Turkey Just Gave Syria Something Israel Cannot Bomb Away

Right, so Israel decided it was time for another round of warfare inside Syria. Apparently, it is not a proper week unless something explodes across yet another border for them it seems. Nothing unusual here, though sadly is there? Israel bombing someone, be it Gaza or Lebanon or the West Bank has become so routine it barely gets a mention on the news, so maybe Syria will liven things up a bit. Except this time, Channel 13 have added a bit of a twist by describing the targets as Turkish. Why stick to the usual when you can bring a NATO member into the mix, that’s bound to get the media excited. But then, another twist: Donald Trump has apparently told Netanyahu to pack it in and put his missiles away. It’s gone down about as well with some of his ministers as you might have expected it to. That was Israel's deranged defence minister, Israel Katz, sounding like a bouncer at a Tel Aviv nightclub, warning Turkish President Erdoğan not to mess with Israel. So much chest-thumping you might think Katz was auditioning for a protein powder advert. But this was Trump's response when Netanyahu mentioned Turkey when last he visited not so long ago. Not exactly the answer Netanyahu had scribbled at the top of his Hannukah wish list, is it? Because according to this report, Israel's strike was denied. Turkish interests in Syria were effectively made off-limits, and the thing stopping Israel was not a Syrian missile battery. It was Turkey's importance to the man in the White House. And hat might now be the strongest guardrail Syria has got against further Israeli attacks and incursions, because it is not something Netanyahu can send a fighter jet to destroy. Now, before half of YouTube starts shouting that Trump has stopped Israel from bombing Turkey, let's slow down, because the original report does not give us enough detail to say that. What Channel 13 revealed is that the White House rejected an Israeli request, made several weeks earlier, to attack what the channel called Turkish targets inside Syria. We do not now for sure what "Turkish targets" means, but we can certainly have an educated guess.