Did Israel Just Forfeit Its ‘Right To Exist’? — Carlson’s Interview with Huckabee
By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | February 28, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Senior political figures openly endorsed a Nile-to-Euphrates territorial vision.
- The “Greater Israel” concept is no longer fringe rhetoric.
- Israel’s borders remain undeclared while territorial expansion continues.
- Legal justifications rooted in Balfour and UNGA 181 are increasingly strained.
- The demand to recognize Israel’s “right to exist” faces growing scrutiny.
The Mainstreaming of ‘Greater Israel’
There is no nation on earth whose government constantly demands its critics acknowledge its ‘right to exist’ as does Israel; this is because it seeks the world’s acquiescence as a means of enabling the indefensible. In truth, nobody, short of Christian Zionists and Jewish Supremacists believe Israel has a right to exist.
In Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, the idea of Israel’s legitimacy was not only touched upon, but completely unraveled through a basic series of questions. Instead of furiously clashing with the self-described Christian Zionist, all Carlson did was ask serious follow-up questions and demand answers.
Since then, the fallout from what was a trainwreck of an interview for Huckabee has triggered a wave of backlash from countries throughout the region. The US ambassador triggered this backlash after affirming his belief that Israel is entitled to all of the land between the River Nile and the Euphrates River, as part of its biblical right to exist.
This enormous land grab is what is known as the ‘Greater Israel Project’, once dubbed an outlandish conspiracy theory. ‘Greater Israel’ would include all of Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, most of Syria, along with parts of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and even Turkiye. Therefore, it is no wonder that a US ambassador expressing his belief that Tel Aviv is entitled to all of this territory drew the ire of the entire region.
However, an even more important development came only days later, receiving much less media attention. The leader of the Israeli opposition, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, expressed his own belief that Israel should seize all of the territory between the Nile and the Euphrates. Pegged as the more liberal and moderate opponent of Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, Lapid argued that the territory should be seized only when the right “security” predicament presents itself.
Even though Lapid’s comments did not draw the same kind of backlash from the Arab world’s leadership, his open confession of belief in a biblical right to all of ‘Greater Israel’ is a more important and damning development than the comments of Huckabee. This clearly demonstrates that the entire mainstream Israeli political establishment seeks to achieve this vision.
The Loss of Legitimacy
As pointed out during Tucker Carlson’s interview with the US ambassador to Israel, the infamous Balfour Declaration was written by British Lord Arthur Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild. An important fact that is often never brought into question as the Balfour Declaration is often cited as a legal document justifying Israel’s existence. Instead, it was a document between two men.
From there, Israeli propagandists will point to later British government declarations as cementing this ‘right to establish a Jewish State in occupied Palestine. Finally, there is the 1947 United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 that is held up as Israel’s de facto birth certificate. This, of course, ignores the fact that Israel was only granted 56% of the land, yet seized nearly 80% of the entire territory.
However, all of this is now irrelevant to the question of Israel’s alleged legitimacy and ‘right to exist’. The reason for this is very simple: the British sought to grant the territory of occupied Palestine, and so too did the UNGA resolution 181. No legal document exists to legitimize the occupation of Syrian and Lebanese lands, as the Israelis continue to expand their borders into these neighboring nations.
Which brings us back to the alleged ‘biblical’ right to existence that the US ambassador, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and opposition leader Yair Lapid have all expressed their belief in. The Israelis have historically occupied Egyptian territory, and many Israeli politicians, including current ministers in the Likud Party’s coalition government, have expressed their desire to return to Egypt once again.
The Politics of the ‘Right to Exist’
Israel has never declared its borders, and since 1967 has occupied territory from both Syria and Lebanon, in violation of international law. At this current moment, it is capturing more and more land in southern Syria on a near-daily basis.
Therefore, Israel, as a nation that has no definable borders and whose political leadership, along with its society, believes in its biblical right to seize the territory belonging to its neighbors, has no legal basis to exist as it does today. It has committed genocide, apartheid, mass ethnic cleansings, and operates a system of total Jewish Supremacy in all the land it has seized, through war.
In addition to this, the Zionist movement has actively worked, especially since October 7, 2023, to not only undermine the United Nations as a whole, but to replace it. Yet turns around and cites a UNGA resolution as its ‘legal right to exist’. It violates all known diplomatic norms, having attacked the former Iranian embassy in Syria, bombarded Doha despite its status as a US ally, while ignoring a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza back in 2024.
The only argument that can be made for the continued existence of Israel as it functions today is an ideological one. This means that only two categories of human beings fit into this camp, Jewish Supremacists who believe in a biblical title to the land, and their Christian Zionist allies, who also provide a similar, theologically grounded argument.
There is no evidence that the majority, or even a plurality, of Christians believe in the concept of a ‘Greater Israel’, despite the best efforts of Christian Zionist lobby groups – the most powerful of which operate in the United States. In other words, a very small portion of the global population believes in this biblical interpretation. Even more troubling for the Zionist movement is that its settler colonial project was founded and led for much of its history by atheists.
If we are to define Israel by its current borders, which are undeclared and forever expanding, then there simply is no basis for arguing its existence, unless you do so from a theological perspective. As demonstrated through the questions offered to Ambassador Huckabee, who is himself a Christian pastor, there is no way of demonstrating that the Jewish population, or at least the majority of those Jewish people living in occupied Palestine, are directly related to the Israelites of the bible. In fact, all of the available DNA evidence would suggest that the Palestinians are more closely blood related to that population.
There is no nation on earth today that operates a system of ethno-religious supremacy as Israel does, no nation that violates international law as Israel does, nor is there another nation that bases its legitimacy on isolated and out of context passages from religious texts like Israel does either.
The reason why pro-Israel advocates are constantly demanding that everyone validate their legitimacy and ‘right to exist’ is simple: the affirmation of their flimsy arguments is what provides them the basis to continue behaving as the out-of-control regime that Israel is.
What Israel’s ‘right to exist’ comes down to is the belief that it should be allowed to dispossess millions of Muslims, Christians, and other indigenous peoples of their lands, in order to establish a system of domination. That ethnic cleansing is its right, the acquisition of territory via war is its right, and that committing mass murder against anyone who fights back is also their right.
Israel’s biblical ‘right to exist’ is just as valid as its right to kill entire populations it deems to be ‘Amalek’. If they do have that right, then so too does the so-called “Islamic State” terrorist organization.
The arguments made by Daesh (ISIS) and Israel for their ambitions to establish ever-expanding regimes of tyranny both carry the exact same level of historical and factual legitimacy. That is to say, neither argument carries any weight, beyond it being the belief of an isolated group of extremists – amongst the global population – who believe in a warped religious ‘right’ and that their theological arguments make them superior to all other human beings.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
Lebanon: Between sovereignty and the mirage of normalization
By Ali Abou Jbara | The Cradle | February 26, 2026
The smoke had barely lifted from the latest Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon when another conversation began circulating in Beirut. While border villages buried their dead and families searched through rubble, a parallel discourse surfaced in studios and on digital platforms: normalization with Israel presented as a viable political path.
The ongoing war on Lebanon, marked by unprecedented Israeli escalation, daily raids, and widespread destruction, exposed more than military vulnerability. It revealed that certain voices inside the country no longer conceal their position toward Tel Aviv.
They now speak openly of public normalization as the cure for Lebanon’s crises – even as Israeli warplanes violate Lebanese skies, despite the so-called ceasefire. What is marketed as pragmatism begins to resemble political surrender.
Prominent personalities have amplified this shift. Journalist Marcel Ghanem declared live on his program “Sar al-Waqt” on MTV that he was considering speaking directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and suggested repealing Lebanese laws that criminalize dealings with Israel.
Digital platforms followed the same trajectory. “Hona Beirut” circulated videos of Israelis sending populist messages to Lebanese audiences – “We want peace with Lebanon. We want to visit Beirut and enjoy fattoush and shawarma” – carefully packaged to soften the image of a state whose aircraft continue to strike Lebanese territory.
Political figures moved even further. MP Paula Yacoubian stated publicly: “If salvation comes through Israel, let it come but save us.” Charles Jabbour, head of the Lebanese Forces (LF) party media apparatus, argued that Israel does not occupy Lebanon and does not attack the Lebanese, claiming instead that it monitors Hezbollah to ensure implementation of past agreements. He concluded: “If Hezbollah wins, Lebanon loses. If Israel wins, Lebanon wins.”
Such statements are deliberate. They substitute national consensus with partisan calculus and recast normalization as responsible governance.
Expansion as governing doctrine
Advocates of a “quick peace” treat Israel as a state seeking stability. The political current in Tel Aviv suggests something else entirely.
Under Netanyahu and his alliance with ultra-religious and nationalist forces, the “Greater Israel” vision operates as a strategic direction.
On 22 September 2023, Netanyahu stood before the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and presented a map that includes Gaza and the occupied West Bank as part of Israel, using the biblical name “Judea and Samaria” instead of the West Bank – in a symbolic dedication to the annexation project.
His coalition partner, Finance Minister and leader of “Religious Zionism” Bezalel Smotrich, had stated in 2016 that Israel’s borders “must extend to Damascus,” and appeared in Paris in March 2023 in front of a map that considers Jordan part of the “Land of Israel.”
Since Menachem Begin and the Likud party came to power in 1977, the concept of “Greater Israel” has morphed into a political program based on settlement expansion and changing demographic realities. This current is based on interpretations from the Book of Genesis that consider the “Promised Land” to extend from the Nile to the Euphrates. Even Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, wrote in the 1930s that establishing a state on part of the land would serve as a first stage, not an endpoint.
Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, expansionist language hardened. Military operations broadened in Gaza and the occupied West Bank while strikes intensified in Syria and Lebanon. “Security depth” expanded to encompass regional theaters.
On 21 February 2026, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in an interview with Tucker Carlson that, under a biblical interpretation of land promised in Genesis, it “would be fine if [Israel] took it all,” implicitly extending Israel’s reach across much of West Asia – remarks that sparked sharp regional condemnation.
Maps circulated by proponents of this project extend beyond historic Palestine. They incorporate Lebanon, Jordan, most of Syria, half of Iraq, and territories in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and even Kuwait.
Against that strategic horizon, Lebanese normalization rhetoric begins to feel profoundly detached from the lived reality of the country. Border villages remain scarred, Lebanese airspace is violated without consequence, and sovereignty is subjected to daily erosion, yet normalization is presented as transactional diplomacy, detached from geography and history.
It is precisely here that the Lebanese debate turns unsettling. What does it mean to pursue “peace” with a project whose declared maps stretch beyond its recognized borders? How does a state whose skies, waters, and land are routinely breached convince itself to trust assurances from a government that treats expansion as a generational mission?
The occupied West Bank as precedent
The occupied West Bank offers a concrete case study. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the settler population has grown from roughly 250,000 to more than 700,000. Hundreds of settlements and outposts now fragment the territory. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen has described this as imposing “de facto sovereignty” – gradual annexation without formal declaration.
Land confiscations, bypass roads, settlement blocs, and armed settler protection have eroded the territorial basis for Palestinian statehood. Smotrich openly advocates annexation and rejects Palestinian sovereignty. Netanyahu presides over what observers describe as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, with settlement expansion central to its agenda.
Three decades of negotiations unfolded alongside continuous territorial transformation. Diplomatic processes advanced in parallel with irreversible changes on the ground. This is how “peace” is managed when it is a tool to strengthen control, not to end it.
Despite this record, similar assumptions appear in Lebanese discourse. MP Camille Chamoun of the Free Patriots Party says he does not believe Israel has an interest in violating international agreements and Lebanese borders.
MP Sami Gemayel, head of the Kataeb Party, suggests that relations with Israel and western countries may protect Lebanon. Even Lebanese actress and writer Carine Rizkallah said on the TV program Al-Masar that she hoped there would be no new war with Israel and that “it’s time to end these problems between the two countries.”
The irony is that Lebanese rhetoric promoting normalization leans on an assumption of good faith from the other side, even though the occupied West Bank continues to show how such assumptions unfold in practice. There, decades of agreements, conferences, and international sponsorship did not halt expansion; they unfolded alongside it, as settlements multiplied, land was fragmented, and entire areas were quietly absorbed into a new reality.
If this is where the occupied West Bank has arrived after years of accords and external guarantees, on what basis is Lebanon encouraged to trust similar assurances? The experience is not abstract or distant. It is ongoing, visible, and instructive for anyone willing to look.
Regional patterns of influence
The broader region reinforces this reading. After the fall of the previous Syrian government on 8 December 2024, Israeli influence expanded in southern and central Syria, capitalizing on security vacuums and fragmentation. Strategic corridors between northern Syria and Israeli ports strengthened. Control over the occupied Golan Heights and adjacent water resources deepened.
Turkiye adopted a confrontational stance toward Israeli expansion, warning that the absence of clear red lines destabilizes Syria and opens space for broader intervention. Ankara expanded its diplomatic engagement on Palestine, strengthened regional alliances, and emphasized deterrence, demonstrating that even governments with formal ties to Israel are wary of unchecked expansion.
Across neighboring states, internal divisions have created entry points for influence. Settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, strikes in Syria, and sustained violations in Lebanon reflect an interconnected strategy.
Normalization premised on unilateral concession narrows strategic space. In regional practice, asymmetrical engagement tends to consolidate the stronger party’s position.
Lebanon operates within that same environment. Any official normalization would unfold against Israel’s strategic framework and military advantage. Expectations of reciprocal restraint lack precedent in current regional dynamics.
Lebanon’s historical record
Lebanon’s experience with Israeli aggression remains documented. In April 1996, Israeli forces bombed a UN base in Qana, killing more than 100 civilians who had sought shelter. In September 1982, the Sabra and Shatila massacre occurred under the watch of the Israeli army. The 1982 Israeli invasion reached Beirut, and south Lebanon remained under occupation until 2000, liberated only through sustained resistance.
The July 2006 war resulted in more than 1,200 Lebanese deaths, extensive infrastructure destruction, and the displacement of nearly one million people. Airspace violations continued long after hostilities subsided.
Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and Hezbollah’s decision to open a northern support front, strikes on southern villages resumed, placing Lebanon within a wider expansionist frame.
In this context, normalization proposals detach policy from cumulative experience. They assume recalibration without structural change. Historical precedent suggests otherwise.
Legal foundations
Lebanon’s stance toward Israel is codified in law. Since 1955, the Boycott of Israel Law has prohibited commercial, cultural, and political dealings with the Israeli enemy. The law remains in force and constitutes a foundational element of Lebanese state policy.
The penal code criminalizes espionage and communication with the enemy, including cooperation that provides political, media, or moral benefit. In contemporary circumstances, public statements or digital content that promote normalization may fall within this framework if deemed to confer advantage. Penalties can include imprisonment and fines.
Given ongoing Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, normalization carries national security implications under existing legislation. Judicial and security institutions retain authority to investigate potential breaches.
This legal architecture reflects accumulated historical experience rather than abstract doctrine.
Sovereignty under pressure
The present debate concerns strategic direction under sustained pressure. An expansionist project operates openly in the region. Lebanon’s historical memory remains recent.
Calls for normalization at a moment of ongoing aggression raise structural questions about sovereignty, deterrence, and long-term stability. Strategic environments shaped by military asymmetry rarely reward unilateral accommodation.
Lebanon faces a clear dilemma. Defending sovereignty requires political coherence and deterrent capacity. Pursuing normalization without reciprocal structural change invites further testing of borders and institutions.
The chosen trajectory will shape more than just diplomatic posture. It will define how the state positions itself within a region undergoing forced transformation.
Israeli Opposition Leader Endorses Greater Israel
The Dissident | February 24, 2026
U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, sparked major backlash during his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, where he openly endorsed the idea of a Greater Israel, stating that “it would be fine” if Israel took large swaths of the Middle East.
In damage control mode, Zionists attempted to paint Huckbee’s claims as fringe or extreme within Israel, but Israel’s opposition leader , Yair Lapid, has confirmed that the prospect of an expansionist Greater Israel is supported even by the more supposedly “liberal” wing of the Israeli political spectrum.
When asked, “The Ambassador Huckabee said this week, and we know the extent of the American administration on the government here, that he supports Israeli control from the Euphrates to the Nile, this means [control] over Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, do you support it or do you think this should be stopped?”, Lapid replied, “I don’t think I have a dispute on the biblical level [about] what the original borders of Israel are.”
Lapid went on to endorse massive Israeli expansion, saying, “support anything that will allow the Jews [to have] a big, vast, strong land, and a safe shelter for us, for our children, and for our children’s children. That’s what I support” adding, “However possible” when asked “How vast?”.
When further asked, “Until Iraq?” Lapid replied, “The discussion is a security discussion. The fact that we are in our ancestral land… Yesh Atid’s position is as follows: Zionism is based on the bible. Our mandate of the land of Israel is biblical. The biblical borders of Israel are clear. There are also considerations of security, of policy, and of time. We were in exile for 2,000 years… you don’t really want all this lecture, right? At least you were not waiting for it… The answer is: there are practical considerations here. Beyond the practical considerations, I believe that our ownership deed over the land of Israel is the bible, therefore the borders are the biblical borders”.
Lapid even advocated that Israel take “as much as possible” of Greater Israel, saying, “Fundamentally, the great, big and vast Israel, as much as possible within the limitations of Israeli security and considerations of Israeli policy”.
Similarly, Benjamin Netanyahu has previously stated that he “subscribed to a ‘vision’ for a ‘Greater Israel’” and “very much”, “felt connected to the ‘Greater Israel’ vision”.
Israeli officials have long been clear that their end goal in Gaza and the West Bank has been total ethnic cleansing and annexation, with Israel’s Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel admitting , “we will make Gaza unlivable for humans until the population leaves, and then we will do the same for the West Bank”.
But Yair Lapid’s comments show that across the spectrum from Netanyahu to his “liberal” opposition, Israel has expansionist ambitions beyond Gaza and the West Bank, and wants to take “as much as possible” of Greater Israel.
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.
Featured Video
Roosevelt’s Partnership with Stalin
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The great ADHD swindle
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Syria, Lebanon, and the limits of power
- How Multipolarity Forced Trump to Capitulate… For Now
- Switzerland confirms US-Iran talks planned for Friday are cancelled
- Iran Beat Back The Greater Israel Project
- Roosevelt’s Partnership with Stalin
- Strategic Ambiguity (If We Must)
- Finland shreds nuclear weapons ban
- Kiev turns to ‘systematic killing’ of Zaporozhye plant staff – Russia’s nuclear chief
- Censored Lavrov article Politico refused to publish (FULL TEXT)
- Israel’s censor silenced 5,700 reports in 2025
- If Americans Knew
- JD Vance speaks truth to Israel: “You can’t just kill your way out of every problem” – Daily Update
- What Ceasefire? Israel Has Now Killed Over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza Since October
- U.S. Whole-of-Government Takeover by Israel
- Netanyahu’s Mouthpieces Turn on Trump, Revealing a Deeper Israeli Ingratitude
- Senate wants to force US to share sensitive intel with Israel
- Trump ended his idiotic Iran war. Good.
- Khanna Becomes First in Congress to Sign ‘Peace Pledge’ Promising to Reject AIPAC Funds
- Look who’s losing it over Trump’s Iran deal
- Israel has killed over 1,000 Gazans during 8-month “ceasefire” – Daily Update
- REVEALED: Former Top DEA Official Says Israel Spies on US Law Enforcement
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
Aletho News 