Radio Free Syria

Tommy Robinson is no longer simply a British Islamophobic figurehead. Since announcing his sudden conversion to Christianity in prison last year, he's surrounded himself with pastors, filled rallies with crosses and public prayer, and led crowds chanting “Christ is King.” In a few weeks time, on August 22–23, preachers associated with his movement will gather in Morecambe in northern England for a “Make Great Britain Christian Again” conference. Behind this apparent religious revival stands a transnational Islamophobic white supremacist network connecting British and European street movements with powerful supporters and ideological allies in Moscow, Washington, Jerusalem and Silicon Valley. In recent months, Robinson - real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon - has been welcomed at the US State Department, officially hosted by an Israeli cabinet minister, promoted and financed by Elon Musk’s family and friends, and received by Kremlin-linked networks in Moscow. What connects these patrons is not Christian theology, or even a consistent position on Jews and Israel. It is their portrayal of Muslims as an invading population threatening Western civilization. In June, while calling supporters onto British streets, Robinson promoted the Brotherhood of Academists, a Russian neo-Nazi organisation whose slogan is “Be white, be Christian.” The group promotes white supremacist Great Replacement theory, describes non-white immigration as a plot to replace the populations of Christian countries and has called for foreigners to be “purged” from Europe. Its openly antisemitic material, which is as virulently hateful as its Islamophobic tracts, hasn't prevented Robinson—who presents himself as an ardent defender of Jews and Israel—from promoting it to his 1.9 million followers. Christianity as an Anti-Muslim Identity The Morecambe conference brings the emerging British branch of this movement into view. Its organiser, Brett Murphy,  runs an X page called ‘Make Britain Christian Again’, and is a seasoned expert at combining Christian identity with Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric. He's a regular speaker at Robinson rallies, denouncing Islam as a “false religion” and claiming that Islam and the left are waging war against Britain’s Christian identity. Other advertised speakers have become regular figures at far-right protests, warning that Britain is “at war” with Muslims and that multiculturalism is sacrificing British children. Use of Christian imagery is not new to the British far right. Britain First, founded in 2011 by leading white supremacist Jim Dowson, invaded mosques carrying Bibles and organised “Christian patrols.” The English Defence League, led by Robinson, was more overtly secular and principally defined itself through opposition to Islam. What has changed is the merger of these traditions. Christianity now gives the anti-Muslim movement a positive collective identity: its members are not merely protesting against immigration or Islam but supposedly defending a faith and civilisation. “Christian” increasingly operates as a synonym for white and European, while Muslim Britons are classified as permanently foreign regardless of birthplace or citizenship. The same religious language also connects Islamophobia to opposition to LGBTQ equality, feminism and abortion. These are presented not as separate political disagreements but as components of a single assault by Muslims, liberals and “globalists” against Christian civilisation. Russian Family Ties The project has deep Russian roots. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke rented a Moscow apartment from around 1999 and lived in Russia for approximately five years, building relationships with Russian ultranationalists including Alexander Dugin—popularly, if imprecisely, described as “Putin’s brain.” Duke said his antisemitic book Jewish Supremacism became a bestseller and was sold in the State Duma bookstore. In a 2004 address titled “Is Russia the Key to White Survival?”, Duke imagined a “racially aware Russia” and “reawakened America” uniting in a worldwide white cause. Under Vladimir Putin, that racial conception was gradually repackaged as the defence of “traditional values” and Christian civilisation against liberalism, immigration and Islam. Putin did not create every organisation or personally direct every relationship. His system instead cultivated existing ultranationalist networks through state media, religious institutions, officials and aligned oligarchs, preserving layers of plausible deniability. Jim Dowson became one British intermediary. After founding Britain First as an explicitly Christian anti-Muslim movement, he developed relationships with Dugin-linked networks in Serbia. In 2016, his Patriot News Agency targeted American voters with pro-Trump fabrications. Britain First leader Paul Golding was later invited to address a meeting in the Russian parliament and appeared on state television praising Putin. Today, the Brotherhood promoted by Robinson operates under the Tsargrad Society of sanctioned Putin-aligned oligarch Konstantin Malofeev. Its associated Paladins League connects fascist organisations across Europe under the banner of defending “White Christian nations.” Jerusalem and Washington Israel’s far-right government is not an exception to this alignment but one of its central nodes. Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli officially hosted Robinson in October 2025, praising him as a “courageous leader” against radical Islam. Britain’s Jewish Leadership Council and Board of Deputies called Robinson “a thug” representing “the very worst of Britain,” but their objections were disregarded. A Knesset committee later ordered Chikli to apologise. Robinson can be presented in Jerusalem as a friend of Jews while promoting neo-Nazis in Moscow because anti-Muslim politics supplies the bridge between them. Israel’s far-right government offers Western Islamophobes the model of a militarised ethnonationalist state confronting and displacing a predominantly Muslim population. In return, they defend Israel’s actions and portray Palestinian rights as another front in Islam’s supposed attack on the West. Washington provides governmental legitimacy for the same narrative. In February, Robinson was received at the State Department and praised as a “free speech warrior.” The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy warns that migration threatens Europe with “civilizational erasure,” praises “patriotic European parties” and promises to cultivate resistance to Europe’s current direction. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has described migrants reaching European beaches as an “invasion.” This is Great Replacement politics translated into national-security language: Muslim migration is presented not as the movement of individuals but as the advance of a hostile civilisation. Syria and the “Defender of Muslims” Syria has repeatedly exposed the same alignment.  David Duke was delivering rousing ‘resistance’ speeches in Damascus as a guest of Assad’s 20 years ago. Putin’s military intervention preserved Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, while Western white nationalists and Christian-right figures portrayed Assad as a protector of Christians against a largely Muslim revolution. Syrians wanting freedom were collectively reduced to terrorists and Islamists; the regime that imprisoned, tortured and killed them was presented as the 'civilised' alternative. While Israel attacked Assad's Iranian backers and associated militias in Syria, it was comfortable with Assad maintaining a quiet frontier. Netanyahu said in 2018 that Israel had “no problem with the Assad regime.” Since Assad’s fall, Israel has occupied additional Syrian territory while portraying the new government principally through its leaders’ former jihadist affiliations, and depicting its attacks and annexation of territory as  a valiant defence of minorities   from the terror threat. Putin’s recent declarations of respect for Islam, meanwhile, don’t alter his record. Russia’s destruction of Chechnya, occupation of Afghanistan, carpet-bombing of Syrian communities and cultivation of the world's most committed Islamophobes from Europe and the Americas to Asia and all points in between show the flexibility of the message. Moscow presents Russia as a harmonious multifaith society when addressing Muslims and as the fortress of white Christian civilisation when recruiting Western allies. These actors do not form one centrally directed organisation. They disagree over Russia, Israel and even Jews, but exchange money, platforms, propaganda, audiences and state legitimacy. Their most reliable shared language is Islamophobia: Muslims as invaders, demographic weapons, terrorists or populations properly belonging somewhere else. Opposing this network requires an equally broad and international coalition—not agreement over every government, war or economic system, but a shared commitment to equal citizenship, universal freedom and political pluralism.  People of every ethnicity, of every sect, of every faith and no faith; liberals, socialists and democratic conservatives can surely retain their profound differences while recognising that preventing a transnational authoritarian movement from extinguishing the space in which those differences can exist must take precedence. The authoritarian far right is growing through cooperation across borders and across its own internal contradictions. Its opponents must learn to do the same—and quickly. https://radiofreesyria.com/tommy-robinson-linked-conference-highlights-britains-growing-far-right-christian-international/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a map during Tuesday’s White House meeting to persuade US President Donald Trump that Israeli occupation forces should remain in Syrian territory, according to a senior Israeli official, who briefed reporters following the meeting. The disclosure followed reports that Trump had privately sought Israeli withdrawals from Syria and Lebanon. Before travelling to Washington, Netanyahu reportedly told his cabinet that the United States wanted withdrawals from Gaza as well—and that he intended to refuse. The map presented to Trump showed Turkey controlling around five percent of Syria, compared with the 0.1 percent occupied by Israel. However, as the Times of Israel acknowledged, Turkey’s current military presence is approved by the Syrian government, while Israel’s is not, and the size of the area occupied does not determine the lawfulness of the occupation. Israel moved further into Syrian territory after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, occupying additional land beyond the already occupied Golan Heights. Israeli occupation forces have since conducted repeated incursions, raided homes and detained Syrian residents, despite President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government repeatedly stating that it seeks no conflict with Israel. Israeli official: Netanyahu used map to challenge Trump's "assumptions" The Israeli official’s account also offered an unusually candid description of Netanyahu’s approach to Trump. The president, the official said, forms “assumptions” that can become fixed unless they are challenged, preferably with visual presentations that acquire “cumulative weight” against information he receives from other sources. According to the same official, Trump did not repeat his demand for further Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon after Netanyahu defended Israel’s six-mile military zone there. The account suggests that Trump is increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu’s regional policies, but remains unwilling to attach meaningful consequences to their continuation. That distinction was also evident in Netanyahu’s comments following the meeting. He described the US-Israel alliance as a “wall of granite” and insisted that the talks had been among the best the two leaders had ever held. Yet Netanyahu reportedly struggled to secure the meeting, entered the White House through a side door and received none of the usual televised Oval Office ceremony. Trump frustrated Trump has grown frustrated with the prolonged Iran war and its effects on energy prices and the US economy. He publicly rebuked Netanyahu for announcing that he intended to present new intelligence concerning Iran, asking: “Why don’t you just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world?” The two leaders also differ over diplomacy with Tehran, Israeli operations in Lebanon and possible US arms sales to Turkey. Netanyahu may therefore have less influence over Trump than his public account suggests. That has not, however, diminished his confidence that the United States will protect him from accountability. The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024, alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called for the warrant to be enforced if Netanyahu visits the city for the UN General Assembly in September, although he subsequently acknowledged that city authorities lack the legal power to execute it. The United States is not a member of the ICC, US law is strongly hostile to cooperation with the Court, and Trump has promised that Netanyahu will not be arrested “under any circumstances.” There is therefore no realistic prospect of his arrest during the New York visit. Threats against anyone upholding ICC arrest warrant Nevertheless, Netanyahu portrayed Mamdani’s demand as an attack upon Jewish New Yorkers, calling him a “hate-spewing elected official” who was turning residents against Jews, and asking "What are we, in the 1930s?" in a grotesque attempt to present himself as a persecuted victim rather than a wanted war criminal. Despite the facts that Mamdani’s demand concerned an existing warrant against a named political leader, not Jewish New Yorkers or Jewish people generally, has said the same principle should apply to anyone wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and has described Hamas’s October 7 attacks as a horrific war crime, Netanyahu has repeatedly mischaracterized Mamdani's and others' condemnations of his government’s actions as hostility towards Israel and Jews. Many Jewish organisations, scholars and activists have rejected that conflation, warning that it marginalises Jewish dissent and undermines efforts to confront genuine antisemitism. Netanyahu also told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he had considered what might happen if an emergency forced him to land in a country that recognises the ICC. Referring to the Israeli forces accompanying him, he said: “We have special forces around. I served with them for five years.” When Hannity praised their capabilities, Netanyahu smiled and suggested giving them “a new task.” He did not explain what that task would involve. If he meant that Israeli forces might obstruct an official arrest in an ICC member state, however, they would be acting against the lawful authorities of another sovereign country. The United States would be unlikely to accept a similar claim from Russia, China or Iran. US public opinion turning against Netanyahu American public opinion is also becoming less favourable to Netanyahu. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted from July 25 to 27 found that 49 percent of Americans believed the US should arrest him under the ICC warrant, compared with 27 percent who opposed doing so. Forty-seven percent believed he was guilty of war crimes in Gaza, while 24 percent said he was not. Netanyahu’s confidence therefore rests neither on broad American support nor necessarily on Trump’s personal approval. It rests on protection embedded in US law, Congress, military cooperation and diplomatic policy. Trump may increasingly reject Netanyahu’s advice and resent the political and economic consequences of his decisions. But Israel continues occupying territory in Syria and Lebanon, controlling much of Gaza and rejecting demands for withdrawal without any apparent threat to the US protection its prime minister enjoys. Netanyahu’s influence in Washington may be waning. His impunity, for now, is not. https://radiofreesyria.com/netanyahu-uses-map-to-defend-syria-occupation-to-trump/

Fifteen years ago today, on 29 July 2011, Colonel Riad al-Asaad announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, giving an organised name and structure to the growing number of Syrian army soldiers who had refused orders to help Bashar al-Assad’s regime crush the revolution. The FSA’s founding was not merely a military formation. It represented a profound moral choice. Those soldiers could have remained within the regime’s forces. They could have continued receiving their salaries, protected themselves and their families, and obeyed orders to shoot demonstrators, raid homes and defend a dictatorship. Instead, they abandoned the relative safety of the institution they knew and became hunted men. They gave up their positions, homes and security—and, in many cases, ultimately their lives—because they believed that a Syrian soldier’s rifle should protect the Syrian people, not kill them. This is why attempts to airbrush the Free Syrian Army from the revolution’s history, minimize its role or reduce it to the confusion and fragmentation of later years, are so deeply misleading. The original FSA did not introduce violence into Syria. It emerged after months in which peaceful demonstrators were met with bullets, mass arrests, torture and death. Its founders and first fighters were defectors standing between unarmed protesters and the forces sent to suppress them. Before the FSA became associated with front lines and major battles, its rifles guarded the revolutionary vanguard. Others followed across Daraa, Homs, Idlib, Hama, rural Damascus and Deir Ezzor, with small groups of defectors risking their own lives to protect demonstrations, resist raids and attempt to prevent the arrest or killing of civilians. On July 29, Colonel Riad al-Asaad formally brought these emerging groups together under the name of the Free Syrian Army. Its declared purpose was to work “hand in hand with the people to achieve freedom and dignity” and to protect the revolution and the country. Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Harmoush was another of the founding officers who made that choice, to stand with the Syrian people. After defecting in June 2011, he declared that he had joined the Syrian people to protect peaceful demonstrators, saying that soldiers had sworn to direct their weapons against the enemy, “not against our people.” Harmoush knew what capture was likely to mean, as did every soldier who followed him. Weeks after the formation of the FSA, in August 2011, he disappeared from Turkey, when he was abducted and forcibly returned to the Assad regime. Soon afterwards, Syrian state television paraded him before its cameras to deliver an obviously coerced “confession” retracting his earlier statements. The regime presented the broadcast as proof that Harmoush had willingly returned. His appearance and the extraordinary reversal of everything he had previously said told a very different story. After the broadcast, he disappeared into the regime’s prisons. Following Assad’s fall, Harmoush’s family confirmed that he had been killed in regime detention in 2012. Reports indicate that he was tortured before his death. Two of his brothers and his brother-in-law were also reportedly killed under torture. His fate illustrated precisely what defectors risked: capture, torture, forced confession, disappearance and death. Al-Asaad himself also paid heavily for their courageous decision to stand with the Syrian people. In March 2013, an explosive device planted beneath his vehicle in Mayadeen severed his right leg in an apparent assassination attempt. The following year, his son Mohammed was killed in a suspicious vehicle crash which al-Asaad said might also have been an assassination. The years that followed brought fragmentation, foreign intervention and the proliferation of formations carrying different names and agendas. Not everyone who later used the FSA label embodied its founding principles. But none of this erases what its first members did or what their decision meant. They were soldiers ordered to turn their weapons against their fellow Syrians. They refused. Many were killed, imprisoned or disappeared. Their families were threatened, displaced and collectively punished. Yet their defections shattered the regime’s lies that those opposing its savagery were terrorists and that the regime's army stood united behind the slaughter, demonstrating that loyalty to Syria was not the same as loyalty to Assad. Fifteen years later, following the revolution’s victory, their original demand retains its full meaning: Syria must have a national army whose duty is to protect its people—not murder, torture, displace or humiliate them. The founders and first soldiers of the Free Syrian Army will always be heroes. They could have chosen safety alongside the dictatorship and helped it crush the demand for freedom. Instead, they sacrificed everything to become defenders of their people and of the cause of freedom. https://radiofreesyria.com/the-free-syrian-army-at-15-the-rifle-that-refused-to-kill-its-people/

The first of three new mobile harbour cranes has arrived at Syria’s Port of Tartous, marking the beginning of major infrastructure work under an $800 million investment programme led by Dubai-based logistics company DP World. The project represents not only one of Syria’s largest post-war infrastructure investments, but a significant shift away from the Russian control and influence that defined Tartous under the Assad regime. The crane arrived on 29 June, with two additional units expected by August. Once all three are operating, they are projected to increase the port’s cargo-handling capacity by approximately 40%, enabling it to receive larger vessels and process greater volumes of containers, bulk goods and other cargo. A regional hub Although Tartous is Syria’s second-largest port, the redevelopment is intended to give it a role extending beyond the domestic market. Its Mediterranean location could allow goods destined for Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye to pass through Syria, while connecting regional markets with shipping routes serving the Gulf, southern Europe and North Africa. The Syrian government is also upgrading the M4 and M5 highways, which connect the coast with Aleppo, Damascus and major border routes. Better inland transport will be essential if Tartous is to operate as a regional transit centre rather than simply an entry point for Syrian imports. The project follows the lifting of most international sanctions imposed during Assad’s rule, which had isolated Syria from international banking, investment and shipping networks. Renewed access to those systems has enabled foreign companies to begin making long-term commitments that would previously have been difficult or impossible. From Russian control to regional trade Tartous was one of the clearest symbols of Syria’s strategic and economic dependence on Moscow under the Assad regime. Russia maintained its naval facility at the port, while the Russian company Stroytransgaz received a 49-year contract in 2019 to manage and develop its commercial operations. Syria’s new authorities cancelled that commercial agreement in January 2025, citing failures to fulfil its terms, before awarding the port’s redevelopment and management to DP World under a 30-year concession. Russia continues to maintain a presence in a restricted naval section of Tartous, separate from DP World’s commercial operations. The change therefore does not represent the complete disappearance of Moscow from the port, but it does mark a substantial reduction in Russian control and Syria’s growing economic alignment with Gulf and European partners. Under the new strategy, Tartous is intended primarily as a commercial gateway: reconnecting Syria with global markets and capitalising on its position between the Mediterranean, the Gulf and neighbouring regional economies. Rebuilding Syria’s ports The Tartous programme forms part of a wider effort to reconstruct Syria’s trade infrastructure. At Latakia, French shipping group CMA CGM signed a separate 30-year concession in May 2025 and committed €230 million to expanding and modernising the country’s principal container terminal. The programme includes a new deep-water berth and is intended to raise annual capacity beyond one million containers. In May, Syria also agreed for CMA CGM to operate dry ports near Damascus and Aleppo, alongside the restoration of freight-train services from Latakia after a 14-year interruption. Together, the projects indicate that Syria is seeking to rebuild not only individual ports but an integrated network connecting maritime terminals with roads, railways and inland logistics centres. Tartous previously symbolised Syria’s strategic dependence on Russia, which maintained a naval facility there and held a commercial port-management agreement under Assad. The new authorities cancelled the Russian commercial contract in early 2025 before awarding the redevelopment concession to DP World. The port still carries geopolitical importance, but its planned role is now primarily commercial: reconnecting Syria with global markets and allowing the country to benefit from its position between the Mediterranean, the Gulf and neighbouring regional economies. https://radiofreesyria.com/uaes-dp-world-begins-800-million-modernisation-of-syrias-tartous-port/

A new report shows that far-right Israeli settlers seeking to colonise southern Syria crossed into the country again last week —raising increasingly unavoidable questions about how the same publicly identified organisation can repeatedly penetrate one of the most heavily guarded and surveilled frontiers on earth. According to the Associated Press report, the latest episode involving members of the Pioneers of Bashan, a far-right settler movement demanding Jewish settlements across Syria’s Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda provinces, took place last week. AP reported that Israeli troops were preparing to launch a nighttime strike against a group of men moving through southern Syria, not knowing their identity, when they noticed the men's long sidelocks identifying them as religious Jews. The soldiers held their fire and discovered that the men were Israeli settlers returning from another unauthorised incursion. The incident once again exposes the criminal reality of Israel’s occupation. Syrians moving within their own country may be regarded as hostile targets, raided, detained or killed quite casually and without concern over any repercussions. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers crossing illegally into Syria are recognised, collected and returned safely to Israel—apparently without prosecution. Repeated crossings, but no indictments These would-be colonists were not unidentified individuals opportunistically exploiting an obscure opening. The Pioneers of Bashan is a known organisation that openly advertises its intentions, publishes footage of its activities and reportedly attempts to enter Syria every few days. Its activists have crossed in groups numbering in the dozens—and, in one recent incident, around 100. They have reportedly carried tents and other equipment, cut fencing with power tools, raised Israeli flags and occupied the roof of a Syrian house near Hader. Nevertheless, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that no indictments have been filed. The Israeli military's objection to the incursions is that they divert soldiers from operations and endanger both troops and settlers - the feelings of Syrians, like those of Palestinians or Lebanese, about invasion of their nation by those wishing to steal their land and homes, are considered unworthy of any consideration. But even that very limited objection does not explain why the same organisation is apparently able to assemble, approach the frontier and cross repeatedly without being stopped before reaching Syrian territory. While there's no public evidence that the military is organising the incursions, there's abundant evidence that the consequences imposed upon those responsible have been insufficient to prevent them from trying again. Ethnic cleansing presented as “humanitarianism” Pioneers of Bashan leader Amos Azaria told AP that the movement wants to create a “humanitarian corridor” between Israel and Suwayda, ostensibly to protect Syria’s Druze population. Azaria then explained that this would require depopulating neighbouring Sunni-majority areas, saying: “The entire Daraa district ... must be cleared of the enemies seeking our destruction and instead be filled with Jewish settlement.” This is very clearly not a humanitarian proposal, but an explicit programme of forced population removal and colonisation, using concern for the Druze as its justification. The ambitions of the colonist group, which claims Syria’s land 'belongs' to Israel on the basis of the same biblical narratives used to justify colonization of Palestine and of Syria's Golan Heights, are not confined to the territory Israel has occupied since Assad’s fall in December 2024: the group has identified large parts of Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda as intended areas of Jewish settlement. Encouragement from above While the Pioneers of Bashan movement is routinely described as “fringe,” its political connections are certainly not peripheral. Its social-media accounts document meetings with cabinet ministers Amichai Eliyahu and Shlomo Karhi, while Azaria claims support from numerous ministers and Knesset members. Members of Israel’s far-right government have themselves embraced the same religious and historical claims to territory beyond Israel’s internationally recognised borders, with Defence Minister Israel Katz repeatedly asserting that Israeli forces will remain in so-called “security zones” in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza indefinitely. On Monday of this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told cabinet ministers that he intends to reject American demands for Israeli withdrawals from all three territories during his meeting with US President Donald Trump: “I will tell them no.” Whether or not these statements are officially intended to encourage the Pioneers of Bashan, they inevitably do so. Settlers see an Israeli government refusing to leave occupied Syrian land, ministers repeating expansionist claims and law-enforcement authorities declining to prosecute repeated border crossings. The settlement movement in the occupied West Bank also began with relatively small groups creating illegal outposts and daring the state to remove them. Those supposedly marginal initiatives were gradually protected, connected to infrastructure and legalised. The Pioneers of Bashan are clearly and openly attempting to reproduce that model in Syria. https://radiofreesyria.com/how-do-israeli-settlers-keep-sneaking-across-one-of-the-worlds-most-heavily-militarized-borders/

By Mahmoud Bitar Damascus July 28, 2026 Assad fell in December 2024. That should have been a moment of reckoning for every journalist who covered Syria: A half-million dead, a torture archipelago exposed, millions displaced, and a people who endured 13 years of war to finally see the regime collapse. Lindsey Snell's response in January 2025 tells you everything about her framework. In an interview titled "the Recent Triumphs of Al-Qaeda" after Assad's fall, she framed the fall of Assad not as a moment of liberation for Syrians, but as a victory for al-Qaeda and the group that now runs Syria. That is not analysis. That is the same tired smear, recycled for the post-Assad era.Before the fall, the line was: The opposition is all extremists, so Assad must stay. After the fall, the line becomes: The opposition won, so al-Qaeda won. The logic is identical. The Syrian people disappear in both versions. What happened after December 2024 actually disproved Snell's entire narrative. Syrians who had been branded as extremists for opposing Assad were revealed to be activists, prisoners, disappeared families searching for loved ones in Saydnaya, journalists, doctors. The crowds in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Daraa were not al-Qaeda parades. They were Syrians celebrating the end of a nightmare.And yet Snell continues to focus almost exclusively on Turkish-backed militias like the 'Amshat' and 'Hamzat' - real groups that deserve scrutiny - while using them to paint the entire post-Assad transition as a jihadist takeover. This is the core dishonesty of her work: Take a real problem - extremism exists - and inflate it until it becomes the only story, erasing everything else. If extremism is your only lens, you will never understand Syria. You will never understand why a child in Daraa wrote on a wall in 2011, why a pharmacist in Ghouta risked his life to smuggle medicine, why a mother in Idlib kept her children in school under bombardment. None of them were extremists. All of them opposed Assad. In Snell's framework, they have no place. Before Assad's fall, that framing provided intellectual cover for a regime that gassed, bombed, tortured and disappeared its own people. After Assad's fall, that same framing provides intellectual cover for denying Syrians their own revolution, telling them that the freedom they finally won is not really theirs, but al-Qaeda's. Syria's story after Assad is complicated, fragile, and dangerous. It needs sharp, honest, unsparing journalism that holds the new authorities، militias, and all armed actors to account. It does not need recycled smears that label every Syrian who opposed Assad as an extremist. Lindsey Snell had 13 years to correct course. After Assad's fall, she has chosen to double down. https://radiofreesyria.com/lindsey-snells-syria-story-collapsed-with-assad-she-didnt-notice/

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has warned that Israel’s continuing attacks, occupation and destruction of towns in southern Lebanon may amount to war crimes and other crimes under international law. Speaking on Monday at the conclusion of a visit to Lebanon, Türk said he was shocked by the scale of destruction and “compounded suffering” he witnessed. His office has documented widespread violations of international humanitarian law, including civilian deaths, mass displacement and the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas. Türk said Israeli airstrikes, shelling and ground operations were continuing despite successive ceasefire announcements and negotiations. He described visiting a school converted into a shelter for approximately 1,000 displaced people. “Some told me they had tried to return to their homes last week, only to find that their villages had been completely destroyed,” he said. Residents also described entire villages south of the Litani River as having been levelled or rendered uninhabitable. More than 135 healthcare workers, along with numerous journalists and media workers, have reportedly been killed. Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said on Monday that Israeli attacks since March 2 have killed 4,332 people and injured 12,236. Türk said Israeli forces continue to occupy extensive areas of Lebanese territory and called for an end to the occupation, attacks and demolition of civilian homes. The overall pattern of destruction, displacement and obstruction of residents’ return, he warned, may constitute international crimes. The Lebanese Army separately accused Israeli forces of continuing demolition, bulldozing and shelling operations in violation of international law and existing agreements, preventing civilians from returning and obstructing the army’s full deployment in southern Lebanon. Israel’s conduct in Lebanon forms part of a wider regional pattern extending into neighbouring Syria, where its forces now carry out incursions with near-daily regularity despite repeated Syrian assurances that Damascus does not seek confrontation. On Monday, Israeli forces entered the western Daraa and northern Quneitra countryside. Troops raided civilian homes in al-Ardah amid heavy gunfire and detained a Syrian man after searching a house in Taranja. Israeli tanks and military vehicles also advanced into the Yarmouk Basin, while forces stationed at the al-Jazira military post reportedly opened fire towards residential areas of Maariya. These operations followed further incursions on Sunday, when Israeli forces established a checkpoint near al-Ardah and dropped leaflets threatening residents who attempted to obstruct Israeli military vehicles. The incursions violate Syrian sovereignty and the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, while Israel continues to occupy the Syrian Golan Heights and additional territory seized following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. The attacks continued even as UN Secretary-General António Guterres visited Damascus, condemned Israel’s airstrikes and ground incursions, and reaffirmed that the occupied Golan is Syrian territory. Türk’s intervention comes only days after Israel joined the United States and Russia in voting against his appointment to a second four-year term as UN human rights chief. Türk has repeatedly criticised Israeli violations in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as Russia’s war against Ukraine. Despite their opposition, the UN General Assembly approved his reappointment by 144 votes to 10, with 13 abstentions. The warning also highlights the widening gap between international law and its enforcement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is already subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, issued after judges found reasonable grounds to believe that he bears responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Russian President Vladimir Putin is likewise wanted by the ICC. Yet Netanyahu’s warrant remains unenforced, while superpower allies continue to receive, arm and protect his government. This absence of meaningful accountability has enabled Israel to destroy and occupy Lebanese territory, continue its genocidal assault on Palestinians and invade southern Syria almost daily—raiding homes, detaining civilians and threatening communities that attempt to resist—without facing any effective international consequences. The result is precisely the impunity that allows alleged war crimes to be followed by further violations across national borders. https://radiofreesyria.com/un-rights-chief-israeli-destruction-in-lebanon-may-constitute-war-crimes/

President Ahmad al-Sharaa has outlined his government’s approach to Syria’s foreign relations, economic reconstruction and domestic transition, saying the country is entering a new phase after decades of dictatorship, war and international isolation. In an interview broadcast by Al Jazeera on Sunday, President al-Sharaa said the government is seeking balanced relations with regional and international powers while rebuilding state institutions and encouraging the return of refugees and investment. He described Syria’s improved relations with Washington following the lifting of US sanctions as the beginning of a more positive phase. Saudi mediation and support from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had contributed to the decision, he said, while thanking US President Donald Trump for implementing it. President al-Sharaa stressed that suspending the Caesar Act alone would not have been sufficient without removing Syria from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. He said the remaining restrictions should also eventually be lifted. Relations with Russia and the West Relations with Russia are being redefined rather than severed, according to President al-Sharaa. Contacts begun during the campaign that overthrew Bashar al-Assad led to an agreement restricting Russia’s military presence to Hmeimim Air Base and part of the Tartous naval facility, while negotiations over the bases’ future continue. He said Damascus intends to retain elements of the historic relationship with Moscow that serve Syrian interests while correcting the relationship established under the former regime. Syria has also received positive responses from European governments and China, he added. President al-Sharaa pointed to Syria’s shared interests with Western countries, including trade, investment and security cooperation, as well as the presence of large Syrian refugee communities across Europe, particularly in Germany. Lebanon, Israel and regional tensions Turning to Lebanon, President al-Sharaa backed the Lebanese state’s exclusive authority over weapons, saying armed organisations operating outside state institutions had produced “catastrophic consequences.” He noted that Hezbollah fought alongside Assad’s forces against the Syrian people for 14 years, but reiterated that the Syrian government has no intention of intervening militarily in Lebanon. On Israel, President al-Sharaa said Syria is working through several countries to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel, reduce tensions and prevent a wider conflict. Damascus hopes initially to secure a security arrangement that protects Syrian rights and could, if respected by Israel, eventually prepare the ground for broader peace. Any such process would not involve surrendering Syria’s right to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, he stressed. He also reaffirmed Syria’s support for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the wider Arab position. President al-Sharaa rejected the idea that regional countries must choose between Israeli policies and Iranian ambitions. Instead, he argued, states should pursue independent policies reflecting their own national interests. Syria had deliberately avoided becoming involved in the recent war involving Iran, Israel and the United States, he added. Investment and reconstruction President al-Sharaa said Gulf investors have begun financing projects in energy, airports, tourism and property, while the government prepares reforms covering investment law, banking and the judicial system. Around 3,700 new production lines have been established since the beginning of 2025, he said, alongside work to restore infrastructure, energy facilities and oil fields. He presented the administration’s experience in Idlib as a model for parts of the reconstruction programme, pointing to the development of roads, markets, industrial zones and residential areas there. President al-Sharaa also acknowledged the longstanding neglect of eastern Syria despite the region’s natural resources. He announced plans for a new Damascus–Deir Ezzor motorway following the completion of technical studies. More than 3.4 million refugees and internally displaced Syrians have returned during the past 18 months, according to President al-Sharaa, who described the figure as evidence of improving conditions. Accountability and national unity Rebuilding state institutions remains the central domestic priority, President al-Sharaa said. He pointed to the first session of the new People’s Assembly last week as part of an effort to broaden public participation in government. On transitional justice, he said the national commission dealing with missing persons is operating according to international standards. The scale of detention, disappearance and abuse under the Assad regime remained “shocking,” he added. President al-Sharaa pledged that senior former regime officials would face prosecution, while stressing that accountability must be pursued through legal institutions and without endangering civil peace. Addressing northeastern Syria, he distinguished between Syria’s Kurdish population and the Syrian Democratic Forces, noting that the government had expanded citizenship and cultural rights for Kurds. Implementation of the agreement reached with the SDF has proceeded more slowly than expected, he acknowledged, but said it remains an important basis for advancing national unity. The government’s fundamental position, he added, is that Syria’s territorial integrity must be preserved and weapons brought under the authority of state institutions. President al-Sharaa concluded by promising greater political pluralism and freedom of expression. “We are no longer living in an era in which the president decides everything,” he said, adding that accurate criticism should be accepted even when it is harsh. Syria’s recovery would require patience and gradual reform, President al-Sharaa said, but he insisted that the country is moving steadily towards greater stability. https://radiofreesyria.com/president-al-sharaa-sets-out-syrias-foreign-policy-and-reconstruction-priorities/

Arabic version below Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated his refusal to withdraw Israeli forces from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, reinforcing the impression that US demands on Israel are purely cosmetic and carry no meaningful consequences. Israel’s Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu told cabinet ministers Washington wanted a “series of withdrawals” across the three territories, but that he intended to resist. “I will tell them no,” he reportedly said ahead of his scheduled meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday. This is not Netanyahu’s first rejection of Washington’s demands. Earlier this month, Trump reportedly told him directly that Israel should begin withdrawing from Syria and continue redeployments in Lebanon, warning that its military presence risked further escalation. Netanyahu responded by insisting upon permanent Israeli “security zones.” Netanyahu also declared in June that Israeli forces would not leave southern Lebanon, while Defence Minister Israel Katz subsequently said troops would remain in “security zones” in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza indefinitely. The latest remarks therefore appear to repeat an established policy rather than signal a new disagreement. Despite Israel’s repeated refusal to comply, Washington has announced no conditions on US weapons, funding or diplomatic support. Trump’s protection has extended to Netanyahu personally. In June 2025, he demanded that the Israeli prime minister’s corruption trial be cancelled or that Netanyahu be pardoned, declaring that the United States would “save” him. Trump subsequently pressed Israeli President Isaac Herzog to grant that pardon—openly intervening in Israel’s judicial process on Netanyahu’s behalf. Instead, the Trump administration’s only tangible pressure appears directed largely towards regional allies expected to make concessions to Israel. Trump has demanded that Saudi Arabia normalise relations with Israel as a condition for implementing a US-Saudi agreement that had already been signed. Syria, meanwhile, has repeatedly ruled out military confrontation and sought a US-backed security agreement, while Israeli forces continue near-daily incursions and attacks. President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Sunday that Damascus was trying to mobilise international pressure for a more balanced Israeli policy. UN Secretary-General António Guterres described Israel’s violations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement as “unacceptable.” Lebanon is similarly being pressed to disarm Hezbollah while Israel delays or limits withdrawals required under US-brokered arrangements. In Gaza, Israel continues to control most of the territory despite Washington’s purported desire for redeployment. The contrast is increasingly difficult to dismiss. Washington asks Israel to withdraw but imposes no apparent cost when Netanyahu refuses; at the same time, it places concrete pressure on Arab states to normalise relations with Israel. Netanyahu’s repeated defiance suggests that he regards American objections as largely cosmetic—and Israel’s freedom to occupy and attack neighbouring territories as effectively protected by continued US support. https://radiofreesyria.com/netanyahu-repeats-refusal-to-withdraw-israeli-forces-despite-us-requests/

By Ruth Riegler Andy Burnham, the UK's new Prime Minister, likes to present himself as the enemy of remote Westminster rule: a plain-speaking northern “man of the people” promising to return decisions to the communities affected by them. Yet on his first visit to Scotland as prime minister on Thursday, Burnham declared another independence referendum “off limits.” Scotland may apparently gratefully receive whatever additional powers Westminster graciously chooses to bestow, but may not decide whether Westminster should rule it at all. After decades as an MP, cabinet minister and mayor—and now as prime minister—Burnham is, despite his posturing, not outside Britain’s political establishment. He is at its summit. Nor does his decision to open a “No 10 North” in his home city of Manchester as an effort to showcase his dedication to 'the North' actually decentralise the United Kingdom. Instead, it moves part of the British government from southern England to northern England, while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remain territories whose constitutional demands can be dismissed from either office. Even the clichés reveal the Anglocentric reality of British politics. Burnham is presented as an authentic northerner rather than a metropolitan “southern softie.” But 'the North' and 'the South' in question refer always to northern and southern England. Scotland—north of this supposedly definitive North—barely exists except maybe as a minor province or colonial outpost. English preferences are thus depicted as British policy, while Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish preferences become chippy provincial complaints about it. Brexit, Britishness and Belonging Brexit made this imbalance impossible to ignore. It did not create the universal evils of xenophobia, religious bigotry (particularly Islamophobia) or ethnocentric nationalism, of course, but it legitimised and empowered them, lending them a veil of respectability. Its mythology was and remains overwhelmingly Anglocentric: Churchill, Big Ben, British bulldogs, the London Blitz and supposed imperial greatness, all presented as the shared inheritance of a multinational state. These are principally English symbols, however, repackaged as “British” and used to define who truly belongs. There is no claim that Brexit was supported exclusively by England, of course, and English patriotism is obviously not inherently more racist than any other. Scotland certainly has its own share of racists, xenophobes and a growing far right, while many unionists—including English unionists—reject Brexit’s ugliness. The divide is not between imaginary virtuous Scots and suspect English people. It's between civic belonging and exclusionary nationalism built on ancestry, conformity and hostility towards outsiders. The Life in the UK citizenship test is the bureaucratic expression of the same Westminster politics. As Mahmoud Bitar recently noted in a Radio Free Syria article, applicants must memorise thousands of facts, including cultural trivia and selective history that the majority of people born in Britain could not answer. The handbook is more interested in Big Ben, Edward Elgar, roast beef and cricket than in explaining the NHS, schools or emergency services. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland appear as supplementary minor details within an overwhelmingly English story. Syrian-British filmmaker Hassan Akkad exposed the absurdity through a December 2022 survey based on the official test; only 15 participants passed. His survey is not new, but its relevance remains. Belonging is assumed for those born in the UK, regardless of what they know. For newcomers, it is conditional, examinable and expensive: the test costs £50 per attempt, while adult naturalisation now costs more than £1,800 before other expenses. Citizenship is, thus, treated not as the culmination of participation in society, but as a costly privilege for which immigrants must prove themselves worthy through a tarted-up Anglocentric pub quiz. The Westminster Outsiders While Burnham may sound more sympathetic than Nigel Farage, he has not fundamentally rejected the Farage-oriented direction of British immigration policy. Questioning whether Labour’s proposed ten-year qualifying period for permanent settlement should apply retrospectively is not the same as opposing it. Burnham supported Labour’s restrictive Immigration and Asylum Bill, retained Shabana Mahmood as home secretary and retreated from his earlier opposition to the “no recourse to public funds” rule. A more pronounced regional accent than his predecessor Keir Starmer's should certainly not be mistaken for a different political destination. In his 'man of the people' persona, Burnham exemplifies a wider Westminster fashion: politicians who have spent their careers inside Britain’s governing institutions posing as plain-speaking outsiders fighting a “metropolitan elite.” It is Farage’s populist bilge with some of the cruder edges polished off. The supposed anti-elitism of Westminster's doughty self-styled tribunes of the proletariat rarely targets concentrated wealth or corporate power, however. Instead, anger is redirected - subtly or more directly - towards immigrants, refugees, lawyers, academics and human-rights organisations. Farage’s greatest success has been persuading Westminster politicians to accept his premises and compete to deliver them more respectably. The SNP, whatever its weaknesses, has largely avoided this theatrical “ordinary man who tells it like it is” routine. Its case for independence does not require inventing refugees, immigrants or English people as Scotland’s enemy. From Scotland to Syria One of Burnham’s other first acts as prime minister was to appoint Ed Miliband as foreign secretary. For Syrians, that carries bitter historical weight. As Labour leader in 2013, Miliband opposed the proposed British military response following Assad’s chemical attack on Ghouta. Parliament rejected action, the supposed international “red line” collapsed, and Assad continued to bomb, gas, torture and dispossess Syrians with Russian and Iranian support. Miliband has since insisted that he does not regret his decision, invoking the possibility that whatever followed Assad might have been worse. Syrians demanding freedom were reduced to objects of Western risk management, their aspirations subordinated to Westminster’s preference for what it considered predictable stability. Scotland and Syria plainly cannot be equated. Westminster is not the Assad regime, and constitutional independence is not liberation from a genocidal dictatorship. But both cases expose a recognisable Westminster instinct: the assumption that other peoples’ aspirations may be overruled whenever they conflict with Westminster’s calculations. Syrians demanding freedom were told the alternative might be "too dangerous". Scots reconsidering the Union are told the question itself is “off limits.” Scotland is supposedly an equal nation in a voluntary union, yet its constitutional future can be prohibited by a government dominated numerically and politically by England. That is not a partnership of equals. The Britain of 2014 No Longer Exists Unionists invariably reply that Scotland rejected independence in 2014, when 55.3% voted No and 44.7% Yes. The result was accepted—but almost 45% supporting independence was hardly an overwhelming or permanent rejection, particularly after Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats united as Better Together to campaign tirelessly against independence and virtually the entire UK press warned of catastrophe if Scotland left. More importantly, Scotland voted to remain in a Britain that was still inside the European Union. UK membership was presented as the safe way to protect Scotland’s place in Europe. Less than two years later, with Brexit, Scotland voted by 62% to remain in the EU but was removed anyway because of the UK-wide result, determined principally by England’s much larger electorate. Brexit has since devastated UK trade, investment and growth. The Office for Budget Responsibility projects that UK trade intensity will ultimately be 15% lower and potential productivity 4% lower than they would otherwise have been. The political country offered to Scots in 2014 no longer exists. Democracy does not freeze after one vote, particularly when new generations have reached voting age and the constitutional conditions have been transformed. While the referendum 'allowed' Scotland to decide whether to leave the Union, it's often forgotten that Scots - outside a minute 'metropolitan elite' - were never actually asked whether they wished to enter it. The 1707 Act of Union was approved by a Parliament representing aristocrats and wealthy landowners, not the nation's people. More than three centuries later, another British prime minister claims the authority to declare reconsideration of that arrangement “off limits.” Two Visions of the Future This is not to deny that Scottish independence, like any popular cause, attracts cynical bandwagon-jumpers eager to exploit it for their own purposes. The overnight conversion of super-grifter and Assad propagandist George Galloway from lifelong unionist to self-appointed doughty champion of Scotland’s right to self-determination is typically shameless. Galloway campaigned against independence in 2014, shared a Kremlin-promoted Brexit platform with Nigel Farage, tirelessly mocked the pro-independence SNP and later launched the resolutely unionist All for Unity party. His current vehicle is the Workers Party of Britain, although another rebranding will doubtless arrive eventually: Galloway has had more parties than Paris Hilton, though without her charm or sincerity. His newfound love for Scots self-determination suggests his unerring instinct for self-advancement has persuaded him that the political wind is changing. Other malign actors—including Galloway’s allies in Moscow and Tehran—have likewise attempted to appropriate Scottish independence for their own objectives. Their interest has nothing to do with Scotland’s democratic rights and everything to do with a cynical effort to exploit the movement to manufacture division and enmity between Scotland and England. Supporters of civic Scottish independence understand those motives perfectly well and categorically reject them. Scottish independence is not about hatred of England or creating a smaller version of regressive Brexit ethnonationalism. It's about the right of Scotland's people, old and new, to decide how Scotland is governed. In the words of Scottish actor/director Peter Mullan, "I've got nothing against the English, but I don't want Westminster ruling my country. I want neighbours, not masters." Independence would certainly not automatically abolish the universal idiocies of racism and other bigotry, defeat the far right or make every Scottish government progressive. Freedom doesn't remove political responsibility; it creates it. But it would give Scotland the power and responsibility to determine what citizenship means, how refugees are treated and whether its institutions are founded on exclusion or equal belonging. The mainstream independence movement offers a fundamentally different conception of nationality from that of Brexit. The famous Scots proverb, “We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns,” is both a fundamental principle and a means of defining Scottishness and citizenship through residence, participation and shared civic responsibility, not ancestry or ethnic pedigree; in short, if Scotland's your home, you're part of Scotland. Old Scots or new are equal parts of the nation's fabric. Versions of the same choice, between authoritarianism and civic citizenship confront societies worldwide. Syrians revolted against a dictatorship sustained through terror, sectarian manipulation and the insistence that only the Assad dynasty could prevent chaos. Across the world, far-right movements promise security and supposedly restored greatness attained through exclusion, supremacism and vilification of immigrants, refugees and minorities. Authoritarians portray pluralism as weakness, freedom as disorder and human rights as obstacles to power. Progressive vs Regressive, Belonging vs 'Tolerance' Against them stands another vision: progressive, outward-looking nations in which citizenship does not depend on ethnicity; refugees are treated as fellow people rather than invading populations; minorities are equal citizens with the same rights rather than conditional tolerance; and sovereignty belongs to the people who make their homes in a country. The question facing Scotland is therefore not merely whether decisions should be made in Edinburgh or London. It is what kind of nation Scotland wishes to become: a regressive, inward-looking country defining belonging through exclusion, inherited mythology and fear of outsiders, or a democratic, progressive, outward-looking society founded on freedom, human rights and equal citizenship. Westminster has told Scotland that choosing its own future is “off limits.” No nation that considers itself democratic should accept that answer. Scotland’s future belongs neither to Westminster nor to any ethnic or ancestral category. It belongs to all of us who call Scotland our home. https://radiofreesyria.com/off-limits-british-citizenship-andy-burnham-and-scotlands-right-to-choose/

By Mahmoud Bitar | July 23, 2026 Germany has not overcome its history. It has outsourced its atonement. For 80 years, Germany has told the world it learned from the Holocaust. Its memorials are immaculate, its museums vast, its apologies rehearsed. But atonement without accountability is just performance. And the people paying for that performance today are Palestinians. Palestinians did not commit the Holocaust. They did not put Jews in cattle cars. They did not build Auschwitz. They did not murder six million Jews. Yet it is Palestinians who live the daily consequences of Germany's need to prove it is no longer what it was.This is how German guilt works. It works when Germany declares Israel's security as its Staatsräson — its reason of state — while Palestinian security does not even merit a footnote. No German chancellor has ever declared Palestinian life a reason of state.It works when Germany ships weapons to Israel as Gaza is bombed to rubble. Warships, artillery, air-defense systems — all approved by a government that claims to have learned that "never again" means never again for anyone. It works when Berlin police arrest and beat protesters for wearing a keffiyeh, when universities cancel Palestinian academics, when chanting "from the river to the sea" is criminalized faster than actual antisemitic violence on German streets. Germany has confused silencing Palestinians with fighting antisemitism. The logic is cruel but clear. Europe could not live with its Jews, so it decided Palestinians should pay the price. Germany was the epicenter of that European antisemitism. After the Holocaust, instead of confronting that it had made Jewish life in Europe impossible, the West facilitated the dispossession of another people to ease its own conscience. In 1948, Palestinians were made stateless so Europeans could feel less guilty. In Gaza today, Palestinians are starved and bombed with German weapons so Germany can feel righteous. This is not remembrance. It is the displacement of guilt. Germany has not stopped deciding which lives are expendable. It has simply changed the category. True atonement would mean Germany says never again to anyone. Never again genocide. Never again ghettos. Never again collective punishment. Never again dehumanization. Whether the victim is Jewish or Palestinian. Until Germany understands that Palestinian freedom is not a threat to Jewish safety but a condition for it, its guilt will remain what it has always been: a burden forced upon Palestinians to carry. https://radiofreesyria.com/why-palestinians-are-paying-the-price-for-german-guilt/

By Ruth Riegler Former senior United Nations official Martin Griffiths has made a remarkable admission about Syria: dialogue failed, military action ended the suffering, and the international community was wrong to rule out the removal of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. In an article published by Al Jazeera on Wednesday that amounts to a rare public mea culpa, Griffiths writes that he “cannot claim innocence before the Syrian people” after 15 years of failed international engagement. As a senior member of the UN Special Envoy’s Office and later head of UN humanitarian affairs, he dealt directly with senior regime officials, including Assad himself. His honesty—and his urgent appeal for the world to now help Syrians rebuild their country—are welcome. But both are devastatingly late. "We will never let them out. Nor will we ever admit to this truth" In the article, Griffiths recounts an exchange from 2012, when he was conducting daily negotiations with the regime in Damascus. After he repeatedly raised the issue of detainees, a regime official ordered the microphones switched off and the pens put down. “Stop wasting your time on this,” the official told him. “We will never let them out. Nor will we ever admit to this truth.” That should have ended any illusion about the nature of the regime. It was not a misunderstood government waiting for the right diplomatic formula. Imprisonment, torture and enforced disappearance were not regrettable excesses that international officials might persuade it to correct. They were deliberate instruments of over 50 years of dictatorship. Yet the meetings—and the disingenuous illusions—continued. A decade later, Griffiths raised the prisons directly with Assad. The dictator replied that he had already emptied them and that no detainees remained. The lie was grotesque but unsurprising. Syrians had spent years telling the world that Assad lied reflexively while his security apparatus detained, tortured and murdered on an industrial scale. And the world spent the years not caring enough to listen. Griffiths now writes: “The Syrian people were saved by military action.” For someone who devoted his career to negotiation, he says, it is a “bitter truth” that action rather than dialogue was required—and had been required years earlier. Syrians already knew that. They knew it when peaceful protesters were shot in the streets. They knew it when detainees emerged bearing the marks of torture, or never emerged at all. They knew it when regime aircraft bombed homes, hospitals, schools and markets, and when chemical weapons were used against civilians. Those who insisted that Assad would never negotiate away the machinery keeping him in power were dismissed as unrealistic, belligerent or insufficiently committed to peace. Calls for meaningful protection were treated as dangerously simplistic. Repeating a diplomatic process that had already failed was presented as responsible statesmanship. Global consequences But the consequences didn't end at Syria’s borders The decision to abandon Syrians to Assad’s bombs helped teach Russia that spectacular brutality could be rewarded rather than punished. Moscow intervened to preserve a regime responsible for mass killing, deliberately attacked civilian infrastructure and used Syria as both a military testing ground and a laboratory for disinformation. It demonstrated that international law could be paralysed, evidence could be buried beneath conspiracy theories and hospitals could be bombed without producing meaningful consequences. Russia didn't begin its aggression in Syria, and Syria alone didn't cause its later actions. But the impunity Moscow enjoyed there helped confirm that escalation worked and Western warnings frequently did not. The lessons were not lost when Russia expanded its war against Ukraine. Authoritarians elsewhere, from Tel Aviv to Myanmar, across the world, learned something similar. A ruler could imprison and kill opponents, reduce cities to rubble and force millions into exile, then rebrand himself as the indispensable guardian of “stability”. If every opponent was labelled a terrorist and every alternative depicted as chaos, much of the world would eventually ask the victims to accommodate their oppressor. That argument was repeated endlessly about Syria: Assad was nasty, commentators conceded, but whatever followed him might be worse. The Syrian people therefore had to be “realistic”, accept his continued rule and negotiate with the apparatus imprisoning, torturing and bombing them. Those offering this advice would not have lived under that apparatus for a second. Much of the Western political and media establishment treated Syria as a minor detail: a distant Middle Eastern tragedy, all very sad of course, but ultimately peripheral to the serious business of Western politics. At best, the response was benign indifference. At worst, Syrians were depicted as an inconvenient population whose demands for freedom threatened the preferred illusion of stability. Meanwhile, the far right embraced Assad as a model strongman. His propaganda—civilisation against barbarism, order against chaos, the state against terrorists—fitted easily into its own politics. Refugees driven from Syria by the regime and its allies were then used to fuel xenophobia and electoral authoritarianism across Europe. Western governments helped create the displacement and instability they later cited as reasons to retreat further into isolation, border violence and anti-refugee politics. Having abandoned Syrians, they then punished them for fleeing the consequences of that abandonment. Griffiths now identifies the international community’s “original sin” as excluding regime change from the outset as a route to ending Syria’s suffering. That conclusion requires more than applause for his candour. Performative processes created to benefit Assad It requires asking what senior international officials understood, when they understood it and what they told governments and the wider UN system. Once Griffiths had been explicitly informed in 2012 that detainees would never be released or acknowledged, why did international institutions continue performing a political process built on the possibility that Assad might compromise? Diplomats and humanitarian officials sometimes have no choice but to meet monstrous people. Griffiths is right about that. The deeper failure was allowing engagement to become an end in itself, creating the appearance of international action while Syrians continued to die. Syria was never merely a local tragedy, and its abandonment was never a cost-free decision. It weakened the prohibition against chemical weapons, rewarded Russian aggression, vindicated authoritarian propaganda and helped turn refugees into political weapons. It showed rulers and movements across the world that sufficient brutality, accompanied by sufficient disinformation, could exhaust democratic resistance and international concern. The world did not simply fail Syria. In failing Syria, it helped remake itself and to empower would-be Assads everywhere. Griffiths’ admission matters because so few senior international figures have accepted even partial responsibility. But belated honesty cannot restore the dead or return the years stolen from millions of Syrians. Nor should Syria’s story end with international failure. After being abandoned, outgunned and repeatedly told that their revolution had failed, Syrians ultimately overthrew Assad themselves. Alone and unaided by the international powers that had spent years explaining why his removal was impossible, they accomplished what conferences, envoys and negotiations never could. Their revolution was historic in every sense. It ended more than half a century of dynastic dictatorship, shattered the supposed permanence of one of the world’s most brutal police states and freed Syria’s prisons from a regime that had confidently told Griffiths it would never release—or even acknowledge—those detained inside them. Syrians were not merely victims whom the world failed to save. They were witnesses whom it chose not to believe, and revolutionaries who ultimately proved it wrong. Liberation was the beginning, support is essential But liberation is not the end of Syria’s story. The country Syrians have reclaimed has been devastated by years of war, mass displacement, economic collapse and systematic destruction. Griffiths is right that Syria now urgently needs international support, the removal of remaining sanctions, legal and institutional development, and responsible investment capable of creating employment and rebuilding essential services. That support must not be conditional on denying Syrians the freedom and political agency for which they sacrificed so much. Nor should it reproduce the old international habit of treating Syrians as passive recipients of decisions made elsewhere. Reconstruction must be Syrian-led, transparent and inclusive, with international partners supporting rather than directing the country’s future. Helping Syria rebuild is not charity, and it is not a peripheral concern confined to another supposedly distant Middle Eastern crisis. The past 15 years should have demolished that illusion. Instability, authoritarianism, displacement, disinformation and impunity do not remain neatly within national borders. Neither do economic recovery, accountable government and peace. The world is interconnected. What it permitted in Syria helped empower Russia, embolden authoritarians and strengthen the far right far beyond the region. What happens in Syria now will also extend far beyond it. The international community cannot undo its decision to abandon Syrians when they most needed protection. It can, however, listen to them now and help them rebuild the country they liberated. Syrians accomplished the historic task of overthrowing Assad without the world’s help. They should not be left alone to carry the immense burden of rebuilding everything his regime and its allies destroyed. https://radiofreesyria.com/former-un-official-acknowledges-the-world-abandoned-syria-now-it-must-help-syrians-rebuild/

The United States House of Representatives has narrowly approved a record $1.15 trillion defence policy bill containing provisions that would substantially deepen military and technological cooperation with Israel, even as Israeli occupation forces intensify their attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, and expand their presence and operations inside Syria and Lebanon. The House passed its version of the 2027 National Defence Authorisation Act on Wednesday by 216 votes to 212. Six Democrats supported the measure, while seven Republicans voted against it. The bill would establish a formal mechanism to coordinate US-Israeli military research, weapons production and technological integration. Its scope reportedly includes artificial intelligence, drones, cyberwarfare, data-sharing and the incorporation of Israeli technology into critical US military systems and supply chains. Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who opposed the legislation, said the bill “tragically merges our military technology and supply chains with Israel’s”. “Let’s hope this version fails in the Senate because Section 219 is a betrayal of our sovereignty,” Massie wrote following the vote. The measure carries particular significance for Syria and Lebanon, where Israel has increasingly acted beyond its internationally recognised borders while continuing to receive extensive US military and diplomatic support. Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israeli forces have seized additional Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights, moved into the demilitarised buffer zone and established military positions inside Syria. They have also conducted repeated incursions, raids, arrests and searches in Quneitra and Daraa provinces, frequently setting up checkpoints and restricting the movement of Syrian civilians. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in June that Israeli troops would not withdraw from the territory they had occupied inside Syria. Israel has simultaneously continued air strikes across the country despite repeated condemnations from Damascus and demands that it respect Syrian sovereignty and the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Israeli forces have also expanded operations and their territorial reach inside Lebanon, amid a wider regional war launched jointly by the United States and Israel against Iran in February. Against this background, legislation binding the American and Israeli defence industries more closely together risks being seen across the region as more than routine military cooperation. It sends a signal that Israel’s territorial expansion and repeated violations of neighbouring states’ sovereignty carry no meaningful cost to its relationship with Washington. The bill also supports continued US military operations against Iran, a war whose cost the Pentagon has placed at $37.5 billion so far. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer previously described the legislation as a “permission slip” for the Trump administration to continue the war without adequate congressional oversight. Its passage is not yet assured. Senate Democrats blocked debate on their chamber’s version last week, while the House bill’s inclusion of the Trump-backed SAVE America Act, which would impose new voting restrictions, creates another substantial obstacle. The House and Senate must ultimately approve a negotiated final version before the legislation can be sent to President Donald Trump for signature. https://radiofreesyria.com/us-house-advances-1-15tn-defence-bill-deepening-american-military-integration-with-israel/

Israel has moved to clear a legal obstacle to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s proposal to surround a prison holding Palestinian detainees with a crocodile-filled moat. The obstacle was not an official concern that deliberately terrorising prisoners with lethal predators might constitute cruel or degrading treatment; it was the protected legal status of the crocodiles. Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman has reclassified the Nile crocodile as a “specially managed wild animal,” potentially allowing security bodies—including the Israel Prison Service—to keep the animals for what the government defines as security purposes. The decision advances Ben-Gvir’s proposed pilot scheme for Ketziot Prison in southern Israel, which holds Palestinian detainees, although the moat has not received final approval and has not been constructed. The episode presents a surreal but depressingly typical grotesque moral inversion: the crocodiles enter the process as protected creatures whose welfare and legal status required ministerial consideration. Palestinian prisoners enter it with fewer rights than animals. According to the Israeli news outlet Ynet, officials placed pressure on the Israel Nature and Parks Authority to transfer crocodiles from Hamat Gader for use around prisons. The authority initially rejected the proposal, arguing that such animals could be kept only for education, research and public-information purposes. “We are supposed to protect them, not have them protect us,” officials reportedly told Ben-Gvir and Silman. Silman’s own ministry legal adviser, Neta Drori, also warned that the proposal lacked sufficient professional and factual foundations, had no known precedent in a modern prison and could not legally proceed through the mechanism being used. The adviser called for an extensive animal-welfare assessment, noting that the Prison Service had no apparent expertise in caring for dangerous wild animals. Concerns were also raised about escapes, the possibility of crocodiles entering the wild and the danger to human life. Silman proceeded despite those objections, effectively creating a new regulatory category under which wild animals could be held by security organisations. Legal officials reportedly maintain that primary legislation would be required and that the minister does not possess the authority to implement the plan through reclassification alone. The Nature and Parks Authority council is expected to consider the proposal again. A medieval moat designed as a political spectacle The proposal has been dubbed Israel’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” after the controversial migrant detention centre opened in the Florida Everglades under US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. That comparison, however, makes the Israeli proposal sound less primitive than it is. Ketziot is already a high-security prison in one of the world’s most heavily securitised states in which Palestinians are subject to an effectively apartheid system. Crocodiles are not necessary to guard it. The function of the animals is psychological and theatrical: to confront Palestinian detainees with the prospect of being attacked and killed by non-human predators, while presenting that prospect to Ben-Gvir’s gloating political supporters as entertainment and proof of his barbaric cruelty. While gloating at the prospect of medieval barbarism involved in creating a crocodile-filled moat as a 'security' feature, Ben-Gvir has also repeatedly presented himself as an authority on the supposed barbarism of others. In July 2025, he called Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa a “jihadist,” declared that “once a jihadist, always a jihadist,” and demanded that Israel “eliminate” him, calling President al-Sharaa “the head of the snake.” The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society described Ben Gvir's latest proposal as an exercise in revenge, humiliation and psychological intimidation. Its spokesperson Amani Sarahna told The New Arab that the objective was to break detainees psychologically after subjecting them to policies that had already devastated them physically. The plan forms part of a broader deterioration in conditions for Palestinians held in Israeli custody. Palestinian and international rights organisations have already documented instances of beatings, starvation, sexual abuse, medical neglect, prolonged restraints and degrading treatment. Many Palestinian detainees are held under administrative detention without charge or trial. Not every prisoner at Ketziot is a Hamas member, and describing all Palestinian “security prisoners” as convicted militants is another means of obscuring both the range of people held there and Israel’s extensive use of detention without trial. Even if the crocodile moat is never built, the fact that two government ministers have pursued regulatory changes to make it possible is significant. The threatened violence is not an accidental flaw in the scheme. It is its political purpose. Netanyahu’s cabinet The proposal is being advanced by a government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains at large under an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. The ICC issued the warrant in November 2024 after finding reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts in Gaza. Israel rejects the allegations and disputes the court’s jurisdiction, but the ICC continues to list Netanyahu as a wanted defendant. While an arrest warrant is not a conviction, and Netanyahu, like his peer and fellow ICC arrest warrant subject Vladimir Putin, is entitled to contest the charges if brought before the court, it is nevertheless extraordinary, if fitting, that a sitting prime minister wanted by the world’s permanent criminal court presides over a cabinet in which ministers treat a crocodile-filled prison moat as a serious policy proposal. Netanyahu did not accidentally find himself surrounded by figures such as Ben-Gvir and Silman. His government depends upon them, empowers them and has repeatedly accommodated their politics. Ben-Gvir’s proposal is therefore not merely the eccentric fantasy of one extremist minister. Other parts of the state apparatus have been asked to facilitate it, and an environment minister has acted against legal and professional objections to bring it closer to implementation. The legal objections reported so far have concentrated heavily on ministerial authority, wildlife regulation, public safety and the welfare of the crocodiles. While all these are legitimate concerns, their prominence underlines the central obscenity: the animals are recognised as living creatures requiring protection, while the intended use of crocodiles to further terrorize Palestinian prisoners is being treated as a security innovation. That is not prison security. It is medieval imagery repackaged as government policy—and another indication of the values that have become normal within Netanyahu’s cabinet. https://radiofreesyria.com/israel-changes-wildlife-rules-to-advance-ben-gvirs-planned-crocodile-moat-around-palestinian-prison/

Syria is preparing to issue its first sovereign sukuk since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, offering the government a way to finance public projects and part of the budget deficit without simply printing more money and fuelling inflation. Finance Minister Mohammed Yisr Barnieh recently chaired a meeting of the Securities and Sovereign Sukuk Committee to discuss a strategy covering government bonds, treasury bills and sukuk, according to a report by Enab Baladi. Syria’s 2026 budget includes projected revenues of approximately $8.7 billion and expenditure of $10.5 billion, leaving an estimated deficit of $1.8 billion. Economist Mahmoud Abdul Karim told Enab Baladi that an initial sukuk issue could raise between $500 million and $900 million under favourable conditions, although it is unlikely to be launched before the final quarter of 2026. For readers unfamiliar with Islamic finance, sukuk is the plural of the Arabic word sakk, meaning a certificate or legal document—the origin of the English word “cheque.” Sukuk are sometimes called “Islamic bonds,” but that description does not fully explain how they are intended to work. With a conventional government bond, investors lend money to the state and receive interest. Sukuk, by contrast, are structured around ownership of a share in an identifiable asset, service or project. Investors receive returns generated through that asset rather than interest simply charged on a debt. A government could, for example, issue sukuk linked to a power station, transport project or public building. Investors finance the asset and receive an agreed share of the income it generates. At the end of the agreed period, the certificates are normally redeemed. What does “Sharia-compliant” mean? • Sharia simply means the body of Islamic ethical and legal principles. In finance, these include several important restrictions: • Riba means interest or an unjustified increase on a loan. Islamic finance prohibits making money solely by lending money at interest, particularly when the lender is guaranteed a return while the borrower carries most of the risk. • Gharar means excessive uncertainty or ambiguity. The parties should understand what they are buying, what obligations they are assuming and how profits and risks will be distributed. • Maysir means gambling or highly speculative transactions in which wealth is gained largely by chance rather than productive activity.Investments in sectors regarded as harmful—including gambling, alcohol and pornography—are also excluded. • Takaful, mentioned in the report, is a cooperative form of Islamic insurance. Participants contribute to a shared fund used to compensate members who suffer losses, rather than transferring all risk to a commercial insurer in return for a premium. These rules do not abolish profit. Trade, investment and entrepreneurship are encouraged, but finance is supposed to remain connected to real assets and productive economic activity. In that respect, Islamic finance can be less exploitative in its underlying principles than much conventional financial activity. It discourages earning guaranteed profits from another person’s indebtedness, prohibits deliberately opaque contracts and seeks to prevent one party from transferring virtually all the risk to another. It also offers an alternative to the highly speculative end of Western financial markets, where complex derivatives and rapid trading can generate enormous private profits without necessarily financing new production, employment or public services. Sukuk are more accurately compared with conventional bonds than with shares traded on a stock exchange. Nevertheless, the broader contrast is significant: their purpose is to reconnect finance with ownership, tangible assets and shared commercial risk. That does not mean every product carrying a Sharia-compliant label is automatically fair. Analysts have noted that some sukuk are structured to reproduce almost exactly the payments and protections of conventional interest-bearing bonds, using different legal terminology. Strong regulation, genuine asset ownership and public transparency remain essential. An alternative to inflation For Syria, the immediate attraction is practical. Borrowing directly from the Central Bank effectively creates new money. When more currency chases a limited supply of goods, prices rise and the value of the currency falls. Syria experienced the catastrophic effects of this during the Assad era. The pound fell from approximately 47 to the US dollar before the war to more than 15,000 at the peak of its collapse, destroying savings and placing basic necessities beyond the reach of millions. Sukuk would instead draw on existing liquidity held by banks, companies and individual savers and direct it towards public investment. If properly managed, this could help finance infrastructure without adding the same inflationary pressure. The government also hopes gradually to create a benchmark “yield curve,” enabling banks and investors to assess the price and risk of longer-term Syrian investments. Listing sukuk on the Damascus Securities Exchange would allow investors to sell their certificates before maturity, while potentially bringing new activity to the country’s long-stagnant securities market. Small certificates, digital subscription Small certificates—possibly starting at $100—combined with digital subscription could also allow ordinary Syrians to participate, rather than limiting the market entirely to major banks and investment funds. The global sukuk market already exceeds $900 billion, making the proposed issue potentially attractive to Syrian, Gulf and other international investors seeking Sharia-compliant assets. Its success, however, will depend on what the money finances. Sukuk linked to electricity, transport, housing or other productive projects could generate both public benefits and income to repay investors. Using long-term borrowing simply to cover salaries and routine expenditure would create debt without generating the means to repay it. Transparency and sound financial management essential Transparency will therefore be decisive. Syria will need to disclose its debts, identify the assets supporting each issue and show how the proceeds are spent, with the need for sound financial management being at the root, as always. Handled properly, the proposed issue could mark a welcome break with the Assad regime’s ruinous reliance on currency creation and opaque public finances: directing existing capital into reconstruction, sharing returns through real economic activity and giving Syria a more stable way to fund its recovery. https://radiofreesyria.com/syria-plans-first-sovereign-sukuk-to-finance-reconstruction-without-printing-money/

By Mohanad Alabrash - The history of the Syrian parliament goes back to the early 20th century, with the institution passing through several constitutional and political stages: • 1919: The Syrian National Congress — considered the first national representative body in modern Syria. It included representatives from across the Levant, declared independence on March 8, 1920, pledged allegiance to Prince Faisal bin Hussein as a constitutional king, and drafted a provisional constitution. • 1920-1946 (French Mandate): Syria saw successive parliamentary councils and constituent assemblies, most notably the Constituent Assembly of 1928 which drafted the 1930 Constitution, despite constant interference and suspension by the Mandate authorities. • 1946-1963: After independence, parliament became an elected legislative institution. The country witnessed a relatively active parliamentary life, disrupted by the military coups that began in 1949. • 1963-2011: After the Ba'ath Party seized power, the nature of the system changed. Parliament operated under the dominance of the ruling party, with its independent legislative and oversight role sharply reduced. • 1973-2024: Under the 1973 constitution and later the 2012 constitution, it was named the People's Assembly. Regular elections were held, but its role was widely criticized for lack of independence and executive dominance. • After 2024: Following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, the legislative institution entered a new transitional phase. In 2025-2026, a new People's Assembly was formed under the Transitional Constitutional Declaration, with a different system for selecting members until a permanent constitution is adopted and direct legislative elections are held. What is Parliament and what does it do? Parliament is the legislative authority of the state. Its importance lies in representing citizens and participating in running the country's affairs. Its key functions are: • Enacting laws • Oversight of government • Approving the general budget • Representing citizens • Ratifying treaties and international agreements • Contributing to political stability In essence, parliament enhances democracy, ensures balance of powers, protects rights and freedoms, and enforces transparency and accountability. Is the new People's Assembly powerless? Let's clarify what the Constitutional Declaration actually says. A lot of talk is circulating that the new People's Assembly does not have the right to change laws. This is inaccurate. According to the Constitutional Declaration issued on March 13, 2025: Article 24: The People's Assembly assumes legislative authority until a permanent constitution is adopted. Article 30 clearly defines its powers: • Proposing and approving laws • Amending or repealing previous laws • Ratifying international treaties • Approving the general budget and general amnesty Legislatively, the Council has full authority. Where is the real problem? The problem is not in legislation, but in oversight of the executive. Article 35: The President appoints and dismisses ministers, with full executive power and no prime minister. And what does the Council have over them? Only one clause in Article 30: • Holding hearing sessions for ministers. No binding interpellation, no vote of no confidence, no right to dismiss a minister, not even the right to approve their appointment. As a member of the drafting committee himself stated, ministers report only to the President. We are facing a council that legislates, but does not monitor or hold the government accountable. And this is the core flaw in the balance of powers during the transitional phase. A legitimate question Imagine that in the Syrian Parliament — the People's Assembly, which is of paramount importance in determining the fate of the state — there are figures with big question marks over them, who will vote to approve or oppose decisive laws. These are figures who used to glorify the former regime. How can revolutionaries or citizens give confidence to such controversial figures? And will the formation of parties, political diversity, and a new political life be allowed? Or will we face retrenchment, closure, and monopolization of opinion under the logic of "I show you only what I see"? By God, this is a major catastrophe. In any case, we wait and see. https://radiofreesyria.com/the-syrian-parliaments-history-and-the-powers-of-the-peoples-assembly-in-the-transitional-phase/

A network of accounts on X has engaged in intensive, apparently coordinated activity to portray post-Assad Syria as a country consumed by terrorism, sectarian persecution and collapse, according to an extensive new investigation by the independent Arab news outlet Noon Post. The Arabic-language investigation, published on July 21, analysed 22,787 posts and interactions from 358 accounts. It identified a multi-layered structure in which some accounts produced or introduced content, others amplified it through extraordinarily concentrated reposting, and a third group recycled the same narratives through quotations, comments and reframing. The figures are striking. In a closer sample of 4,182 posts from 14 accounts during May and June 2026, 4,167—99.64 percent—were reposts. According to Noon Post, 99.16 percent of those reposts centred on just nine source accounts. The investigation documented 373 items appearing on two or more monitored accounts. Of these, 248 appeared on at least six accounts and 103 on nine or more. Speed was another indication that the activity was not simply the result of different users independently responding to the same news: 163 items were recirculated within ten minutes, while 1,017 reposts followed the preceding repost within one minute or less. In 43 cases, the same material appeared on nine or more accounts within a ten-minute period. A division of narrative labour Noon Post identified accounts including @WSyriaDev, @x_alhadath, @SahelNoFilter, @Bl3arabinews, @DimashqBetween, @al_liwaa_, @belektisad, @X_news_media and @R55P5 as belonging to the network’s central or source layer. These accounts did not necessarily repeat an identical message. Instead, the investigation found what amounted to a division of narrative roles, with different accounts concentrating on complementary themes. Some focused on claims that Syria’s minorities face an existential threat under the new authorities. Others associated Sunni or Umayyad identity with terrorism and extremism, promoted narratives of economic catastrophe or circulated nostalgia for the Assad regime. Amplification accounts then folded these strands into a broader picture of a country supposedly overwhelmed by chaos, fear and communal conflict. Minority-related terminology appeared in 63.2 percent of the posts examined from @SahelNoFilter, according to the investigation. Content from @R55P5 and @al_liwaa_ more frequently connected Sunni or Umayyad identity with terrorism, while @belektisad concentrated on economic collapse. This does not mean, of course, that every event discussed by the accounts was invented. The network drew on genuine tensions and unresolved issues: the stalled reintegration of Suwayda, disputes involving the Syrian Democratic Forces, indications of renewed Islamic State activity, demands for accountability, and escalating Israeli incursions in southern Syria. The apparent operation lay in selecting, reframing and intensively amplifying those events to create an overarching narrative: that the “new Syria” is governed by terrorists, that minorities face systematic persecution, and that the country’s transition has produced only disorder and danger. Accounts revived in concert The amplification layer included accounts such as @sara__fayyad, @alaa_alasad86, @samar_hatem1, @BassemEisaa, @rola__kheirbek, @maha_sleimann and @rana__machi. The last of these published 281 posts within the sample; 280 were reposts. Rather than interacting with a broad range of Syrian news and opinion, its activity remained concentrated within a small circle of sources. Several accounts had previously been dormant or only intermittently active before suddenly beginning intensive publication during May and June. On June 9, accounts including @sara__fayyad, @alaa_alasad86, @rana__machi, @maha_sleimann and @mohd_alcharee began posting within a two-minute period, between 14:11 and 14:13 GMT. Some had been inactive for approximately 270 days. Activity peaked around politically or emotionally charged events. On June 30, amid Israeli incursions in southern Syria and reports concerning the burning of the Sheikh Nasser al-Hakim shrine in rural Homs, the monitored network produced 957 posts. Other surges coincided with debate over transitional justice, the anniversary of the Mar Elias Church bombing and businessman Naguib Sawiris’s visit to Damascus. Noon Post also found closely timed changes to the digital identities of several source accounts. @DimashqBetween and @SahelNoFilter, both presented in a media or semi-media format, changed their profile and cover images on March 29 within minutes of one another. Some amplification accounts used profile pictures that appeared likely to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Their biographies often employed similar language about human rights, oppression and extremism, while some explicitly defined themselves through opposition to “al-Jolani,” Ahmed al-Sharaa’s former nom de guerre. None of these indicators alone proves central control. Taken together with the concentration, timing and repetition of the reposting, however, they present a pattern difficult to explain as wholly spontaneous activity. An Israel-linked digital environment The investigation becomes particularly significant when it traces how material moved beyond the original network into a wider political, media and human-rights environment with discernible pro-Israel links. Noon Post identified Sally Obaid as one connection between the network and these broader circles. Her account appeared 655 times in the analysed material: 261 reposts, 99 quotations, 284 direct mentions and 11 appearances in replies. The investigation documented 14 direct interactions between Obaid and Israeli or pro-Israel accounts, including eight involving the IDI Center. Obaid identifies herself as a fellow at the organisation, which describes its mission partly in terms of defending “Judeo-Christian principles.” Her personal links also lead to articles in pro-Israel publications, including JNS, where she has discussed Syria in relation to Israeli security and Israel’s northern border. The investigation separately recorded the presence of Israeli journalist Eddy Cohen, Israeli reporter Barak Ravid and several official or state-linked Israeli accounts within the network’s wider map of reposts, quotations, mentions and replies. These included @AmichaiChikli, the account of Israeli Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli, and @AvichayAdraee, the account of Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson and head of the Arab Media Branch of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. The accounts @N12News and @IsraelArabic also appeared, while IDI Center executive director @DanBurmawy was recorded 31 times. These findings do not establish that every interaction was coordinated, or that every person appearing in the dataset belonged to the amplification network. Nor do they prove that the network was organised, funded or directed by Israel or its intelligence services. They do, however, show an apparently artificial amplification operation intersecting repeatedly with a pro-Israel digital ecosystem and promoting narratives that can serve Israeli policy towards Syria. Israel has justified its continuing occupation, attacks and incursions partly by depicting the new Syrian authorities as jihadists and presenting itself as the protector of Syrian minorities. A coordinated campaign portraying Damascus as terrorist-controlled, minorities as facing imminent danger and Syria as incapable of governing itself reinforces that political argument—whatever the ultimate identity of those directing the activity. The unanswered question is therefore not whether unusual amplification occurred; Noon Post presents substantial evidence that it did. The remaining question is who organised or encouraged it, and to what end. https://radiofreesyria.com/damascus-is-ruled-by-terrorists-social-media-network-amplifying-sectarian-fear-and-pro-israel-narratives-on-syria/