Published on May 5, 2013
Syria says Israel has effectively declared war, after its planes bombed targets in Damascus, the second airstrikes in as many days. Syria’s state media says Israeli rockets targeted a military research centre on the outskirts of the capital. Video footage and eye witness accounts suggest the attacks hit weapons dumps, triggering large explosions.
Syria says a number of people were killed and wounded amid widespread destruction. The Arab League has condemned the strikes and demanded the UN Security Council act to stop any more. The League say there has been a “dangerous violation of an Arab state’s sovereignty”. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter bans the use of force against the territorial integrity of any state. RT’s Gayane Chichakyan in Washington and Polly Boiko in London told RT more about the reaction coming from the UK and the US.
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Israeli Raids in Syria Highlight Arab Conundrum
Five weeks ago, the head of the Arab League capped a summit in Qatar with an impassioned appeal to strengthen the rebel fighters trying to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad. On Sunday, he denounced Israeli’s airstrike into Assad’s territory as a dangerous threat to regional stability.
The contrast reflects a fundamental conundrum for Arab leaders.
Nearly all Arab states have sided with the rebel forces seeking to topple Assad and inflict a blow to his main ally, Iran. And Sunday’s attack by Israeli warplanes in Syria — the second in three days — was the type of punishing response many Arab leaders have urged from the West against Assad after more than two years of civil war.
The fact the fighter jets came from Israel, however, exposes the complications and regional crosscurrents that make Syria the Arab Spring’s most intricate puzzle.
While Israel and much of the Arab world share suspicions about Iran, including worries over its nuclear ambitions and expanding military, the perception that they are allied against Assad — even indirectly — is strongly knocked down by many Arab leaders.
The airstrikes also highlight one of the critical side issues of the Syrian conflict: the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Israeli warplanes apparently targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made Fateh-110 guided missiles believed to be bound for Hezbollah.
Toppling Assad would cut the arms pipeline that runs from Shiite giant Iran to Hezbollah. But Hezbollah remains deeply popular on the Arab street for its battles with Israel, including a war in 2006 in which Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel.
No Arab leader wants to be perceived as giving a green light for Israeli attacks.
Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby warned of serious repercussions from the Israeli attacks and called on the U.N. Security Council to “immediately move to stop the Israeli aggressions on Syria.”
Elaraby described the Israeli airstrikes as a “grave violation of the sovereignty of an Arab state that will further complicate the issue in Syria and expose the region’s security and stability to the most serious threats and consequences.”
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Arab ministers condemn Israeli “crimes of war”
By Aziz El-Kaissouni
CAIRO | Wed Mar 5, 2008 3:43pm GMT
(Reuters) – The Arab League condemned Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip as “crimes against humanity” on Wednesday.
Arab foreign ministers said they “strongly condemn the barbaric crimes that the Israeli occupation forces committed in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories”.
Meeting to prepare for an Arab summit in Syria this month that is expected to focus on Gaza and Lebanon, the ministers said in a statement they were “recording these Israeli crimes as crimes of war and crimes against humanity”.
Israel ended a five-day Gaza military offensive on Monday in which more than 120 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed. It has threatened to send troops back to the Hamas-run coastal territory if cross-border rocket attacks continue.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said: “The criminal aggression against Gaza shows that Israeli policy against the Palestinian people is based on genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to resume peace talks, but did not specify a date.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who froze negotiations on Sunday in protest at the Gaza attacks, said talks could not get underway until Israel reached a ceasefire with Gaza militants behind the rocket attacks.
In Cairo, the Arab ministers called on Palestinians to end internal divisions. Islamist Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’s Fatah faction in June.
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