That’s what Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alleged in an interview with a pro-Assad Turkish TV station, responding to a question about Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent apology to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan:
The same person, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, was prime minister when the Marmara massacre took place three years ago. He is still prime minister today. Why didn’t he apologize during these past years? What has changed? Erdogan is the same. Netanyahu is the same. What has changed is the situation in Syria. This confirms very clearly and precisely that there is a Turkish-Israeli agreement over the situation in Syria. This also confirms that Erdogan is now in alliance with Israel in order to aggravate the situation in Syria. Erdogan failed in the past two years in mobilizing Turkish public opinion concerning Syria to his satisfaction. And he also failed in achieving the collapse of the Syrian state. Syria was steadfast despite the ferocious battles. He had no ally to help him except Israel. And Israel is our obvious enemy, which occupies our land. I believe this is a clear indicator of the alliance between them. At the same time, maybe this apology also helps Erdogan to restore some of his status and credibility which he had lost inside of Turkey.
While Netanyahu’s apology was evoked largely by the potential dangers to Israel from the instability in Syria, Assad’s conclusion that Netanyahu and Erdogan are now engaged in some sort coordinated alliance to topple the Syrian regime is a leap into the realm of paranoid fantasy, which I doubt even he believes.
Throughout the interview, Assad persisted in his regular practice of referring to the people his forces are fighting against as “terrorists.” It was a sign of the fawning nature of the interview that one of his questioners used the same term.
This video is graphic, but I urge you to watch it to the end. It depicts the result of a Syrian government air strike on the Ashrafiyye neighborhood of Aleppo. You can see that Assad’s definition of “terrorists” is rather broad.
Keep in mind that this isn’t an accident. Rather it’s standard operating procedure for areas considered to be controlled by “terrorists.” Assad’s regime has been doing things like this to Syrians every day for more than two years. I can’t help wishing sometimes that Assad was right, and that there really was a Turkish-Israeli alliance dedicated to ending his murderous rule.
