DUBAI: Syria has tried to deflect attention from two months of protests threatening its autocratic regime by stoking protests that have breached its long-quiet border with Israel, analysts said. Thousands of people on Sunday rallied on Israel's borders with Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the Gaza Strip and West Bank to mark the anniversary of the Jewish state's creation in 1948, known in Arabic as "Nakba" or "catastrophe." Hundreds of protesters from Syria entered the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, prompting a volley of fire from the Israeli army that left four people dead and hundreds injured, Syria's official SANA news agency said. It was one of the most violent incidents since Israel and Syria signed an armistice in 1974. The Syrian government "made use" of Sunday's rallies to "divert attention from... the Syrian uprising which has been the main event in Syria for months," said Burhan Ghalioun, director of the Centre for Contemporary Eastern Studies. For two months, Syria has been rocked by increasingly deadly demonstrations as protesters call for more freedoms and an end to almost five decades of authoritarian rule. More than 850 people, including women and children, have been killed and at least 8,000 arrested, according to human rights groups. Sunday's protesters — most of them Palestinian refugees living in Syria — would have never made it across the armistice line without a nod of approval from President Bashar Al-Assad's embattled regime, analysts said. "Neither the Syrians nor the Palestinians in Syria can move alone. Syrian security services use people as tools. They inspire, organize and point out" to people what to do, said Ghalioun. "If the Syrian regime was in a different situation, it would have not allowed the protesters to enter through the Golan," he said. What happened Sunday "fell right within the regime's will." Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, agreed that the protesters could not have done it without the regime's support. The border areas "are usually very sensitive military regions," he said. Assad, in power since 2000, has maintained the calm along the Syrian-Israeli border despite his regime's close ties with Iran, with Hamas and with Lebanon's Shia militant group Hezbollah. By allowing hundreds of people to cross the armistice line, the Damascus government was seeking to "divert attention from the internal conflicts in Syria" and turn the spotlight on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Salem said. The Israeli army also accused Assad's embattled regime of "organizing" Sunday's violence as a means to divert international attention from pro-democracy protests sweeping his country. The White House echoed those accusations on Monday saying Syria had stoked protests in the Golan Heights as a "distraction" from its repression of anti-government protests and warned "such behavior is unacceptable." Last week Rami Makhluf, a Syrian tycoon and cousin of President Assad, warned Israel of instability if the Damascus regime falls, in comments to The New York Times. "If there is no stability here, there's no way there will be stability in Israel," said Makhluf, who is on a list of 13 Syrians subjected to European Union sanctions for their role in violence against the protesters. Saudi columnist Tareq Al-Hmayed wrote a biting editorial in Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Monday saying what happened in the Golan and in southern Lebanon "means that Syrian businessman Rami Makhluf meant what he said when he stated that Israel's stability is linked to Syria's." "Damascus has decided to divert the world's attention from the brutal repression of peaceful protests by using a ready-made excuse — the Arab-Israeli, and by sending a message to Israel affirming what Rami Makhluf has said." However Salem warned that Sunday's violence might backfire on Assad's government. "There might be negative and counter-productive reactions that would increase pressures on the Syrian regime." But Ghalioun dismissed the possibility of a military confrontation between Syria and Israel. "The Israelis have said on several occasions that the Syrian regime suits them better since they know who they are dealing with."
