‘If UN positions on Syria border fall to radicals, Israel will have to respond’

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force must retain control of its positions on Mount Hermon on the Syria-Israel border, since their capture by Sunni terrorist factions, or by elements from the radical Shi’ite axis, would form a “severe threat to IDF posts” in the area, a former senior military official warned.

 

In a paper published in recent days at the Institute for National Security Studies, where he is a senior research fellow, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Assaf Orion said the IDF would have to “respond accordingly” if UNDOF’s border posts on Mount Hermon in Syria fall to radical elements.

 

Between 2010 and 2015, Orion headed the Strategic Division of the IDF’s Planning Directorate, and had previously spent two decades in Military Intelligence’s 8200 signal intelligence unit.

 

UNDOF was originally created in 1974 to separate the IDF from the Syrian military. Today, however, after the Syrian military’s withdrawal from the border with Israel, UNDOF mainly acts as a communications channel between Israel and the Assad regime, reducing escalations following cross-border incidents, whether deliberate or accidental, Orion said.

 

Israel should weigh new steps to grant UNDOF relevancy in its new chaotic environment, at a time when an array of Syrian rebel groups control the border area with Israel, and the Assad regime lost the monopoly of military means in the area, he added. The core goal of preventing war between Israel and Syria is no longer relevant, Orion said.

 

Read More: ‘If UN positions on Syria border fall to radicals, Israel will have to respond’ – Arab-Israeli Conflict – Jerusalem Post