That is one consideration but given their history "when in doubt hit first and worry about the consequences later" is better than marching off to the shower. If you could easily sort out the killers from the downtrodden, life would be so much easier.
Victims often dream of becoming the executioner. It's an unfortunate pattern.
It's a false dichotomy. Israel is powerful enough where their behavior really should be held to a higher standard.
Nuclear weapons are only good at indiscriminate large scale destruction, and through that, deterrence. They can't ensure security or survival.
Skillful diplomacy is not the same thing as political prostitution. For that matter, what would you think be a fair definition of political prostitution?
Israel has no choice, it disrespects international law only in as much as the international law disrespects Israel. Israel does what it does in order to ensure not just its survival but also security, which any state owes its citizens.
In general, it would be better for mutual international understanding if the "western civilization's guilt" was not projected onto other peoples. If I understand correctly, Israel, in particular, operates on a millennia old principle of eye-for-an-eye.
This contrast is not false in as far as it is equivalent to the contrast of proaction versus reaction. Additionally, power and security are related but distinct. Israel may be powerful enough, but certainly is not secure enough, and that for obvious reasons.
They can ensure that for even a nuclear Iran, a strike on Israel is suicidal.
Israel has been the recipient of US aid, military, economic, and diplomatic, on an unprecendented scale. Yet the same Israel has little regard for US regional interests, and at a time when the US is in a confrontation with Russia on multiple fronts, Israel not only doesn't join the US sanctions regime, but instead engages in constant backroom diplomacy with Russia. On the one hand, you could argue that they're recognizing a new geopolitical reality, on the other hand the cooperation of regional players like Turkey and Israel has everything to do with shifting this reality.
Sorry but the excuse of abstract "security" doesn't justify bombing a neighboring country merely because you don't like whose military bases are there. Given that security is an abstract concept, and is rather difficult to qualify, it just doesn't cut it here.
No. That would imply direct proportionality between Israel getting hit and Israel hitting back. Except neither Syria nor Iran have hit Syria recently. They've been far too busy fighting ISIS and opposing the US. So what's the eye in exchange for which Israel has been conducting persistent and repetitive strikes into Syria? Again, merely not liking Iranian military presence there doesn't cut it.
What happened to an eye for an eye? As for proaction, you're not seriously trying to justify that garbage from the Bush Jr. era about pre-emptive strikes? This is not and has never in modern history been an accepted principle of international law.
Israel's actions do not jeopardize any US interests, regional or otherwise. If they were, Israel would not be carrying them out. That is simple to see and should be perfectly obvious to anyone who does not take Washington for fools. In general, any speculation on this topic without formal and classified knowledge is just that, speculation.
Note the bolded portion of the quote, as it is speaking in absolutes and is therefore wrong. In the future do not post in absolutes, since the world does not actually deal in absolutes aside from death and taxes.
If this is true, we will likely see some consequences for the command of the unit, and possibly for the Assad regime. However, given older SAM systems, and the generally poor coordination of Syrian air defense, I think a genuine mistake is far more likely. If the Russian story of how this happened is correct, then a mistake is likely and understandable (though a sign of the poor state of Syrian air defense).
Israel is apparently going to provide some additional information to Russia regarding the engagement per Reuters. From the linked story, it appears that Israel is stating that the Israeli jets involved in the incident were targeting a Syrian facility which was set to transfer weapons to Hezbollah on behalf of Iran. The article also mentions that Israel claims their jets were already back in Israeli airspace when the IL-20 was shot down.
A high level Israeli military delegation already visited Moscow and handed over data regarding the incident. The Israeli story and Russian story don't line up. I'm not sure whose is correct, but I don't have a whole lot of trust for public statements from either side. It's possible of course that the Russian story is incomplete, and they don't have all the information, and nobody is intentionally lying. Syrian incompetence, or inherent problems in their system are definitely the culprit, the only question is whether Russia's allegation that the Israelis exploited this in a dangerous manner that put the Russian aircraft in the line of fire is true.
The flip side of that is that I have read in a few places, like Al-Arabiya, that the Russian aircraft was flying over the Mediterranean Sea, about 35 km (~19 n miles) from the Syrian coast when contact was lost. That would put the Russian aircraft ~7 n miles outside of Syrian airspace, flying instead in international airspace.
Russian military sources indicated that the export version of the S-200 doesn't come with the same IFF as the domestic one, so there would be no IFF to prevent the Syrians from targeting them. I have an article about this saved at home, I'll post it here later.
What happens if instead of handing over the sensors to the Syrians, they're operated by Russia, and Russia declares parts of Syrian airspace to be no-fly zones for everyone? There are some unpleasant implications.
What Israel wants and what it will or will not accept depends on various factors beyond its control; irrespective of how many strikes it launches. What it really wants is for the Iranians to have zero presence and involvement in Syria. This will never happen. Also, despite all the strikes and rhetoric there is a limit to how far Israel is willing to go. Strike too hard at Assad and the Russians might take certain measures. Strike too hard at the Iranians and the Iranians might takes certain measures elsewhere in retaliation. The next time an Israeli strikes occurs; if Russian personnel [on Syrian sovereign soil] are killed, Putin might react differently.