Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said yesterday that Israel is being run by a “pyromaniac government” and its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla had increased the risks of war in the region.
The Israeli commando attack on a flotilla in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed had “destroyed any chance for peace in the near future,” Assad told the BBC in a television interview.
He said this was so “mainly because it proved that this government is another pyromaniac government and you cannot achieve peace with such [a] government.”
Israel, under mounting international pressure, has formed a five-person panel — including two foreign observers — to investigate events surrounding its May 31 interception of a six-ship convoy heading to the Gaza Strip.
Nine Turks were killed when Israeli commandos boarded one of the vessels heading to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade.
Israel says the marines opened fire after being attacked by activists wielding knives and clubs.
Assad said that even before the raid, he had not viewed the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “partner for peace” in the region.
“No, we definitely don’t have a partner, we know this,” he said. “With this government it’s something different from any previous Israeli government.”
Asked if the attack on the aid convoy had increased the risk of war in the region, Assad said: “Definitely, definitely, but realistically you had this danger before the raid because we had ... other evidence about the intentions of this government, about the intentions toward the peace, about the intentions toward the Palestinians, the intentions to kill Palestinians. This is enough to talk about the danger of war in the region.”
Assad denied he was sending weapons to the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, despite Western powers’ concerns that he is.
In Israel, public television on Wednesday said the government considers the Turkish Muslim charity IHH, involved in organizing the flotilla of aid ships, a “terrorist organization.”
IHH, the acronym for the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, is the charity that was involved with organizing the fleet of aid ships.
Public television said that IHH is now part of a list of movements or organizations, such as the Palestinian Islamist Hamas or Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group, which are under scrutiny by Israeli intelligence services.
A spokesman for the Israeli defense ministry declined to confirm or deny the report, but a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity that “the IHH charity is considered as criminal in Israel because it supports terrorism and has close links with Hamas.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ygal Palmor said: “Israel will consider a hostile act any bid by enemy countries to break the Gaza blockade” — amid reports aid ships from Iran and Lebanon would try to reach the Gaza Strip.
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