Syria is Confusing

And now it appears that Russia and Israel will be expanding military coordination in Syria:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday praised bilateral efforts to prevent unintended clashes of their air forces operating in Syria and pledged to broaden so-called deconfliction measures to include forces operating from the ground as well.

Meeting in Paris less than a week after the Turkish Air Force downed a Russian fighter that had allegedly entered Turkish airspace for a brief period of time, Putin characterized measures first proposed by Netanyahu as efficient and said both leaders were “satisfied with the progress of bilateral” ties.

“The mechanism ... [that] presupposes contacts between the militaries to prevent incidents due to the dramatic developments in the region has been efficient,” Putin told Netanyahu.

Referencing Ankara’s downing of the Russian fighter, Netanyahu said to Putin: “The events of recent days prove the importance of our coordination, our deconfliction mechanisms, our attempts to cooperate with each other to prevent unnecessary accidents and tragedies, and I believe that we’ve been successful. It’s important.

“I hope that Israel and Russia can see eye to eye on all the strategic matter, but I want to assure you that we believe that it’s within our powers to have very good coordination on the ground and in the air so that we do not create the kind of problems that we’ve been experiencing,” Netanyahu said.

The policy makes good sense, but I cannot but conclude that its public announcement was intended as an enormous f%$# you to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.