A Secret Revealed: Israel's Game of Bombing Syria Will Never End

ALBAWABA - Much is happening in north Syria these days. Israel has bombed the Aleppo International Airport, effectively putting it out of action for no one knows how long this time. Its the second strike in one week. A day later Israel leaked a document that it was responsible for the bombing of an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.

Surprise, surprise! These two essential news items essentially came within hours of each other. The bombing of the Aleppo airport is basically an extension of the Israeli military arm. Hardly a week goes by and sometimes days within each other of Israel not bombing different parts of Syria including Damascus and Idlib. 

Thus the last bombing may have been expected though maybe the intensity of the strikes can be considered an Israeli escalation. The social media is well as print are carefully watching the next moves of the Israelis with much commentary on what is happening. 

Syria has finally responded accusing Israel of war crimes: The strikes have put the airport out of service. Planes have since been diverted because the runway was struck.

The airport was struck from the Mediterranean through Israeli cruise missiles. There was no breather. With people and analysts shell-shocked about the Aleppo strikes, Israeli immediately made a following move in the media by saying it was behind the bombing of a Syrian nuclear reactor that was in-the-making in Deir Ezzor in the northeastern part of the country.  

Ehud Olmert the then Israeli Prime Minister confirms the military strikes in 2007. He put it this way: He said, Wednesday, Israel had details about Syrian nuclear activities five years before striking an alleged atomic reactor in Syria according to Anadolu, adding “we knew there were some activities that may have been involved with possible atomic energy, but we didn’t know anything more than that in 2002. It took us a few years until we had very tangible proof,” Olmert told i24NEWS channel.

“There were about 50 different photos of the inside of an atomic reactor. There was no doubt about the nature of this and the purpose of this. It was made to build only one thing: an atomic bomb,” Olmert said. “We had to destroy this specific target, which was endangering the existence of Israel,” he added, as quoted by the Turkish news agency. However, he added the strike was meant “not to trigger a full military confrontation between Israel and Syria."

But why would Israel allow this king of news to come out now with its military censors declassifying the material. Apart from the constant bombing of Syria with yearly strikes since 2014 reaching to literally hundreds of sorties, the 2007 bombing of the supposed nuclear reactor is probably being made because Israel is facing a general election on 1 November. 

The current Prime Minister Yair Lapid wants to show the Israeli electorate he is tough on security and prevent Likud's leader Benjamin Netanyahu from being elected. But its a very close race and Israel has been in a political stalemate for a long time. Its a divided society split down the middle in terms of voting. 

To let the information out about the bombing of Syrian reactor now might be considered a perfect electoral ploy especially since Likud lead by Benjamin Netanyahu has already started the electoral game last week when he splashed his phone number all over the internet and social media, saying he can be contacted any time. What Lapid and his allies hope to do by leaking the information on the alleged Syrian reactor is also to gain credit from the different political streams of Israeli society. 

This was declassified information that nobody as yet revealed up till now, not the Israelis nor the Syrians. And as can be expected the bombing operation - called Operation Orchard - of 6 September 2007 - stayed top secret. Now of course, everyone is posting the news and the present caretaker government in Israel is trying to muscle on taking credit for something a Likud cabinet did nearly 20 years ago.

Today, the two events must go together: The bombing of the Aleppo airport and the destruction of the nuclear reactor in Deir Ezzor are being put together side-by-side. The Israelis are saying they conducted this operation out of the box whilst the issue of the mysterious Syrian nuclear reactor continues to make headway in different languages.

Israel is saying it is sending a strongly-worded message to Syria. But what could that be with Russia and Iran firmly staying in different parts of the country and in different roles.