The flyover by Israeli warplanes of President Bashar Assad's summer home on Wednesday may have embarrassed Syria, but it also rallied much needed Arab support around Damascus and has given it a chance to project itself as a central player in the region.
Even Lebanon's anti-Syrian prime minister, Fuad Saniora, put aside his differences with Assad to send expressions of sympathy to Syria, which has been largely isolated since the Feb. 14, 2005, murder of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Jordan, which has a peace treaty with Israel, and Qatar, which has also differed with Syria over the peace process, did the same.
"We might not agree with Syria on everything, but the least we could do in these circumstances, is to take a clear stance, not [just] talk," Qatari Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr Al Thani said on al-Jazeera television.
It was that kind of attention that Damascus basks in.
The reaction was typical of the public Arab response to any Israeli aggression or action against a fellow Arab nation, one that Syria may try to capitalize on to prove it is still a vital player in the region despite efforts to marginalize it following Hariri's murder.
Egypt has turned to Syria, asking it to use its influence with the Palestinian militant Hamas to locate Israeli soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas-linked militants on Sunday, according to a diplomat.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said it was not clear whether Syria has complied with the request of Egypt, which is spearheading negotiations to free him.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said "the Syrians are definitely a party" to the crisis, pointing to Hamas' presence in the country.
"They have a responsibility to act responsibly to bring this to a peaceful conclusion," Ereli said. He would not comment on the Israeli overflight.
Syria has long hosted radical Palestinian factions and since the late 1990s became home for Hamas leaders who were expelled from Jordan. Assad has resisted repeated US demands to close down Palestinian militant offices, facing US sanctions for refusing to do so. He maintains that he cannot ask the leaders to leave because they are unable to return home to Palestinian lands.
But the radical Palestinian presence -- as well as Syria's support for Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon -- gives Damascus influence and leverage that it has always hoped to use to improve its hand in any possible peace negotiations with Israel to reclaim the Golan Heights. Syria lost the territory to Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
Publicly, the Syrians say they do not interfere with the Palestinians, and it is unclear how much influence Assad wields with Mashaal, who Israel says masterminded the kidnapping.
Israel's flyover early Wednesday over Assad's summer home in the coastal city of Latakia was meant as a message to Syria to use its influence with Hamas to release Shalit, whose capture precipitated the latest cycle of violence in the Middle East.
Syria has said the Damascus-based Hamas leadership could not have had a hand in an abduction that took place in another country. Mashaal denies any role.
"This aggression [the overflight] represents Israeli piracy that aims at covering up the savage crimes the Israeli occupation forces are committing in the Gaza Strip and occupied Palestinian lands," Syria's Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otari said.
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