ISIS never left Syria, it just changed uniforms
By Fuad Walid Itayim | The Cradle | February 12, 2026
Early last month, the forces of the ‘new’ Syrian army flooded across north and east Syria. The troops seized key cities and major oil fields, effectively ending a decade of US-backed Kurdish autonomy – with Washington’s blessing.
One of those cities was Raqqa, the former capital of ISIS’s self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’ in Syria and a symbol of sectarianism, bloodshed, and iron-fist rule.
Raqqa remembers
It was in Raqqa where scores of soldiers from the now-dismantled Syrian Arab Army (SAA) were executed in cold blood by ISIS militants. Many of these soldiers had their severed heads impaled on pikes on the city’s outskirts.
It was also in Raqqa where countless young girls and women, many of them Yezidis abducted from Iraq in 2014, were sold into slavery in what ISIS called Souq al-Sabaya – the ‘market of female captives.’
As Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s (formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani) armed forces entered the city in early 2026, his soldiers were gleeful, excited, and reminiscent. Many of them had been there before.
A closer look at the officers leading this offensive reveals a stark reality: ISIS has not been defeated. It has been absorbed, rebranded, and redeployed across Syria, reclaiming its ‘caliphate.’
ISIS reborn under Turkiye’s shadow
The Violations Documentation Center in Northern Syria (VDCNY), a Manbij-based human rights organization that monitors abuses against Kurds, released a report in August 2024 identifying dozens of extremist militants formerly affiliated with ISIS who were later incorporated into the Turkiye-backed Syrian National Army (SNA).
The SNA was formed by Ankara in 2017 and for years served as the Turkish military’s arm in northern Syria. Turkish forces had invaded Syria in 2016 to carry out an operation against the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose dominant component is the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – which Ankara regards as the Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkiye went on to occupy swathes of Syrian territory and maintains that presence today.
Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions that assisted Turkiye’s 2016 intervention were reorganized into what became the SNA. After Raqqa fell to the SDF in 2017, this coalition absorbed scores of fleeing ISIS members. Over time, the SNA continued integrating former ISIS fighters into its ranks.
The ISIS ‘caliphate’ seemed defeated at a certain point. In reality, much of the heavy fighting against ISIS across Syria had been carried out by the former Syrian army, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, allied Iran-backed factions, and the Russian air force. The credit, however, went to Washington and the SDF – which today has been abandoned once again by the US military.
But ISIS was regrouping and reestablishing itself under a new name, with direct Turkish backing and under the watchful eye of US forces.
As VDCNY bluntly stated: “ISIS grew on the shoulders of the Free Syrian Army.”
Below is a partial list of former ISIS figures who were later absorbed into the SNA:
Abu Mohammad al-Jazrawi
According to the August 2024 VDCNY report, Abu Mohammad al-Jazrawi – born Abdullah Mohammad al-Anzi – is a Saudi national who joined ISIS in 2015 after arriving in Syria illegally via Turkiye – like tens of thousands of others from various parts of the world who did the same.
During his time with ISIS, he participated in battles against the Syrian army in the Syrian Desert and Homs countryside. He ended up becoming a military commander in Ahrar al-Sham, a notorious, sectarian extremist group responsible for many war crimes and atrocities.
Ahrar al-Sham had previously fought alongside Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front before eventually being embedded into the SNA. The extremist group is responsible for numerous war crimes, including the deadly shelling of civilians in the Shia-majority towns of Nubul and Zahraa in Aleppo, during the early years of the war.
Bashar Smeid
Nicknamed Abu Islam al-Qalamouni, Smeid joined ISIS in 2014 and participated in fighting in the Palmyra desert, Damascus countryside, and near Al-Tanf Base – where US forces were training extremist militants.
In 2016, he took command of a security detachment that oversaw the infiltration of three car bombs into Damascus’s Sayyida Zaynab area. He ended up moving to northern Syria’s Idlib in 2017 and worked with his group to funnel ISIS leaders into Turkiye.
A year later, he joined the SNA’s Ahrar al-Sharqiya faction – another criminal sectarian organization that was happy to take in ISIS leaders. In March 2023, members of Ahrar al-Sharqiya murdered four Kurdish civilians celebrating Newroz (Kurdish New Year).
Sabahi al-Ibrahim al-Muslih
Known as Abu Hamza al-Suhail, Muslih was a leader in ISIS’s Shura Council and oversaw trials on charges of apostasy and blasphemy that resulted in dozens of executions. He ended up joining the SNA’s 20th Division. While reports said he was killed in a US drone strike a few years ago, he remains a prime example of the type of characters who were joining the SNA.
Awad Jamal al-Jarad
Jarad joined ISIS in 2015 and commanded a battalion within the organization. He later entered the SNA’s Hamza Division in 2018, participated in Turkish offensives in Afrin, and subsequently joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya.
By August 2024, he was leading a unit of 30 men and had transformed the city of Tal Abyad’s post office into his personal headquarters and command center, according to VDCNY. The Hamza Division is responsible for sectarian violence, sexual assault, and other war crimes.
Majid al-Khalid
Khalid, nicknamed Hajj Abu Omar al-Ansari, formed Liwa al-Haq in Hama during the early years of the war, before incorporating his organization into ISIS in 2014. He was considered one of the founders of ISIS in Hama city.
He ended up becoming the Emir of Hama during his time with ISIS and took command of the suicide (‘Inghimassi’) battalions – which sent thousands of young men to blow themselves up in holy sites and civilian areas. In 2017, he joined the Hamza Division and became a battalion commander in the group.
Salem Turki al-Antari
Antari, nicknamed Abu Saddam al-Ansari, joined ISIS in 2014 in the Badia desert region, where he served as a commander and led extremists in battle against the former Syrian army in Palmyra and near Al-Tanf Base.
He went on to become the Emir of Palmyra. Antari later joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya in 2017 and took part in Turkish-backed assaults against Afrin, Tal Rifaat, and Ras al-Ain. He was also implicated in the roadside execution of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf in 2019. In 2024, the ex-ISIS chief was appointed as the commander of the US-backed Syria Free Army (SFA), which was formed by Washington in 2022 and trained in the Al-Tanf Base.
SFA now operates under the Syrian Defense Ministry. Between 2015 and 2017, Antari took part in the ISIS takeover of Palmyra and the battles with the Syrian army that ensued. The terrorist organization’s assault on Palmyra destroyed some of Syria’s most cherished cultural heritage. In 2015, ISIS notoriously publicly beheaded renowned 83-year-old Syrian archeologist Khaled al-Asaad for refusing to reveal the locations of hidden antiquities.
Raad Issa al-Barghash
Also known as Abu Zainab, Barghash pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2013. He fought with the group in Ain al-Arab (Kobane) and elsewhere, and was responsible for the killing of many civilians. In 2017, he fled to Aleppo and entered the ranks of Ahrar al-Sharqiya, eventually becoming a top security chief in the group.
Thamer Nasser al-Iraqi
An Iraqi citizen, he joined ISIS in 2013 in Homs and then served as the military fortifications Emir in the Al-Shaddadi area until 2015. In 2016, he became the Emir of the armaments department in Raqqa, and then an advisor to the ISIS Security Office No. 011 in Raqqa.
Iraqi participated in the Battle of Mosul in 2014. Three years later, he fled towards the city of Jarablus, east of Aleppo. In November 2017, he joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya and participated in Operation Olive Branch and Operation Peace Spring, launched by the Turkish army in 2018 and 2019. He also participated in bombings and summary executions of Kurdish civilians in the Jindires district of Afrin.
Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr
Abu Bakr, now a dual Syrian-Turkish citizen, had defected from the old Syrian military to join the FSA in 2012. These defections were encouraged by foreign intervention and funding. The FSA never maintained the status of a unified opposition force, quickly splintering into different factions that aligned themselves with extremist groups.
He joined ISIS in 2013 and was appointed governor of Al-Bab during the organization’s control over the city. A few years later, he ended up as commander in the Hamza Division, taking part in several Turkish-backed offensives against Kurdish forces.
During his time with ISIS, he appeared in a propaganda video where another member of the group is heard demanding “repentance” from around a dozen prisoners kneeling before them. The prisoners are identified in the video as members of the PKK.
Abu Bakr was also associated with Abdul Jabbar al-Okaidi, an FSA commander who publicly praised ISIS following the capture of Menagh Air Base in 2013.
Abu Bakr is now a senior commander in the Syrian army. In May 2025, the EU imposed sanctions on him, including asset freezes and a travel ban, citing “serious human rights abuses in Syria, including torture and arbitrary killings of civilians.”
Washington’s ‘partner’ in fighting ISIS
These are only select examples.
In 2025, the entire Turkish-backed SNA was formally integrated into the Syrian Defense Ministry. Following the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the SNA – effectively ISIS in new attire – became a core pillar of the current Syrian army, alongside Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), previously the Nusra Front. HTS itself contains numerous former ISIS members and has a long record of war crimes.
After the SDF was thrown under the bus by Washington in early 2026, Syrian forces swept across the north and captured key oil fields and cities. Soldiers were jubilant upon their entry into Raqqa, charged with nostalgia for ISIS’s glory days.
During the assault on northern Syria, tens of thousands of ISIS militants and their families were set free as troops entered Al-Hawl Prison Camp, which was previously run by the SDF.
Videos on social media showed government troops arriving at Al-Hawl and allowing the prisoners to leave. During the fighting days earlier, hundreds of ISIS prisoners escaped from Al-Shaddadi Prison. The SDF lost control of the facility and accused the US of ignoring its calls for help. Two kilometers away from the prison is a US coalition military base.
“The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], we are proud of this,” video footage showed one Iraqi woman, dressed in a niqab, saying as she was leaving Al-Hawl.
The new Syrian army is saturated with former ISIS commanders and fighters – yet Washington now describes it as a “partner” in combating ISIS.
This is the same army that massacred Alawites and Druze in March and July of 2025, and committed heinous war crimes against Kurds during attacks against the SDF in January 2026.
President Sharaa, the former ISIS and Al-Qaeda leader behind deadly sectarian suicide bombings in both Iraq and Syria, (as well deadly attacks in Lebanon and the occupation of the country’s border with Syria) has vowed to protect minorities, and claims he is leading a campaign to rid Syria of extremism.
This is impossible with an army made up of ISIS and a political leadership made up of violent warlords.
An investigation released by The Cradle last year reveals that since Sharaa came to power, Syria has witnessed a government-linked campaign of mass abduction and sexual enslavement targeting young Alawite women. Syrian government forces also committed massacres targeting minorities, including Druze and Alawites.
In a new video from the assault on the north, a Syrian soldier films two female Kurdish fighters captured during battle. As he drives around with the two women in the back of his vehicle, he brags about how they will make a “perfect gift” for his commander.
ISIS is very much alive. And it now rules the entirety of Syria under the protection and sponsorship of the US and Turkiye.
The Toxic Border: How Israel’s Chemical Spraying is Reshaping Life in South Lebanon
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | February 8, 2026
Reports that Israeli aircraft sprayed chemical agents along the Lebanese border — later identified as toxic defoliants — have intensified concerns over environmental damage, civilian harm, and possible violations of international law, with similar incidents also reported in southern Syria.
Key Takeaways
- UN peacekeepers suspended patrols after being warned that aircraft would spray chemical agents near the Blue Line.
- The sprayed substance was later identified as a toxic herbicide linked to cancer.
- The campaign is seen as serving both military land-clearing and civilian displacement purposes.
- Similar chemical spraying incidents have been reported in southern Syria.
- Rights groups say targeting farmland may constitute a violation of international humanitarian law.
- Spraying along the Blue Line
Israel is waging chemical warfare against both Lebanese and Syrian lands, a campaign that may not only have dire environmental repercussions but also inflict long-term health problems on local civilian populations.
On February 1, the United Nations peacekeeping forces stationed in southern Lebanon – UNIFIL – were forced to suspend their patrols along what is known as the Blue Line that demarcates the de facto Israeli-Lebanese border. They did so out of safety concerns for their soldiers, after Israel informed them it would be using planes to spray chemical agents in the area.
Tel Aviv initially informed UNIFIL that the chemical agent was “non-toxic.” Nevertheless, the UN reiterated its “concerns” about flight movements in the area, stressing that such activities violate UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
It wasn’t long until it was discovered that the agent being sprayed was, in fact, toxic. Allegedly, the specific agent used, for which a toxicology test was conducted, is a defoliant and herbicide that is linked to cancer.
Israel is currently on its way to violating the Lebanon ceasefire, which went into effect on November 27, 2024, nearly 10,000 times. This makes it the most violated ceasefire deal in recorded history.
Israeli strikes, targeting north to south and even the capital city of Beirut, have killed hundreds. Despite this, there have been no recorded violations by Hezbollah or the Lebanese Army.
A Strategy of Erasure
What is so consequential about Israel’s use of chemical agents in southern Lebanon is that it has two primary purposes. The first is to kill everything it touches, to clear the land for military purposes. The second is that it is being used as a form of collective punishment, a likely intention behind which is to drive Lebanese citizens from their homes.
Perhaps the most horrifying part of this is that there is a dark history of such chemicals being used for the same purposes elsewhere. The most infamous case is that of the US military spraying Agent Orange, also a herbicide and defoliant, during the Vietnam War.
As a result of the callous use of Agent Orange, both the civilian population of Vietnam and US soldiers alike ended up contracting serious chronic health problems. One of the results was birth defects, cancers such as Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and even neurodegenerative diseases. This was in addition to what was labeled ecocide in the country.
While some may argue that the Israelis are simply using chemical agents to clear the land, as a security precaution, this is not plausible. Israel has the capability and has historically used heavy equipment to clear the land.
Deploying chemical agents, which it is of note that they haven’t done so on their side of the Blue Line, is clearly a malicious attack on Lebanese lands and the civilian population living there.
Beyond Lebanon
Israelis have frequently expressed their dismay over the immediate return of Lebanese villagers to their destroyed homes in the south, particularly near the unofficial border, as Israel has never declared its borders.
Meanwhile, a considerable percentage of Israelis, formerly living in settlements like Kiryat Shimona, that were hit the hardest by Hezbollah during the last war, have refused to return.
It has not only been Lebanon that has been subjected to such chemical agent attacks, but southern Syria has also fallen victim to the Israeli military spraying similar chemical agents on its lands.
While the Lebanese government has come under criticism for often ignoring the plight of its citizens in the south, the Syrian government completely refrains from addressing the ongoing occupation and war crimes committed in the south of their country.
The refusal of Damascus to even voice its concern about the chemical warfare being waged against its people and lands has made it less of an issue than in Lebanon, as Beirut has raised its voice.
“The deliberate targeting of civilian farmland violates international humanitarian law, particularly the prohibition on attacking or destroying objects indispensable to civilian survival,” commented the Switzerland-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
It also demanded accountability for Israel’s “large-scale destruction of private property without specific military necessity amounts to a war crime and undermines food security and basic livelihoods in the affected areas.”
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
Trump wanted to play peacemaker, Netanyahu made sure he failed
By William Van Wagenen | The Cradle | January 27, 2026
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier.” — US President Donald Trump’s second inaugural address in January 2025.
Within a year, Trump had ordered unprovoked strikes on Iran and Venezuela, and his signature peace deals in Gaza and Syria lay in ruins. In both cases, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posed as a supporter of Trump’s efforts – only to systematically sabotage them from within.
Gaslighting Gaza
During the transition into his second term, Trump’s team played a central role in finalizing a 15 January 2025 ceasefire in Gaza that halted major fighting and secured the phased return of Israeli captives held by Hamas since 7 October 2023. Trump then publicly embraced that outcome during his inauguration, stating: “I’m pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families.”
The first phase of the deal halted Israeli bombing, saw 33 captives freed, 2,000 Palestinian prisoners released, and allowed humanitarian aid to flood Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians began returning to northern areas. The next phase, which aimed to end the war entirely and release the remaining captives, never materialized.
However, Netanyahu immediately undermined Trump by refusing to authorize his team to negotiate the core elements of phase two of the ceasefire in talks that were supposed to begin on 3 February 2025.
“While Israel signed on to the deal,” the Times of Israel wrote, Netanyahu “refused to even hold talks regarding the terms of phase two.” Instead, he suddenly “insisted that Israel will not end the war until Hamas’s governing and military capabilities have been destroyed.”
As the end of phase one approached, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, tried to salvage the deal by submitting a bridge proposal that would have seen the first phase of the ceasefire extended by several weeks, in exchange for the release of five Israeli captives.
Though Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanoua publicly stated the resistance movement “looked at the proposal positively,” Netanyahu rejected this proposal as well, sabotaging Trump’s ceasefire once again.
Instead, on 2 March, one day after the phase two should have begun, Netanyahu finally agreed to extend the first phase for another 42 days, until the end of the Passover holiday.
He sabotaged talks by blockading Gaza, cutting off essentials, and pushing two million Palestinians toward famine. The Trump White House publicly backed Israel’s siege, saying it would “support” the blockade, effectively endorsing the collapse of its own peace initiative.
Netanyahu then put the nail in the coffin of Trump’s plan by unilaterally ending the ceasefire. On 18 March, Israel unleashed a “shock aerial offensive,” killing more than 400 Palestinians, including five senior Hamas officials and many women and children, in just one day.
“We never expected the war to return,” said Ibrahim Deeb, after 35 members of his family were killed in a strike on their home in a neighborhood in Gaza City.
Netanyahu’s actions not only nullified the ceasefire but also openly defied the White House. PBS later confirmed that Israel’s shock offensive in March was the “culmination” of Netanyahu’s “efforts to get out of the ceasefire with Hamas that he agreed to in January,” the agreement Trump had championed.
Netanyahu derails Trump’s 20-point plan
Undeterred, Trump pushed forward a new ceasefire alongside a 20-point peace plan, which took effect on 10 October, and was later passed at the UN Security Council in November 2025. Hamas complied, releasing all captives, alive and dead. Tel Aviv responded by violating nearly every term of the plan.
The ceasefire stated that “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen.”
However, Israeli bombing continued, killing at least 442 Palestinians over the next four months, including through air strikes, shelling, and gunfire across Gaza. According to The Lancet, the ceasefire barely improved the “horrific” situation in Gaza.
Despite pledging to freeze battle lines, Israel kept bombing Gaza, killing hundreds more. It refused to withdraw from the agreed areas, expanded its military presence west of the so-called “Yellow Line,” and shot Palestinians attempting to return to their homes.
Future phases called for staged withdrawals of Israeli troops to around 40 percent and 15 percent of Gaza’s territory, with the final stage allowing Israel to maintain a security perimeter around the enclave until it is “secure” from any “resurgent terror threat.”
However, over the next four months, Israeli forces refused to withdraw eastward from their positions along the Yellow Line. Instead, they pushed further west, conquering more territory and continuing the systematic demolition of Palestinian neighborhoods, BBC reported, based on satellite images.
Israeli forces also shot and killed Palestinians entering newly seized areas west of the line. In one case, Israeli troops shot and killed 17-year-old Zaher Nasser Shamiya even though he was on the west side of the Yellow Line.
“The tank turned his body into pieces … it came into the safe area [west of the Yellow Line] and ran over him,” his father told the BBC.
Facilitating humanitarian aid?
Trump’s plan also stipulated 600 aid trucks per day. Israel allowed just 171. Washington’s own Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) was ignored by Israeli authorities, who blocked critical items like scalpels and tent poles. As Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council warned, “The credibility of the United States is at stake here.”
On 30 December, Israel undermined Trump’s plan further, barring 37 international NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam, and Mercy Corps, from operating in Gaza.
A “Board of Peace” and international force meant to administer Gaza never materialized, as Netanyahu stonewalled amnesty offers for Hamas fighters. Trump hoped to start disarming the resistance with a pilot program, offering fighters safe passage abroad. Netanyahu responded by ordering their assassination.
The destruction of this pilot scheme sealed the fate of Trump’s Gaza project. Without Hamas being disarmed and a civilian authority in place, Trump’s vision of Gaza as a neoliberal “Riviera in the Middle East” collapsed.
Undermining peace in Syria
Netanyahu did not stop at Gaza. In Syria, he again undercut Trump’s attempts at diplomacy.
Both Washington and Tel Aviv supported self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s rise to power in Damascus as part of the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore. However, Trump and Netanyahu have pursued different policies toward Syria since Sharaa, the ex-Al-Qaeda leader who went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
After Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) takeover of the Syrian capital, the Trump administration immediately sought to bolster Sharaa’s legitimacy.
On 20 December, Trump sent Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf to Damascus to meet Sharaa and pave the way for removing his and HTS’s terrorist designations.
While Netanyahu celebrated Sharaa’s entry into Damascus, even taking credit for it, Israel nevertheless began implementing a policy of keeping its northern neighbor “weak and fragmented.”
Israeli forces swiftly launched 480 airstrikes to destroy Syrian military assets and invaded southwest Syria, seizing 155 square miles of territory, including positions atop Mount Hermon, a strategic peak straddling the Syria–Lebanon border.
Despite covertly providing weapons, medical assistance, cash, and even air support to HTS during the 14-year war against Assad, Israeli officials continued to refer to Sharaa as a terrorist in the media after he finally reached power.
Israel also lobbied to keep brutal US sanctions in place, in part through the influence of US Congressman Brian Mast, a dual US-Israeli citizen and former soldier in the Israeli army.
In contrast, Trump promoted Sharaa, granting him a personal meeting in Riyadh on 14 May after calling for the removal of the sanctions the day before.
After the meeting, Trump praised Sharaa, who spent years dispatching suicide bombers to kill civilians in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, describing him as a “young, attractive guy” with a very “strong past.”
Trump soon dispatched his special envoy, Tom Barack, to facilitate a peace agreement between Syria and Israel.
“It starts with a dialogue,” Barrack stated during a visit to Damascus in which he raised the American flag over the US ambassador’s residence. “I’d say we need to start with just a nonaggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders.”
Trump continued to promote Sharaa in the following months, despite massacring thousands of Alawite civilians on Syria’s coast in March and hundreds of Druze civilians in the country’s southern Suwayda Governorate.
In contrast, Israeli officials continued to undermine Sharaa, calling him a “jihadist terrorist of the Al-Qaeda school” in the press and pledging to defend Syria’s Druze from his Sunni extremist-dominated army, despite Israel’s covert role in “green-lighting” Sharaa’s massacres of both the Alawites and Druze.
However, Trump’s love affair with Sharaa continued in the following months, as Washington continued to lobby Tel Aviv to sign a security agreement with Damascus.
On 17 September, Sharaa said that Syria was seeking “something like” the 1974 Israel–Syria Disengagement Agreement concluded after the Yom Kippur War.
Four days later, a senior Trump administration official told Israeli media that such a security agreement was “99 percent” complete. “It’s really a question of timing and also the Syrians communicating it to their people,” the official said.
A five-hour meeting in London between Syrian and Israeli officials “fueled anticipation” that an agreement could be announced later that week, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Tel Aviv kills the deal
While Trump sought a Syria–Israel nonaggression pact, Tel Aviv piled on new demands, including a walled humanitarian corridor for Druze populations and permanent Israeli control of Mount Hermon. Even after Sharaa conceded to key Israeli demands, a planned security agreement collapsed at the last minute.
But Trump continued to support Sharaa, removing him from the Treasury Department’s “specially designated global terrorist list” and welcoming him to the White House on 10 November.
Trump fumed but did not retaliate. When Netanyahu bombed the Beit Jinn in late November, killing 13, Trump urged Tel Aviv to maintain a “strong and true dialogue” with Syria. Netanyahu responded by demanding a demilitarized buffer zone all the way to Damascus – a maximalist condition that ensured no agreement could be signed.
Eventually, a US-mediated mechanism was established for limited security coordination. In return, Washington gave Sharaa a green light to attack Kurdish forces in Aleppo and northeast Syria. Even then, Netanyahu’s sabotage succeeded as the broader Syria–Israel agreement never materialized.
Who’s the superpower?
Asked recently if there were any limits on his power, Trump replied: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
But recent history suggests otherwise. Trump’s ego-driven quest to play peacemaker in West Asia was thwarted not by external enemies but by a supposed ally in Tel Aviv. Netanyahu, by relentlessly undermining two major US-led peace initiatives, exposed a blunt truth about power in Washington.
As former US president Bill Clinton once said after a fraught first meeting with Netanyahu three decades ago: “Who the fuck does he think he is? Who’s the fucking superpower here?”
From Proxy to Disposable: The US Betrayal of the Syrian Kurds
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | January 24, 2026
A collapse of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria, at the hands of the Syrian army, should be a lesson for all regional movements siding with the United States. This should serve as a warning to supporters of the current Syrian government as well.
The United States had supported the rise of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2015. That support has now come to an end. For the Kurdish movement inside northeastern Syria, the aim was autonomy, and the territory they captured was viewed as Rojava, part of historic Kurdistan. The primary enemy of Kurdish national movements has been Türkiye, and their project spans Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian territory.
Unfortunately for the Kurds, this meant that their cause was treated as something to be exploited by the US, Israel, and various other actors. In Syria’s case, the US helped establish SDF rule in October 2015, backing its forces against ISIS almost immediately after Russia entered the Syrian war on the side of the government in Damascus at the end of September that year.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), with Russian air support, quickly turned the tables on ISIS and began pushing toward the western banks of the Euphrates River. On the other side lay the al-Omar oil fields, home to the vast majority of Syria’s natural resources, which at the time were being exploited by ISIS.
Washington’s project in Syria since 2012, through initiatives such as CIA Operation Timber Sycamore, was to back anti-government forces to effect regime change in Damascus. For a long time, the situation inside Syria appeared as though forces loyal to then-President Bashar al-Assad were on the verge of defeat. This left Kurdish-majority regions without protection and exposed to the brutality of takfiri militants.
When the SAA began pushing ISIS back and appeared capable of reclaiming Syria’s oil fields and fertile agricultural lands, the Americans suddenly launched a major air campaign against ISIS and aided the formation of the SDF as their ground force. Put simply, the SDF was formed to serve as Washington’s proxy, ensuring that the government in Damascus could not regain access to the nation’s breadbasket and natural resources.
The SDF made major advances on the ground and gained control over much of the Syrian-Turkish border region. In Ankara’s eyes, this Kurdish force inside Syria posed a major security threat and was linked to groups such as the PKK, which Türkiye designates as a terrorist organization.
In January 2018, Türkiye launched Operation Olive Branch to seize Afrin from the Kurdish-led SDF. What did the US do? It withdrew its forces and backed off, completely abandoning its allies. Then, in October 2019, the Turkish military launched another operation called Operation Peace Spring, capturing additional border territory in northeastern Syria. Once again, the US abandoned the SDF.
After these betrayals, it should have been clear that the relationship between the United States and the SDF was one of master and proxy, not mutual partnership. Many on the Left argued that the SDF’s project was just and sought to liberate the Kurdish people in their ancestral lands, while others argued that Arab-majority territory should not be ruled by a Kurdish minority. Regardless of which argument carried more moral weight, the United States was never interested in this debate.
When Bashar al-Assad was deposed, and Ahmed al-Shara’a entered Damascus, the usefulness of the SDF evaporated. US support for the Kurdish movement had always been about keeping Syria’s agricultural lands and resources out of the central government’s hands, ensuring the effectiveness of Caesar Act sanctions. The strategy was one of pure cynicism, dangling self-determination before a people to economically strangle the rest of Syria.
The moment Washington achieved its goal of installing a pro-US and pro-Western government in Damascus, it immediately abandoned the ally it had backed for a decade. The lesson is clear: siding with the United States does not bring liberation, only chaos, death, and destruction.
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s rise was supported by the CIA, after which he became one of Washington’s favored dictators in West Asia. He fought Iran on US orders and used chemical weapons supplied by the West against the Kurdish population. Western media then attempted to blame Iran. When his usefulness ended, he was destroyed.
The same pattern applies to Iran’s former Shah, a US favorite to such an extent that Washington sent currency printing plates to Tehran and used its embassy there as a hub for CIA operations across Asia. After the Iranian people overthrew his brutal dictatorship, the Shah died in exile in Egypt.
Unfortunately, due to the Kurdish-led SDF and parts of the Kurdish movements in Iraq and Iran, strong ties developed with Israel and Israeli intelligence. This has fostered the stereotype that Kurdish movements are inherently pro-Israel, which is untrue. In fact, the PKK would not have emerged as a major force without Palestinian resistance groups.
The PKK ordered its forces to fight Israel during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, even against the advice of some Palestinian leaders who feared they would suffer heavily due to inexperience at the time. It was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine that were chiefly responsible for training the PKK in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley, while even Fatah provided support.
There is a shared history of Kurdish movements and Palestinian resistance working together, although this relationship is not as widespread today. What it demonstrates, however, is that organic and pragmatic alliances between regional movements are possible. The United States is never present to deliver freedom. It is there to extract what it wants and then dispose of its proxies.
This lesson should resonate with many Syrians who currently support their leaders’ alignment with the United States. Just as many among the Kurdish population allowed emotions to cloud judgment and failed to see what was in front of them, the same risk now applies to supporters of Ahmed al-Shara’a.
A serious question must be asked. If the United States could so easily abandon a group it helped create, arm, and work with for a decade, one that made enormous efforts to align itself with Western liberal democracy, why would it side with the leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as a matter of principle? There is no principle involved, only strategic calculation, and it is the Syrian people who will ultimately pay the price.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
Six injured in stabbing spree at Kurdish rally in Antwerp, victims stabbed ‘indiscriminately’
By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | January 23, 2026
Six people were injured, two of them seriously, in a knife attack during a Kurdish demonstration in Antwerp on Thursday evening, Belgian police said.
Four suspects have been arrested, and an investigation into attempted murder has been opened. A second demonstration planned for Friday has been cancelled out of respect for the victims.
The attack took place shortly after 7 p.m. on Operaplein, outside the Antwerp Opera House, where around 300 people had gathered for a demonstration in support of Kurds in northeastern Syria. According to police cited by De Standaard, the protest had been peaceful and was already dispersing when the violence broke out.
“All six victims suffered stab wounds,” Antwerp police spokesman Wouter Bruyns said, as reported by RTL. Four of the injured were found on Operaplein, while two others were located near Rooseveltplaats and Sint-Elisabethstraat. “Two of them are in critical condition,” he added. All victims were taken to the hospital.
Emergency services arrived with several medical teams, and police officers who were already present at the demonstration were able to intervene quickly and provide first aid. Four suspects were arrested at the scene. Bruyns said investigators were still working to determine the exact number of attackers and their motives and were reviewing CCTV footage.
NavBel, the council of Kurdish communities in Belgium, said in a statement that the demonstration had taken place “peacefully and without incident,” with families, women, young people, and children present. “As the gathering was dispersing, the Kurdish demonstrators were attacked by a group of men,” the organization said. “These men had infiltrated the demonstration and suddenly pulled out knives,” stabbing protesters “indiscriminately.”
“People were running in every direction; it was pure chaos,” one eyewitness told Gazet van Antwerpen. Another witness said a group passing by suddenly pulled out knives and began stabbing people who were sitting on the steps of the opera house.
NavBel said that three of the injured were Kurds and announced that a further demonstration scheduled for Friday in Antwerp had been cancelled “out of respect for the victims and in order to preserve serenity.”
The demonstration had been organized to draw attention to the situation in northeastern Syria, where the Islamist government army has moved against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the autonomous region of Rojava. Orhan Kilic, a spokesperson for NavBel, said fears of new human rights violations against Kurds were high, citing the background of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Kilic described the Antwerp stabbing as a “terrorist attack” and urged police to treat it as such. “There were flags, emblems, and so on,” he said. “It clearly involved Kurds who support the SDF.”
Current Syrian President Al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani (al-Julani), was the former leader of the Sunni Islamist militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Protesters say he is responsible for massacres and the displacement of civilians during the civil war
Protesters have also stated that minorities, including Kurds, Alevis, Alawites, and Christians, remain under acute threat in Syria.
How Syria’s Kurds were erased from the US-led endgame
Paris marked the moment Washington quietly aligned with Ankara and Tel Aviv to close the Kurdish chapter in Syria’s war
By Musa Ozugurlu | The Cradle | January 21, 2026
For nearly 15 years, US flags flew over Syrian territory with near-total impunity – from Kurdish towns to oil-rich outposts. In the northeast, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) manned checkpoints, American convoys moved freely, and local councils governed as if the arrangement was permanent.
The occupation was not formal, but it did not need to be. So long as Washington stayed, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) had a state in everything but name.
Then, in the first week of January, that illusion was broken. What had passed for a military partnership was quietly dismantled in a Paris backroom – without Kurdish participation, without warning, and without resistance. Within days, Washington’s most loyal proxy in Syria no longer had its protection.
A collapse that looked sudden only from the outside
Since late last year, Syria’s political and military terrain shifted with startling speed. Former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s rule came to an end, and shortly afterward, the SDF – long portrayed as the most disciplined and organized force in the country – followed the same trajectory.
To outside or casual observers, the SDF collapse appeared abrupt, even shocking. For many Syrians, particularly Syrian Kurds, the psychology of victory that had defined the past 14 years evaporated in days. What replaced it was confusion, fear, and a growing realization that the guarantees they had relied on were never guarantees at all.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – an extremist militant group stemming from the Nusra Front – advanced with unexpected momentum, achieving gains few analysts had predicted. But the real story was the absence of resistance from forces that, until recently, had been told they were indispensable.
The question, then, is not how this happened so quickly, but why the ground had already been cleared.
The illusion of fixed positions
To understand the outcome, it is necessary to revisit the assumptions each actor carried into this phase of the war.
The SDF emerged in the immediate aftermath of the US-led intervention against Damascus. It was never intended to be a purely Kurdish formation. From the outset, its leadership understood that ethnic exclusivity would doom its international standing. Arab tribes and other non-Kurdish components were incorporated to project the image of a multi-ethnic, representative force.
Ironically, those same tribal elements would later become one of the fault lines that accelerated the SDF’s disintegration.
Militarily, the group benefited enormously from circumstance. As the Syrian Arab Army fought on multiple fronts and redeployed forces toward strategic battles – particularly around Aleppo – the SDF expanded with minimal resistance. Territory was acquired less through confrontation than through absence.
Washington’s decision to enter Syria under the banner of fighting Assad and later ISIS provided the SDF with its most valuable asset: international legitimacy. Under US protection, the Kurdish movement translated decades of regional political experience into a functioning de facto autonomous administration.
It looked like history was bending in their favor.
Turkiye’s red line never moved
From Ankara’s perspective, Syria was always about two objectives. The first was the removal of Assad, a goal for which Turkiye was willing to cooperate with almost anyone, including Kurdish actors. Channels opened, and messages were exchanged. At times, the possibility of accommodation seemed real.
But the Kurdish leadership made a strategic choice. Believing their US alliance gave them leverage, they closed the door and insisted on pursuing their own agenda.
Turkiye’s second objective never wavered: preventing the emergence of any Kurdish political status in Syria. A recognized Kurdish entity next door threatened to shift regional balances and, more importantly, embolden Kurdish aspirations inside Turkiye itself.
That concern would eventually align Turkiye’s interests with actors it had previously opposed.
Washington’s priorities were never ambiguous
The US did not hide its hierarchy of interests in West Asia. Preserving strategic footholds mattered. But above all else stood Israel’s security.
Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023 handed Washington and Tel Aviv a rare opportunity. As the Gaza genocidal war unfolded and the Axis of Resistance absorbed sustained pressure, the US gained a new and more flexible partner in Syria alongside the Kurds: HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani when he was an Al-Qaeda chief.
Sharaa’s profile checked every box. His positions on Israel and Palestine posed no challenge. His sectarian background reassured regional capitals. His political outlook promised stability without resistance. Where the Assads had generated five decades of friction, Sharaa offered predictability.
For Washington and Tel Aviv, he represented a cleaner solution.
Designing a Syria without resistance
With Sharaa in place, Israel found itself operating in Syrian territory with unprecedented ease. Airstrikes intensified. Targets that once risked escalation now passed without response. Israeli soldiers skied on Mount Hermon and posted selfies from positions that had been inaccessible for decades.
Damascus, for the first time in modern history, posed no strategic discomfort.
More importantly, Syria under Sharaa became fully accessible to global capital. Sanctions narratives softened while reconstruction frameworks emerged. The war’s political economy entered a new phase.
In this equation, a Syria without the SDF suited everyone who mattered. For Turkiye, it meant eliminating the Kurdish question. For Israel, it meant a northern border stripped of resistance. For Washington, it meant a redesigned Syrian state aligned with its regional architecture.
The name they all converged on was the same.
Paris: Where the decision was formalized
On 6 January, Syrian and Israeli delegations met in Paris under US mediation. It was the first such encounter in the history of bilateral relations. Publicly, the meeting was framed around familiar issues: Israeli withdrawal, border security, and demilitarized zones. But those headlines were cosmetic.
Instead, the joint statement spoke of permanent arrangements, intelligence sharing, and continuous coordination mechanisms.
Yet these points were also clearly peripheral. The real content of the talks is evident in the outcomes now unfolding. Consider the following excerpt from the statement:
“The Sides reaffirm their commitment to strive toward achieving lasting security and stability arrangements for both countries. Both Sides have decided to establish a joint fusion mechanism – a dedicated communication cell – to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement, and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the United States.”
Following this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office “stressed … the need to advance economic cooperation for the benefit of both countries.”
Journalist Sterk Gulo was among the first to note the implications, writing that “An alliance was formed against the Autonomous Administration at the meeting held in Paris.”
From that moment, the SDF’s fate was sealed.
Ankara’s pressure campaign
Turkiye had spent years working toward this outcome. Reports suggest that a late-2025 agreement to integrate SDF units into the Syrian army at the division level was blocked at the last minute due to Ankara’s objections. Even Sharaa’s temporary disappearance from the public eye – which sparked rumors of an assassination attempt – was linked by some to internal confrontations over this issue.
According to multiple accounts, Turkiye’s Ambassador Tom Barrack was present at meetings in Damascus where pro-SDF clauses were rejected outright. Physical confrontations followed. Sharaa vanished until he could reappear without explaining the dispute.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was present in Paris and played an active role in the negotiations. Its demands were clear: US support for the SDF must end, and the so-called “David Corridor” must be blocked. In exchange, Turkiye would not obstruct Israeli operations in southern Syria.
It was a transactional alignment – and it worked.
Removing the last obstacle
With the SDF sidelined, Sharaa’s consolidation of power became possible. Control over northeastern Syria allowed Damascus to focus on unresolved files elsewhere, including the Druze question.
What followed was predictable. Clashes in Aleppo before the new year were test runs. The pattern had been seen before.
In 2018, during Turkiye’s Olive Branch operation, the SDF announced it would defend Afrin. Damascus offered to take control of the area and organize its defense. The offer was refused – likely under US pressure. On the night resistance was expected, the SDF withdrew.
The same script replayed in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh. Resistance lasted days. Supplies from east of the Euphrates never arrived. Withdrawal followed.
The American exit, again
Many assumed that the Euphrates line still mattered. That HTS advances west of the river would not be repeated in the east. That Washington would intervene when its Kurdish partner was directly threatened.
The shock came when HTS moved toward Deir Ezzor, and Arab tribes defected en masse. These tribes had been on the US payroll. The message was unmistakable: salaries would now come from elsewhere.
Meanwhile, meetings between Sharaa and the Kurds, which were expected to formalize agreements, were delayed twice, and clashes broke out immediately after.
Washington had already decided.
US officials attempted to sell a new vision to Kurdish leaders: participation in a unified Syrian state without distinct political status. The SDF rejected this, and demanded constitutional guarantees. It also refused to dissolve its forces, citing security concerns.
The Kurdish group’s mistake was believing history would not repeat itself.
Afghanistan should have been enough of a warning.
What remains
Syria has entered a new phase. Power is now organized around a Turkiye–Israel–US triangle, with Damascus as the administrative center of a project designed elsewhere.
The Druze are next. If Israel’s security is guaranteed under the Paris framework, HTS forces will eventually push toward Suwayda.
The Alawites remain – isolated and exposed.
The fallout is ongoing. On 20 January, the SDF announced its withdrawal from Al-Hawl Camp – a detention center for thousands of ISIS prisoners and their families – citing the international community’s failure to assist.
Damascus accused the Kurds of deliberately releasing detainees. The US, whose base sits just two kilometers from the site of a major prison break, declined to intervene.
Washington’s silence in the face of chaos near its own installations only confirmed what the Kurds are now forced to accept: the alliance is over.
Ultimately, it was not just a force that collapsed. It was a whole strategy of survival built on the hope that imperial interests might someday align with Kurdish aspirations.
Regime Change In Iran Is The Final Phase Of The ‘Clean Break’ Strategy
The Dissident | January 21, 2026
Lindsey Graham, the Neo-con Republican Senator, at the Zionist Tzedek conference, gave the real reason for America’s policy of regime change in Iran, namely to isolate the Palestinians in the Middle East and pave the way for Israeli domination.
Graham, referring to regime change in Iran said, “If we can pull this off, it would be the biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years: Hamas, Hezbollah gone, the Houthis gone, the Iranian people an ally not an enemy, the Arab world moving towards Israel without fear, Saudi-Israel normalize, no more October the 7th”.
In other words, Lindsey Graham and the U.S. believe that regime change in Iran would lead to the collapse of Palestinian resistance and allied groups Hezbollah and Ansar Allah and lead Middle Eastern powers to normalize with Israel without any concessions to Palestinians, thus paving the way for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank, and further expansion into Syria and Lebanon in service of the Greater Israel project.
This motive is not only driving the desire for regime change in Iran, but has been the main motive for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since 9/11, not fighting a “war on terror”.
In 1996, key figures who ended up in high level positions in the Bush administration, such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, who were at the time advising the newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu, sent him a letter titled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, which called on him to make a “clean break” from peace talks with Palestinians and instead focus on isolating them in the region, first a for-most by, “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right”.
Netanyahu kept to his word and made his “Clean Break” from the Oslo Accords during his first term as Prime Minister, later boasting:
how he forced former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher to agree to let Israel alone determine which parts of the West Bank were to be defined as military zones. ‘They didn’t want to give me that letter,’ Netanyahu said, ‘so I didn’t give them the Hebron agreement [the agreement giving Hebron back to the Palestinians]. I cut the cabinet meeting short and said, ‘I’m not signing.’ Only when the letter came, during that meeting, to me and to Arafat, did I ratify the Hebron agreement. Why is this important? Because from that moment on, I de facto put an end to the Oslo accords.”
Soon after, the authors of the clean break document became key advisors on the Middle East in the George W. Bush administration.
After 9/11, they used the attack to carry out the “important Israeli strategic objective” of “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq”, who was seen as too sympathetic to Palestinians.
As David Wurmser, one of the authors of the clean break document and the Middle East Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, later admitted , “In terms of Israel, we wanted Yasser Arafat not to have the cavalry over the horizon in terms of Saddam”.
George W. Bush aide, Philip Zelikow said , “the real threat (from Iraq) (is) the threat against Israel”, “this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat”, “the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell”.
But for Israel and the Bush administration, the war in Iraq was just the first phase of the “clean break strategy”, to take out all of Israel’s enemies in the Middle East.
As the U.S. General Wesley Clark revealed the clean break went from a plan to take out Saddam Hussein in Iraq to a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran”. (Emphasis added)
As Clark later explained on the Piers Morgan show, the list came from a study which was “paid for by the Israelis” and said, “if you want to protect Israel, and you want Israel to succeed… you’ve got to get rid of the states that are surrounding”.
With every other country on the hit list either weakened (Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan) or taken out (Iraq, Libya, Syria) from the ensuing years of U.S. and Israeli intervention, Neo-cons and Zionists see Iran as the last bulwark in the way of carrying out the Clean Break plan.
Israel–Syria security pact stumbles as Tel Aviv rejects withdrawal: Report
The Cradle | January 14, 2026
Israel has refused any withdrawal from Mount Hermon and the other areas of Syria it occupied after the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government, while rejecting Russian patrols in the country’s south and demanding that Damascus be prohibited from ever possessing air defenses, Hebrew media revealed.
“The Israeli position is clear and non-negotiable: there will be no withdrawal from Mount Hermon,” an Israeli official was cited as saying by Hebrew newspaper Maariv on 14 January.
According to the report, talks are stalling due to Damascus’s demand that a security agreement with Tel Aviv be linked to a withdrawal of Israeli army forces from Syria.
The Israeli report added that Tel Aviv is concerned with a Syrian attempt to re-establish a Russian military presence in southern Syria. Israel considers this move a direct threat to its “freedom of action,” Maariv claimed.
The source told the newspaper that Israel is obstructing plans to deploy Russian forces in southern Syria, and that Tel Aviv has conveyed to Damascus, Moscow, and Washington that it will not allow a Russian presence.
Russian media had reported last year that the Syrian government was requesting a resumption of Russian military patrols in the south in order to help limit continuous Israeli raids and incursions.
The sources add that Tel Aviv is following with concern reports that Damascus is hoping to purchase weapons from Russia and Turkiye.
“The Israeli message conveyed to all relevant parties [is that] Israel will not agree that in any future security arrangement, Syria will have strategic weapons, primarily advanced air defense systems and weapons that could change the regional balance of power,” according to Maariv.
“The Israeli goal is clear: freezing the existing situation – without an IDF withdrawal from Mount Hermon, without Syrian reinforcements, and without a foreign military presence that limits the IDF.”
In particular, Israel is demanding a complete demilitarization of southern Syria. “Israel’s security-strategic interest comes first. For now, Trump accepts this position.”
The report also says that the two rounds of Syrian–Israeli talks in Paris last week made “no breakthrough was achieved,” only a “limited understanding” for “the establishment of a coordination mechanism aimed at preventing clashes on the ground, with active US involvement.”
A joint statement by Washington, Tel Aviv, and Damascus on 6 January said that Syria and Israel have agreed to establish a US-supervised “joint fusion mechanism” to “share intelligence” and pursue de-escalation.
Damascus and Tel Aviv “reaffirm their commitment to strive toward achieving lasting security and stability arrangements for both countries,” the statement said, adding that they agreed to “establish a joint fusion mechanism – a dedicated communication cell.”
This mechanism aims “to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement, and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the US.”
“This mechanism will serve as a platform to address any disputes promptly and work to prevent misunderstandings,” according to the statement, published by the US State Department after the two rounds of Paris talks.
The Israeli army occupied large swathes of southern Syria as soon as Assad’s government fell, declaring the 1974 Disengagement Agreement null. It has since established permanent outposts and has seized control over vital water sources – practically encircling the Syrian capital.
The occupation continues to expand as Israeli forces carry out almost daily raids. In a span of one year, the Israeli army attacked Syria over 600 times.
Tel Aviv and the new Syrian government have been engaged in direct talks for nearly a year to reach a security arrangement. Damascus has vowed that it has no interest in confronting Israel and has reportedly made commitments to coordinate with Tel Aviv against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Axis of Resistance.
Despite this, Israel has shown no willingness to pull out of Syria.
Negotiations stalled for several weeks before Hebrew media reported in late December that “significant progress” had been made and that a deal could be announced “soon.”
A Syrian source told Israeli outlet i24 on 27 December that there was the possibility of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syria’s self-appointed President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former Al-Qaeda chief.
US President Donald Trump is reportedly pressuring both sides to reach a deal quickly.
Is a New Saudi-Led Axis Forming against the UAE & Israel?
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | January 12, 2026
The emergence of a new alliance in the region has the potential to challenge some of Israel’s more aggressive endeavors, so this could end up working in favor of the Palestinian people in some regards.
Prior to October 7, 2023, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia appeared poised to join the so-called “Abraham Accords” alliance and normalize ties with Israel. Now it appears to be forming new alliances and even undermining Israeli interests, pursuing a different regional cooperation agenda. Where this leads will be key to the future of the region.
In September of 2023, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, had informed Fox News that normalization with the Israelis was growing closer. This development came as then-US President Joe Biden had been seeking to broker such an agreement, which appeared to be his administration’s planned crowning achievement in the foreign policy realm.
The Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood operation changed the regional equation entirely. Riyadh, instead of normalizing ties with the Israelis and seeking concessions from the United States in order to enter into a regional alliance against Iran, began considering a different option entirely.
Israel’s weakness in the face of the Hamas-led attack was one message to the entire region, which was that if it could not even take care of its own security issues against a guerrilla army equipped with light weapons, then how could an agreement with Tel Aviv ensure the security of its allies? Another element to the developments in Gaza was that Israel decided to commit a genocide in order to restore its image in the region and in a gambit to “solve the Gaza question”.
This behavior, combined with attacks on nations across the region, evidently served to set normalization talks back and pushed Saudi Arabia to reaffirm its commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative of the 2000s—in other words, no normalization without a viable Palestinian State.
Then came the Israeli bombing of neighboring Qatar, a message to all Gulf nations that Israel is ready to act against any of their territories. It was even reported that Israel’s missiles flew over Saudi airspace in order to reach their target.
Since then, Saudi Arabia has been busy attempting to secure its interests and has signed a security pact with Pakistan as part of this effort. It is very likely that a large driving element behind this deal was to ensure that a future Iran-Israel war would not impact them directly. The Saudis are also currently working to strengthen their ties with Iran.
Yet Riyadh didn’t stop with Pakistan; it is now reportedly in high-level talks with Turkey in an attempt to bring them into the fold of their security agreement, in what is being labeled a Middle East NATO project. While it is perhaps too soon to predict the outcome of these talks and where such an agreement would lead, it suffices to say that there is certainly a realignment going on in West Asia.
The ongoing feud between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia was sent into overdrive when the Emiratis decided to order their proxies in Yemen to seize key regions of the nation’s east, home to 80% of the country’s oil reserves. These Southern Transitional Council (STC) separatists, backed by the UAE, took over the Mahra and Hadramaut provinces, posing a major security risk to the Saudis and Omanis.
In reaction to the UAE’s meddling, Riyadh decided to take the gloves off in Yemen and crushed the STC entirely. But the backlash against Abu Dhabi was not limited to the end of their proxy militia’s role in Yemen; instead, there was a media war in the UAE that aimed to expose its crimes across West Asia and in Africa, as well as a prepared economic blow.
As a result, there was a diplomatic fallout between the UAE and Algeria, over Abu Dhabi allegedly backing separatist movements there, and later the government of Somalia even rescinded its agreements with the Emiratis, following UAE-Israeli meddling in their affairs, in regard to the recognition of Somaliland as a State.
If Riyadh and Ankara do end up forming some kind of security alliance, it will likely also include Qatar. It would then prove interesting to see how they all coordinate on issues like Libya and Sudan. The Emiratis not only back the Rapid Support Forces militants in Sudan, who stand accused of committing genocide and mass rape, but long threw their weight behind warlord Khalifa Haftar in Libya.
This would also mean that the UAE’s role in Syria could be undermined or completely terminated, as it could also be forced from other areas of influence, like Iraq, too. It is clear that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have sway in Lebanon, so depending upon what their goals are there, this may prove an interesting development for the Lebanese predicament, too. The same goes for Egypt and beyond.
One thing to keep in mind is that such an alliance would not equate to an Axis of Resistance-style opposition to the Israelis. Although Riyadh may see it fit to teach its Emirati neighbors a lesson, the likelihood of any serious conflict with the Israelis is thin.
It is true that the Israelis, aided by their UAE lapdogs, are pursuing an ultra-aggressive policy in the region, especially against Ankara. Yet this competition is not one between warring nations seeking to defeat each other decisively; it is viewed, at least for now, as a competition instead. Turkey maintains its relations with Israel; the Saudis, on the other hand, have not formally recognized Tel Aviv, but have long been in communication with their Israeli counterparts.
An alliance of this nature does not serve as a new support system for any resistance front in the region; instead, it seeks to achieve security and to escape the grip of the emerging “Greater Israel” project. At this stage, it has become abundantly clear that there are no promises of a prosperous future through aligning fully with the Israelis; instead, Tel Aviv will aggressively pursue its interests against every nation in the region and doesn’t respect any agreements it signs. The recent Emirati-Israeli actions demonstrate this perfectly.
Ultimately, the emergence of a new alliance in the region has the potential to challenge some of Israel’s more aggressive endeavors, so this could end up working in favor of the Palestinian people in some regards.
This could prove beneficial to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which, instead of facing total isolation and seeking to combat Israeli schemes alone, may, on different issues, find itself on the same page as the Saudi-led alliance. Some analysts have posited that Tehran may eventually join such a security pact, although it is way too early to say if such a development is even on the cards.
Overall, we should not expect Riyadh to do a total one-hundred-and-eighty-degree foreign policy shift, nor should that be expected of Ankara; after all, they are US allies and maintain close relations with Washington. The real question is whether the United States is willing to push back against such an alliance for the sake of Israel, which is when things will really begin to get interesting.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
Syria is Normalizing Ties With Israel, Here’s Why – Analysis
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | January 7, 2026
On January 6, 2026, a joint statement was published by the US State Department, affirming that the Israelis and Syrians had established a “joint fusion mechanism”. Despite being labeled an official normalization deal, this mechanism works as a soft normalization arrangement.
As the topic of Syrian normalization is often one that triggers a rather aggressive reaction from all sides, it is important to cut through the propaganda to establish what just happened.
As a product of a direct meeting between Israeli and Syrian officials in Paris, with the participation of the United States, both Damascus and Tel Aviv have agreed to a quasi-normalization deal of sorts.
The joint statement that was published on the US State Department website makes the issue extremely clear: a “joint fusion mechanism”, or “dedicated communication cell”, has now been established. This mechanism includes facilitating Israeli-Syrian cooperation in the following arenas:
- Intelligence sharing
- Diplomatic engagement
- Commercial opportunities
- Military de-escalation
Some supporters of Syrian President, Ahmed al-Shara’a, have been adamant that what was reached and is being pursued is solely to do with security issues and the issue of southern Syria. Today’s joint statement thoroughly debunks any such claims.
At the same time, no formal normalization agreement has yet to be reached. However, if Syria is directly opening up such communications and striving towards “commercial opportunities” with Israel, it may not be sealed with a signed agreement and ceremony that brings Damascus directly into the so-called “Abraham Accords”, but this would be, for all intents and purposes, a normalization agreement.
There is no longer any space in which reasonable people can argue that Syria’s current leadership has not become a US-aligned force that seeks further cooperation with the Israelis. It is a fact that the US runs the show. The reason why this issue has become so taboo to speak about is that there are many who simply do not want to accept this reality.
According to polling data published by the Foreign Policy political journal on December 6, 2025, only 14% of Syrians said that they support the normalization of ties with Israel.
92% of Syrians also answered that Israel’s illegal occupation of territory in the region was a critical threat to their security. Another telling statistic was that a whopping 66% said they had favorable views of the United States.
These statistics are very telling and can help explain a lot about what is happening publicly, as opposed to privately, when it comes to Syrian-Israeli relations.
For a start, the vast majority of the Syrian people are opposed to normalization, meaning that if President Ahmed al-Shara’a were to publicly attend a signing with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, it would certainly cause a stir.
In other words, in the interests of stability, reaching a normalization agreement with Israel is best kept out of the spotlight. On the Israeli side, this could also work to their benefit. Netanyahu understands that in the event of signing a formal normalization deal, he may enjoy a propaganda victory, but will also have to make small concessions on his ambitions in southern Syria.
By establishing ties with the Syrian leadership, in the absence of an official normalization agreement, it will provide the Israelis with the ability to maintain freedom of action inside Syria. Meanwhile, the loyalists to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham government in Damascus will be able to deny the deep ties established between both sides and sell it as a deal comparable to the previous disengagement understandings that Israel tore up in December of 2024.
Another takeaway from the polling data is that a large percentage of Syrians view the US favorably, which explains the rather contradictory takes of some Syrians you may be seeing online. A popular view is that siding with the US is actually a smart idea and that Washington will help Syria rehabilitate itself.
Despite the US overtly being Israel’s closest ally and fueling the genocide in Gaza, which most Syrians oppose, many still manage to delude themselves into believing that in the new Syria that has emerged, the US role is unique in how it has behaved historically and continues to behave in every other country on earth. This is simply a case of mass self-deception and is, in some cases, a protective mechanism that enables people to live safely under a totally illogical worldview.
Where Is This Going?
At this current moment, the Israelis view the government of al-Shara’a as weak and are even anticipating its sudden collapse. Tel Aviv and Washington-based think tanks are also becoming more critical of the current regime in Damascus, after previously celebrating its rise to power. This is largely due to the inability of Ahmed al-Shara’a to bring his own forces and allied militias under control.
From the Syrian military parades late last year, it is very clear that a large contingent of fighters on the side of the Syrian leadership are in favor of a clash with the Israelis and were even filmed chanting for Gaza. Although this won’t result in the HTS leadership backing a defensive war, it is meaningful insofar as it applies enormous pressure and sends strong signals.
This deal is also meaningless to the Israelis, beyond what they are able to force the Syrian side to deliver for them. In all likelihood, we should expect the regime in Tel Aviv to treat the new mechanism like it does its ceasefire with Lebanon. By this, it means that the Israelis will demand that their requests be met by Damascus, some of which won’t be possible, while they continue to act with impunity, whenever and wherever they choose.
There are a number of key components to any security deal that may be signed in the near future between both sides, one of which will be the demand that the south of Syria be demilitarized. Damascus will agree to this, but is incapable of actually achieving such an outcome. The Bedouin tribes will not disarm as long as the Druze militias are armed, the villages and local militias of Dara’a will also refuse to give up their weapons, and so on.
In fact, if the Syrian authorities try to disarm their own people, who are under the direct threat of the Israeli occupation forces, it could even cause major destabilizing clashes. All throughout the country, organized militant groups, separatist movements, and local armed factions have refused to disarm.
The best the Syrian authorities have been able to do is to try to integrate many fighters into the ranks of their own security forces, which has already resulted in major issues for them; in one case, the killing of three US service members late last year.
There were even indications that an assassination attempt had just failed in the past week against Ahmed al-Shara’a, right before the latest round of direct talks with the Israelis was announced last Sunday.
Syria is also on the verge of a major conflict erupting to its northeast, with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with both the Alawites and Druze minorities now calling for federalism. While foreign powers have influence within these minority communities, they genuinely do not seem able to coexist in the current Syrian State, which is one that not only fails to protect their rights, but whose security forces themselves are filled with fighters who seek to exterminate them.
It is clear that Syria’s civil war is far from over; the only difference is that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) no longer exists, and Bashar al-Assad has been removed from the picture. Damascus used to be ruled by a leadership backed by Russia and Iran; now it’s ruled by a leadership that is backed by the US and Türkiye.
Ankara does have power in Syria, yet it has become clear that the US currently holds the major cards. So far, the Turkish government has failed to establish red lines and contest Israel inside the country, something that it needs to do in order to wield serious power. The US, UK, and even Israelis are the ones with the major sway at this current time, none of whom care to see Syria succeed for its own people.
All of this is relevant to the new Israeli-Syrian mechanism, as this deal is not one that the HTS leadership entered into from a position of strength. In fact, Damascus is being bullied by the United States and forced to accept realities imposed on it by the Israelis.
For Israel, it is a win-win deal. Either Syria fails to implement its side of the bargain and Zionism can continue to pursue its expansionist agenda; or, Syria succeeds and becomes more stable, plus it is on Tel Aviv’s side against its enemies in Lebanon and Iran.
For the Syrians, it’s a lose-lose deal. If they fail, the Israelis will batter them and they may even find the agreement further destabilizing the country; if they succeed in implementing their side, the Israelis will still act with impunity where they choose and instead of protecting their homeland, the Syrian people of the south will have no means of defending themselves.
Anyone framing this in a positive way is either lying to their audiences, lying to themselves, or both.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
Is Israel About to Return to Genocide? Three Scenarios for What Comes Next
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | December 30, 2025
With Tel Aviv openly rejecting withdrawal and insisting on disarmament, the “ceasefire” risks sliding into either renewed mass killing or a slow-motion attempt to impose control and displacement.
Debate rages on over what Phase Two of the Gaza Ceasefire will look like, as US President Donald Trump demands the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance. Meanwhile, Gaza refuses to hand over its weapons. Most analyses are, however, missing the mark when it comes to reading Tel Aviv’s calculations.
The so-called Gaza Ceasefire has proven itself to be little more than an extended pause in the mass slaughter of civilians. While it is still described as a ceasefire, there were three major changes to the predicament on the ground that took hold during “Phase One,” as the war continued to rage on.
The first major change, perhaps the most notable, was that the Israelis committed to no longer killing an average of around 100 civilians on a daily basis. The second was that more aid entered Gaza, although nowhere near the amount required or agreed to. The third was a mutual prisoner exchange.
Assessing the strength and direction of the ceasefire in its first phase is important to reading what the second phase may have in store, if it is even reached.
To the Israelis, the benefits of the partial implementation of Phase One were numerous. To begin with, the least consequential element, they relieved themselves of the burden of releasing their captives. This was important for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in that he managed to clear the topic of returning the captives, especially as he heads into a new election cycle.
Then we have the other benefits for the Israelis. Gaza exited the international headlines, as daily killings appeared too low to even register as a major issue in the biased Western press. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers were able to continue doing the exact same work inside Gaza that has constituted the majority of its military operations throughout the genocide: building demolition work.
These demolition missions, for which a privatized Israeli workforce has been employed to operate alongside the occupation army’s engineering units, have constituted the vast majority of the military’s efforts on the ground. Face-to-face combat on the ground has never been a notable feature of the Israeli genocide; they simply refused to actually fight the Palestinian resistance groups.
One thing that troubled the Israelis was that this demolition work, which sometimes included destroying entrances to tunnels, came with a high risk of running into armed ambushes. The Palestinian fighters would prepare traps and set up ambush operations for their forces, especially when Israel would invade or reinvade any new area they had not retained a permanent presence in.
Phase One of the Gaza Ceasefire agreement, therefore, guaranteed that soldiers were not going to be subjected to the same dangers as before, as the Palestinian resistance groups would halt all operations against the invading army.
It is important that this reality is established when analyzing Israel’s decision-making, because what is being done to Gaza is a genocide, not a conventional war. Israel’s intent is to wipe out Gaza, ensuring that it becomes totally uninhabitable, with the intention of mass expulsion in mind. This is also why they rarely targeted the armed wings of the Palestinian factions, focusing on maximum damage to the civilian population instead.
Any other way of framing this issue is misleading and whitewashes what the Israeli regime has committed since October 7, 2023. It also robs any analyst of his or her ability to assess Israel’s calculations critically.
With this in mind, consider that the Israelis have now had over two months where their armed forces have still been working, but have had a break from any fighting or the fear of being ambushed. Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other equipment were also being repaired, as the decision-makers in Tel Aviv and Washington designed new plans for their fronts against Iran, Yemen, and Lebanon.
They also needed fewer soldiers for security reasons, as a so-called Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) took over in monitoring the situation and helping shape the realities imposed on the ground. Every country involved in the CMCC was therefore made complicit in the genocide.
This phase came with the additional benefit for the Israelis that they now had the space to experiment with new approaches, conjure up more conspiracies, and seek to find a way to ensure the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip occurs. As Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has explicitly stated, his army has no intention of withdrawing from the besieged coastal territory.
Phase Two and What It Will Show Us
If we establish the fact that the Israelis are adamant on achieving ethnic cleansing, that their military operations have always sought to achieve this goal, and that they are continuing to conspire to achieve this, then we have arrived at the starting point from which to assess the implementation of a so-called Phase Two.
During the first phase, the groundwork was laid for a new set of conspiracies against the people of Gaza. The population was subjected to countless pressures, which the criminal CMCC oversaw, including the deprivation of sustainable living conditions, with only a handful of its nongovernmental organizations even raising issues about it.
Despite the best efforts of the Hamas-affiliated government security forces to restore order, they were dealing with an impossible situation. Over a million people live in tents that are unstable or susceptible to dire weather conditions, a lack of adequate medical supplies, sanitary supplies, and many food items are even restricted. Amid this, most people don’t have jobs, few have adequate salaries coming in, and even for those in a better economic standing, they remain traumatized and unable to return to their homes. Inevitably, this leads to social issues that no regular security force can fully repel.
Meanwhile, the Israelis expand the so-called Yellow Line, behind which they were supposed to remain, instead using this line to execute anyone who comes within a few hundred meters of it, thus deterring them from returning to their own homes or land, where they could possibly plant small crops. Behind this ever-expanding occupying line, the Israeli military and private contractors destroy more and more infrastructure. All of this is monitored by the US-Israeli-led CMCC.
The plan is rather overt in its goals, but still vague in its precise stages of implementation. Both US and Israeli officials have made it crystal clear that they seek reconstruction only inside the Israeli-controlled portion of the Gaza Strip, where five ISIS-linked death squads are being strengthened by Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The UN’s most shameful Resolution 2803, passed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in November, makes it apparent that the goal is to implement a “Board of Peace” (BoP) and International Stabilization Force (ISF). The BoP makes Donald Trump the de facto ruler of Gaza, and the ISF is set to be a multinational invasion force tasked with fighting the Palestinian resistance factions.
This Monday, the new spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades of Hamas, who has also taken on the alias Abu Obeida, announced a staunch opposition to disarmament, instead calling on the Israelis to disarm, as they are the ones responsible for committing a genocide. All the Palestinian factions, with the exception of the mainstream branch of Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA), are united on this issue.
The PA is in favor of Donald Trump’s plan for him to rule the Gaza Strip and disarm the resistance by force, but it is irrelevant in terms of representing Palestinians. This authority only continues to exist because it is propped up by the Israelis, Americans, Saudis, and Europeans, and its popularity, beyond its base of employees, is in the single digits among the Palestinian people. It does not even represent the sentiments of the majority of Fatah supporters anymore.
All of this is to say that if any Phase Two is going to be implemented, neither side is going to be in agreement about it. Netanyahu’s government demands disarmament, while the Palestinian factions demand Gaza’s self-governance and will only disarm by handing over their weapons to a newly established Palestinian state. Hamas is clear that it would allow a technocratic administration to take over Gaza and is not demanding that it remain as the government of Gaza.
Considering that neither side can agree upon the basis on which a Phase Two can begin, keeping in mind that Israel and the US are the sides with military dominance, there are three ways that this will unfold:
The US and Israel will proceed with aggressively implementing their plan, as laid out in the shameful UNSC Resolution 2803. They will begin deploying a regime change force and attempt to implement a number of schemes to start a slow ethnic cleansing of the territory amid this.
Israel will restart its full-scale genocide.
The shaky ceasefire will continue, but remain in limbo. This will mean periodic spats of violence, as the Israelis and the US attempt to slowly and partially implement the ISF-BoP agenda. This will be a process during which the people of Gaza will be subjected to more pressure, but not enough to collapse the agreement altogether.
An Aggressive Phase Two?
The first means of implementing the next phase of the Gaza Ceasefire initiative would likely buckle under the immense pressures destined to befall it. If we look at the ISF alone, it is a recipe for total disaster.
Forcing the “International Stabilization Force” aggressively on the people of Gaza means that it will start going after Palestinian resistance factions. Two major issues will immediately pop up. The resistance will certainly kill some of these foreign soldiers, who will return to their home nations in body bags and cause domestic chaos. A heavy-handed approach here would also likely result in civilians being killed, another major debacle in its own right.
The Israelis are adamant that Türkiye, Qatar, and other Muslim-majority nations they take issue with cannot deploy their armed forces in Gaza. Whether they get their way or not, consider that this armed force would mean gathering a few hundred soldiers from one country, a few thousand from another, and so on.
If this kind of ISF was sent into Gaza aggressively, considering that so far there has been no agreement concerning how to implement this invasion initiative or which countries will participate, it will be thrust into a complex urban warfare environment. They all speak different languages, work off different military doctrines, are ill-prepared, likely ill-equipped for their tasks, and, according to reports, will only number in the tens of thousands.
Donald Trump recently boasted that the nations which, he says, are participating in his so-called “peace plan” will work to destroy Hamas if it refuses to disarm, even bragging that Israel would not be required to act and that foreign invading forces would do all the work for them.
In order to conduct a regime change operation of this nature, the ISF would have to be at least 250,000 men strong. Bear in mind that mobilizing a multinational invasion force of this kind would take many months, an enormous amount of funding, and the key feature would be that it actually fights, unlike the Israeli army, which refused to go after the Palestinian resistance factions on the ground.
If an ISF that numbers only in the tens of thousands is going to try and defeat the Palestinian resistance, it will suffer heavier casualties than the Israeli military did. Any Arab or Muslim-majority nation deploying forces could experience mass protests or rebellions against their role in the genocide. Without going into the fine details, it makes no sense and if it is tried, it will quickly fail. Even the Egyptians, who along with Israel will be the guarantors of the strategy, have been advocating for a force equivalent to Lebanon’s UNIFIL to enter Gaza, which is not what UNSC Resolution 2803 approved.
Israel Collapses the Ceasefire
The next way this can go is that Benjamin Netanyahu decides to collapse the ceasefire altogether. Some argue this wouldn’t happen because the US is committed to its “peace plan.” This is not a serious argument. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he will go along with whatever the Israelis choose. He isn’t a strong leader on this question and clearly possesses a level of knowledge about the region that you would expect of a public high school student who took history and didn’t really bother to listen.
There are only two circumstances under which the Israelis will collapse the ceasefire in its entirety. They no longer believe that any of the schemes they sought to implement under the so-called ceasefire will work, and there is some kind of political benefit to returning to all-out combat. The second reason is that they are scared that the Palestinian resistance may launch some kind of offensive while the Israeli army is also battling Hezbollah and Iran.
Collapsing the ceasefire demonstrates that the Israelis are without any direction and lack a coherent plan to actually end the fighting on the Gaza front. It means that they are simply reverting to all-out genocide, with the hope that eventually an opportunity arises which will allow a mass ethnic cleansing event, or a slow process of ethnic cleansing as they exterminate tens of thousands more civilians.
Stuck Between Phase One and Phase Two
Another option is for the Israelis and Americans to stall the collapse of the ceasefire. It would mean placing the situation in limbo, not allowing its total collapse, but undergoing a process of trial and error, whereby it slowly attempts to force elements of “Phase Two” into reality.
This is a very likely outcome, designed to keep the Gaza front closed while focusing more on Iran, Lebanon, and perhaps even Yemen. We could therefore expect to see the ISF deployed in a less meaningful capacity than is currently envisaged in Washington, disastrous plots implemented involving private military contractors and aid distribution, and attempts to ethnically cleanse the population slowly here and there. All of these schemes will fall flat on their faces, but not without inflicting suffering on the civilian population of Gaza.
In the meantime, the US-Israeli alliance will have Tehran in its sights. The thinking behind this would be to squeeze the civilian population of Gaza, while prioritizing Iran and Hezbollah as their major strategic threats.
Israel’s Failure Hedges against Iran and Hezbollah
The conspiracies of Washington and Tel Aviv against Gaza can be defeated, but this hinges upon Hezbollah and Iran for the most part. If Iran and Hezbollah manage to deal enormous blows to the Israelis, refusing to play their game of fighting short defensive conflicts, then Israel will be dragged into deep waters.
All that is required of Hezbollah and Iran is that they don’t stop firing, no matter the degree of carnage exacted against their people. If Hezbollah drags the Israeli military into Lebanese lands and refuses the calls for a ceasefire, instead forcing the Israelis into a war that it intends to fight for many months, and Iran does the same, the Israelis will be in a major crisis.
The details of such conflicts are a topic for different pieces and many outcomes could occur, yet it suffices to say that major moves from Lebanon and Iran could put the Israelis in a very weak position, one that even enables major action from Gaza also.
If Iran and Hezbollah are either defeated or taken out of the picture for an even longer period after agreeing to meaningless ceasefires, after short rounds of fighting, also suffering the assassinations of major figures, this is the most favorable outcome for Benjamin Netanyahu. Victories in these arenas will open the door to ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip, even if slowly rather than in a stampede into the Sinai Peninsula. This is, of course, assuming there are no other major fronts which suddenly open to preoccupy them.
As things stand, the Israelis are in a very weak position, having failed to defeat any of their enemies. The only exception is the fall of the previous Syrian regime, which was not directly fighting Israel, but was a major land bridge for the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance. For now, Syria can be considered a victim of Israel, but poses no immediate threat.
Ultimately, Israel has fought for over two years and failed to defeat the Palestinian resistance, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Iran, or any of its other adversaries, even after dealing varying degrees of blows against each of them. Netanyahu’s long-sought-after “total victory” does not appear likely, yet he still continues to double down on attempting to achieve this goal. The primary reason for this is the refusal of the people of Gaza, and also Lebanon, to give up.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
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Neocon Max Boot: Legal and illegal aliens need to enlist in the US army and die for Israel
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | October 16, 2107
In 1973 Irving Kristol, the godfather of the Neoconservative movement, made a stunning statement which is still relevant to understanding the Israeli influence in US foreign policy. Kristol said:
“Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel… Jews don’t like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States…
“American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don’t want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel.”
Read the statement again very carefully. A big military budget, said Kristol, is only good for Israel, not America or much of the Western World. In other words, precious American soldiers who go to the Middle East to fight so-called terrorism are just working for Israel, not for America.
So, whenever the Neocons use words such as “democracy” or “freedom,” they are essentially conning decent Americans to support Israel’s perpetual wars. … continue
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