Middle East Press On: Conflict, Peace, Lifeline, Gaza, Syria: New Age Islam's Selection, 30 August 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
30 August 2025
Ending The Conflict: Negotiation Is Israel's Only Path To Peace
Explaining Israel's Actions In Gaza Is Pointless - This Is Why
Netanyahu’s Government Is Alienating Israel’s Lifeline In Washington
Will Gaza Free America From Israeli Control?
Why Syria’s Instability Matters: The Media’s Failure to Tell the Story
-------
Ending The Conflict: Negotiation Is Israel's Only Path To Peace
By Simon Walters
AUGUST 29, 2025
The brutal Hamas attack on October 7 has traumatized Israeli society. As friends, we recognize and share the profound weight of that trauma.
The hostages have endured unimaginable suffering, and their families have shown incredible strength and bravery throughout this horrific ordeal. We continue to call for Hamas to release them immediately and unconditionally.
We understand the enduring need for Israelis to know that such an attack can never happen again. Our Royal Air Force has helped defend against Iran’s missile attacks, and we stand with you against the scourge of terrorism.
In this spirit, I can say that we advocate for the two-state solution as part of our deep commitment to Israeli security, not because we are stepping away from it. A Palestinian state does not mean an existential threat on Israel’s border.
As Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on July 29 when he announced that the UK could recognize Palestinian statehood in September, our goal remains a safe and secure Israel, alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. This vision is born from clear strategic reasoning.
Firstly, relations between states are the most stable: That is why the peace deals with Jordan and Egypt have been so important for Israel’s security.
Secondly, the status quo is inherently unstable; a growing Palestinian population in a shrinking territory, experiencing an indefinite and humiliating occupation, is a recipe for cycles of violence.
And thirdly, the two-state solution needs to be negotiated between Israel and Palestine. During these negotiations, Israel will have the opportunity and the right to ensure that it has security guarantees in place. The UK and Israel’s allies will support Israel to achieve these security guarantees, including that any Palestinian state should be demilitarized.
Indeed, President Mahmoud Abbas recently affirmed that the Palestinian state has no intention of being militarized in his letter to President Emmanuel Macron. A negotiated two-state solution would provide more security for both Israelis and Palestinians than the status quo.
I come from a society shaped by conflict. In Northern Ireland, we endured decades of bloodshed and division. One lesson stands out: Without a positive political vision, violence always finds its way back. National grievances fester and erupt if not dealt with through negotiation. This is painful, but the status quo is far more dangerous.
Increasingly, Israel controls the lives of millions of Palestinians who have no political rights within the state that governs them. That situation not only contradicts Israel’s democratic values, but it undermines the long-term security of the state.
The fact that violence is encouraged by senior political figures not only undermines Israel’s standing in the world and disempowers moderate voices but shrinks the space for a peaceful negotiated settlement.
Starmer’s announcement is also about ending the war in Gaza. The horrific scenes of hunger and the appalling number of dead civilians has shocked and mobilized governments and publics across the world. They have demanded change.
Many Israelis are also calling for an immediate end to the war, because they know that a negotiation is critical to secure the safe release of the hostages.
The latest plan to expand operations to Gaza City will only lead to more bloodshed. Bloodshed leads to radicalization. We strongly urge the government of Israel not to pursue this path.
It is clear that Hamas’s ideology cannot be beaten by military means alone. Rather, Hamas will only be beaten by politics and diplomacy – making it irrelevant by empowering a credible alternative as part of a wider deal to end the war.
Talk of peace may feel out of touch to some. Trust has collapsed. The trauma of October 7 will shape generations. However, history teaches us that conflict does not end because conditions are perfect – it ends when leaders decide the cost of not resolving it is too high.
UK recognizing Palestinian statehood pushed Arab League to publicly reject Hamas, ambassador argues
Starmer’s announcement, along with our allies’, helped provide impetus for 22 members of the Arab League signing a landmark declaration that publicly rejected Hamas, called on it to lay down its weapons, release all hostages, and make way for the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza. This is historic.
Yet normalized relations within the region depend upon ending the war in Gaza for good and committing to a path to peace with the Palestinians.
Without that, it becomes impossible for regional leaders to maintain public support for continued engagement. That should matter to anyone concerned with Israel’s regional position and long-term legitimacy and security.
We admire your resilience, innovation, and the founding values of Israel’s declaration of independence. Still, real friendship includes honest conversation. The scenes in Gaza today are a stain on the history and reputation of Israel, and the war must end immediately.
A one-state reality is not a solution. It removes the possibility for future generations to live normal lives free of conflict. Now is the time for negotiations with the Palestinians, the vast majority of whom want peace too. The status quo is untenable. There is still time to choose a different path.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-865651
-----
Explaining Israel's Actions In Gaza Is Pointless - This Is Why
By Mark Lavie/The Media Line
AUGUST 30, 2025
Israel’s prolonged war in Gaza has caused damage on many levels: military fatigue, societal division, personal tragedy, and international condemnation. Many pro-Israel activists say there’s a magic pill to cure the criticism and overcome the rest: hasbara!
For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.org
Hasbara is a Hebrew term that blends explanation, counterarguments, and propaganda. The notion is that if Israel’s government would only do its hasbara well, the problems would disappear.
If only it were that simple.
I’ve lived in Israel for 53 years, and for about that long, I’ve heard how bad Israel’s hasbara is. To a large extent, it’s true. But to an even greater extent, hasbara has failure built into it - especially in the post-truth age of antisocial media.
By definition, hasbara is reactive. If Israel does something and the world criticizes it, the government’s response is to counter with effective hasbara.
Even if that worked in past decades - and even then it was incomplete and short-sighted - today hasbara is a waste of time and money. Once lies are out of the proverbial toothpaste tube, they can’t be put back in.
Alongside thoughtful, legitimate criticism, Israel now faces fake photos, outright lies, misleading narratives, and blatant antisemitism. These are backed by a well-oiled, Iran and Qatar-funded propaganda machine pouring millions - billions - into universities, Middle East studies programs, anti-Israel groups, terrorism, and more. Simply putting out the truth in response is almost meaningless.
So, what would work?
Reach out to the kids. Confront the anti-Israel groups. Get the word out in bite-sized frameworks and formulas.
What’s missing from this list - and it’s no accident - is the simple “explaining” of Israeli policies and actions. Israel needs to start way before that.
Kids: Too many shallow, TikTok-influenced youngsters believe Israel is a state of European colonizers that displaced most of the native Palestinians and is systematically killing the rest. Countering that does not mean a long, boring history lecture. It means showing photos of attractive, dark-skinned and light-skinned Israelis together, doing modern, relatable things.
That also means building a massive presence on TikTok, Instagram, and whatever antisocial media platforms kids use, speaking in terms they can relate to. The message does not always need to be the heavy truth. It should include naming and shaming, sarcasm, satire, even an occasional made-up photo or narrative. Israel must start acting like the small country it is. Small countries fight down and dirty.
Confront: Israel and its supporters are outnumbered and out-financed, but there is enough energy in the Jewish world to make sure not a single anti-Israel demonstration goes unchallenged - even if it’s 10 demonstrators facing 10,000. Antisocial media, like TV, is a close-up medium. A small, quirky group can get as much coverage as a large, conventional one - maybe more. Israel needs to learn how to be small and quirky.
Confronting anti-Israel groups also means tracking them online and harassing them within the limits of the law. (I had to say that.) They should start worrying about their cybersecurity. The Jewish world is full of young experts who could take this idea and run with it - if only Jewish leadership, in Israel and abroad, would adopt the policy. If that means fewer self-congratulatory dinners and awards for Jewish leaders in New York, so be it.
Word: This is as close to traditional hasbara as we should get. A single billboard in New York’s Times Square can be worth its weight in gold if it carries the right message. With hundreds of thousands of billboards worldwide, why not a contest offering free trips to Israel? Or fun video games with a message? Once free of the old “just tell the truth and it’ll be fine” mindset, the possibilities are endless.
But, like hasbara, none of this will work if Israel’s actions are indefensible.
Not wrong, mind you - indefensible. That means if Israel’s 21st-century wars are fought according to 20th-century rules, Israel loses.
Most of what Israel has done since the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023 - when Gazan terrorists breached the border, murdered, raped, and burned more than 1,000 Israelis, and took 250 hostages - can be legally and morally justified. In the post-truth world of antisocial media, that doesn’t matter.
Selling a war that lasts nearly two years in an impoverished territory where society glorifies victimhood was never possible. There is too much raw material for distortion, lies, and fabrications - too much to counter or explain. In a world of short attention spans and narrative-driven “truth,” Israel needed to end this war in weeks, not months, certainly not years - pull out, and prepare for the next round. After two years of combat, that outcome looks likely anyway.
Allowing nonstop anti-Israel propaganda to flood the world for two years, engulfing allies and threatening to turn Israel into a pariah state, is the greatest failure of the Gaza war. And that’s saying something, considering the monumental failure that marked its beginning.
The conclusion: By reordering its priorities and focusing on methods that bring results, Israel can turn back the tide of antisemitic propaganda, even if it takes years.
But none of this will succeed unless Israel’s leadership makes strategic decisions with the world in mind - not just domestic politics.
That, too, goes far beyond hasbara.
Mark Lavie has been covering the Middle East for major news outlets since 1972. His second book, Why Are We Still Afraid?, which follows his five-decade career and comes to a surprising conclusion, is available on Amazon.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-865742
------
Netanyahu’s Government Is Alienating Israel’s Lifeline In Washington
By Dan Perry
AUGUST 30, 2025
For decades, American Jews were Israel’s lifeline in Washington: a vital bridge to securing military aid, diplomatic cover, and bipartisan consensus. That bond is now fraying under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel drifts toward the messianic Right and alienates the non-Orthodox majority of the Diaspora.
This has been brought to a boil by despair at the continuation and threatened escalation of the stupendously ugly Gaza war. Almost every conversation I have with American Jews – historic supporters of Israel all – eventually touches upon this issue.
They worry about children becoming anti-Zionist. Some are contemplating cutting ties with pro-Israel groups. Even if the war ends, the deeper ruptures will remain unless Israel corrects course.
It is a calamity that should be front and center in the coming election.
The core divergence is between a mostly liberal, pluralistic American Jewry and an Israel increasingly defined by religious nationalism and partisan alliance with US President Donald Trump, and this began before the war.
Netanyahu’s attempted judicial overhaul, meant to gut the independence of Israel’s courts and entrench his rule, shocked American Jews raised to see democracy as a Jewish value. The very state created as a bulwark against oppression began to resemble today’s authoritarian Hungary, Turkey, or even Russia.
His coalition of haredi and settler extremists only deepened the alienation. The ultra-Orthodox, with their refusal to share economic or military burdens, and the settlers, dreaming of permanent annexation of areas housing millions of disenfranchised Palestinians, embody everything most American Jews – of whom fewer than one in five identify as Orthodox – fervently reject.
AMERICAN JEWS, like Israelis, were traumatized by the Hamas atrocities of October 7, and in the immediate aftermath, attachment to Israel spiked. But as the war dragged on, skepticism set in.
A May survey by the Jewish Voters Resource Center of 800 registered Jewish voters found that nearly two-thirds believe Netanyahu renewed the Gaza campaign for political reasons rather than security, and almost three-fourths (72%) believe doing so makes hostage deaths more likely.
His personal standing is dismal: just a third favorable (34%) against 61% unfavorable. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is the singularly more popular Jewish global political figure: He enjoys 77% favorability among American Jews.
Kamala Harris, mocked in Israel, is popular with most, while Trump – lionized in Israel – is despised: only a quarter (26%) approve of his presidency, and majorities call him dangerous and even antisemitic. Yet Netanyahu has allied with Trump’s MAGA Right.
The wider American context intensifies the danger. Pew data show that younger Americans in particular are souring on Israel. Among those under 30, just 38% say Israel’s reasons for fighting Hamas are valid, and only 24% express favorability toward the Israeli government – compared with more than half among those over 50.
Support for US military aid to Israel among the youngest adults is a mere 16%, compared with 3.5 times as many among seniors (56%). Within the Jewish community, the same generational rift is evident: young Jews are less attached to Israel, less concerned about antisemitism, and more open to criticism of Zionism itself.
That last point may be the most decisive. Groups such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace have mobilized Jewish youth, who explicitly reject the conflation of Judaism and Zionism.
Tzedek Chicago, a progressive synagogue, has even adopted anti-Zionism as a core value. In August 2025, over 1,000 rabbis – including many from traditionally pro-Israel denominations – signed a public letter calling for increased aid to Gaza.
Politically, Zohran Mamdani’s successful run for the Democratic mayoral nomination in New York, despite his support for BDS and refusal to endorse Israel as a Jewish state, drew significant support from young Jewish voters. What was once a fringe position is entering the mainstream of Jewish communal life.
Israel's most effective advocates are American Jews
THE CONSEQUENCES are easy to foresee. If American Jews disengage, Israel loses its most effective advocates in Washington.
The bipartisan consensus unravels. Democrats, who receive a huge disproportion of their donations from Jews, are already drifting away, and may eventually refuse to supply weapons or shield Israel at the United Nations.
Israel’s export-dependent economy would be vulnerable to sanctions and boycotts. The security doctrine that assumes America will always replenish the arsenal collapses. Israel would find itself isolated and exposed.
This is devastating, when much of Israeli power rests on US support. In the early decades of the state, Washington’s tilt toward Israel was not inevitable. The Cold War could easily have nudged it toward Arab regimes.
What tipped the balance was the activism of American Jews: their lobbying, their fundraising, their cultural influence, and their insistence that supporting Israel was consistent with America’s democratic values. To squander that inheritance now is an act of strategic madness.
Yet, that is precisely what Netanyahu’s government is doing. By continuing a devastating that was once an imperative but has become a fiasco – and that almost the whole world, most Israelis and Israel own security establishment at this point oppose – and by eroding democracy, empowering extremists, and aligning with Trump’s America rather than America as a whole, Israel is alienating the very people who secured its lifeline.
To fix this, Israel must end the war and recommit to democratic norms. It must curb the power of the ultra-Orthodox parties and integrate the self-ghettoized community into a modern economy.
It must seek disengagement from Palestinians rather than endless domination. It must preserve bipartisan support in Washington and cease to alienate Europe, collectively its largest trading partner.
Most of all, Israel’s leaders must understand that American Jews are not to be taken for granted. They are not distant relatives to be ignored or even scolded.
My own assessment is that if Netanyahu and his coalition remain in power, which is sadly conceivable, this rupture will become irreparable.
Young American Jews will continue to turn away, the bipartisan consensus will unravel, and Israel will drift toward isolation. At that point, its very survival will be in danger. Israel still has time to avert this fate, but that time is running out.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-865659
----
Will Gaza Free America From Israeli Control?
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib
August 29, 2025
As Australia’s pro-Palestine protests continue to grow and after the Australian government made the somewhat strange decision to cut ties with Iran over its alleged role in some obscure arson attacks on Jewish premises, I saw an interesting interview with Bob Carr, the country’s former foreign minister. In the video, Carr talks about the tight control the pro-Israel lobby has over political life in Australia and how this is a mere sample of the influence the lobby has in the US.
The pro-Israel lobby has created a system whereby all politicians are captive. Everyone must toe the line when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict and the Middle East more generally, otherwise the supporters of Israel will heavily fund someone to challenge them in the next electoral cycle. Therefore, even people who are not convinced by Israel must support it if their political existence is not to be endangered.
However, the political establishment, especially in the US, now has a chance to break free from this vicious influence, which often pushes politicians to vote against their national interest.
It is important to give a quick overview of how the lobby works. To start with, the pro-Israel lobby in the US, even though it serves Israel, is registered as a domestic lobby. Hence, it can fund election campaigns.
In addition to funding candidates, it has consistently worked on demonizing Arabs and Muslims and portraying them as terrorist. Hence, anyone who shows any sympathy toward Palestinians is immediately labeled as having sympathy with fundamentalism and as being soft on terrorism and national security.
Meanwhile, anyone who dares to criticize Israel is immediately labeled as an antisemite. Supporters of Israel have set up organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, to observe the public discourse in the US. On the surface, this organization’s mission is to detect antisemitism, but in reality it works on stifling any criticism of Israel.
Another method that is highly suspected but not confirmed is the use of “kompromat,” compromising material or damaging information, to manipulate people in power and influence them. Several people, including conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson, have claimed that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent in charge of setting honey traps for the movers and shakers in the US.
However, public opinion is now changing. The Gaza war is changing how the world views Israel. So, as Gazans and the Palestinian people struggle for their freedom, they may end up freeing the world. The horrors committed by the Israeli killing machine can no longer be covered up. Global public opinion is becoming negative of Israel. An April poll by Pew showed that 53 percent of adults in the US have an unfavorable opinion of Israel. As of July, only 32 percent of Americans support Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
What does that mean in practice? It means that the pro-Israel lobby’s narrative is failing. People are no longer fooled by Israeli hasbara. People are starting to see the ugly truth. Social change is happening, so political change is likely to follow. The Israeli government is helping in this respect. The arrogance and blatant racism of this government can no longer be defended. Its members are clearly expressing their expansionist ambitions and are pointedly refusing a Palestinian state, while advocating for ethnic cleansing, which contravenes all Western principles and norms.
Criticism is coming not only from the liberal left but also the conservative right. Those who believe in “America First” are speaking out against Israel and questioning its influence, which is weighing heavily on their country and pushing it into unnecessary conflicts in the Middle East. The likes of Carlson, Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie and Steve Bannon have all denounced the pro-Israel lobby’s influence over American policy.
As the public increasingly questions Israeli propaganda, Israel has less ability to defeat those who criticize it. In fact, for a politician to be pro-Israel and accept donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or any similar organization is becoming a liability. For example, the staunchly pro-Israel Rep. Elise Stefanik was booed at a New York event last week. She hardly managed to say two words before having to hand the microphone back to the master of ceremonies. Supporters of Israel are increasingly being viewed as genocide enablers. Hence, politicians will start to think twice before accepting a dime from the pro-Israel lobby.
The barrier of fear has been broken. As politicians are no longer scared of being targeted by the pro-Israel lobby, more and more are daring to speak out. This will likely have a snowball effect. As the influence of the lobby diminishes, more anti-Israel figures will rise to prominence. For example, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old rookie, in June beat seasoned pro-Israel candidate Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for the mayorship of New York. And guess what, Mamdani is even doing well among Jewish New Yorkers. The shift in public opinion among Jewish Americans, who are supposedly the core base of the pro-Israel lobby, is very significant. The lobby is becoming hollow.
As the pro-Israel narrative is no longer sellable, the only pressure point the lobby seemingly has left is the kompromat. However, this is its last bullet. It can only be used once. Once it exposes someone, it can no longer blackmail them. Ari Ben Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence agent who also claimed Epstein was a Mossad agent, has said that Israel cannot hold the kompromat card for much longer.
As the American people see the horrors committed by Israel in Gaza, they also see the pro-Israel lobby’s control over their country, its foreign policy and their tax money. When they see this control, they want to break free. It is ironic, but Gaza may end up freeing the US from Israeli control.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2613430
-------
Why Syria’s Instability Matters: The Media’s Failure to Tell the Story
By Robert Inlakesh
August 30, 2025
It is fair to say that civil war still grips Syria long after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. In fact, the country is now at a critical juncture that could end up dragging neighbouring nations into its own chaotic instability. Despite this, most media outlets are either covering the reality up, or are too scared to talk about it.
Syria today is a deeply divided country, even worse than it was this time last year. While optimism gripped a large segment of Syrian society upon the fall of its former President, Bashar al-Assad, last December, the public outlook has transformed to one of great pessimism.
When Ahmed al-Shara’a and his Party, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took over Damascus, one of the greatest criticisms was over their track record with the nation’s various minority sects. After all, HTS was only a rebrand of Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian wing and had committed heinous crimes against civilians throughout its role in the Syrian war.
Al-Nusra, before its makeover, had allied itself with ISIS in key battles and had taken medical, military, and financial backing from Israel. It also engaged in the recruitment of child soldiers, a practice which continued during its rule of the Idlib Province when it ruled the territory with an iron fist. The militant leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani transformed into the “moderate rebel” leader sporting a Volodymyr Zelensky style of dress, before putting on a suit and changing his name to Ahmed al-Shara’a.
Although Idlib was technically supposed to have been ruled, prior to the December fall of the Syrian government, by a more liberal oriented Syrian government force, HTS was in fact the true ruling party that had its own secretive prisons and even provoked protests against its rule in the province. Yet, its success at seizing Damascus managed to kill much of the criticism for it, elevating al-Shara’a to the position of an idol late last year, amongst many Syrians.
However, al-Shara’a had long been an asset of the British MI6, and upon taking power in Damascus, he did almost exactly as all of his critics had argued he would. He immediately aligned himself with the US, EU, Gulf States, and Turkiye, each of which had its own goals inside Syria, which is why they had backed HTS and other opposition groups during the Syrian war.
Then came the nepotism, collaboration with some of the most corrupt elements of the former Syrian regime, promised economic projects that were either false promises from the outset or were never moved forward, combined with a total dissipation of the former State’s security apparatus.
President al-Shara’a disbanded the Syrian Arab Army and Intelligence Services completely, replacing them with ill-trained militiamen, many of whom constitute no more than sectarian death squads.
Despite promising amnesty to former officers of the SAA, field executions instantly began occurring, and the new gangsters who sported security force attire would frequently raid homes, producing drummed-up charges, sometimes not even offering as much as that.
This was followed by the sectarian bloodbath along the Syrian Coast, where thousands of Alawite civilians were butchered by militia forces and when entire villages were wiped out. In some cases, women were kidnapped and forced to remarry extremist militants.
As the months went on and with the horrifying example of what occurred on the coast, communities across Syria decided that they would rather live under the security of local and tribal militia forces, who they viewed as better prepared to defend them and deliver security. Meanwhile, lawlessness raged on and a high daily murder rate continued, with periods of elevated bloodshed targeting minority groups like the Druze, Alawites, Christians, and Shia.
Although the new Syrian authorities pledged to create a system wherein only the State would possess its weapons, they didn’t even get close to this, focusing instead on disarming the south as its primary concern, with a special focus on Dara’a and Quneitra at the request of Israel.
Israel has continued to occupy more Syrian lands uncontested by the regime in Damascus, in fact it is being aided by the government and started setting up communications on “security coordination” only three days after HTS seized the Capital. The southern local militias, especially in Dara’a, have refused to hand over their arms and even clashed with Syrian State security forces several times.
Then we have the case of Sweida, where the sectarian violence from both the State’s security forces and Bedouin Tribal militias has isolated the Syrian Druze population that was once loyal to the State. In response, Druze militias began mobilising and attacking their Bedouin Tribal militia foes, which escalated to the brink of all-out war last month.
Some of these Druze militias are now openly aligned with Israel, even coordinating military action with the Israeli army during their clashes with government and Bedouin militias. The flimsy ceasefire agreement, ordered by the United States, has given space for Israel to work on developing a public relations strategy that has convinced more of the Syrian Druze population to lean towards Israeli support for the creation of a separate pro-Tel Aviv Druze State surrounding Sweida.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government is now openly holding meetings with its Israeli counterparts. For context here, under all previous Syrian governments, this was considered an offense that carried with it the death penalty. Yet, Ahmed al-Shara’a has approved the handover of an Israeli soldier’s body that was captured in 1982, the personal belongings of infamous Israeli spy Eli Cohen, and has violently cracked down on the Palestinian resistance in Syria.
Many opponents of Bashar al-Assad had accused his forces of committing a “Sunni Genocide”. Now, the Syrian government run by HTS is openly collaborating with Israel while it commits a genocide against the almost solely Sunni population of Gaza.
There have also been clashes with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Syrian government forces in both eastern Raqqa and eastern Aleppo. A deal was supposed to be implemented months ago that would allow for the SDF to be integrated into the new Syrian Army, providing them with a special security role along the coast, which fell apart before it even started.
Israel has maintained connections to the SDF since 2015, and the principal backers of the Kurdish-led movement that controls north-eastern Syria are the US. Turkiye, another major backer of the government in Damascus, seeks to see the SDF defeated or at least their power be reduced.
State media reports indicate that Syria has amassed 50,000 soldiers, who will fight alongside the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militias and tribal forces, to put down the SDF, awaiting American and Israeli approvals. This will be yet another sectarian bloodbath if it goes ahead and will lead to the mass slaughter of Kurds.
In addition to all of this, there have been clashes between militia forces, backed up by the Syrian government’s army, and Lebanese clans backed by the Lebanese Armed Forces. There are also frequent threats of cross-border operations against Lebanon.
Each one of these cases requires an article, each to begin explaining the ins and outs of the issues tied to them, yet I mention them all here in order to paint a picture of the chaotic mess that is currently Syria.
The whole country has been completely destabilized, as Israel seeks to implement its “Greater Israel project”, a scheme that has been brewing for decades and was designed to create the exact scenario we see today in Syria. They seek to divide each State in the Arab World that ever contested them, through sowing sectarian hatred and creating chaos that leads to Balkanisation.
Right now, Israel’s so-called “David’s Corridor” is one of its goals, creating individual sectarian rump States that allow it access through southern Syria, up to the Euphrates, from where they will have allies in both Kurdish-dominated north-eastern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. In other words, a direct land bridge to Iran.
The conservative estimate is that at least 10,000 Syrians have been killed since December 2024, many by sectarian militias, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. However, some internal estimates suggest that 30,000 Syrian Alawites were killed during the sectarian coast massacres alone. While there isn’t evidence to support these numbers, whether they are true or not doesn’t even matter, because many Syrians believe this statistic and at the very least 3,500 were killed.
Syria as a country no longer exists beyond the geographical location and concept of a nation. It does seem like hyperbole to state this, but it is true. There is no real army or security forces to speak of, the government is incapable and only follows orders from foreign powers, making no decisions on its own. Syria doesn’t have sovereignty, is divided not only along sectarian lines, but even amongst villages and cities that have become enclaves separate from any major party or government control.
The further this chaotic situation escalates, the more likely the countless conflicts there are going to rope in neighbouring nations, especially Lebanon and Jordan, but also possibly Iraq and even potentially impacting Egypt.
Coverage of Syria, both in the Arabic and English language mainstream media, has been abysmal to say the least. Some outlets perform pure propaganda, while others hide everything negative that is occurring, deciding instead to craft fictional narratives in order to shelter their chosen side from culpability. This needs to change and soon, as it only helps further fuel the sectarian divides that are continuing to destroy what remains of Syria.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/why-syrias-instability-matters-the-medias-failure-to-tell-the-story/
-------
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/middle-east-press/conflict-peace-lifeline-gaza-syria/d/136647
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism