Ex-Israeli Official Describes Syrian Opposition as Weak, Disintegrated

A former Israeli negotiator with Syria acknowledged that the Syrian opposition lacks proper organization and power to overcome Damascus.

Itamar Rabinovich, also a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, in an article posted on the Hoover Institute website wrote that Syrian opposition groups are currently weak and disintegrated.

He reiterated that many al-Qaeda elements supported by Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries have infiltrated the Syrian opposition groups due to the very same weakness.

Rabinovich also noted that Syria is only part of the significant challenges facing the Obama administration in the Middle East.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of stirring unrests in Syria once again.

The US and its western and regional allies have long sought to topple Bashar al-Assad and his ruling system. Media reports said that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

According to Rabinovich, most of the challenges which President Obama faced during his first term in office remain unresolved and are likely to be dominant in the coming years.

He further said that another important challenge that the US is facing in the Middle East is the new wave of Arab awakening in the region, including Egypt.

As with regard to Egypt, the US and other Western countries wonder whether President Mohammad Mursi is a potential partner and whether they can find a way for reconciling their own interests and ideas with Cairo’s new realities.

In mid November, prominent figures of Egyptian ruling party Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) repeatedly called on Washington to stop meddling in their country.

Washington’s diplomacy should not be based on interference in the domestic affairs of Egypt and other Arab countries,” Ossam al-Oriyan, a high-ranking member of the Muslim Brotherhood said at that time.

In relevant remarks in October, another senior Egyptian politician called on President Mohamed Mursi’s government to end Cairo’s strategic partnership with Washington, underlining that relations with the US have had no benefit for Egypt.

“Egypt should end its strategic partnership with the US and replace it with Arab-Islamic strategic relations,” parliament member and leader of Egypt’s al-Jill Party Naji al-Shahabi told FNA at that time.