This article, out of the UAE back in February, is a very positive story about a very positive directions in Israeli-Syrian relations.
Another, BBC: The victims of Syria's war finding care in Israel, from last November, writes:
Dr Oscar Embon, the director of the Sieff Hospital, says simply: "Some beautiful relationships have started between the staff at the hospital and the people that we treat. Most of them express their gratitude and their wish for peace between the two countries."and continues:
Dr Embon says that policy of not discriminating between the sick and the hurt is entirely consistent with what he sees as the values of his country and the ethics of his profession.
He told me: "I don't expect them to become lovers of Israel and ambassadors for what we do here, but in the interim I expect they will reflect on what was their experience here and that they will reflect differently on what the regime tells them about Israelis and Syrians being enemies."
I applaud the "ask nothing in return" Israeli position as well as the "voluntary disclosure" for intelligence gathering regarding the state of pro-Assad and terror forces working in opposition to the FSA in the ground war.
But above all, I applaud the goodwill Israel can "bank". In Syria, fighters get tortured in hospital; in Israel, they get lifesaving medical care. It begs the question, and I am sure the FSA is asking this, too: So, who, in this calculus, is the enemy? (PBS Frontline: Rare Video Evidence of Torture in Syrian Hospitals)
In the past three years, Syrian fighters, including the FSA, have rejected humanitarian aid from Israel, refused to engage them in a dialogue in support of their military objectives, and even engaged in some saber-rattling in announcing that Israeli-territory (de-facto) would be next.
So what has changed?
I think that two things are beginning to be different on the ground - which of course changes who your allies have to be. The same case is why the Russians were an Allied power in World War II, but immediately thereafter became an enemy in the Cold War. Only the opposite condition is true this time.
First, the FSA is battling a two front war - which means they they are desperate. The toll ISIL has taken was to divert attention from government forces under Assad, leading to lower effectiveness in making meaningful advances. So bad has ISIL been, they've been disavowed by al-Qaeda. That's pretty much the same as getting a burn notice over a TELEX. (Tracking Terrorism: ISI, ISIS, ISIL)
Add the al-Nusra Front, the "actual" al-Qaeda "branch office", and it seems as though there is no lack of outside interference with radical Islamist agendas. People want freedom in Syria, not to trade one oppressive regime (Assad) for another (al-Qaeda, it's offshoots, and its allies). Syrians wants peace and freedom when the dust settles, not an ideological group with the mentality of a perpetual war with no shortage of a list of enemies.
The scope of desperation is so bad - the war orphans, the projected precipitous loss of literacy and basic education, the lack of basic sanitation and healh-care, lack of food, and the lack of material and support in an increasingly asymmetric battle. The FSA no longer has the luxury of choosing who it gets critical, lifesaving help from if it wants to succeed, if it wants to survive. (BBC: 'Eating grass to survive' in besieged Homs, PBS Frontline: Witnessing Syria’s War Through the Eyes Of Its Children)
The second, however, is a hope. For years, anti-Israel information/propaganda has helped Assad focus the Syrian people on a supposed external threat. The conflict here, however, has lead many to acknowledge that there was a lot of internal conflict. Now that the FSA and allied freedom fighters are beginning to doubt the government in general, especially in light of last years chemical weapons crisis, they may begin doubting that anything the government propaganda machine had told them.
Their neighbor, Lebanon, which is also the regional HQ for the Tehran-funded terrorist organization Hezbollah, and yet-another anti-Israel outfit, is helping the Assad regime - helping to kill members of anti-Assad groups, including the FSA. Lebanon has a long history of anti-Syrian activity, and in this conflict turning a blind-eye to Hezbollah's activities in Lebanon is the same as helping the pro-Assad forces. Nor can they trust Hezbollah's statement on withdrawing from Syria (Yahoo News: Hezbollah says will quit Syria if Arabs stop meddling). And they shouldn't. Hezbollah's entire goal is to conduct violence - whether in Syria (2005), or around the region.
Israel, on the other hand, has called for a regional rejection of terrorism and violence for political means. They have a long history of violations of internal security by Hezbollah, among others. There is, finally, a growing perception that Israel really has no desires for more land from its neighbors - and the land it does have is a security buffer. Now that Syrians are getting a dose of what Israel has been dealing with since basically 1948, there is no doubt that those treated for battle wounds in Israel, then promptly returned to Syria, are beginning to see Israel as a place that just wants to be left alone - to survive in peace and quiet - and wants to stay out of the internal affairs of its neighbors. Only it can't fully, as long as groups like Hezbollah and Hamas attack non-military, civilian targets.
I am a bit more skeptical, but only because of the long history and indoctrination to anti-Israeli sentiments. Perhaps those returning will be able to convince their compatriots that Israel isn't a bad guy, but the amount receiving medical and monetary aid is still small - compared to the estimated 75,000 members of the "rebel groups", which includes 25,000 fundamentalists (Syria rebel rifts deepen as Islamist ranks swell). The old saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" maybe does not apply here; perhaps it is a case of "the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy", even if it is cynical. But just because you are enemies, does not mean you need to interact - at all - with each other. But if they are going to interact, this is an amazing step-forward. Let the Syrians see that Israel is willing to provide humanitarian assistance, to treat Syrians as if they were their own - providing critical combat medicine at no cost, in helping Syrians not lose experienced fighters, and in getting logistical support. Perhaps, when the dust settles, when Syria wants to be left alone from neighbors and terror groups, Israel and Syria can enter into normalized diplomatic relationships and become a peaceful, stable place for all people - not just Syrians and Israelis.
If that happens, if Syria can rebuild their infrastructure and regain economic output, why not trade. Why not improve relations to a point where they can peaceably coexist. It is not unprecedented in the region: Jordan provides a great example of focusing efforts on internal development rather than aggression you can have a semblance of a normal peace. Egypt, too, has stopped caring about the destruction of Israel, at least as their foreign policy goes. But they have realized that there are pressing internal considerations they have to tackle before they're in a position to spent time, effort, and money in a place where the value of good relations is exceeded by the value of what they would get in war.
In order to change hearts and minds, though, Israel must stay out of the fighting until the FSA is interested in asking for more. The last thing the FSA and other forces need is more variables, more uncertainty in the midst of the fog of war.
I will leave you now, dear reader, with sage words from Douglass MacArthur, during the signing of the peace treaty in Japan that ended World War II. I hope the words resonate with you and that they bring a hope in a future where it is true:
Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won....
As I look back upon the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear, when democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that he has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mold victory. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.
A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war.
PBS: American Experience. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/filmmore/reference/primary/macspeech04.html
[I underlined my favorite portions, and have placed in bold the most powerful line to carry into the future]
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