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What Will Happen in Syria? The Truth Is — No One Knows
A person holds up a Syrian opposition flag, as people celebrate after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad, in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, December 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
The story of Bashar al-Assad’s downfall actually begins shortly after October 7, 2023, when Israel’s “War Cabinet” adopted two official war goals: to dismantle Hamas’ military and political control in Gaza, and to bring the hostages home. Eleven months into the fighting, Israel stepped up its effort to achieve a third goal — returning Israel’s northern population safely to their homes. Less than six hours later, more than 3,000 pagers exploded throughout Lebanon.
Since that time, Israel has eviscerated Hezbollah; it has also degraded Hamas from a terror semi-state to a small scale insurgency group, and utterly humiliated Iran. Iran’s humiliation, which began when Israel disintegrated much of its terror proxy network, came to a dramatic conclusion when Israel entered Iranian airspace, destroyed its missile factories, and wiped out its entire, Russian-made air defense system.
Then, at 4am on November 26, the Lebanon “cease-fire” agreement began. Predictably, Hezbollah has been breaching the ceasefire ever since, but unlike in prior years, Israel is directly enforcing the agreement through military action, as permitted by the cease-fire’s terms.
Meanwhile, key players in Syria had been watching. Its president, Bashar al-Assad, had survived the Syrian civil war that began in 2011 — and he did so mainly through support from Russia and Iran, including an estimated 10,000 seasoned Hezbollah fighters.
In exchange, Assad provided both his patrons with access to the country, including turning Syria into one big Iranian highway for moving weapons to Hezbollah — primarily for use against Israel.
Now, however, Russia’s forces are being massively depleted by its invasion of Ukraine, Iran is weakened and far less feared after its shellacking at the hands of the IDF, and Hezbollah is a shadow of its former self. The various rebel groups in Syria, who had been contained but never defeated, took notice, and attacked.
Assad was overthrown on Sunday morning, primarily by radical Sunni extremists — many that have been linked to the ISIS and Al-Qaeda terror organizations in the past. A central core of those militants have rebranded themselves under the name “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” (HTS). HTS is backed primarily by Qatar and Turkey, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood. Unconfirmed reports allege that the US secretly supported HTS in exchange for a promise to not attack the US or Israel, though history shows that such promises from terror groups are rarely reliable. HTS has publicly said it renounced terrorism, and seeks a free Syria.
Another group fighting in Syria is the so called “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), a coalition of Kurds, Christians, and other minorities, connected with the PKK/YPG, a Kurdish militant group widely designated as a terror organization, with a Marxist, anti-US and anti-Western ideology. Nonetheless, the US has been backing the SDF for years — including with US troops — hoping that this will prevent the group from turning on the West, despite its violent ideology.
Meanwhile, Iraq has been absorbing many of the Shiite fighters fleeing Syria, raising the question of whether America’s plan to fully withdraw from Iraq by 2026 is wise under the circumstances. Iran, which had initially sent fighters to protect Assad, has since pulled out, and Hezbollah sent a small contingent of some 2,000 fighters, who proved mostly ineffective.
With the departure of Assad, Iran and Russia appear to have lost their influence in Syria, which is yet another blow to Iran’s proxy network, and at least in part a repercussion from Israel’s astounding military successes since October 7. Yet the forces taking over Syria are mostly the same violent Sunni terrorists who have been fighting for control of Syria since the Arab Spring in 2011. (Given that Iran and Russia were the only reasons Assad lasted in power so long — and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people — it’s unlikely Syria’s new leaders will support Russia and Iran, but that’s definitely not a guarantee.)
Despite its astounding successes since October 7, Israel has not yet achieved its war goals: it is still not safe for Israelis to return to their homes in the North, Hamas still clings to a degree of control in Gaza, and some 100 hostages still remain in horrific captivity, either alive or dead.
Yet there is cause for optimism. Though the northern cease-fire agreement is technically between Israel and the government of Lebanon, it was also approved by Hezbollah, at least what’s left of it. The terror group, which had sworn to keep fighting until Israel left Gaza, has therefore stepped back from its promise, thus abandoning Hamas to its own devices. This blow to Hamas’ delusion of defeating Israel through a regional war, along with some fierce rhetoric by incoming President Donald Trump, has raised hopes of closing a deal to, at long last, bring home the some 100 Israeli hostages who remain in Hamas captivity.
Trump has also vowed to reinstate his campaign of “maximum pressure” on Iran, which drastically reduced its influence in the region, and made it vulnerable to its own domestic population, much of which would like to overthrow the Islamic regime.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports out of Yemen indicate that the continued weakening of Iran may trigger an attempt by Saudi backed forces to overthrow the Houthi rebel group. Finally, here in Israel, we are optimistic that the Abraham Accords process will resume, beginning with Saudi Arabia and perhaps spreading across the more moderate parts of the Arab world.
In short, there are no “good guys” to root for in Syria, and there are no simple solutions to the challenges faced by Israel and the Western world. Yet Israel is significantly safer today than it was 14 months ago, and is now widely considered the preeminent power in the Middle East: by friends and enemies alike.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
The post What Will Happen in Syria? The Truth Is — No One Knows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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An Iowa Children’s Library Event Was Used to Push an Anti-Israel Agenda
Schaeffer Hall, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Photo: Flickr.
“Your teacher needs teaching.” This quote appalled me because, although challenging ideas is crucial to democratic values, it’s dangerous to assume your perspective is the definitive truth.
When I saw that the University of Iowa’s Arabic Department was promoting a “Palestine Storytime and Craft” in the Iowa City Public Library (ICPL)’s Children’s Room, I was curious about what it would convey, especially as someone who has worked with children for almost a decade, was employed in my hometown library’s children’s department, and participated avidly in those programs growing up.
The comment sections on ICPL’s Instagram and Facebook pages were flooded with support and comments like “love this.”
The event was cosponsored by Iowans for Palestine (IFP) and a local activist.
Besides spreading misleading information at their weekly protests and campus events, IFP has worked on a piece with Al Jazeera, which Israel and others have repeatedly accused of bias. Additionally, IFP has promoted multiple fundraisers raising thousands of dollars for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which has been accused by watchdogs of funneling money to Hamas.
In October 2024, a pro-Palestinian community member spoke at an Iowa City School Board meeting, where she declared, “How much time has been given in schools to understand the Indigenous People’s struggle for liberation from their occupiers or colonizers? All the while, an act of genocide is happening right now against the indigenous Palestinian people. The education system has been used before to hide or ignore the truth, lie or mislead against the many atrocities indigenous people have faced … The abuse of education risks leading people to dehumanize an already embattled indigenous population … Standing against colonialism and apartheid is to stand with truth to power.”
This same activist took on the role of storyteller for the library event. She first read My Olive Tree by Hazar Elbayya, recognized as a Booklist Best Book of the Year, followed by A Map for Falasteen, written by Maysa Odeh and illustrated by Aliaa Betawi, which has received multiple honors, including Kirkus Best Book of 2024 and Booklist Editors’ Choice 2024.
The presenter repeatedly emphasized that the one thing she wanted everyone to focus on was the adults’ attire in the stories. She encouraged them to compare it to what she was wearing: a black and white keffiyeh.
In My Olive Tree, Hazar Elbayya portrays Israel as the villain through the eyes of a young girl who dreams of growing an olive tree, a cherished symbol of peace in her community, while soldiers are described as “forcefully march[ing] into our land and destroy[ing] everything in their path.”
A Map for Falasteen opens with a young girl struggling to find her family’s homeland on a map, while her classmates confidently share their own stories. When she asks why “Palestine” isn’t shown, her teacher dismissively suggests it may not exist, prompting the girl to turn to her family in search of answers. After reading the first page, the community member said to the audience, “It’s not actually on the map — it exists, but it’s not on the map.”
In the story, the girl’s grandpa draws a map of “Palestine” and says, “Your teacher needs teaching. You can show this to her, so all of your friends can learn too.”
It was not hard at all to spot the keffiyehs, watermelons, and Palestinian flags throughout the books.
After she was finished reading, the organizer took the keffiyeh off her neck to show the children and their families. She said the pattern resembling a fishing net is a tribute to Palestinian fishermen. Another pattern, with squiggly lines, symbolizes olive leaves, which she described as an essential part of Palestinian culture. According to her, the straight lines represent the borders between the cities and villages of Palestine.
While the reader’s son — wearing a “Free Palestine” hoodie — and a few friends were notably engaged, the rest of the very young children seemed more interested in the craft portion of the event than the radical messaging.
It is a disheartening reality that many institutions, from college campuses to local libraries, are no longer prioritizing unbiased, meaningful education but instead are becoming platforms for harmful agendas.
This event is just one example of how young minds can be subtly influenced by radical messaging under the guise of innocent storytelling and community engagement.
As parents, educators, and responsible citizens, we must remain vigilant about what our children are exposed to. Just because a book has won awards does not mean it is objective, age-appropriate, or free from dangerous messaging.
It is our duty to ensure that young people are not preyed upon by pro-terrorist rhetoric or manipulated into adopting ideologies before they are old enough to critically assess them, especially when children are regularly weaponized by terrorists that try to appeal to them. Just look at how Hamas has used children to celebrate the deaths of babies held hostage — this is the destructive path that unchecked radicalization can lead to.
Jasmyn Jordan is a spring 2025 graduate of the University of Iowa, where she was a Presidential Scholar, double majoring in Political Science and International Relations with a minor in Journalism. She was a 2024–2025 CAMERA Fellow and organized a variety of pro-Israel initiatives, including bringing a speaker to campus. Her work has appeared in The College Fix, New Guard, and Breitbart, and she has been featured in interviews at the local, state, and national levels.
The post An Iowa Children’s Library Event Was Used to Push an Anti-Israel Agenda first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Killed a Terror Operative in Gaza, Not a Journalist
23-year-old German-Israeli Shani Louk, who was murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023. (Photo: Instagram)
Calling a terror operative a journalist doesn’t make him one.
Just ask the Associated Press (AP). The vaunted news agency’s rough schooling in this lesson began with a mundane correspondence, progressed to the most devastating slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, and continued with a hugely embarrassing court case.
The first chapter of the unfortunate saga dates to 2018. At the time, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America questioned the AP’s reliance on photographer Hassan Eslaiah, identified in the wire service coverage as a “local journalist” who corroborated a Hamas accusation that Israel was responsible for the death of a child at the Gaza border fence.
When CAMERA requested specifics regarding Eslaiah’s journalistic credentials, an AP official declined to identify the Palestinian’s professional affiliation. The editor insisted that he “is independent and reliable and not Hamas.”
CAMERA did its own research, and in very short order discovered an Electronic Intifada article revealing that the “not Hamas” source was, at the time, a camera operator with the very much Hamas-affiliated Quds TV.
CAMERA shared this information with the AP. But the news agency, which says it its “advancing the power of facts,” failed to amend its coverage to acknowledge that the supposedly independent and reliable local journalist, who ostensibly substantiated an unverified Hamas claim, was himself working with Hamas.
Later, in 2020, CAMERA tweeted a photograph of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar kissing and embracing Eslaiah, and tagged the AP.
Fast forward to Oct. 7, 2023. By then, Eslaiah’s status at the AP had advanced. He was no longer a “local journalist” trotted out to verify Hamas’ questionable claims. He was now the wire service’s freelance photographer at the forefront of Hamas’ horrific massacre, earning cash for his images of the unspeakable terror carried out by his Hamas colleagues.
“Not Hamas” Eslaiah was among the freelance photographers from the Gaza Strip who crossed the border into Israel alongside thousands of Hamas-led terrorists who came to murder, rape, kidnap, torture, maim, and loot.
The most recent chapter of the AP’s hard knocks education in the mutually exclusive professions of journalism and terror moves from the killing fields of southern Israel to the Federal court of the Southern District of Florida.
As reported in The Times of Israel, terror victims sued the Associated Press in February 2024 for publishing Eslaiah’s Oct. 7 photographs, charging: “AP has long been on notice of their freelancer’s Hamas connections, and chose to ignore those connections.”
A recap: the AP was on notice because of CAMERA’s 2018 correspondence. The CAMERA-AP exchange stands at the foundation of the terror victim’s lawsuit against the leading news agency.
In those 2018 emails, dusted off in 2024 by studious lawyers who did their homework, CAMERA also documented that Eslaiah’s social media was a veritable reader’s guide to ideological identification with Hamas, glorification of terrorism, and anti-Jewish statements.
Even following Oct. 7, Eslaiah’s social media was as open as a textbook. A November 2023 CAMERA report documented Eslaiah’s celebration of the Oct. 7 atrocities, including praise for the Hamas “warriors” and reflections on how “storming the settlements” is a “beautiful thing.”
But Eslaiah’s identification with Hamas didn’t stop at lyrical posts. Last April, when Eslaiah was injured in an Israeli airstrike, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet reported that Eslaiah was a member of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade and was operating “under the guise of a journalist and owner of a press company.”
When Hassan Eslaiah was killed in an Israeli air strike this week, Hamas rushed to claim that a journalist was among the three fatalities.
As the lawsuit against the AP is still ongoing, the final chapter of the AP’s Eslaiah Hamas-not-journalist curriculum has yet to be written. Nevertheless, the enduring lesson should be clear: a terror operative is not a journalist.
And yet, the slow learners are nothing if not consistent: “Gaza journalist Hassan Aslih killed in Israeli strike,” BBC blared. “Israeli strike on Gaza hospital kills wounded journalist,” Reuters misled.
Tamar Sternthal is director of the Israel office of CAMERA.
The post Israel Killed a Terror Operative in Gaza, Not a Journalist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Exposing the Palestinian Authority’s False Claim That Israel Is an ‘Artificial Colonial Implant’
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa signed a Memorandum of Understanding in London, April 28, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s presentation of Israel as a foreign colonial implant in the Middle East is one of the most fundamental parts of its ideology, around which the PA has built the Palestinian identity.
The PA’s denial of thousands of years of Jewish history in the Land of Israel includes the lies that Jews did not live there and would never have thought of settling there until Western colonialism “planted” them in “Palestine.”
According to the false PA narrative, the West hatched Zionism to solve its Jewish problem by getting rid of its society-destroying Jews, who could then serve as a front line “against the Arab states” in the region.
PA leader Mahmoud Abbas explained that Europeans in general suffered from the Jews and “even Hitler … fought the Jews because they worked based on usury and money, in other words, they caused ruin.” Getting rid of the harmful Jews and having a colonial implant is what Abbas called “two birds with one stone.”
The colonialism narrative is central to PA ideology, as it denies Israel any rights to exist in any borders. It also efficiently creates backing around the world for the PA’s claim to “Palestine from the river to the sea.” During the current war, this slogan and the colonialism narrative have been adopted by pro-Palestinian protesters internationally as a definitive truth.
This “satanic project” — as Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash terms Zionism and the creation of Israel — was started by the British, which “brought in strangers who had no connection to Palestine.”
The PA claims that international colonialism wanted to destabilize the Arab region and therefore “created the Zionist idea” and “planted” the Jews in “Palestine”:
Abbas’ advisor: “The British Mandate opened the doors to Jewish immigration to Palestine and brought in strangers who had no connection to Palestine …
Maybe the world will not recognize the [Palestinian] political entity but rather [only] a part of the historical homeland, but the historical homeland will remain all of Palestine (i.e., all of Israel) for all the Palestinians …
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Nov. 29, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch has exposed numerous statements by Al-Habbash in which he has labeled Jews and Israelis as “Satan” and “evil.”
According to Al-Habbash, Israel now serves “the American colonialist project,” and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “exploited” Hamas’ massacre and launch of its terror war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 for this “satanic plot”:
Al-Habbash: “[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu exploited what happened on Oct. 7, 2023 to carry out his satanic plot that strives to eliminate the Palestinian cause and expand the scope of the war into a regional war, with which he will outline anew the geographical and political maps of the region in a way that will serve the American colonialist project, which strives for hegemony and colonialism of a new kind in the Arab region.”
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 9, 2024]
Similarly, top PA and Fatah official Jibril Rajoub has claimed that “the Americans and the Europeans” use Israel to “control the entire region” and its resources:
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “[Israel] is a project that targets the entire Middle East region.
Israel is a guarantee for the Americans and Europeans to control this entire region, its oil, its sea routes, its economy, everything in it.”
[Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Jan. 15, 2025]
The PA’s answer to why Jews went along with the West’s plans and willingly established themselves in “Palestine,” to which they had no connection, is answered by PA antisemitic ideology: The Jews came for money, lured here by the West with promises that they could earn more money in “Palestine” than elsewhere:
Advisor to Head of The Committee to Resist Settlements and the Wall Ayed Morrar: “If an opportunity was given to the expansionist occupation [i.e., Israel] to settle in Egypt and Jordan they would not miss the opportunity …
There is no religious or emotional connection between a resident of the occupation state and this state. They told him: You earn $1,000 in France, in Palestine you can earn $1,200 or $1,500, and therefore he came for this reason, with international support, to be a military base for the West in the Middle East.”
[Official PA TV, Dec. 12, 2024]
A different explanation was provided by a Tunisian academic who explained that “traditional colonialism” was in fact “Zionist colonialism”:
Political science lecturer Dr. Ibrahim Al-Rifa’i: “Was traditional colonialism just French and British?”
Official PA TV host: “Or Italian?”
Ibrahim Al-Rifa’i: “It was actually Zionist colonialism … They [the Jews] think that the entire world that is outside the circle of Zionism are goyim [i.e., non-Jews] and that Zionist globalization should rule, and they have been waging a world war ever since the time before traditional colonialism. Traditional colonialism was completely Zionist. This colonialism with its various names — British, English, French — was just Zionist colonialism.”
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals – Tunis, Feb. 12, 2025]
Official PA TV helps cement the PA narrative that Israel was created as a colonialist outpost. A host on PA TV taught viewers that because the Middle East was “a threat” to “European and American capitalism,” Israel was created as “a hostile entity” in the Arab region and as “a friend to colonialism”:
Official PA TV host: “The establishment of Israel was not a Jewish project, but rather a Zionist project at the initiative of the Zionist bourgeoisie that was all an appendix of the European and American capitalism.
The first who suggested turning this into a realistic fact was [former] British Prime Minister [Sir Henry Campbell-] Bannerman. At the start of a European conference at the start of the 20th century, he said: ‘The European civilization is under threat of disintegration and extinction, and it is our duty to find an effective way to prevent its collapse.’
Then the conference arrived at a plan that requires thwarting any unification or agreement between the Middle East countries because they constitute the only threat to the future of Europe, and the means of achieving this [solution to the problem] is establishing an external national entity that is foreign to the region, hostile to its residents, and a friend to colonialism.”
[Official PA TV, The Philosophy of Endurance, Oct. 26, 2024]
A former PA Security Forces major general stressed that it was Britain that led “the theft” of “Palestine” for the benefit of the “large colonialist project”:
PA Security Forces Maj. Gen. (ret.) Ahmed Issa: “Israel is the only state that was not established by its people on its land. It was established through theft, and it is a product of a large colonialist project led by the colonialist states under the leadership of Britain.”
[Official PA TV, Israel in the News, Oct. 28, 2024]
Abbas’ Fatah Movement sees itself as engaging in “the struggle” ever since in order to “liberate Palestine” from “colonialism”:
Fatah Revolutionary Council member Ahmed Ghneim: “This revolutionary [Fatah] leadership constituted the backbone of Fatah and played a decisive role in the resolution of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation, in addition to its central role in developing the strategy of Fatah, which has not stopped aspiring to liberate the Palestinian territories from colonialism.”
[Al-Quds, Jan. 7, 2025]
Similarly, a regular columnist for the official PA daily claimed that “Israel is a tool for the Crusader states” and all the American administrations:
Columnist for official PA daily Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul: “Israel is a tool … which is pushing towards turning the conflict from a political, economic, cultural, and social conflict into a religious conflict.
The Crusader states, which still have the idea of settling accounts with the Arabs and Muslims nesting in their minds, are still continuing to revolve around [this idea].
[Official PA TV, Sept. 24, 2024]
Palestinian Media Watch reported on a column in the official PA daily in which the writer compared “the colonial West” to the Greek god Zeus giving Israel/Pandora a box of weapons that Israel opened, and that now sows death and destruction in the world.
Representatives from the PLO also support this demonizing false Palestinian narrative. Director of the PLO’s Arab Relations Anwar Abd Al-Hadi recently referred to Israel as “a state that someone put together”:
PLO Arab Relations Director Anwar Abd Al-Hadi: “Israel has no roots in the ground. Israel is a state that someone put together, a state that the West created. A state that is comprised of people with 90 citizenships.
Therefore, if Israel will not give the Palestinian people what it deserves, there will be an explosion inside Israel.”
[Official PA TV, Capital of Capitals – Damascus, Nov. 17, 2024]
A covert reference to Israel as a colonial power was made by a PA district governor, who said that “Palestine will be liberated like it was liberated from the yoke of the ancient colonialist powers”:
Salfit District Governor Abdallah Kmeil: “Palestine will be liberated after years of oppression. This land will be liberated like it was liberated in the past from the yoke of the ancient colonialist powers and the empires that occupied Palestine.
The empires left, the Mongols left, the Romans and the Crusaders left – and Palestine and the Palestinian people remained.”
[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, Dec. 27, 2024]
Along the same lines, another PLO official demanded that Jews “return to their origins in Europe and other states from which they came”:
PLO Representative to the UN and International Organizations in Geneva Ibrahim Khreisheh: “Israel is an occupying state, and it needs to end its occupation…
They think according to the religious stories that Greater Israel from the Nile [River] to [the Euphrates River in] Iraq is the land of Greater Israel. Most of them came from various nations and ethnic groups from Europe and other states and stole the Palestinian land. …
Therefore, those who claim their ‘historical right’ [i.e., the Jews] need to return to their origins in Europe and other states from which they came. Palestine will remain for the Palestinians.”
[Official PA TV News, Oct. 12, 2024]
In November 2024, at the Mediterranean Dialogues Conference in Rome, Rawhi Fattouh, the chairman of the Palestinian National Council (the legislative body of the PLO), got up and left a “dialogue meeting” upon seeing that Israeli Parliament Member Yuli Edelstein was also participating, explaining he did so because he refused to “sit with a colonialist who steals lands”:
Chairman of the National Council [Fattouh] cut short the dialogue meeting and resigned from it in protest over the presence of colonialist [Israeli Parliament Member] Yuli Edelstein, who arrived as a representative of the Israeli Parliament…
Fattouh submitted to the participants and the Italian Parliament a protest letter in which he clarified that one should not sit with a colonialist who steals lands, violates international law, and intimidates the native residents…
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 28, 2024]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
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