Syrian rebel forces have taken up positions along the border with Israel, with
the exception of the Quinetra enclave which is still in the hands of the Syrian
army, senior IDF officials told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as he looked
out across the Syrian border on Sunday from the IDF outpost on Mount
Avital.
“The big question is when the big Syrian flag in Quinetra will be
changed,” one IDF officer told Netanyahu, who spent the afternoon in the North
and was briefed on the advances the Islamists and Salafists were making in
Syria.
Netanyahu, who last week toured the border with Egypt, said Israel
was interested in creating a physical barrier with Syria similar to the one
recently constructed in the South.
“We are monitoring the changes taking
place in Syria, and there are many changes taking place, and they affect
Israel’s security,” he said.
The prime minister was updated on the
security fence being erected from Mount Avital south to the point where the
Israeli, Syrian and Jordanian borders meet on the southern Golan
Heights.
“I would like to examine the possibility of extending this fence
[north] up to Mount Hermon so that there will be a strong buffer along the
length of our border with Syria,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel was also
carefully monitoring what was happening beyond the buffer inside Syria, both
regarding the rebels taking control and any movement of Syria’s chemical
weapons.
“This is not only an Israeli matter,” he said. “We are in close
contact with the US on this matter; it is a strategic interest of both
countries.”
The New York Times reported last week that Israel’s top
military commanders discussed with the Pentagon in November satellite imagery
showing what appeared to be Syrian troops mixing chemicals – probably the nerve
gas sarin – at two storage sites and filling dozens of 500-pound
bombs.
According to the report, this resulted in a “remarkable show of
international cooperation” that included a public warning by US President Barack Obama and sharp private messages to Syrian leaders through Russia, Iraq,
Turkey and possibly Jordan that stopped the chemical mixing and bomb
preparation.
While at the Golan outpost, Netanyahu also fired back at
former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who charged Friday night that the Netanyahu
government had wasted some NIS 11 billion on “adventurous delusions” with the
planning of operations against Iran that “were not carried out and will not be
carried out.”
“This is a miserable, irresponsible comment, from someone
who wasted billions of shekels on disengagement from Gaza and uprooting Jews,
something that brought a rain of missiles onto Israel,” Netanyahu
said.
By contrast, he added, his government “invested billions of shekels
to strengthen the IDF, Mossad and Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency], and to
enhance Israel’s security.”
Netanyahu said that while those responsible
for disengagement from Gaza were “trying to mobilize the world against Israel,
we are trying to mobilize the world against the Iranian
government. Stopping the Iranian nuclear program was and will remain our
No. 1 objective.”
Netanyahu, who makes periodic visits to the North, took
advantage of the timing following last week’s stormy weather to visit the Ayit
nature preserve in the southern Golan, and gazed at the drenched landscaped –
still spotted with patches of snow – and was photographed against the background
of the now roaring Ayit waterfall.