The Syrian conflict, which began as a popular uprising in the southwestern district of Daraa, caught Israel off guard. The Israeli intelligence community, which is world-renowned, failed to anticipate that the internal tensions on the ground in Israel's neighbor to the north would simmer to the point of a civil war, let alone one that has lasted over a decade.
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The uprising left Israel's conceived security perception on Syria hollow. First, Israel hoped the uprising would simply exhaust itself and fade, but soon enough the number of stakeholders in the results of the conflict and the interests they sought to protect made for a highly complex reality that, at the time, led Israel to believe the days of Syrian President Bashar Assad in power were numbered.
It took Israel a long time to formulate its policy vis-à-vis Syria, and for a long time, it seemed that Jerusalem was not making the necessary adjustments, as was clearly evident from the fact that the military's deployment along the border was geared toward meeting a threat that no longer existed.
The intelligence mechanisms that gathered information about the regular Syrian Army also became irrelevant at some point, and Israel was forced to find new ways to gather intelligence on new threats in the form of various terrorist organizations on its border, including the Islamic State and the Nusra Front.
Early on, one of Israel's biggest concerns was a potential torrent of refugees who would storm the border to escape the horrors of the war. The counter this scenario, troops on the ground were instructed to prevent border crossing of any kind, with the exception of "special cases" that would be reviewed on merit.
However, as time went by, Israeli officers on the ground realized they could not simply stand idly by and allow people to die on the other side of the border. Though highly controversial at the time, the creation of a field hospital near the border with the aim of treating wounded Syrian civilians –dubbed "Operation Good Neighbor" in 2016 – treated thousands of such cases, saving countless lives.
The chaos in Syria led senior officers in the IDF Northern Command to try to devise ways to change the security sphere while finding ways to influence reality on the ground. Assisting the Syrians was seen as an opportunity to foster good relations as well as to glean better intelligence and carve out political and security acuity that would prevent terrorist attacks and create options to deal with uncertainty.
At some point, errant fire incidents became recurrent. The IDF attempted to contain them at first, but as they became more frequent that policy changed, and Israeli troops were instructed to eliminate the source of such fire.
The chaos north of the border always prompted the replacement of the border fence at an accelerated pace, as well as the creation of a new brigade to defend the area.
Within a few years, Israel had managed to produce both strategy and tactical practices to deal with the events across the border, and at the end of the day, no significant terrorist attacks were carried out against Israel throughout that period.
Israel's predictions of Assad's downfall proved wrong, most like over the fact that between 2013 to 2015, the Syrian president began receiving unexpected assistance from Iran, its Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah and the Russians.
These players, especially the Russians, tipped the scales in favor of the Syrian regime and Assad survived. In 2018, the Russians forced Assad to agree to resolution agreements with various insurgency groups, including those based in villages and cities near the Israeli border.
Israel, for its part, brought Operation Good Neighbor to its end and demanded a return to the armistice agreements inked in 1974.
These days, the Syrian Army undergoing a process of rehabilitation, procuring mostly air defense systems, as opposed to the armored divisions that characterized it in the past.
To Israel's chagrin, Hezbollah is deeply involved in this process and is lending considerable resources to this end.
What worries Israel is that Hezbollah will try to establish another front against Israel on the Syrian border. This cannot be overlooked as this concern exists against the backdrop of considerable tension between Russia and Iran, each of which is vying for greater influence in the war-torn country with the aim of advancing their interests.
Israel still strives to foster better strategy vis-à-vis Syria and that is currently rooted in two things: first, cementing powerful defenses along the border, and second, targeting Iranian assets in Syria as well as convoys trying to smuggle advanced weapons into the region.
A decade on, it would be a mistake to say that the Syrian civil war has ended. The fighting has waned by the war has simply morphed. The brutality continues and dozens are killed in Syria every month. Any stability is also tenuous at best. Assad may have secured his regime, but not necessarily his future.
The Israeli-Syrian border will continue to be volatile in the foreseeable future. The Israeli lesson should be one and simple: expect the unexpected, for the only rule that applies, is zero predictability.
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