Israeli missiles reportedly targeted Syria again on Monday. Usually carried out under the pretense of "targeting Iranian/Iranian-backed militias," Israel's strikes violate Syria's sovereignty and breach international law.
Israel's military chief of staff boasted earlier about hitting over 500 targets in just 2020 alone. Bearing in mind that Syria's air defenses do intercept Israeli missiles, it is clear that Israel attacked Syria exponentially more than 500 times last year, and an untold number of times more in the many years that Israel has been bombing Syria.
This latest assault on Syria comes after an Iranian official clarified any Iranian forces in Syria are there at the invitation of the Syrian government to fight terrorists in Syria. This of course applies to all of Syria's allies, but not to the illegal US and Turkish occupation forces.
Yet, one of the many ironies regarding reporting on Syria is that while Syria and her allies fighting terrorism there are routinely lambasted by Israeli and Western officials, both Israel and Western nations have long been supporting terrorists in Syria, claiming they are "opposition forces" although they are either part of Al-Qaeda in Syria, closely aligned to them, or members of equally brutal factions, including even Islamic State ( IS, formerly ISIS).
If Israel's routine bombings of Syria are reported in Western media at all, it is with the usual downplaying of (and normalizing of) Israel's violations of international law.
A SANA (Syrian Arab News Agency) report on the February 15 bombings read as most reports prior over the years, noting the Israeli aggression and that Syria's "air defenses intercepted the missiles and downed most of them."
Reuters' account, referring to the SANA report, put Israeli aggression in quotation marks, as though the bombings don't amount to an aggression. Perhaps Reuters views them as late Valentine's greetings"Google "Iranian" or "Russian aggression" and see how often quotation marks are used.
Did Reuters or similar media bother to speak with civilians terrorized by these and the many prior Israeli assaults on Syria? Would they ever mention the psychological component of bombing at night, which is inevitably when Israel usually bombs?
Unlikely. Their narrative is to establish that "Iranian militias" are overtaking Syria and pose a threat to Israel that justifies Israel's incessant bombings of Syria.
Who do Israel's bombs target besides "Iranian/Iranian-backed militias"?If Western media reported honestly on Israeli bombings of Syria, they would be forced to acknowledge not only that Syrian civilians, including children, have been killed in the bombings, but perhaps offer a human face. Given the frequency of Israeli attacks and disregard for civilians, it is likely that the number of civilians maimed or killed by such bombings is not low.
Even in media traditionally hostile to Syria, one can find reports of civilians killed by Israeli bombings in Syria.
Western media do periodically mention that civilians were killed, but always usurp that point with justifications, like Israel, "periodically attacks what it says are threats to Israeli security in Syria."
In June 2019, I travelled to Quneitra, southern Syria. Standing near al-Baath City, with around 2,000 civilians living there, and around 4km from the occupiedSyrian Golan Heights, security there spoke of Israeli attacks in previous years and also just roughly two weeks before my visit.
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