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‘There Is No Blank Check’: Syrian Leader Told to Rein in Jihadis
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa attends an interview with Reuters at the presidential palace, in Damascus, Syria, March 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria‘s President Ahmed al-Sharaa has a lot to prove to win over Western powers. If the first few weeks of his rule are anything to go by, he may be heading in the wrong direction.
The West is watching Syria‘s leaders closely to ensure they rein in the Islamist jihadis who killed hundreds of Alawites, create an inclusive government with effective institutions, maintain order in a country fractured by years of civil war, and prevent a resurgence of Islamic State or al Qaeda.
To hammer home the message, three European envoys made clear in a March 11 meeting with Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani in Damascus that cracking down on the jihadi fighters was their top priority and that international support for the nascent administration could evaporate unless it took decisive action.
The meeting has not previously been reported.
“The abuses that have taken place in recent days are truly intolerable, and those responsible must be identified and condemned,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine, when asked about the message delivered in Damascus.
“There is no blank check for the new authorities.”
Reuters spoke to the three European envoys as well as four regional officials during a trip to Damascus. They all stressed that the authorities must get a grip on security across the country and prevent any repeat killings.
“We asked for accountability. The punishment should go on those who committed the massacres. The security forces need to be cleaned up,” said one European envoy, who was among the group of officials who delivered the message.
Washington has also called on Syria‘s leaders to hold the perpetrators of the attacks to account. US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said they were monitoring the interim authority’s actions to determine US policy for Syria.
The problem for Sharaa, however, is that his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group only comprises around 20,000 fighters, according to two assessments by Western governments.
That makes him reliant on the tens of thousands of fighters from other groups — including the very hardline jihadist factions he is being asked to combat – and moving against them could plunge Syria back into war, five diplomats and three analysts said.
Thousands of Sunni Muslim foreigners, from countries including China, Albania, Russia, and Pakistan, joined Syria‘s rebels early in the civil war to fight against the rule of Bashar al-Assad and the Iran-backed Shi’ite militias who supported him, giving the conflict a sectarian overtone.
One of the reasons Sharaa now depends on a relatively small force of some 20,000 fighters from several disparate groups, including the foreign jihadis, is because he dissolved the national army soon after taking power
While the step was meant to draw a line under five decades of autocratic Assad family rule, diplomats and analysts said it echoed Washington’s decision to disband the Iraqi army after the fall of Saddam Hussein – and could lead to similar chaos.
Sharaa’s move, along with mass dismissals of public sector workers, has deepened divisions in Syria and left hundreds of thousands without income, potentially pushing trained soldiers into insurgent groups or unemployment, worsening Syria‘s instability, according to five European and Arab officials.
Neither Sharaa’s office nor the Syrian foreign ministry responded to requests for comment for this story.
STUCK IN A PARADOX
In addition to the challenge of quelling sectarian violence, Sharaa must also contend with a host of foreign powers from the United States to Russia, Israel, Turkey, and Iran – all turning Syria‘s territory into a geopolitical chessboard.
Turkey holds the north, backing opposition forces while suppressing Kurdish ambitions. US-backed Kurdish-led forces control the east with its vital oil fields, while Israel capitalized on Assad’s fall to bolster its military foothold. It now controls a 400-square-km demilitarized buffer zone, supports the Druze minority, and is opposed to the Syrian leadership.
In response to the massacres of civilians, Sharaa has established an investigation committee and promised to punish those responsible, even those close to him.
But any action against the jihadis who carried out the killings could ignite factional infighting, purges, and power struggles – leaving the new government stuck in a paradox, the diplomats and analysts said.
“Obviously Sharaa doesn’t control the foreign jihadis and does not call all the shots,” said Marwan Muasher, vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “What is clear is that the massacres were carried out by people who are Salafi jihadists and are not listening to what he’s saying.”
While diplomats recognize that the inquiry is a step in the right direction, they said its credibility would have been far stronger with UN and international observers.
Ultimately, they said, the true test of Sharaa’s leadership lies not just in the commission’s findings but in how he deals with the fighters responsible for the atrocities.
The massacres were, however, a stark reminder of the forces at play in post-Assad Syria, signaling a brutal reality that toppling a dictator is the beginning of a larger, more perilous battle to shape the country’s future.
Abdulaziz Sager, founder of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center, said the presence of “rogue groups” – the foreign jihadis – operating outside the law would lead to a collapse in security and undermine the state’s authority.
“Therefore, the new leadership has no choice but to take firm action against such violations,” he said.
An Arab diplomat said political support from Arab states was also not unlimited, and would need to be matched by concrete steps, including inclusive governance, protection of minorities and real progress on the ground.
That means genuine power-sharing with Alawites, Christians, Kurds, and other minorities – and only then can the new leadership stabilize Syria and garner US and European support, the Arab diplomat said.
Washington and European states have tied the lifting of sanctions, imposed under Assad, to the new authorities proving their commitment to inclusive governance and the protection of minorities. Removing these sanctions is crucial to reviving Syria‘s shattered economy, Sharaa’s most pressing challenge.
SAME PLAYBOOK?
But despite promises of reform, the five-year constitution Sharaa unveiled this month gave him absolute power as president, prime minister, head of the armed forces, and chief of national security, as well as granting him the authority to appoint judges, ministers, and a third of parliament – dashing hopes for democratic reforms.
The constitution also enshrines Islamic law as “the main source” of legislation.
Critics argue that the constitution swaps autocracy for Islamist theocracy, deepening fears over Sharaa’s roots as the leader of a hardline Islamist faction once allied with al Qaeda.
Kurds, who control northeastern Syria and recently agreed to integrate with the new government, criticized the temporary constitution for “reproducing authoritarianism in a new form.”
Syria‘s dilemma, analysts say, mirrors the trials faced by Arab states a decade ago when, in 2011, a wave of uprisings ousted dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen.
The “Arab Spring” upheavals promised democratic revival, but takeovers by Islamists, military coups, and violent fragmentation turned these hopes into setbacks. The victories were short-lived, with states such as Yemen and Libya descending into violence and chaos.
Syria, having endured a far longer and bloodier conflict, now stands at a similar crossroad.
Analysts say if Syria‘s rulers adopt exclusionary policies that ignore the cultural, religious, ethnic diversity of its citizens, they are bound to fail – just as late Islamist President Mohammed Mursi did in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.
In Mursi’s case, his divisive constitution failed to meet the people’s diverse demands and led to his toppling by the army. Such a policy in Syria, the analysts add, would fuel domestic resistance, antagonize neighbors, and prompt foreign intervention.
“Some internal and external forces wanted a secular state, while the constitutional declaration reaffirmed the state’s religious-Islamic identity, stating that Islamic law [Sharia] would be the primary source of legislation,” said Sager. “A possible compromise could have been a model similar to Turkey’s – a secular state governed by an Islamic party.”
Muasher at the Carnegie Endowment said Assad’s fall should serve as a warning to those who replaced him in Syria.
He said Sharaa must decide whether to adopt the same playbook that made Assad vulnerable and led to the mass Sunni uprising that eventually ousted him – or adopt a different course.
“Syria‘s new rulers must recognise that the brutal authoritarian model of the regime they replaced was ultimately unsustainable, as is any political system based on exclusion and iron-fisted rule,” Muasher said.
“If they fall back on repression, they will subject Syria to a grim fate.”
The post ‘There Is No Blank Check’: Syrian Leader Told to Rein in Jihadis first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Antisemitism Data Illustrates the ‘New Normal’
Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect
JNS.org – As we mark the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and the liberation of the concentration camps, that terrible chapter of history no longer seems so distant. While there are only 15.7 million Jews among a global population of more than 8 billion—still less than the nearly 17 million who were alive in 1938, the year before World War II broke out—the uninitiated could be forgiven for thinking that the number is at least twice that, given the volume of media and political attention that the Jewish state and Jewish communities outside attract.
The great majority of Jews live in either the United States or Israel. For most of the postwar period, both countries were a potent symbol of Jewish life freed from the strictures of the past. Israel was a radical departure from the previous 2,000 years of Jewish history, a land where Jews as a collective could live as a sovereign entity defended by their own military, no longer dependent on non-Jews for their well-being and security. America—the “Goldene Medina” as some Yiddish-speaking immigrants called it—marked a similar rupture with the past, as a republic with no established religion and no history of antisemitic legislation (apart from one intemperate order issued by Gen. Ulysses Grant at the end of the Civil War, which was swiftly dispensed with by President Lincoln. “I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners,” Lincoln wrote.)
In 2025, such a rosy narrative is no longer possible. Israel is in a frankly odd position. It remains traumatized by the Hamas pogrom on Oct. 7, 2023. It is bitterly divided, perhaps more so than at any other time during its brief existence. It has delivered powerful and sustained blows to its mortal enemies in Gaza and Lebanon, but Iran’s ambitions to weaponize its nuclear program, which will be bolstered by any deal agreed to by the Trump administration that does not involve the complete dismantling of its various facilities and development sites, remain a nagging, overarching threat.
Above all, Israel’s very existence, and not its policies, continues to be the primary complaint of its adversaries.
Meanwhile, in America, Jews are facing the most hostile atmosphere in living memory. According to data gathered and published last week by the Anti-Defamation League, there were a whopping 9,354 antisemitic incidents during 2024, the highest ever recorded in its annual audit. That marked a 5% rise on 2023 and an 893% rise over the past decade. In 2015, one year after another bitter war in Gaza triggered by relentless Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli communities in the south, the ADL recorded 942 incidents. At the time, it seemed like an unprecedented challenge. Now, it feels like a drop in the ocean.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the ADL report was its finding that nearly 60% of the incidents in 2024 were related to the Jewish state. “Increasingly, extreme actors in the anti-Israel space have incorporated antisemitic rhetoric into their activism; it has become commonplace for perpetrators across the political spectrum to voice hatred of Israel or conspiracy theories about the state in a range of antisemitic attacks,” the ADL noted.
Among the offenders creating this poisonous atmosphere were Students for Justice in Palestine, sundry groups on the far left and our very own fifth column—the spectacularly misnamed “Jewish Voice for Peace.” Additionally, slogans urging Israel’s destruction and chants of “We don’t want no Zionists here” are not restricted to public spaces but instead are increasingly present outside Jewish-owned businesses, Jewish schools from K-12, synagogues and community centers. College campuses are, of course, the riskiest locations with nearly 1,500 incidents involving offenders who would no doubt call themselves “anti-Zionists” and leave it at that.
In the same week that the ADL released its report, Tel Aviv University published its annual report on antisemitism worldwide, which made for similarly depressing reading. That report noted a decline in incidents during 2024 from their peak in the closing months of 2023, when Israel was still reeling from the venom of the Hamas assault. “The sad truth is that antisemitism reared its head at the moment when the Jewish state appeared weaker than ever and under existential threat,” noted the report’s editor, professor Uriya Shavit. Even so, the 2024 decrease was not uniform: Australia, Canada, Spain and Italy were among countries recording a rise in outrages targeting Jews compared with the previous year. Clearly, some people like to kick the Jews at the very moment when they are down, while others take a more long-term view.
The fact that so many incidents were logged in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 slaughter tells us that, just as in the Muslim world, the fundamental issue is not what Israel does, but the mere fact that Israel is. This reality manifests at every single pro-Palestinian—more precisely, pro-Hamas—demonstration. Some protesters will carry signs urging Israel to “stop bombing hospitals,” which is a gross misrepresentation of the IDF’s tactics, with its implication that Israel seeks to deliberately kill Palestinian civilians, but not necessarily antisemitic.
The point is that the majority of demonstrators seem more motivated by the prospect of destroying Israel than they are by the plight of the Palestinians. That is why chants urging the “liberation” of Palestine “from the river to the sea” and banners condemning “Zionism” are far more common. It also helps to explain why the pro-Hamas movement has studiously ignored the spread of anti-Hamas protests in Gaza, which, in recent days, have included calls to release the hostages still in Hamas captivity not because of any humanitarian reasons, but because growing numbers of Gazans have final twigged that their lives would be infinitely easier if Hamas would just back down.
The ongoing symbiosis of hatred of Israel with classical antisemitism can be twisted to make the point—as some anti-Zionists do, particularly those who identify as Jews—that Israel’s existence is the principal source of antisemitism today. Within the Jewish community, that needs to be countered with the message that we cannot succumb to victim-blaming. Outside of the Jewish community, we need to stress over and again that the security of the Jews will never again be left to non-Jews.
In both spaces, Jews need to walk with their heads held high, knowing in their hearts that we do not have to apologize for Israel. That may seem obvious, but I write these words in the anticipation that future audits undertaken by the ADL or anyone else are likely to remain consistent over the next few years, and may even worsen as conspiracy theories about Jewish influence and Israeli power that are not directly connected to the Palestinians take hold.
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Playing With Fire When It Comes to Tehran
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with government officials in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
JNS.org – About two-dozen Mossad agents broke into a clandestine warehouse in the middle of an industrial section of Tehran on Jan. 30, 2018, making away with more than 100,000 documents outlining the Islamic regime’s nuclear-weapons work. This collection covered years of Iran’s nuclear archive, including the AMAD Project’s production plans, enrichment projections and warhead designs.
Flash-forward seven years. According to an article that came out this week in Iran International, Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said: “Iran is not far from having a nuclear problem. They don’t have it, we know it. But the material for it, it’s already there. To make a few warheads.”
Grossi added that “it would be a matter of months, not years” and that the level of visibility is “insufficient.”
This is certainly verified by Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who recently wrote about a small building being destroyed by the Israelis in airstrikes last September, as part of the Parchin military project. The building was not on the list of what the IAEA had planned to visit, nor was it in the AMAD documents.
A 2018 Mossad document revealed that this building was used to test the explosive capability of a nuclear bomb’s core, known as a “hydrodynamic chain reaction.” Yet the IAEA could not enter it, and Grossi did not appear to even be aware of what was going on there.
This brings up one of the great flaws of the former nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA—made in 2015 under the Obama administration: The IAEA does not have immediate access to monitor and verify areas of Iranian nuclear weaponization. According to Section T of the JCPOA, Iran must “describe in writing its activity,” and the IAEA would simply engage in verification, post facto.
What, if anything, is to prevent a rogue state such as Iran from concealing its nuclear program?
The JCPOA also says that Iran must collect its own soil samples for inspection of nuclear particles (tantamount to saying that a serial drug user must conduct his own drug tests).
Yet about one month ago, speaking before a Senate Intelligence Committee, Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, declared that “the international community continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader [Ali] Khomeini has not authorized its nuclear-weapon program that it suspended in 2003.”
She added that “in the past decade, we have seen a taboo within Iran against discussing Iran’s nuclear operations in public, likely emboldening nuclear-weapons advocates in its decision making public” She also added that “Iran’s nuclear stockpiles are at its highest levels, and it is unprecedented for state without nuclear weapons.”
Iran now possesses enough highly enriched uranium at the 60% level for at least six nuclear bombs. Israel is a one-bomb state.
Iran has just reported that after three years, they are turning on the cameras in their nuclear sites (at least the ones that are known).
After Israel decimated several of Iranian defensive nuclear sites in September 2024—with Hezbollah and Hamas in a tattered state, and President Donald Trump attempting to obliterate the Houthis from the Bad al-Mandeb Strait—and with the Iranian rial worth 0.000024 of a dollar, a majority of the country’s 90 million people are reportedly disgusted with the theocracy.
Most people have been born after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and a slim majority (50.1%) classify themselves as atheists. Many mosques (approximately 75,000) have been recently shuttered in Tehran.
I remain highly concerned that the regime wants to play out the clock and use the time as a smokescreen to conceal its weaponization program.
Remember, it is the Iranians who first invented the Persian Bazaar.
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‘For This, Have You Been Chosen’
“The High Priest Aaron,“ oil on panel, between circa 1545 and circa 1550, painted by Juan de Juanes. Photo: Museo del Prado/Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – I trust that Jews worldwide enjoyed a meaningful and memorable Passover with family and friends. Of course, no one could stop thinking of our brothers and sisters who have been held hostage in Gaza now for 18 months. We continue to pray for them to speedily enjoy their own anxiously awaited “season of freedom” and liberation.
After all the excitement of Passover, we now return to the weekly Torah readings; the portion this week is Shmini (Leviticus, Chapters 9-11). We read about Aaron, the brother of Moses, who was consecrated into his position as the nation’s very first high priest, the Kohen Gadol.
After Moses concluded the initiation service, it was time for Aaron to begin officiating over the sacrificial offerings in the sanctuary.
“And Moses said to Aaron, ‘Come near to the Altar and perform the services …’ ”
Why did Moses have to tell his brother to come near? The Torah scholar Rashi, quoting the Midrash, says that because Aaron inadvertently had a hand in the tragic Golden Calf episode, he felt unworthy and ashamed to approach the Altar. Moses, therefore, encouraged him by saying: “Why are you ashamed? For this, have you been chosen.”
The simple meaning is that Aaron was chosen by God to be the high priest and Moses was telling him that he must do his job regardless of feeling unfit for the position. But how did that set Aaron’s mind at ease?
There is a Chassidic interpretation that turns this verse on its head. When Moses said, “Why are you ashamed? For this have you been chosen,” he was telling his brother that the very reason he was chosen for the exalted position of Kohen Gadol was precisely because he felt ashamed. If he took it for granted that he was the right man for the job, then he would clearly be the wrong man. God desires humility and despises arrogance. By feeling ashamed and overwhelmed by such a high position, Aaron demonstrated that he was the perfect person for such a prominent position.
The Talmud writes that three characteristics have traditionally personified the Jewish people—compassion, bashfulness and benevolence (Yevamot, 79a). While you may know lots of Jews who appear rather forward and far from reticent, according to our sages, the hallmarks of the Jewish people are to be shy, humble and modest. Hubris and haughtiness should be foreign to us. We are not meant to take ourselves so seriously.
Rabbi Sholom Nelson was one of the first students to enroll in the Chabad-Lubavitch Yeshivah in New York when it was founded in 1940. In the early 1950s, the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—encouraged him to study shechita, kosher slaughter, and to become a qualified ritual slaughterer. But he resisted the idea, feeling that he was unworthy of such a position, as it demands a high degree of knowledge and piety. The Rebbe’s response was: “The very fact that you feel unworthy proves that you are most worthy of being a shochet.”
We live in a mad world where social media rules, where those who shout the loudest are all too often the most powerful, and the quiet voice of truth often goes unheard. “The lies are always loud, and the truth is always quiet,” goes the old folk saying.
In the book of 1 Kings, the Prophet Elijah experiences a Divine revelation. There is wind, an earthquake and a fire. But he is told, “God is not in the wind … not in the earthquake … and not in the fire.” Only afterward does Elijah hear “the still, soft voice” (Kings 1, 19:12). This is the true word of God. Indeed, this phrase, “the still, soft voice,” has made its way into the famous Unetaneh Tokef prayer, which is a highlight of the Mussaf service on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. God is Almighty, even if His voice is still and soft.
I remember hearing someone coaching a debater and telling him, “When your point is weak, shout like hell!” The quiet voice of truth is authentic. The shouters must shout because their arguments have no basis in fact or logic.
Aaron was the most suited man for the role of high priest precisely because he was soft and humble. May we never need to shout.
Let it be our character, humility and honorable conduct that make us truly worthy.
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