Is the enemy of my enemy really my friend?

Just when we thought that we would have some peace and quiet (at least on the northern front), someone threw a monkey wrench into the works.

The events of the past two days raise a number of serious questions.

The Syrian rebel’s sudden resurgence and subsequent capture of Aleppo (Haleb), places Israel in a quandary. Who do we root for?

Do we want Assad the Butcher and his Russian friends to win? Or are we in favor of the Syrian rebels, who after eight dormant years have suddenly rearrisen?

The rebels are a strange combination of: El Kaida, Isis/ Daesh, Hizbollah, Kurds and anyone else desirous of seeing Assad at the end of the hangman’s rope or just shot.

Was this a total surprise to absolutely everyone, or another case of intelligence asleep at the wheel?

Only time will tell, but I’m not packing up my emergency equipment and go-bag. Time has told us that prophecy is given to fools.

Good luck to us all.

Richard Steinitz

About the Author

Richard Steinitz is the published author of THREE novels - The Voyage of the Stingray, Murder Over the Border, and Kaplan's Quest, as well as a free-lance provider of of English language services: Hebrew-to-English translation, proofreading, copy-editing, content-writing, basic graphics and image manipulation, and more. He worked for an international educational publisher for almost 20 years as their local representative, until his retirement at the end of 2015. Born in New York City, Richard came to Israel on a visit in July 1967, and returned a year later to see what life here is like. He's still here. Richard is married to Naomi, father of Yael and Oren, and grandfather of two.