RPT: REVIEW - Israel Responsible For Il-20 Incident But Interested In Maintaining Relations With Russia

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2018) Israel is responsible for the crash of Russia's Il-20 military jet in Syria, but its interest in the alliance with Moscow in Syria, explained by Russia's ability to exert influence on Iran's presence in the Arab republic, will make it reach some consensus with Russia in the present circumstances, Russian and foreign experts said in their comments to Sputnik.

The Russian Il-20 military aircraft, which was 22 miles off the Syrian coast, was shot down on September 17, while returning to the Hmeimim airbase. At the same time, four Israeli F-16 aircraft were bombing Syrian targets in the province of Latakia. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Israel notified Russia of the airstrikes only a minute before their start and provided misleading information concerning the area of the attack and the location of Israeli F-16 jets. The ministry said that the Israeli pilots used the Russian aircraft as a shield against Syrian air defense systems. As a result, the Il-20 jet was downed by a missile launched by Syria's S-200 air defense system. The incident claimed the lives of 15 Russian servicemen.

The Russian Defense Ministry placed the blame for the catastrophe on the Israeli Air Force and on those who had made the decision to carry out the airstrike. According to the ministry's data, the Russian side informed Israel of the tragedy at 10:29 p.m. local time (20:29 GMT), asking to call off F-16 fighter jets from the area of the incident, however, they continued to remain there until 10:40 p.m., as radars showed. It was not until 10:53 p.m that the Israeli side informed that its jets had left the area, meaning that a total of 50 minutes had passed since the Russian aircraft was hit by a missile.

ISRAEL'S ATTEMPTS TO REBUILD TRUST

On Thursday, an Israeli military delegation led by Israeli Air Force Commander Amikam Norkin visited Moscow in a bid to prove Israel's non-involvement in the tragedy. Following the bilateral consultations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered that the contacts with Russia on the issue should be continued.

"The Russian leadership fully understands the situation and is not ready to break off relations with Israel like this. At the very beginning the authorities said that this situation cannot be compared with the one that happened with Turkey [incident with Russian Su-24, downed by a Turkish fighter jet in 2015]. It is clear that the Israeli leadership did not have any malice in this case. So the parties obviously want to understand and find out how to avoid such incidents in the future," Dmitry Maryasis, a senior researcher at the Department of Israel of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian academy of Sciences, told Sputnik.

Maryasis pointed to the fact that soon after the incident with the Russian jet the Israeli prime minister called Russian President Vladimir Putin, while the Israeli Air Force commander visited Moscow, which, according to the researcher, indicated that Israel was trying to find a way out of the current situation.

"Obviously, tensions have emerged, however, the both parties are ready to proceed with a constructive dialogue, cooperation. The parties clearly want to tackle [the situation] and somehow avoid [such incidents] in the future. i believe the both sides will learn a lesson. The cooperation on Syria, on coordination of actions will be continued. Perhaps, [the cooperation] will be reorganized somehow in order to make it more effective," Maryasis suggested.

In addition, he noted that Russia had repeatedly showed its commitment to its goals in Syria, which makes any attempts to influence the country's policies in Syria with the help of provocations useless.

TEL AVIV'S REPONSIBILITY FOR THE INCIDENT

Barak Seener, the CEO of Strategic Intelligentia political research center, believed that Israel should closely cooperate with Russia due to the latter's considerable influence on situation in Syria.

"Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ... requested at the end of May that the foreign militia, i.e. Iranian proxies, leave south-west Syria. The reason why Sergey Lavrov expressed this is because Russia is incredibly sensitive that the tensions in the region will not escalate in neighboring countries. Furthermore, you had Russian President [Vladimir] Putin expressing to Syria, in the aftermath of an agreement, that Iranian forces [should] leave Syria. For the same reason that he just did not want to see regional tensions escalate," Seener reminded in an interview with the RT broadcaster.

According to Seener, if the Israelis plan to carry out strikes on certain targets in Syria in order to prevent Iran from delivering arms to its proxies, they should make sure that there are no Russians on those territories.

Seener was echoed by another UK researcher Martin McCauley, who used to be senior lecturer at the school of Slavonic and East European Studies of the University College London (UCL).

"Russia is a very important ally for Israel. Israel needs the Russians to allow them to take out Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria ... It is a very important relationship because from Israel's pint of view Iran is an existential threat to Israel. If Iran is allowed to bring missiles very close to the Israeli borders then it could really damage Israel. Therefore, the relationship with Russia is of key importance to the Israelis. And every possible avenue will be explored now to avert these ... things happening again," McCauley stated.

McCauley believed that it was Israel that was responsible for the incident.

"The Israelis came in from the Mediterranean and then got to Latakia and then cut in. And they only gave the Russians one-minute warning of where they were going to target ... And obviously the Russians did not have time to warn the Syrian air defense forces that there is a Russian plane coming in. A turbo jet which is very slow, very big and very slow, whereas the F-16, the Israeli jets, were very fast," McCauley told RT in an interview.

McCauley suggested that the Israelis might have decided to carry out an airstrike on the Iranian targets in Syria at the last moment in order to prevent the Iranian party from preparing its defense.

"Therefore, they have to work out the coordinates and give one another warning about where they are and when they are going to be flying there. And the Israelis have got to give the Russians more warning," McCauley believed.

Mais Krydee, a representative of the Syrian Democratic Front, from the domestic opposition, told Sputnik that despite the tensions existing between Syria and Israel, he hoped for a peaceful, diplomatic resolution of the existing disagreements.

"Of course for a Syrian person, Israel is an enemy, because there are areas in Syria occupied by Israel. But relationship between Russia and Israel is different. Russian friendship with Syria should not lead to a military escalation with Israel. I think this crisis between Russia and Israel must be resolved diplomatically," Krydee.

He also expressed his condolences over the deaths of Russian servicemen in Syria and stressed the need for the incident to be thoroughly investigated.

Israeli political expert Mitchell Barak suggested that the incident would lead to a closer coordination between Russia and Israel in the region.

"[We see] the coordination that is taking place in Syria between Russia and Israel, especially when it comes to the Iranian threat, which is a very serious threat for the Israelis ... But I think that one of the positive steps coming out of this terrible incident is that there is more coordination and there is an understanding that both Israel and Russia have to coordinate better on the professional level, on the military level," Barak indicated.

He recalled that Israel was home to about 1.5 million Russian-speaking JewsRussian nationals and their children.

"Israel, in general, and the Israelis are very connected to Russia and what is going on in Russia and I think that there is genuine regret that this happened by the hands of the Syrian Air Force," Barak summarized.