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A Clear Post-War National Vision Means Returning to the Roots of Zionism
A damaged building lies in ruins, following an infiltration by Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel at a kibbutz in Kfar Aza, Israel, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Despite broad Israeli agreement on the immediate goals of the war as formulated by the cabinet, the debate over its ultimate objectives is intensifying.
This dispute will likely be reflected in the fundamental questions that will be asked post-war, and may also penetrate the discussions of the state inquiry committee that will undoubtedly be established. The committee will naturally address operational and technical questions, the workings of the IDF, General Staff, Southern Command, and Air Force, and regulatory relations between the IDF and the civil leadership. But the depth and scope of this crisis require a comprehensive cultural and spiritual rethinking of how we perceive ourselves and the enemy, focusing on the question of why the enemy fights and what we are fighting for.
Hamas and Hezbollah fight out of religious belief. By contrast, we are not clear on our reasons for uniting to fight wars beyond our desire to safeguard our existence and survival.
A.B. Yehoshua once posed an existential question: “Nation of Israel, for what purpose do you live?” Later, he clarified: “Survival is considered the most prominent aspect of the Jewish people … but it is not survival that is the prominent aspect, but rather how it is done, what its agenda is, what values it holds, and primarily, what its cost is.” (A.B. Yehoshua, Haaretz Books Supplement, 20.2.2013)
This question must be applied to clarify the central inquiry: Nation of Israel, for what purpose do you fight, and how do you fight?
I am not aware of a framework for a state inquiry committee that would know how to address such questions and critically examine the connections between them and the focal points of failure in the security system. Nevertheless, this inquiry, whether conscious or subconscious, will shed light on the investigation into everything that happened at the outset of the war and everything that will happen from its conclusion onwards in the context of the ongoing internal struggle in Israel over conflicting dreams.
What has Zionism achieved? The imposition of doubt
The sudden strike by Hamas thrust the Zionist idea back to the dilemma of its earliest days. It prompted an echoing of the doubt cast during Herzl’s visit: “You might solve the Jews’ problem, but you won’t solve the problem of Judaism.” On October 7, we were forcefully confronted with the fundamental Zionist question: What do the Jews want in the Land of Israel?
The current war, which has enveloped us all, is intertwined with the anxiety of the cultural war that erupted in Israel last year. The crisis of the Jews, which focuses on the question of physical existence, has become entangled with the crisis of Judaism, which has lost its spiritual path.
As early as 2005, Dan Meron touched upon the Zionist dilemma in his book Healing for Touching. A professor of 20th century Hebrew literature, Meron cast doubt on the ultimate goal of the Zionist enterprise, questioning what it has truly achieved since its inception:
…[T]he expectation of Zionism that the distancing of Jews from European societies and their concentration in their own country would lead to the disappearance of antisemitism did not materialize. Even the security of Zionism, which was supposed to be able to extricate the Jewish people from existential threats, leading to a new Jewish existential activism, did not come to fruition and may not reach the goal it set for itself…The historical development of Zionism and its success in achieving Jewish statehood have only led to the replacement of one type of existential threat with another. (Dan Meron, 2005, Healing for Touching, p. 63, translated from the Hebrew)
With these words, Meron raises two challenging questions about the state of Zionism, both of which have been debated since its beginnings.
In one dimension of the Zionist vision, Herzl sought a response to antisemitism. With his visionary breakthrough, he acknowledged that the Jews had not succeeded in finding a solution to the problem of antisemitism, even though they had exhausted every possible avenue, including assimilation. He believed that if the Jews could only gather in their own normal state, where they could be accepted as a nation among nations, a state among nation-states, it would bring an end to antisemitism.
We must ask whether over the hundred years since the beginning of the Zionist effort to gather the Jews in their homeland, Herzl’s expectation of the disappearance of antisemitism has been realized.
It appears that the opposite has occurred. Antisemitism has emerged in a new form that is more sophisticated, as it is shielded by a kind of vaccine: it is ostensibly not hatred of Jews as Jews, but merely criticism of the State of Israel. Yet fierce antipathy is directed against Jews worldwide whenever they voice complaints about actions that threaten the State of Israel, actions they feel endanger them as well. Jews around the world are thus forbidden to defend Israel or the Jews who live in it or be themselves the victims of antisemitism. The process that was supposed to solve antisemitism has instead generated, over the past two decades, a new and equally dangerous form of it. In this way, Meron argues, the Zionist vision has become caught in a deadlock.
In the second dimension, Zionism sought a response to the problem of the need to physically protect Jews, who have never ceased suffering persecution, pogroms, and other threats around the world. In this dimension as well, Meron raises a concern that has troubled many Israelis. There is a fear that despite Israel’s independence and military strength, Zionism has achieved nothing more than to replace one existential problem, like pogroms in Kishinev, with another one, like the Iranian nuclear threat that threatens Tel Aviv or the Simchat Torah massacre of the northwestern Negev. In essence, Zionism has merely swapped ailment A for ailment B.
Yet despite Meron’s reservations, to those who witness the combat spirit of the IDF soldiers and the full support of their parents, the Zionist narrative manifests itself in all its practical simplicity by demonstrating a readiness to fight without hesitation to defend the people and the country. This is a major historical achievement.
Cracks in the “Iron Wall”
A hundred years ago, in the article “The Iron Wall,” Ze’ev Jabotinsky laid the cornerstone for the foundations of Israel’s security perception. As early as 1923, he identified the motivations behind Arab resistance to the Zionist enterprise in the Land of Israel and proposed a strategic approach to achieving Zionist goals.
The relevance of his article to the security challenges of modern-day Israel can be summarized in three statements.
First: The Arab resistance and struggle against Zionism express a religious-nationalist struggle with enduring motivational roots. The idea promoted by the American government and European Union leadership that a positive, lasting solution to the conflict can be arrived at through suitable compensation and willing compromise has been repeatedly revealed as overly optimistic.
Second: The Arab struggle and adoption of terrorist methods and violence do not stem from economic hardship, poverty, and despair, as many in the West and certain prominent Israeli “peace-seekers” claim. Instead, it arises from the Arab hope that Zionist dominance can be consistently challenged and weakened until its ultimate demise. It is not despair that generates Arab terrorism but hope.
Third: In recognizing the first two statements as true, the concept of the “Iron Wall” negates the Arab hope of achieving gains through incessant resistance to the Zionist Israeli presence and authority.
In 1936, during a discussion at the Mapai Center, David Ben-Gurion stated that “there is no chance for an understanding with the Arabs.” Therefore, efforts should be directed towards an understanding with the British. He said, “What can push the Arabs towards mutual understanding with us? Facts! Only after we manage to create a significant Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, with a Jewish force that everyone will see cannot be moved, only then will the preliminary conditions for discussion with the Arabs be established.”
The language and spirit of these words express the Iron Wall position as articulated in Jabotinsky’s article: “As long as the Arabs have even a glimmer of hope of getting rid of us, they will not give up on this hope … A living people agrees to concessions on fateful questions whose importance is immense only when it has no hope, only when not a single crack is visible in the Iron Wall.”
In recent years, deep cracks have appeared in the Zionist Iron Wall. The goal of the current war should be to restore the Zionist Iron Wall and establish it with renewed strength for the next hundred years.
Within this context, the rehabilitation of the communities damaged in Hamas’s attack and the return of the communities to the Galilee and Negev are critical components in the reconstruction of the Iron Wall. This means far more than simply renovation and construction. Ben-Gurion wrote about the sources of strength for victory in 1948: “We reached victory through three paths: the path of faith, the path of pioneering creativity, and the path of suffering.”
These will be the paths to victory in today’s war as well.
The collapse of the dream of peace
In his eulogy at the grave of Ro’i Rothberg in Nahal Oz in April 1956, Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan said: “A generation of pioneers we are, bareheaded, with steel helmets and the rifle. We cannot plant a tree and build a home. Our children will not have a life if we do not dig shelters…” The speech concluded with the statement: “Ro’i — the light in his heart blinded his eyes, and he did not see the flash of the mortar. The yearning for peace silenced his ears, and he did not hear the voice of the ambush…”
In the midst of the War of Attrition, at the end of the Command and Staff College course in 1969, Moshe Dayan stated his existential philosophy: “Rest and heritage are longed-for aspirations for us, not realities. And if we occasionally achieve them, they are only short intermediate stations — aspirations for the continuation of the struggle.”
Explaining the necessity of an endless struggle, he said: “The only basic answer we can give to the question ‘what will be’ is — we will continue to fight, just as we did in the past, and now too. The answer to the question ‘what will be’ must focus on our ability to withstand difficulties, our ability to cope — more than on absolute and final solutions to our problems. We must prepare ourselves mentally and physically for a prolonged process of struggle.”
These words differ significantly from those expressed by the Israeli leadership in recent decades. For instance, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, in his speech at the UN, chose to emphasize: “What Israelis want is a good life for themselves and their families and a future ready for their children.”
Moshe Dayan, despite his emphasis on normalcy, always highlighted the presence in our consciousness of the struggle. This was brutally expressed in his will, where he instructed his three children: “Serve the inheritance of the fathers each one, and the sword over your beds, and in the evening, it will become a legacy to your sons. And now, let each one take his backpack and stick and cross the Jordan in his own way…” (Yael Dayan, My Father’s House, p. 207).
Yael Dayan, representing a generation that has refused to reconcile with the inevitability of constant struggle, described in her book her deep dissociation from her father’s will: “I felt like a person banished from paradise, a curse more than a blessing. We were all destined to work the land and fight, and this was a commandment for our children.” (ibid.)
On Saturday, October 7, the dream of an Israeli paradise collapsed. With the war in Ukraine and even in Western Europe, it has become clear that despite hopes for peace everywhere, there is no paradise on Earth. As expressed in the Negev lullaby my mother sang to me in my childhood, “There is no deep silence without a weapon … sleep, son.”
The State of Israel is in one of the most difficult crises it has ever known. It suffered an unprecedented blow and is required to receive an unprecedented punishment. Asking to return to the familiar track after making technical repairs is asking to escape the true magnitude of the repair that is required. The national leadership of the State of Israel, together with the security system, must be committed in the face of this crisis to formulating a new national security concept.
After the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, will residents of Rosh HaAyin and Kfar Saba lend a hand in the establishment of a Palestinian state that would turn them into border settlements akin to Nahal Oz or Metula? Any arrangement of the territory of Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that aims at a Jewish withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, an uprooting of Israeli settlements, and a defining of the eastern border of the State of Israel in the Rosh HaAyin-Kfar Saba region along Highway 6 would be a Palestinian national victory and an Israeli defeat.
Despite all our faith in the IDF and its capabilities, there is not now, and there will not be, an option to defend the State of Israel along the coastal strip. This fact must be brought to broad national consensus and placed at the center of the Israeli security perception.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for 42 years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post A Clear Post-War National Vision Means Returning to the Roots of Zionism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Winners and Losers in the Middle East: The Story So Far
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS
JNS.org – After more than a year of bloody conflict in the Middle East sparked by the Hamas pogrom in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, it’s becoming clearer as to which of the multiple parties involved have registered net gains and which net losses.
Let’s start with the Palestinians. The enduring achievement of the Hamas rapists and murderers has been to thrust the Palestinian question back into the heart of the world’s consciousness. For at least 10 years prior, the civil war in Syria, the war against ISIS, the failure of the “Arab Spring” to introduce stable and lasting democracy in the region, and the normalization treaties between Israel and a cluster of highly conservative Arab monarchies displaced the Palestinians from their jealously guarded position as the region’s overarching, unresolved question.
Oct. 7 changed all that by turning the Palestinian issue into a domestic concern in a range of countries—a status that typically eludes the myriad other conflicts around the world. “Palestine” has been an issue in elections in Ireland, France, the United Kingdom and, of course, the United States. It has been an issue for law enforcement, as police departments in cities around the world have struggled to deal with mass demonstrations and campus encampments, too often resulting in police officers looking the other way as screaming mobs have openly supported terror organizations, recycled the crudest antisemitic tropes, engaged in vandalism and assault, and disrupted sporting and cultural events. And, let’s face it, the war in Gaza has given the lives of millions of restive, poorly informed people a sense of meaning and purpose as they face down the Zionist war machine they believe is at the root of the Palestinians’ travails—and therefore at the root of theirs as well.
Yet actual Palestinians, particularly Palestinians in Gaza, might question whether any of these outcomes were worth a year of bombardment that has wrecked their coastal enclave and placed them at the mercy of outside states when it comes to reconstruction and post-war governance. Hamas has been decimated, and it remains unclear who will rule Gaza going forward and how they will do so. The price of the aforementioned political victories for the Palestinians has been military disaster and long-term uncertainty.
For Israel, that effect has essentially been reversed. Militarily, thanks to the discipline and courage of the Israel Defense Forces, the Jewish state is in a much more commanding position than it was before Oct. 7 on both the Gaza and Lebanon fronts (meaning, its southern and northern borders). As well as delivering powerful blows against Hamas, Israel has fundamentally weakened Iran’s other proxy, Hezbollah, to the point that it cannot muster fighters to defend the tottering regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, as it did a decade ago.
Yet in political and diplomatic terms, the past 14 months have seen Israel’s global position significantly undermined by repeated accusations of “genocide.” Its prime minister and former defense minister cannot travel to much of the rest of the world, including most of the European Union, for fear that they will be arrested under the warrants issued last month by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. From literary festivals to soccer matches, Israelis are feeling the kind of opprobrium once reserved for apartheid South Africa, albeit with much deadlier violence involved. Relatedly, Jewish communities in the Diaspora are experiencing a wave of antisemitic intimidation unseen since the 1930s. The imminent arrival of a new administration in the White House may, as many hopefully expect, shift these fortunes, especially when it comes to the crucial issues of the plight of the remaining hostages in Gaza and the return of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes in the north by Hezbollah’s attacks. Nothing, however, is guaranteed.
Dealing with the Iranian regime, whose machinations lie at the core of this conflict, will be a major focus of the next Trump administration’s foreign policy. Yet even before Donald Trump enters the Oval Office (again), Iran is already looking damaged and weaker now when compared with Oct. 7. While its missile attacks on Israel failed to dent either the IDF or the Israeli population’s resolve, Jerusalem’s responses have badly frayed Iran’s air defenses and highlighted the vulnerability of its nuclear program. As well as seeing its Hamas and Hezbollah proxies degraded, Iran is now watching as the Assad regime in Syria clings to survival. Iran still retains its proxies in Iraq and Yemen, but these, too, may also find themselves in the firing line with a new administration in Washington. “Although today’s Iran is confident that it can fight to defend itself, it wants peace,” wrote its former foreign minister in a frankly ludicrous article for Foreign Affairs. That sounds suspiciously like a plea to the regime’s adversaries to hold off because the reality is that the regime cannot defend itself from Israel—not to mention the Iranian people, growing swaths of whom truly loathe the Islamic Republic and are determined to get rid of it.
For two states in the region, the outlook is unfortunately rosier. One is Turkey, whose membership of the NATO Alliance remains undisturbed despite the increasingly unhinged attacks on Israel leveled by its autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and its open support of Hamas. Ironically, Israel’s punishing of Hezbollah has helped Erdoğan in Syria, where Turkey is backing anti-Assad forces in the north of the country, though don’t expect him to acknowledge that.
Secondly, there is Qatar, an emirate grounded in Sharia law, where a little more than 10% of the population enjoy full citizenship while the vast majority—mainly migrant workers toiling in slave-like conditions—live under a form of real apartheid. The Biden administration’s faith that Qatar—a financial and diplomatic backer of Hamas whose capital hosted the terror organization’s leaders—could act as an honest broker in negotiations to release the hostages was spectacularly misplaced, with more than a year dragging by since the one-and-only prisoner exchange that compelled Israel to release Palestinians convicted of terrorism and violence. Despite this dismal failure and its two-faced stance on terrorism, Qatar’s ruling family continues to be feted by international leaders, most recently in London, where the British Royal Family dutifully trooped to The Mall for a parade welcoming the visiting emir. For the foreseeable future, Qatar’s astonishing wealth, coupled with its financial hold over many of the world’s capitals, is a guarantee of immunity from criticism, let alone actual sanctions.
For Turkey and Qatar, then, net gains. For Iran and its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies, net losses. For Israel, the jury is out. The first year of Trump’s term in office will doubtless tell us more.
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Reward UNIFIL’s Epic Failure and Corruption in Lebanon by Shutting it Down
UN peacekeeper (UNIFIL) vehicle drives in Bent Jbeil, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect, southern Lebanon, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
JNS.org – The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has one job: to ensure that no armed groups, including Hezbollah terrorists, operate in a restricted area of Southern Lebanon. Not only did UNIFIL fail to do this job—it facilitated Hezbollah’s rearming of the region by ignoring them and failing to raise red flags.
Indeed, when Hezbollah began attacking Israel from this restricted territory in October 2023, UNIFIL did nothing to stop them—nor did its bosses at the United Nations—for 13 long months. This failure is rivaled in dishonor and damage only by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Now, instead of being condemned for its despicable performance, UNIFIL has been assigned an integral role in the new Israel-Lebanon ceasefire. Its “new” job will be to coordinate and monitor Hezbollah’s compliance in vacating Southern Lebanon, plus help dismantle any unauthorized military infrastructure and ensure that only Lebanese security forces operate in designated zones.
Sound familiar? That’s exactly what UNIFIL has proved incapable of doing. Instead of disarming Hezbollah, UNIFIL allowed it to build a massive terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon’s south.
Scandalously, the media seldom report on UNIFIL’s failures, preferring instead to cover Israel’s “attacks” on UNIFIL installations or otherwise threatening or displacing “innocent” Lebanese villagers. As does Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah terrorists quarter their military operations in towns and cities, often in the shadow of UNIFIL bases. This true story, of course, doesn’t match the media’s narrative of Israel being the bad actor.
In fact, when the Israel Defense Forces entered Southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure—intending to ensure the safe return of 70,000 Israeli residents to their homes in Israel’s north—UNIFIL stood in the way, refusing to withdraw, despite pleas from Israeli leaders. Yet the media and U.N. members blamed Israel whenever UNIFIL sites or personnel were struck.
Given UNIFIL’s shameful failure to prevent Hezbollah from arming and occupying Southern Lebanon, plus UNIFIL’s renewed responsibility to rein in Hezbollah, last week’s ceasefire seems bound to collapse.
In short, UNIFIL is simply another multimillion-dollar boondoggle, like UNRWA, that needs dismantling … one more reason for a dramatic cut in U.N. funding by the United States.
Like other U.N. organizations, UNIFIL is well-financed and staffed but ineffective. Initially set up in 1978 to monitor Israel’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon following an attack by the PLO, UNIFIL’s mandate was expanded following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which Hezbollah began by invading Israel, killing eight soldiers and taking two hostages. Per U.N. Resolution 1701 in 2006, UNIFIL was to ensure that Southern Lebanon would be “an area free of any armed personnel, assets, and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL.”
Today, UNIFIL has 10,000 soldiers and a budget of $550 million, of which the United States pays one-third. Many of its soldiers come from hostile Muslim countries that have no relations with Israel. Others come from China, Ireland and Spain, which practice anti-Israel policies—hardly forces motivated to protect Jews from Muslim terrorists.
UNIFIL allowed Hezbollah to arm itself to the teeth—amassing a huge arsenal of more than 200,000 rockets and missiles. The Iranian-backed terrorist group planned to use Southern Lebanon as a base from which to launch an Oct. 7-style attack on Israel. Hezbollah placed its armed positions within sight of UNIFIL observation posts, yet the U.N. peacekeepers did nothing to stop them. UNIFIL failed to investigate even one of the more than 3,000 Hezbollah arms depots and other military sites targeted by Israel since October 2023.
UNIFIL served at Hezbollah’s pleasure. The terrorist group prohibited UNIFIL from patrolling broad swaths of territory and routinely harassed, assaulted, and even killed the force’s personnel. In an interview with a Danish news site, a former, unnamed U.N. soldier said UNIFIL was “completely at Hezbollah’s mercy” and that their ability to report anything was extremely limited because Hezbollah terrorists would confiscate their devices if they attempted to collect evidence.
But UNIFIL is not only incompetent, it is also corrupt. Captured Hezbollah terrorists recently testified that their group paid UNIFIL operatives for their cooperation, including the use of their outposts and security cameras to observe Israel’s military movements.
Hezbollah uses UNIFIL as human shields. The IDF recounted multiple incidents when Hezbollah’s fire came from areas next to UNIFIL posts, including one that killed two IDF soldiers. Israeli forces also discovered Hezbollah tunnel entrances adjacent to UNIFIL posts.
Mainstream media won’t report these travesties. Indeed, an NPR article titled “What is the U.N. peacekeeping force stationed in Lebanon?” fails to mention Hezbollah’s bribery of UNIFIL or its use of peacekeepers as human shields.
Israel tried to protect UNIFIL, only to be condemned. Israel’s leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, implored UNIFIL to leave their positions for their own safety, but these appeals fell on deaf ears. It was also the IDF’s policy during the war always to warn UNIFIL whenever Israel operated in their vicinity so they had the chance to move out of harm’s way.
Instead of praising Israel, however, for trying to protect UNIFIL, world leaders condemned it. Italy and France, for example, denounced Israel for firing on UNIFIL positions, calling its actions outrageous.
Originally published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).
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Chaos in Syria ‘Creates Opportunities’ Against Iranian Axis
Smoke billows near residential buildings in a picture taken from a drone in Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Hasano
JNS.org – Since Nov. 27, the Syrian civil war has seen a resurgence of hostilities that directly threatens the stability of President Bashar Assad’s regime, following an offensive launched by Sunni rebels from Idlib in northwestern Syria.
The renewed fighting has seen the rebels quickly take Aleppo and advance further south, and is being closely monitored by Israel. It is already drawing in Russia, which is conducting airstrikes on the Sunni forces, while unconfirmed reports of strikes by an unidentified air force targeted positions of Iran-backed militias in Deir Ezzor, northeastern Syria, an area used by Shi’ite militias to cross into Syria from Iraq.
At the forefront of the renewed offensive against Assad’s forces is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist organization led by the 43-year-old Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. Formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda in Syria and known as Jabhat al-Nusra before breaking ties with al-Qaeda, HTS has become the primary umbrella force challenging the Syrian government in the Idlib region.
Israel remains cautious about taking sides publicly, while preparing itself for a range of scenarios.
Lt. Col. (res.) Marco Moreno, a former senior officer in the IDF’s Human Intelligence Unit 504 who was responsible for the Lebanon and Syria arenas, and the founder and commander of “Operation Good Neighbor” from 2012 to 2016, which provided humanitarian aid to Syrians during the civil war, directly linked current events in that country with the hammer blows sustained by Hezbollah and the Shi’ite axis in neighboring Lebanon.
“The rebels have been waiting with plans for a long time, and once they saw that we weakened and harmed Hezbollah in Lebanon—and in Syria—they took advantage of the opportunity to attack,” Moreno told JNS on Sunday.
Moreno noted that the direct impact on Israel at this stage is minor, since the fighting is not occurring close to the border in southern Syria.
‘Syria’s Philadelphi Corridor’
He also noted that the Assad regime has played a highly destructive and dangerous role for Israel’s security over the years, supplying highly advanced, strategic weaponry to Hezbollah.
“The Assad regime allowed Syria to be the Philadelphi Corridor [the Gazan area bordering Sinai used to smuggle weapons] on steroids,” said Moreno.
Many of the weapons Hezbollah used against Israel in the recent war came from Syria, he said. “When I say strategic weaponry was smuggled from Syria, I mean strategic, without going into further details,” he added.
The rebels, he said, are an assortment of groups including extremist jihadists. “As someone who ran ‘Operation Good Neighbor’ in the Golan Heights, I know the rebels well—the good and the less good. I think that when the rebellion reaches southern Syria, the Golan Heights, it could create a security challenge on the border. The Israel Defense Forces will have the needed skills, acquired from the past, to deal with this event,” Moreno said.
Israel will likely be able to set up arrangements, not all of them necessarily public, with rebel groups, he assessed.
“Once Syria is removed from the Shi’ite axis, the Iranian axis will be severely harmed. The next step will be the Iranian axis itself,” he said. “This is something that will project on all of the arenas, including Hamas and Hezbollah.”
Regarding concerns that sites belonging to the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, which, in cooperation with Iran develops precise missiles, and according to reports, chemical weapons, could fall into the hands of jihadists, Moreno said, “Israeli intelligence agencies would have to monitor this, and if needed, act in this scenario.”
He added that if rebels destroy sites used to supply Hezbollah with weapons, this could also benefit Israel.
Israeli intelligence superiority is well established in the northern arena, he argued.
Addressing the Turkish role, Moreno said that Ankara appears to be motivated in backing a number of rebel groups by the goal of moving millions of Sunni refugees who have found haven in Turkey back to Syrian soil, and perhaps to initiate this maneuver before the second Trump administration is sworn in. Turkey might also sense an opportunity to push the Kurds back from the Turkish border, he added.
“We’re in the Middle East and I personally believe that this chaos is good, it creates opportunities – if one knows how to exploit them,” said Moreno.
Essentially al-Qaeda or ISIS
Brig. Gen. (res.) Dedy Simhi, former chief of staff of the IDF Home Front Command, told JNS on Sunday that the complete collapse of Assad’s regime would “not good for Israel because the alternative might be that these Sunni jihadists, essentially al-Qaeda or ISIS in some form, could rise.”
He added, “I would prefer Assad weakened and bleeding in power rather than Syria completely falling apart. … Israel must sit on the sidelines for now, avoid intervention, and be prepared for anything that might happen.”
Israel’s interest, he argued, is not for Syria to turn into Yemen or Iraq, or Libya. Simhi added that the harm caused to Hezbollah and to Hamas, as well as the destruction of the entire Iranian air defense array on Oct. 26 by the Israeli Air Force, and the Israeli strikes on Yemen, have all weakened the Shi’ite axis.
This led the Sunni rebels to decide to take advantage of the weakness of their enemy, that same Shi’ite axis, and to attack.
“There are other considerations here too,” he added. “Turkey is supporting the rebels—they want to return the four million Syrian refugees to northern Syria.”
Simhi echoed Moreno’s assessment that Israel will be capable of detecting scenarios of advanced weaponry falling into jihadi hands and acting in time if necessary.
Iran and Russia embarrassed
According to a report by Mako on Sunday, “In Iran and Russia, the two biggest patrons of Assad since the middle of the previous decade, it is evident that they were surprised and very embarrassed by the collapse of the Syrian army forces. Direct Iranian and Russian assets were severely damaged in the recent battles, and now there is a frantic effort to try and regain control.”
Iranian interests have suffered notably. “On Wednesday night, Iranian General Qomars Furuhashi, a very senior official in the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, was eliminated on the outskirts of Aleppo,” Mako reported.
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies provided an in-depth analysis of HTS in August 2023. The organization has changed significantly since its al-Qaeda-affiliated days, the report argued. “HTS’s current political-religious ideology frames the group as strictly Syria-focused and religiously moderate,” the center reported.
Despite efforts to rebrand, concerns persist about HTS’s authoritarian control and threats. “HTS has shown limited tolerance for political dissent, reacting swiftly and harshly to any protests or civilian complaints,” the analysis highlighted. The degree to which the group has the capacity to govern and the nature of its interactions with transnational terrorist groups remain points of contention.
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