Hazem Alghabra and the Fate of Religious and Ethnic Minorities in Syria

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 to yet another insightful and provocative EMET webinar. In December of 2024 as you all know, after more than a 50-year reign of the Assad family, Ahmed al-Sharaa emerged as the new president of Syria. Al-Sharaa, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mohammad al-Julani joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq before the 2003 invasion and fought with them for three years. He was imprisoned by US forces from 2006 through 2011. Al-Sharaa created and is considered the leader of the al-Nusra Front as a branch of Al-Qaeda. This was in response to a request from the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. In 2016 al-Nusra was later rebranded in an attempt to distance itself from Al-Qaeda as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and then the Turkish linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

On July 13th, a bedroom group captured a Druze man stealing his car in Suwayda. The situation rapidly escalated involving retaliatory killings, kidnappings, public humiliations of men whose mustaches were shaved, and a mustache in the Druze community is a sign of respect and honor, and the forced disappearance and raping of Druze women. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 1,120 Syrians have been murdered. More than 1,000 Israeli Druze have crossed over the border to help out their Druze Brethren in Syria. This was the Druze October 7th. Before I introduce today’s amazing, amazing speaker, I would like with the permission of i24NEWS, Emily Schrader and Lorena Khateeb to show this very short video. Emily?

Emily Schrader: [Inaudible] us now to discuss more about the situation in Syria with the Druze community is Israeli Druze journalist Lorena Khateeb. Lorena, thank you so much for joining us. Always a pleasure to have you on. Can you give us an update about what’s happening on the ground in Suwayda now? Have you spoken to any of the community members there about what’s happening?

Lorena Khateeb: For sure. You know, Emily, a brutal and horrifying massacre is unfolding as we speak now in Syria and Suwayda. Innocent civilians including women, children, and religious figures are being murdered. There are reports of ethnic genocide, public abuse of spiritual leaders, and systematic targeting of Druze communities in Suwayda while the world remains silent. In just a few days, the number of people killed has gone up quickly. At the same time, al-Julani’s regime, the terrorist in a suit is sending more and more forces to the area and making the attacks even worse. We as Israelis, we as Druze, we ask the Israeli government to take clear and strong action without delay. As Druze and as Israelis, we cannot stay silent. We are their voices. I’m receiving dozens of messages from Syrian citizens begging for help. The photos and the videos coming from the ground are heartbreaking. We cannot stay silent. The word must act now to stop this massacre.

Emily: Now, what is the next step? We’ve seen Israeli strikes, we’ve seen strong statements from the Israeli government, but how far will Israel go to protect the Druze community there? And do they want Israeli assistance with this?

Lorena: Sure. Israel and the Air Force are attacking and proving assistance but it’s not enough. This is a moment of deep and painful test for the historic and moral bond between the state of Israel and between the Druze community. The Druze in Israel have stood there by the Israeli country to fight and to defend the country for decades, and especially in the past two years sacrificing lives. The upholding shared their values and the protection for the homeland. Now, as our brothers and sisters are being slaughtered across the border, we call the Israeli government to act as Druze, and we cannot remain silent. We are their voice, as I mentioned before and just as we stand on the front line for Israel, we expect Israel to stand up for us also.

Emily: Very good point. We have seen such incredible courage throughout in the aftermath of October 7th from the Druze community in fighting against Hamas and all of these terrorist organizations that impact both of our peoples on the Israeli side or the Druze community in Syria as well. Thank you so much for joining us, Lorena.

Lorena: Thank you for having me.

Sarah: Okay. So we are really deeply honored to have with us today, Hazem Alghabra to help us unpack the situation in Syria. Hazem was born in Damascus, Syria. He’s the founder and president of Frontier Consultants, a Washington DC based consultancy firm that provides public relations and crisis management solutions with a focus on the Middle East and the United States. Prior to starting this firm, Hazem held multiple positions with the US Department of State, including senior advisory positions for public affairs, and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Hazem provides daily insights and analysis as a commentator on a vast array of television stations, including i24, Keshet, Alarabyia, Sky News, BBC, Alsharq, Bloomberg, and many, many others. First Hazem, we are deeply honored to have you. As I write this, Israel is now in talks with Syria and the situations between the Druze and the bed winds, and the Syrian government seems to have quelled down a bit. What do you expect these talks to achieve?

Hazem Alghabra: Hey, Sarah, thank you for having me and thanks the audience for joining today. Talks are interesting. Obviously, these talks preceded what happened in Suwayda. Those existed for a month right now with American support for the most part. Obviously, the situation in Suwayda can set everything back quite a bit. During and after the situation that unfolded in Suwayda a few weeks ago, we stopped hearing about a peace deal or Abraham Accords agreement. We started dealing with non-belligerency agreement or a security deal, which I have always been a proponent of. I never for a second thought that Syria is ready to join the Abrahamic Accords. It’s a different beast when Bahrain and UAE are very stable and quite rich countries, at least the UAE is incredibly rich in that region, and they’re looking for partnerships on AI, on technology and they seem to be at that juncture in their history where they’re ready to expand.

Syria is not there, nowhere near there. My concern was for one, that if Syria joins, the standards will be too high for Syria, and it’ll be the odd one out when it comes to the Abraham Accords and it becomes like Sudan. Sudan is technically part of the Abraham Accords, but is it? The bigger concern was that a direct conflict between Israel and a member of the Abrahamic Accords will negatively affect the whole thing and potentially undo great work that has been done with UAE, Bahrain, and potentially Saudi Arabia in the future. So that was really the concern that while the idea is noble, it just technically was not the right approach.

Since January, Sarah, I was in Jerusalem. I communicated with the Syrian leadership. I’m like, listen, guys, you need a security agreement with Israel otherwise, things will go sideways quickly because nobody understands who you are, the new Syrian leadership and what you want. You’ve been pretty bad at communicating this. So how about like a baseline agreement that Israel will not be attacked from Syria by Syrian government, by third parties and Syrian territory will not be used as pathway for logistics for Hezbollah or any other party or group that is trying to commit terrorist acts against Israel. Pretty simple stuff. I told them you need to establish a hotline where somebody will pick up the line and say we’re about to attack you. You might want to change your behavior immediately.

Again, none of that happened. The new Syrian leadership they’ve been hard to deal with. I’ve spoken to members of the US delegations that have been to Syria and have met with Sharaa and his comrades, and they say they’re bashful at times. They seem very inexperienced. I heard an interesting analogy or explanation saying, these guys have lived the past 10, 15 years in neighborhoods where two streets down the enemy lives, literally like 100 feet away is where the frontline is. They are very bashful when it comes to trusting the stranger, somebody else, and that’s somebody else is not a different country, that somebody else is somebody from a different town. So it’s been an uphill battle trying to work with the new leadership. Again, add the lack of experience. We’re not talking about any military generals that have fought real wars or diplomats that have been part of the community for a career. None of that is there. So again, they’re feeling their way and they have been making mistakes.

I’ll tell you, I can trace what happened in Suwayda for the second time, by the way, and we will get to that. This is not the first time that there have been skirmishes and attacks on the Druze in Suwayda. There was one, maybe two or three months ago caused by a fake video that some Druze Sheikh his video was dubbed with a different voice saying that he’s attacking Islam. Again, not the first time. Let me get to that because that’s important, but I can trace everything that is happening today to February 24th when the Syrian government ran this very short conference called the National Dialogue Conference, and was supposed to create a space for different factions and different groups to come together and decide the future of Syria.

This is how iconic the conference should have been. What we end up with is four hours of conversation that’s supposed to undo around half a century of Assad rule and complete collapse of social and political framework and infrastructure of the country that we’ve seen. Somebody thought in four hours bringing like 1500 people, I don’t know how 1500 people can have a conversation in four hours. The whole thing is mind boggling. Mind you, my mother was invited to that conference, that’s my favorite part. The conference was supposed to take place on the 24th in the evening in Damascus. My mom, who everybody knows, resides in Washington, she lives a mile away from me, got the invitation around six hours before this conference was supposed to begin, we were joking. I’m like, well, our private jet is in the repair shop. Sorry, we can’t make it. What else can I tell them? It was an invitation. She did not uniquely receive the state invitation. Other people have received that in a way to say like, oh, yeah, we’ve invited everybody, but please come, but don’t come kind of way, or please come, but you can’t come.

So what happened? It’s a funny story. It’s not really funny. It’s sad in its own way, but what does that mean? That means that the whole foreign policy and foreign diplomacy campaign that for the most part succeeded in Syria led by Sharaa, led by Shaibani, the foreign minister, and greatly facilitated by President Trump and the United States government was all built on a weak domestic foundation. When that domestic foundation fell apart, clearly, it did on multiple times, but what happened two weeks ago was a bit over the top, and Israel involvement highlighted the problem a lot more to international media that didn’t seem to really care that much. Then everything with a foreign diplomacy campaign that was built on that weak domestic foundation just fell with it. Everybody’s being rude to the Julani Sharaa, whatever you want to call him right now. I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’re talking, but I don’t hear you, Sarah. I don’t know if [crosstalk] Yeah, now I hear you.

Sarah: Okay. So I just wanted you to get it all off your chest and a wonderful analysis. But right now the Druze are feeling incredibly vulnerable after this massacre. What sort of safeguards and protections from now on, do you think there will be, if any, for the Druze, for the Kurds, the Christians, and for the Alawites?

Hazem: Well, let me talk about the Druze a little bit specifically, because I’ve recently been on both sides of the border, the Israeli border. In Majdal Shams, I think the average income would be like at the minimum six, 7,000 shekels. The Druze in Majdal Shams they’re business people and they’re good at it. I’ve noticed there’s no poverty in Majdal Shams. The social support structures are fantastic. Now, there kin on the other side, on the Syrian side, the Suwayda, and these are very closely related. The Druze community is not a massive community, the average person makes a couple of dollars a day. They are below the poverty line, every poverty line that has been established, fine. If people can handle that economic woes being part of the country that’s being rebuilt.

But if I had the option, if I was Druze, and I’m seeing my kin across the border well off, and I am taking one for the Syria team and staying poor, it’s fine. But every week somebody comes and want to kill me and rape and pillage in my neighborhood, the option of Israel becomes a lot more interesting and a lot more relevant to me than for a simple economic reason. I’ve said this on both of Syria’s current domestic TVs Al-Fada’iyya and Syria TV during the past couple of weeks, this is the second time this happens in Suwayda. I said, I guarantee you guys, the third time you try to pull these shenanigans on Suwayda, the Israeli flag will go up and it will not come back down in Suwayda.

There’ll be a new borderline around Ad Darah in Suwayda and you’ll have to deal with that. Because that’s what will likely happen. That would be the demand by the Druze community over there that they will establish a new line. Is it ideal? No, but for the Druze, it’s an existential thing. I’ve heard a lot of promises the past couple of weeks from the Syrian government, the new Syrian government, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. All of a sudden they release the report on the Western coast massacres. I guess there’s going to have to be a new report on Suwayda right now. But the report, let me put it that way, it was above the domestic expectations of Syrian people below my personal expectations, which means they’re trying at least and you they’ve named 280 people.

Actually, what’s interesting, that report that they was released on the Western coast massacres, made a lot of their own fighters uneasy, because they’ve mentioned they have 280 names, but did not mention the names. So everybody who was involved is sitting tight right now worrying that their name is on some checkpoint waiting to be napped. It’s an interesting environment. There’s no stability over there. But when we talk about the Kurds, we’re talking about the Alawites, talking about the Druze, there are a lot of common themes, but there are also differences. But I want to talk about the US role here, because we’re getting started to get blamed for this by making Sharaa feel like he has a green light to do whatever he wants, which was never the intention. Actually, the intention of lifting of the sanctions were to give Sharaa something to lose at the end of the day and something to worry him.

So back, a couple of months ago, three months ago right now, when president Trump met with al-Sharaa, Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman was physically in the room while the Turkish president Erdogan was on the phone. The whole thing was sold to the American people and it was literally sold to me and I bought it, that we’re no longer going to play technician when it comes to these localized conflicts. We’re going to rely on our regional allies to solve these conflicts. Great. Actually, that’s a wonderful idea. I support President Trump when I was told by his team this is the plan. It’s like, great. I’m sure I’m going to make sure that Turkey and Saudi Arabia are going to do everything they need to do to improve education, to prevent the spread of terrorism, to yell at Sharaa at every juncture. We’re not seeing that, Sarah, we are not seeing that.

What happened in Suwayda a couple of weeks ago was directly, I am not going to say supported, because I don’t have evidence of that, but the Saudi statements say that it was encouraged by the Saudis. That is a problem because our partner on the ground, the technicians on the ground are exaggerating the problem right now. Do we need new technicians? Do we need to deploy the engineers from the US? It’s starting to feel that way, and that is a big concern. We need to also talk about very quickly, you mentioned that produce merchant that was kidnapped. Every conflict has a direct cause that’s like a small thing we can all point at, like, aha, that’s a reason. But the indirect causes are what the history unfolds later and gets written. The indirect causes are, I’m not going to blame Assad for this, because it’s beyond Assad. The animosities between ethnic groups in that region are almost 200 years old.

From the 1850s, you have Druze, Christians, Sunni, you have all this hodgepodge of localized conflicts in Lebanon and Syria. This is nothing new. But Sharaa came and said, I’m going to fix this, and I’m going to put Syria on a new track. Well, that’s what we need to hold him accountable to. If he can’t do it, either he needs help or he can’t. It’s one of the two at this point. So either he accepts our help or he can step, no, he doesn’t have to completely step aside, but allow others to come and work on the problem. So far it’s been a totalitarian rule by Sharaa, and sometimes his own family sometimes his friends from Italy. It’s concerning.

Sarah: So Israel is now in control of nine or 10 military bases in southern Syria. Do you believe al-Sharaa will allow Israel to maintain control of these bases? How secure do you think the border with Syria and Israel is going to be from now on?

Hazem: He cannot disallow Israel at this point, at least for the next 100 years. This is part of the good aspects of the US relationship. Now he has a lot to lose. So even the idea of retaliation, Israel is not playing nice by any means. The ministry of defense, the defense headquarters were bombed in Damascus. Another bomb hit the entrance to the presidential palace for Sharaa himself. Again, we got used to that environment in the Middle East, but it’s not a small thing. Also, they pretty much lost every piece of heavy, well, they don’t have heavy armor anymore. Medium armor that sent to Suwayda was taken out by Israel a couple of weeks ago.

So the heavy losses, and I think that over the aggressive Israeli stance is sending a clear message, don’t even come close to here. That’s not new either. Back in January there was a truck that was allegedly collecting weapons from individuals. A lot of people picked up weapons from security offices that belonged to the former regime when the regime fell. There was like an HTS truck that started picking up weapons with some local leaders. Israeli drone fired a warning shot and then fired a direct shot at it. It’s been always a clear message, “Don’t come this way, bad things will happen. There’s only death and destruction if you come this direction.” But how can this be solved? This is a thing, we always repeat the problem, and we say, look, what a mess. It is a mess, but how can this be solved? Conversation is good, but I feel that US role needs to be a more direct role. We need, [crosstalk] yeah, go ahead.

Sarah: Right. President Trump revoked the designation of Hayat al-Sham as a foreign terrorist organization on July 7th. Why do you think President Trump decided to do this, and how reliant is Ahmed al-Sharaa on Hayat al-Sham?

Hazem: There was a bit of a brouhaha with that whole lifting of the designation. I encourage you to look at the dates, what President Trump had signed and what Marco Rubio has put together and submitted to the National Archives because something like this needs to go to the archives. I recommend that you look at the dates that show that this has been in progress for weeks. When President Trump went and spoke about it, it’s already been a done deal. Nobody could fully understand or explain to me why this rush. Why the rush? It’s supposedly under pressure from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but mostly due to the fact that Turkey and Saudi Arabia said hey, we’ll take over here. We will provide support here, and they haven’t.

Is president Trump being slightly stubborn and doesn’t want to undo something? I don’t know. Tom Barrack seemed to be playing a big role in this, in advising the president. He’s a personal friend of the president. Tom Barrack, I don’t know him that well, but his mentality, his mindset comes from that region. His origin, Lebanese, tolerances are different in that region. What we call genocide maybe it’s skirmish for that region. Again, I can’t pinpoint it. I’m honestly afraid to ask I can ask, well, I’m afraid to ask because I don’t think, whatever I find out it’s going to make a difference on who is in charge of this policy. But I’ll tell you this, I’ll give you something. Every time I come on your show, I want to give you something that nobody knows.

So when President Trump left to Riyadh, the night he left to Riyadh, his meeting with Sharaa was not on his schedule. The conversation of the State Department was specifically a two year runway to remove the sanctions in six month check-ins. What happened in Saudi Arabia made a huge difference. Again, I know some people who were in the room, they said it was a complete we got it by Saudi Arabia, and we’ll take care of this by Saudi Arabia. Just do this and we’ll control it. Again, I don’t know how the conversation unfolded, but what is happening on The Hill right now with the new proposed two-year, six months to six months, that has been Marco Rubio’s plan all along. So take it from there. It’s a plan that has been shared by The Hill. I’m not saying Marco is running behind the President. He is not, because that plan, The Hill was aware of it, and that was really what was being worked on by Treasury and by State Department till a message came out from Riyadh by the president saying no, no, no, no, no, no. We’re doing it different now. So there’s still an a situation where we go and say listen, we’re going to go back to the original thinking because this whole aggressive everything’s going to be okay is not going to work.

Sarah: So why do you think President Trump in June removed the Caesar sanctions against Syria?

Hazem: Again, see, the Syrians have been complaining that the sanctions are creating issues and particularly economic issues, and these economic issues are directly affecting the growth of terrorism. Now, we have a mutual friend who believes that Joe Wilson, he keeps repeating that thing, and we can talk about why, but I’d rather not here. Everybody who has been to Syria and living in Syria in the past six months are saying the sanctions had no direct effects so far. What’s ridiculous is I had this argument on Syrian television. It’s interesting because the minister used to be the head of Syria TV, the Minister of Information over there. But anyways, they’re complaining. The Syrians are complaining that sanctions are not allowing them to communicate with Facebook and other social media platforms properly, and to remove content that is offensive, that potentially is calling for acts of violence.

I’ve never heard such bs in my life. I’m like, that’s not your sanction. That’s their policy. Their policy is they’re not allowing us to cooperate with them. I’m like, well, here’s my question. You have a law right now that prohibits calling for violence because we have that in the US. It’s not part of freedom to go and say, I want to kill somebody. That’s not a personal freedom. Even fighting war are illegal in most states. So what are you doing about it? It’s like, oh, yeah, we’re balancing a very delicate country and not even in Suwayda, Sarah, in front of the parliament in Damascus and what’s supposed to be the parliament building. It’s supposed to be one of the most secure areas.

A bunch of beautiful young activists in their 20s, early 30s, sat down in front of the parliament, held up signs saying we are against bloodshed. Without saying aside, without saying who, where we’re against all bloodshed, a bunch of hooligans, literally I don’t know, like ruffians. When they talk about ruffians like in the testament, this is what they looked like. For the first time, I’m like, oh, that’s what a ruffian looks like. Came up with sticks, started beating on the people, protesting, not against a specific party, against bloodshed. The men were calling women such ugly words, and there was not a single policeman inside.

That incident, it may sound normal for a region like the Middle East. Not unusual, but it reminded a lot of people back to the same area at the very beginning of what’s called the Syrian Revolution, where regime thugs were beating activists in the same way and calling them names. People were like, oh, well, it became iconic in a way because well, the same actions, different people, and I don’t know, we think the people that were under Assad addressed it slightly better, but committing the same violence against civilians. We are waiting still for laws that ban calling for acts of terrorism. It’s not hard. Sharaa is in full control. His president, prime Minister, head of the Parliament, he is technically the head of the judiciary as well. This guy can decide anything right now. He has a magic political wand at this point, but nothing, nothing, nothing.

Sarah: So if I’m not [crosstalk]. Right. If I’m not mistaken, last March, the Syrian Democratic forces, the Kurds decided to align with Ahmed al-Sharaa. Do you know why they’ve decided to do this?

Hazem: Under immense American pressure? But again the details were skipped. The same call to join the Syrian national forces, current government forces because there’s like, SNA is different thing. But anyways, let’s say I’m the Kurds, right? I’ve been fighting for the most part against Sultan Shah forces that are Turkey. There are Syrian forces that are Turkey backed, that have fought in three or technically four theaters so far. They fought in Karabakh and Azerbaijan, they fought in Libya. They fought two distinct battles or wars in Syria against the regime and against SDF.

So now I’m told, yeah, I’ve been fighting these guys for the past 10 years, 12 years. Now I need to be in the same barracks with these guys. How can you? Let’s think Union and Confederacy. Okay. The war ended on much clearer terms, by the way, and not like union soldiers were not sharing a back hall, a sleeping hall with the Confederacy it’s just they’ll get stabby at night. There’s no plan. This is a problem. The US having this backseat role created expectations and no planning. This is why, honestly, let me go back super quickly to that conference I mentioned back in February, the conference was under UN pressure. So because it’s under UN pressure, it was done quickly without like a clear purpose and clear understanding of what’s expected from that conference. The same thing with SDF. SDF is expected to join. What does that mean? Let me touch on this point as well. There’s so much focus on the army in a very outdated, let’s call it Soviet or eastern, like old Eastern approach to the army, where the army does everything. Army shows up everywhere. It’s an army, it’s a national guard. It’s your local police force. It’s your friendly traffic police officer.

It doesn’t work that way. What I’ve told the Syrian so many times is you need to focus. You don’t need an army because we’re going to fight. Who going to go? You’re going to fight the Iraqis. Iraqis have F16s. You want to fight the Lebanese, shame on you. It’s like, we’re not going to go back to that. You’re going to fight Israel? Well, I do not recommend that one. Bad bad things will happen. So why do you need an army? You need police. You need an investigative civilian police force. You need a bureau of investigation. I told them like, why don’t you think like an FBI model. Where you have people who are actually smart and these will become you’re the shining city on The Hill that all the other civilian forces will look up to and say like, oh, we have an FBI.

But no, they want to create more and more armies. Like now it’s we’re talking hundreds of thousands. I’m like, why do you need that? [Crosstalk] Why do you need that? It’s such a drag on the economy while people are still getting kidnapped and shops being robbed. You obviously need a police force. You don’t need an army. Again naivety because they’re used to having armies. President Trump honestly is also from that mindsets like army, good. I’m like, well, not always. Not always.

Sarah: Right. So as you know, Israel is always being accused as being an apartheid state, settler, colonialist, et cetera. In light of that, can you comment on Israel’s efforts to maintain a new extended security buffer inside Syria and the impact that these efforts would have on the Syrian population and in the international community?

Hazem: Everything is interconnected. Obviously, Israel right now has grown to a point like grown socially, politically, militarily that needs a long-term plan. We don’t see that. It’s still very ad hoc, very reactive, and I don’t think it’s unhealthy for Bibi or [inaudible] to come out and say, well, our plan is to occupy this zone for the foreseeable future. Not because we want to make sure the adversary is aware, but there are allies that are unsure what’s going to happen. I’ll tell you, Sarah, the Druze in Majdal Shams, the Alawites in Gaza in Israel, they’re still not 100% sure if Israel is going to go back to certain lines that will later be defined and cannot remit that territory back to Syria. It’s unclear because all the conversations are happening in private with the Syrians.

This is a massive issue for the Jews more than the Alawites, the Alawites can go to Haifa and they’ll be fine, but the Druze will not abandon their homes. It’s almost religious for them. Like, this is our land, I die here. I get buried here. I say this semi jokingly, but when I was in Majdal Shams, I made some great friends and they’re showing me these beautiful garden apartment buildings being built. I’m like, sell me one. I got a really serious and stern look. I was told you pick a bed, any bed in any house here, you pick it, you’ll sleep there tonight and every night if you want. But we don’t sell our land. Again, all respectful and this is based on certain political and social problems of the past that made the Druze decide not to do that. Also, they don’t accept new Druze people, you cannot become Druze. They’re interesting people. They’re not going to leave. They’re going to be part of Syria. That’s not sustainable, economically, et cetera.

Now, what we need to talk about really is not how to draw conflict lines, is how to draw plans for peace. This is something I’ve been trying to push, but every time the timing doesn’t seem right. I want to see trade in the Golan, at least between Druze villages because the Druze on the other side of the border, on the Syrian side are not living in a vacuum. They’re part of the economy so let’s start looking at trade. Let’s start about moving products into Israel. By the way, really cheap, really good produce comes out there. Israel brings some produce as from as far away as Brazil and Argentina. Well, let’s talk about Syria. That’s my other joke that I used a lot in Israel. It’s like, well, you have a lot of [foreign word] on the other side with plenty of time. Let’s give him a task through the optics of modern commerce. That’s my little joke. But again, it’s not happening. It’s not happening. Everybody’s looking at the security situation, not looking at the potential mutual benefits and not only to you know, economic, like short-term benefits, but long-term social impact. Because once you trade with somebody in that region, somehow you become partner. So that is really where I’ve always said that’s where the mindset should be in a country that needs financial support and economic support at this point.

Sarah: Yeah. So we’ve had a lot of questions that have come in.

Hazem: I’m impressed. Yeah, I see like [crosstalk]

Sarah: Yes. Right. One is Turkey meddling in Syria doesn’t seem to be at all helpful to Israel. Is anyone in a position to counter the Turkish meddling in Syria? I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions. So where is the financing coming in, is Iran involved and how much and finally millions have fled under Assad. Are they making their way back?

Hazem: Millions of, sorry?

Sarah: Syrians have fled under [crosstalk]

Hazem: Yeah. Under the, okay [crosstalk]

Sarah: Yes. [inaudible] regime.

Hazem: A lot of great questions. So the Turkish influence, it’s not new and it’s not as direct and simple as you may expect. Let me put it in perspective, in a military perspective. The forces that are backed by Turkey in Syria are between 60 to 80,000 fighters. HTS, they stretch it as far as you can, it’s 30,000 fighters. So the Turkish backed elements that were never actually part of HTS are the big force. They’re not the small force, and they’re the ones that better equipped, better financed, better trained, and potentially supported by air, if need be. Sharaa understands this. He also understands there is literally a whole floor at the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus occupied by Turkish intelligence, and they make friends quickly.

There is also, and we have to understand this, it’s weird. It’s also like the Palestinians have the same thing. It’s this whole idea that the Ottoman Empire was good and that occupation actually it’s funny when they say like, we’re under Israeli occupation. It’s like, what? Like era and your history is good. It’s like, oh, well, during the Ottoman, it’s like when you are under actual foreign occupation. So again oh, they’re Muslims like us, so they must not be they mean us harm. Well, I let me point you to Iran real quick, and they’re very Muslim. But social acceptance of Turkey is a lot higher than any other foreign interlock terror or interferer. It’s interesting when it comes to Turkey. It’s not going to change. The relationship between president Trump and Erdogan is great and there’s been push to get Turkey to do more.

Now, I think the Turkish Israeli conversation has been very productive for the most part. So remember Turkey were like they sent the real estate agents to look into a military bases on the Israeli border in the southern part of the country. Remember that a few months ago? Yeah. Well, if you’re looking at that base, hold my beer for a second, and next day there was no base anymore. So, yeah. Cool. IDF, IAF cool cats and they pave the way to a political conversation always. [Crosstalk] Yeah, sorry.

Sarah: Where is all of the financing for this coming from?

Hazem: The Gulf. Who needs Iranian money when you have Gulf money. You got Saudi money coming in I don’t how much Emirati money coming in. Emiratis don’t give you bags of cash. They make solid trades. The Emiratis are shrewd that way. So the Emiratis are being involved in the ports. They’re starting to finance ports. Again, there’s like, I hear $150 million weekly that come to the government and Qatar mostly takes care of that. This is for government salaries and government operational costs. Again I don’t mind. Really, I don’t mind. Let people pay on, but at the same time, I would like to see steps toward preventing that money from supporting terrorism in the future. I want to see an education system that tells kids terrorism is bad. Don’t be a terrorist. It’s a bad thing. Whether theologically or from a basic non-theological human perspective. I want things that talk about peace. I want laws that prohibit somebody from saying, I want to kill my kin.

Sarah: Right. [Crosstalk]

Hazem: Brother is killing brother over ideologies.

Sarah: [Crosstalk] different ethnic group. It’s crazy.

Hazem: Sarah, forget ethnic groups within Sunnis themselves. I’m Sunni technically, so they’re making fun of the Sunnis who are against violence. They’re saying the cute Sunnis, literally, they write cute in Arabic letters, and it’s supposed to be a slur. They talk about the Umayyad Empire without any knowledge of what that means. I’ll tell you the Umayyad Caliphs used to drink like fish. If they want an Umayyad environment, they need to get wine making perfected very quickly again. I remember there’s a final question about the people who are coming back. They’re not.

Sarah: That’s right.

Hazem: They’re not.

Sarah: They’re not coming back.

Hazem: They’re not. A lot of people came the first few weeks. There’s a level of instability when it comes to personal safety. It’s not huge, but it’s significant enough. You got people that get kidnapped in the middle of the day for ransom still, and people with money that want to come and invest, they don’t want to be kidnapped in ransom and killed. They’re like, that’s not cool. The services are not there. If I’m coming from Washington where I have 400 amps coming to my house, and I have like one gigabit per second internet. I go there and I turn the water on and I get nothing. I’m like, well, nah, I can’t do this. I can do it for a week, two weeks. See my friends, see my family, my extended family, somebody, but I can’t live without running water.

Sarah: Right. All right, so Hazem, I want to thank you very, very much. This has been really excellent, very informative. Before we adjourn, we have a very short video to try to respond to the one-sided public relations that has been in the news about the “famine” in Gaza. I just would like my wonderful assistant, Lily [crosstalk]

Hazem: Actually Sarah, can you come back to me real quick on this? Because it’s interesting. The audience need to remember, I cannot recall a conflict where one side has been solely responsible and committed to delivering aid to the adversaries population while that population clearly still supports the adversary. If you are having conversation, if you’re telling people, tell people, like this whole thing is a first in history. This is one for the books. There is a setup where Hamas knows it cannot win militarily, it cannot defeat Israel. There is no way. But chipping away the public image of Israel day after day after day by making Israel responsible for aid, that is impossible to deliver. We’ve had this conversation. I’m going to see Johnny Moore tonight, and I’m going to tell him, it’s what we call in the business a impermissible environment. It’s an active theater. God bless you for trying to deliver aid, you cannot succeed. It’s an impossible mission.

So there needs to be a red line for aid. If you have an active Hamas fighter in that region, you cannot deliver aid. There needs to be a mechanism to ensure there are no active fighters. Because there are active fighters. Nobody can say, oh, like Hamas is defeated. It’s not. They’re in inflicting casualties every day. So this whole thing that we got into, and this is why would resigned by the way from [inaudible], they said, this is mission impossible. We’re all going to end up in courts for failing to do something we’re not even supposed to do in the first place. So, I digress. Sorry, I had to mention this because it’s important. Go ahead.

Sarah: In the meantime, for those of you who are still on, and this is going to be replayed and replayed on YouTube, I’d like you all to see what it is that Hamas is doing with the aid. Our trucks of aid that have been commandeered by Hamas. The people are rising up and throwing stones at Hamas. [Inaudible] is coming through with rifles, with loaded rifles, shooting, not carrying where the rifles and the bullets land. There are more than one side to the story. This does not make the New York Times or the Washington.

So I just want to leave you with that and to let you know, first of all, how delighted we are with Hazem Algebra’s wonderful analysis. He is a brilliant thinker and really knows Syria from the ground up, was raised there, understands all the ethnicities, the populations, the dynamics, and how phenomenally flawed the premises of the foundation that Ahmed al-Sharaa is working on. Every single day we are on Capitol Hill trying to tell the truth about Israel and the Middle East. Please, if you can support us at www.emetonline.org and tune in to all of the marvelous stations where you will see Hazem Algebra give his phenomenal analysis. Thank you so much.

Hazem: Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate it. Yeah, please support EMET. It’s actually one of very few, less than a handful organizations I personally support because of their great work. So please support EMET [crosstalk] especially if you like what I said.

Sarah: Thank you.

Hazem: Thanks.

[END]