Israel bares its teeth

News reports emerged last week that Israel had struck Syrian positions in Hama; it is already well-known that Israel has been periodically hitting alleged Hezbollah arms shipments to Lebanon since the start of the Syrian war. "In the last five years, [Israel] has targeted arms convoys to Hezbollah at least 100 times," retired Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said just last month.

But as the details emerged from the Hama strike, it became clear that it was not "a routine operation," as claimed by former Israeli Military Intelligence head Amos Yadlin on Twitter.

The attack, which was neither confirmed nor denied by Israeli officials, targeted the Scientific Research Center, which was allegedly used to produce chemical weapons. Just a day before, the United Nations published a report on an attack on Khan Sheikhoun that killed more than 80, declaring the Bashar al-Assad government responsible and that sarin gas had been used.

And just one day before that, Israel launched war games that are set to last for around 10 days and be the biggest such exercises in the last two decades. The exercises, which will include the land, air, naval and intelligence forces, feature scenarios such as neutralizing a threat from over the northern border, as well as an operation into Lebanon. 

But the significance of the timing doesn't stop there. The day Israel struck the chemical weapons factory in Hama just happened to be the 10th anniversary of the country's "Operation Orchard" to destroy Syria's al-Kibar nuclear power plant.

Since the start of Syria's war, Israel has not assumed an explicit stance, following a wait-and-see approach predicated on the maxim of "better the devil you know" with al-Assad in spite of the problems with his regime...