Israel's strikes on Syria a green light or a catastrophic failure of the Russian defense systems?

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Israel participated in a virtual meeting hosted by Washington

A week ago, Saudi Foreign Ministers Faisal bin Farhan and Israeli Yair Lapid participated in a virtual meeting hosted by the US State Department on the Omicron mutator.

CNN reported Thursday that the Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan and the Israeli, Yair Lapid, participated a week ago in a virtual meeting hosted by the US State Department on the Omicron mutator.

The network stated that the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, hosted a virtual meeting via "video conference" technology with the foreign ministers of a number of countries on the Omicron axis, and the meeting included ministers from Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other countries.

Saudi Arabia has not issued any public statement about the meeting.

But CNN quoted an unidentified Saudi official as saying that Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan participated in the virtual meeting with Blinken and others.

In the same context, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed, in a statement it published on December 22, the news of Minister Lapid's participation in the virtual foreign ministers' meeting on Omicron, but the statement did not refer to the participation of the Saudi foreign minister in the meeting.

Riyadh does not establish relations with Tel Aviv, and requires a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians to normalize relations with it.

Israel's strikes on Syria a green light or a catastrophic failure of the Russian defense systems?

Since the meeting between the Russian President and the Israeli Prime Minister in late October, Moscow's position has become clearer regarding the Israeli strikes on Syria, which has sparked a great wave of anger among supporters of the Syrian regime over the Russian role in this.

For the second time in one month, and in continuation of previous attacks, an Israeli air strike targeted the container yard in the port of Latakia in western Syria, according to what the official media of the Syrian regime reported.

This bombing comes in light of the increased frequency of Israeli warplanes targeting sites in Syria, including Iranian sites, especially after the meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 22.

Despite the heavy Russian military presence and the presence of an air defense system in Syria, this did not prevent the Israelis from their continuous operations, which raised problems once again about the extent of Russian-Israeli cooperation in Syria, and the position of the regime and its supporters on that.

After the Bennett-Putin meeting

Putin's meeting with Bennett last October marked an important shift in the relationship between the two countries and their coordination on Syria, as the Israeli Prime Minister described the understandings he reached with the Russian President as "good and stable."

Israeli Housing Minister Ze'ev Elkin revealed the content of the talks on the Syrian file that took place between Bennett and Putin, noting that the summit focused on the disengagement mechanism to prevent accidents between Israeli operations and Russian forces in Syria.

According to the newspaper, "The Times of Israel" , the meeting witnessed very wide talks on the situation in Syria, with the aim of "protecting the coordination mechanism," adding that Bennett "presented his vision for ways to prevent Iran's nuclear movement and its positioning in Syria."

The newspaper said that Israeli aerial photography maps of Syrian geography included the locations of Iran and its forces, which were shown during the meeting, while Bennett requested reactivating the understanding of de-escalation in southern Syria by removing the Iranian presence 80 km north of the occupied Golan.

For its part, the newspaper "Haaretz" said that Putin demanded Bennett during the meeting in Sochi that "Israel improve the notifications it sends to Moscow about its activities in Syrian territory, and be more accurate in this."

The newspaper added: "The two also discussed Iran's positioning in Syria and Israel's efforts to keep it away from the border as much as possible."

Haaretz considered that the gaps between Moscow and Tel Aviv regarding Israeli activity in Syria are "small."

According to Israeli media, relations between Russia and Israel constitute an important element in Tel Aviv's foreign policy, due to Russia's special status in the region and its international role, "as well as because of the one million Russian speakers in Israel, who form a bridge," according to Bennett's statement.

Where is the defense system?

With the spread of news of targeting the container yard in the commercial port in Latakia, which resulted in large fires and damage to a number of residential buildings, a hospital, shops and tourist facilities, many Syrians loyal to the regime criticized the Russian role in this.

The recent missile strike revealed tension in the relationship between Russia and Syria, following what appeared to be Syrian resentment against Russia, accusing it of covering up the Israeli strikes in their country.

The regime loyalists wondered about the Russian submarines and the S-300 and S-400 air defense systems in Syria, why the Russian army did not do them to counter the Israeli strikes, and the reasons for not operating the S-300 system that Moscow granted to Damascus before Three years, while some suggested that there is collusion between Russia and Tel Aviv, as the first facilitates the second strikes inside Syria.

On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that the bombing caused minor material damage to Latakia, and justified the failure to use defensive anti-aircraft guns by "the simultaneous flight of a Russian military transport plane during the strike."

During the past years, Israel launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria, targeting sites of the Syrian regime army and Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah targets, and targeted the port of Latakia for the first time on December 7.

Turkey plans to hold its first meeting with Armenia in January

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that his country plans to hold the first meeting on the normalization of relations with the Armenian side, next January.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced Thursday that his country plans to hold the first meeting on the normalization of relations with the Armenian side in January.

Cavusoglu said during an interview with the Turkish "24 TV" channel, that Turkey sent positive messages of normalization with Armenia, based on the concept of stability and peace in the South Caucasus, following Azerbaijan's victory in the Karabakh region.

He explained that Turkey had received a proposal to appoint special representatives for normalization with Armenia, with Russian mediation, and this has already been achieved, and now the two representatives will discuss to set a date for the first meeting in this regard.

He continued, "The date of the meeting has not yet been set, but it is scheduled to take place in January."

He referred to the desire to hold the first meeting in another country, adding: "What we understand is that Russia wants to host this meeting, and Armenia also wants the first meeting to be in Moscow, according to what we have seen from it."