False Optimism Regarding Syria Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah: Good afternoon and welcome back to an extremely provocative and stimulating EMET discussion. I know all of us are following very deeply the Israeli government’s planned military expansion into Gaza. Ahad Alhende who is a brilliant analyst and former dissident in Syria will address this as well as what’s been going on in Syria. Next week we have David Wurmser, another brilliant analyst discussing this.

As we’re all aware, approximately two weeks ago beginning July 13th through July 20th, neighboring Bedouin tribes and subsequently Syria’s newly overhauled security forces attacked the Druze community of Sueda. The aftermath or during it, there were public humiliations, men’s must gestures, which are sign of honor, were shaved off. But more importantly, at least 1200 people were murdered. Several hundred were executed within their own homes and burned alive, including children. Their homes had been ransacked and left barren. Many, many women were forcibly disappeared and raped. Even yesterday on i24NEWS, they showed a clip of yesterday how women had been forcibly disappeared with children and probably were going to become sex slaves. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 560 people have gone missing, including at least 80 Druze women and children of the Sueda Province. This had been the Druze October 7th.

Ahmed al-Sharaaa, the De Facto leader of Syria has gotten recognition almost immediately from the United States, from the European Union, from many, many Arab countries. The United States lifted the sanctions, the Caesar Act against Syria and the $10 million bounty that was on Ahmed al-Sharaaa’s head. We’re here to further probe the human rights situation in Syria under Ahmed al-Sharaaa, whose nom de guerre was Abu Mohammad Al-Julani. What has been happening exactly to the Druze of Sueda, to the Alawites, to the Christian, and to the Kurds.

Here to discuss this is our wonderful friend, Ahad Allende. Ahad is a distant who was imprisoned and tortured by the Syrian authorities, first establishing a secular anti regime student organization, and is now a fellow at the Center for Peace Communications, which does wonderful work going into Arab lens and finding out what exactly is happening on the ground. Earlier in his life, he devised a program for Syrian artists to use 3D modeling techniques to build prosthetics for their fellow citizens who’d been wounded in the war. Ahad is a very active voice for Arab development and reform. He’s a frequent guest on Pan Arab satellite channels, and his writing has appeared in leading American and Arab newspapers. Unfortunately, his partner and wonderful author and media personality, Hadia Oasis is not feeling well and cannot join us today, but we are left with an equally talented and passionate analyst of what’s going on in the Arab world. First of all Ahad, how would you rate the government of Ahmed Al-Sharaa right now?

Ahad: Well, Sarah, at the beginning when we saw change in Syria, and as a person who suffered personally from Asad regime was really happy like many Syrians. We thought that we finally going to be living a life with no dictators. Unfortunately, we replaced a dictator that was cracking down on our political freedom to a dictator that is cracking down on political freedom, religious freedom, social freedom. They want to control every aspect of our life in Syria. Moreover, in less than six months, the regime of Ahmed Al-Sharaa committed two massacres, one in the Alawite region. More than two thousands Alawite civilians were killed, including children and women. We have seen these crimes from phones that belongs to Ahmed al-Sharaaa fighters.

It’s not something that it took us weeks to see. They were bragging how they are killing elderly people, how they’re killing children in the Alawite region. That was the first alert for all of us. As Syrians who believe in democracy and Syrians who come from a mandatorian background, whether Christians, Alawite, Jews, Ismaili or Kurts. On the road to that, a month ago a church in a very quiet dames suburb was bombarded more than 24 people were killed while they were praying in peace in the evening. The authorities they claimed that they are not responsible, but their attitude, the way they treated the families of the victims, it showed that they were looking at us as infidels.

In short, when you don’t send condolences in the Islamic culture to a person who is not Muslim, that meaning you think that he’s Kafir, Kafir mean infidel. So they deserve what happened to them. Ahmed al-Sharaaa, despite a lot of appeals to him, go check on these people who have their family members getting killed. Go to the church, show your condolences. He did not show anything. Instead of going against Jews who did the attack, they start to attack the Christian religious leaders in Syria, simply because they were crying publicly to the media about their loved one, about children. The church that was bombarded for five days, cats were around this church just feeding on the remnants of the people.

A suicide bombard came with another guy with a traumatic gun. They opened fire, and then he blew up him himself killing up to 24 people. Looking at the media at that time, the official media all what we hear in this official media, you are the Son of the Pigs, which is a slur. They use it against all nonsunni muslims, incitation against Jews, against Druze, against Christians against Alawite. Then the last series of Ahmed al-Sharaaa achievement in the first six or seven months was a attempt genocide against the Druze. They wanted to commit a genocide, a real genocide against the Druze. Thanks for Israel, and I would say it here, knowing that many in the Arab world would shame me for that but thanks with Israel, we should say the truth. Without Israel, we would see almost half a million Druze in 2025 now at this time, getting wiped completely.

This is the attempt of these perpetrators who were pushed by Ahmed al-Sharaaa, who were using drones, who were using tanks. Unfortunately, some in the US government were buying the narrative of Ahmed Ashra saying that this is a fight between Bedouin and Druze to make it look like it’s something historic with historic rivalry. Bedouin never used drones. Bedouin never used tanks. Bedouin don’t have rockets and missiles that they brought with them to these area. Yes, there were Bedouins in these forces, but there were people from all Syrian background what unite them all, the hatred to Jews, the hatred to Druze and the Jihadism. Israel came at the right place and intervened and stopped a genocide. If this genocide would happen, beside losing half a million Druze to this genocide, we could have seen in our own eyes a demographic change that’s very dangerous to Israel and to Jordan.

They did the same to the Kurds. They ethnically cleanse the Kurds from areas in the north, and they lived in their houses. They pushed them out, and they lived in their houses. Imagine people head cutters, people who raped women, people who commit all type of brutality on the camera and they were proud about it. They were holding doctors from fifth floor and force them to jump alive and get killed under a threat of a gunfire. Imagine those people coming to live on the border of Israel. We all remember the terrorists attack of October 7. In few hours, they killed up to 2000 people in few hours, and their number was probably 2,000 people, 3,000 people. Now, we have seen 50,000 people were mobilized by Ahmed al-Sharaaa to go all the way to the South, and Israel stopped that. As a serious as a nuclear bomb. A nuclear bump could kill the same amount of people in few hours. These terrorists, when you are gathering 50,000 people, pushing them into the Druze enclave in Syria, it’s like a nuclear bomb.

Sarah: Right. Lieutenant Colonel Sarit Zehavi formerly of the IDF now in the Reserves, she has just published something talking about all of the Jihadists that are part of the Syrian Armed Forces. Do you know anything about this and what sorts of ISIS members she says?

Ahad: They are all jihadist, Sarah. Sarah, they could be able to fool some people in the west by putting ties and by shaving their beard a little bit. But they cannot fool us. We are the firsthand who experience their brutality. We are talking to our family members. Now, there is no people in the Syrian army that are graduate from an academic military. All of them are graduate from caves in Afghanistan, in Pakistan. They were in different parts of the world fighting what they call the infidels all around the world. There are a person from the first few weeks of taking over of Damascus, who is from Hanes and who’s known to be with Jihad and Islami. He came to the Umayyad Mosque, and it’s very symbolic for all the Arabs around the world. Even more symbolic than Al-Aqsa, by the way. They were sitting in the Umayyad Mosque and saying publicly to the camera, our next step is Jerusalem Jihad Albar. The biggest jihad is Jerusalem.

So looking at all the so-called Syria army, all of them are jihadists. They fired all the people who were army officers who were defective from the Army, and they replaced them with fellow Jihadists who believe in Jihad, who doesn’t believe even in border or homeland. They believe that they should expand all over using violence, not even nice words.

Sarah: I remember going back to 2011 when we worked together to try to get support for the Kurds in Idlib province, and the US Army decided that they were going to evacuate many of their bases. Yesterday I saw a clip showing there attack, there were attacks on the Syrian Democratic forces. The Kurdish led Syrian Democratic forces. What is happening now with the Kurds?

Ahad: Basically, Ahmed al-Sharaaa, he controlled some parts of Syria, but not every single parts of Syria. We still have the Druze enclave. Again, thanks for Israel, it’s keeping it this way now, we don’t know what can happen in the future. We have northeast Syria, the SDF forces, where we have a small presence of American army. However, despite all of that, and despite the fact that the SDF, the Kurds are able to keep their people, the Kurds, the Christian, and even the Arab Sunni and many refugees who are Druze and Alawites safe in that region, that region is receiving threats on daily basis.

Again, unfortunately, the US government is more siding with Al -Shara government, rather than siding with one of the best allies in Syria, general Muslim Abdi, and the Syrian democratic forces who cleansed major parts of Syria, of Isis. ISIS, the same group that beheaded Steve Sotloff and that committed all the atrocities and all the massacres. They cleaned that part. Many of these people either get killed or jailed or left to Idlib, where Ahmed al-Sharaaa was the defacto president of that region. Now they came with Ahmed al-Sharaaa all the way to Damascus, all the way to the South, next to the Israeli and Jordanian border, so we are all scared. We don’t think that Ahmed al-Sharaaa forces is capable at all in posing a real threat to the SDF. There are better fighters, the SDF more equipped, but what we are afraid is to be ditched by the Western powers, who unfortunately, just today, despite all the massacres, we are seeing the special envoy of the United States sitting next to Ahmed al-Sharaaa and Damascus announcing a big a package of investments that going to happen in Syria. By the way, they are all fake investments.

Speaking about building a big metro tunnels speaking about building towers in a country that we have, maybe half of the population are starved, half of the population are living in tents. When you’re telling them, we’re going to be building like Gamal Abdel Nasser, long time ago, promising people that Egypt going to be having a space, a program, while the Egyptian are starving and they don’t have food to eat. Now this government is using the same empty promises, promising people that we will do this and this and this to you. But now, who’s sitting next to them when they’re doing this announcement, the US special Envo to Syria and it’s a way to whitewash them.

There is an issue that people here in the West, they don’t understand it. When you praise a person like Ahmad Ashara, it’s like you’re telling him, go a massacre. When the envoy told Ahmad Ashara is like George Washington. You are calling someone who was Al-Qaeda, who killed many people in Iraq and Syria, and killed many US army officers in Iraq, you are calling him George Washington. Now this George Washington, when he heard this day with a lot of this speech with a lot of egoism, he has a big ego. Next day, he attacked the Druze. He thought that they’re calling me George Washington, if I attack the ruse, nobody going to do anything, and nobody was going to do anything until Israel intervened and stopped that.

Sarah: Right. What do we know today about the women and the girls who have disappeared? Do we have any idea where they are? What has become of them?

Ahad: Sarah, it’s really terrible. It started with the Alawites, and now with Druze. In some many instances, they’re filming these womens and sending them to their parents, to their husbands, and telling them, okay, she was your wife, now she’s my wife. This is how they are doing. They’re using it even to tease to provoke the Druze and Alawites. I saw a terrible video just few days ago. A guy was filming himself filming Druze women in the backseat and in the passenger seat, a guy who’s known to be a pedophile, holding a Druze kid in his lap, and just to tease his parents and to make his parents angry. This is the reality that we are living now, and the people are living in Syria. A group of rapist, pedophiles, killer, criminals, and yet we are calling them here from the US peacemakers, and we are calling Ahmed al-Sharaaa a man with charisma and a man with leadership and a strong man. This is the type of regime that the US government unfortunately, is whitewashing right now.

Sarah: Right. There is a video that you wanted to share with us. Lily, would you like to put up that video?

Lily: Sure. I will share that right now.

Sarah: Wonderful.

[foreign language]
Fighting in Syria’s, southern city of Veda has left more than 900 people reportedly dead in sectarian clashes. Syrian government forces accused of atrocities against drew civilians. Conflicts between the Druze and the neighboring Sunni Bedouin tribes have been a constant throughout Syrian history. They have been happening for centuries. This episode marks the first time that the central government in Damascus deliberately took the side of the Bedouin tribes in these clashes with the Druze. [foreign language]

Suwayda or Jabal al-Druze, the Druze mountain, as it’s known in Syria, has always stood a little bit apart. Since the Ashad regime fell, it has been almost entirely autonomous. The local Druze militias are manning the checkpoints. They are policing the streets. They are governing their own affairs. The central government in Damascus has been negotiating for months to insert a presence. They wanted to make an example of Druze autonomy of breaking Druze autonomy and bringing Suwayda back under the firm control of Damascus. In order to do that, they invited in tens of thousands of Soni militiamen from all parts of the country, and within a day, we were seeing gruesome videos of the beheadings, execution of Druze’s civilians, of bodies lying in hospitals clearly summarily executed and widespread scenes of looting ransacking and vandalism with a heavy sectarian overtone. [foreign language]

Why did they do this now? Well, a few days prior, the Damascus government had met with a delegation from the Syrian Democratic forces, the predominantly Kurdish militia that is governing Northeastern Syria in an attempt as part of a months long saga of negotiating if and how these two parts of Syria will be reintegrated into a reunified country. Reportedly, sources at that meeting have said that the Kurdish delegation essentially told the Syrian foreign minister Sharaa that why should we submit to Damascus’s authority when you can’t even control Suwayda this tiny province, one 10th our size, that’s right on Damascus’s doorstep? Reportedly, Sharaa said, just wait a few days. [foreign language]

One of the reasons why Sharaa was willing to gamble on a massacre in Suwayda is that he has felt welcomed into the fold internationally since his meeting with President Trump and Trump’s subsequent decision to waive all sanctions on Syria. That coupled with the beginnings of Israeli Syrian peace negotiations in Azerbaijan, gave Sharaa the sense that the pressure is off, and the international community is welcoming of his attempts to forcibly reintegrate all of Syria under his control. I think it has backfired on him enormously. [foreign language]

Israel has carried out airstrikes on the Syrian capital of Damascus in response to clashes in Syria South. On the Israeli front, it’s important to note they want to demilitarize Southern Syria. They want to create a buffer zone so as to mitigate the likelihood of any future Syrian Israeli friction. [foreign language] There’s an enormous degree of solidarity between the Jewish and Druze populations of Israel. The Druze serve in the Army, they’re loyal citizens. They have done everything they can to integrate into the Israeli social fabric. When the Druze of Syria appear under threat by Islamist militants of the same sort that mass occurred over a thousand Israelis on us towards her seventh, Israelis felt a very strong sense of wanting to defend as Netanyahu put it, the brothers of our brothers. [foreign language]

The Syrian militias began to withdraw from Suwayda on July 19th, and really since July 20th, the area has been calm and almost entirely in the hands of Druze matial. There have been some 80,000 people have been displaced by this fighting primarily Jews, but a smaller number of Bedouin who have been evacuated from Suwayda city. We talk a lot about a siloed media in the US, the Syrian version of siloed media. The Druzes’ media is entirely focused on the displacement and crimes of the Sunni militias, and the Syrian central media is entirely focused on the displacement of the Bedouin and violations committed by Druze militias.

It should be noted that both are real, it’s just that the scale is vastly disproportionatea nd overwhelmingly implicates these Sunni marshes. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has estimated that about 583 and 585 or so civilians have been killed. They don’t count fighters in that tally. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that the number of dead is over 1500, and it’s likely somewhere in between. Where do we go from here? Well, one of the things that we’re seeing is that basically Sharaa insistence on folding all of Syria forcibly under the centralized rule of Damascus, that this approach is not working. Suwayda is now entirely under the control of Druze militias, and under an effective Israeli protectorate, and the Kurdish Northeast, which Sharaa was hoping to [inaudible] called off their forthcoming summit with Damascus, saying that the gaps were just too large to bridge. [foreign language]

Syria minorities all over the country, the Kurds in the Northeast, the alloys in the coast, the Christians in Damascus, all of them are looking at these episodes of the massacre on the alloy coast, now the pogrom in Suwayda, and they’re wondering to themselves, do we really have a future in this new Syria? The answer is not clear.

Sarah: This was excellent from the wonderful work of the Center for Peace Communications that both Ahad and Hadil work for. There was a horrific backlash which some of us heard on Capitol Hill. We go to the Hill dale. When Israel decided to bomb the Syrian Armed Forces Headquarters in Damascus did you think that was a necessary move, Alhad?

Ahad: Of course, Sarah, the only country that understand the Middle East is Israel, and people here they don’t know how to deal with the Middle East. They think that by praise and diplomacy, you can solve your own problems. They think by calling Ahmed al-Sharaaa George Washington, that mean you can bring Ahmad Ashara to the table. The only thing that Ahmad Ashara understand is power and force and Israel has it, and the United States has it. If Israel did not bomb the Ministry of Defense, we would see no Druze now in Syria and Israel would be seeing new neighbors on its border. Beheaders, people who shop pets, who kill children, and who kill elderly women. Even worse than those who carried October 7th.

You are bringing people who were Al-Qaeda ranks of Isis and Al-Qaeda bringing them to the border of Israel. I think that was great. All the Druze are thankful for Israel. We have seen them holding Israeli flags in Suwayda, knowing that they would be paying heavy price but they said, we want to say thank you to the country who served our children and who served our mothers. For me, as a person who was born in Damascus and a Syrian American, and many Syrians that I’m talking to, we all appreciate what Israel has done. Without that, we could really see no Druze in a country like Syria.

Sarah: I’ll have to say, as an American Jew, I cannot not be prouder of Israel, and this altruistic, very, very noble effort that they’ve done to protect the Druze, but of course, they are the brothers of our brothers and there are so many militaries cemeteries that are filled with Druze graves. The Druze are the most courageous among our fighters, and have always had a defense of the land of whatever country they’re in. I doubt that they will want to defend the land of Syria under Ahmed al-Sharaaa right now. What do you think it is that so many leaders in the international community have taken off their blinders about Ahmed al-Sharaaa and have fallen for him? What kind of charisma does he show? What is it? Is it just because they didn’t like the the corridor coming from Tehran through Damascus to the Mediterranean? What is it?

Ahad: We have a worse corridor now? The Iranian corridor was horrible, was scary.

Sarah: It was horrible. Yeah.

Ahad: But now with Al-Qaeda and Isis, it’s much more dangerous. I would say most of the people in the Western world are lazy to think of solution on Syria. If we recall, before the collapse of Asad in a few weeks, all Arab countries including the US were trying to normalize with Asad. They said we’ve been leaving for 14 years of a nasty civil war, let’s normalize with this regime. Let’s try to find a solution. Then Ahmed al-Sharaaa came at a time where the Iranian proxies in Syria were weakened, where Israel have degraded all the pro-Iranian capabilities inside Syria, and Ahmed al-Sharaaa, he made the right calculation. With help of Turkey, he was able to advance and reach to Damascus. The word were trying to say finally, there is no headache coming from Syria, we should deal with Ahmed al-Sharaa.

He appeared on TV with a tie with a suit. He showed his wife, although with a scarf, that means a change. But that’s not a change. This is a cosmetic change. When you look at a change, let’s look at the cabinet of Ahmad Ashara. It’s all stuffed by radical Islamic people who even their idea toward Israel is even worse than Hamas. Look at Hamas, what they did. Al-Qaeda and Isis, even worse than Hamas. The way they look at Israel and the Jews and the Christian and the Jews, and the Alawites. There is the laziness, I would say, from the Western world. Otherwise, what would make a the president like Trump, who it’s very hard to make president Trump like someone, and he’s showing praise and admiration to a guy like Ahmed al-Sharaaa.

I would say also, there is some Arab intervention. It’s like how countries during the Cold War, they were investing a lot in any post-Soviet country to prove that look, when you come to the Western axis, you will be in a better shape, so he’s thinking that this country, Syria, went out of the Iranian axis. We need to show a great example how a country coming out of the Iranian axis, how it going to look like. But you are not betting on the right horse. You are betting on radical, on criminals, on Al-Qaeda, who hate despise Israel as much as they despise Saudi Arabia as much as they despite United Arab of Emirates. They look at all of these Arab leaders as infidels, and they always look at them as a tools of the West that we should wage jihad on. It’s just laziness, and I would say it’s miscalculation from people here in the US who are more impressed by the visuals rather than by the core. Wearing a tie doesn’t make you belong.

Sarah: Right. How close do you believe the relationship is between Ahmed al-Sharaa and Erdogan of Turkey?

Ahad: It’s very good. The biggest country that is supporting Ahmed al-Sharaaa now is Erdogan. The biggest country that is standing against any Israeli intervention, even in the south next to the border of Israel is Turkey. All the companies that are coming and try to invest in Syria are Turkey. Moreover, they brought just recently a delegation from the so-called Syrian Defense Ministry, all of them are former Jihadists. They brought them to a defense museum, or Fair and Turkey, trying to even provide them with one more weapons. So far they provided them with smart drones. Now ironically, Al-Qaeda is using smart drones that has facial recognition techniques, and that they can autonomously fly and target objects, and that’s because of Turkey. I would say that’s raise a big red flag to all the Jews, the Christian, the Druze, the Alawites, and the Kurds in the area.

I think it’s the time now that all of these groups, they all align with each other. They try to work with each other because we are all having the same threats, which is this bomb that is similar to the atomic bomb, which I call it the demographic bomb. Sending hundreds of thousands of people to a country, to a group of people, to slaughter them, to kill them. Again, is as dangerous as an atomic bomb.

Sarah: Right. On July 7th, president Trump revoked the designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as a foreign terrorist organization. Why do you think President Trump did this, and why did he remove the sanctions immediately, the Caesar Act?

Ahad: Now, he could not move the Caesar Act, it have to be moved from the Congress. Thanks God, there are some people in Congress who are patriotic and who know Syria pretty well, and they said, okay, we can move it but it need to be conditioned to many issues, including the protection of minorities. President Trump we all know his mentality. He is a deal maker. He thinks that by talking and by negotiating, you can get to deals, which is true. It happens with Western country, with civilized people who understand negotiation but you don’t do it with Al-Qaeda. You don’t do it with your enemy. We have a proverb in the Arab world, I would say it in Arabic, then try to translate it, [foreign language], the enemy of your grandfather will never be your friend, will never love you. The same, these groups, Al-Qaeda, the biggest satan for Al-Qaeda is the United States of America. Then comes Israel.

You cannot cut deals with them. They would lure you. They would fake it. They would give you a lot of fake promises like they did to the Druze. They told the Druze, we are coming to restore stability in Suwayda, the first village they entered, they cut heads, they killed, they took women, they killed children. You cannot trust these people. We, the people of the Middle East, Jews, Christian and Druze and Alawites, we have experienced them, we have seen them. Go ask those who lost children and kids in October 7th, and they would tell you, do you trust leaving next to these people? I don’t trust my family. I’m sure the Jews, they don’t trust to live among next to these people. It’s about to America to know that these people you cannot normalize with. Support the Kurds, support the Jews, supports the Alawites, the moderate Sunnis don’t invest a penny in this government that is Al-Qaeda government. You are whitewashing Al-Qaeda, the same people who committed the September 11th attack.

Sarah: Right. Speaking of members of Congress that are good, can you talk about Mike Lawler and his Syria Accountability Act of 2025 and what it intends to do?

Ahad: I don’t know much about the details, but what I know that they proposed a resolution, and in the resolution, they said, we cannot know. The plan was to take off Caesar Act from the Congress, and this was timed right few days after the massacre of the Druze. If the Congress removed it, Ahmed al-Sharaa next day would attack the Ismaili or the Christians or someone else because he would be feeling that nobody is paying attention to what I’m doing internally. They’re taking sanctions from me. I’m charismatic leader. They love me, so let me continue with my plans.

This congressman, he came and proposed a modification. We can remove the Kaiser Acts, but there should be some conditions that has to do with protection of minority extending it for two years, which I think good. I think every single one of us, those who are supporter of Israel, those who supporter of Christians, of Druze of Alawites, we should call our members of Congress and tell them leaving Cesar Act without any condition is a big present to Al-Qaeda. This will embold Al-Qaeda.

Sarah: Right. It went through the financial services committee. It was voted on already, but it’s also going through the judiciary and the Foreign Relations committee. I was actually a little confused that it could go through three committees at once. If we can call our members of Congress and please ask them to support this, because until there are benchmarks of protection against minorities, Syria should not be getting any money. But I know that there are plans, as you said to enrich Syria right now which is actually preposterous right after what we saw of the treatment in March of the Kurds and in July of the Druze. This is horrific.

Ahad: Just very quick, if we look at the groups that are pushing to lift the sanctions on Syria here, you would know that it’s a bad thing. Care is now mass. All of these groups are working day and night just to push for Cesar Act to be removed. Why? They want to embolden their hero. Ahmed Ashara, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Syria.

Sarah: Right. Speaking of care, Senator Tom Cotton wants to renew or to revoke the designation of care of the Council for American Islamic Relations as a 501C3 group, and name it as a foreign terrorist entity. Care is very related to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Hamas. Can we talk a little bit of the relevance between this and what’s going on in Gaza today, Ahad?

Ahad: Yeah, of course. Listen, all of these group, they have one case, they advocate for a Muslim Brotherhood for Al-Qaeda, for all the, I would call them the Islamic Supremist. These who believe in Islamic supremacy, and ironically, these groups, they speak about white supremacy in the United States. Why they want to enforce a Muslim supremacy over Jews, Christians, Druze, and Alawites and Ismaili, and now they are all playing the same victim. Imagine they killed the Christian in Syria, they killed the Druze, then they start to wipe and go on TV and cry and say, they attacked us. The same with Israel.

Now they carried October 7th, and they were proud and laughing and we’ve seen their videos. I was personally monitoring all of these videos on major Arab TV channels, on major people who belongs to these groups, were really happy thinking that Palestine will be free from the river to the sea. They started here and they would connect to the West Bank. Then when Israel woke up and started to retaliate, people start to cry and wipe, oh, they, they attacking us. They are killing. What do you expect them to do? I think any country in the Middle East, any leader in the Middle East, any leader in the world, if anybody attack the United States of America from Mexico, would we be standing still doing nothing?

The issue is everybody is looking what Israel did. Nobody is looking, what has happened on October 7th, and now everybody want to award these attackers by recognizing a Palestinian state. It becoming like Bastille Day in France. October 7th, it’s becoming like a day of liberation. This day that was committed heinous crimes against humanity going to become a symbolic day. All people in that part of the world, they would think this is the way to get what we want. We commit violence, we attack civilians, we kill civilians and going to work. This’s what Ahmed al-Sharaaa was trying to do in Suwayda, because they look and said, oh, October 7th succeeded. I wrote that in Arabic and I’m saying it again. These people, they don’t value human life. They don’t care if they killed 100,000 of their own people, 200,000 of their own people.

Look at Hamas people, they’re saying there is famine and they’re appealing with their big bellies on Al Jazeera speaking about a famine in Gaza. They don’t care how many kids got killed, how many elderly were killed. They want to achieve what they call a pride. Now we are recognizing a Palestinian state. Now we are taking revenge of Alaxa and what’s happening in Alaxa. A Jews cannot go to Alaxa. This is something that major Arabs don’t know. A Jewish person cannot go and pray inside Alaxa. The Israeli police will arrest him and take him out, and they are telling you, we are vening for Alaxa. What happening to Alaxa? Nobody converted Alaxa like you converted Hagia Sophia in Turkey like you converted all the mosques to a church. Nobody did that in Israel, and yet they’re raising this victimhood, which is built on false facts.

We are the flood of Alaxa. What happened to Alaxa, just tell me? Nothing.

Sarah: Yeah. Can you talk about Qatar’s relationship with Ahmed al-Sharaa?

Ahad: Well, Qatar is all way with Ahmed al-Sharaa, with Hamas. You look at just Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera is inciting against minorities on daily basis, on Druze, on Alawites, on Christians, and despite also all of this today, they just signed memorandum of understanding. I think all of it fake just for consumption more than $8 billion with Ahmed al-Sharaa, a governmental Ahmed al-Sharaa appear just to show off. Again, with the special envoy to Syria, the US special envoy. Basically, Qatar is providing money, providing media. The Turks are providing the military, and unfortunately we in the United States as a government are providing the cover, and emboldening Ahmed al-Sharaa. Everybody’s looking at Uncle Sam. If Uncle Sam said this guy is charismatic, all the people of the Arab country would run to him and would want to talk to him. We need to know how much effective is any word that come from Washington DC, it’s very influential and it really could commit a genocide.

When he was again praised, he moved his forces to sue Suwayda then the next day.

Sarah: As you know Israel is fighting a war on seven fronts, and they have launched at least 160 airstrikes on the military targets in Syria, and of course, in July they were trying to protect the Druze and establish a buffer zone. How secure do you think that border is between Southern Syria and Israel right now?

Ahad: Well, it’s not really that secure. We need more work, and if you need to do more work, you need less pressure from international country and not telling Bibi that your hands is always on the trigger. Bibi’s, hands on the trigger now, maybe would be fair agree to or disagree with Bibi, but he is defending his own people. Moreover, the Druze I think Israel is capable of securing that region. But again, you need to let Israel defend its people and defend its allies in the region because at the end of the day, we are all threatened by the same enemy, which is a radical Islam, whether we are Jews, Christian, ruze, Suwayda, or Yazidi, or Kurds.
Israel can do very well, but they need the support.

Sarah: One further question that I’ve been getting. I know that Israel has protected the Jews. What about the Alawites, the Yazidis, the Christians and the Kurds? Where’s their support going to come from?

Ahad: There is really no support, unfortunately. The worst thing now that is happening, even though I’m Christian, I was born to a Christian family in Syria, and my people are getting persecuted, but people who are the most persecuted now are the Alawites. It’s on daily basis. You are seeing stories of women being kidnapped. They’re doing it by purpose, taking Alawite women and at the same time just to kill the owner. How they view it in the Middle East of the Alawites people, kill their pride. We are taking your women. Just yesterday, there is a married Alawite women who they took her to Eppo from the Alawite coast. She never been in that region. To be objective in Syria, we don’t mix. We don’t go to other areas. We don’t go to the extreme certainly areas since I was a child.

So why would an Alawite woman go to that area? Then they start to send videos of her to her family just to tease her family. This is not an incident, it’s happening on daily basis. There are killing of Alawite on daily basis. Every day there are killing of the Alawite. I think we have a friend here, Tamim, I don’t know if he can come and speak. He’s a doctor. He’s an Alawite from the region. Probably he could speak up more about, because he’s monitoring the situation on daily basis, and I’m telling you, there are [inaudible] on daily basis to the Alawite and nobody is helping the Alawite. If something happened to the Christian, there are Western countries that coming and speaking against that. There are Greece, there are Cyprus, that they have interest. If anybody’s happening to the Druze, we have Israel. The Alawite are left alone after they trusted. This is very important issue. They trusted the new government. They surrendered all of their arms. This new government came and said, we will put the past away. Give us your weapons. They give their weapons. After a week, they committed this huge massacre against the Alawite.

Sarah: Also the Kurds in the beginning said the Syrian democratic forces were going to be part of the Syrian army [crosstalk]. Right. Unfortunately, Ahmed al-Sharaa did a job on so many members of the international community, and we have to take our blinders off. We have to look at his actions, not his words. We also had a lot of questions about Saudi Arabia, and apparently most of the Arab world has supported. It’s Qatar, it’s Saudi Arabia, it’s Egypt, Jordan. Even though this will cause a revolution, unfortunately, if Syria stumbles and falls, it will cause a revolution, certainly in Jordan and there are neighbors. This is very important for us to wake up to, and the fact that this is barely spoken of on television. After the episode that lasted a few days in the Druze area, and of course people were very, very quick to blame Israel for intervening. They did not mention that this is ongoing. What is your feeling, Ahad, finally about seeing Syria breaking up into different ethnic enclaves or entities?

Ahad: Well, Sarah, we always say, even my grandma always tell me that homeland are not only rocks and bricks. Homeland is a place where you feel safe. I love Syria. I always love Syria. I eat Syrian food. We celebrate Syrian Fest. But at the end of the day, if Uniting Syria would be resulting in killing and doing lot of bloodshed to the Druze and the Alawites and the Christians, we don’t want Syria. Let Syria fragmented, let every group live by themself. Let the Kurds live on their own. The Alawites on their own, the Druze on their own. I know the Christian would be the one who lose because we are scattered all over Syria. We live among the Sunnis mostly next to the Druze, next to the Alawites. But again, you don’t build countries by force.

You don’t force people to accept a radical president like Ahmed al-Sharaa who look at us all as infidels and who believe in Sunni supremacism. We now are relieved because we don’t have more the Islamic Republic of Iran in Syria. Now we have the Islamic Republic of Ahmed al-Sharaa in inside Syria. I belong to Syria, I don’t belong to the Islamic Republic of Ahmed al-Sharaa or the Islamic Kingdom of Ahmed al-Sharaa. The Druze now feel they are much safer if they live on their own, but I’m afraid that, that needs a lot of support from the international community. All of these Arabic countries, they’re scared from Ahmed al-Sharaa, but they start to talk to him because it came from Washington DC.

Washington DC acknowledged Ahmed al-Sharaa, they called him a charismatic, they called him George Washington. All the Arab countries they have in their back on of their mind that America was behind Ahmed al-Sharaa, which is not true at all.

Sarah: All right. We want to thank you so much. Ahad. You’re a brilliant analyst, and you’re doing wonderful work at the Center for Peace Communications. The email address is centerforpeacecommunications.org.

Ahad: Yes.

Sarsh: Anybody who can please support their work, they’re doing a marvelous job and I should also say that we in a met also desperately do need your support. We are on the Hill practically every single day, meeting with members of Congress and trying to tell the truth, the unvarnished truth as Ahad and I see it about the Middle East. Members of Congress look forward to meeting with us and their staffers, mostly their staffers, I should say, their foreign policy staffers because they’re torn in so many directions and they know that we are going to tell the IMet, we’re going to tell them the truth.

If you’d like to support us, please go to imetonline.org, and please also remember to support the Center for Peace Communications. They do wonderful, wonderful work. Thank you so much, Ahad.

Ahad: Thank you, Sarah. [inaudible] and thanks for Emit. Thank you.

Sarah: Thank you.

[END]