Israel just went to war on Syria. Where's the outrage?

Missed this one? Unsurprising: there was barely any prominent news coverage

Israel just went to war against Syria. This may be the first you’ve heard about this: unsurprising, given there’s almost no prominent coverage about it in the Western media.

Syria hasn’t attacked Israel. There were no threats from the Syrian government. In fact there was not even the flimsiest pretext for a straightforward war of aggression.

Overnight, Israel went and bombed multiple military targets around the capital, Damascus, as well as in the south of the country, whilst Israel has already invaded and occupied part of Syria.

They’ve also made it clear that Syria cannot have sovereignty over its own territory.

A bit of context: Israel has occupied the Golan Heights - which is Syrian land - since 1967, and illegally annexed it in 1981, which the world refuses to accept, except for notably the US, when Trump unilaterally recognised it as Israeli territory in 2019.

After the Assad regime fell in December 2024, Israel invaded a demilitarised buffer zone in the final third of the Golan Heights. As justification, Israel claimed that the 1974 disengagement agreement signed with the country had collapsed, but there was no legal basis for that. There might be a change in government, but the Syrian state remained. Such agreements are supposed to survive changes in government. And indeed, the new transitional President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, declared his government would accept that agreement.

The United Nations, too, denounced Israel’s occupation as a violation of the 1974 accords.

But at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu declared:

We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border.

Originally the Israeli state claimed this was a temporary measure, but earlier this month, it was revealed that Israel had already built six military sites in the buffer zone, and had been building roads, too. As Al-Jazeera report:

Syrian citizens in and near the demilitarised zone have complained of Israeli encroachment on their land as well as checkpoints, unauthorised arrests, housing raids, and road closures.

Furthermore, Israel has reportedly been offering Syrians in Israeli occupied territory opportunities to work in Israel itself, supplying cheap labour for the occupiers. And Benjamin Netanyahu now says troops will be there for “an unlimited period of time”, while the Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has declared troops will remain there “indefinitely”.

As well as invading Syria in December, Israel repeatedly bombed Syria back in December, with more than 100 raids all over the country, claiming it was to stop weapons falling “into the hands of extremists”, and warned the new government they faced being targeted if Israel deemed them a threat.

Now, yesterday, following a national dialogue summit, the Syrian government condemned Israel’s invasion of its land and asked for them to withdraw from its land. How did Israel respond? By launching an onslaught against Syria.

Its planes launched attacks near the capital as well as in the south. At least two Syrian soldiers were reportedly killed.

And Defence Minister Israel Katz openly spoke with hostility, declaring:

Any attempt by Syrian regime forces or terrorist organizations in the country to establish a foothold in the security zone of southern Syria will be met with fire.

So they’re demanding that the Syrian government cannot move its own forces into the south of its own country, which is a brazen assault on the sovereignty of another nation.

Indeed, for those who believe that the new Syrian government are somehow puppets of the Israeli state, the Israeli foreign minister yesterday declared that it was a "bunch of Islamic terrorists from Idlib that conquered Damascus with force".

As the former Portuguese minister Bruno Maçães put it:

Israel heavily bombing Syria tonight. The reason? Preventing the country from getting back on its feet.

While Syrian journalist Mazen Hassoun writes:

Israel is bombing Damascus right now without any provocation. Israel wants a war to destabilize Syria and prevent the democratic transition. Israel is an enemy to the free Syria!

And Israeli analyst Mairav Zonszein says;

With ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, an all out war on Palestinians in West Bank, Israel has opened another front, with extensive bombing in Syria - completely unprovoked. Hard not to see it as an effort to sew chaos and provoke a response

Israel’s aggression has led to protests breaking out in Syria with citizens demanding that the country respond with an attack on Tel Aviv. Other placards include slogans such as ‘Israel is our eternal enemy’ and ‘Netanyahu is a terrorist’.

But as Drop Site News’ brilliant journalist Murtaza Hussain explains:

Syria is at a level of development right now that is inferior to any third world country that I have been to. There is almost no electricity in the country, little food or water, people are displaced, or living in ruins and tents, and the government itself barely exists as a practical reality. Every state needs to defend its sovereignty but the idea that Syria today has the capacity to engage in direct conflict with a nuclear-armed state backed by the world’s only superpower is risible.

He adds that he believes that Syria is likely to seek security guarantees from Turkey - whose regime is closest to the new Syrian administration - but adds:

I would not be surprised if Syria rebuilds relations with other former enemies in the long-term, including eventually Iran. The current attacks are calling into question its survival in its current form and every step necessary will likely be considered.

Well, this would be a striking example of Israeli hubris: that after the Assad dictatorship fell, Israel is doing all it can to drive the new Syrian government into hostility.

But look at the hypocrisy here. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is condemned, but Israel can invade and bomb its neighbour with impunity, and not only is there no condemnation of these wantonly illegal assaults on the sovereignty of another nation, there is very little prominent media coverage.

Indeed, this weekend, Israel’s official Twitter account posted a picture of its planes flying over Beirut, with the caption “Israeli Air Force jets over Beirut During Hassan Nasrallah’s Funeral”.

Furthermore, the US has allowed Israeli to maintain its occupation in southern Lebanon, contrary to commitments to withdraw.

This normalisation of Israel’s violation of the sovereignty of multiple nations is absolutely absurd. The only reason Israel can do this, of course, is because it is armed to the teeth and backed by the world’s only superpower, the US, albeit a hegemon in decline. That our media outlets and politicians are not screaming about Israeli aggression against sovereign nations says all you need to know.

Well, right now Israel is awash with hubris. In Palestine, it has committed some of the worst crimes of our age, and that’s without discussing its hideous atrocities in Lebanon. Its leaders are clearly intent on carving out a Greater Israel, which means endless, remorseless war. But anyone who is familiar with Greek tragedies knows that hubris all too often leads to nemesis.