Why Israel Would Threaten To Bomb One Of Assad’s Palaces

In August 2003, Israeli warplanes buzzed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s summer palace in the country’s western Latakia province. The Israeli jets reportedly flew so low that they shattered windows. Assad wasn’t there at the time and reportedly did not learn about the incident until a few days later. The buzzing was a clear warning to the Syrian president against supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon. After all, it occurred after a 16-year-old Israeli in the town of Shlomi was killed by anti-aircraft shells fired by Hezbollah earlier that month.

A similar incident occurred just under three years later, in June 2006, at the same coastal palace. Israeli jets flew “low enough to cause a noise on the ground.” This time, Assad was reportedly on the premises. That buzzing came after Hamas kidnapped 19-year-old Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Syria hosted Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal at the time, and the buzzing was a clear warning to Assad of the possible consequences of supporting the group.

Those flybys were clearly meant to demonstrate Israel’s reach and capability to potentially assassinate the Syrian president if he stepped over certain Israeli red lines. In light of these two precedents, the unconfirmed report from the Saudi news portal Elaph in mid-June claiming that Israel has threatened to bomb one of Assad’s palaces if he continues to permit Iran to smuggle arms through Syria is certainly not implausible.

The report came mere days after Israel bombed Damascus Airport, forcing it to shut down for nearly two weeks. The airport attack was one of the most significant in Israel’s ongoing air campaign in Syria it launched over a decade ago and signaled how far Israel is willing to go to target Iran’s arms smuggling operations in Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has repeatedly equated Iran’s network of proxy militias across the region to an octopus whose tentacles threaten Israel and has vowed that his government will target the head of that proverbial octopus, Iran.

“For decades, the Iranian regime has practised terrorism against Israel and the region by means of proxies, emissaries, but the head of the octopus, Iran itself, has enjoyed immunity,” he reiterated in late May. “As we have said before, the era of the Iranian regime’s immunity is over. Those who finance terrorists, those who arm terrorists and those who send terrorists will pay the full price.”

Threatening to target Assad’s interests directly for his cooperation with Tehran’s regional proxies and arms smuggling would neatly fit into that declared Israeli policy.

Sitting as it does on the Mediterranean coast, the Latakia summer palace would probably be the easiest of Assad’s palaces for Israel to target. However, Israel could instead decide to target the presidential palace, the so-called People’s Palace perched atop the Mezzeh plateau overlooking the capital Damascus. The symbolism of destroying that palace would be far greater.

In August 2017, another unconfirmed report claimed that Israel warned Russia it would attack Assad’s palace in Damascus if Iran continued its operations in Syria.

The People’s Palace cost a purported $1 billion and was completed in 1990. Levelling it would be a significant blow to Assad’s prestige, especially at a time when several Arab countries are bringing his regime in from the cold after years of ostracism due to the civil war. The symbolism of smoke billowing from charred rubble on the Mezzeh plateau would not be lost on Damascenes looking up from below.

Syrian rebels fired heavy-calibre shells at the enormous fortress back in November 2012 but missed. “Rebels have focused efforts on high-profile attacks against symbols of Assad’s rule, such as his palace,” Reuters noted at the time.

In September 2018, Israel released images taken by its Ofek 11 spy satellite to mark the 30th anniversary of its launch. The photos showed Damascus International Airport, a Syrian military base, and the presidential palace — strongly implying that the latter could potentially become a target.

An Israeli strike against one of his palaces would not likely kill or even intend to kill Assad. The Syrian president has several residences in the Syrian capital and, by many accounts, doesn’t spend most of his time at the presidential palace. The palace is mainly used for hosting meetings with visiting foreign leaders (with the conspicuous exception of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who invariably summons Assad to Russia’s Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia whenever he visits Syria) and officials, rather than as a family residence. Israel might even signal its intent to attack, likely through its communication mechanism with the Russian military in Syria, ahead of time to guarantee Assad isn’t killed.

Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, anticipated the possibility of an Israeli strike on the palace before construction was even finished.

In 1989, the Washington Post noted that Hafez had promised that the ostentatious fortress was only for his successor.

“That’s a promise he will probably keep, but not out of any sense of generosity,” the report quipped.

“Assad is afraid that the Israeli military will assassinate him, and he would be a sitting duck in the palace on the hill,” it added. “If under missile attack, he would not even have time to scramble to the bomb shelter.”

“It did not escape his notice that the home of his friend Moammar Gadhafi in Libya was easy pickings for US bombers in 1986.”

Decades later the question still isn’t whether or not Israel could destroy any of Assad’s palaces; it is if it will ultimately decide to do so.