New Rules for Israel and Syria
The first Israeli air raid inside Syria in three decades undermined a crucial convention of the Arab-Israeli conflict — that these two enemies would not attack each other directly. No matter how much violence raged around it, the Israeli-Syrian border has been quiet since the armistice agreement following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. If the bitter foes wanted to fight, they squared off on the battlefield called Lebanon, or deployed various proxy forces. The attack last Sunday on what the Israelis said was a Palestinian terrorist training camp changed that formula, perhaps forever. “The proxy game is over,” said a senior Western diplomat familiar with all sides in the conflict. “There is a new Middle East game that we are just seeing beginning.” Full Story