RAMALLAH, West Bank, 4 April 2008 — Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon said yesterday that Israel had no intention of attacking Syria.
Ramon told Israel Radio that while Tel Aviv was looking to negotiate with Syria, Damascus continued to have connections with Hezbollah.
“Israel has no intention of attacking Syria, and the latter says only it is ready to respond to any attack, so the risk of a military confrontation is very low,” Ramon added.
His comments came as Israeli newspapers splashed front-page stories claiming the military was on high alert after Syria reportedly boosted its deployment near the border and called up reserves.
The Jerusalem Post said increased tension along the frontier, as well as in the Gaza Strip, led Defense Minister Ehud Barak to cancel a planned visit to Germany, though a spokesman said the decision was linked to a planned home front defense exercise next week.
Spokesman Shlomo Dror told AFP, Syria has staged military maneuvers and made other preparations for possible confrontation in the event Hezbollah seeks to avenge the Feb. 12 killing in Damascus of its military leader Imad Mugnieh, which the militia blames on Israel.
But Ramon, a close ally of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Hezbollah was well aware that “if they react too strongly, we will also react harshly.” “I don’t know if they will react or not, but we must do everything in our power to thwart such a retaliation and to thwart their ability to avenge,” he said at a conference in Tel Aviv.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper claimed there were increasing signs that an attack could take place soon.
“And the more these signs accumulate — unusual movements, meetings between various figures, information from all sorts of sources — the more the temperature rises,” the daily wrote.
The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported on Wednesday that Syria had deployed three armored divisions and nine infantry brigades near the border with Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, fearing Israeli infiltration. But Gen. Dan Harel, Israel’s deputy chief of staff, also dismissed the likelihood of confrontation with Syria.
“Neither of the two parties wants such a conflict,” he said. But he added that Israel would respond with a heavy hand to any attack — a warning top Israeli officials have voiced with increasing regularity over recent days. “What is certain is that Israel is the most powerful country in the region and that our response to any aggression would be very tough,” Harel said.
Hirsh Goodman, of the Institute for National Security Studies, said the situation could easily get out of hand if a war of words escalates. “Therefore, Israel and Syria are doing what they can to ease the tension,” he told AFP.
Ramon stressed that Israel remained interested in holding talks with Damascus, but he did not have high hopes this would be possible soon.
“I believe, unfortunately, that the ability to hold talks with Syria, at least in the near future, is extremely limited if it exists at all,” he said in Tel Aviv.
“Unfortunately that country is deeply anchored in its relations with the axis of evil of Iran and Hezbollah,” he added.
The last round of negotiations between the two neighbors, technically at war since 1948, broke down in 2000 over disagreements over the strategic Golan Heights plateau, which Israel seized in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.
The reports of increased tension between the two countries coincided with an announcement that Israel will hold a large-scale home front defense exercise next week featuring scenarios in which chemical and biological missiles hit populated areas.
Israeli Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau head Amos Gilad also confirmed yesterday that despite reports of Syrian reserves being called, there are no possibilities of war. “Syria isn’t interested in attacking Israel, and vice versa,” he said.
Gilad added that “the overseas publication of the fact that three Syrian divisions were called up is incorrect.”
— With input from agencies
