Janine Zacharia, the Washington Post's Jerusalem correspondent, concocts a conjectural piece entirely with anonymous sources that Israel somehow hopes that Bashar Assad will emerge from spreading anti-government protests in Syria still firmly in power ("Israel, no fan of Assad, may prefer that he stay" March 30, page A8).While acknowledging that Assad has been allied with Iran in providing massive amounts of rockets and other weaponry to the Hezb'allah terrorist group in Lebanon, on balance, Zacharia concludes, Israelis feel they're better off with him than with some problematic Islamist or radical successor.  After all, he's maintained quiet on the Syria-Israel border for decades."Israelis have been forced to confront the notion that they may well be better off with him than without him," she writes.To support her thesis of an Israeli tilt toward Assad, Zacharia quotes an unnamed cabinet member as predicting that Assad will survive the current unrest. ...(Read Full Post)