Photo courtesy of Times of Israel
“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that … I want to tell you something very clear. Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We the Jewish people control America, and Americans know it.” Ariel Sharon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now an international outlaw and a fugitive under the protection of US. All international institutions including the UN General Assembly (UNGA), UN Security Council (UNSC), International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) created by the victorious powers after WWII to maintain peace, law and order and justice have collectively failed to stop the blood thirst of one country, Israel, and by one man, Netanyahu. ICC’s delayed arrest warrants against this man and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have been deliberately ignored by the very same countries that signed the Rome Statute. The US and Israel, which are no party to this statute, obviously don’t care about the warrants. Hence from Gaza to Lebanon and Iran and to Syria and Yemen, Netanyahu and his military men are running amok.
Having killed so far 45,192 people including 17,492 children and injuring another 107,338 with more than 11,000 missing in Gaza and having killed another 817 people including 169 children and injuring more than 6250 in Occupied West Bank (all figures from Palestinian Health Authority), Israel’s genocidal war continues unabated. President Joe Biden and the US Military Industrial Complex not only funded and weaponized Israel’s genocidal war but the president even picked and chose which targets to be bombed and destroyed and which to be spared, as he did in Israel’s aerial attack on Iran.
Does anyone need any more evidence to show who is directing Netanyahu and his IDF? Having ethnically cleansed parts of Gaza of Arabs, having at least partially incapacitated Hezbollah’s rocket firing strength and weakened Iran’s resolve to attack Israel again, Netanyahu has turned his attention to capitalize on the pandemonium prevailed during the final days of Asad’s regime in Syria. It has been reported that for nearly 48 hours Israeli air force was engaged in saturation bombing and Israeli soldiers had acquired a significant swath of land beyond the Golan Heights, the so-called buffer zone between the two countries. Once again, Biden has given his approval by keeping silent. Soon after bombing Syria Israel is now targeting the Houthis in Yemen. In short, Netanyahu acts like an international outlaw protected by US. Arial Sharon’s words aptly describes the unbreakable relationship between US and Israel. The fact that almost 42 percent of world Jewry is settled as citizens in US and that they have a strangle hold on the commanding heights of every sector of US life means that whether the Democrats or Republicans govern the country, the US-Israel attachment would remain solid. Will there be any change when Donlad Trump takes over next year? Absolutely not. Given this background let us look at the ramifications of regime change in Syria.
Anyone who can grasp the extent of ethnic and religious fragmentation that keeps Syrian society divided would know that Syria in 2025 will become another theatre for foreign powers to carry on a proxy war.
The collapse of the Asad regime would not have come as surprise given the war in Europe and Israel’s adventures in the Middle East. While Ukraine’s NATO backed resistance was seriously testing the military prowess of Russia and therefore compelling President Vladimir Putin to reduce military involvement in other regions, Iran’s losses in the face of Israeli bombing in October and the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon discouraged Iran’s support to the Asad regime at least militarily. It was this relative withdrawal of support from both Russia and Iran that opened the doors for the coalition of anti-Asad armed groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to enter Aleppo easily and proceed as far south as Hama before taking over the whole country while Syrian forces retreated. Even otherwise decades of economic sanctions on Syria and the brutality of Asad regime had made Syria a failed state like Libya under Gaddafi and Iraq under Saddam Hussain. It was in this chaotic situation Israel made hay while the sun shone. According to Israel’s hasbara (a Hebrew word for a communication strategy to explain actions whether justified or not) the reason for the bombing was to prevent military weapons from falling into the hands of enemies. Enemies? Who are they when the head of the resistance groups Abu Mohammad al-Jolani aka Ahmed al-Sharaa of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who was until a few days ago was a condemned terrorist in US and the West has now been baptised as a statesman declaring that there is no conflict with Israel? Does this mean that the HTS-led regime like the ones in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and other US backed Arab countries has also washed its hands off Palestine and the ongoing genocide in Gaza? Or is it a tactical ploy to get the sanctions against Syria lifted?
Melvin A. Goodman, a Professor of Government at John Hopkins University, quotes what the wife of a British Consul said about Syrians almost a hundred years ago: “They hate one another. The Sunnis excommunicate Shias, and both hate the Druze; all detest Alawites; the Maronites do not love anybody but themselves are duly abhorred by all; the Greek Orthodox abominate the Greek Catholics and Latins; and all despise the Jews”. That type of deep suspicion and hatred among different communities in Syria and in other parts of the Arab world is the main reason why democracy cannot flourish in that region and autocracy and despotism become the political norm. The choice is therefore between tyranny and anarchy. Which way would post-Asad Syria go remains to be scene.
HTS is a coalition of different groups of which the main ones are: Jaysh al-Ahrar, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunnah, Liwa al-Haqq and Nour al-Din al-Zanki Movement. They came together as a united opposition front in 2017 to oust the Baathist regime and Hezbollah militants from Syrian territories and form an Islamic government. They have toppled the Baathist regime but have not got rid of all Hezbollah militants. There are also Kurdish militants operating in alliance with their compatriots in Iraq. Turkey wants all of them eliminated. Although the new regime is promising an inclusive government and denies any repetition of what happened in Afghanistan in the name of Islamization it is doubtful whether the unity that exists now would prolong in the face of Israeli military presence and Trump’s takeover of US administration. A split in HTS coalition is inevitable and that would make Syria another hotspot for Islamist groups realigning to fight against Israel and in support of Palestine.
Trump’s return to power would strengthen US support to Israel. His choice of Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel is bad news to Palestinians because to him there is no such thing as Palestine and no such thing as occupied territories. He, with Trump’s encouragement, would support Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and would encourage Palestinian Arabs to settle elsewhere. Would HTS in Syria put up with this? That is why a split in that coalition is unavoidable. In short, Middle East will see more bloodshed in 2025 under Trump and Netanyahu will go berserk with his plan for ethnic cleansing in Gaza and more Jewish settlements in the West Bank.