OVER 70 SYRIAN OFFICERS DEFECT TO TURKEY
by Elad Benari (Arutz Sheva News)

As many as 73 Syrian military officers defected from the Syrian army and have crossed the border into Turkey with their families.

According to the report, the 73 defecting officers included seven generals and 20 colonels. They were part of a group totaling 202 Syrians who arrived in the border town of Reyhanli.

They were taken to a Turkish refugee camp that houses military officers who have defected from the Syrian army, reported Anadolu.

The report did not say when they had arrived and Turkish Foreign Ministry officials and the local administrator in Reyhanli could not immediately confirm the report.

This is one of the largest, if not the largest, defection from Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s army since the start of the popular uprising against him in March 2011, which has turned into a civil war that has killed more than 90,000 people.

Some analysts have predicted that the scales in the war would be tipped in favor of the rebels seeking to oust Assad only if and when there are many defections from his army, including by high-ranking officers.

Since the start of the conflict between Assad’s regime and rebel forces, dozens of senior army officers including some 40 generals have defected and headed to Turkey.

Some of the defectors have entered Jordan, such as the Syrian army’s logistics chief, General Mohammed Khalluf, who reportedly defected to the Hashemite kingdom in March.

Former Syrian premier Riad Hijab defected to Jordan in August 2012.

One of the most senior members of the Assad regime to defect was Jihad Makdissi, the Syrian government’s former spokesman who defected in late November.

Loyalist forces in Syria later torched Makdissi’s home. Makdissi is a member of Syria’s Christian minority which up to that point had largely backed the Assad regime.

Later reports indicated that Makdissi is co-operating with U.S. intelligence officials who helped him flee to Washington.

The report of the defections come hours after U.S. President Barack Obama authorized lethal aid to Syrian rebels, after the U.S. said that it had conclusive evidence that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons against rebels.

The White House has clarified that it has no plans to set up a no-fly zone over Syria.

Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes explained on Friday that it would be dramatically more difficult and costly to set up a no-fly zone over Syria than it was in Libya. The no-fly zone over Libya was one of the key factors that helped rebels there oust longtime strongman Muammar Qaddafi.

IMMINENT: ISRAEL’S CAPITULATION TO THE VATICAN
by Guiio Meotti (IsraelNationalNews_

Agreements with the Vatican are capitulation to their plans for the Old City and the Temple Mount – or should we say the “Holy Basin”.

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book “A New Shoah”, that researched the personal stories of Israel’s terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

A long-awaited agreement between the Vatican and Israel appears to be near finality.

The two main points revolve around the Church’s requests to build two centers in Israel: a church in a section of the Caesaria National Park where a site dedicated to Paul once stood, and the use of a plot on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

The structure on Mt. Zion, the highest point of Jerusalem, is known as the Cenacle, where the Last Supper is believed to have taken place, and according to the deal which will be signed in the coming months, it will become open to Catholic worship once again.

The Vatican asks Israel to allow the Church to build a passageway through the Diaspora Yeshiva, which takes care of the area known as David’s Tomb, and to enable thousands of Christian worshipers to access the Last Supper Room more easily .

The area has strategic value, since it is a few hundred yards from the Temple Mount, so the Catholic Church will turn it into the international center for Catholics all around the world.

As the New Sanhedrin stated in 2009, those in the Vatican who initiated the concept of the “Holy Basin”, which is pivotal in this agreement, intended to remove exclusive Jewish sovereignty from the Temple Mount and the Old City and – in effect – aimed at “the total removal of Jewish sovereignty”.

Father Athanasius Macora, secretary of a Franciscan commission monitoring holy sites, declared that “Franciscan control of the Last Supper room would open the site to regular Christian prayer services, Masses and other ceremonies”. Now the Franciscans are permitted to have a mass only twice a year: on the day of Pentecost and on the Holy Thursday. Christian pilgrim groups have there a short silent prayer when visiting.

Recently Father Peter Stravinskas told Vatican Radio: “It is unfortunate that this site of the Lord’s last supper is not accessible to Christians for worship. It is controlled by the Israeli civil authorities. In fact when Pope John Paul went to Jerusalem there had to be a special permission for him to be able to celebrate mass in the Cenacle. There is some talk now, of course, that perhaps there’s a negotiation going on in order to return the Cenacle to the care of the Church”.

That’s why the Franciscans, who will benefit from Israel-Vatican deal, claim the title of “Guardian of Mount Zion”. Pope Francis is very close to this order, which established political links with the PLO in Jerusalem. In his first significant appointment to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis has taken the highly unusual step of naming the actual head of the Franciscan order, Father Jose Rodriguez Carballo, as Secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated life.

Those who will be in charge of the Cenacle on Mount Zion have been among the most ardent partisans of a Palestinian Arab State.

Born in Lodoselo, Spain, Carballo was ordained priest in Jerusalem in 1977.

We have to remember that in 2002, the “Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land” criticized the demand by the U.S. Congress that Jerusalem be recognized as the capital of Israel, calling it “a decision that does not respect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks”.

Those who will be in charge of the Cenacle on Mount Zion have been among the most ardent partisans of a Palestinian Arab State.

In 2000, before the suicidal Camp David talks, Yasser Arafat met Islamic and Christian clergymen at his offices in Ramallah to get their backing for Arab sovereignty over Jerusalem. Among the clergymen who attended the meeting were Diodoros I, Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, Torkom II, patriarch of the Armenian Orthodox Church, Catholic Patriarch Michel Sabbah and officials from the Custody of the Holy Land. This is the same order which will be in charge of the Mount Zion structure.

All of the Christian churches currently standing in Jerusalem are seen as the product of the destruction of the Jewish people, their dispossession and exile. It is the Christian exile which Christianity glorifies in as being everlasting.

There is the risk that the new church on Mount Zion will be used to foment a political war on the rest of the Jewish Jerusalem.

The very spirit of Israel’s capitulation to the Vatican lies in the Franciscans order’s definition of Mount Zion: “The place that is traditionally known as the place of the Last Supper and of the bestowing of the gift of the Holy Spirit is today occupied by a Yeshiva or Jewish religious school”.

Will Israel dismantle this “occupation” as it did in Gush Katif? In 2005, while the synagogue of Netzarim was burned by Arab terrorists, the Catholic Church stood silent despite Israeli rabbis’ pleas to condemn the torching.

RUMORS OF WAR IN THE NORTH
by Ryan Jones (Israel Today News)

Israel seen gearing up for possible war in north

Earlier this week, the US government warned Americans to steer clear of Israel’s northern Golan Heights. Now the United Nations is cautioning that neighboring Syria’s ongoing civil war is likely to spill over the border.

“US citizens are advised to defer non-essential travel to and within the Golan Heights and to exercise an extra measure of caution,” read an email sent by the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to American citizens living in Israel.

The warning came after Syrian government and rebel forces engaged in a days-long battle for the border town of Quneitra, with Syrian forces entering the demilitarized buffer zone between Israel and Syria for the first time in decades.

Around the same time, Austria, which is the largest contributor of troops to the UN peacekeeping force stationed on the Golan border, announced that it was pulling its soldiers out of the region.

The peacekeepers making up the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) have been repeatedly targeted by Syrian rebels in recent months, and many have expressed their total lack of motivation to risk their lives to prevent war between Israel and its neighbors.

The Austrian troops began withdrawing on Wednesday, as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened rushed negotiations with Sweden to replace the absentee peacekeepers.

In fact, Ban said, there is an urgent need to actually increase the size of the UNDOF deployment. “The ongoing military activities in the area of separation continue to have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic and to jeopardize the ceasefire between the two countries,” said the UN chief.

Ban wants to see the force increased to 1,250 combat-ready troops, and to significantly improve their defensive capabilities.

SYRIA: THE BATTLE FOR ALEPPO
– a call to pray for the besieged and gravely imperilled Church in Aleppo
By Elizabeth Kendal

AUSTRALIA (ANS) — The Iranian-backed, Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organisation, Hizbullah, has officially entered the Syrian conflict. In a televised speech on 25 May, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah wooed Sunni Arabs by provocatively, strategically and typically framing the conflict as a struggle between the ‘Western Zionist agenda’ and the Syrian ‘resistance’ that refuses to accept the West’s dictates. According to this framework — which emphasises geo-politics over sectarianism — Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been drawn into a US-NATO-Israel axis plot, rather than the US and NATO being drawn into a Saudi-Qatar-Sunni Arab axis plot. The difference is subtle but critical, aimed at encouraging Sunni Arabs to reject sectarianism and join the ‘resistance’.

On 5 June the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), supported by Hizbullah, liberated the strategic city of Qusair which lies close to the border with Lebanon, in Syria’s central province of Homs. Under rebel control for over a year Qusair had been home to 30,000 residents, including some 3,000 Christians. Today the city is a ghost-town, utterly ruined. Homes have been reduced to rubble while churches and monasteries have been desecrated, vandalised, looted and defaced with sectarian slogans. Qusair is integral to maintaining supplies. ‘We’ve cut a major umbilical cord of the opposition,’ boasted Homs governor, Ahmad Munir Mohammad, a Sunni Muslim and government loyalist. According to General Yahya Suleiman (SAA), ‘Whoever controls Qusair controls the centre of the country, and whoever controls the centre of the country controls all of Syria.’

The battle now moves to Aleppo, a city of nearly three million people, including a sizeable Christian minority and with large Armenian and Greek communities. The battle for Aleppo has been deadlocked for close to 12 months. Christians have suffered immense hardship due to the rebel blockade of government-held areas — food, medicines and fuel are all scarce and costly. Leaving the house is fraught with risk. On Sunday 9 June foreign jihadists in Aleppo executed a boy whom they accused of blasphemy. Mohammad Qatta (15), a coffee-seller, had refused to give a ‘customer’ a free coffee, reportedly saying, ‘Even if Muhammad comes down, I will not give it as [a] debt.’ After beating and lashing the boy for hours, the rebels returned him to the street where they executed him in front of a crowd that included his distraught parents. Since the beginning of May, some 3000 Free Syrian Army fighters have defected to the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusrah Front which is leading an alliance of local and foreign jihadist groups and has raised its black flag in Aleppo’s Tariq al-Bab neighborhood. According to fresh data compiled by Western-sponsored activists and organizations and relayed to NATO, the jihadist ascendency has led many Sunnis to abandon the rebellion. According to the data, 70 percent of Syrians now support the Assad regime, 20 percent are maintaining neutrality while only 10 percent are still expressing support for the rebels.
More than 4000 Hizbullah fighters are reportedly in Aleppo to support the SAA. Their first aim will be the lifting of rebel-imposed sieges. The battle for Aleppo will be a protracted house to house conflict with many casualties. In Lebanon, the largest Christian party (the Free Patriotic Movement) is in a formal alliance with Hizbullah. Theoretically therefore, it should be in Hizbullah’s interests to respect the lives and rights of Syrian Christians. However, the reality is that the ever-pragmatic Hizbullah has no love for Christians but exploits them as vote cattle and human shields. Hizbullah’s participation could well help end the conflict’s stalemate by tipping the balance of power in favour of the Syrian government. But whenever victory comes through the assistance of foreign armies, sovereignty suffers.
For Syrian Christians there will be no ‘good’ outcome in the short to medium term: only terrible (genocide at the hands of Sunni jihadists) or less terrible (domination by the clerical regime in Tehran and terrorist Hizbullah). However, as the enduring, ‘plodding’, pioneer missionary William Carey noted: ‘The future is as bright as the promises of God.’

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT –
• Syrian Christians will look to the Lord, particularly the many thousands of Christian families besieged in Aleppo; may the Holy Spirit draw them close to their Almighty Father and remind them of the love of Christ, comforting, encouraging and fortifying them in their faith for the extremely testing times ahead.
‘Therefore [because our struggle is not against flesh and blood (v12)] take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. . . In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one’ (Ephesians 6:13,16 ESV).
• as the decisive battle for Aleppo takes its course, God will shelter and preserve all his precious faithful people, whether they are displaced, hunkered down in their homes or being held captive by rebels.
‘Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by.
I cry out to God Most High,
to God who fulfils his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me;
he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah
God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!’
(Psalm 57:1-3 ESV)
• God in His great mercy and grace will intervene in Syria to advance His purposes for the sake of the Church and glory of His Holy Name.

PUTIN: IRAN THREATS AGAINST ISRAEL “UNACCEPTABLE”

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Iran had a right to a peaceful nuclear program but slammed as “unacceptable” its threats against its regional nemesis Israel.

“Iran is in a very difficult region,” Putin told a televised question-and-answer session in Moscow. “And when we hear threats from Iran against its neighbors, particularly Israel, when we hear from Iran that Israel must be destroyed — I think this is completely unacceptable.”

Putin appeared to be referring to comments made over the years by Iran’s outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who will stand down when his second term expires shortly after Friday’s national election.

Russia is a close trading partner with Iran and supplies the Islamic Republic with weapons and has built its first nuclear reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr.

Editor’s Note: Iran Will Have Nuclear Weapon By 2014

But Moscow in recent years has taken a more stern line with Tehran that includes a demand for it to cooperate with U.N. nuclear inspectors.

Western powers and Israel suspect that Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at eventually developing a nuclear weapon that could be used against its enemies.

Tehran counters that it needs the program for nuclear energy and for medical research needs.

Putin said on Tuesday that Iran should not be “discriminated” against with demands for it to abandon its nuclear program.

ISRAEL-SYRIA PEACE IN DANGER
By REUTERS

Ban Ki-moon recommends that UN Security Council increase UNDOF peacekeeping force and enhance its self-defense capabilities; UN official says sufficient offers have been made from countries to replace Austrian peacekeepers.
UNDOF peacekeepers in the Golan Heights

UNITED NATIONS – A spillover of violence from Syria’s civil war into the Israeli Golan Heights is jeopardizing a decades old ceasefire between Israel and Syria, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Ban recommended to the 15-member council that self defense capabilities of the UN peacekeeping mission in the area, known as UNDOF, be enhanced, “including increasing the force strength to about 1,250 and improving its self defense equipment.”

Israel worried after Austria leaves UN Golan force.

Analysis: Golan fighting spells more Syria woes for Israel

UNDOF, monitors an area of separation between Syrian and Israeli forces, a narrow strip of land running 45 miles (70 km) from Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border to the Yarmouk River frontier with Jordan.

“The ongoing military activities in the area of separation continue to have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic and to jeopardize the ceasefire between the two countries,” Ban said.

The 15-member Security Council is due later this month to renew the mandate of UNDOF for six months. Ban recommended that the force, which has been operating with about 900 troops, be boosted to its authorized strength of 1,250.

The peacekeeping mission has been caught in the middle of fighting in the Golan Heights area of separation.

Last week two peacekeepers were wounded when Syrian rebels captured a border post, but were then driven out by government troops, while rebels have also held peacekeepers on several different occasions before releasing them.

Japan and Croatia have already withdrawn troops from UNDOF due to the violence and Austria started bring home its contingent of some 380 troops on Wednesday, as the United Nations urgently tried to find another country to fill the gap.

About 170 Fijian troops are due to deploy later this month to replace the Croatian troops, the United Nations has said.

A senior Western diplomat said that Fiji had also offered to send additional troops and that the Philippines, which already has several hundred troops in UNDOF, was considering sending more troops after Ban lobbied Manila.

Russia has offered to replace Austria’s troops, but the agreement with Israel and Syria precludes permanent members of the UN Security Council from taking part.

A UN official told Reuters that sufficient offers had already been made from other countries to fill the gap left by Austria’s departure.

ISRAELI MINISTER BENNETT SAYS “THE MIDDLE EAST IS FALLING APART!”
by Gil Ronen (Arutz Sheva News)

“I see no peace on the horizon. We know the truth,” said Economic Minister and Bayit Yehudi head, weighing in on the public feud between Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon.

“The entire Middle East is falling apart before our eyes, and none of the forces at play is registering to the Zionist Federation,” he said acerbically.

Livni said Monday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has to make a decision in the diplomatic sphere, and that he must put an end to the phenomenon she termed “Danonism.” The term refers to Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, who has spoken out against the idea of a Palestinian state.

“Look at the government: there was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution,” Danon had said. “If you will bring it to a vote in the government — nobody will bring it to a vote, it’s not smart to do it — but if you bring it to a vote, you will see the majority of Likud ministers, along with the Jewish Home party, will be against it.”

ISRAEL’S EXISTENCE DISPROVES CHRISTIAN REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY
by Ryan Jones (Israel Today News)

In an article published in a local Israeli newspaper around the time of Israel’s 65th Independence Day, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Har-Noy puzzled over the fact that there are still so many Bible-believing Jews who refuse to celebrate the Jewish state’s modern rebirth.

“Perhaps these dear Jews missed the words of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik in his wonderful speech ‘Kol Dodi Dofek’ (The Voice of My Beloved Knocks),” mused Har-Noy.

Soloveitchik, a Boston-based rabbinical leader and one of the most renowned of modern Jewish philosophers, delivered a powerful public address in 1956 on the occasion of Israel’s eighth Independence Day. In it, Soloveitchik argued that “all the claims of Christian theologians that God deprived the Jewish people of its rights in the land of Israel, and that all the biblical promises regarding Zion and Jerusalem refer, in an allegorical sense, to Christianity and the Christian Church, have been publicly refuted by the establishment of the State of Israel and have been exposed as falsehoods, lacking all validity.”

Har-Noy noted that for centuries the Christian Church used the fact that the Jewish people had been deprived of their nation and could find no rest in their exile as evidence that God had made Christians the new “Chosen People.”

“Then came the Holocaust and the torturous destruction of a third of our people. For the Christians this was incontrovertible evidence that the previous Chosen People would never rise again,” the rabbi continued. “And then the State of Israel was established!”

For this reason, Har-Noy asserted, the rebirth of Israel was as much a deep spiritual event as it was the establishment of a safe harbor for Jews. “Independence Day is first and foremost a celebration of the rise of the Jewish people from the dust, as the verse says: ‘Rise from the dust, dress in your garments of splendor, my people,’” the rabbi said, referencing the Lekhah Dodi (Come My Beloved), a liturgical song that is part of the Jewish service welcoming the weekly Sabbath.

With all that it means, how can there be Jews who will recite prayers and scriptures, but not mark the modern holy day that is Israel’s prophesied rebirth? “Certainly there is much left to do and much to improve, and that is our mission,” concluded the rabbi. “We must take what the previous generations have imparted to us and improve this wonderful gift called the State of Israel.”

THE EU AND HIZBULLAH: POLITICS OF PROCRASTINATION
by Richard Mather (IsraelNationalNews)

Hizbullah is primarily a terrorist organization with political pretensions. So why the hesitation? Stop them now.

The writer, a Noahide (ben Noach), is a freelance journalist based in Manchester.

The EU has never been good at making quick decisions and the latest effort on the part of some Europeans to block Britain’s proposal to blacklist the armed wing of Hizbullah is the latest example of EU procrastination.

The UK wants Hizbullah’s military wing to face economic sanctions because of evidence that it was behind the fatal bus bombing in Bulgaira nearly a year ago in which the driver and five Israelis died and thirty-two were injured.

But the newly-installed government in Bulgaria, as well as other European policymakers, are foolishly obstructing the British proposal amid fears that such a move would have negative political and security consequences.

Earlier this year, the center-right Bulgarian government urged European governments to take a tougher stance towards Hizbullah. But the cowardly Socialists, who are now in power, refused to back the measure fearing that such a move would expose Bulgaria to terrorist attacks.

Despite the fact that a lengthy Bulgarian inquiry found that Hizbullah was indeed responsible for the bus bombing, the new left-wing government is claiming the evidence does not make a compelling case.

“It is important that the decision be based not only on the bombing in Burgas because I think the evidence we have is not explicit,” said Bulgarian foreign minister Kristian Vigenin.

In addition to Bulgaria’s obstinacy, several EU policymakers are afraid that blacklisting Hizbullah will erode Europe’s influence in the Middle East. Italian foreign minister Emma Bonino, for example, says her government is concerned for “the fragility of Lebanon.”

This is absurd. Hizbullah has already destabilized Lebanon, Syria, northern Israel and Turkey. Backed by the lunatic regime in Iran, its militants are busy murdering Assad’s enemies across the Levant and are trying to establish a foothold in the Golan Heights in order to attack Israel.

Luckily, the EU is not completely bereft of sanity. France has dropped its opposition to the British proposal precisely because of Hizbullah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict. Indeed, the French government is outraged that up to 4,000 Hizbullah militants have allied themselves with the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

And Germany has also reversed its position on Hizbullah, saying it will now back the UK proposal to ban the group’s military wing.

A decision over whether to implement the proscription is likely to be made within weeks. But in the meantime, Hizbullah continues to act with impunity, slaughtering Syrian civilians and acquiring conventional and chemical weapons that could be used against Israel.

But even if the UK does manage to persuade the rest of the EU to freeze Hizbullah’s assets, there is still the major problem of how to clearly differentiate between the armed and political factions of the group.

In reality, the political and armed wings of Hizbullah cannot be separated. Hizbullah is primarily a terrorist organization with political pretensions. The two factions share the same fanatical and anti-Semitic hatred of the Jewish state. And both factions are desperate to keep Assad in power. Without a Shi’a heavyweight in Damascus, Hizbullah’s future would be bleak in a predominantly Sunni region.

The easiest and most sensible solution would be to blacklist Hizbullah in its entirety. The Netherlands, Israel and the US have already done this.

A complete ban would hardly be an overreaction. Hizbullah is a very dangerous entity. Once it has finished in Syria, it will no doubt turn its sights on Israel and there will be more fighting, perhaps leading to all-out war.

And I have no doubt that Hizbullah will continue to spread terror in Europe. The bus bombing in Bulgaria, as well as the May 2011 attack in Istanbul and the plot to destroy Israeli targets and airlines in Cyprus may be the start of an Iranian-backed Hizbullah campaign to undermine security and morale in the EU.

As John Brennan, director of the CIA, said of the Bulgarian bus bombing: “It exposes Hizbullah for what it is – a terrorist group that is willing to recklessly attack innocent men, women and children, and that poses a real and growing threat not only to Europe, but to the rest of the world.”

In an ideal world, Hizbullah would be classed as a terrorist organization in its entirety and its assets frozen. Unfortunately, political posturing is more expedient than protecting human life, so it is highly unlikely that the EU will move for an outright ban any time soon. But I do hope that European leaders will at least do the decent thing and back Britain’s proposal to blacklist the armed wing of Hizbullah.

This in itself would be a step forward and would send a message to both Hizbullah and Iran that Europe will not tolerate terrorism

ASSAD WARNS OF “STRATEGIC” RESPONSE TO IDF STRIKES
by Ariel Ben Solomon

Syrian President threatens well-planned, continuous resistance.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has issued a strong warning to Israel, threatening a fierce response should Israel strike targets in his country again, Lebanese paper Al-Akhbar reported on Monday.

The resistance will not launch primitive rockets aimlessly from time to time, but will carry out a well-planned and continuous resistance, Assad reportedly said to a group of visiting Jordanians. He added that Israeli attacks will elicit a strategic, rather than a local response.

Assad: Arab world ready to join fight against Israel

Hizbullah: Defending Assad helps fight Israel

His mention of randomly fired rockets could be a slap at Hamas, which often relies on this tactic when firing rockets from Gaza. Hamas left its former base in Damascus in 2012, deciding to support fellow Sunnis fighting in the Syrian opposition. The move angered Syria and its ally Iran, which has decreased its support for the movement as a result. Instead, he compared this resistance to the kind waged by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, according to the report.

In regard to Russia, Assad explained that they did not try at any point of the conflict to dictate any position on the country.

Assad told Al-Manar TV at the end of May a similar plan, stating that “there is pressure by the people to open a new front on the Golan.”

“Even among the Arab world there is a clear readiness to join the fight against Israel,” he added in his interview with the Hizbullah TV station.

Assad stated that Hizbullah is involved in fighting the Israeli enemy and its agents in Syria and Lebanon. He attributed the failure of the Syrian opposition to its dependence on outside funding and said that it 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” – how Assad refers to the rebels – are smuggling fighters and weapons through all of the borders.

In relation to Israel, he said, “If we want to respond to Israel, the response must be strategic.”

Netanyahu: Israel on guard against ‘raging’ Mideast

On Monday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel was dealing with “a new Middle East.”

“We are seeing a new Middle East that is raging and volatile,” the premier said. “We are seeing this on all of the fronts, particularly in the north with Syria.”

“We are dealing with these developments with determination,” Netanyahu said of the ongoing situation in Syria. “This requires us to protect the security of our citizens.”