Hamas columnist deplores Syrian failure to confront Israel
In April, Israel attacked military bases in Syria where Iranian weapons were kept. It was only the latest of many such attack. And as usual, there was no response from the Syrians. A Hamas columnist, and former adviser to Hamas leader Ismael Haniya, Yousuf Rizka, expressed his fury and frustration at this failure of the Syrians to strike back at Israel. MEMRI reported on Rizka’s column HERE:
MEMRi summarized the events that triggered Rizka’s column:
‘On April 13, 2019, Syria’s official news agency reported that Israeli planes had targeted a “military outpost” in the city of Masyaf in the Hama Governorate Syrian opposition websites reported that the targets were a site for developing Iranian medium-range missiles and headquarters of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and of Iran-backed militias. Responding to this incident and to earlier Israeli strikes in Syria, Yousuf Rizka, a columnist for the Hamas-affiliated daily Filastin and former advisor to Hamas leader Isma’il Haniya, wrote an article titled “Cowards Do Not Make History,” in which he castigated the Syrian regime and Iran for failing to retaliate against Israel for its strikes. He accused them, as well as Hizbullah, of leaving Syria unprotected and allowing Israel to do as it pleases in its territory and airspace.
The full column is here:
“Several days ago, the Zionist navy targeted the Syrian [city of] Masyaf… The missiles struck military bases in Masyaf where Iranian Zilzal missiles are kept and upgraded… According to experts, this is the first time Israel has attacked Syrian bases from the sea. This may be due to [Israel’s] concern that its planes might encounter Russian planes [above Syria]. It is also possible that Israel wants to humiliate the Syrians and the Iranians together, with Russian acquiescence. The missile attack went unanswered, and the results were as Israel intended them to be. The Syrians and Iranians gritted their teeth and refrained from reacting, as though the incident was inevitable or there was no possibility of responding. The [Syrians and Iranians] did not even [bother to] threaten in the media that retaliation would come at a time and place of their choosing.“Why does Syria – which has been so cruel to the Syrian people in the recent years – remain silent? [Because] Israel is scary and frightening to deal with. Iran does not want a war with Israel on Syrian soil. [Furthermore,] Iran and Syria had no way of knowing how Russia would respond if they reacted to the deliberate Israeli attack, so they found no solution but to remain silent, swallow their pride and downplay the significance of the attack. Israel thus emerged victorious, saying to the two sides [the Syrians and Iranians]: If you repeat [your bad behavior], we will [strike] again, and nothing in Syria is safely outside the range of our planes and our navy. The Syrian Golan has become the Israeli Golan, or perhaps we should say ‘the American-Israeli Golan’ [a reference to U.S. President Trump’s March 25, 2019 recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan] – yet there has been no Syrian reaction to this momentous change. The Syrian [city of] Masyaf [was attacked]… yet Syria did not respond. What more can happen tomorrow?!“Even Lebanon and Hizbullah responded more forcefully than Syria. Hizbullah threatened Israel, whereas Syria did not [even] threaten to respond to the Zionist strike by opening the gates of resistance from the Syrian Golan, for example, or with a Syrian missile attack [on Israel]. Sadly, Syria is an arena where the [Israeli] enemy does as it pleases, despite the presence of Russia, Iran and Hizbullah… What has happened to Syria, which has been dubbed ‘the first land of resistance’?! What would have happened if the Damascus regime dared to respond to the attack on Masyaf?! What would have happened to Iran if it dared to retaliate?! Cowards do not make history…”
While MEMRI’s site is full of empty Arab and Iranian threats directed at Israel, predictions of the imminent end of the Zionist regime, and of the Jews, who will be forced to find refuge “in hell,” Rizka looks at the actual behavior of Syria [and Iran], excoriates them as “cowards” who see Israel as “scary and frightening to deal with,” and deplores the Assad regime’s failure to retaliate, or even to threaten to retaliate, against Israel at some future date.
Israel has been battering the Syrians, and Iranian outposts in Syria, at will, with hundreds of attacks, without a single act of retaliation by Syria or Iran. Both countries are sensibly holding their fire against Israel. Whatever the triumphalist threats of Arabs and Iranians, Damascus and Tehran know that any attempt to retaliate at this point would be met with a devastating response from Israel.
Rizka refuses to acknowledge that Israel is so much more powerful, militarily, than Syria and Iran. He calls the prudent Syrian reluctance to attack Israel “cowardice.” That will not win him friends in the Assad regime. Syrians, like many other Arabs, are getting tired of those Palestinians who, like Yousuf Rizka, lecture and hector and even insult them. After eight years of a civil war that has not yet ended, with five million Syrians having fled the country and another six million displaced internally, the Assad regime wishes only to put the country back together again. Assad is grateful to Iran for its help in the civil war, and thus allows it to build outposts on Syrian soil. But if those outposts are attacked by Israel, as they were at Masyaf, neither Syria nor Iran dares to retaliate.
Syria will need hundreds of billions of dollars to replace the infrastructure that has been destroyed in the civil war. The Islamic Republic of Iran, now that American sanctions have been reimposed, is suffering the greatest economic crisis of its existence. Meanwhile, Israel goes from strength to strength, not just militarily, but economically, too, as the quintessential “Start-Up Nation,” with spectacular advances in high-tech. And Israel is making advances in its own neighborhood diplomatically: Chad has renewed diplomatic relations with Israel that had been ended in 1972; Sultan Qaboos of Oman recently invited Prime Minister Netanyahu for a friendly visit; Israel shares intelligence information on Iran with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Israel and Egypt collaborate militarily against both Hamas and members of the Islamic State in the Sinai, as Genera El-Sisi told 60 Minutes. For many Arab states, the Palestinian issue is no longer central; they have moved on; their national interests now take precedence. For the Palestinians, that realization has been too painful to accept. Hamas columnist Youssuf Rizka cannot bear too much reality. He wants Syria and Iran to take on Israel, when they are in no position to do so. The Hamas dog barks, the caravan moves on.
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