**** To allow for some R&R for your editor the next weekly Israel Report will be transmitted on Monday 06 August 2018
Secret Syria Deal Between Trump, Putin and Netanyahu Sealed at Helsinki…….
19 July 2018
Paradoxically, President Donald Trump found the furore he raised by defending President Vladimir Putin against US intelligence findings of Russian campaign manipulation, to be useful.
The sound and fury that raged on, even after he tried stepping back from that statement, diverted attention from the momentous deal he secretly sealed with Putinat their July 16 encounter in Helsinki.
Reliable military and intelligence sources reveal here the substance of that deal for the first time.
President Trump agreed to hand over to Russian control southern and south-western Syria, including key surveillance elevations from which intelligence observation systems can view all Syria, Iraq Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and the eastern Mediterranean.
This awarded Putin a controlling stake in a vital piece of territory forstrengthening Russia’s military dominance in Syria and the Middle East.
This deal capped negotiations between Trump, Putin and Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
It was finalised during the Israeli leader’s Moscow trip on July 11, five days before the Helsinki summit.
The high points are disclosed hereunder:
1. Israel calls off its military campaign against Iranian, Hizballah and Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan troops, who are fighting for Bashar Assad in Syria.
2. Israel reserves the right to strike any Iranian deliveries of new, advanced weapons systems to Syria. Russian forces will continue to turn a blind eye as before.
3. Israel will refrain from attacking the Syrian government forces moving in on the provinces of Daraa and Quneitra on the Jordanian and Israeli borders.
4. Both Netanyahu and Assad are committed to upholding the 1974 Separation of Forces accord between their governments. This provides for a three-strip buffer zone running the length of their 80km long border (see map):
The first strip - 235km wide and situated on the Syrian side of the Golan border - is to be manned by UNDOF monitors and Russian military police.
In the second strip to the east, the Syrian army may maintain 350 tanks and 3,000 soldiers; and in the third, 650 tanks and 4,500 soldiers.
5. Small units of Russian military police (mostly Chechens) will head the Syrian government forces pushing into Daraa and Quneitra as guarantors of Syrian compliance with the trilateral US-Russian-Israeli accord.
6. After Daraa and Quneitra regions are captured, Russian officers will occupy a chain of positions inside the UNDOF-monitored strip adjacent to the Israeli border.
They will anchor Russia’s pledge to the US and Israel to prevent Iranian and its allied militias from moving into the border regions for attacks on Israel.
7. Russian forces will remain in some enclaves of the south-west after Syria’s takeover.
(a) To buttress Russian military control of southern Syria; (b) As a provisional safeguard against a Syrian army massacre of the local population.
These Russian restraints were assigned to two towns under this threat: Tal Al-Harrah and Nawa.
Situated atop a 1,200 metres-high hilltop, Tal Al-Harrah lies 37km from Daraa City and 14km from the Israeli Golan.
Its exceptional location makes it a unique observation post for intelligence eyes to range over broad sections of the Middle East.
Up until 48 years ago, a large Soviet Russian intelligence station was perched atop Tal Al-Harrah. Fortifications encircled a series of radar stations geared for early warning and equipped with full signals (SIGINT) communications.
From this point, Moscow watched Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and the eastern Mediterranean, up to and including the eastern coast of Turkey and Cyprus.
In 1967, during the Six-Day war, Israel captured this strategic hilltop, dismantled the Russian gear and sent it over to US intelligence by special flight.
This was a rare bonanza for the US in the Cold War against Soviet Russia.
Tal Al Harrah reverted to Syria when the Begin government restored Quneitra to Syria. Three years ago, it fell into rebel hands.
Russian intelligence is bound to again seize on Tal Al-Harrah as a choice site for installing its most advanced intelligence systems.
Its handover will reduce US Middle East forces and intelligence to an inferior position compared with Moscow and strengthen Trump’s demand for the withdrawal of US troops from Syria against the wishes of US intelligence and military leaders.
As to Nawa, just a kilometre north-west of Tal Al-Harrah, Russia is concerned that this town of 100,000 inhabitants will be subjected by Bashar Assad to a massacre.
8. The Russian army, hand in hand with local militias, will continue to rule Daraa province. These militias draw their support and funding from Saudi and United Arab Emirates intelligence.
This role, with the support of the US and Israel, makes them partners in the US-Russian-Israeli deal for southern Syria.
9. President Trump, after conferring with Putin, promised Netanyahu that Israel would be compensated for its consent to hold off from attacking Iranian and Hizballah forces in Syria with formal US recognition of the Golan as a part of Israel, in the same way as he recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
When this subject was raised with the Russian leader, he did not voice objections – possibly because of the way it was presented.
Trump argued that it would be no more realistic to restore to Syria a territory populated by tens of thousands of Israeli's than it would be to hand the Crimea back to the Ukraine after its annexation by Russia.
Reliable sources report that Putin is believed to have put the issue before Assad, buthis answer is not known.
Even a non-committal response on his part could set the stage for negotiations on the Golan.
But meanwhile, before any part of the trilateral deal went into effect, the Syrian army late on Tuesday, July 17, launched heavy air strikes on the city of Nawa and reportedly inflicted dozens of civilian casualties – in defiance of Damascus’ commitment to the Russians to halt aerial bombardments over Quneitra and Daraa.
That commitment also obligated Syria to pull its troops back from the first buffer strip for its handover to UNDOF and Russian monitors.
On Monday, the same day as the Helsinki summit, the Syrian army pulled back from Beit Jinn, an enclave opposite an Israeli Hermon outpost, but typically, 800 troops remained there disguised as local farmers.
The late news now is that Syrian rebel resistance to the Syrian Army’s advance on Quneitra opposite the Israeli Golan crumbled on Thursday, July 19, in the absence of Israeli military support. The following article discusses this late development….
Quneitra Falls to Syrian Army. Damascus: 1974 Accord permits Syrian air flights over Israel’s Golan border….
July 19, 2018
July 19, 2018
Syrian rebel resistance to the Syrian Army advance on Quneitra opposite the Israeli Golan crumbled on Thursday, July 19, in the absence of Israeli military support.
The terms of surrender that rebel leaders signed with Syrian army officers obliged them to hand over all their strongholds, including the town of Quneitra.
The Syrian army was able to return to the positions held before the 2011 uprisingwithout a shot. Rebels refusing to sign were to be sent with their families north to Idlib province.
Israeli officials and military leaders were dismayed by a message received from Damascus claiming that the 1974 Separation of Forces Accord, which both governments resuscitated this week, allowed Syrian aircraft, including assault helicopters and UAVs, to fly over the buffer zones of the Golan up to the Israel border.
Damascus relayed a copy of the accord to Moscow with a warning that any Israeli attempt to shoot down a Syrian overflight would be a breach of the 1974 accord, and its endorsement on July 16 at Helsinki by Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
It was revealed on July 17 that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had partnered the Helsinki deal for the restoration of southern Syria to the Syrian army under Russian oversight.
This Syrian message for the first time forbids the Israeli air force and anti-air missile batteries shooting down Syrian aerial vehicles entering the air space over the buffer zones.
Israel is now even precluded from discovering if the intruder belongs to Iran or Hizballah, leaving both these hostile entities free to fly at will over Israel’s Golan border!
Furthermore, Assad may have those flights painted with Syrian air force markings, just as he supplies Syrian military uniforms to disguise Hizballah and pro-Iranian Shiite militiamen.
It took the Assad regime no more than four days to renege on Syria’s role in the Helsinki accord.
For regaining Quneitra, the Syrian army, led by disguised Hizballah and Shiite troops, was obliged to evacuate the Beit Jinn pocket opposite the IDF’s Hermon outpost.
On Monday, July 16, the Syrians pretended to pull back, while actually leaving several hundred troops behind – disguised this time as civilians and farmers.
Assad is playing with fire on this one. Accord or no accord Israel cannot afford to have such a situation develop on her border?
Time is running out for this scenario and soon enough it will explode into a cross-border battle or worse.
Israeli Soldier Killed by Hamas Sniper. Massive IDF Air Strikes over Gaza continue….
July 21, 2018
July 21, 2018
Snipers [pictured below] used for the first time by Hamas killed an Israeli solder in cross-fire from Gaza on Friday, July 20.
Massive IDF air strikes [pictured above] were launched forthwith and are still ongoing, cutting short three months of constant Hamas assaults.
Initial IDF communiques on the Israeli operation referred only to “a grave security incident.”
Late Friday night, it was disclosed that a soldier had been killed earlier by Hamas snipers who targeted the troops breaking up an unruly Palestinian demonstration pushing against the border fence.
Late Friday night, it was disclosed that a soldier had been killed earlier by Hamas snipers who targeted the troops breaking up an unruly Palestinian demonstration pushing against the border fence.
The sudden appearance of snipers after three months of Hamas rockets, violent disturbances, infiltrations and the kite-balloon arson attacks, gave Israel’s strategists pause.
This form of attack calls for specialist training and precise intelligence.
The IDF fighter jets and tanks conducted wide attacks across the Gaza Strip, hitting at least eight Hamas observation posts along the border.
This round was followed by massive bombardments of dozens of terrorist organization’s compounds in the Zeitun district of Gaza City, Nuseirat and Al Bureij in the south.
Hamas is believed to have sustained at least 4 dead and 120 injured and responded initially with far more restraint than a week ago, firing 3 rockets at the Sedot Negev Council, of which Iron Dome intercepted two.
The current round of the Israeli counter-terror operation against the Gaza Strip, the first in four years, appears to be just beginning, according to reports reaching us from Tel Aviv, where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu heads a small group managing the operation.
Trump’s Stumble at Helsinki – a Perk for Khamenei and Kim Jong-un?......
20 July 2018
The main lesson for US President Donald Trump may draw from his first face-off with President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was that a summit is not in and of itself a strategic tool for a global power’s foreign policy – or even forging good personal relations.
Trump arrived in Finland tired and dispirited from fighting NATO allies in Europe and taking flak from huge street protests held by unimaginably stupid and uninformed people in the UK.
High tea with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle was not quite the brace he needed for facing up to America’s long-time adversary.
The Russian president, in contrast, arrived fresh and glowing from the kudos he collected for hosting the brilliant World Cup events, which marked a high point in his 18-year career as Russian leader.
Even with 700 Russian entities under US and European sanctions, Western condemnation for annexing Crimea, accusations of meddling in the US presidential election and of complicity in poison gas murders in Britain and its use in Syria – Putin and his country had avoided being branded as pariahs by the West at large.
In two hours of hammer and tongs alone with Trump, except for interpreters, Putin did not give an inch on nuclear disarmament, Ukraine or the Middle East.
He left the US President with little substance to show from his much-anticipated trip to Finland, while forced to endure a massive backlash at home for citing the Russian leader’s case and bashing the US intelligence probe on Russian meddling in the US 2016 election.
Even his Republican allies shot him down for committing this cardinal political sin while standing on the same platform as the accused party.
Although he later recanted publicly – “I have full faith and support for intelligence findings on Russian meddling in our elections” - this incident re-stoked Trump’s dispute with key intelligence agencies at home.
They refuse to tolerate Trump’s reduction of the issues with Russia at the heart of the Cold War, which continue to be the raison d’etre for US-Russian intelligence rivalry and NATO’s existence, as mere conspiracies for delegitimising his election and sabotaging his efforts to “get along” with the Russian president.
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and North Korea’s Kim Jong un will undoubtedly have taken glad note of the Trump performance in Helsinki.
Each will have drawn his own conclusions for future interaction with Washington.
Since Putin withheld his cooperation from military steps for the removal of Iran and its proxies from Syria, it is hard to see him going along with the harsher sanctions Trump is preparing for the Islamic Republic.
Before Helsinki, Iran was in dire straits, but now the ayatollahs may see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Kim may use the impression of US presidential weakness to play ever harder ball on the road to disarming its nuclear weapons and ballistic weapons.
Glaringly obvious is the fact that a focal point for all these events now lies just ahead – and yet the world's mainstream media, and the public at large seem blissfully unaware of the seismic shifts in geopolitical manoeuvrings that are now taking place each and every day.
The staggering thing is that all that is occurring in our day, largely unnoticed, is completing the final stage-setting for latter day biblical prophecies to be fulfilled.
All the players are on stage – standing in their correct positions – awaiting the call for the curtain to be raised and the performance to begin.
Keep looking up!
Knesset Passes Law Enshrining Israel as the National Home of the Jewish People….
July 19, 2018
July 19, 2018
Israel is the Jewish nation’s historic homeland under its unique right to exercise national self-determination.
This was determined by the long-debated Basic Law carried by the KnessetWednesday night by a 62:55 vote with 2 abstentions, after a stormy eight-hour session.
The Israeli flag, menorah, Hatikva anthem, Hebrew calendar, and Jewish holidays were defined as national symbols, Hebrew as the official language, with special status for Arabic, a clause challenged fiercely by Israeli Arab leaders.
Another hotly-disputed clause, allowing Jewish-only communities was scrapped, and replaced by the “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.”
The new law further affirms that the state will be open for Jewish immigration and act within the Diaspora to strengthen the affinity between the state and members of the Jewish people.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lauded the law, which has raised criticism in Israel and among some overseas Jewish groups, as “a defining moment in the history of Zionism and the history of the State of Israel.”
It surely is. Meanwhile the Arab Palestinian so-called leadership continue to plan for their “Judenrein” state which is supposedly going to live in 'peace and security' alongside the nation of Israel?
Palestinian Authority Presient Mahmoud Abbas called on the international community to intervene against Israel over its newly passed Jewish nation-state law, calling the contentious piece of legislation “racist” and bristling at its affirmation of Jerusalem as the country’s capital.
Cognitive Dissonance at its finest?
Israel Report
Editor; Mike Claydon
Editor; Mike Claydon
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