BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,074, January 27, 2019
By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, BESA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Moscow’s public demand that Israel stop its attacks in Syria places Israel’s longstanding air campaign at a critical juncture despite PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s avowed determination to sustain it for as long as necessary.
Three primary goals underlie Israel’s longstanding air campaign in Syria, dubbed the “Campaign Between Wars”: 1) preventing the buildup of a terrorist front on the Golan Heights; 2) preventing Tehran’s military entrenchment in Syria; and 3) preventing the acquisition of long-range precision missiles/rockets by Hezbollah and other Iranian-propped militias. In a 2015 doctrinal pamphlet entitled “The IDF’s Strategy,” then-Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot defined the Campaign Between Wars as designed to “weaken negative factors and achieve deterrence in order to keep the next war away.”
At present, there is broad consensus in Israel regarding the essential vitality of the above three goals. Yet the changing strategic circumstances in Syria have given rise to concerns that not only does the continuation of the campaign in its present form not forestall the danger of war, but it actually increases its likelihood due to the possibility of an uncontrolled escalation.
The clashes along the Syrian-Israeli border in the three years preceding the June 1967 war may help place the current confrontation in a broader historical context. Since 1964, the IDF had been conducting a “Campaign Between Wars” similarly aimed at achieving three main goals: 1) foiling the diversion of the Jordan River estuaries; 2) asserting Israel’s sovereignty in the demilitarized zone along the border; and 3) fighting Syria-originated attacks by the nascent Fatah terror group. The IDF General Staff, headed at the time by Lt. Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, sought to maximize the operational and strategic potential of these clashes while being keenly aware of the possibility of their possible escalation to the point of war. Rabin in particular believed that Syria’s defeat in a general war would also solve the problem of Fatah terrorism.
On April 7, 1967, Syrian fire on Israeli farmers tilling lands in the demilitarized zone expanded into a wider confrontation, with Israeli PM and Minister of Defense Levi Eshkol approving the use of air strikes to neutralize the Syrian artillery. In the ensuing air battle the IAF shot down six Syrian fighter aircraft.
This incident was without doubt a critical milestone on the road to the 1967 war. Had the “Campaign Between Wars” been designed expressly to foreclose the danger of war, then the April 7 clashes – for all their tactical achievements – constituted a systemic failure (though the deterioration to war was by no means a foregone conclusion). From a different vantage point, however, the “Campaign Between Wars” might have served the opposite goal: of improving conditions in case of an outbreak of war.
The same logic may be applied to the current Israeli campaign in Syria. While it is necessary to have it defined in precise and clearly articulated terms, manifested in the public domain by the above-stated three strategic goals, it is equally crucial for the Israeli leadership to realize that in the changing circumstances, even if the continuation of the campaign might lead to war, that war must be prepared for with a view to fundamentally changing the security situation on Israel’s northern border in its favor.
An earlier version of this article was published in Hebrew in Israel Hayom on January 25, 2019.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for forty-two years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges.
General Hacohen’s suggestion that Israel’s use of aircraft to end a Syrian artillery barrage against a kibbutz April 1967 brought on the 1967 Six-day war is, I think, inaccurate. It was only when Russia responded to the clash by falsely reporting to Nasser and the UN Security Council that Israel was massing fourteen divisions on the Syrian border (it wasn’t amassing any divisions at all) that Nasser felt obliged to confront Israel in the Sinai and the Gulf of Aqaba-Eilat, since he would have lost face to the Arab world had he failed to do so.
Claims by the Syrians that Yitzhak Rabin had threatened to invade Syria and overthrow the Syrian government were proven by subsequent research tobe entirely fictitious. Actually, Rabin had only made a vague warning of future retaliation if Syria continued its campaign of shelling the border Kibbutzim, which had been in progress for nearly a year before the April 1967 clash. He said nothing about invading Syria or overthrowing its government.
The Six-day War, then, was a result of a joint decision to start a war with Israel the Soviets and their Syrian client. Since the April aerial clash was just a pretext, the Soviets and the Syrians would undoubtedly have found another one as a rationale for initiating hostilities. There was little or nothing that Israel could have done to avoid a war.
Hacohen’s tone and emphasis are very different when being interviewed by Caroline Glick for Breitbart News than in this article for BESA. Perhaps he felt he could be more frank talking to Glick and Breitbart.
Hacohen’s warning is so nuanced and understated that it is evasive, and his point is easy to miss. But the jist of it, that Israel has to be prepared for a major Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah escalation into all-out war–is valid. His additional implication that Israel should hold back from attacking Syrian and Iranian targets,however, is not. Iran is determined to attack israel, using its proxies, at some point. The longer Israel waits to confront them, the better armedIran and its proxies are likely to be, and the heavier Israel’s losses.
Of course, the Russians are the wild card here. If they give the green light to Syria and Iran to attack, they will. If Russia doesn’t give the green light, they probably won’t. Putin claims he is concerned to protect Israel’s security. However, Russia’s state-controlled media, such as RT and Sputnik, continue to serve up a regular diet of print-Israel, pro-Arab propaganda. Russia’s position toward Israel is thus sphinx like-hard to knw what Putin’s actual plans and intentions towards Israel are. Bibi, obviously, has invested a lot of time and energy in an attempt to win Putin’s coperation with Israel in Syria. Unclear how successful Bibi’s diplomacy towards Russia has been. Putin’s blaming Israel for Syria’s shooting down a Russian plane a few months ago is a worrisome sign.