Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Even Sy Hersh Doesn’t Know What the Israelis Bombed in Syria

Seymour Hersh, who cover’s the spooks and cloak-and-dagger beat for The New Yorker, has spent the past three months trying to figure out what exactly it was that Israeli warplanes bombed in the Syrian desert in that mysterious raid back in September.

And he still doesn’t know the answer.

He doesn’t seem to think it was a nuclear facility, as many have surmised. And he does seem favorably disposed to the idea that the Israelis were sending a lesson to the Iranians. Beyond that, his lengthy article in the latest issue of The New Yorker still leaves plenty of questions unanswered.

The Israelis who Hersh spoke to, however, were adamant that they had, in fact, hit something of significance.

Hersh writes:

“Don’t you write that there was nothing there!” a senior Israeli official, who is in a position to know the details of the raid on Syria, said, shaking a finger at me. “The thing in Syria was real.”

Exactly what it was, however, remains a mystery — even to a super-sleuth like Hersh.

A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren

We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.

With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.

—  Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief 

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.