Gertz:
LONDON — Russia is said to have been inciting Iran and Syria to launch war against Israel.
Israeli officials asserted that the Kremlin, still under the control of wily ex-KGB operative and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, was feeding Iran and Syria false reports on attack preparations by the Jewish state. The false Russian reports to Damascus and Teheran were first detected by Israeli intelligence as early as 2007.
“The Russians telling the Syrians that Israel planned to attack them, possibly in concert with a U.S. attack on Iran,” a U.S. State Department report said.
A U.S. embassy cable reported a June 2007 meeting between Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin and U.S. ambassador Richard Jones. Yadlin said the Kremlin was behaving similar to that in 1967 when it fed false reports of Israeli preparations to attack Syria.
“Regarding predictions of war with Syria this summer, Yadlin recalled the lead-up to the 1967 war, which he said was provoked by the Soviet ambassador in Israel,” the cable, released by WikiLeaks, said. “Both Israel and Syria are in a state of high alert, so war could happen easily even though neither side is seeking it.”
The Syrian preparations were said to have been taken in wake of Israel’s war with the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah in 2006. Israel found numerous Russian-origin weapons, exported to Syria, in Hizbullah strongholds.
“The Syrian regime was also showing greater self-confidence,” Yadlin was quoted as saying. “Some Syrian leaders appeared to believe that Syria could take on Israel military, but others were more cautious.”
Yadlin reported what he termed a “frenzy of preparations” for a confrontation with Israel. He said the regime of President Bashar Assad could not survive a war with Israel.
Yadlin also assessed that Iran established a presence in the Gaza Strip. He said Iran would accelerate military shipments to the Gaza Strip as soon as an airport or sea port was established.
In August 2007, Mossad director Meir Dagan confirmed Russian intervention in the Middle East. Dagan told a senior U.S. official that Russia was playing a “very negative role.”
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