, God forbid, threatening to escalate the situation.

Nevertheless, if the Syrian-directed terror continues in its various forms, the moment will come when Israel will be forced to hit back. One more terrible attack will wash away in a wave of blood all the painstaking efforts to contain and stabilize the "northern system," as that arena is now referred to by the General Staff.

Asad might want to avoid a military confrontation with Israel -- his army is certainly not up to it -- but by his own actions, he may well end up inevitably going down that route.