While Israel has for years played more of a quiet ‘long game’ in Syria outside the media spotlight: providing tacit support to al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria along its Golan border (in Netanyahu’s words to Putin: Israel prefers the “Sunni sphere” over “bringing in Shi’ites” which reflects a disturbing widely held view among Israeli officials that ISIS is the ‘lesser evil’) as well semi-regularly bombing select targets, its increased willingness to loudly and unreservedly voice its intentions to the world is the result new realities it appears unprepared to accept.