Mere Rhetoric: Yawn: Syrian Air Defense Claims To Have Engaged IAF Overnight (Plus: Arab-Israeli Fifth Column Awesomeness)

But for the punchline at the end, this would barely be worth writing about:

Syrian air defenses opened fire on Israeli aircraft that violated Syrian airspace overnight Thursday, a Syrian military spokesman said. The Israelis broke the sound barrier and "dropped ammunition" over deserted areas of northern Syria overnight, the spokesman was quoted by the official Syrian Arab News Agency. "We warn the Israeli enemy government against this flagrant aggressive act, and retain the right to respond in an appropriate way," the Syrian spokesman said. It was not clear if Syria was accusing the Israelis of using warplanes or some type of other aircraft like drones. "The Israeli enemy aircraft infiltrated into the Arab Syrian territory through the northern border, coming from the Mediterranean heading toward the eastern region, breaking the sound barrier," the spokesman said.

Maybe if you were really creative you could blog this as "Syria prepares pretext for war" - but "dropping ammunition" is a pretty thin pretext. Even they're more creative than that. More likely: some undertrained and overly anti-Semitic "Arab Syrian" (their words, not ours) saw a flock of birds and thought that the Jews were coming to get him. So he responded with a few of those high-end SAMs that Russia's been giving Assad.

Best part of the story: an Arab-Israeli MK just announced that he's defying the Interior Ministry of the country he is sworn to serve and going to meet with Assad in Damascus. MK Nafa is the successor to Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel after being put under investigation for - wait for it - giving military secrets to Syria, Hezbollah, and its allies during Lebanon II.

References:
* Syria Claims to Have Fired on Israeli Aircraft Violating Its Airspace [CNN]
* Syria Modernizing Its Airforce With Russian Help - War With Israel On The Horizon
* Balad MK travels to Syria unauthorized [JPost]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - Peace Deal Rumors Are Suspiciously Incoherent
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Says They're "Actively Preparing For War With Israel"
* Sarkozy: Let's Engage Syria! Barry Rubin: Let's Not!

About

Omri Ceren is a PhD student studying Rhetoric at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. He lives in downtown Los Angeles.
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