“Much of our power is not necessarily connected to military might, but to wisdom and reason,” thus said the head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Division, Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, this week (Sunday, Sept. 8). Gilad’s nickname in Israel for the past two decades has been “Mr. Intelligence.”

Gilad made this statement at a conference on terror that took place in Herzliya. He noted that, “Israel must not intervene in what is happening in Syria. If we intervene, it will grant longevity to [Bashar al-]Assad’s regime and unite the rest around him.”

At the exact same time, another experienced and long-standing diplomatic source attacked the attempts to activate AIPAC, Israel’s judgment-day weapon in Washington, as part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to convince Congress of the urgency of a strike on Syria. This source is an expert regarding the entire historical background of Israeli-US relations. He criticized the excessive involvement of the Jewish lobby (in the name of Israel) in Washington with everything connected to the internal American debate regarding Syria.

“It is not wise, it is not correct, it is excessive,” said the diplomatic source, “Israel is too often viewed as a country that drags the United States into conflicts and wars. Such a modus operandi should only be employed when we have no choice, and only with regards to a strategic issue that is vital to the very existence of Israel. The fate of the Syrian regime is no such issue.” He added, “No one really knows whether life in the Middle East after Assad will be better than before, whether the border in the Golan Heights will remain as quiet as before, and what will be the fate of the axis of evil. The conflict in Syria is a war between Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, between Sunni extremists and Shiites, between very evil and more evil. Thus it is not really clear who are the good guys there, relatively speaking.