We Israelis face mortal danger as the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad nears its end. It now controls barely 25% of the country (even its Russian allies admit its days are numbered), and we’re having to act as if it had already gone. Global jihadis are entrenched across the border in Golan, and it’s just a matter of time before they turn our quietest border into yet another terror zone. Another “pounding headache” is the prospect of Assad handing his advanced weaponry to his ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, to stop it falling into rebel hands. We’ve made it plain this would be cause for war, as it includes “one of the biggest hoards of chemical weapons on the planet”, along with missiles and advanced defence systems far deadlier than any terrorist group has ever possessed. That’s why Israeli jets have just bombed a convoy bound for the Lebanese border. It could provoke the wounded dictator to turn on us in a last bid to unite Syria behind him, but it’s a risk we must take. With Barack Obama reshuffling his government and Europe tied up in Mali, we won’t get much foreign help. Let us hope the world wakes up to the threat: until it does, we must “prepare for battle”. Yoav Limor, Israel Hayom. (Tel Aviv)

Israel has played for time for decades, making one excuse after another why it should not make a fair and honourable settlement with its Arab neighbors. The reason why the current crisis is so threatening to it now is that it has no friends in the region now that Mubarak has unexpectedly vanished from the scene. All Arabs can agree on one thing: hatred of Israeli policies, and particularly the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. If Israel is now faced with an even worse scenario it only has itself to blame.

Epicurus would have advocated a settlement years ago. By now there would have been a measure of regional peace and prosperity. A humanist, he would have deplored the vice-like grip of non-contributing, reactionary, badly educated religious people on the social fabric of the country, and would condemn the baleful effect religion has on humanity in general. There are many really good religious people, but the limelight is stolen by the nutters, and unfortunately there are to many of them in the Middle East altogether.