Israel’s ‘neutral’ position towards Syria has created some strange bedfellows

Over the weekend an Israeli-Arab flew from his home in the Jewish state on a paraglider, evading Israel’s formidable air defences to land smack bang in the middle of the Golan Heights. Despite a search by the IDF so intense it provoked a flurry of tweets stating that an Israeli invasion of Syria was underway, he disappeared. No doubt he was hidden by one or other of the assorted jihadist groups based there, predominant among whom is the Al-Qaeda offshoot Al-Nusra Front. They long since booted out the UN peace-keeping mission in the No-Man’s Land part of the territory and, to the delight of binocular-wielding day-trippers, have for the past two years been battling Syrian regime forces within a few miles of Israeli border. The intrepid Israeli-Arab’s defection came just hours after the Islamic State released its first Hebrew-language video, thought to be narrated by another of the dozen or so Israeli Arabs who had previously joined the terrorists’ ranks.