Syria Turns Treacherous for Israel

BUSINESS OVERHEAD Israel painstakingly maintained a calculated neutrality in the Syrian civil war. The IDF attacked as many as 200 Iranian weapons convoys headed for Hezbollah over the years but Iran never retaliated apparently viewing the Israeli strikes and their resultant losses of men and matériel as the “cost of doing business” for what they have now won — the ability to set up a military shop on the ruins of Syria Photo: FLASH90

I t would be an exaggeration to say that the honeymoon is over between the Netanyahu government and the Trump administration. But Israel’s objections to certain conditions in the Syrian cease-fire is the equivalent of a newlyweds’ first big fight.

Both sides hope the differences are reconcilable but Israel clearly has more to lose.

Late last week an Israeli delegation led by Mossad head Yossi Cohen and Major-General Hertzi Halevi chief of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate met with US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster his deputy Dina Powell and Jason Greenblatt the president’s special representative for international negotiations.