(Sept. 21, 2007) – Binyamin Netanyahu, chairman of Israel’s hawkish opposition Likud Party, broke two weeks of silence this week by confirming Israel’s secret air strike on Syria earlier this month.

 

Netanyahu, who drew immediate criticism from Israeli politicians and media, expressed his full support for the covert mission and thanked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his commitment to Israel’s security, reported the BBC.

 

Suspicions of a nuclear weapons program being developed in northern Syria, and purportedly aided by a North Korean attaché, prompted the Sept. 6 air strike by Israeli warplanes on a Syrian target, reported The New York Times—though U.S. intelligence agencies have not confirmed such a scenario.

Syria claimed no air strike took place and that Israeli warplanes inside Syrian airspace dropped munitions in the desert to lighten their load while fleeing Syrian defense forces, reported the Associated Press (AP).  

 

Israel launched the raid after the small nation’s intelligence tracked cargo from a North Korean ship to a location in Syria, reported the Times, adding that a senior North Korean diplomat called accusations that his country would supply nuclear-related materials to Syria “groundless.”

 

Israel’s official policy for handling the secret raid, which since earlier this month was made increasingly more public by sources in the U.S. and Israel, was to issue a military censor barring all Israeli media from revealing details of the “alleged operation,” reported the Jerusalem Post.

 

Syria responded to Israel’s incursion into its airspace with silence as well, downplaying the event ostensibly to avoid—if in fact nuclear development played a role—what could quickly turn into a confrontation between two nations technically still at war, observers say.

 

But according to the AP, Syria’s state-run Tishrin newspaper and government mouthpiece did comment on the incursion by tossing several barbs at the Jewish state. “Had Israel been interested in peacemaking,” stated Tishrin editorial, “it would not have violated Syrian airspace.” It added that Israel’s prime minister “puts on clothes of a peace dove, but he has forgotten to take out the claws and fangs of the war wolf.”

 

Both Syria and North Korea have not only denied their involvement in a Syrian nuclear program but also have accused the U.S. of spreading false accusations for political reasons, the AP reported.

 

Meanwhile, Iran announced this week plans drawn up to bomb Israel should the Jewish state make “a silly mistake” by attacking Iran’s own nuclear program, reported the AP. The statement comes just days after a commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said U.S. bases situated near Iran were easy, legitimate targets.