Hawzah News Agency () - Scott Bennett, a former US army psychological warfare officer, believes Israel’s attack on the Mezzeh airbase is “a declaration of war,” and the Tel Aviv regime is trying to provoke a response from Damascus in order to create a conflict.

“The Zionist fanatics under the [Benjamin] Netanyahu regime are trying to trigger a response by Syria so that these Zionist fanatics in the United States Congress can rush America into again another inflated conflict on the side of the Israeli Zionists, and they are trying to do it before [US President-elect] Donald Trump becomes president,” the analyst said in an interview on Friday, January 17.

However, he said, the Israeli plot "is not going to work" because the Syrians and Russians “are far more intelligent not to take that bait”.

Bennett further argued that the Israeli assault is a violation of a Syrian ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey and endorsed by the UN Security Council.

He also stated that the attack is another sign of Israel’s “schizophrenic criminal regime” that has tried to kill innocent Syrians who are fighting for their homeland.

The analyst went on to say that the Friday attack demonstrates that the Israelis have been "funding and financing terrorism," and that they are on the side of “chaos, bloodshed, secret assaults and murders,” rather than freedom and stability.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Bennett argued that Syria needs to engage in "military, information, diplomatic and economic warfare" against Israel.

“Syria can appear at the United Nations and wage diplomatic war, with Iran, Russia and hopefully Turkey at its side as well as other countries of Europe. It can wage information war on the internet and through the media. It can wage economic war by encouraging countries to completely cut off all economic ties,” he noted. 

"It should also organize military counter-maneuvers by making sure that not a single Israeli missile, plane or troop is allowed to cross the border, and if they do, they are destroyed," the analyst stated.

So all these forms of warfare "can be conducted without shedding any blood, because Israel has started this war," Bennett added.

End.