The Middle East War of 1997

[Armored Diplomacy]

This is a relatively unknown fact, but in 1997, a veteran Mossad official, Yehuda Gil, was caught as a fraudster. For the past 20 years, he had produced fake intelligence reports from a non-existent mole in Syria, and then pocketed lots of money to "bribe" his source from Mossad's slush fund.

On two separate occasions, he nearly caused war, and he endangered peace talks with Syria. He made the country appear more threatening and belligerent than it actually was. In August 1996, during Israeli-Syrian peace talks, the Syrian Army began movement on Mount Hermon. Gil very nearly sparked a Mideast war when he claimed that Syria was actually planning a ground offensive to recover part of the Golan Heights. Israel, with its preemptive war doctrine, could easily have attacked Syria. Luckily, his reports drew suspicion when they were cross-checked with other intelligence.

On a side note, he did manage to almost ruin the Israeli-Syrian peace talks and sour then mood, because Israel asked the United States and France to stop a possible imminent Syrian attack, and Syria obviously denied it was planning an attack.

What if the report led to Israel lanching a pre-emptive attack on Syria?