{"id":10343,"date":"2012-05-31T11:28:20","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T18:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10343"},"modified":"2012-05-31T11:28:20","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T18:28:20","slug":"israel-readies-army-on-syrian-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10343","title":{"rendered":"Israel readies Army on Syrian Border"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Israel readies army on Syria border<\/strong><br \/>\n31 May, 2012 &#8211; Al Akhbar<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli army is making preparations along its border with Syria in case Bashar Assad&#8217;s regime collapsed, an event which an army commander said could provide Islamist militants with a &#8220;warehouse of weapons&#8221; and a new operating base.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Syria is in civil war, which will lead to a failed state, and terrorism will blossom in it,&#8221; Major-General Yair Golan told a conference at Bar Ilan University. &#8220;Syria has a big arsenal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Golan, commander of Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon and the frontline with Syria in the Golan Heights, told an audience at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies that the situation in Syria put Israel at risk.<\/p>\n<p>It was difficult to forecast how Syria would break up, Golan said. It could be effectively &#8220;cantonized&#8221; by the conflict, an outcome that would serve Israel&#8217;s interests.<\/p>\n<p>The Israeli army was &#8220;deeply engaged in getting ready, with plans and physical means&#8221; along the borderlines, he said, without offering details.<\/p>\n<p>Syria&#8217;s stock of mainly Russian-made weapons includes surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and marine missiles.<\/p>\n<p>It also possesses chemical weapons which Syria never used in its wars against Israel but which could be attractive weapons for militants, the general said.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ended Tel Aviv&#8217;s silence on the crisis by calling on Wednesday for tougher world action against Assad.<\/p>\n<p>Barak said he doubted the Syrian president &#8220;lost an hour&#8217;s sleep&#8221; over the expulsion of his envoys from several capitals after the Houla massacre.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These events in Syria compel the world to take action, not just talk, but action. These are crimes against humanity and the international community must not stand on the sidelines,&#8221; Barak said, despite Israel&#8217;s own long record of crimes against civilian populations in Palestine and Lebanon. <a href=\"http:\/\/english.al-akhbar.com\/content\/israel-readies-army-syria-border\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D10343&amp;text=Israel+readies+Army+on+Syrian+Border&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israel readies army on Syria border 31 May, 2012 &#8211; Al Akhbar The Israeli army is making preparations along its border with Syria in case Bashar Assad&#8217;s regime collapsed, an event which an army commander said could provide Islamist militants with a &#8220;warehouse of weapons&#8221; and a new operating base. &#8220;Syria is in civil war, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10343#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2000],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10344,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10343\/revisions\/10344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}