Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his ministers to cease making public comments on the civil conflict in Syria, especially reports regarding the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces, Israeli media said.
Netanyahu’s instruction follows comments made by deputy foreign
minister Ze’ev Elkin on Army radio Friday, in which the official
appeared to call on the international community to intervene in
Syria in order to contain and neutralize the country’s chemical
weapons stockpiles.
“It is clear that if the United States wants to and the
international community wants to, they could act militarily, among
other things, to take control of the chemical weapons, and then all
the fears … will not be relevant,” The Times of Israel cites
Elkin as saying.
Army Radio reported Sunday that Netanyahu wanted to clarify that
Elkin’s statements did not reflect an attempt on Israel’s part to
spur the United States to intervene militarily in Syria.
However, the military radio political commentator also expressed
fears within Israel regarding recent “US hesitancy over the
Syrian issue.”
"If (US President) Barack Obama does not respect the red lines that
he set out himself and does not intervene when Bashar Assad uses
chemical weapons against civilians, it is showing weaknesses that
could cost it dearly later in Syria, but also in the Iranian
nuclear question," AFP cites the commentator as saying.
The commentator’s charge echoes statements made by Elkin, who
warned that a lack of resoluteness in Washington would bolster the
Islamic Republic’s alleged efforts to covertly enrich weapons-grade
uranium.
WMD charge ‘a barefaced lie’
On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that the US
intelligence community has determined “with varying degrees of
confidence” that “Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces
have used the nerve agent sarin against civilians and forces
fighting to remove Assad from power.”
Hagel continued that deploying chemical weapons “violates every
convention of warfare.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry was more equivocal, saying the Syrian government had launched two chemical weapons attacks.
Their statements followed a public declaration on Thursday by Brigadier-General Itai Brun, a top Israeli intelligence analyst, who said that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons in their fight against anti-Assad forces.
Speaking with Netanyahu on Tuesday, Kerry said the Israeli PM was unable to confirm the veracity of Brun’s comments.
However, Syrian information minister Omran Ahed Zouabi told RT that statements made Kerry and other Western governments regarding Syria’s alleged deployment of chemical weapons
“are inconsistent with reality and a barefaced lie.” “I want to stress one more time that Syria would never use it - not only because of its adherence to the international law and rules of leading war, but because of humanitarian and moral issues,” he continued.
Awaiting ‘definitive judgment’
On Saturday, President Vladmir Putin's Middle East envoy Mikhail
Bogdanov warned any evidence proving Damascus had used chemical
weapons should “be presented immediately”.
“We must check the information immediately and in conformity
with international criteria and not use it to achieve other
objectives. It must not be a pretext for an intervention in
Syria,” Bogdanov continued.
On Friday, Obama warned that for “the Syrian government to
utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will
change my calculus and how the United States approaches these
issues.”
However, he has thus far stated that the most recent developments
would not necessarily incite military action, as Washington was
awaiting a “definitive judgment” before the US decided to
act.