Re: Putin promise Golan Heights back to Syria

Admin Mon 25 Apr 2016, 10:38 am

Obama now seem to have joined the scene what is in it for him I would ask. Elaine

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-send-250-additional-military-personnel-syria-official/story?id=38640137
Obama to Send 250 Additional Military Personnel to Syria, Official Says
By ARLETTE SAENZ
Apr 24, 2016, 6:29 PM ET
President Obama will announce Monday that he is sending up to 250 additional military personnel to Syria to assist local forces in the fight against ISIS, a senior administration official confirmed to ABC News.
The personnel will include a mix of special operations forces and support personnel, the official said. The president will discuss this step during remarks at the Hannover Messe fairgrounds in Germany Monday morning.
In October, the president directed the Pentagon to send up to 50 special operations forces into Syria to assist the Syrian opposition in the fight against ISIS, meaning that with Monday’s announcement, the total of American military personnel in the country could go up to 300.
In an interview with the BBC released today, Obama again ruled out deploying ground troops to Syria and discussed the importance of the campaign to defeat ISIS.
"It would be a mistake for the United States, or Great Britain ... to send in ground troops and overthrow the [Bashar al-] Assad regime," he told the BBC.
"Prosecuting the campaign against ISIL is critical, and although I don't anticipate that in the next nine months it will be finished, because, unfortunately, even a small pocket of extremists, if they're prepared to die themselves, can still wreak havoc on many of our cities. But I do think that we can slowly shrink the environment in which they operate and take on strongholds like Mosul and Raqqa that are the beating heart of their movement," he said.
The president will also attend a meeting with European leaders to discuss security issues –- including the situation in Syria –- and to encourage them to bolster their intelligence sharing between their countries in the wake of the Brussels and Paris attacks. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the meeting, which will also be attended by British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
http://virtualjerusalem.com/news.php?Itemid=21106
04-24-16

Admin Fri 22 Apr 2016, 2:54 pm

http://awdnews.com/top-news/putin-agrees-to-take-the-golan-from-israel,-and-give-it-to-syria

Putin Agrees To End Israeli Occupation In Golan Heights, Return It Back To Syria
Top News 21 April 2016
Last year we wrote a post explaining what could cause Russia to invade Israel.
At the time, Israel’s Prime Minister had flown to Washington, and was making a desperate bid to get Obama’s support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Only a few weeks earlier a discovery had been made that would serve to increase tensions on the question of sovereignty over the Golan – huge oil deposits were found on the Golan Heights, and verified by an Israeli company.

Yet, weeks later, Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel having failed to secure Obamas support.
It wasnt long before the United Nations – including Russia – condemned Israels “occupation” of the Golan Heights, and around the same time, Syria asked Russia to develop their oil resources.
Then, over the course of the next 6 months, the Israeli leadership became very concerned about Russian activity near the Golan.
Click here for the context of the story thus far.

Now, Debkafile reports the following:
“Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu will visit Moscow on Thursday, April 21 to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and to launch the most important battle of his political career, and one of Israel’s most decisive contests of the last 10 years: the battle over the future of the Golan Heights.
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources and its sources in Moscow report exclusively that Israel’s top political leaders and military commanders were stunned and shocked last weekend when they found out that US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to support the return of the Golan to Syria. The two presidents gave their top diplomats, Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the green light to include such a clause in a proposal being drafted at the Geneva conference on ending the Syrian civil war.
Israel captured the Golan from the Syrian army 49 years ago, during the Six-Day War in 1967 after the Syrian army invaded Israel.

In 1981, during the tenure of then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Israel passed a law defining the Golan as a territory under Israeli sovereignty. However, it did not state that the area belongs to Israel.
While Israel was preparing for a diplomatic battle over the future of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Obama and Putin decided to deal a diplomatic blow to Israel and Netanyahu’s government on an unexpected issue, the Golan.
It is part of an endeavor by the two powers to use their diplomatic and military cooperation regarding Syria to impose agreements on neighboring countries, such as Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
For example, Washington and Moscow are trying to impose an agreement regarding the granting of independence to Syrian Kurds, despite Ankara’s adamant opposition. The two presidents are also pressuring Riyadh and Amman to accept the continuation of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule, at least for the immediate future.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that just like the other diplomatic or military steps initiated by Obama and Putin in Syria, such as those for Assad’s eventual removal from power, the two powers see a resolution of the Golan issue as a gradual process that may take a long time, perhaps even years. But as far as they are concerned, Israel will have to withdraw from the Golan at the end of that process.
It should be noted that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not traveling to Washington to discuss the Golan issue with Obama. The frequent trips by the prime minister, senior officials and top IDF brass to Moscow in recent months show where the winds are blowing in the Middle East.
However, Moscow is not Washington, and Israel has no lobby in the Russian capital defending its interests.
It should be made very clear that the frequent trips by senior Israeli officials to Moscow have not created an Israeli policy that can influence Putin or other senior members of the Russian leadership. Putin has made occasional concessions to Israel on matters of minimal strategic importance, but on diplomatic and military steps regarding Syria and Iran he has shown little consideration of Jerusalem’s stance.

It should also be noted that there has been no basis for the enthusiasm over the Russian intervention in Syria shown by Netanyahu, Israeli ministers and senior IDF officers.
All of the calls by a number of Russia experts, mainly those of DEBKAfile, for extreme caution in ties with Putin have fallen on deaf ears among the political leadership in Jerusalem and the IDF command in Tel Aviv.
Amid these developments, three regional actors are very pleased by Washington and Moscow’s agreement to demand Israeli withdrawal from the Golan: Syrian President Assad, the Iranian leadership in Tehran and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Now, they do not need to risk a military confrontation with Israel over the Golan because Obama and Putin have essentially agreed to do the dirty work for them.