Israel complains about violation of its sovereignty while being a serial violator

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu addressed the Munich Security Conference on 18 February 2018. Attacking Iran during his speech, he brandished what he claimed was a piece of a drone sent into Israeli airspace by Iran on 10 February and declared that the Islamic republic had "violated Israel's sovereignty" and threatened its people. 

One has to admire the Israeli prime minister's audacity in his reaction to a single Iranian drone entering Israeli airspace from Syria, when, with his authority, Israeli aircrafts have violated Syrian sovereignty on about a hundred occasions in the past five years in the course of bombing targets in Syria (Haaretz, 17 August 2017) and Israeli aircraft violate Lebanese sovereignty on a daily basis (Report by UN Secretary-General, 16 November 2017).

A serial violator

The Israeli prime minister described this incursion into Israel airspace as an "act of aggression". But, according to Chagai Tzuriel, director general of Israel's intelligence ministry, the incursion "was not an attack, but a test of the limits and rules" (Washington Post, 11 February). And Haaretz reported on 13 February: "That it was an attack mission is unlikely, as no weapon or explosives have so far been found among the drone’s fragments, which are in Israel’s hands."

So, it appears that Iran's "act of aggression" against Israel was committed by an unarmed drone.

While there have been a number of incursions into Israeli airspace since 2006 by Iranian-made drones, these were all operated by Hezbollah or Hamas. This is the first (and only) instance in which a drone directly operated by Iranian military personnel entered Israeli airspace and violated Israeli sovereignty (Haaretz, 13 February).

By contrast, Israel has been a serial violator of the sovereignty of neighbouring states, especially Lebanon and Syria, over many years.

Violating Lebanese sovereignty

For example, in the four-month period from 1 July to 30 October 2017, Israel violated Lebanon's airspace 758 times for a total of 3,188 hours. This information is available in a report dated 16 November 2017 to the Security Council by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed at the end of Israel’s war against Lebanon in 2006. The following is an extract:

"Israel continued to violate Lebanese airspace on a daily basis, in violation of resolution 1701 (2006) and Lebanese sovereignty. From 1 July to 30 October [2017], UNIFIL [UN Interim Force in Lebanon] recorded 758 air violations, totalling 3,188 overflight hours, an increase of 80 percent compared with the same period in 2016. Unmanned aerial vehicles were involved in over 93 percent (707) of those violations; the remainder involved fighter or unidentified aircraft.

Russia does not seem to have put restrictions on Israeli bombing in Syria, though presumably it demands advance notification

"UNIFIL protested all air violations to the Israel Defence Forces and urged their immediate cessation. The government of Lebanon also protested the airspace violations to UNIFIL. Such violations of Lebanese sovereignty undermine the cessation of hostilities and efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire."

The secretary-general's report also points out that Israel is continuing to occupy Lebanese territory, albeit a small piece ("northern Ghajar and an adjacent area north of the Blue Line") in violation of resolution 1701 and Lebanese sovereignty. 

Israel's Syria targets

Israel has also violated Syrian sovereignty continuously for many years. In June 1967, it took over the Syrian Golan Heights by force and has occupied them ever since in violation of Syrian sovereignty. In 1981, Israel annexed them.

On 17 December 1981, the Security Council passed resolution 497, demanding that Israel reverse its annexation. Israel refused to do so and it remains in violation of resolution 497 to this day.

Since 2012, while the war has been going on in Syria, there have been regular press reports of Israeli air attacks on targets there. The targets were usually said to be convoys of weapons supplied by Iran on their way to Hezbollah in Lebanon, though in 2017 the targets seem to have been expanded.

In general, Israel refrained from commenting on the press reports of attacks when they appeared. However, in August 2017 Haaretz reported:

"Israel has attacked convoys bringing arms to Hezbollah and groups on several Israeli fronts dozens of times over the last five years, a top Israeli military commander has confirmed for the first time. The number of Israeli attacks on such convoys since 2012 is approaching triple digits, said Major General Amir Eshel, the outgoing commander of the Israel Air Force." (Haaretz, 17 August 2017).

Israel has never pretended that any of these attacks were carried out in response to military action emanating from Syria and could therefore be justified as legitimate self-defence against Syrian aggression. So, Israel violated Syrian sovereignty nearly a hundred times since 2012 contrary to international law.

(Or was it thousands of times? The head of the Israeli Air Force Air Division, Brigadier General Amnon Ein Dar, said recently that the Israeli Defense Forces have "carried out thousands of missions in Syria in the last year alone". (Ynet News, 11 February 2018))

Iranian threat to Israeli security

When Russia came to the aid of the Syrian regime at its request in September 2015, Israel was concerned that its freedom to bomb Syrian targets would be curtailed. Russia then controlled the skies along with the US and had air defence systems capable of preventing Israel bombing Syrian targets if it chose to do so.

Since then Prime Minister Netanyahu has sought, and been granted, regular meetings with President Vladimir Putin on this issue. Russia does not seem to have put restrictions on Israeli bombing in Syria, though presumably it demands advance notification.

Iranian forces – and its allies, Hezbollah and other Shia militias – are also in Syria at the request of the Syrian regime. Israel has always objected to their presence on the grounds that it constitutes a threat to Israeli security. But, over the past year or so, Israel’s objections have become more strident and threatening.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has sought help from Russia and the US in an attempt to ensure that Iran and its allies would not have a permanent presence in Syria and, in the meantime, to keep them at a distance from the Israeli border.

But Israel's entreaties have met with little success, not least because its closest ally, the US, is not in a position to have Iran and its allies expelled from Syria.

According to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman (New York Times, 12 February 2018), when a high-level Israeli delegation went to Washington in August last year and "demanded that any peace agreement in Syria require the removal of Hezbollah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops from the country" the Trump administration "didn't agree to deliver".

Netanyahu declared that "Israel would operate in Syria how and when it sees fit".

Even Israel’s demand that Iran and its allies be kept away from its border has met with limited success. Thus, for example, Israel wanted the de-escalation agreement for southwest Syria signed by US, Russia and Jordan on 11 November to keep Iranian and allied forces 50 or 60 kilometres away from the border, but under the agreement the distance varies between five and 20 kilometres (Syria Deal Puts Iran Too Close to Israel’s Borders, Haaretz, 16 November).

Furthermore, the agreement gave no commitment, let alone a timetable, for the removal of Iranian and allied forces from Syria altogether. Haaretz reported that "Israeli defence figures are troubled ... by the fact that the superpowers seem unwilling to take genuine measures to kick Iran out of Syria in general, and southern Syria in particular." 

On the contrary, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that "the presence of Iran in Syria is legitimate" and that "Russia has not promised to ensure a withdrawal of pro-Iranian forces from Syria" (Reuters, 14 November). 

In response, Netanyahu declared that "Israel would operate in Syria how and when it sees fit, regardless of the ceasefire agreement between the US, Russia and Jordan that Jerusalem complained fell significantly short of its security demands" (Ynet News, 13 November). And over the next few months, Israel did just that, continuing to bomb military targets in Syria.

The drone effect

Then, on 10 February, an Iranian drone entered Israeli airspace from Syria and was shot down by an Israeli helicopter. According to spokesman Jonathan Conricus quoted in the Times of Israel, it was "on a military mission sent by Iranian military forces" from an "Iranian base" in the Palmyra area of Syria.

In other words, it had been deliberately targeted at Israel and hadn't crossed the border into Israel inadvertently, for example, while on a reconnaissance mission against Syrian opposition forces in southwest Syria.

Conricus told journalists: "This is the most blatant and severe Iranian violation of Israeli sovereignty in the last years." It was, in fact, the only violation of Israeli sovereignty.

Israel responded by attacking what was said to be the Iranian base from which the drone had been launched. One of the eight attacking F-16 aircraft was brought down by Syrian air defence, to which Israel responded with further attacks on air defence and other military targets in Syria.

By Israel's account, Iran deliberately sent an unarmed drone on a reconnaissance mission of some kind into Israeli airspace on 10 February. It had never done this before. It was almost certain the drone would be detected by Israel and identified as Iranian, which would enable Israel to portray Iran as an aggressor and to justify a military response of unknown extent. 

Would Iran have been so foolish as to play into Israel's hands like that? I doubt it. Most likely, the drone arrived in Israeli airspace by accident.

A further point: Russia's task of managing the battleground in Syria has been made more difficult by the predictable consequences of an Iranian drone entering Israeli airspace. Iran would not have taken a decision to launch a drone into Israel without consulting Russia, which would have vetoed it.

However, whether or not Iran's action was deliberate, this (one and only) violation of Israeli sovereignty by Iran was a godsend to Israel. Having asserted for years that the Iranian presence in Syria was a threat, at last Israel had something that could be presented to the world as evidence of Iranian "aggression" and used to justify an extensive bombing campaign against Iranian targets in Syria – which was almost certainly Israel’s intention had President Putin not intervened.

Putin's phone call to Netanyahu

According to Amos Harel of Haaretz (Putin's Phone Call With Netanyahu Put End to Israeli Strikes in Syria, 15 February), Russia vetoed further military action by Israel after the second wave of bombardments against Syrian targets, which was in response to the shooting down of an Israeli F-16 jet fighter. 

At that point "senior Israeli officials were still taking a militant line and it seemed as if Jerusalem was considering further military action," he writes, but "discussion of that ended not long after a phone call between Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu".

Bergman agrees that "the response to the downing of the Israeli jet was intended to be a lot more violent." (New York Times, 12 February). According to him:

"Israel has long maintained contingency plans for a huge offensive operation in Syria. [When the F-16 was brought down], the generals took them out of the drawer. But the Iranians and the Syrians, along with their Lebanese ally Hezbollah, realized that something like that was in the offing, and let it be known that they would not let it happen without responding. The Israelis heard this, but were not deterred. The Israel Defense Forces went on to a war footing. 

"It soon became clear, though, who is calling the shots. The Israeli bombardments of the air base had been dangerously close to Russian forces. A furious phone call on Saturday morning from President Vladimir Putin of Russia was enough to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel cancel the plans."

Russia's public response was directed at Israel: "We consider it necessary that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and other countries in the region be respected unconditionally. Creating threats to life and security of Russian service personnel, who are in the Syrian Arab Republic at the invitation of its legitimate government in order to assist the fight against terrorists, is absolutely unacceptable."

It remains to be seen if Russia takes steps to curb future violations of Syrian sovereignty or provides its Syrian ally with the means to defend itself against further Israel violations.

- David Morrison is the co-author of  A Dangerous Delusion: Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran (published by Elliott & Thompson, 2013). Morrison has written many articles on the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem 11 February 2018 (Reuters)