Syrian forces and Israeli soldiers exchange fire

Israeli soldiers returned fire into Syria on Tuesday in response to shots that reportedly damaged a military vehicle in the third cross-border shooting this week in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. There were no injuries reported. An Israeli spokesperson said, the shots "most likely were stray bullets, we don’t know if it was intentional." However, soon after, the Syrian military released a statement saying, "Our armed forces have destroyed an Israeli vehicle with everything that it had in it. The vehicle had crossed the cease-fire line." This was the first time the Syrian regime admitted to firing at Israeli forces in the Golan since the beginning of the Syrian conflict. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reasserted his concerns about Israeli security as the conflict in Syria flares, stressing the potential of Israeli airstrikes to prevent Hezbollah or other militant groups from getting advanced weapons. Israeli has allegedly carried out three airstrikes in Syrian territory this year in order to stop weapons transfers to Hezbollah. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary William Hague insinuated he will veto the renewal of the European Union arms embargo on Syria if member states prevent moves to allow weapons transfers to opposition fighters. There is disagreement within Britain over arms transfers, but lapse of the embargo would allow for possible weapons deliveries in the future. According to The Guardian, the decision in April by the EU to lift its oil sanctions on Syria has led to increased internal clashes between opposition groups and has strengthened jihadist groups. As infighting has risen over oil, water, and agricultural land, pressure on the Syrian government has eased. The Islamist opposition faction al-Nusra Front has reportedly taken control of most of the oil wells in Deir al-Zour province and has struck deals with regime forces to guarantee the transfer of crude to the Mediterranean coast.

Headlines

• Bombings continued in Iraq on Tuesday, killing 13 people a day after a series of car bombings left more than 70 people dead.
• An unemployed former Israeli border policeman killed four people and himself in a Beer Sheva bank on Monday reportedly after being refused overdraft funds and cash from the ATM.
• Three people have been killed including an army soldier in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in clashes between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
• Palestinians are holding off on applying to join U.N. agencies, which would be opposed by the United States and Israel, in order to give the recent U.S. peace efforts a chance to succeed.
• The U.S. State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report shows a rise in 2012 in discrimination against Jews and Muslims around the world. 

Arguments and Analysis

The Cold War Heats Up in Syria Why Russia won’t allow an intervention (Julia Ioffe, The New Republic)

The violence in Syria has descended into sectarian warfare, attracting Islamic extremists from all over the world. Tensions with Turkey have escalated as the conflict claims Turkish lives and threatens to spill across its border. The West, wringing its hands over whether and how to intervene, has offered a diplomatic solution, but one that requires an impossible, simultaneous laying down of arms. Russia, in the meantime, continues to send its navy to putter around menacingly at the Syrian port of Tartus, where it has a small base; it also continues to sell arms to Assad’s regime, despite U.S. objections. Nevertheless, Russia has expressed its hope and willingness to see the diplomatic solution put to work to avert a potential years-long civil war.

Sound familiar? That was June 2012, just under a year ago. Arguably, the only thing that’s changed in Syria since then is the scale: more casualties, more extremists, more violence, more spillover. What hasn’t changed is the rest of the world’s approach to the mess. Obama continues to waffle and stall, the Europeans continue to push for at least arming the rebels, and the Russians continue to hold the stay-out-of-it line, while doing little to hide the fact that their ships are massing in Tartus and that they’re shipping weapons to Assad. 

This is Syria’s great chance for change (Jonathan Steele, The Guardian)

"When Ban Ki-moon opens the promised international conference on Syria in Geneva next month, the war-ravaged country will experience the first sliver of hope it has dared to feel for months. A year has gone by since Russia and the United States approved guidelines for a transition to a more democratic and pluralistic Syria and it is a tragedy that so many lives have been wasted without any effort to implement the guidelines.

It has required several U-turns to bring about a new conference to discuss the issue. The US has dropped its precondition that Bashar al-Assad step down in advance of talks. Unlike Hillary Clinton, John Kerry seems to realise that Assad’s forces cannot be defeated without full-scale US intervention – a prospect that Barack Obama will not permit – and that prolonged conflict only strengthens al-Qaida and the other jihadis who have swarmed into Syria. For his part, Assad has dropped his demand that the armed opposition lay down its guns before he sends his people to meet them. His prime minister and several other ministers are expected in Geneva.

The Syrian opposition is the obstacle, or at least some of them. The secular nationalists in the National Co-ordination Body for Democratic Change promoted the Geneva idea and will attend keenly. The Syrian National Coalition, which is backed by western governments as well as Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is still reluctant to turn up without a commitment that Assad’s departure is assured. To their credit
, British and other western diplomats are urging them not to boycott and thereby hand Assad a propaganda victory."

–By Jennifer T. Parker and Mary Casey