Marking its 65th anniversary on April 15, the state of Israel can note with satisfaction that the threat that has accompanied it since its foundation — namely being occupied by an Arab army — has been lifted, at least for the foreseeable future. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which was the declared casus belli for all past wars, is overshadowed by a much larger conflict — the one between Sunni and Shiites. Facing its most significant threat — a nuclear Iran — Israel finds strange bedfellows: the Muslim Brotherhood.
A respectable British newspaper claimed earlier this week of April 7 that Syrian President Bashar Assad had withdrawn his forces from the Israeli border toward Damascus. But glancing through the binoculars reveals a different image: The border brigades are still deployed there, and unlike the situation in many parts of Syria, these Syrian units in the Golan Heights still function for all intents and purposes as an army. Notwithstanding, they no longer threaten Israel, and it is highly unlikely that they will in the foreseeable future, as this review of Israel's borders and neighbors will show. Having been poised for decades to stop a Syrian invasion or sudden seizure of the Golan Heights, the IDF's 36th Division no longer grapples with the issue of how to stop Syrian tanks from crossing the barricades. It is more concerned by the possible influx of refugees or the arrival of terrorists at the border fence that Israel is currently building in the Golan.