Spiraling violence and Assad's desperate tactics

he was not an easy man to deal with, but once he signed an agreement, he kept it.

In the thirty-seven years since the 1973, there has not been a single incident along the Israeli-Syrian border. Not one. Various militant Palestinian organizations had their headquarters in Damascus, and they orchestrated many acts of terrorism against Israel all over the world, but these organizations were instructed by Assad not to launch any attacks from Syria against Israel. If you lived and worked in Syria, Hafez al Assad’s instructions were not the kind of instructions you would want to ignore.

Basher al Assad, Hafez’s son who came to power in 2000 after his father died, had followed his father’s approach to the Israeli-Syrian border for eleven years – until three weeks ago. His growing desperation, the growing desperation of the regime, and the rapid erosion of his standing both within Syria and without – when he came to power, he was hailed as a young leader who would bring reform and modernity to the Arab world – made him look for a way to divert world attention from the increasing brutality of his campaign to suppress the anti-government protests in Syria.

Using the Palestinian card was an easy choice. Thus, on 15 May, air-conditioned buses rented by the government carried hundreds of young Palestinian, most of them residents of refugee camps in southern Syria, to the Syrian-Israeli border near the Druze town of Majdl Shams (the town is just inside Israel). Because Israel regarded the Israeli-Syrian border as safe, the fences marking it were old and rusty, and the number of soldiers keeping an on the border small. When the young Palestinian got off the buses and began to rush toward Majdl Shams, there was no one there to stop them – or, more precisely: the few Israeli soldiers who were there decided to not shoot at the unarmed Palestinians.

About 130 of them managed to enter Israeli territory and, after a few hours, were persuaded to go back to Syria.

On Monday, naqsa day, Israel was much better prepared. In the three weeks since mid-May, deep trenches were dug at key points along the border, the fences were strengthened, more soldiers – and better equipped soldiers – were placed in areas likely to be used by the Palestinians, and more.

As expected, the Syrian government buses showed up, carrying mostly young Palestinians – some of them teen-agers – to the border. As was the case in mid-May, the buses also carried TV crews and their equipment. Israeli forces were waiting for them, using loudspeakers to warn the demonstrators off. Those who tried to approach the border had difficulty negotiations the ditches and other obstacles erected along the border, and were also met by heavy clouds of tear gas and smoke.

Israel also proved ready to use deadly force. Those Palestinians who braved the smoke, gas, and physical obstacles found themselves facing trained snipers – snipers who were instructed to shoot-to-wound, not to kill. Aiming at the demonstrators’ lower body, these snipers wounded about 120 of the marchers. Some were killed: Syria says that twelve were killed, Israel said only four were killed.

It is difficult to say whether or not Assad’s diversion tactics will succeed. On the day that saw between four and twelve Palestinian killed, there were thirty-seven Syrian civilians killed by security forces (the day before, sixty were killed) – and 120 police and security forces personnel were killed in northwest Syria.

Syrian official TV, which has so far ignored the three months of anti-government demonstrations, offered wall-to-wall coverage of the incidents along the Syrian-Israel border. Moreover, the Palestinian issue is a potent issue, and exploiting it for diversion may appear as a clever ploy by a desperate ruler. It is not likely to work, though: If Israel manages to keep the level violence low, and if it finds better — non-lethal — means to deal with repeated attempts of Palestinians from Syria to breach the border, then whatever happens along the border would just not be powerful enough – in terms of TV footage, drama, and the number of people killed or wounded – to offset to growing brutality inside Syria.