On one hand, of course, everything is a Zionist plot. But on the other hand, let’s stop and think about that for a moment, Bashar. Why would Israel plot to potentially have an even more unstable and hostile regime next door?

But that’s the handy thing about conspiracy paranoia: it doesn’t have to make sense. “Defiant Assad blames country’s turmoil on ‘Israeli plot’,” by Oren Kessler for the Jerusalem Post, March 31:

Addressing his people for the first time since popular unrest erupted nearly two weeks ago, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday blamed a foreign conspiracy for the unrest and made no substantive pledges on implementing much-awaited reform.

“Our enemies work every day in an organized and public fashion to hurt Syria,” he told parliament. “Our enemies’ aim was to divide Syria as a country and force an Israeli agenda onto it, and they will continue to try and try again.”

Assad said Deraa, a southern city near the Golan Heights, where some of the bloodiest clashes with protesters have taken place, “is in the forefront in confronting the Israeli enemy and defending the nation.”

After the speech, hundreds took to the streets of the coastal city of Latakia – another hotbed of revolt in recent weeks – chanting “Freedom!” Several residents said they heard gunfire as security forces clashed with demonstrators.

Assad said he supported the principle of reform, but offered no specifics on changing Syria’s repressive one-party system.

“Implementing reforms is not a fad. When it’s just a reflection of a wave that the region is living, it is destructive,” he said.

“Syria today is being subjected to a big conspiracy, whose threads extend from countries near and far,” Assad added, without naming any countries. […]

In Israel, analysts tried to envision the shape Syria might take in a post-Assad era.

“The idea that these regimes will be replaced by liberal democracies is too good to be true,” Moshe Maoz, a Syria expert at Hebrew University told Reuters. “If he stays he might prove more pragmatic.

He wants the Golan Heights from Israel. His father lost it… and the prestige involved is very important to him.”

“Any new regime is not going to be able to compromise its legitimacy by reaching any agreement with Israel,” said Gabriel Ben-Dor, of Haifa University….