A former Israeli lecturer has said the entity depends on wars for its existence, warning that the hostility only invites disaster for Tel Aviv.

It is only constant confrontations and standoffs which keep the Israeli society from falling apart, said Ilan Pappe, who used to work as a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa in northern Israel.

He also said that the current Israeli government is the result of a colonialist movement. Colonialists, who did not have a country anywhere across the world, were obliged to remain here.

Iraqi civilians report that dozens of Iranian trucks filled with missiles have recently passed through their country, former minister Mordechai Ben-Porat told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew-language news service. The trucks appear to be heading for Syria.

Ben-Porat's source witnessed 75 trucks filled with long-range missiles near his hometown in northern Iraq.

It seems that we can see a major Syrian uprising at last in the Golan heights after more than 40 years of occupation that can remind the world with the fact that this is an occupied territory.

Israel is busy creating as many options as possible which can be used as a casus belli to begin the final confrontation with Iran with the endgame being the creation of a Greater Israel and the destruction of its enemies.

Because Israel has created many enemies, it has, in turn, created many options with which it can begin the final confrontation that will lead to the destruction of all its enemies. Israel has now adopted a tactic whereby it is attempting to create an environment via the use of provocation that will unite its enemies so that when the appropriate moment to start the final confrontation arrives it can then deal with all of its enemies at once with the help of the US and some of its other Western allies.

The truth is that it is Israel -- not the Arabs -- that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to conclude a real peace with its neighbors. And this has been true since the outset. Claims, like that of Abba Eban's, about Arab intransigence are usually buttressed with a reference to the founding act of the creation of Israel in international law: the UN General Assembly's vote on the partition of Palestine in November 1947, at a time when the majority of UN member states were western and western-dominated countries.

Though officials say the transaction took place about a year ago, Israel and the U.S. haven't publicized it, a departure from years past when Israeli officials were often eager to trumpet Iranian arms transfers to Syria and Hezbollah as violations of Security Council resolutions.

Some analysts say Israel believes Iran wants to escalate tensions on Israel's northern border with Lebanon and Syria to divert attention from its nuclear program. Israel has shied away from publicizing the transfer, these people say, to avoid playing into Iran's hands by increasing domestic pressure on Israel's government to take military action.

The socialist Chavez is a harsh critic of both Israel and the United States and cut relations with Israel after accusing it of "holocaust" for its 2009 offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"It has become the assassin arm of the United States, no one can doubt it. It is a threat to all of us," Chavez said, during a visit by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said Israel's raid on the Gaza aid flotilla has increased the chances of war in the Middle East.

Syrian President Bashar al—Assad and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Monday that Israel’s attack on a flotilla of aid bound for Gaza threatens to ignite a war in the region.

Syria and Lebanon “condemn the heinous crime committed by Israel through the brutal attacks on unarmed civilians on board the Freedom Flotilla,” both leaders said in a joint statement, after a pre— planned meeting in Damascus.

Military exercises conducted by the Israeli army have set fire to thousands of acres of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, destroying plant life in the region.

Israel's foreign minister on Wednesday declared North Korea, Syria and Iran the new "axis of evil," claiming that North Korean weapons seized in Bangkok in December were bound for Middle Eastern militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

The failure to reshape the Greater Middle East has left the field open to a new alliance, the Tehran-Damascus-Ankara triangle. Since nature is allergic to vacuums, Moscow is filling the space left vacant by Washington. The wind has changed and it’s blowing strong. In a matter of a few months, the entire regional balance of power has tipped.

Russia is to supply Syria with warplanes, defense apparatuses and military vehicles in a move that would irk Israel and the United States.

Head of Russia's Federal Agency for Military Cooperation Mikhail Dmitriyev said on Friday that Moscow is contracted to sell Damascus MiG-29 fighter jets, Pantsyr short-range air defense systems and armored vehicles, Russian media reported.

Russia has signed deals with Syria under which it will sell it warplanes, antitank weapons and air defense systems, Itar-Tass news agency quoted a senior Russian arms trader as saying on Friday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday accused nuclear power North Korea of supplying Syria with weapons of mass destruction.

Lieberman's office quoted him as telling Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama at a meeting in Tokyo that such activity threatened to destabilise east Asia as well as the Middle East.

"The cooperation between Syria and North Korea is not focused on economic development and growth but rather on weapons of mass destruction" Lieberman said.

President Barack Obama Monday renewed US sanctions on Syria for a year, accusing Damascus of supporting what he called “terrorist” groups and pursuing missile programs and weapons of mass destruction.

Iran will "cut off Israel's feet" if the Jewish state attacks Damascus, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Rida Rahimi vowed on Friday at the end of a two-day visit to key regional ally Syria.

"We will stand alongside Syria against any (Israeli) threat," Rahimi said at a news conference with Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otri.

"There is no truth to the suggestion that Israel is planning a military move against Syria," Netanyahu said at the Likud party meeting, adding that the rumors were likely spread by Iran and Hezbollah as an attempt to distract the international community from the bid to impose sanctions on Iran.

In the self-sensationalising world of modern media, some truths are better witnessed than told. Over the past fortnight, major media outlets have converged on Syria’s alleged delivery of scud missiles to the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah. By examining how the story first came to limelight, as well as the manner in which media sources have uncritically covered the story, one can begin to notice the vastly degenerated state of today’s media and its deeply polarising effects.

Syria is providing a "wider array" of missiles to Hezbollah, a US diplomat said Friday, stopping short of accusing Damascus of supplying Scuds to the Lebanese Shiite militia.

"We are concerned with the broadening nature of cooperation between Syria and Hezbollah," said a senior State Department official, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Doubts are growing within the U.S. defence and intelligence community about allegations that long-range Scud missiles from Syria have been shipped to the Hezbollah guerrilla group in neighbouring Lebanon, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

Washington believes Syrian was moving towards transferring more sophisticated Scuds to Hezbollah, but U.S. intelligence agencies have not been able to confirm Israeli allegations that the missiles have changed hands, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran is trying to provoke a war between Israel and Syria.

Netanyahu says Iran is trying to convince Syria that an Israeli attack is imminent, which he says is a "lie."

The reason behind increasing tensions in the Israel-Syria arena broke last week in a report in Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Rai, that the Syrian military trained members of Hezbollah in how to fire advanced Scud ballistic missiles.

Washington has voiced contradictory viewpoints on the Scud issue. The State Department reported that they are "very concerned" by reports of the transfer of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah. However, over the weekend, senior administration officials expressed doubt as to whether the Scuds really made their way across the Syria-Lebanon border.

Israel might be preparing a military strike against Syria by accusing Damascus of supplying Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon with long-range Scud missiles, the Syrian government said on Thursday.

Syria has transferred long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials alleged, in a move that threatens to alter the Middle East's military balance and sets back a major diplomatic outreach effort to Damascus by the Obama administration.

Israel does not want peace with Syria. Let's take off all the masks we've been hiding behind and tell the truth for a change. Let's admit that there's no formula that suits us, except the ludicrous "peace for peace." Let's admit it to ourselves, at least, that we do not want to leave the Golan Heights, no matter what. Forget about all the palaver, all the mediations, all the efforts.

Israel has approached the US Administration and asked that it put on hold plans to send an American ambassador to Damascus, the London-based Sharq al-Awsat reported Saturday.

Israel submitted the request in the wake of the warm welcome accorded to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his recent Damascus visit, the newspaper's reporter in Israel said, quoting sources close to the government.

Media reports in recent days have painted dire scenarios for what is, supposedly, the inevitable conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Of particular note are persistent indicators that the next round, if or when it comes, will very likely involve Syria as well.

Israel wants to start talks that would culminate with a permanent peace agreement with Syria, a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said On Thursday, adding, however, that Jerusalem would continue to react against any threats to its safety.

"In the absence of an arrangement with Syria, we are liable to enter a belligerent clash with it that could reach the point of an all-out, regional war," Barak told senior Israel Defense Forces officers on Monday.

An interesting but alarming article appeared and then quickly disappeared from the front page of the online Jerusalem Post yesterday. Short and to the point, it said simply that Syria would back Hezbollah in Lebanon if attacked by Israel adding that ‘Damascus considered any threat to Lebanon’s security as a threat to Syria’s security’. The report also noted, quoting the Qatari newspaper Al Watan, that Damascus was concerned about ‘Israeli deployment and manoeuvres along the northern border’. The report then went on to further quote Al Watan saying that a US official had told the Lebanese government that Israel planned to invade Lebanon up to Beirut if the Lebanese government did not disarm Hezbollah, something the Lebanese government is definitely not going to be doing.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said he would begin peace talks with Israel only after Netanyahu "guarantees the full return of land and rights," the Syrian News Service reported.

Assad met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris where they spoke about the future of peace talks between Israel and Syria, reported the Syrian News Service.

Sarkozy told Assad that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to start talks with Syria with no preconditions.

The US massacre at Al-Sukkariya, Syria in 2008 was a clear violation of international law

People no longer trust Congress, the President, the courts, the media, corporations, political parties, and other institutions of society. People even doubt science and medicine.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem urges Israel to yield to the demands pressed by the UN nuclear watchdog and open its nuclear sites to inspection.

The Syrian diplomat said on Monday that the Israeli regime must place all its nuclear installations under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, and adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Hopefully they will stick to their guns and not be coerced by zionist bullies on the Web. It was a victory for groups such as Honest Reporting. Com to get Israel as an option for those living in the ‘Heights’…. but the question remains, how long will Syria remain as the other option? An earlier ‘victory’ for the zionists was to allow the illegal settlers in the Occupied West Bank to identify Israel as their country, rather than Palestine where they actually live.

Syria charges Israel with dumping nuclear waste near the Syrian border, in territories occupied by the regime during the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel seems determined to provoke its enemies hook or by crook in order to get a war going against Iran. If they’re not continually directly accusing Iran of having a nuclear weapons program – despite the total lack of any evidence to even suggest Iran has any nuclear weapons program – then Israel is accusing Hezbollah of wanting to attack Israelis and Israeli interests outside of Israel warning that, if any Israeli is harmed, Hezbollah will be held responsible. Just to help the provocation along, Israel is also still sending their military jets into sovereign Lebanese airspace. In their latest piece of warmongering chutzpah, Israel is accusing Hezbollah of stockpiling rockets in order to strike Israel.

The Russian Navy will expand and modernize its Soviet-era naval maintenance site near Tartus in Syria to support anti-piracy operations off the Somali coast, a high-ranking navy source said on Monday.

The Navy maintenance site near Tartus is the only Russian foothold in the Mediterranean. Russian navy commanders have long been calling for the expansion and modernization of the Tartus base.

Unlike Iraq, there is no “weapons of mass destruction threat” to facilitate toppling the Syrian regime. This time, a United Nations Tribunal could provide the means, deploying Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri's murder as the weapon. But like the US show trial to convict Saddam Hussein, the show trial to convict Syria for Hariri's murder, built by the United Nation's International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC), has a history of problems.

Allegations that a Syrian envoy admitted during a United Nations meeting Oct. 17 that an Israeli air strike hit a nuclear facility in September are inaccurate and have raised the ire of some in the US intelligence community, who see the Vice President’s hand as allegedly being behind the disinformation.

The U.S. media is indulging in war mongering "yellow journalism" by repeating baseless allegations that Syria is behind the "car bombing" of a popular Lebanese nationalist, while the evidence suggests that the assassination was carried out using a guided missile launched from a plane - a precision penetration bomb - a "targeted killing" technique perfected by Israel.

Israeli Ambassador Israel Michaeli publicly chastised International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Muhamed ElBaradei today for what he called “political bias” in his investigation of Israeli accusations of Syrian activity. Michaeli added that if ElBaradei wanted Israeli cooperation he should “refrain from publicly lashing at Israel.”

ElBaradei angrily denied the accusation of bias, adding that international law applies to every nation and that the 2007 Israeli attack on the alleged Syrian facility was “not only making it almost impossible for us to establish the facts, but it was a clear violation of international law.”

In a sign of improving relations between Washington and Damascus, the United States is sending a military delegation to Syria in the coming weeks to discuss Iraq, U.S. and Syrian officials said on Wednesday.

Separately, the Obama administration's Middle East envoy George Mitchell will go to Damascus, possibly next week, to assess whether the time is right to revive talks between Israel and Syria, a U.S. official said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon said Saturday that Syrian President Bashar Assad was only interested in conducting a peace process with Israel, instead of actually reaching a peace accord.

"The Syrian President fully realizes that the price of peace would be opening up to the West, which is a threat to the stability of his regime," said Ayalon during a lecture in Be'er Sheva.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and aides have applied for visas for a landmark visit to Syria, Al-Hurra television reported Friday, as the Obama administration steps up engagement with Damascus.

From Libya comes news of the death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a former “ghost prisoner” of the United States, whose false confession about a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein — extracted under torture in Egypt — was used to justify the invasion of Iraq. The news will only add to the woes of the senior Bush administration officials who conceived the program of “extraordinary rendition” and torture within days of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and then, in a netherworld of secret memoranda, sought legal justification for their actions.

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement on May 8 calling for the renewal of sanctions on Syria, which were set to expire on Monday. The declaration came at the end of a busy week in which both high-level U.S. officials and the Iranian president visited the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The third Tunisian disappeared. The fourth was captured and, according to a senior U.S. military official, provided interrogators with this account of their travels.

US President Barack Obama, citing continuing concern about Syria's support for militants, has renewed for one year economic sanctions on Damascus imposed by his predecessor George W. Bush in 2004.

Syria gave no immediate reaction to the decision announced here Friday as the Obama administration pursues cautious steps to engage diplomatically with Damascus as part of efforts to promote Arab-Israeli peace.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi wrapped up a regional Middle East visit in Damascus Sunday saying Israel should return the Golan Heights to Syria.

“China supports Syria's efforts to recover the Golan,” which Israel seized during the 1967 war and annexed in 1981, Yang told reporters during a joint news conference with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 was created because of an Israeli false flag. It called on Syrian troops to be removed from Lebanon after a vicious car bombing which killed the former prime minister of Lebanon Rafik al-Hariri. This was blamed on Syria, later because of a lack of evidence the blame was shifted to a Palestinian however UN investigations cleared the suspect of being capable of the attack and later it was discovered that Israeli agents were responsible for the attacks. The result was a call by the UN to remove Syria's troops from Lebanon something Israel desperately wanted. Bush even goofed up admitting this accidentally while having lunch with Tony Blair and speaking into a mic he didn't know was still on.

In an interview with the al-Sharq newspaper on Thursday, Assad said there is enough evidence to assume that Tel Aviv will never seek peace.

"All Israeli governments are the same: Ariel Sharon carried out a massacre in Palestine, and [Ehud] Barak aided the war in Gaza in that there is no difference between the right and the left in Israel," he explained. "This enemy does not want peace."

Israel is preparing for all-out war on multiple fronts that include Iran, Syria and Lebanon, a senior military commander claims.

Israeli army Home Front Command Major General Yair Golan said Sunday that Tel Aviv is preparing for "all possible scenarios", indicating that one such scenario would be to fight a simultaneous war against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

Russian warships have returned to the naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus, used by the Soviet Union since the late sixties, after more than a decade of absence.

Many see it as a sign that Russia could be seeking to revive its naval influence in the region.

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said Thursday that he believes that should Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu become Israel's next prime minister, he "will try to deflect American pressure by seeking a deal with Syrians"

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Saturday that Israel "violated the rules of international law" by bombing an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor in September 2007.

An exhibition has been held at the National Museum in Damascus, depicting the suffering of the people in the Gaza Strip caused by Israel.

The exhibition was called Remembering Gaza and was organized by the European-Arab center in Syria, Press TV correspondent in Damascus Samer Dadaa reported Wednesday.

A number of Palestinian, Arab and non-Arab artists from all over the world took part in the event.

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has urged all Arab nations to sever diplomatic ties with Israel because of the Gaza war.

Syrian foreign minister claims that reports of uranium traces found in site bombed by Israel last year politically motivated; says Israeli bombs were source of uranium.

The Israeli military filed a complaint to the United Nations force monitoring the usually calm border between Israel and Syria, he said.

Shots were fired at IDF troops on patrol along Israel's northern border with Syria on Sunday afternoon.

An estimated 2,500 Lebanese and Palestinians protested peacefully in downtown Beirut on Sunday against Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, as hundreds of demonstrators in neighboring Syria shouted insults at the both the Jewish state and Arab leaders.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called on Tuesday for Israel's "massacres" in the Gaza Strip to stop, as he met visiting US Senator Arlen Specter, the official SANA news agency reported.

US complaints earlier this week about the “wholly inappropriate” IAEA aid scheduled to be provided to Syria have been rejected, and the agency has approved the $350,000 aid project to help the Syrian government select a site for a potential nuclear power plant.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem suggested Wednesday that Israeli bombs may be the source of uranium traces that diplomats at the UN nuclear agency said were found at a suspected nuclear site.

Moallem said the leaks by the diplomats about the traces found at the site that was reportedly targeted by Israeli warplanes in September 2007 were politically motivated and aimed at pressuring Syria.

The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004, The New York Times reported Sunday night.

In a dangerous precedent that provides clear and explicit evidence of its eagerness to exploit the rights offered under the Security Agreement which is now under discussion, the American occupation has attacked one of Iraq's neighbors and violated sovereign Syrian airspace and land to conduct a military operation. Helicopters were used to ferry in troops to secure a civilian area, in the process of killing some civilians and wounding others in a contemptible attack that has yet to be explained.

Presidential-elect Barack Obama
has pledged to improve U.S. relations with Syria and Egypt.

US President George W. Bush suggested to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for a complete disbandment of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida reported Friday.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Friday expressed regret over the US aggression on Syrian lands, saying "there was no justification to such act that unsettles atmospheres in the Middle East."

Tens of thousands of Syrians turned out Thursday for a massive government-orchestrated protest against a deadly U.S. raid near the Iraqi border.

A mile away, hundreds of Syrian riot police formed a protective ring around the closed U.S. Embassy, but the flag-waving crowds dispersed peacefully after a couple of hours later, with students heading to schools and employees to work.

"Why now at the end of the Bush administration, with Washington trying to play nice with Damascus and tensions easing throughout the region, would US forces stage such a gambit?" echoed Borzou Daragahi on the Babylon and Beyond blog at the Los Angeles Times website.

The U.S. embassy in Syria said on Wednesday that it may close to the public for fearing retaliation following a Sunday deadly raid on Syrian border by U.S. troops in Iraq.

The U.S. embassy made the warning in a statement on its Website, calling on Americans in Syria to remain alert to review their personal security.

Unforeseen events may cause the U.S. embassy in Damascus to close to the public indefinitely following the Sunday raid on eastern Syria blamed by Damascus on Washington, said the statement.

Belittled domestically, President Bush is flexing his last working muscle: His control over the nation's military. And in so doing, he is adding one last addendum to the ever-changing Bush Doctrine, establishing yet another de facto U.S. policy on his way out the door, and leaving his successor with yet another controversial precedent to wrestle with.

While the White House has declined comment and other US officials defended the strike on a Syrian border town yesterday which killed eight, international condemnation rained down on the strike from a number of sources.

The US commando attack inside Syrian territory appears to amplify an emerging message to countries giving safe passage to terrorists: Take action, or America will.