Tel-Chai Nation

Here's another op-ed by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, explaining why Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new despot in Syria, is a serious danger, along with his jihadist minions:

In a disconcerting paradox, Saudi Arabia and the United States are actively propping up Syria’s jihadist-led government even as its armed forces carry out ethnic cleansing against minorities from the Druze and the Alawite communities. This alignment is clearly born of fear – not only fear of Iran’s resurgence but also fear of the rising regional authority of Israel and Turkey in response to Iran’s dwindling. Yet, in choosing the “lesser evil,” the West and its allies risk legitimizing a regime ideologically aligned with the very jihadists they once vowed to destroy.

From July 13 to 20, Syria’s newly revamped public security forces brutally attacked the Druze population of Suwayda, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,340 people, including hundreds of civilians executed in their own homes. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 196 civilians were summarily executed by government forces, including women, children, the elderly, and even medical workers. Over 516 total fatalities were recorded. One of the victims is an American citizen, 35-year-old Hosam Saraya from Oklahoma. Hosam was abruptly executed alongside seven family members by the government’s public security forces. A widely circulated video shows the forces grabbing Hosam from inside his family’s house and then shooting him dead on camera. His crime? Being a Druze, just like the hundreds of civilian Druze and the hundreds of Alawite citizens who were brutally slaughtered in the government-led ethnic cleansing campaigns against the non-Sunni Muslim minorities in Syria that have been happening under the world’s watch since March.

The government security forces, which are a terrifying mix of jihadist organizations – many of their members are not even Syrians – assembled by the current self-assigned Syrian President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who himself is a leading jihadist, claimed that they were sent to Suwayda to end the clashes between the Druze community and the Sunni Bedouin clans that had been occupying the Damascus-Suwayda road for months, besieging the people in Suwayda with purpose to deplete their living resources, and violently harassing the Druze families and looting their homes.

This is building up to be a major PR embarrassment. Did the USA government do this because they assumed, perhaps with considerable accuracy, that nobody sensible in the west would bat an eyelash? Well now it's really led to a fiasco that could've been avoided if Trump's government had wanted to. They're going to have to reverse their position on al-Sharaa, and it must be now.

Update: Jason Shvili also makes clear why it's vital to defend these specific communities:

Last month, the Druze of Syria experienced their own October 7th massacre—hundreds of them were brutally massacred by terrorists backed by Syria's Islamist President, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, also known as Al-Julani. Like Hamas, these terrorists took hostages, including more than one hundred women and girls. The province of Sweida, which has a Druze majority, is now under siege by Al-Sharaa's forces. Only Israel stands between Syria's Druze and the Islamist forces determined to annihilate them.

Israel responded to last month's massacre by launching airstrikes against Al-Sharaa's forces, even hitting targets in the Syrian capital, Damascus. But if Israel is to prevent the slaughter of more innocent Druze, it must go further in its military efforts. Israel needs to establish a permanent military presence in southern Syria, particularly in Sweida province. Doing so will create a safe buffer zone on Israel's northern border, preventing attacks from Islamists aligned with Al-Sharaa's regime or Iran. At the same time, it will protect the vulnerable Druze population of Sweida, as it is doubtful that Al-Sharaa's forces, or anyone else, will attack them knowing that they are protected by the IDF. [...]

As you read this, you might be thinking that the Jewish state cannot seriously be expected to protect all of Syria's vulnerable minorities, especially now, when the IDF is busy fighting in Gaza, and Israel still faces threats from Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. But truly, the recent war with Iran proved that there isn't anywhere in the Middle East that Israel can't reach. Besides, protecting Syria's minorities isn't just the moral thing to do. It's also very strategically beneficial, since it allows Israel to cultivate new allies in a region where it has very few. And in a time when Israel faces almost unparalleled ostracization for simply defending itself, the Jew amongst nations needs all the friends it can get.

Exactly. There's also Europeans who need defense against the jihadists, and Israel will have to go to war there too again soon, if that's what it takes to put an end to the horror that's taken root even over in Europe.

Labels: anti-americanism, anti-semitism, Asia, dhimmitude, Europe, islam, Israel, misogyny, political corruption, racism, sexual violence, syria, terrorism, United States, war on terror