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‘Israel Doesn’t Want a Stable Syria’: The Media Uses Upheaval to Falsely Slander Israel
Rebel fighters holds weapons at the Citadel of Aleppo, after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted Bashar al-Assad, in Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karam al-Masri
The Independent’s world affairs editor, Sam Kiley, has a long history of reporting from the Middle East for several mainstream media outlets including CNN, Sky News, and London’s Evening Standard. Despite presenting himself as something of an expert, his flawed judgment was most famously on display in 2002, when Kiley conjured up witnesses to speak of Israel’s “staggering brutality and callous murder” in Jenin when the media libeled Israel for a massacre that never was.
Taking on the dramatic fall of the Assad regime in Syria for The Independent, Kiley’s analysis includes the following:
Israel doesn’t want a stable Syria, as the Jewish state has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967, and captured more in 1973. It won’t ever allow Damascus to return to the eastern banks of the Sea of Galilee.
Israel “doesn’t want a stable Syria.”
Really?
History and common sense suggest otherwise.
1. While the Golan Heights has suffered rocket attacks, including the deadly attack that killed 12 children in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in July 2024, that rocket was fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon. Israel’s border with Syria has actually been one of its quietest over many decades with any security incidents few and far between — stability that has benefited Israel.
2. In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel and Syria signed the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement, which until now has been the longest successful continuous agreement Israel has ever had with an Arab country. That Israel has reacted to the end of the Assad regime by moving forces into the buffer zone to temporarily secure the area of the Syrian Golan where the Syrian Army has fled is a testament to the stability that the agreement brought for some five decades.
3. When it comes to Bashar al-Assad, for Israeli policymakers, Assad may be the better devil you know. Granted, Assad was a despicable dictator, but he was a known and relatively predictable actor whose primary interest in recent years was his regime’s survival. With Assad gone, Israel is faced with chaos in Syria and a potential takeover by hostile jihadist groups. While Islamist rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has attempted to portray himself and his forces as relative moderates, footage of a rebel spokesman surrounded by gunmen stating, “From here to Jerusalem. We’re coming for Jerusalem. Patience, people of Gaza, patience,” illustrates the potential dangers from Syria’s new rulers. Israel certainly does not benefit from the instability in Syria.
But then maybe Kiley’s interpretation is based on his own prejudices when it comes to the Jewish state.
He stresses that Israel captured more of the Golan Heights in 1973. What he doesn’t mention is that, as part of the aforementioned Agreement on Disengagement, Israel returned all of that extra territory — an inconvenient truth that doesn’t fit with Kiley’s portrayal of Israel as an aggressive colonizer.
There’s a reason Israel has annexed the Golan Heights and it’s not the land grab that Kiley implies. Prior to 1967, the strategic plateau that sits some 8,700 feet above Israel allowed Syria to dominate Israel’s northernmost communities. Syrian artillery fire regularly plagued northern Israel, and intermittent hostilities broke out, with both sides making incursions into the other’s territory.
Syrian forces regularly attacked Israeli farmers. Between 1950 and 1967, approximately 370 Israelis were hit by Syrian fire, with 121 killed.
After taking the territory in the defensive Six-Day War, the height advantage and strategic location afforded by the Golan Heights ensured that the territory could no longer be used to fire on northern Israel. This is why there is almost wall-to-wall opposition to giving the territory to Syria — whether it is governed by a dictator like Bashar al-Assad or jihadists who could potentially allow extremist groups to build terror infrastructure on Israel’s border in the same way that Hamas and Hezbollah did from Gaza and Lebanon respectively.
Ultimately, Sam Kiley’s “analysis” is both flawed and prejudiced. When it comes to Israel, for a world affairs editor, Kiley appears to have a loose grip on world affairs.
The author is the Editorial Director of HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post ‘Israel Doesn’t Want a Stable Syria’: The Media Uses Upheaval to Falsely Slander Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.