From Ghassan Kadi for The Saker:

The recent escalation between Syria and Israel is not a prelude for a bigger war. Nobody wants a war; not right now, as they are all aware of the damage that can be inflicted upon them.

Israel keeps testing the waters, testing Syria’s air defense capabilities, and above all, testing Russia’s resolve and determination to create a true balance of power in the Middle East.

Some Arabs would be disappointed that Russia would not allow the total destruction of Israel, but Russia has never promised this. On the other hand however, Russia is pushing Israel to be realistic, and has never promised Israel total and unconditional support like the USA did since the days of Kissinger.

Unless Israel can safeguard itself against Hezbollah rockets, and which it can’t, it will never initiate an all-out war with either Syria, Hezbollah, or both; not forgetting the Iranian presence on the ground in Syria, just outside Israel’s borders.

Israel has to either accept that the rules of the game have changed, or risk an escalation that will inflict huge damage on its infrastructure and civilians. The recent downing of an Israeli F-16 by Syrian air defenses and the subsequent call Netanyahu made to Russian President Putin is a clear indication that Israel is not happy with the fact that Russian arm supplies to Syria are changing the balance of power.

From the comments:

I am still impressed with cool attitude from the Syrian leaders, they can take huge punch and still do not lose the long term view.

The Syrian Government is negotiating with the Syrian Kurds and Arab tribes in the north/NE, the US regime is trying to sabotage this at all cost (visa vis the last attack in Deir ez Zour).

The US military are only tolerated in the north and NE due to sort of an agreement with the local Syrian tribes, if this local agreement collapses, insurgency will happen and dead US military will pop up as in Iraq, Somalia etc. Either the US will have to open war against the insurgency or declare victory and leave as they did in all previous cases, including Vietnam. That is why time is in Syria’s favor…

a critical part of todays Syrian air defense was the jamming system. IDF were unprepared for it, they lost the initiative and reacted desperately to get out of Syrian airspace. The Russian jamming system messed with their air-to-ground missiles, and their long range ballistic ones as well. The result was what we saw: 1 F16 down, 1 F15 severely damaged, 2 other jets damaged (not IDed), 1 drone down and one chopper down. This is huge loss of planes and pilots by IDF standards, for just 1 attempt; not to mention dozens of missiles that “just few went thru” but did not hit their targets, same thing as happened with Trump’s 59 US cruise missiles of which 2/3 were “lost in space”…

They’ve destroyed dozens of ‘Iranian’ UAVs the last year or two – the ‘fact’ that they claim to have taken one down yesterday is insignificant…

The Israeli attack on the Iranian UAV control trailer is – once again – a convenient and lame-assed excuse…

And they’re far from over – it’s not like they’re going to stop. They just have to wait to see how successful their ‘another Iranian provocation’ propaganda plays in the US…

Has the Pentagon’s strategy really changed at all since Libya, Iraq and Iran? Psychopaths always stick with what they think worked before…

Gaddafi didnt get any help/support from the entire Muslim world. The North Atlantic Terror Organization bombed Libya in the month of Ramadan. People were breaking their fasting. Why o why was the Muslim world with their heads in the dirt?

Iraq was invaded, bombed into oblivion. Not one Muslim nation stood up and did anything.

Afghanistan is still occupied for so many years. How many Muslim countries are there??? Why isnt anyone supporting Afghanistan? Christian Russia is the only nation that is trying to help Afghanistan by bringing the Taliban and the Afghan leadership to the same table…

While there are those in Washington who work along conventional lines for conventional aims of diplomacy and mutual interests, there are the others – very powerful – who work for chaos alone, either because they think they perceive advantage to them and their masters, or because they are so genuinely psychopathic that chaos and death is its own reward – or at least better than admitting defeat.