Following Syrian reports that they’d foiled an Israeli attack near the Golan Heights, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to launch even more preemptive attacks against Syria into the future.



Netanyahu said Israel was facing “unending” tests, and that they would continue to attack in a “systematic and consistent manner” to ensure that Syria never establishes any capability to threaten Israel.



In practice Israel has been attacking targets in Syria on a regular basis for months now, and indeed has spent much of the Syrian War feigning neutrality while backing rebel groups, and attacking pro-government forces on every pretext, and often with no pretext at all.



It is no surprise, then, to hear that preemptive Israeli attacks will continue, though it is somewhat surprising to hear Israeli officials present them as such. Generally speaking, Israel tries to spin every strike they acknowledge as retaliation, and when they aren’t retaliating against anything in particular, they generally refuse to comment.



Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz