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| Jonathan Spyer and his IDF comrades near the border during the Second Lebanon War |
EXPLOSIVE- NOW CONFIRMED,ISRAHELLI TROOPS ARE INSIDE SYRIA...ISRAHELL IDF MOLE POSING AS JOURNALIST SNEAKS INTO SYRIA TO RIDE WITH FREE SYRIAN ARMY TWICE! INTERVIEWS AND HANGS OUT WITH FSA AND TERRORIST GROUPS The Israeli Who Sneaked into Syria My friend and colleague Jonathan Spyer sneaked over the border with the Free Syrian Army to cover the war against Assad from the front lines. He did it twice. And he’s an Israeli.He has the chops for it. His magnificent first book, The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict
, is partly about his experience in South Lebanon, first as a tank operator with the Israel Defense Forces during the war against Hezbollah in 2006, and then again as a journalist the following year. I won’t tell you exactly how he manages to get around in these dangerous parts of the world on an Israeli passport, but he does, and we should be grateful because he produces outstanding work I recently spoke with him about what he has seen in Syria recently, what the West ought to do about it, and about the even greater threat from Iran and what the West ought to do about that.MJT: You’re a brave man, Jonathan Spyer, for sneaking into Syria twice as an Israeli. Tell us what it’s like there right now and how things have changed since you were there nine months ago.Jonathan Spyer: Well, the most immediately notable change between my first visit in February and the most recent trip was the extent to which the rebels have consolidated their control on the ground in the Idlib and Aleppo Governates. .An additional notable, though not new, element was the disparate and still not united nature of the rebel forces. In Aleppo city, in which I spent a few days, there are a number of different groups fighting the regime. In addition to the various battalions operating under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, there is the powerful Islamist Tawhid Brigade, also the Saudi supported Ahrar al-Sham group and a number of other groups. In interviews, rebel commanders did their best to put an optimistic slant on the absence of unity, but none sought to deny it.MJT: What should the US do about Syria? Stay out of it? Arm the rebels? What?Jonathan Spyer: My own view remains that the United States and its allies should engage closely with the rebels, identify deserving clients and begin to arm and support them. This has not yet happened to a significant degree and the result is the current stalemate. It’s understandable that many Westerners feel that given the rise of Sunni Islamism as a result of the downfall of secular Arab dictatorships over the last 18 months, the US interest is to stay out. Understandable, but wrong.
, is partly about his experience in South Lebanon, first as a tank operator with the Israel Defense Forces during the war against Hezbollah in 2006, and then again as a journalist the following year. I won’t tell you exactly how he manages to get around in these dangerous parts of the world on an Israeli passport, but he does, and we should be grateful because he produces outstanding work I recently spoke with him about what he has seen in Syria recently, what the West ought to do about it, and about the even greater threat from Iran and what the West ought to do about that.MJT: You’re a brave man, Jonathan Spyer, for sneaking into Syria twice as an Israeli. Tell us what it’s like there right now and how things have changed since you were there nine months ago.Jonathan Spyer: Well, the most immediately notable change between my first visit in February and the most recent trip was the extent to which the rebels have consolidated their control on the ground in the Idlib and Aleppo Governates. .An additional notable, though not new, element was the disparate and still not united nature of the rebel forces. In Aleppo city, in which I spent a few days, there are a number of different groups fighting the regime. In addition to the various battalions operating under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, there is the powerful Islamist Tawhid Brigade, also the Saudi supported Ahrar al-Sham group and a number of other groups. In interviews, rebel commanders did their best to put an optimistic slant on the absence of unity, but none sought to deny it.MJT: What should the US do about Syria? Stay out of it? Arm the rebels? What?Jonathan Spyer: My own view remains that the United States and its allies should engage closely with the rebels, identify deserving clients and begin to arm and support them. This has not yet happened to a significant degree and the result is the current stalemate. It’s understandable that many Westerners feel that given the rise of Sunni Islamism as a result of the downfall of secular Arab dictatorships over the last 18 months, the US interest is to stay out. Understandable, but wrong.
I understand well the argument that Sunni Islamists dominate the rebellion. My own view is that the organized, tight, Iran-led bloc remains by far the most pressing and dangerous enemy of the West in the region right now. Reality and history rarely give us the luxury of having only allies that are our ideological blood brothers. The 1939-45 period offers an example. The possibly dubious nature of our ‘allies’ should not be an excuse for paralysis in the face of an active enemy who has plainly declared his intention of replacing the US-led regional dispensation that has pertained in the region since 1991. It’s also important to note that there are significant secular elements in the FSA and the opposition. Still, these elements are nationalist rather than liberal-democratic in outlook.
Regarding the type of help, the list is a familiar one: arms, most importantly anti-aircraft weapons for the rebels, and a no-fly and no heavy armor zone in the north would be the most urgent first moves.In other words, I think the Syrian situation presents an opportunity to deal the Iran-led regional bloc and its backers a very telling defeat. I think this opportunity should be taken, though I acknowledge the concerns regarding the people in the rebel movements and the ideas they support.MJT: The relatively “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood used to be quietly popular there back in the 80s before Hafez al-Assad beat them to death in the city of Hama. Are they still popular? Or are they a marginal force like they are next-door in Lebanon?Jonathan Spyer: Well, after the Muslim Brothers were crushed by the regime in 1982, Assad took extreme measures to make sure that they wouldn’t rise again. Muslim Brotherhood membership is an offense punishable by death in Assad’s Syria. So unlike in, say, Egypt, the Brotherhood didn’t have a ready-made infrastructure on the ground when the uprising began. But they have by all accounts been busy, and working in close cooperation with Qatar they are said to have built up direct links to various rebel battalions active in the country. I would imagine, without knowing for sure, that the Tawhid Brigade of Aleppo is one of those. The powerful Farouq Brigade in the Homs area may well be another.The Brothers have money and are well organized. They think, as you know, that they are now having their moment in the region after many long years of waiting. Hence their representatives are there in southern Turkey making deals, establishing supply lines, providing money, and building their structures on the ground.
MJT: Do have any idea how many Syrians are supporting and/or working with the Salafist elements of the Free Syrian Army because there’s no other option compared with how many are supporting the Salafists because they genuinely sympathize with the Salafists?Jonathan Spyer: Don’t know how many in terms of numbers. I saw a number of checkpoints of the Saudi-supported Ahrar al-Sham group at prominent places in Aleppo city, complete with Salafi banners. They’re certainly there. My sense was that they weren’t the most serious factor. I don’t think Salafiya as such has a particularly large constituency in Syria and I don’t think it will succeed in becoming a central political faction. Much more notable and important, I think, is the growth of Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamism as a powerful element in the armed insurgency.The Tawhid Brigade, for example, is the most powerful single armed unit in Aleppo. I interviewed one of the commanders of the brigade, and I would characterize its outlook a Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamist. Its members are critical of extreme, Al Qaeda-style Islamism, but they are also open about their own desire for an ‘Islamic state.’I also met members of a hastily assembled Sharia Council in Azaz town. The council consists of religious former FSA commanders and religious notables. I was told that it currently constitutes the highest legal authority in the town, working in cooperation with the armed rebels. Again, I’d stress that the heartland of the rebellion is a very conservative, devout, Sunni Arab space. This rebellion has a religious coloration. At the same time, this does not imply the victory of Al Qaeda types.MJT: You and I have both spent some quality time in Lebanon, me as a journalist and you as a journalist and as an Israeli soldier. So let me ask you this: what do you think about the Free Syrian Army’s threat to take the fight to Hezbollah in its stronghold south of Beirut?Jonathan Spyer: Let me add a bit of anecdotal evidence regarding this from my own time in Syria. The hatred felt by FSA and other Syrian insurgent fighters toward Hezbollah is very intense. It of course also has a sectarian element. I have seen Hezbollah flags burned at opposition demonstrations in Idlib Province. In Aleppo last month, I interviewed a Tawhid Brigade fighter who referred constantly to the party as ‘Hizb a Shaytan’ (party of Satan.) It created a weird dynamic in our conversation because I would keep asking about ‘Hezbollah’ (party of God) and he would keep replying by referring to ‘Hizb a Shaytan’ until in the end I started feeling like I was acting as some kind of apologist for Hezbollah. Which I’m not. As you know.In general, I think Hezbollah knows it has a great deal to fear from the rise of the Sunnis in Syria. If Assad falls and the rebels win, this will almost certainly mean a ‘renegotiation’ of the sectarian balance of power in Lebanon, too, to Hezbollah’s severe disadvantage. At that point, the organization will have to decide whether to accommodate itself to a new balance of power, or to fight to retain its dominance against a new, Sunni-dominated Syria and its Lebanese allies. Neither prospect is attractive to Hezbollah, so it is doing its utmost to preserve the rule of the Assad dictatorship.MJT: Do you think Hezbollah will unleash its missile arsenal if Iranian nuclear weapons facilities are attacked? And if so, how much damage are we talking about here?Jonathan Spyer: I think it is very likely that there will be action of some kind by Hezbollah against Israel in the event of any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Hezbollah, after all, is entirely the product of a thirty year investment by the Islamic Republic of Iran. To a great extent, this investment was intended for precisely such a moment.Hezbollah has re-armed since the 2006 war and possesses, we are told, around 60,000 short range missiles as well as a medium and long range missile capability, including the M-600 missile system. This would give them the ability to hit targets in central Israel. However, Israel’s aerial and artillery capacity is in an entirely different league, and in such an instance there would be few political constraints against a swift Israeli response. So the result of Hezbollah’s taking such action would be the devastation of Hezbollah.MJT: Is Israel going to pre-emptively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities?Jonathan Spyer: An Israeli attack of this kind, we can now say with some confidence, will almost certainly not take place before next spring. There are strong voices within the Israeli defense establishment who argue against an Israeli pre-emptive strike at any stage because of what they consider to be the limited damage that Israel could inflict and the very negative diplomatic fall-out (if you’ll pardon the expression) that would result from such a move.Generally, I think that a nuclear Iran is not only, or mainly, Israel’s problem.The Iranians want above all to replace the United States as the guarantor of security in the Persian Gulf region. This is because they understand the power that comes from having the last word in an area so vital to the global economy. A nuclear Iran is a step toward the Iranian domination of the region, of which domination over the Gulf would form the vital centrepiece. This isn’t only, or mainly, Israel’s problem, and I personally see no reason why Israel should act as the gendarme of the oil-rich Arab monarchies of that area, enabling them of course to hysterically criticize it in public and thank it from the bottom of their hearts in private.[ED NOTES:IM JUST CITING FEW EXCERPTS...NOW,THERE YOU HAVE IT,CONFIRMATION THAT INDEED,IDF TROOPS ARE INSIDE OF SYRIA,AND ALONGSIDE THE REBEL TERRORIST GROUPS!!!MIND YOU THIS FRAUD WAS A TANK OPERATOR FOR IDF DURING THE BRUTAL ILLEGAL INVASION OF LEBANON IN 2006!HES NOW POSINGA S A JOURNALIST JUST LIKE THE US MARINE TICE!HOW MANY MORE ARE THERE UNDER SOME OTHER DISGUISES?THIS IS ANOTHER DEATH BLOW TO THE SYRIAN REBELS!THEY ALLOW ISRAHELLI TERRORISTS TO TAG ALONG AND INTERVIEW THEM?THEY HANG OUT ,OPENLY AND BEHIND THE SCENSES WITH ZIONISTS,NEOCONS,US MARINES THINKING NOONE IS PAYING ATTENTION?BIG MISTAKE..NOW ALSO SEE.. US MARINE POSING AS FREELANCE ... - THENAKEDFACTS Vallely meets with Syrian opposition leaders - THENAKEDFACTS ZIONISTS AND FSA HANG OUT IN BARRACKS-VIDEO-ZIONIST WAR MONGERS FROM WINEP http://thenakedfacts.blogspot.com/2012/09/video-zionist-wineps-top-likudnik-foot.html
Regarding the type of help, the list is a familiar one: arms, most importantly anti-aircraft weapons for the rebels, and a no-fly and no heavy armor zone in the north would be the most urgent first moves.In other words, I think the Syrian situation presents an opportunity to deal the Iran-led regional bloc and its backers a very telling defeat. I think this opportunity should be taken, though I acknowledge the concerns regarding the people in the rebel movements and the ideas they support.MJT: The relatively “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood used to be quietly popular there back in the 80s before Hafez al-Assad beat them to death in the city of Hama. Are they still popular? Or are they a marginal force like they are next-door in Lebanon?Jonathan Spyer: Well, after the Muslim Brothers were crushed by the regime in 1982, Assad took extreme measures to make sure that they wouldn’t rise again. Muslim Brotherhood membership is an offense punishable by death in Assad’s Syria. So unlike in, say, Egypt, the Brotherhood didn’t have a ready-made infrastructure on the ground when the uprising began. But they have by all accounts been busy, and working in close cooperation with Qatar they are said to have built up direct links to various rebel battalions active in the country. I would imagine, without knowing for sure, that the Tawhid Brigade of Aleppo is one of those. The powerful Farouq Brigade in the Homs area may well be another.The Brothers have money and are well organized. They think, as you know, that they are now having their moment in the region after many long years of waiting. Hence their representatives are there in southern Turkey making deals, establishing supply lines, providing money, and building their structures on the ground.
MJT: Do have any idea how many Syrians are supporting and/or working with the Salafist elements of the Free Syrian Army because there’s no other option compared with how many are supporting the Salafists because they genuinely sympathize with the Salafists?Jonathan Spyer: Don’t know how many in terms of numbers. I saw a number of checkpoints of the Saudi-supported Ahrar al-Sham group at prominent places in Aleppo city, complete with Salafi banners. They’re certainly there. My sense was that they weren’t the most serious factor. I don’t think Salafiya as such has a particularly large constituency in Syria and I don’t think it will succeed in becoming a central political faction. Much more notable and important, I think, is the growth of Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamism as a powerful element in the armed insurgency.The Tawhid Brigade, for example, is the most powerful single armed unit in Aleppo. I interviewed one of the commanders of the brigade, and I would characterize its outlook a Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamist. Its members are critical of extreme, Al Qaeda-style Islamism, but they are also open about their own desire for an ‘Islamic state.’I also met members of a hastily assembled Sharia Council in Azaz town. The council consists of religious former FSA commanders and religious notables. I was told that it currently constitutes the highest legal authority in the town, working in cooperation with the armed rebels. Again, I’d stress that the heartland of the rebellion is a very conservative, devout, Sunni Arab space. This rebellion has a religious coloration. At the same time, this does not imply the victory of Al Qaeda types.MJT: You and I have both spent some quality time in Lebanon, me as a journalist and you as a journalist and as an Israeli soldier. So let me ask you this: what do you think about the Free Syrian Army’s threat to take the fight to Hezbollah in its stronghold south of Beirut?Jonathan Spyer: Let me add a bit of anecdotal evidence regarding this from my own time in Syria. The hatred felt by FSA and other Syrian insurgent fighters toward Hezbollah is very intense. It of course also has a sectarian element. I have seen Hezbollah flags burned at opposition demonstrations in Idlib Province. In Aleppo last month, I interviewed a Tawhid Brigade fighter who referred constantly to the party as ‘Hizb a Shaytan’ (party of Satan.) It created a weird dynamic in our conversation because I would keep asking about ‘Hezbollah’ (party of God) and he would keep replying by referring to ‘Hizb a Shaytan’ until in the end I started feeling like I was acting as some kind of apologist for Hezbollah. Which I’m not. As you know.In general, I think Hezbollah knows it has a great deal to fear from the rise of the Sunnis in Syria. If Assad falls and the rebels win, this will almost certainly mean a ‘renegotiation’ of the sectarian balance of power in Lebanon, too, to Hezbollah’s severe disadvantage. At that point, the organization will have to decide whether to accommodate itself to a new balance of power, or to fight to retain its dominance against a new, Sunni-dominated Syria and its Lebanese allies. Neither prospect is attractive to Hezbollah, so it is doing its utmost to preserve the rule of the Assad dictatorship.MJT: Do you think Hezbollah will unleash its missile arsenal if Iranian nuclear weapons facilities are attacked? And if so, how much damage are we talking about here?Jonathan Spyer: I think it is very likely that there will be action of some kind by Hezbollah against Israel in the event of any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Hezbollah, after all, is entirely the product of a thirty year investment by the Islamic Republic of Iran. To a great extent, this investment was intended for precisely such a moment.Hezbollah has re-armed since the 2006 war and possesses, we are told, around 60,000 short range missiles as well as a medium and long range missile capability, including the M-600 missile system. This would give them the ability to hit targets in central Israel. However, Israel’s aerial and artillery capacity is in an entirely different league, and in such an instance there would be few political constraints against a swift Israeli response. So the result of Hezbollah’s taking such action would be the devastation of Hezbollah.MJT: Is Israel going to pre-emptively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities?Jonathan Spyer: An Israeli attack of this kind, we can now say with some confidence, will almost certainly not take place before next spring. There are strong voices within the Israeli defense establishment who argue against an Israeli pre-emptive strike at any stage because of what they consider to be the limited damage that Israel could inflict and the very negative diplomatic fall-out (if you’ll pardon the expression) that would result from such a move.Generally, I think that a nuclear Iran is not only, or mainly, Israel’s problem.The Iranians want above all to replace the United States as the guarantor of security in the Persian Gulf region. This is because they understand the power that comes from having the last word in an area so vital to the global economy. A nuclear Iran is a step toward the Iranian domination of the region, of which domination over the Gulf would form the vital centrepiece. This isn’t only, or mainly, Israel’s problem, and I personally see no reason why Israel should act as the gendarme of the oil-rich Arab monarchies of that area, enabling them of course to hysterically criticize it in public and thank it from the bottom of their hearts in private.[ED NOTES:IM JUST CITING FEW EXCERPTS...NOW,THERE YOU HAVE IT,CONFIRMATION THAT INDEED,IDF TROOPS ARE INSIDE OF SYRIA,AND ALONGSIDE THE REBEL TERRORIST GROUPS!!!MIND YOU THIS FRAUD WAS A TANK OPERATOR FOR IDF DURING THE BRUTAL ILLEGAL INVASION OF LEBANON IN 2006!HES NOW POSINGA S A JOURNALIST JUST LIKE THE US MARINE TICE!HOW MANY MORE ARE THERE UNDER SOME OTHER DISGUISES?THIS IS ANOTHER DEATH BLOW TO THE SYRIAN REBELS!THEY ALLOW ISRAHELLI TERRORISTS TO TAG ALONG AND INTERVIEW THEM?THEY HANG OUT ,OPENLY AND BEHIND THE SCENSES WITH ZIONISTS,NEOCONS,US MARINES THINKING NOONE IS PAYING ATTENTION?BIG MISTAKE..NOW ALSO SEE.. US MARINE POSING AS FREELANCE ... - THENAKEDFACTS Vallely meets with Syrian opposition leaders - THENAKEDFACTS ZIONISTS AND FSA HANG OUT IN BARRACKS-VIDEO-ZIONIST WAR MONGERS FROM WINEP http://thenakedfacts.blogspot.com/2012/09/video-zionist-wineps-top-likudnik-foot.html
2ND INTERVIEW BY NEOCON FRONT WITH FSA COMMANDERS(MASSIVEPROPAGANDA)
ZIOCON VALLELY INTERVIEW WITH FSA COMMANDER ,PSY-OPhttp://www.standupamericaus.org/breaking-news/mg-vallely-interview-with-syrian-fsa-sr-command/ S.A.U. IS A ZIO/NEOCON FRONT GROUP FOR OLIVER NORTH,VALLELY ,CIA AND PENTAGON INSIDERS
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