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Israeli Intel Chief Wary of War With Syria Kenneth R. Timmerman, NewsMax.com NewsMax contributing editor and Middle East expert Kenneth R. Timmerman is in Israel covering the conflict with exclusive reports and insights.
JERUSALEM -- Military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told Israeli lawmakers that Syria was funnelling payments of $100 million per year to Hezbollah that originated from Iran.
Syria was also supplying Hezbollah with rockets it had received from Russia, in addition to organizing the shipment of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah by land and by sea.
Yadlin told members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense committee that the current situation was "explosive," and that any "mistake" could set off a war with Syria.
Hezbzollah has been firing rockets into the Golan Heights, where Israeli settlements abut the Syrian border. Stray rockets landing in Syria could bring Syria into the fighting, he warned.
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"Hezbollah is trying to instigate, to force, another front for Israel with Syria," Yadlin said.
Yadlin speculated that Syrian and Iranian officials were preventing Hezbollah from launching longer-range missiles that are capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
"They don't want to deplete their forces and use all their weaponry too quickly, they want this fight to be drawn out as long as possible," Yadlin said. "They know that it will be difficult to get more weapons in."
Prime Minister Olmert has drawn criticism from former allies on the right for announcing that Israel has "no intention" of attacking Syria, despite its involvement as Hezbollah's arms merchant and protector.
Former Likud minister of public security, Uzi Landau, told NewsMax that Syria is part of the equation. "They are standing behind the terror and must be made to pay a price."
He believes Israel should bomb selected military targets in Syria, "to make clear to the Syrian regime that if Hezbollah hits civilians in Israel, then Syria is going to pay a high price.
"The insurance policy for Tel Aviv is Damascus," he added. "We should have made Damascus the insurance policy for Haifa, as well – but we didn't."
But former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan said that Israel had "no need" to attack Syria to achieve its goals.
"The achievable mission of this war is to push the Iranian and Syrian presence from Lebanon, so Hezbollah won't be able to use its strategic weapon, the Zelzal missile," he said.
"You can't fight everybody. It's enough to isolate Syria," he said. "A war with Syria is one war too many."
In the larger scheme of things, Dayan stated, Israel's strategic challenge came from Iran and Iran's nuclear program.
"Syria is not powerful. If we opened a new battle with Syria, it won't help us to prevent Iran from going nuclear. It would just be another unneeded, unnecessary battle," he said.
He said it was too early to tell whether Israel was winning the current fight against Hezbollah. "We'll see in two weeks," he said.
Editor's note:
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