Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 09, 2024

12/09 Links Pt1: This Is What Imperial Collapse Looks Like; The suicide of the Israel haters; Israel denies report hostage deal in ‘advanced stage’

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: This Is What Imperial Collapse Looks Like

It seems odd that the great mass of “anti-imperialist” students and scholars are so unenthusiastic about having a real-world example to point to. Nonetheless, the end of the Assad rule in Syria, whatever else it may also mean, signifies the textbook dissolution of an empire whose time has come and gone.

That empire is, of course, Iran’s.

The Iranian government itself may not fall. The end of the Russian Empire did not result in the disappearance of Russia, and the same is true of most empires. But Iran’s empire is crumbling.

It is appropriate, then, that it appears to be ending where it began: in Syria.

The Iran-Iraq War that consumed most of the 1980s reshaped political alliances in odd ways, one of which was that Baathist Syria aligned itself against Baathist Iraq and with non-Arab Iran.

zran expanded into Lebanon by helping to launch Hezbollah. This proved to be the most advantageous of any of its investments. Born of chaos and opportunism, Hezbollah was Iran’s successful effort to organize Lebanon’s disparate militias under one umbrella, while gaining Tehran a Mediterranean outlet.

Soon the Lebanon and Syria branches of this imperial tree would start to benefit each other. Iran used Syria to transfer arms and other terrorism supplies to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah’s leadership helped guide Bashar al-Assad when he succeeded his father, Hafez, as president of Syria at the young age of 34.

In the late 1980s, Iran was also an “angel investor,” so to speak, in Hamas. “Since its formation in late 1987, Hamas has received and continues to receive significant financial and other support from Iran,” writes Matthew Levitt, counterterrorism program director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “By 1994, Palestinian author-turned-legislator Ziad Abu-Amr wrote that Iran ‘provides logistical support to Hamas and military training to its members,’ estimating Iranian assistance to Hamas ‘at tens of millions of dollars.’ Over time, this figure would rise steadily.”

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was an important source of funding and training for Hamas. After Hussein’s fall, Iran stepped in to fill the void left by its old rival. Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader based until 2012 in Syria, played a key role in increasing Iran’s operational control over the Palestinian terror group.

Brendan O'Neill: The suicide of the Israel haters

They tried to destroy the Jewish State and ended up destroying themselves. The 7 October effect is extraordinary. Fourteen months after Hamas visited its racist savagery on the people of southern Israel, the so-called Axis of Resistance is in tatters. Hamas is gravely weakened as a result of the ruinous war it started. Hezbollah has been spectacularly humiliated, its leadership almost entirely wiped out by the IDF. And now the Assad regime has fallen. This ‘keystone’ of the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance’ is no more. The Iranian regime hasn’t looked this rattled, this isolated, this existentially brittle, since the Iran-Iraq war that followed its Islamic Revolution in 1979. Has there ever been a greater self-inflicted blow in world affairs than 7 October?

The fall of Assad is first and foremost a good day for the people of Syria. People are right to raise questions about what comes next, about what the Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and their various allies might do now they’ve conquered Damascus. But the staggeringly swift fall of the Assad regime, a testament to its superficiality, should be welcomed by all who love liberty. Bashar al-Assad, like his father Hafez before him, was the cruellest of rulers. He viciously suppressed dissent, jailed his critics, massacred Kurds and invited Russia to help him slaughter tens of thousands of his own countrymen during the civil war. The Syrians dancing in the streets following his spineless fleeing are not doing so because they’ve read every policy statement of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and agree with it all. They’re doing so because they feel the sweet relief of deliverance from Assad’s boot on their throats. It’s their Berlin Wall moment and it should not be begrudged them.

Yet Assad’s fall also speaks to the suicidal dynamic of 7 October. Hamas’s pogrom set in motion a chain of events that proved catastrophic for the pogromists themselves and their apologists. Assad’s scalp is the greatest prize yet in this self-destruction of the Israelophobes. That his shallow government, all-powerful but unrooted, was so speedily put into the history books by the advancing rebels is down to two things. First, and most importantly, the distraction of Russia. Assad’s allies in Moscow are too busy killing Ukrainians to be able help him kill Syrians this time round. Without the brute force of Russian back-up, Assad’s hollow government collapsed overnight. That Syrian soldiers in city after city downed arms as the rebels arrived spoke to the regime’s pathological frailty in the absence of Russian muscle.

The second problem for the Assadists was the gutting of Hezbollah by the IDF in recent months. Hezbollah played a central role in propping up the Assad regime during the civil war. Where Russia slayed rebels from the air, Hezbollah did it on the ground. It both trained pro-Assad militias in the ‘art’ of urban warfare and took part in major clashes, including the Battle of al-Qusayr when Assad forces and Hezbollah militants won back the key supply route of al-Qusayr in western Syria. The Center for the National Interest in Washington, DC went so far as to say that Hezbollah was ‘winning the war in Syria’, using its ‘battlefield acumen’ to re-establish Assad’s rule. In 2024, though, Hezbollah could do precisely nothing to assist its allies in Damascus. Like Russia, it is distracted. In fact, it is virtually defeated.

Where once Hezbollah ‘deployed its well-trained fighters’ to aid Assad, says the BBC, that ‘did not happen this time’ because Hezbollah is ‘preoccupied with [its] own affairs’. That’s one way of putting it. Actually, Hezbollah is suffering one of the worst ignominies of its entire existence as a result of the fallout from the 7 October pogrom it supported. In the days after Hamas’s butchery in southern Israel, Hezbollah started raining missiles on northern Israel in an act of solidarity with the Jew-killers. It was a low-level war for months until Israel upped the ante in September this year. It launched its devastating ‘pagers attack’ and took out Hezbollah leaders one by one, including the secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. Last month, Hezbollah agreed to the humiliating terms of a ceasefire deal with Israel that effectively forces it to vacate southern Lebanon and, worse, to submit to the authority of the Lebanese government.

How Assad’s Potemkin dictatorship crumbled

And just like that, Bashar al-Assad’s reign over Syria is no more. Over the course of a mere two weeks, what looked from the outside like a brutal but relatively stable regime has evaporated into thin air.

When several thousand opposition fighters, headed up by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched their offensive in late November, few would have predicted their triumph. Riding out from their anti-Assad hold-outs in Syria’s north-west, in pick-up trucks and on motorbikes, they looked like what they were – a fearsome set of militias, but surely no match for a state army backed by Russian airpower.

The HTS-led forces soon took towns and villages with ease. By last weekend, they had captured Syria’s second city, Aleppo, and were seemingly advancing on the capital, Damascus. Even then, few inside and outside Syria believed that Moscow-backed government forces would not at some stage mount a counter-offensive. On Saturday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that Russia ‘was trying to do everything possible to prevent terrorists from prevailing’. Rumours circulating that Assad had fled were denied. The interior ministry announced that the army was forming a ‘ring of steel’ around the capital. Surely, there would be a fightback.

But the fightback never came. The insurgents were able to enter and capture Damascus without really having to lift a weapon – except to fire celebratory shots into the sky. By Sunday, HTS had announced that ‘the city of Damascus is free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad’, and a few hours later HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, now going by his original name Ahmed al-Sharaa, was declaring victory in a speech to the nation from within Damascus’ historic Umayyad mosque, the same mosque at which Assad would usually mark Eid.

The speed with which Assad’s rule has collapsed and the sheer absence of any resistance reveals a stark truth about Syria’s fallen dictatorship. It has been completely hollowed out over the past decade or more of conflict. This was a regime built on repressive force that now lacked any actual force. A regime whose authority rested on military strength that now lacked a strong military. And so when Islamist factions pushed at the doors to the palace, as they did both literally and figuratively this weekend, they simply opened.

Few will mourn the passing of the Assad family’s half-century-long exercise in despotism. Bashar’s father, former airforce pilot Hafez al-Assad, had been a key player in a military coup in 1963, which brought the Ba’ath Party to power. When Hafez became president in 1971, it wasn’t due to popular support. From the start, his regime’s authority rested almost entirely on its use of force, principally through Syria’s much feared intelligence and security agencies.

Bashar al-Assad inherited this repressive regime, complete with its brutal security apparatus, in 2001. Initially feted by the West, this British-educated ophthalmologist set about liberalising Syria’s economy, largely for his and his network’s own benefit. At the same time, he busied himself repressing any hints of dissent and striking up a close relationship with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in neighbouring Lebanon – all the better to suppress their mutual opponents.

A reminder of how the "Axis of Resistance" loved Assad up until recently

It's really funny to see Iran and its proxies scramble to pretend to support the Syrian people, when just a month ago they were supporting the ruthless dictator who was repressing those same people.

Looking through older issues of Islamic Jihad's mouthpiece Palestine Today, I see this classic from 2022:

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Sayyed Ali Khamenei, stressed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian people enjoy high esteem and prestige among the peoples of the region, noting that everyone today views Syria as a force to be reckoned with.

During his reception today, Sunday, of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his accompanying delegation, Leader Khamenei considered the resistance and steadfastness of the people and state in Syria and the victory in an international war as having provided the ground for strengthening Syria’s position and pride.

He said: "In light of the interest, activity and strong will of the President of the Republic and the Iranian government to develop cooperation with Syria, efforts should be made to further advance relations between the two countries."

The Leader of the Revolution stressed that Syria today is not Syria before the war, and pointed to the great successes achieved by Syria in the political and military arenas, indicating that respect for Syria and its status have become much higher than they were in the past, and that everyone sees this country as a force.

Or who can forget this greatest hit:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has won a new presidential term for the fourth time in a row after winning 95.1 percent of the votes, according to results announced by People's Assembly Speaker Hammoudeh Sabbagh on Thursday.

Not to mention this from this past August:

The Syrian President sent greetings to the resistance fighters in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, who represent "a role model, an example, and a model for us to follow on the path of liberation, dignity, honor, and independence."

The "strong horse" theory remains in place, and there are fewer and fewer strong horses in the Iranian orbit.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Once upon a time, @UNRWA helped resettle Palestinian refugees in other countries - and removed them from their "refugee" counts

Browsing through old UNRWA annual reports, I saw this from 1954:

At one time, UNRWA would remove refugees from its rolls if they emigrated to other countries - and even if they made money on their own.

And UNRWA encouraged both. It created works programs (the "W" of UNRWA) to help Palestinians find work and become self-sufficient. Over time, those programs disappeared.

When it came to emigration, the same thing happened. Its 1956 report says that UNRWA provided grants to those who managed to obtain visas but couldn't afford travel: "1,040 refugees who wished to emigrate, who had obtained visas on their own initiative and who had requested assistance from the Agency have been given travel grants when they demonstrated that they would otherwise not have been able to use their visas."

UNRWA continued to give such grants for the rest of the decade, although it doesn't seem to have publicized that too well. The number of people who took advantage of it went steadily down. (Only Jordan and Lebanon allowed the refugees to leave; those in Syria and Gaza were not allowed to emigrate - for their own good, of course.)

South America was the preferred destination for most of the Palestinian refugees.

By 1962, the budget for paying for Palestinians to go elsewhere was slashed. The program wound a year or two afterwards, although UNRWA doesn't explain why.

This chart can help explain it, though:

By 1961, over 99% of UNRWA staff were Palestinians themselves. These were the ideologues who wanted to ensure that the population would stay put to pressure Israel with the threat of "return." It is no wonder that UNRWA funds to emigrate dried up - these Palestinian UNRWA employees would pressure, and probably threatened, anyone who wanted to find a better life in the West, where they would no longer be stateless.

It was not long after this that UNRWA decided that the definition of "refugee" would include their descendants, forever, and when UNRWA changed their policies to ensure that "refugees" can never be taken off their rolls even when they leave UNRWA areas of operation.

UNRWA transformed from an agency that actually tried to help Palestinians into an agency that only wanted to keep them miserable and stateless for political reasons. The statistics of those that UNRWA helped emigrate elsewhere is another piece of evidence for how the agency went from a group of people who really wanted to help into a political organization hell bent on using the "refugee" issue as a means to destroy Israel.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Journal for Architectural Education has an upcoming issue called "Palestine."

The Call for Papers is a case study of how modern blood libels have infiltrated every corner of academia.

It claims that the slander that Israel is a genocidal, apartheid state is an established fact:

In the face of the ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, this issue of the Journal of Architectural Education calls for urgent reflections on this historical moment’s implications for design, research, and education in architecture. This volume will build on existing knowledge, research and publications to continue to learn from and with practices of resistance to the Zionist, militarist, carceral, and capitalist regime of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid.....Contributors might map, represent, theorize, and historicize genocide, ecocide, spaciocide, terracide, and urbicide as practices of colonial erasure and unpack the way they appear and operate.

It gets worse. Much worse.

The call for papers celebrates October 7 as hopeful:

The Palestinian philosopher Abdaljawad Omar argues that Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza and resistance to it—“no matter how horrific, bloody, and tragic”—cannot be reduced to a “pathology of violence.” Palestinians are not hapless victims nor motivated merely by “vengeance.” Omar advocates, instead, that a “pathology of hope” in a decolonial struggle “might ultimately create the space for new possibilities.” .....A decline of imposed Western hegemony corresponds with the rise of new formations of struggle and power that draw from radical possible histories, presents, and futures. Through this call for papers, we invite authors to engage with such formations of anti-colonial struggle within and beyond Palestinian geographies, reflecting on how Palestine has inspired pathologies of hope, constellations of coresistance, and infrastructures of resistance, the world over.

This is praise for a bloodthirsty, truly genocidal, Islamist terror ideology.

The romanticizing of Hamas and its murderers and rapists doesn't end there.

Though not human-built borders, the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea form the boundaries of aquatic imaginaries of sovereignty: the latter’s shores are equal parts a respite for Gaza’s citizens and the banks of now-heavily polluted waters weaponized by Israel in counterinsurgency efforts against Palestinian military resistance and the health of its soil. ...

In addition to weaponized environments of soil, water, and air, sites of consideration include the tunnel as a route of militants’ fight and prisoners’ flight, the blockade as carceral infrastructure, the safe haven of the hospital, the intergenerational sanctity and stewardship of the olive grove, the absenting of sacred space and cultural memory, the resistive archive, the breaching of the border fence and the rupture of settler containment...

This rhetoric sanitizes and romanticizes terrorist violence as a legitimate form of political struggle. By positioning the Hamas attack within a narrative of "anti-colonial struggle" and "decolonial hope," the text attempts to provide an intellectual veneer to a brutal terrorist massacre and mass rape of civilians. The call for papers seeks to transform acts of horrific violence into an academic discourse of liberation. This represents a profound corruption of academic standards, where a scholarly publication is being used to justify and celebrate terrorist violence rather than engage in genuine scholarly inquiry.

Beyond that, by excluding any other perspectives at the outset, they are brainwashing entire academic fields. There is no space for anyone who is not supportive of terror to be seen or heard in the pages of this journal.

Fields such as gender studies, Middle Eastern studies and anthropology have already been polluted and destroyed by these anti-Israel perspectives. Here, we see how the perverters of academia are encouraging brand new methods of research and scholarship for their own political ends, across every field they can find, to the detriment of academic research itself.

(h/t JW)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

I am pleased to announce that my long-awaited collection of the best of my cartoons has been released.

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" highlights the absurdities of Israel haters and antisemites.

This is more than a cartoon book. This is a scathing critique of the progressive Left that exposes their hypocrisy and ignorance. Their statements in these cartoons are barely exaggerated from what they really say, from cocktail parties to the newsroom to the offices of so-called human rights groups and college campuses.

Yaakov Kirschen, legendary cartoonist of Dry Bones, says,

Elder's book is a delight, I LOVED it.
The few cartoons in this surprising collection that aren't absolutely fabulous are merely really good. Amazingly, this important and insightful book about antisemitism is actually fun to read. A feel-good experience, a powerful message, and a great gift to be shared with friends (and others).

"He's a Zionist Too!" shows in a humorous way how the line between "anti-Zionism" and antisemitism is largely an illusion.

It would make a great Chanukah gift for the Zionists in your life! Buy it today!

Two notes of apology: First, I accidentally named the book incorrectly in the Amazon page, missing the "Anti." I'm hoping to get this corrected but getting hold of anyone at Amazon is not easy. (UPDATE: Mostly corrected.)

Secondly, publishing in color is more expensive than black and white. The book costs more than I intended, but it is only about 15 cents per laugh, which is still a bargain!

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

There is no doubt that Hezbollah has been planning to rebuild its forces in Lebanon, whether north or south of the Litani, with or without the Lebanese army and UNIFIL watching, as soon as the IDF is no longer physically there.

However, Hezbollah was relying on the idea that Iranian weapons would resume being imported across the porous Syrian border. While Hezbollah had some rocket manufacturing facilities, chances are that they have almost all been heavily damaged or destroyed.

That rebuild is not nearly as easy now that Assad fell. Any Iranian weapons convoys that try to cross the country would probably be confiscated by the rebel forces.

This is the most obvious way Hezbollah could be affected by the fall of Syria, but not the only one.

Hezbollah claims the Shebaa Farms area, and the basis for that claim is that it is Lebanese, not Syrian (and therefor part of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel.) Syria has not claimed that area as a favor to Hezbollah although it hasn't relinquished it, either. If the new regime claims it as Syrian territory, Hezbollah's entire claimed reason for existence as "resistance" evaporates.

Also, Hezbollah got a large amount of income from the sale of illegal drugs, particularly Captagon, and it partnered with Syria in that enterprise. Now that avenue of revenue is severely impacted.

Furthermore, the fall of Assad was celebrated by the Sunnis and Christians of Lebanon. They are now even less likely to consider Hezbollah a veto power over their desires in Lebanon, as it has far less leverage than it had before.

It is a two way street - Hezbollah's weakness means Iran no longer has the power to impose its will on Lebanon, and the Lebanese were always resentful of their land being controlled by this outside Shiite power who does not have their best interests at heart.

I had argued for months that the Lebanese people had the power to pressure Hezbollah to stand down from an imminent major escalation with Israel. They were way too frightened to do so. But that was then - now they feel far more empowered with the combination of Hezbollah's and Assad's, not to mention Iran's black eye from Israel's attack on that regime in October.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah keeps shouting to the wind that they were victorious over Israel.

Israel's victory in Lebanon was great news for the people there. Syria's fall give the Lebanese people hope that it was not a temporary reprieve in wars every decade or two, but a real chance to build their own country.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

12/08 Links: As Assad falls and Iran weakens, Qatar gains influence across Middle East; This is Iran’s annus horribilis; Jewish community in Australia ‘no longer feel safe’

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: As Assad falls and Iran weakens, Qatar gains influence across Middle East

While Iran may appear cornered, there are still many wheels in motion in the region. Qatar will benefit from Iran’s weakness because it gives Doha even more influence and sponsorship space – the one Iran lost – over groups such as Hamas or the new emerging rulers in Damascus.

The system works like this: Over the past few years, Iran backed various regional groups, positioning itself in the role of hollowing out the countries these groups are based in, weakening them, and filling that space with militias.In Iraq and Lebanon, the militias are Shi’ite – like the Iranian regime; in Yemen, they also are a local sect.

In Syria, the Assad family is Alawite, a minority group. That means Iran fed off working with non-Sunni groups in the region.The exception to that rule was Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. By sponsoring these groups, Iran gained significant influence over Palestinians, enabling it to escape what was partly a sectarian ghetto.

Qatar is a different story. Doha backed the Muslim Brotherhood for years all across the region, a group rooted in Sunni Islamic politics, meaning that Doha has often found influence in civil conflicts and has been on a different path than Iran.

This was the case in Libya, Syria, and with Hamas. Qatar lost out at times, like when the Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown in Egypt in 2013. It even suffered some isolation when Saudi Arabia led several Arab countries to break ties in 2017.

Qatar and Turkey have formed an iron bond, however, and both have reached out to Iran. Turkey, Iran, and Russia were all part of the Astana process that aimed to end the Syrian civil war, and all three, along with Qatar, support Hamas.

While Israel will gain from Iran’s weakness, it is not a complete victory because Hamas continues to control Gaza, is angling for influence in the West Bank, and is holding 100 hostages. The Iranian threat was only one part of the deadly chessboard in this region, and a new threat will emerge soon.

Israel has always faced new threats. In the 1950s and 1960s, they were led by Arab nationalist regimes. Later, they were replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Turkey, whose leading Justice and Development Party (AKP) has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, is one of the most vicious foes of Israel.

Make no mistake, the end of the Assad regime will not likely solve all of Israel’s challenges. Qatar is angling to make itself more important, and its historic hosting of Hamas presents a challenge to Israel’s security.

On October 7, 2023, more Jews were massacred in one day than at any time since the Holocaust. So, while Iran and its axis continued to be a threat, they could not massacre 1,200 people and kidnap 251. Israel prevented Iran and its allies from such activities.

The key issue right now is preventing Hamas and its backers in Ankara and Doha from exploiting the situation in Syria for their own ends.

Jonathan Schanzer: Assad End in Syria

The Syrian border with Israel, now fortified with ground troops and air power, is one to watch in the weeks and months ahead. The Israelis have already taken the buffer zone on the Golan Heights. But Northern Syria is another flashpoint to watch. This is the Kurdish region, which is already a target for the Turks and their Sunni jihadi proxies. The Kurdish People’s Defense Units or YPG have been a consistent concern for Ankara because of the group’s close ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a designated terrorist group in Turkey and in the United States. Never mind that the YPG played a significant role in the US campaign to defeat ISIS. Troublingly, Turkey has unfinished business in Syria. The Kurdish people, who have suffered mightily throughout their history, are slated for more suffering.

Alarmingly, the lame duck Biden Administration looks like a bystander. The region has its eyes instead on the X feed of President-Elect Donald Trump, who has advised America to simply let the drama in Syria play out. This may ultimately be the American interest, but the incoming Trump team should warn the patrons of the Syrian rebels—Turkey and Qatar—to keep their fighters away from America’s allies. This should include both Israel and the Kurds.

Some analysts believe that a consolidated Syrian state under Sunni control, after more than half a century of dominance by the country’s Alawite minority, could portend stability. Still others believe that sectarian cantons could emerge. Still others see the eventual Balkanization of the country. It’s obviously too soon to predict, but it certainly seems as if the Sunni rebels will dominate most if not, all of the country when the guns fall silent.

Whatever the map ultimately looks like, we are watching the return of a competition between two storied Middle East empires. The Iranian aspirations for a resurrected Persian empire experienced a massive setback yesterday. But those in Turkey seeking a neo-Ottoman order in the Middle East are elated. In other words, Syria has flipped from an Iranian satrap to an Ottoman sanjak overnight.

The fight for Syria appears to be over. The end of the Assad regime is an historic event. But history is still being written. The regional war launched by Hamas on October 7 has backfired horribly on its patrons in Tehran. Whether other unintended consequences follow is yet to be seen.

Syria: Better the Devil We Don't Know

From the perspective of Israel's strategic interests, the rebel attack in Syria presents opportunities that overshadow the risks. During the years when ISIS controlled territories in Iraq, the Iranian land route from Iran to Syria was blocked. Now, a similar blockage is expected to affect the land routes from Syria to Lebanon.

The chances of the recent agreement in Lebanon to restrain Hizbullah in the long term are increasing, as the process of its military recovery, after the war with Israel, will be slowed. At the same time, Iran's appetite for continuing cycles of threats and blows with Israel is expected to wane further, after Israel's effective strikes within its territory in October, which have already cooled its enthusiasm.

Some view Assad's regime as the "lesser evil" and argue that Israel would be better off with "the devil we know." According to this view, Assad is a figure with whom Israel can engage in deterrence dialogue (allowing air force freedom of action). He suppresses the Islamist forces that are far from being "Zionist-friendly," and he maintains a certain degree of stability in Syria and control over weapons, especially unconventional ones, within its territory.

We disagree. Assad, who massacred half a million of Syria's citizens and used chemical weapons against them, is a central figure in the axis that poses the most significant strategic threat to Israel. Most of Hizbullah's weapons have come from his production lines, his warehouses, or from Iran through Syrian territory. The ties between the Alawite regime in Syria and the mullah regime in Tehran are deep, and all efforts to distance Syria from Iran have been in vain.

On the other hand, the many Sunni rebel groups in Syria are not expected to direct their weapons toward Israel, certainly not in the immediate or medium term. They have a long-standing blood feud with Assad, Iran, and Hizbullah, and also among themselves.

Israel would prefer "the devil we don't know," as long as it leads to the weakening of Iran and the Shiite axis, which would mean a dramatic and positive shift for Israel in the regional balance of power.

How did UNRWA "verify" teachers weren't terrorists? By getting a signed letter from Hamas!

"Death to You, O Sons of Zion" message from URWA doctor on Facebook, 2015

UNRWA uses signed letters from the government to verify that their employees aren't terrorists.

In Gaza, that means that UNRWA trusts Hamas to tell it that its teachers and principals aren't Hamas members.

That is only one example of how poor UNRWA's vetting and investigation process is.

It it many months too late, but The New York Times looked at Israeli evidence that many UNRWA principals and top school officials in Gaza were in also Al Qassam Brigades terrorists.

They add details that show UNRWA is irresponsible even more than we had already known.

We see an agency that downplayed all evidence of its employees being terrorists, evidence that Hamas purposefully chose schools to "protect the resistance," and that its vetting procedures to ensure that they don't hire terrorists are worse than a joke.

The most damning details are buried deep in the article.

Paragraph 11:

Among the seized records are secret Hamas military plans that show that the Qassam Brigades regarded schools and other civilian facilities as “the best obstacles to protect the resistance” in the group’s asymmetric war with Israel. The documents also list two schools in particular that were to be used as redoubts where fighters could hide and stash weapons in a conflict.

Paragraph 13:

In several cases, educators remained employed by UNRWA even after Israel provided written warnings that they were militants.

Paragraph 26:

Residents of Gaza said in interviews that the idea that Hamas had operatives in UNRWA schools was an open secret. One educator on Israel’s list of 100 was regularly seen after hours in Hamas fatigues carrying a Kalashnikov.

Paragraphs 33-34:

Seized records say that the principal of the school, Khaled al-Masri, is a Hamas member who was issued an assault rifle and a handgun, and he is pictured standing in front of a Hamas banner on Facebook.
He remains on UNRWA’s staff, the agency says, but is under investigation for a social media violation.

Paragraph 39:

Even for criminal background checks, UNRWA relies on employees to self-report and provide confirmation of a clean record by way of a letter from the “de facto authorities.” In Gaza, that means Hamas, and before Hamas took over in 2007, it meant the Palestinian Authority.

And even when the UN investigates, it doesn't bother to investigate:

Paragraphs 41-42:

For nine of the workers, the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services said there was insufficient evidence to take action. But a copy of its report, which was never made public, says it did not consider evidence that Israel provided about their “alleged membership of the armed wing of Hamas or other militant groups.”

U.N. investigators ultimately only found that the other nine “may have” been involved. (In one case, investigators were shown video of the worker throwing a dead Israeli into an S.U.V.)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

From the front page of Iran's PressTV:

Israeli police have detained Rabbi Abraham Katz, a prominent anti-Zionist figure from New York, for over two months under a non-departure order, demonstrating the Benjamin Netanyahu regime's hostility toward everyone opposed to their genocidal war crimes.

Rabbi Katz, a citizen of both the United States and Canada, has been languishing behind bars for his pro-Palestine and anti-genocide activism in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Many prominent Jewish organizations around the world have urged the US and Canadian governments to intervene and pressure the Tel Aviv regime to release Rabbi Katz.

Well, besides that Rabbi Katz is not "behind bars," and Israel hasn't showed any interest in his anti-Zionist opinions, and no prominent Jewish groups have urged any intervention, sure, this is accurate.

Here' what really happened:

A man in the United States has been refusing to give his wife a religious divorce for ten years, which means that she is an "agunah," or "chained" to him - she cannot marry anyone else. The man then used a sketchy loophole, apparently under false pretenses, to get a dispensation to marry a second wife under Jewish law. Rabbis that signed that dispensation have since retracted their signatures.

Nevertheless, the man then did marry a second wife, and Rabbi Avraham Katz participated in the ceremony (according to his supporters, he was honored by reading the ketubah; he did not officiate.)

When Katz visited Israel, the wife's supporters petitioned the government not to allow him to leave the country, in an effort to help pressure the husband to issue the divorce.

In November, Katz tried to leave Israel and was stopped by police and then placed under house arrest. He is not "behind bars," and in fact he spent this past Shabbat in Tiberias.

Meanwhile, the Satmar Rebbe - who is famously anti-Zionist - issued a proclamation to excommunicate the husband in his community of Monroe, NY, after the husband promised and then reneged on his promise to issue the divorce. The husband then fled to another community.

It is just a small example of how Iranian and Arab media - not to mention Neturei Karta and other anti-Zionists - will take a grain of truth and build an edifice of lies around it.

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In the Amnesty International report released last week, it claims that Israel was occupying Gaza even after it withdrew its troops in 2005.

In cases like this, where the occupying power has withdrawn its forces from all or parts of the occupied territory but has maintained key elements of an occupying power’s authority – in this case, after the 2005 redeployment of Israeli forces – this retention of authority can amount to effective control. In such cases, occupation law – or at least the provisions relevant to the powers the occupant continues to exercise – remains in force.[179]

Footnote 179 includes several sources. One of them is "Determining the beginning and end of an occupation under international humanitarian law" by Tristan Ferraro, published in the International Review of the Red Cross in 2012, after Israel withdrew from Gaza.

That article says quite clearly that the physical presence of the hostile army is one of the necessary criteria in determining whether a territory is occupied. In other words, it completely contradicts Amnesty.

Ferraro creates a legal test for determining whether a situation qualifies as an occupation for the purposes of international humanitarian law.

In light of what has been discussed above, one may infer the following test for the purposes of determining the existence of a state of occupation within the meaning of IHL. The effective-control test consists of three cumulative conditions:

– the armed forces of a state are physically present in a foreign territory without the consent of the effective local government in place at the time of the invasion;

– the effective local government in place at the time of the invasion has been or can be rendered substantially or completely incapable of exerting its powers by virtue of the foreign forces’ unconsented-to presence;

– the foreign forces are in a position to exercise authority over the territory concerned (or parts thereof) in lieu of the local government.

Not one of these were true before November 2023.

Ferraro adds, "If any of these conditions ceases to exist, the occupation should be considered to have ended."

He also addresses the claim that Israel is engaged in "effective control" because Israel controls most of the borders and airspace of Gaza:

Occupation and its related element of effective control cannot – in principle – be established and maintained solely by exercising power from beyond the boundaries of the occupied territory. The test of effective control cannot include the potential ability of one of the parties to the armed conflict to project power through its forces positioned outside the ‘occupied territory’ without stretching the concept of occupation so much that it makes any assignment of responsibilities under occupation law meaningless. Otherwise, any state capable of invading the territory of its weaker neighbours by virtue of its military superiority, and of imposing its will there, would be said to be in ‘effective control’ of that territory and considered an occupant for the purposes of IHL. Such an interpretation would be unreasonable.

Amnesty does not only rely on Ferraro, of course. Their main arguments come from the the ICJ advisory opinion issued earlier this year, "Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem," which makes up a completely new international law just for Israel, where "occupation" is not a binary of yes or no, but where Israel is considered to be an occupier for specific obligations and not for others.

As is often the case, this is a sui generis law made just for Israel.

And it also contradicts previous ICJ rulings!

Ferraro quotes the ICJ on DRC vs. Uganda (2005):

In order to reach a conclusion as to whether a State, the military forces of which are present on the territory of another State as the result of an intervention, is an ‘occupying Power’ in the meaning of the term as understood in the jus in bello, the Court must examine whether there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the said authority was in fact established and exercised by the intervening State in the areas in question. In the present case the Court will need to satisfy itself that the Ugandan armed forces in the DRC were not only stationed in particular locations but also that they had substituted their own authority for that of the Congolese Government.

The ICJ requires physical presence as well as substituting Israel's authority over the Palestinian or Hamas government in Gaza, neithr of which happened.

Furthermore, the ICJ said in DRC vs. Congo:

In order to reach a conclusion as to whether a State, the military forces of which are present on the territory of another State as the result of an intervention, is an occupying power in the meaning of the term as understood in the jus in bello, the Court must examine whether there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the said authority was in fact established and exercised by the intervening State in the areas in question. In the present case the Court will need to satisfy itself that the Ugandan armed forces in the DRC were not only stationed in particular locations but also that they had substituted their own authority for that of the Congolese Government.

Those criteria are consistent in ICJ rulings....before it looked at Gaza. In all other cases, physical presence was one criterion for occupation. In all other cases, the occupier must have substituted its own authority for the local authorities. In all other cases, occupation law was considered all or nothing, not partial.

Amnesty's acceptance of the 2024 ICJ ruling also contradicts Amnesty's previous claims that Israel is fully occupying Gaza.

The irony is that Israel still ensured that Gaza would get food, medicine, vaccines and everything else that humanitarian law requires even under occupation.

But the legal precedents before 2024 are clear: Israel did not occupy Gaza, and those that claim it did are making up new international laws just for Israel.

Something Amnesty is quite proficient at.

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The rapid fall of the Assad regime in Syria is stunning.

There is no shortage of analysis, but essentially every "expert" in the field is warning of things that could or might happen.

What I haven't seen is any of these experts admitting that they couldn't see this coming.

The Middle East is the most watched, analyzed and studied region on Earth. Isn't it strange that no one saw the coordination necessary for the disparate Syrian rebel groups to mount this offensive? The planning must have taken weeks, if not months. Israel's escalation against Hezbollah in September would undoubtedly have either started these plans if not accelerated already existing plans.

Where were these analysts then? And - why should we believe any of them now when they didn't see this coming?

We can expect to see analysis in the coming weeks of how the signs were there all along, all ignoring that these supposed experts missed those signs.

Lesson #1: Media and academic experts are no better at predicting what will happen than anyone else.

To be sure, Western intelligence agencies appear to have been caught flat-footed as well. Any decent intel organization must go back, look at any evidence of this development that must have been visible but ignored, and ask itself where it went wrong.

Every intelligence failure that I am aware of comes not from missing the evidence, but from not connecting the dots. Intelligence agencies have to deal with massive amounts of data that they gather from tens of thousands of sources. The challenge is being able to notice patterns and properly prioritize the data coming in.

How many times have we seen after the fact that the pieces of the puzzle were always there? From Pearl Harbor to the Yom Kippur War to October 7, the data wasn't the problem. It was the refusal to believe the data, the refusal to properly prioritize the data, the overriding of the evidence with beliefs.

Perhaps artificial intelligence can overcome these issues, which are after all human blind spots. But AI is often being programmed too often with the same blind spots, at least the AIs I've been playing with. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be hard to adjust AIs to avoid bias in the models and programming to learn to put together data. Expect to see accelerated work in that arena.

Lesson #2: Even national intelligence agencies have blind spots and they need to adjust their methods of analysis.

Some of these failures come because dictatorships, whether they are Syria or China or Iran, zealously hide their weaknesses from the world and project not the truth but propaganda. Furthermore, they end up hiding the truth from themselves as well out of desire to do what the dictator wants rather than what's best for the country.

The startling speed of the Syrian coup is because of any unique set of circumstances. It could happen in any non-democratic country. (Democracies can change quite quickly as well but they are usually open enough for people to see it coming.)

This is a sobering lesson for those who rely on dictatorships as partners. Every decision a western power makes when making deals with a Saudi Arabia or a UAE or an Egypt or a Jordan must include the non-zero chance that these regimes can be replaced tomorrow with leaders with a vastly different worldview. Weapons given to prop up these regimes can fall into the hands of those who those whom the weapons were meant to fight. Personnel posted in those countries are only a bullet away from becoming hostages.

Strongmen are often not as strong as they project, nor as strong as some want to believe. Nations rely on allies, and must make educated guesses as to whom to trust, but when it comes to even seemingly enlightened dictatorships they need to hedge their bets because their allies can turn into enemies in a day,

Lesson #3: "Put not your trust in princes."

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As the Syrian regime nears collapse, its media keeps saying it is winning. (Sound familiar?)

We saw it with Hamas. we saw it with Hezbollah. And now we're seeing it with Syria.

They Syrian regime is teetering on the edge. The soldiers in the are deserting. The combined opposition forces are entering Damascus. Reports say that the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has fled.

But the Syrian media, or what's left of it, insists that it is winning.

The official SANA news agency website seems to be down - which is itself a sign that things are going really poorly for the regime. But its Facebook page is still up, and they are saying:

=Military source: The news from some media channels about terrorists entering al-Qaryatayn area south-east of Homs is incorrect and our forces are in their positions and in full readiness.
-Military source: There is no truth to any news about the withdrawal of our forces from the Damascus countryside
-Cabinet: The government has the experience and ability to deal with emergency situations
-Syrian Army Eliminates large numbers of Terrorists, destroys dozens of their vehicles in northern Homs countryside
-President Al-Assad assumes his work, national and constitutional duties from Damascus

However, they stopped posting any updates about ten hours ago.

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12/07 Links: Why the media keep underestimating Israel; Syrian rebel commander urges Israel to support uprising; IDF assists UN forces in Syria repel attack

From Ian:

Why the media keep underestimating Israel

Most recently, Israel has confounded expectations in its war against Hamas. The IDF has ground Hamas into the rubble of Gaza, killing most of its leaders. It has wreaked sufficient devastation on Hezbollah to produce a ceasefire agreement, albeit a shaky one. Commentators warned solemnly of ‘escalation ladders’ and a ‘wider regional war’, predicting that Iran would not stand idly by as its proxies were degraded. Yet apart from a few token missile strikes, that is precisely what has happened.

Heeding caution in military matters is wise, as Iraq and other misadventures have shown. But an aversion to conflict at all costs grants bad actors free rein. As Israel’s enemies sue for peace – precisely because of Israel’s resolve in pursuing a war many deemed unwinnable – it’s clear that caution has its limits. While a decisive victory has yet to be achieved, Israel certainly appears to be winning. It has demonstrated that the murder of its citizens has dire consequences – a fact it must constantly prove to secure its survival. Israel has also shown that Iran, reportedly leaning on Hezbollah leaders to agree to a ceasefire, has little appetite to risk its neck for its proxies.

Yet many commentators continue to treat ‘de-escalation’ and an immediate ceasefire as the only viable routes to peace, scarcely hiding their disappointment when the realities on the ground suggest otherwise. After Hamas’s military leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by the IDF in October, Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, snarked that ‘to get a ceasefire and a deal you need every side really in it’. He thought this would be harder after the assassination. Yet since Sinwar’s death, Hamas has actually shown more interest in negotiation. Similarly, when Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was eliminated in September, journalists at Israel’s Channel 12, which has also taken a defeatist view of the war, reportedly greeted the news with ‘mournful faces and barely hidden disappointment’.

Contrast this with the elation of ordinary Israelis – and many others around the world – at these momentous victories. Such enthusiasm is well placed. Nasrallah’s policy of showering rockets on northern Israel until the IDF withdrew from Gaza has, for now, been discontinued. This is a tangible win for thousands of Israelis who can now return to their homes in the north.

The war itself enjoys widespread support within Israel. It is, among other things, democracy in action (just not the kind favoured by the media and commentary classes). Yet so many media outlets portray it as little more than a ruse by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cling to power. This narrative conveniently diverts attention from Israel’s strategic gains.

Reflecting on the Second Intifada, which broke out in 2000 and led to over 1,000 Israeli deaths, writer Pascal Bruckner remarked that journalists sympathetic to the Palestinian uprising had taken a more sanguine view of it than the Palestinians themselves. In 2004, Fatah leaders conceded that the ‘militarisation of the Intifada had been a great failure and had left society exhausted and on the brink of civil war’. According to Bruckner, this failure was a ‘disappointment for the militants, but also for the press correspondents, who thus found themselves repudiated’. The journalists, he concluded, had ‘allowed themselves to be blinded by their convictions: these men in the field had seen in reality only the projection of their own fantasies’.

Twenty years later, fantasies and wishful thinking still cloud much of the media’s judgement.

Victoria Coates: Palestinians lost battle with Israel – 'someone has to tell them'

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict ended decades ago with the country's founding and its victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, according to former U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates.

Speaking to ILTV on Monday at the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, she said the Palestinians were never told they lost. Instead, "they were encouraged, particularly after the Iranian Revolution, to continue this self-defeating, suicidal, genocidal [behavior] we saw on October 7."

"Someone has to have the nerve to say to the Palestinians, we are not negotiating a ceasefire, we're negotiating terms" to end the conflict, she added.

Coates, an evangelical Christian and staunch supporter of the Jewish state has visited Israel many times. She has held several key political leadership roles, including serving in the Department of Energy, where she advised Secretary Dan Brouillette on national security issues and acted as his representative in the Middle East and North Africa.

Today, she serves as Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. She recently published a book, The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel—and America—Can Win, which focuses on October 7 and why America must stand with Israel.

She said the possibilities for the Palestinians, if they were to disarm and accept defeat, are abundant.

"You could imagine what would flow into both the West Bank and Gaza, just the offers of assistance and the enthusiasm on the part of Israel," Coates said.

She added that some actions from the Trump administration, such as cutting funding, might help deliver this message.

However, while Coates is deeply passionate about Israel, she said her book aims to address issues in her own country. "Because this [Islamic extremism] isn't a Jewish or an Israel issue. This is a Western civilization issue," she explained.

"They might be coming for Israel right now, but the United States is next, make no mistake about it," Coates said.

Caroline Glick: A coup attempt in the shadow of Oct. 7

This week, Channel 11’s journalist Ayala Hasson broadcast a two-part exposé on the Israel Defense Forces’ self-investigation of the massacre at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, which took place a kilometer from the Gaza Strip. Hasson’s reports reinforced the fact that the IDF and Shin Bet top brass are to blame for Hamas’s successful day of genocide.

A total of 364 people were brutally murdered at the Nova music festival and along avenues of escape. Thirty-nine were taken hostage. The rave opened on Oct. 5 with 3,800 revelers.

According to earlier investigative reports, the IDF intercepted Hamas’s invasion plans a year before Oct. 7. They received multiple, rapidly escalating warnings of the impending invasion from a variety of sources in the Southern Command in the months, weeks and days prior to that day. Intelligence head Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet director Ronen Bar did not share the warnings or Hamas’s intercepted invasion plans with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead, they repeatedly briefed him that Hamas was deterred, and Israel simply needed to provide it with more cash from Qatar and more work permits for Gazans in Israel to keep the terrorist regime fat, happy and deterred.

On Oct. 10, we learned that on the night between Oct. 6 and Oct. 7, Halevi, Bar, Southern Command Chief Maj. General Yaron Finkleman, Operations Directorate Chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk and Haliva’s assistant (Haliva was on vacation and not answering his phone), held two telephone consultations, at midnight and 4 a.m., when they discussed multiplying indications that Hamas was about to carry out its invasion, slaughter and kidnapping plan. They chose to do nothing, told no one and agreed to meet again at 8 a.m. Hamas invaded at 6:30.

Hasson’s reported excerpts from two-and-a-half hours of recordings of a conversation between Halevi’s representative Brig. Gen. Ido Mizrahi and police commanders in the Southern District. Halevi appointed Mizrahi to conduct the IDF’s inquiry into the slaughter at Nova.

The police were the heroes of the festival. By declaring that Israel was under invasion at 6:30, Southern District Commander Superintendent Amir Cohen precipitated the Ofakim police station commander’s order to disperse the concert-goers. That decision is credited with saving the lives of 90% of the party’s attendees. According to Mizrahi, about 200 people were at the party site when the Palestinian rape, murder and kidnapping gangs arrived a bit after 9 a.m.

Forty policemen and women died staving off the invading Palestinian terrorists from the Nova festival. IDF forces didn’t show up until after the massacre was over and the 39 hostages had been taken to Gaza. All the same, Mizrahi tried to shift the blame for the mass slaughter from the IDF onto the police, asking why there were still 200 people at the party site at 9.

Surprised, the police explained that they couldn’t enforce the order because they were busy fighting Hamas since the IDF didn’t arrive.

Mizrahi disclosed to Cohen and his officers for the first time that on nighttime telephone calls, Bar, Halevi and their associates discussed the Nova festival but opted to do nothing. The police officers noted that had they known this at 4 a.m., the slaughter would have been prevented.

12/06 Links Pt2: Winners and losers in the Middle East: The story so far; No more political games: Pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act — NOW!

From Ian:

Winners and losers in the Middle East: The story so far

Dealing with the Iranian regime, whose machinations lie at the core of this conflict, will be a major focus of the next Trump administration’s foreign policy. Yet even before Donald Trump enters the Oval Office (again), Iran is already looking damaged and weaker now when compared with Oct. 7. While its missile attacks on Israel failed to dent either the IDF or the Israeli population’s resolve, Jerusalem’s responses have badly frayed Iran’s air defenses and highlighted the vulnerability of its nuclear program. As well as seeing its Hamas and Hezbollah proxies degraded, Iran is now watching as the Assad regime in Syria clings to survival. Iran still retains its proxies in Iraq and Yemen, but these, too, may also find themselves in the firing line with a new administration in Washington. “Although today’s Iran is confident that it can fight to defend itself, it wants peace,” wrote its former foreign minister in a frankly ludicrous article for Foreign Affairs. That sounds suspiciously like a plea to the regime’s adversaries to hold off because the reality is that the regime cannot defend itself from Israel—not to mention the Iranian people, growing swaths of whom truly loathe the Islamic Republic and are determined to get rid of it.

For two states in the region, the outlook is unfortunately rosier. One is Turkey, whose membership of the NATO Alliance remains undisturbed despite the increasingly unhinged attacks on Israel leveled by its autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and its open support of Hamas. Ironically, Israel’s punishing of Hezbollah has helped Erdoğan in Syria, where Turkey is backing anti-Assad forces in the north of the country, though don’t expect him to acknowledge that.

Secondly, there is Qatar, an emirate grounded in Sharia law, where a little more than 10% of the population enjoy full citizenship while the vast majority—mainly migrant workers toiling in slave-like conditions—live under a form of real apartheid. The Biden administration’s faith that Qatar—a financial and diplomatic backer of Hamas whose capital hosted the terror organization’s leaders—could act as an honest broker in negotiations to release the hostages was spectacularly misplaced, with more than a year dragging by since the one-and-only prisoner exchange that compelled Israel to release Palestinians convicted of terrorism and violence. Despite this dismal failure and its two-faced stance on terrorism, Qatar’s ruling family continues to be feted by international leaders, most recently in London, where the British Royal Family dutifully trooped to The Mall for a parade welcoming the visiting emir. For the foreseeable future, Qatar’s astonishing wealth, coupled with its financial hold over many of the world’s capitals, is a guarantee of immunity from criticism, let alone actual sanctions.

For Turkey and Qatar, then, net gains. For Iran and its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies, net losses. For Israel, the jury is out. The first year of Trump’s term in office will doubtless tell us more.

Reports: As Syrian rebels take Hama, Israel preparing for possible collapse of regime

Israel is said to be preparing for the possibility that the Syrian army may collapse in the face of rapidly advancing rebel forces, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holding security deliberations on the matter on Thursday night.

Channel 13 reported that the IDF now assesses the rebels may pose a real threat to the continuation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule. According to a report on Channel 12, Israel has been surprised by the weakness of the Syrian army, as it continues to swiftly lose ground to the jihadist-led fighters.

The report added that Israel has sent a strong warning to Iran not to send weaponry to Syria that could reach the hands of the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.

Kan news reported, citing two unnamed sources, that Israel and the United States are “detecting signs of certain collapse” in the Syrian army, and that one of Israel’s main concerns is that the rebels will advance as far south as the Israeli border with Syria in the Golan Heights.

Channel 13 said Israel has conveyed messages to rebel leaders to stay away from the border.

Earlier on Thursday, Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi held an assessment on the developments in Syria, as the rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured the key central city of Hama, a little more than a week after they launched their offensive, just as a ceasefire took hold between Israel and Assad’s ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Residents take to the streets of Hama, to welcome anti-government fighters after they took control of Syria’s west-central city on December 5, 2024. (Photo by Bakr Alkasem / AFP)

Last week the rebels took control of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, and have since pushed south, capturing Hama on Thursday and advancing further south to Homs, a key central city that functions as a crossroads connecting Syria’s most populous regions.

The Israeli military assessment was held with the IDF General Staff Forum, the military’s top brass.

“The IDF is following events and is preparing for any scenario in attack and defense,” the military said in a statement. “The IDF will not allow a threat near the Syrian-Israeli border and will act to thwart any threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.”

Amid the growing concern, two senior Israeli officials told the Axios news site that the collapse of regime defense lines in the past 24 hours had happened faster than expected.

A US official who also spoke to the site said that Israel has expressed concern to Washington over both a potential radical Islamist takeover of Syria and an increased presence of Iranian forces in the country to back Assad.

At the same time, an official told The Times of Israel anonymously that Israel’s interest in the renewed fighting in Syria is “that they continue fighting one another.”

They added: “It’s entirely clear to us that one side is Salafi jihadists and the other side is Iran and Hezbollah. We want them to weaken one another.”

The official stressed that Israel is not getting involved on either side. “We are prepared for any scenario and we will act accordingly.”