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The Fall of Assad: A Tectonic Shift in the Middle East
A person gestures next to a burning picture of President Bashar al-Assad, after rebels seized the capital and ousted the president, in Qamishli, Syria, Dec. 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman
The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has sent shockwaves across the Middle East, with experts suggesting it has dismantled Iran’s “ring of fire” strategy and created both opportunities and challenges for Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasted no time in hailing the moment as a “historic” victory for Israeli strategy and security, calling it “a pivotal step toward regional stability and peace.”
“The Assad regime is a central link in Iran’s axis of evil — this regime has fallen,” he said on Sunday.
Speaking during a visit to Mount Bental on Israel’s border with Syria, Netanyahu described the regime’s downfall as the culmination of years of coordinated efforts to counter Iranian influence in Syria. “This is a strategic achievement for Israel, the fruit of our resolute actions against Iran’s entrenchment in the region.”
A Fragmented Syria
The vacuum left by Assad’s downfall has fragmented Syria into competing zones of control. Dina Lisnyansky, an expert in political Islam and terrorism, explained the current dynamics and said there was reason for “cautious optimism.”
“We’re seeing three main factions taking hold: Druze forces in the south, Kurds in the northeast, and Salafi Islamists elsewhere, including parts of Damascus,” she told The Algemeiner.
According to Lisnyansky, this mosaic of power offers Israel a rare diplomatic opening. “This could be an opportunity for Israel to establish relations with individual factions or a new Syrian government.”
However, she cautioned against unbridled optimism against the Salafis, represented by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group which led the raid on the Syrian capital of Damascus on Sunday. “The Salafi Islamists remain a branch of al-Qaeda, despite their leader [Abu Mohammed] al-Golani’s rhetoric about good relations with Syria’s neighbors — Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel,” she said. “It’s no coincidence that they received congratulations today from the Taliban, who enthusiastically backed their achievements and the overthrow of Assad.”
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli similarly cautioned Israelis against premature celebrations.
“These are jihadists and Islamists who have done some of the worst things, of the ilk of ISIS and al-Qaeda,” he said, warning that Syria could “look like Afghanistan in no time.”
But, he said, the silver lining was the Kurdish control in the northeast region.
Lisnyansky warned that Turkey’s role in facilitating the overthrow adds another layer of complexity for Israel. Turkey’s growing influence in Syria even carries a potential risk of invasion, Lisnyansky said, referencing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s threats earlier this year that if Turkey shared a border with Israel, he would have already demonstrated his country’s capabilities, implying retaliation over Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Turkey is, without a doubt, hostile to Israel today. While we very much hope to improve relations with Turkey on one hand, we’re not under any illusions, This means they could currently place forces on our border that might even invade our territory,” she warned.
“We need to proceed with very cautious optimism and understand that what’s happening in the region is still extremely unclear,” she concluded.
Iran’s Setback
The Assad regime’s collapse has struck a significant blow to Iran’s regional ambitions. Assad’s government was a crucial link in Tehran’s efforts to arm and fund terrorist proxies from Lebanon to Gaza, forming a so-called “ring of fire” around Israel. With Damascus now fractured and Iranian proxies weakened, the Islamic Republic’s influence in Syria has been severely undermined.
Issam Zeitoun, a former Syrian opposition figure and founder of the Syrian Peace Initiative, highlighted the importance of regional efforts in this shift. “There is an obvious international and regional decision to keep Iran out,” he said. He credited Israel with playing a central role in curbing Iran’s influence, emphasizing the broader international agreement driving these developments.
Zeitoun also highlighted the humanitarian consequences of the regime’s fall, emphasizing the urgent need to support civilians in southern Syria. “We need to take care of them,” he said.
Zeitoun, speaking to The Algemeiner en route to Israel from Germany — where he fled following the Assad regime’s crackdown — outlined his plans to arrive in Jerusalem to discuss the renewal of the Good Neighbor project, which provided essential supplies and humanitarian aid, including medical treatment, to thousands of Syrians in border communities during the height of the civil war.
During his remarks at Mount Bental, Netanyahu also addressed the program, announcing Israel’s intent to resume it and highlighting its impact, noting that “hundreds of Syrian children were born here in Israel.” At the same time, he reaffirmed Israel’s policy of avoiding direct involvement in Syria’s internal conflicts.
Zeitoun expressed hope for a new era, emphasizing the potential of the Abraham Accords in reshaping regional alliances, and adding that they could potentially include Syria’s new leadership, depending on its trajectory. “We would love to join the Abraham Accords,” he said, referring to a series of US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world in 2020.
“Everyone is happy. I’m getting calls from everywhere with congratulations. It’s been a very, very bad half-century for Syria,” he said.
“If something happens that we don’t like, we can change it,” he added, expressing confidence that Syrians have learned from the past and will not allow another dictator to take power.
Focus on Israel’s Security
While Netanyahu struck a celebratory tone, he also stressed the importance of vigilance. He gave the order for the Israel Defense Forces to be deployed in the buffer zone between Israel and Syria, he said, marking the first time since the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 that Israeli forces have been present in the area for more than a few hours. Israeli forces on Sunday also captured the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.
“We are acting first and foremost to protect our border,” he said. “This area has been controlled for nearly 50 years by a buffer zone agreed upon in 1974, the Separation of Forces Agreement. This agreement has collapsed; the Syrian soldiers have abandoned their positions.”
Nir Boms, chairman of the Syria Research Forum, also struck a cautiously optimistic note, pointing to the potential for renewed cooperation with moderate Syrian groups.
“We’ve seen success in working with opposition figures in the past, particularly in the south. Whether such collaboration can be replicated in this new Syria remains uncertain, but the opportunities are there,” he told The Algemeiner.
“This war is not over yet, but for those who follow the war in Syria and those who see Assad’s downfall as a victory, it is at least a small reason to raise a toast,” he said.
Minorities in the Post-Assad Era
Israeli Maj. Shadi Khalloul (res), an expert on the region and Aramaic Christian activist, emphasized the importance of securing the areas captured by Israel over the weekend. “We will take what we need according to our security needs until there is a safe and different reality,” he told The Algemeiner.
Khalloul reflected on the broader implications for Christians in the region, highlighting their historical suffering under Assad’s regime, which he described as a “vicious enemy” to Israel and to Lebanon’s Aramaic and Maronite communities. Now, with Assad’s fall, communities across Lebanon — including Sunnis, Christians, and Druze — are celebrating, he said.
He noted the significance of Israel’s role in shaping this outcome: “Lebanon and Syria should thank Israel for liberating them, because without Israel this would not have happened today,” he told i24News.
But like the others, Khalloul warned of the risks tied to Syria’s uncertain future, pointing to the potential for instability if secular and Islamist factions fail to reach a power-sharing agreement.
“If these two sections find a deal to divide the power in Syria and rule Syria together, then we will have stability. But if not, we might see a civil war develop between these sides,” he said.
The post The Fall of Assad: A Tectonic Shift in the Middle East first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jews, Israelis Targeted in Austria Amid Surge in Antisemitic Incidents; Local Jewish Community Calls for Action
Illustrative: Pro-Palestinian protesters shout slogans and hold flags during a demonstration against Israel’s military action in the Gaza strip, in Vienna, July 20, 2014. Photo: REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Austria is facing a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel rhetoric, prompting outrage from the country’s Jewish community and urgent calls for authorities to take swift action against growing anti-Jewish hatred.
On Saturday, a group of pro-Palestinian activists burst into the opening of the Salzburg Festival — one of the world’s premier events for opera, music, and drama — waving Palestinian flags and shouting antisemitic slogans.
As Austrian Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babler began his opening speech at the event, six individuals stormed the stage, aggressively waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Blood on your hands!” along with other antisemitic slurs.
The Salzburg Festival.
A frenzied white Austrian on stage, screaming in German about those bloody J*ws.
I’m sure we’ve seen that before… pic.twitter.com/b6oNyTwZRT
— Joo
(@JoosyJew) July 28, 2025
The incident raised alarming questions about the event’s security, as the six protesters gained easy access while wearing fake, misspelled staff IDs with fictitious names, revealing a clear failure in background checks.
According to festival director Lukas Crepaz, security measures and control checks have been significantly strengthened. The six activists were arrested, and authorities continue to investigate the incident.
Elie Rosen, president of the Jewish Community (IKG) of Salzburg, Styria, and Carinthia, condemned the incident, calling the disruption of the Salzburg Festival’s opening a “targeted political provocation, carried by openly anti-Israel rhetoric.”
“Jewish life in Austria must not become the collateral damage of political agitation,” Rosen said in a statement. “We often hear powerful statements at commemorative events condemning antisemitism.”
“But where are Israel’s outspoken supporters when real solidarity is needed? Antisemitism takes many forms and frequently starts with the silence of the majority,” she continued. “Hatred toward Israel is not a legitimate form of protest.”
In a separate incident last week, an Israeli couple was denied access to a campsite in Ehrwald, a village in western Austria, after attempting to make a reservation to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.
According to local media, the couple attempted to register at the campsite, but after revealing their Israeli passports, they were denied entry and asked to leave, forcing them to find alternative accommodations.
“We have no place for Jews here,” the campsite operator reportedly told them.
When asked for comment, the campsite operators told the German newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine, “These people should much rather take care of the many children in Gaza. Otherwise, there is nothing to say.”
In another incident last week, a group of well-known Israeli classical musicians reported being refused service at a pizzeria in Vienna after staff overheard them speaking Hebrew.
One of the musicians recounted that while they were ordering their food, the waiter asked them which language they were speaking. When they replied Hebrew, the waiter allegedly told them, “In that case, leave. I’m not serving you food.”
“The initial shock and humiliation were profound. But what struck us even more deeply was what came next – or rather what didn’t. The people around us were clearly startled, some offered sympathetic glances … and then, quietly, they went back to their dinners, their conversations, their wine – as though nothing had happened,” one of the musicians wrote in a post on X.
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‘All of Our Strength’: Over 1,000 Pro-Israel Activists Gather in DC for Solidarity Conference
2025 Israel on Campus Coalition National Leadership Summit. Photo: ICC.
Over 1,000 Jewish students, faculty, and activists amassed in Washington, DC on July 27-29 to attend the Israel on Campus Coalition’s annual National Leadership Summit (NLS), an electric event which achieved creating the atmosphere of both a festival of Jewish elation and an academic conference.
Founded in 2002, the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) is a nonprofit organization that describes its mission as inspiring college students to defend and hold pride in the state of Israel. One of its major initiatives is the “microgrants” program, which helps pro-Israel campus groups organize events about Israeli culture and society. Another, the ICC Community Impact Fellowship, awards college students a $1,000 stipend for completing a leadership seminar in which they are trained in civic engagement, coalition building, and rapidly responding to antisemitic and anti-Israel events on their campuses.
Demand for a spot at this year’s 2025 conference exceeded the nonprofit’s capacity to host the thousands of students who signed up to be a conferee at what is recognized as the largest gathering of pro-Israel students in the country. Hundreds were waitlisted and encouraged to reapply next year. Those whom ICC did select were flown out to DC and billeted at the Capital Hilton, all expenses paid. They were joined – for the first time ever – by a delegation of faculty from the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) and staff from most major Jewish organization in the US, from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to StandWithUs (SWU).
“We just ultimately believe that we’re better when we use all of our strength as a movement,” ICC chief executive Jacob Baime told The Algemeiner on Monday during an interview. “And we’re not the only ones who feel that way. The other side does as well, having mounted a highly professionalized coalition, well-funded, well-coordinated effort with many groups involved. We need our partners and the different perspectives they hold too.”
When The Algemeiner last attended NLS, the world was not yet one year removed from Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, the deadliest day in modern Jewish history since the Holocaust. Jewish students and ICC staff, many of whom have family members and friends who were affected by the atrocities or were later drafted into the war it precipitated, were still laboring to comprehend what had become a new and unprecedented world – one in which classic antisemitic tropes had resurfaced to corrupt public debate, anti-Jewish violence occurred daily across the world, and anti-Zionist groups were taking over college campuses and converting them into outposts of antisemitic hate.
As such the event aimed to inspire Jewish students “take back the campus,” an effort advanced by an infantry of social media influencers.
This year’s NLS leaned more heavily into supplying students with information, facts, and statistics curated and presented by the most accomplished Middle East scholars, government leaders, and nonprofit executives in the global pro-Israel community. Social media influencers and celebrities took the stage as well, showcasing their strengths as spirited advocates who remind students why the issues under discussion relate to their contemporary experiences as young people and consumers.
Speakers included Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law; Col. Miri Eisin of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute; Miriam Elman of the Academic Engagement Network; and Dr. Ayal Feinberg, director of the Center for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights. On offer as giveaways were Douglas Murray’s recently published polemic On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization and Dina Powell McCormick and David McCormick’s co-authored book, titled Who Believed in You?: How Purposeful Mentorship Changes the World.
“We wanted students to engage with ideas that touch on the entirety of the campus ecosystem and the subjects they may be asked to comment on,” Baime explained to The Algemeiner. “Oct. 7, the war, and its aftermath have changed the American pro-Israel movement forever.”
The obverse side of the conference’s educational objectives was wholesome fun for the 800 college aged conferees in attendance. They were treated to a buoyant concert in the Hilton’s Presidential Ballroom featuring the jazz-pop fusion act “All of the Above” and the rapper Duvbear, an 18-year-old who is emblematic of what Generation-Z calls “rizz.” Celebrities such as former NBA player Meta World Peace, former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho, and professional boxer George Foreman III afforded the students quick meet and greets and selfies. Capital Hilton staff carted out pounds of food – Latin, Asian, and Kosher – from its kitchens every several hours, fostering opportunities for socializing and being photographed on an ICC-themed “red carpet.”
University of California, Davis rising junior Toby Jacob told The Algemeiner that the nonprofit’s strength is its staff.
“The staff here is so knowledgeable and so capable,” Jacob said. “It can feel really scary when you’re dealing with these like large scale issues in your student government, with your administration – and to have people who have the resources to walk you through it is vital.”
Tessa Veksler, an NLS 2025 moderator who became the most recognizable pro-Israel activist of Generation-Z after being elected the first Shabbat-observant president of the University of California, Santa Barbara’s student government, agreed.
“When I was on campus going through the worst of the worst, I knew that ICC had my back and that I could count on the staff and the organization to be there at a moment’s notice,” Veksler said. “They exceptionally equip students with the tools to be able to lead themselves, and so there is an expectation that if you are an ICC fellow that you take the tools ICC gives and put in the work to go and become involved in student government and be the person to make the impact.”
She continued, “It’s a remarkable thing, and there’s a reason why I have stayed as involved as I am.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Devastated’: Wesley LePatner, Killed in Manhattan Mass Shooting, Was a Jewish Communal, Philanthropic Leader
A man holding a rifle walks into an office building at 345 Park Avenue shortly before a shooting that killed several people, in the Midtown Manhattan district of New York City, US, July 28, 2025, in a still image taken from surveillance video. Photo: Surveillance Camera/Handout via REUTERS
Wesley LePatner, an executive at Blackstone and a Jewish communal leader, was one of the victims of the mass shooting in Midtown Manhattan on Monday that killed four people and wounded a fifth in addition to the shooter, who died by suicide.
LePatner, 43, was an active member of the Jewish community and served on the UJA Federation of New York’s board of directors, which said it is “devastated by the tragic loss.”
“Wesley was extraordinary in every way — personally, professionally, and philanthropically,” the federation wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “An exceptional leader in the financial world, she brought thoughtfulness, vision, and compassion to everything she did. In 2023, we honored her with the Alan C. Greenberg Young Leadership Award at our Wall Street Dinner, recognizing her commitment to our community and her remarkable achievements, all the more notable as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field.”
In her acceptance speech, LePatner said, “Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I would be up on this stage two decades later [after attending her first UJA Wall Street dinner]. UJA has many super-powers, but its most important in my view is its power to create a sense of community and belonging, and that ability to create a sense of community and belonging matters now more than ever.”
She also explained that “UJA stepped in early and fixed my feeling out of place by connecting me with senior Goldman Sachs women who were further along in their careers and personal lives, but equally committed to their Jewish community and identity.”
“I was an American,” she said, “but I was first and foremost Jewish.”
LePatner was also a supporter of Israel, leading a solidarity mission with UJA after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
“In the wake of Oct. 7, Wesley led a solidarity mission with UJA to Israel, demonstrating her enduring commitment in Israel’s moment of heartache,” the UJA Federation of New York said in its statement. “She lived with courage and conviction, instilling in her two children a deep love for Judaism and the Jewish people.”
In addition to serving on the board of directors of the New York UJA, she was also on the board of trustees at The Abraham Joshua Heschel School — a pluralistic Jewish day school in New York. The Forward reported that school representatives wrote in an email that “there are no right words for this unfathomable moment of pain and loss.”
“It was a rare z’chut, a rare privilege, to know Wesley and to learn from her. She was a uniquely brilliant and modest leader and parent, filled with wisdom, empathy, vision, and appreciation,” they continued.
David Greenfield, CEO of the Met Council, posted on X that “Wesley was an amazing person who was also tremendously talented leader. She volunteered with her kids [at the Met Council] to feed those in need.”
LePatner graduated from Yale summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and met her husband on the first day of school in 1999.
She is survived by her husband and two children.