President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with al-Manar TV in Damascus, on May 30,2013 . Photo: SANA NEWS AGENCY/Press Handout
"There is a pressure by the people to open a new front in the Golan," Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast on Thursday.
In an interview with Al-Manar TV station, Assad added: "Even amongst the Arab world there is a clear readiness to join the fight against Israel."
Speaking on a possible response to the recent cross-border firing between Syrian troops and the IDF, Assad stated: "If we want to respond to Israel, the response must be strategic," adding that it is difficult to say what the military action would be, as it would be up to the military leadership.
"But we have several possibilities," Assad suggested.
Regarding the recent reports over a delivery of S-300 missiles from Moscow, Assad said Russia remained committed to military deals signed with Damascus before the outbreak of conflict in the country.
In a text of the interview on the Al-Manar TV website, Assad said that Russia is "committed to the deal and neither [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu's visit nor the current crisis will influence the importing of arms."
Asked by Lebanon's Al-Manar television about delivery of Russian S-300 air defense missiles, Assad said: "The contracts with Russia are not linked to the crisis and Russia is committed to implementing these contracts.""Everything we have agreed on with Russia will take place, and part of it has already taken place," he said.
Officials in Israel say the S-300 could reach deep into the Jewish state and threaten flights over its main commercial airport near Tel Aviv.
A source close to Russia's Defense Ministry said there had been a "bank transfer" in connection with the S-300 transaction but that Russian banks were becoming increasingly nervous about dealing with Assad.
On the involvement of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Assad said that Hezbollah is involved in fighting the Israeli enemy and its agents in Syria and Lebanon, according to a text of the interview on the Al-Manar website. He attributed the failure of the Syrian opposition to its dependence on outside funding and said that they failed to create a real rift in the country.
Assad also said that he sees the balance of power in Syria shifting to the government's side. And this, despite the fact that the "terrorists" [Syrian rebels] are smuggling fighters and weapons through all of the borders, he said.
Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the The Jerusalem Post from Washington on Thursday night, "Assad would be off his rocker if he were to start a war with Israel right now and he knows it."
Assad is barely containing the war in his own country and "the idea that he would add a war with Israel makes no sense," he said.
This seems to be more rhetoric, he said adding a caveat that things could change.
Asked by the Post about the feeling in Washington over the increasing tensions in the region over the past couple weeks, Schanzer said that it definitely has been noticed in the US capital. "There is a sense that no good options are left for the US to pursue – a sense of paralysis," he added. There seems to be a growing isolationist tendency in both parties.
Asked about the chances of a Hezbollah attack, he said that the group has a lot to lose if it goes to war with Israel now because they are stretched thin as they have three to four thousand fighters in Syria Schanzer concluded, "If Israel is able to confirm that they have S-300 on the ground, I can't see them remaining there for more than 24 hours."
31 May, 2013
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Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHdVifgGzp-8Mv7gwMnDJ3kfIBK6w&url=http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Assad-Arab-world-prepared-to-join-fight-against-Israel-314961
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