BEIRUT: Syrian opposition figures fighting to unseat the regime of President Bashar Assad reacted with a mixture of cautious optimism and anger to the massive Israeli missile strike against Syrian military facilities over the weekend.

 

For many Syrians whose calls for Western military assistance have fallen on deaf ears over the past 26 months, the intervention from an historic Arab foe presents an awkward convergence of interests.

 

The strikes Sunday came from a key ally of the United States, which has been at the forefront of calls for Assad to step down.

 

This poses a conundrum for opposition groups seeking to establish their post-Assad credentials in a country traditionally suspicious of the West’s agenda in the region and deeply hostile to Israel.

 

But while some welcomed the move as a brief strategic victory in a bitter stalemate, the strike drew wide condemnation from most Arab leaders and opposition groups.

 

“The villain foreign aggressor is combined with the aggression of a monstrous internal army against our people; both are acts of aggressors,” former Syrian National Coalition president, Sunni preacher Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, tweeted Monday.

 

A post by a man called Hassan al-Rastanawi originally appeared on the The Free Syrian Army’s Facebook page praising the strike, but the group afterward distanced itself from the remarks, saying it was someone pretending to an FSA spokesman.

 

“[Rastanawi] is unknown to the FSA and does not represent any group affiliated to the FSA,” said an actual FSA spokesman.

 

“The FSA leadership has [always] considered, and still considers, the Israeli enemy as a foe which will remain as such until the complete liberation of the Arab territories from its dirty claws,” the statement said.

 

The Syrian regime was quick to draw a link between opposition forces and Israel, with the Foreign Ministry claiming the strike was “proof” there was coordination between Israel and what it calls “terrorist groups” operating on the ground.

 

Similarly, Hezbollah said Israeli airstrikes aimed to boost the morale of Sunni Islamist rebels fighting Assad.

 

Israeli officials have said the strikes were not meant to influence its neighbor’s civil war but only to stop Iranian missiles reaching Hezbollah for possible future use against the Jewish state.

 

The head of the National Coordination Body, the so-called internal opposition that rejects foreign intervention and calls for a political solution to the conflict, suggested in a statement published Tuesday in the Syrian newspaper Damas Post that the strikes served Israel’s interests alone.

 

“We do not want anyone’s intervention ... neither Zawahri nor Hezbollah,” wrote veteran France-based Syrian dissident Haitham Manna, referring to Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri, to whom the Sunni jihadist Nusra Front recently pledged allegiance.

 

“Israeli considerations related to intervention in Syria stem only from Israeli interests and its assessment of the balance of forces on the ground.”

 

That sentiment was echoed by activists and opposition fighters on the ground Sunday.

 

“We refuse this kind of attack. ... It’s absolutely unwelcome in Syria,” said Abu Rami, a spokesman for the Homs’ Syrian Revolution General Command.

 

“Israel is convinced that the Syrian rebels are almost close to the end of this conflict and are afraid heavy weapons could fall under the control of the rebels,” he told The Daily Star via Skype.

 

Others, however, expressed a cautious optimism, saying the fact that a strike against Assad came from Israel was unimportant in the long term.

 

“The reaction of Syrians toward the Israeli attack is very ambivalent. Syrians, as you know, are deeply anti-Israeli. This is not merely an ideological thing; it is rather built on past experience,” said one Syrian opposition figure who asked not to be identified because he was still working inside Syria.

 

“Also, fundamentally, Israel is an objective ally of regimes such as Assad’s, so all Syrians know the Israeli motives are not related to their interests,” he said. “In a few minutes the Israeli army managed to target and hit several key positions in the heart of Damascus. This confirms that limited strikes ... could provide significant relief to the opposition.”

 

“We are in a situation where one of our enemies is fighting another of our enemies,” he added. “Israel is a long-term enemy that we have gotten used to facing. But for now, the most brutal and vicious enemy is the regime. Israel is not raping women or torturing kids.”

 

“The strikes have hit the depots of the same missiles that are being launched at Syrian civilians ... So it’s difficult for people to complain.”

 

Syrian opposition figure and history professor at Ohio State University, Amr al-Azm, said the attacks presented a kind of “reversal” of the opposition position, but that ultimately, they would not affect Syrians’ view of Israel.

 

“Early on there was a distinct concern, mostly from the internal peaceful activists that the outside diaspora, which is primarily that the [Muslim Brotherhood] would arrive riding U.S. tanks and somehow steal the revolution,” Azm said. “There was deep suspicion that the external opposition was working for a Western agenda,

 

“But once the [regime] bombs started raining down on them, they were begging for an intervention.”

 

Azm agreed that the Israeli strikes were mostly perceived as serving Israeli interests and not launched in aid of the Syrian people.

 

“What difference does it really make if it’s the U.S. or the Israelis? They are both missiles,” he said.

 

“Like it or not, the Israelis did us a favor. It doesn’t mean a new détente with them. But for a very brief moment, our interests and theirs converged.”

 

“It’s a temporary thing, but it doesn’t change anything on the ground. The Israelis are still considered the aggressors. Our opinion of them is the same.”