On the morning of Sunday, December 8, Syria’s murderous tyrant Bashar al-Assad fled the country and his regime collapsed. As soon as this became clear, Israel launched a massive military onslaught into Syria. 

As ordinary Syrians began to express their profound, long-suppressed yearnings for liberation, and reactionary Islamic fundamentalist forces, backed by Turkey, were taking control, Israel’s troops and tanks stormed into Syria, and its warplanes streaked across Syria’s skies.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (aka Netan-Nazi) claimed, “We have no intention of interfering in Syria’s internal affairs”—as he was doing exactly that. 

He said that Israel was doing “what is necessary to ensure our security.” What Netanyahu meant by ensuring Israel’s “security” is crushing any opposition to its genocidal expansionism or the violence it unleashes as an armed outpost for U.S. imperialism. This has included trampling on the sovereignty of other countries, destroying their ability to defend themselves, and attempting to violently impose Israel’s domination across the Middle East. (In recent decades, Iran and its regional allies, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as Syria, have been major targets. For more, see The Reactionary Regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad Is Overthrown—What Is Happening in Syria? Why? Who Are the Forces Involved? Where Do the Interests of the People Lie?) 

Israeli Tanks and Troops Seize Syrian Territory 

Israel didn’t wait for a new Syrian government to be formed or for Syria to take any action against Israel. And it certainly didn’t wait for the Syrian people to express their aspirations for the future. 

As soon as it was clear that Assad’s regime was falling, Israel’s tanks and troops rolled into Syrian territory for the first time since 1973. They began from the Golan Heights in southwest Syria, a 700-square-mile area that Israel illegally seized through war in 1967. Israel has occupied it ever since, and Netanyahu recently declared it would remain part of Israel “for eternity.”¹

Israel’s military then moved through the 155-square-mile United Nations-monitored “buffer zone,” and advanced deep into Syrian territory, perhaps within 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) of its capital, Damascus. 

Israel claimed this was a limited and temporary move. That’s an excuse Israel has used at different points throughout its history, even when planning to stay years or even annex territory. One Israeli military commander said, “It’s clear that we will remain here for quite some time.… We’re prepared for this.” Israel has now stated it’s establishing a “sterile zone” and their forces will be staying in Syrian territory for at least several more months.²

Drop Site News reports, “Israeli tanks and troops have expanded the Israeli occupation, taking over former Syrian army positions on the highest point of Jabal al-Sheikh, which Israel calls Mount Hermon (which overlooks wide swaths of Israel, Lebanon and Syria), and spread across a buffer zone in place since a 1974 armistice agreement that officially ended the war between Syria and Israel. In the town of Quneitra in the Golan Heights, reports emerged of Israeli troops invading the town and turning its justice department building into a military base. Video and photographs posted by Israeli soldiers show them posing inside local Syrian government offices and spraying abandoned homes with bullets, as well as Israeli tanks positioned in the streets. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday said the military would seize the entire buffer zone to protect Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights…”

Massive Israeli Bombing Attacks Devastate Syria’s Ability to Defend Itself

Israel has carried out acts of aggression against Syria for decades, including bombing Iranian and Hezbollah forces and weapons operating there during the 2011-2024 Syrian civil war. Just this past April, Israel attacked Iran’s embassy in Damascus, assassinating senior Iranian military and intelligence officials.

But this current attack is on a whole other level. Early Sunday, shortly after Assad fled, Israel launched one of its most massive air assaults ever. Within 48 hours, it carried out over 480 air strikes, leveling military assets across Syria. It has continued its bombing campaign as of December 13.

This Israeli onslaught from the air and sea took out Syria’s entire navy, whole squadrons of fighter jets, air-defense systems, drones, weapons plants and depots, tanks, and many missiles and rockets. Israel also hit airports, manufacturing and research centers, government buildings, and warehouses. Many of these targets were in densely populated cities such as Damascus, Hama, Homs, Tartus, Latakia and Palmyra.³

Netanyahu bragged Israel had destroyed 70 to 80 percent of Syria’s military assets. “The damage inflicted represents a significant achievement for the Israeli Air Force’s superiority in the region,” Israel’s military said. (Previously, Israeli warplanes had to evade Syrian air defenses in order to bomb Iran-backed militias and other targets in Syria.)⁴

Israel claimed all this constituted taking “defensive” actions to make sure deadly weapons, such as chemical weapons, didn’t fall into the hands of “terrorists” who could threaten Israel. 

In fact, Israel had trampled on Syria’s sovereignty and future. It attacked in order to prevent Syria from having any ability to defend itself no matter who ends up in power, possibly for decades to come. And it is aimed at giving Israel a major, if not dominant, role in determining Syria’s future. 

U.S. Says Yes to Israel’s Violent Intervention

President “Genocide Joe” Biden and other U.S. officials declared that Syria’s future “will be determined by the Syrian people themselves.” 

In the next breath they defended Israel’s invasion and seizure of Syrian territory as “logical and consistent” with Israel’s right to “self-defense,” which the U.S. apparently considers stretches across the entire Middle East and beyond. U.S. officials refuse to criticize Israel’s criminal preemptive air assault, saying only that they would have to talk “privately” to Israeli officials about it. 

You see, these U.S. platitudes about Syrian self-determination and sovereignty weren’t really aimed at constraining their own actions and those of their partner Israel in Syria. They were a warning to the U.S.’s regional and global rivals, especially Iran and Russia, to stay out!

So much for their claim that Syria’s future will be determined by the Syrian people. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. launched more than 75 air strikes in central Syria with B-52, F-15 and A-10 warplanes. Their stated goal was preventing the barbaric fundamentalists of the Islamic State (ISIS) from reconstituting themselves amid this upheaval.

These strikes also had a wider purpose: warning other forces operating in Syria that the U.S. would “hold them accountable if they partner with or support ISIS in any way.” And it was a declaration that the U.S. was prepared to use military force to impose its own interests in Syria, regardless of its hollow promises to respect Syrian “sovereignty.”

What This Pivotal Moment in Syria Tell Us About Israel and the U.S.

Think about the stark contrast playing out before the eyes of the world.

On one side, images shared around the planet capture the basic, profound humanity of ordinary Syrians—expressing heartfelt hopes for real emancipation. And the gut-wrenching scenes of Syrians scouring the filthy dungeons of Assad’s torture regime for any sign of their loved ones, some not seen for decades.

On the other side, there’s the cold-blooded aggression and savage destruction Israel is raining on defenseless Syria, possibly crippling its future before it could even begin. And there is the U.S. arming, backing, encouraging, and okaying this outrageous violence.

These events are demonstrating, for all to see—if they dare—three basic and crucial realities:

1. Israel is not a bastion of enlightenment and the “only democracy” in the Middle East. It is a Jewish-supremacist state, based on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, which has now taken a leap into all-out genocide. And it is an attack dog for U.S. imperialism, now carrying out a Nazi-like blitzkrieg in seven countries, and counting, to change “the face of the Middle East.”
2. The United States is not a force for good spreading “democracy” in the world. As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has analyzed: 

The essence of what exists in the U.S. is not democracy but capitalism-imperialism and political structures to enforce that capitalism-imperialism. What the U.S. spreads around the world is not democracy, but imperialism and political structures to enforce that imperialism. (BAsics 1:3 [emphasis added])

3. Israel is openly talking of “remaking” the Middle East, and the U.S. is applauding its actions and ambitions: “The balance of power in the Middle East has changed significantly,” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declared. “Israel is stronger, Iran is weaker.” The U.S. has also been boasting that its proxy war in Ukraine has weakened Russia, and prevented it from backing the Assad regime.

None of this is about bringing peace to the region, in fact it has heightened the dangers humanity faces. And it’s a warning of possible further U.S.-backed Israeli aggression. It underscores once again, the truth and urgency of Bob Avakian’s call:

We, the people of the world, can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to continue to dominate the world and determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that we do not have to live this way.