The Turkish-Israeli reconciliation effected by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s apology was urged strongly by US President Barack Obama, because Ankara urgently needed to revive the military cooperation it cut off with Israel in 2010. debkafile:  Without access to Israeli military technology, Turkey’s armed forces are hamstrung. And without full Israeli, Turkish and Jordanian coordination, Obama’s plan for a joint US-led command center against a Syrian chemical warfare contingency can’t take off. But the apology also went down as a gratuous affront to Israeli military pride.

Before it was shot down, the large helicopter which breached Israeli airspace Saturday flew over the IDF’s southern facilities, Beersheba and the Israeli Air Force base at Nevatim. It likely had surveillance equipment for recording and beaming back to its Iranian controllers the electronic signatures of the Dimona nuclear reactor’s air defenses and the American X-band radar station linked to the US X-band station in Turkey – the “forward eyes” of the US-Israeli shield against Iranian ballistic missile attack. The UAV should have been shot down much sooner.

The first US-Turkish backed steps for creating safe havens in Syria and possible Western bombardment of the Syrian army have brought the Middle East close to two dangerous junctures: The Syrian army’s use of chemical and biological weapons, and an outbreak of hostilities between Hizballah and Israel – which nearly happened in mid-week, debkafile reports.
Washington disclosed Friday that Syria’s chemical arsenal was bigger and more widely scattered than suspected hitherto and, therefore, the US may have lost count.

The Saudis are building up their defenses in the Eastern oil provinces, calculating that Iran is already losing customers for its oil, cutting its exports by 15-20 percent and bringing Tehran closer than ever to striking the kingdom's oil industry and exports.