You play in a rough neighborhood expect to get a bloody nose.
The blame goes to whoever pulled the trigger.
The Israeli’s didn’t, and any attempt to shift blame to them is ridiculous.
The Syrians shot it down.
The whole concept of deconfliction is to prevent this, so either it wasn’t used, or was insufficient. The basic point is that Russian planes shooting down allies or vice versa is exceedingly dangerous for everyone.
The entire NEED for deconfliction is that we support the rebels and our actual war aim is the destroy Assad. The Russians are there to save Assad and shoot at our rebels.
There would be no need for deconfliction if all of this was really about ISIS.
And last, every bomb and missile Israel shoots at Assad, has the effect of supporting Al Qeida.
History will harshly judge that less than 20 years after 9/11 the American lead effort in the middle east was on BEHALF of the same Al Qeida that attacked New York and DC.
There are a lot of moving parts here. Unless the Russian plane was regularly flying in that same area every day at the same time, I doubt its position played a factor in Israeli use of it as a decoy/cover. The most likely reason for the shootdown is the Syrians screwed up and didn’t realize a Russian plane was in the vicinity. The S200 has been around since the mid 60s and isn’t the most sophisticated SAM. So the Syrians fired and it locked on the biggest target it could see. The F-16C has a radar cross section of 1.2 square meters. The IL? Probably 50-75 square meters.
The bottom line is Israel wouldn’t be involved in Syria at all if the shooter, Syria, hadn’t invited in Iran, who has sworn to destroy Israel, and keeps firing missiles into Israel. So Syria is doubly at fault here, both in inviting Iran into their country, and in firing the missile without knowing who might be destroyed.
When did the Russkies become Pusskies?
IDF aircraft were back over Israeli airspace when the shoot down happened.
The Syrians shoot at anything.