What is Happening on our Northern Border with Syria and Lebanon? 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.

Interviewer: Good afternoon, and welcome to yet another very enlightening and very compelling EMET webinar. We are really fortunate today to be joined by our dear, dear friend, Lieutenant Colonel Sarit Zehavi, retired from the IDF, who’s the founder and president of the Alma Research and Education Center, which focuses on the threats to Israel along her northern border. Sarit has brought and has gathered many, many senators, Congress people, a lot of congressional delegations, and young people to her center, where she’s done a tremendous degree of education and research about the threats along Israel’s northern border. She has been voted by The Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews in 2021, and in my esteem, she is one of the five most influential Jews.

As we speak, there are two important issues. One that Sarit just reminded me of this morning, I wasn’t aware of that, that delegations from Israel have met with Syrian delegations in Paris yesterday. The other issue is that UNIFIL is about to run out its mandate on August 31st, and there is a French resolution that’s being debated whether or not to continue with it. That’s going to be voted on August 25th. Sarit will discuss what the utility of UNIFIL has been and hasn’t been. So, let’s start right now with the late-breaking developments on Israel’s negotiations with Syria. Sarit.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Okay. I will give the news, and then I will give an overview of explanation just to understand where we’re standing and what’s going on. What are those news? So, the news from this morning is that there was a meeting between the Syrian foreign minister, and I would say the de facto foreign minister of Israel, which is [inaudible]. At the same time, we did the mediation of the Americans. At the same time, basically at the same place in Paris, there was a meeting between the leader of the Druze in Israel, who has actually positioned himself as the leader of the Druze, Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif, with Thomas Barrack, the American representative to the region. So clearly, those two meetings were held one after the other or together. I don’t know. There was some level of coordination between the two because the Israeli-Syrian relationship and the internal Druze sect relationship with the regime are connected. That’s why we’ve seen all of that happening together.

Now, after I’ve said that, I want to do it step by step and make sure we all understand what exactly is happening. So, I want to just briefly describe what do we have when we speak about the new Syria, this new Syria that was created since December 8th, 2024, when al-Julani, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Al-Qaeda that actually controlled the northern district of Syria with the support of the Turks, succeeded in bringing together many, many factions, religious and non-religious or less religious, I would say, into one campaign against Assad regime and to overthrow it. Since then, the main goal of Ahmed al-Sharaa was to stabilize his regime to create a new army of 20 divisions with 300,000 soldiers to sign agreements with minorities to disarm, which, of course, it’s not happening. Let’s not have illusions here. But actually, to create an army and to make Syria great again, to make a sovereign state in every aspect that you can think of. Not only military, but also political and economic, meeting with world leaders, etc. He was recognized. He received legitimacy very, very quickly from everybody in the world that basically forgot his past and tends to forget the present simple what is happening now to minorities in Syria. This is where the problem lies, and this is where it actually contradicts the needs of the state of Israel.

Israel, from its part, understands the problematic situation here, and it is demanding kind of a buffer zone or disarmament of all the areas south to Damascus, which is kind of an ambitious, to be honest, an ambitious demand, but understandable. We don’t want to see any Syrian army there or advanced weapons. Here, I just want to say, my greatest fear is that within a few years we will end up in a situation that the old regime that was supported by Iran and Russia and enabled Iran and Hezbollah to use Syria as its soccer field basically will be replaced by a different kind of radical jihadi ideology that is now holding Western weapons that were even provided directly by the West or by Turkey. That’s my worst-case scenario here, and it looks like this is where al-Julani wants to get and Turkey is 100% into this. That way, you can understand that there is a basic contradiction between what Israel wants and what al-Julani wants. With all of that, once al-Julani took power of Damascus, Israel took power of what used to be the buffer zone according to agreements from the 70s between the sovereign Syria and the sovereign Israel to create a buffer area of disarmament on the Syrian side of the border of a very narrow, by the way, area of very, very few kilometers. We already built nine positions there. This was not a buffer zone for many, many years since the beginning of the Civil War in Syria since everybody was there, just not Israel. So, when he took over Damascus, we took the buffer zone, and we are clearing the area as we speak. This is happening all the time from everybody by the way. There are cells of ISIS, cells of Al-Qaeda, there are cells of the old government. There are Hezbollah cells. There are proxies of Iran. Everybody is still there. Not at the same scale. The area is much weaker, and Israel is working on that all the time.

In July 16, Syrian forces, with the internal security forces and with the Bedouin tribes, entered Sweida, which is the main city of the Druze enclave, and basically destroyed a few tens of Druze villages there. Israel had to send a very clear message to al-Sharaa that we are not going to tolerate that, and Israel bombed the tanks that entered and bombed in Damascus, sending a clear message that this is not going to happen again. Unfortunately, to tell you the truth, it will happen again or at least somebody will try to do it again. That’s why we see many, many efforts to prevent that in all those meetings in Paris. I can tell you, just to give you a sense of what’s going on there. In August 10, a video was published from the hospital in Sweida where you can see the execution of the staff of the hospital by al-Sharaa’s men, by the security forces of al-Sharaa. This is just one example out of many for the atrocities that happened there. We have seen a participation of about 1,000 soldiers in the massacre, at least nine divisions. Not all the divisions, but at least representation from nine divisions, including soldiers that were wearing patches of ISIS. It’s a problem.

Now, when you look, and we just published a report about the new Syrian army that is now being established by Ahmed al-Sharaa, when you look at that, you see that actually 22 senior officers out of the senior officers of the Army. I’m talking about commanders of division. I’m talking about the defense minister. I’m talking about the head chief of staff, the Air Force commander. Those are officers with proven jihadi background that led jihadi militias before the war. Here, I want to say, when we are talking about building a new army, we’re not talking about disarmament or integration with spreading the soldiers in different places. We are actually talking about the integration of the militias without disarming them into the Syrian army, so they preserve the structure of the militia with the loyalty to the specific commander. And that way, they can basically put the pressure on Ahmed al-Sharaa to follow what they want while they’re having a sovereignty of the leadership. He’s building his army not only on those jihadi forces, I should be honest, but also by recruiting officers that defected from Assad’s army by a wide drafting of soldiers all over the country yet in a not very organized way. It is still going very slowly. Also, by drafting or engaging into the new Syrian army, foreigns, people that are not even Syrians that came to fight with ISIS against everybody else in Syria 15 years ago during the Civil War. So, they are basically ISIS followers, and they are now part of the Syrian army. These are Asians, Chechnyans and Uyghurs. I don’t know, just not Syrians, 3,500 of those already joined al-Julani’s new Army.

So, we have different loyalties, different independent groups and militias, tribal loyalties, family connections, geography, commanders that gain a lot of power and a lot of personal loyalty. This is how the new army looks like and when you understand that you understand how come that many security forces of Ahmed al-Sharaa participated in the massacre and against the Druze and participated in the atrocities against the Alawites in the spring as well. Now, this is also something that we should talk about because eventually, between those two massacres, there have been a few months, while Ahmed al-Sharaa promised to interrogate what happened against the Alawites and promised to make sure that it will not happen again against any minority, etc. and nothing is happening. It is just repeating itself. While we are hearing that now he is planning maybe an attack in the northeastern parts of Syria, meaning against Kurdish areas. So, we’ll see if we will go for that as well. Remember, just a few months ago, we were talking about agreements with all of those minorities, and it is clear that it’s not the direction, or at least for now, it doesn’t look that this is the direction.

Now here, I want to talk about the minorities themselves. They, as well, are not willing to give up their arms because they understand what the new army of al-Sharaa is and who is al-Sharaa. If you ask the Druze, “Who is Ahmed al-Sharaa?” They will tell you, “He is ISIS.” Well, if you ask them, “What is his army?” They will tell you, “This is just ISIS in a different name.” So clearly, they are not going to give up their arms for a new government in Syria that believes in those values, which, according to those values, the Alawites, the Kurds, the Druze, and I don’t know who else are considered infidels that should be sentenced to death. That’s as simple as death. Either convert or die. Which, by the way, it’s different from the status of the Jews and the Christians, which can live with their Christianity and Judaism, but under the control of Islam.

So, that way you understand that from the very basic of the Syrian state that was created a hundred years ago, to talk about a nation state was very challenging. A hundred years ago, even the French that established Syria wanted to establish a confederation. It didn’t happen eventually. Today, the Druze in southern Syria, in a demonstration that was held two days ago, talked about completely independent from Syria, like changing the borders. This is something new. They were grateful for the state of Israel. They waved the Israeli flags there because Israel is sending humanitarian aid. Basically, it’s the only state in the world that is sending humanitarian aid to those places with helicopters and airplanes. Now, it’s an enclave. It means that it is far from the Jordanian border in 20 kilometers and far from the Israeli border in around 70 kilometers. Jordan refused to open a ground humanitarian corridor because the Jordanian king has his own headache with the Bedouin tribes in Jordan, which are family with the Bedouin tribes in Syria, which had those clashes with the Druze that ended up with this massacre. At the same time, from Israel to drive 70 kilometers through an area which is basically Sunni, populated with a hostile population, and again, including areas that in the past were strictly ISIS areas, and maybe there are still ISIS cells over there. This is a huge risk, and it is clear that Israeli soldiers are not going to do that to secure these corridors.

So, how do we, on the one hand, help this Druze population, which we are obliged to help them? Because we do have a Druze population here, which we do want to send a clear message to the new government that they are not going to massacre those Druze. We understand that if the world will legitimize this kind of massacre against minorities in Syria, it will end up on our borders. It will end up with a massacre against us, and we don’t want that. If we go tactically for a moment, before I go strategically. Tactically, for a moment, I think that what happened yesterday in Paris is basically the answer. It is to get the agreement of Ahmed al-Sharaa by American pressure to open this humanitarian corridor, which until now, he refused, and Israel can maybe assist with some senses of security or sensors of security from the sky without risking soldiers. I don’t know what was negotiated there. I don’t know what was agreed, if was agreed, but I believe this is the beginning of something. If Ahmed al-Sharaa will agree, everybody wins, because eventually it will give the Druze the humanitarian aid they need. It will enable us to be part of the project to protect them and to help them, and it will give Ahmed al-Sharaa some benefits among the Americans in the West, which is looking for that. He wants to be accepted over there. But what I’m saying…

Interviewer: Yes. Right. But he’s never been held accountable for his massacre of the Alawites in March or the 1,200 at least Druze. What about the physical violence against women? Some of them have not been returned. Some of the children have not been returned. Where is the United Nations in all this?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: He is not being held accountable. HTS is not under sanctions anymore for a reason that I actually don’t understand. It’s a terrorist organization. Doesn’t matter. This is exactly what I’m saying. There is so much leverage of pressure on Ahmed al-Sharaa that could be used to help the Druze, to help the Alawites, to rebuild Syria, to make sure that we are not being threatened with security on our border here. Basically, if Europe and the United States are legitimizing Ahmed al-Sharaa without demanding anything in return, everybody loses. But if the opposite happened, and okay, you are totally interested in legitimizing Ahmed al-Sharaa because you want the Syrian refugees back in Syria, because you want to gain the economic investments, because you don’t want Iran in Syria, I get it. But at the same time, make sure what you get in return. I’m always saying that. I used to say that with you again and again and again about the Lebanese armed forces. Now I’m saying that about Ahmed al-Sharaa, make sure what you get in return, and you can get in return a different kind of Syria than what is now being built. Because, as you said, if he will not be held accountable, or at least his jihadi forces will not be held accountable to what is happening, it will happen again. The saddest thing here is that we always say no Jews, no news. Unfortunately, the whole world reported on what’s happening in Sweida, only thanks to one bomb that Israel dropped in Damascus.

Interviewer: In Damascus.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: That’s it. It’s really, really sad because it shouldn’t be this way.

Interviewer: Right.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Let’s move forward to Lebanon.

Interviewer: Okay. But just before, do you think that Syria will disintegrate into ethnic enclaves? If you could be a navian or a prophetess and predict the future. Or do you think there will only be a little buffer zone between Sweida and [inaudible].

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: I don’t know. It really depends on one hand on Ahmed al-Sharaa how much he is going to insist on having the whole area, which I truly don’t know what he thinks about it. At the same time, about international communities. I can say from my part that I don’t understand why those borders are secret. They were created by two superpowers in the past, France and Britain. They ignored basically anything that is happening on the ground, whether the minorities or Bedouin tribes that were divided between two countries all of a sudden. To build a nation-state in this kind of situation, we’ve seen that the project collapsed after 100 years, after a century. So, the challenge is huge here for Ahmed al-Sharaa. For now, he’s not delivering. He’s not delivering the rebuilding of Syria for all Syrians. Unfortunately, again, I wish it will change. We all wish it will change. We all wish he will demonstrate a different attitude because we need to see a different Syria, and everybody wants to see the reconstruction of Syria. But it looks like if nobody will pressure him to do that, we’ll end up with just another dictatorship that doesn’t care about its own people.

Interviewer: Right. Okay. Before we turn to Lebanon and UNIFIL, could you talk a little bit about the Syrian economy and the wheat crop? It seems like they’re in a really horrific financial situation.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Everybody’s talking about the situation in Gaza, but bear in mind that in Syria, we have seen a civil war that lasted 15 years. 15 years that people were fighting. There were cities that completely destroyed homes, Aleppo, etc. The damage is huge. We have seen more than half a million people that were killed in this civil war, and half of the population of Syria became displaced. This is more than 10 million people, and the half, I don’t know, about 7 million people became refugees out of Syria. Many in Lebanon, many in Turkey, in Jordan, and went to Europe as well. So, to rebuild the economy of Syria, it’s a huge challenge. I understand why he wants to go to the Kurdish areas because these are areas where you have the oil refineries and energy infrastructures of Syria. It’s a huge project that everybody wants to be part of. From the United States to Russia, to Qatar, to Turkey, to Iran, Syria is the playground of everybody, and that’s why it’s so problematic. He’s kind of holding all the cards in his hand in this respect. That’s why I understand why it’s so important that the West will be involved. Because if the West will not be involved, we will lose it completely again. But we need to do it in a very careful way.

Interviewer: Before we switch to Lebanon, could you talk about the Shia in areas of Syria and the members of Hezbollah that are in the Syrian army?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: The members of Hezbollah and the Syrian army. I’m not sure this is happening. Hezbollah is having huge troubles today with its presence in Syria, specifically on the border with Lebanon. There were fighting there between al-Julani’s forces and Hezbollah. When Hezbollah is trying to smuggle daily, and it connects us to the Lebanese issue, weapons into Lebanon. We have seen at least five times that I remember in the past month or so, a seizing of munition that was on its way to Lebanon, and the Syrian army just seized that. So, Ahmed al-Sharaa is not interested to see Hezbollah as part of its army. On the contrary, it is fighting Hezbollah. I don’t know about the Shia population, but the Alawite population in Syria, which is a branch of the Shia, is populating mainly the seashore, an area which is again, strategically important for Ahmed al-Sharaa, because this is where you have the seaports of Syria. Which can explain what he’s saying about the massacre against the Alawites, he’s saying, “But these are people who are loyal to Iran, loyal to Assad. We need to fight them. They are still loyal to Assad.” Okay, I understand. But you don’t need to fight the women and children or to execute them, which is basically what was happening there.

Interviewer: All right. Let’s turn to…

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Just trying to summarize what [inaudible].

Interviewer: Right. There’s a mosaic. I guess they’re mostly Sunni jihadist forces.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Yes. But at the same time, Syria is no longer part of the Muslim Shiite corridor. Iran used to act freely in Syria to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah. It’s not happening like this anymore. Even if there are successful smuggling, it’s not at the same scale. While at the same way, Hezbollah is trying to smuggle drugs from Lebanon into Syria, and again, Ahmed al-Sharaa is fighting this.

Interviewer: All right. Great. So, the plot thickens. They’re still a mosaic of Sunni jihadist forces that are part of the army. Okay. So, as we speak, the United Nations is in the midst of debating a French resolution about extending UNIFIL. I know they’re supposed to vote on it on August 25th, and the date that UNIFIL expires is August 31st. How does this look? What good is UNIFIL?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: First, I didn’t see the draft. I don’t understand the draft. I don’t understand why we want to extend a 10,000-soldier force that was not only ineffective but damaging to its own mission, which the mission by itself was not defined enough in the previous resolution that was held in 2006 and in the previous war. During this war, what was clearly proven that it didn’t even act according to what was very clear in the resolution. I want to explain all of that. Look, UNIFIL, the resolution is not clear enough. The previous did 1701 from 2006. The war enforcement doesn’t exist. In one article, it is saying that UNIFIL should assist the Lebanese armed forces. In another article, to disarm Hezbollah in the area south to the Litani River, which is an area of around 25 square kilometers from the Israeli border. Never happened. The same time, it is written there the UNIFIL should use all its capabilities and it’s an armed force of 10,000 soldiers as I’ve said, including the maritime force of a few hundreds of soldiers, to make sure that this area is not used for violent activity. Didn’t happen. And we ended up in a situation that this area became the biggest warehouse of weapons in the world. I’m just quoting Secretary Hillary Clinton from many years ago, imagine that. Some part of those weapons were neutralized by Israel in the current war. Some of them were seized by Israel in the current war, and that’s basically it. Israel is the only one today, other than Ahmed al-Sharaa if you like, that is truly the main vector of delaying or disturbing the efforts of Hezbollah to recover. With everything that happened during the current war, and we discussed this in previous meetings, Hezbollah, there is one thing that it didn’t lose. It lost its leadership. It lost most of its aerial array. It lost many of its commanders and the capability to invade Israel. There is one thing it didn’t lose. It didn’t lose the motivation. The motivation to fight Israel, the resistance. It didn’t lose that. It is rebuilding its capabilities as we speak.

And there are three vectors that are trying to fight this. The most effective one is the Israeli strikes, which are across the 500 strikes since the ceasefire started, air strikes, there are probably also non-air strikes, different kind of strikes as well, but those are the main strikes against Hezbollah military operatives and commanders that are trying to go back south or to rebuild terrorist capabilities even north to the Litani River, against warehouses, against manufacturing, facilities of drones and accurate missiles, including inside Beirut, in populated areas inside Beirut. All of this is being attacked since the ceasefire by Israel and causing a lot of damages to those efforts to reconstruct. The second vector is what I’ve said about Ahmed al-Sharaa on the border with the smuggling of weapons. He shows proofs, he shows pictures and videos of what he seized in oppose to the Lebanese armed forces that is talking about seizing 500 storages of weapons but showing maybe three or four pictures and one video, I don’t know, of rockets that do not even seem useful. Maybe just storages that were already bombed. This is basically the situation today and even with the current resolution of the government or decision of the government to disarm Hezbollah until the end of the year, which is truly an amazing decision, I don’t underestimate that, but it is still just a statement. Okay? It’s the first step. It’s highly important. I talked about it, the need for a deadline so many times in the past two years. I totally support it and I’m so happy that this is happening, but this is around statements.

Interviewer: It’s rhetoric.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Yes. And what we are now being asked as Israelis is to pay for the statement by deeds. No, I want to pay for the statement by statement, and to pay for the deeds by deeds. I think this is more fair. All in all, if I’m trying to wrap all of that, with UNIFIL, they didn’t report Hezbollah violations, neither now nor before the war, nor during the war, very, very little during the war, at least not on their Twitter account, in their reports, a little bit more. They didn’t stop the military deployment of Hezbollah in South Lebanon, not only in populated areas or private properties, which they say they are not allowed to enter, but also in open territories, which they are definitely allowed to enter. And this is where Hezbollah hid its weapons that were supposed to be used for an invasion to massacre Israelis. They didn’t do it. They didn’t go to those places, which were just under their positions, next to their positions. They were used as human shields during the war with Hezbollah launching rockets to Israel from next to those positions. And basically, they’re interrupted by patrolling in the battlefield, risking themselves by the way, for no very good reason, making us cease our fire, enabling Hezbollah to run away during the fighting.

They refused to evacuate from the war zone even though we asked them to evacuate. I don’t see what’s the benefit to keep them. It’s a waste of money. And people are talking about a vacuum. This is misleading. There is no vacuum because we have already replaced them de facto. We are now talking with the Lebanese through a new mechanism, through the Americans and the French, and this is not working. As I’ve said, the Lebanese army is not doing enough, but with regard to a dialogue for itself, the dialogue is working. We can send our messages. We get back messages. It is working much better than through the UN, and that’s why I believe that it’s a waste of money and a waste of time, and definitely not extending the mandate, I don’t understand, to do what? They don’t understand what their mission is. They’re focusing on humanitarian aid and rebuilding villages. I don’t know what. You don’t need soldiers to give humanitarian aid. You need [inaudible].

Interviewer: Yes. UNIFIL, unless they’re provoked, they’re really not supposed to be an armed force. They’re supposed to be a peacekeeping force, but it seems that they have been…

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: No, it can be an armed force, no problem, but not for humanitarian aid.

Interviewer: Aid, right. I mean, from the last 30 years that I’ve been following them, I haven’t seen that they have really done any good. In fact, we have seen a lot of very interesting relations between UNIFIL and Hezbollah, UNIFIL and the Lebanese armed forces, basically enabling them, and it’s very strange. Altogether, how do you feel the vote is going to come down on August 25th about extending UNIFIL?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Again, 10,000 soldiers, it’s a lot of soldiers for such a small area. 19 years, I’ve seen one picture of the UN holding a Hezbollah launcher that was published 10 days ago. One picture. Okay? Few pictures of launchers that do not belong to Hezbollah, but to Palestinian factions here and there, and that’s basically it. We are talking about thousands of launchers, tens of thousands of rockets. We are talking about a completely different scale of weapons that was brought to South Lebanon in the past 19 years during UNIFIL time. So, I don’t see why anybody expect this will change. And even though they are saying yes, there is a change in Lebanon, I totally agree that there is a change in Lebanon. I totally agree that Hezbollah is not going to get weaker. It’s the weakest you can get. Israel had done its part. Now it’s time for the Lebanese to do whatever is needed to change the prospect of Lebanon, but UNIFIL has nothing to do with that. It is just not contributing anything.

Interviewer: Our U.S. Middle East envoy, Tom Barrack, is demanding that Israel withdraw from Lebanon.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: He started to talk about that. I’ve seen him saying, “Okay, Lebanon had done its part by the government decision, so now Israel should do its part.” And due to the framework that he put on the table, he said that the deadline will be composed of steps and part of those steps will be gradual withdrawal of the state of Israel from the five points that it is holding in Lebanon. But I think that for those who have never been on the Israeli Lebanese border, we should clarify what exactly Israel is occupying in Lebanon. Because it’s not a security zone as we used to have in the past. We are actually holding five small hills that are watching our communities from the Lebanese side of the border. Some of them are right at the fence and other are like 500 meters from the fence, but basically very, very close to the fence. Five hills that are not only looking to the communities next to the border but actually having the control over the whole area of the Galilee all together. And if you stand on top of these hills, you basically have the view of the South Lebanese area and of the northern Israeli area.

You understand what’s the operational meaning of that. Now let’s talk about the psychological meaning of that, which is no less important. And I’m saying that as a mother who lives 9 kilometers from the border and can see one of those hills basically from my neighborhood. By the way, which has a UN position that did nothing against Hezbollah in this place. And now you have IDF next to the UN position. You have IDF on top of this hill today. The people that are living next to the border, especially the women, the mothers to daughters are saying, “If IDF is not there on the hill just across and I will not see an Israeli flag there anymore, I’m not coming back to live there.” After an evacuation of a year and a half, today a little bit more than 60% came back. They are communities that are very close to the border that are much less than that. And people, again, especially the young families, didn’t come back yet. People are afraid that Hezbollah will seize those five hills again. So, what I have to say to Thomas Barrack or to Morgan Ortagus and their staff is very clear. We can withdraw from those five hills. We don’t have any feelings for those. These are Lebanese areas. But we can do that only once we are completely positive that Hezbollah was disarmed in South Lebanon, not will be disarmed in South Lebanon because we’ve been waiting for 19 years and it didn’t happen.

Interviewer: Right. Can you tell me a little bit about Shebaa Farms and the dispute there?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Oh, that’s part of the most complicated issue.

Interviewer: Yes. All right.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: First, don’t imagine farms in Shebaa Farms. There are no farms [inaudible] name. It’s an empty slope of the highest mountain in the region, Hermon. And then the slopes, which actually, Shebaa is another ridge. You have two Lebanese towns, which are on the Lebanese side and the Lebanese control there. And then, you have the area of Shebaa Farms, and then you have the rest of Israel. At the western edge of this place, there is one town which is allegedly divided named Ghajar populated with, if it’s not complicated enough, populated with Alawites, but they are Israeli citizens that receive all services from the state of Israel and voting for the Israeli government, etc. And due to the UN, when we had withdrawn from Lebanon, they marked the border in the middle of this town. Now, how does this get more complicated? We took Shebaa Farms from Syria in 1967, but when we had withdrawn from Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah, in order to preserve the conflict, said that Shebaa Farms are Lebanese. So, the question that should be asked is, what’s the position of Ahmed al-Sharaa in this? Which we don’t know the answer. If it’s Syrian, Israel is saying we will negotiate that around the peace agreement with Syria, but Lebanon is saying it’s Lebanese. By the way, the people of Ghajar, if you tell them that they are Lebanese, they say we are Syrians. I was there and my father is Syrian, so I told him, “See, you’re going to get Lebanese food here,” and they told me, “No, he is going to get Syrian food here, not Lebanese food.”

Interviewer: Yes, it’s very complicated. So, going back to UNIFIL, why do you think Macron is so hell-bent in trying to renew UNIFIL’s mandate?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Because France wants to preserve its prestige status in Lebanon that goes back again a century ago as a superpower that is involved in the Middle East. By the way, the whole issue of UNIFIL, why to preserve UNIFIL? Because it’s prestige. Those who are participating in the force, that’s prestige. We are a superpower. We are involved. We have leverage in those places. And of course, also a lot of money is involved there because there are a lot of damages in Lebanon, and a lot of money will get in eventually. And I don’t know to whose hands, but it’s going to get in. France wants to be part of that. I understand that but I am just saying that we should not be misled again. We were misled once 19 years ago. And I have a very strong feeling of deja vu. Everybody’s telling me it’s the first time this and the first time that, no, it’s not the first time. A national dialogue around disarming Hezbollah, I remember that from more than 20 years ago since the Prime Minister Hariri was assassinated with no connection to Israel, the whole Western world was talking about disarming Hezbollah. 1559. This is the resolution I’m talking about to disarm all the militias in Lebanon.

Interviewer: Right. So, this is a little sensitive, but UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and 1701 talk about all foreign forces should leave Lebanon, and of course, we have the IDF inside Lebanon. Do you think that we are in violation of these UN Security Council Resolutions?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Yes, we are in violation. I admit that. We are in violation. So what? We are in violation after we’re almost massacred, and after myself and my neighbors were under attack for 14 months with, I don’t know, maybe 25,000 rockets, drones, anti-tank missiles. My daughter hardly went to school. Hezbollah planned a massacre against Israel, posed a strategic threat to the state of Israel. So, we are in a violation of five hills. What can I say? And we don’t want to be in a violation, by the way, because we understand it’s also a risk to our soldiers. As I’ve said, we would love to be out of Lebanon, and we will be out of Lebanon once there will be clear proofs that Hezbollah was disarmed in South Lebanon, not being disarmed, not will be disarmed, was disarmed. This should be the Israeli stance, and I hope this is the Israeli stance.

Interviewer: Right. Okay. In general, we’ve seen a lot of sympathy going back to Syria toward Ahmed al-Sharaa or Mohammad al-Julani since he took control last December. And we saw that the Trump administration immediately lifted the sanctions for the Caesar Act. When you see the massacres of the Druze and of the Alawites, and the planned massacre of the Kurds, what do you think that we should be doing on Capitol Hill right now?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Exactly as I used to say about the Lebanese armed forces, use your leverage. Okay? I do understand the need to be involved in Syria. I totally understand it. Use it. Use the leverage. That’s one thing. Second, don’t lift sanctions up from terrorist organizations. There is no reason to cancel the sanctions against the HTS, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Do you know what that means in English? The teams or the committees to liberate Sham. Sham is Levant. Levant is an area that includes Israel. That’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, it’s not just Syria. By the way, the inspiration comes from ISIS, Islamic State in Sham, in Bilad al-Sham. Again, the second S is for Sham, not for Syria. Let’s not be mistaken. Okay? It’s not a national project. It’s an Islamic project. And that’s why we shouldn’t ignore it. We shouldn’t ignore it. Now, there are two questions here. The first question is, where al-Julani is going? Is he willing to build a country which is Islamic, but like Saudi Arabia? Okay. Or he’s going to build a country like ISIS? A problem. Or maybe he is not the problem, his forces are the problem, and he cannot control his forces, which is also a problem. We should be aware of all of that. And that’s why we should work gradually, carefully and having very clear benchmarks and demands of taking off the sanctions, and not everything at the same time very quickly without taking such a huge risk, and demanding Israel to take a risk from its part and leave the buffer zone.

Interviewer: Exactly. All right. So, I’m just looking to see if there are any more questions from the audience. I don’t see them, but I do feel that it’s very, very important that all of us keep an eye on the Levant, keep an eye on Ahmed al-Sharaa, remember his past, remember that he was a member of ISIS and Al-Qaeda. And we have got to look at the players in the Middle East with a great deal and more skepticism than we have been. Just because there’s no longer a shared corridor stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean does not mean that this area does not pose a potential threat to Israel. And I’m very delighted that the IDF has been in Lebanon, and they do have control of the five hilltops. Otherwise, it would be a real danger to all of the residents and citizens of the state of Israel. So Sarit, do you have any final words before we wrap up?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: I just want to say something about the overall Israeli strategy. As a lesson of October 7th, we understood that the civilians cannot face the terrorists directly. A buffer zone should be created between the hostile government organization, terrorists, whatever they are, and our civilians. This is correct for Gaza when we talk about the perimeter and the size of the perimeter. It’s correct for Lebanon when we talk about those five hills. And it is also correct for Syria when we talk about the buffer zone in Syria. As long as we have Hezbollah in Lebanon, al-Julani or Ahmed al-Sharaa, with all those problematic issues in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza, we will have to have this area where you have IDF forces in front of the terrorist instead of Israeli civilians in front of the terrorist. That’s the Israeli new strategy. Our head chief of staff clarified that and said very clearly. And I believe that any nation in the world that will experience something like what we had experienced on October 7th would do the same thing.

Interviewer: Exactly. And we just made that point yesterday on Capitol Hill. And everyone agreed with us, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, that if we had an October 7th here in the United States, we would be going at the various jihadist groups with gusto and eliminate them from the face of the planet. So, what Israel is doing is to try to protect their civilian population and survive, and nobody can doubt that. I do want read something, if you would. One of our listeners wants you to mention Jordan. Do you have any notion of the viability of the Jordanian government, Sarit?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: I think the Jordan pose a few challenges to Israel. First, it’s a very long border. It’s the longest border that we have today, which is really difficult to secure. When we speak about drug smuggling and arm smuggling into the West Bank and Iran, in the past few years is working around that to smuggle weapons in those areas. Second, we do have communities not far from that border that, again, we are now establishing new platforms in the IDF to protect those communities also from any incursion from the Jordanian border, not necessarily official forces of Jordan. And third, unfortunately, what happened in Jordan is that we signed a peace agreement with Jordan, with the government or a regime, a kingdom that had relationship with Zionists and with the Israelis for many years, but we forgot the people. And the people of Jordan, at least more than half of them are Palestinians. And this means that the hostility to Israel is really, really high. And it means that the gap between the government and the people is becoming wider and wider as we speak with regard to Israel.

Now this is very unfortunate since Israel is providing water to Jordan. We have security cooperation. We provide energy. There is economic collaboration. And basically, a lot of good things could have happened if the normalization was much more natural to the Jordanian people by itself. And what we see today is a process of becoming more hostile to Israel, rather than less hostile to Israel. And I think that in this respect, it’s a miss and it also poses a challenge to the stability of the kingdom by itself, because eventually, if we are helping them to provide basic needs of their population so they cannot cut completely the ties with Israel, but at the same time, the population is completely in a different page than the government. So, you said all eyes on Syria, of course, all eyes should be on Jordan as well to make sure that there is a stability of the king over there and not to undermine the king’s leadership there, which is already undermined, of course.

Interviewer: Right. And if there were a creation of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, how would that affect the king?

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: I need to think about that for a moment. First, I don’t see this happening.

Interviewer: It won’t happen. I don’t think. Yes.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Truly, the Arab states are more interested in perpetuating the conflict than to solve it this way or another.

Interviewer: Right. Yes. And the UNRWA passes the citizenship of Palestine from one generation to the next. It’s just perpetuating the 1948 conflict. There’s no resolution. It’s horrible. So, I do want to thank you, Sarit. You are so knowledgeable. Please, if you can donate to Alma Israel, I know I do. It’s one of my favorite charities. Sarit is a powerhouse, and all of you should. Also, we definitely need your funding in EMET to keep going. We are hiring more staff, and we are on Capitol Hill practically every single day fighting the good fight for all of our people. Also, please donate to emetonline.org and mark your calendars. November 19th, we’re having our dinner. We’re honoring some amazing people, and for anyone who possibly can, we would love to see you there. Thank you so much. And thank you so much, Sarit.

Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi: Thank you for having us.

Interviewer: [inaudible] Amazing. All right. Good.

[END]