Incident came as IAF fighters departed area after alleged strike last week and they were not in danger; move could signal a significant shift in Moscow’s ties with Israel.
Times of Israel, MAY 17, 2022
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Russian S-300 air defense missile systems drive during the Victory Day military parade marking 71 years after the victory in WWII in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, on May 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
Russian forces opened fire on Israeli jets with advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles as they allegedly attacked targets in northwestern Syria last week, Channel 13 news reported Monday, in what could signal a significant shift in Moscow’s attitude to Israel.
According to the unsourced report, the incident occurred on Friday as the Israeli air force bombed several targets near the city of Masyaf in northwestern Syria.
On Friday night at least five people were killed and seven others were hurt in the alleged airstrike, Syria’s state news agency said. Other media in the country said six were killed, all crew members of a Pantsir air defense system who attempted to take down the Israeli missiles.
The report said the Syrian military fired off dozens of anti-aircraft missiles which have been largely ineffective at halting the hundreds of Israeli strikes on Syria in recent years.
However, this time the S-300 batteries also opened fire as the jets were departing the area and ultimately did not present a real threat to the IAF fighters, the report said, noting that Syria’s S-300 batteries are operated by the Russian military and cannot fire without their approval.
The report also said that the S-300 radar did not manage to lock onto the Israeli jets.
If confirmed, this would mark the first time such an incident has taken place and a concerning development for Israel which has carried out hundreds of airstrikes inside Syria in the course of the country’s civil war, targeting what it says are arms shipments bound for Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.
Israel rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations and there was no confirmation of the raid or the S-300 launch from the IDF.
The Masyaf area is thought to be used as a base for Iranian forces and pro-Iranian militias and has been repeatedly targeted in recent years in attacks attributed to Israel. Sattelite imagery taken after the strike showed that an underground facility had been completely destroyed.
The report comes amid a deterioration in ties between Israel and Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Israel has tried to walk a fine line between Moscow and Kyiv but has recently become more critical of Russia as evidence emerged of Russian atrocities and growing antisemitic rhetoric from Russian leaders.
Russia, a close ally of Syria’s Bashar Assad, has forces based and operating in Syria.
Beyond providing Syria with its air defenses, Moscow also maintains state-of-the-art S-400 air defense systems to protect its own assets in Syria, but has never turned them on Israeli planes.
Without specifically mentioning the incident, Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Monday said Israel would not be deterred and vowed to prevent Iran from transferring “advanced capabilities” to other entities in Syria.
“The State of Israel will continue to act against any enemy that threatens it, and prevent the transfer of advanced capabilities from Iran that endanger the citizens of Israel and harm the stability of the entire region,” Gantz said during a visit to the military’s Northern Command.
Israel has long accused Iran of transferring advanced munitions to the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, via Syria.
In recent years Israel and Russia established a so-called deconfliction hotline to keep the sides from getting tangled up and accidentally clashing over Syria.
While meeting in Sochi last year, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the two nations would continue to implement the mechanism.
Bennett said at the time that Israel’s relationship with Russia is “strategic” in nature and noted the importance of the “intimate discourse” with the Russian military.
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Putin on multiple occasions to discuss the issue and claimed that their personal relationship was the main factor in keeping the mechanism in place.
The Channel 13 report said it was not immediately clear if the S-300 missile fire was a one-time event or if it was a Russian signal to Israel that they were changing their policy.
In 2018, Russia provided the advanced S-300 air defense system to Syria’s military free of charge, transferring three battalions with eight launchers each to the Assad regime despite strenuous objections from Israel and the US.
Russia’s delivery of the S-300 system to Syria follows the downing of a Russian spy aircraft by Syrian forces that were responding to an Israeli strike over Syrian airspace. Russia has blamed Israel for the incident, which killed 15 Russian crew members.
Israel and its allies for years have lobbied Russia not to give Syria and other regional players the S-300 system, arguing that it would limit Israel’s ability to neutralize threats, including by Hezbollah.
I see no mention of an affair that has likely been forgotten. The dear
“Mother Russia” so blameless of all evil………
The Stalin purge of the Jewish Doctors, accusing them of planning to murder prominent Politburo members, imprisoning , torturing and killing a few….accompanied by the most massive outpouring of Jew hate since Hitler.
Later, after Stalin’s death, acknowledged as being a hoax, and completely concocted.
@Felix
Another posting which only demonstrates your continued devotion to personal attacks. Yes, I know, you believe that you have a cultural disability providing you an excuse for such poor social skills. In truth, I have always found that people pursue such personal attacks while NOT RAISING A SINGLE POSITION BEYOND THEIR AD HOMINEM ASSAULTS for reasons other than their having even the slightest knowledge to support such assaults. Indeed, I believe they do so out of fear. Fear of being proven wrong, or fear of being seen as incompetent, or fear of providing the lesser argument, or fear of some other force providing their motivation. I would suggest that you are quite capable of making a strong argument without succumbing to personal assaults, as you just did so earlier today and quite well stated it was. So, take heart, and share a comment on the subject being discussed with a discussion of the topic and not the people making the comments, or perhaps you could find some treatment for the fear that keeps you from adding what could be a rational input to a lively discussion without such tendencies of cultural disabilities as seem to seriously afflict you of late.
Reader
I am interested in the method of Peloni
Win at all costs yes
Distort yes
Taking a point, blowing it up to absurd levels, thereby causing great confusion
Absolutely ignoring the context
He does not play the ball. He barges at you to bury you in text that causes you to be asphixiated under the weight of those incessant words
Is all words. Not an action man. These are very bad things.
Good luck with Peloni Reader
@Reader
Then explain how I have lied, insulted or compared apples to oranges. Indeed, you are more capable of all you have just charged me with and have done so most recently in your previous response. As I have noted, you have the ability to express yourself better than such empty personal abuses, in all seriousness, and I would prefer you returned to the conversation with a more responsive retort than present in your last attempt, should you be in the mood. Make your case, or if you prefer we can dispense with the conversation, I see no benefit in trading empty barbs. I really would prefer the former option if you are up to it, but your choice.
@peloni
Well, I am certainly not capable of competing with your distortions of my (and others’) posts and your desire to win any argument at all costs (like lies, insults, and you propensity to compare apples and oranges, etc.)
@Reader
Indeed, well, your lack of a responsive argument would suggest you prefer projection to a competent explanation, for which you too regularly demonstrate that you are well suited, but seem incapable of completing on this occasion. So be it.
@peloni
Your arguments are based on ignorance and a lack of logic.
@Reader
There are many, and the most obvious are the Nazi invasion of all of Europe and the NATO wars of agression, just two examples to match your rationale defending Russia, and I do not believe you would make any defense for either Hitler nor NATO.
To accept your statement here as just, does fairly excuse the Nazi war aggression, just as it does the wars of aggression by NATO. Is it your purpose to claim any defense when it suits Russia and then declare it unlawful when it does not? Fair question I think given your statement here.
I really do not believe this represents a fair vision of your world view.
You are suggesting that the ends justify the means, regardless of the nature of the means or those innocents who would bear the cost of Russia exploiting those means to her own ends. By extension, any nation powerful enough to seize Russia’s wealth and resources would be excused in doing so because it benefits them. The concept of ‘Might makes Right’ was never accurately stated. Might makes many things possible, but only exercising lawful pursuits of the just exercise of Might makes these possibilities Right. Otherwise, there is no morality, no conviction and no true concept of Right, just Might. In this lesser context of rationality, Might makes Right, but only because there is no Right because there is a complete lack of moral compass to compare it, ie there is no law or justice.
This does recall a thought to mind:
Hence, I fundamentally disagree with your rationale, which does seem to be arbitrarily applied based on how it affects Russia. I don’t mean to be contrary, but I am curious how this is not a fair assessment of your words here when contrasted by your contempt for the NATO wars of aggression.
@Felix Yes, America has been a mixed bag. Russia, except for a couple of good deeds, not so mixed.
https://www.hartman.org.il/lessons-of-struggle-for-soviet-jewry-remain-relevant/
@Felix I guess we’re all on a low sodium diet. San Remo. We’re neither coughing nor sorry.
@Felix
San Remo.
https://israelforever.org/interact/blog/san_remo_forgotten_milestone_Israel/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/on-centenary-san-remo-conference-hailed-as-seminal-moment-in-zionist-history/
@Felix
I don’t take Peloni all that seriously. So Stalin broke international law, a phrase which no Jew worth his.salt will ever utter without coughing apologetically. Stalin also murdered all the old Bolsheviks. He betrayed the Spanish socialist revolution 1936 to 1939. Stalin was evil
He also was scared stiff at the rise of the Nazis and their Jewish Bolshevism based on the Protocols of Zion.
So who you gonna prosecute Peloni. Get a grip.
Deal with reality of now. Empire surrounds Russia with NATO nukes.
The ex liberation Maoist Zorn thinks for Jews no problem. Zorn says for Jews no problem so be concerned only with what!!!
No problem either that Bandera Fascism is being promoted in this situation. Who by , well by everyone but Jews too. I can find none raising connection to Lviv July 1 1941. Not one.
I’m the only one who has. Somewhere Jews like Zorn have forgotten intellectual integrity.
Zorn should be out telling people Look this where the Maidan Coup came out of – that is out of the Nazi Ukrainian Collaborators of Lviv July 1 1941.
But he won’t. He’s sold on anti communism. Don’t let the corny jokes deceive.
Just a plain old communist hater.
@Sebastien Zorn
I reposted my old posts in order not to repeat the stuff about WWII, I wasn’t going to start arguing again about Jews.
Israel and the Jews have no friends whatsoever.
When some countries act better toward them it is because they have a reason for doing so.
@peloni
No, I meant that Poland has always wanted to chop off a piece of Russian territory, I didn’t express it clearly.
Again, tell it to the marines and to the US and NATO, and I am sure you can find plenty of examples in history of the fact that the only “international” law is the law of the biggest fist and the thirst for resources and territory.
In terms of self-defense: the top officials of the USSR (NOT RUSSIA) knew that Germany was going to attack and did their utmost to create a buffer zone to make the German Blitzkrieg resemble the 1812 Napoleonic war as much as possible.
They also knew that they were not ready for war (and the British knew that, too) and they wanted to push it off as far as possible.
@Peloni, Reader, Edgar My maternal grandfather was born in Vilna but emigrated to New York City the following year. He wanted to live near his parents.
@Sebastien
@Reader
Thanks Sebastien.
Here is the text of the Secret Supplementary Protocol signed on August 23,1939 before the invasion with similar language:
@ Reader, Peloni
Gestapo-NKVD conferences – Wikipedia
And together, they slaughtered a lot of people. Read the article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo%E2%80%93NKVD_conferences
@Edgar You could also say it begins when the Soviet Union signed a secret treaty with Germany to allow German troops that Versaille forbade Germany from having to train secretly on Soviet soil in exchange for training Soviet troops in the 20s.
@Reader
Let’s ignore what is happening today and stay focused on 1939. I presume this quote above is about today, so let’s look at what is left.
It isn’t an opinion, this is a fact, it is a document, and it says what it says without any interpretation or guesswork. The 1933 pact with Poland did not setup a cooperative arrangement to invade Russia. Read it (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/blbk01.asp), it is very short, it doesn’t say this. It setup a guarantee of peace between Poland and Germany which lasted til the German Corridor issue caused Germany to dispense with the Polish pact. So even if it was an aggressive pact, which it wasn’t, it wasn’t in force at the time Russia invaded in any case. But read the pact or read whatever you like. There was no agreement to do anything but maintain peace between Germany and Poland. In line with the German treaty, Poland signed a similar treaty with Russia. Both of the treaties signed by Poland in 1934 were public, they were not secret treaties. Russia violated this treaty and Poland’s sovereignty when they invaded and they knew full well what they were doing.
On August 23(?) 1939, Russia signed a secret non-aggression treaty between Russia and Germany in which they agreed to divide Poland. The treaty violated Russia’s 1934 treaty with Poland and when Russia invaded Poland it violated international law. Poland committed no crime against Russia, none whatsoever. Believe me, I am not a big fan of Poland for many reasons, but the truth is true and it is true that Poland had no aggressive treaty with Germany, not in 1934 when the treaty was signed and not in 1939 when the treaty was torn up by Germany, nor later that year when Germany and Russia secretly agreed to carve up Poland between them.
This isn’t fair. There is one standard. It is international law. The exception is the Carolinian clause of self defense against an aggressor nation and this did not apply as Poland was not mounting any war against Russia, nor Germany for that matter.
Dreams of war are not war crimes. Acts of war are war crimes. I consider Russia to be an ally of Nazi Germany because they were an ally of Nazi Germany until Nazi Germany tried to do to Russia what Germany and Russia actually did to Poland. I do not consider Poland an ally of Germany because they only agreed to not make war on eachother and did not form a military alliance or cooperative agreement to make war on another nation as Russia did with Germany. Poland was implicitly NEUTRAL.
Russia simply has no defense here.
@Reader and Syria. Russian forces have been doing military exercises with Syria on the edge of the Golan Heights and it issued its threat to back any Syrian aggression in February before it invaded Ukraine so you can’t say this was jyst retaliation for Israel taking sides which it hasn’t totally.
@Felix I defended Russia in its own backyard conflicts not because I am on Russia’s side but because I felt truth lay in that direction.
I am only on Israel’s side. The anti-Russian forces in the UN are not antisemitic.
This conflict has nothing to do with us.
Individually, Jews have a right to back whoever.
@Reader
Russia saved a lot of Jews – on purpose, actually – Those Soviet citizens under more danger from the Nazis – that is how, they looked at it. were deliberately given a choice to be evacuated with Soviet forces.
America and England were not invaded so the issue never came up. Actually, they did make small rescue efforts, eg, the Kindertransport, the rescue of about a thousand Jews to the US and the sponsorship of Wallenberg, the aborted truck deal.
The comparison is apples and oranges. You seem to be suggesting gratitude is in order.
The Soviets and later Russia were a very mixed bag. This Russia helped Bibi stop an Obama sanction at the UN, unless Bibi was lying and why would he lie about something like that, and coordinated with Ithe DF to avoid conflict in Syria as Israel takes out the positions of Iran and it’s proxies, But, on the other hand, and more importantly now, Russia backs Iran, the PA and Hamas, enabling their aggression, and votes against Israel in the UN!
I have mentioned that the Soviet Union was the first country to recognize Israel de Jure and the only country, through Czechoslovakia, to give any aid in 1948, but this position was quickly reversed and the KGB created and sponsored Arafat and all the other left wing terrorists!
I think Russia’s demands re Crimea and Ukraine are legitmate but Russia is mostly a bad actor though one whose comparative neutrality could have been and should have been courted.
But, the cat’s out of the bag, now, and we must support Israel pushing back against Russia which just received a delegation from Hamas and not only supports the TSS Trojan n horse but demands Israel surrender East Jerusalem and thei Golan Heights which Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over and Biden has not been able to reverse.
Russia gives aid – albeit non-military, so far — to Hamas. America gives aid to Israel. “Come on, man!”
@peloni
Well, then how come the non-aggression pact the USSR had with Germany DID NOT render the USSR neutral in your opinion?
You are using one standard for Poland and another standard for the USSR, it is obvious to anybody who can read.
Why do you consider the USSR to be an ally of Nazi Germany but at the same time you consider Poland who was dreaming of joining the Nazi Germany to attack the USSR a neutral country?
Poland is NOT afraid of Russia, Poland wants a large piece of Russian territory same as do the US, Great Britain, Germany, etc.
@READER-
No, I well know when the Sudetenland and Czech problem occurred. We are not talking about the fact that Poland made a 1934 treaty with Germany. We are talking about the real beginning of the War. If it means anything, that War was, as I said, a continuation of WW1, and WW1 was impelled to it’s beginning NOT by the Sarajevo Assassination, but by the Franco-Prussian War in which Prussia annexed Alsace-Lorraine. and so forth and so on.
I am very conversant with those periods having read about them very extensively, from ALL angles, a far back as the double suicide at Mayerling…I don’t suppose you know about that, but can look it up. And as I’ve written here, I have a biography of King Peter of Servia, written just after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and wife, so, BEFORE WW1 began in earnest..
Poland has always been scared stiff of Russia, although once a great state,(see Jan Sobieski) having been a partially Russian possession for so many years over the centuries, with occasional outbreaks.
I often read about Prince Poniatowski and his lancers, (he was at one time PM of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, a Napoleonic creation, a Polish hero in fact). I know the history. At one time Poland was a HUGE state, taking up the whole of central Europe, as was the Duchy of Lithuania in it’s turn. from the Baltic right down to the Med., the whole centre of Europe. I used to look with amazement at the maps for hours
.Because in MY time Lithuania was a tiny Baltic country with NO power, and only quite recently freed from Czarist Russia. Recall READER, that my family came from just the other bank of the River Dvina which separated Lithuania from Latvia. So it was an area I studied.
In fact Prince Poniatowski was a descendent for the Lithuanian rulering family although born in Vienna… Up to the time of the Napoleonic period Poland was divided between Russia, the prime mover, the Hapsburgs, and Prussia,
(although Napoleon forced Prussia and Austria to allow the creation fo the Grand Duchy of Warsaw which ended when Napoleon was beaten at Leipzig.) .
and )until the end of WW1, there was NO Poland. They HATED Russia. and the treaty with the Nazis was because they were afraid. of them and hoped they’d be a support against Russia..
@Reader
Reader, you seem to be under some false pretense that Poland was not neutral. Your statement is flatly untrue. The pact it had with Germany was a non-agression pact rendering it neutral and it had been abrogated by the Germans prior to the time of the Russian invasion.
History:
In 1934, Poland signed a non-agression pact with Germany and they signed a non-aggression pact with Russia in that same year. In April 1939, due to the issue of the Polish Corridor, Germany repudiated their non-agression pact with Poland. At the end of August 1939, Germany and Russia signed their secret pact agreeing to divide Poland. Germany invaded on Sept 3 from the West and Russia invaded on Sept 17 from the East. Poland was NEUTRAL, and it had a current Non-Agression Pact at the time of the invasion by Russia. At least the Germans openly renounced their Polish non agression pact prior to the invasion. In summary, this was a planned, cooperative assault, an illegal act of aggression against a neutral power, which had a non-aggression pact with Russia, unequivocally, a war crime.
Your assertion that Poland was not neutral is simply untrue. Please look this up.
Reader
Israel is now flat on in the camp of America Britain and Germany. Study the positions being taken. See my last post re people here on Israpundit. See Glick and Anman in video on site. See Israel joining with antisemitic forces in UN against Russia. See silence on Lvov pogrom July 1 1941et al and connection with present government of Ukraine.
@peloni
Tell it to the marines.
Poland wasn’t neutral, it had a pact with Nazi Germany since 1934.
I return to Israpundit after a few hours sleep and see a full on attack on Reader but really on Russia by Peloni who I thought was defending Russia in this struggle, and by Sebastien Zorn, what’s new there!
Now Peloni wages flat out war on Russia and wants it prosecuted for a war crime. At this time. He joins the BBC and the rabid Russia hating media in these critical days. BBC is also calling for Russia to be prosecuted for war crimes.
It’s disappointing and worrying to me. Shows really what we’re up against.