Iran

by

Syria: What does Ahmed al-Sharaa mean?

The west and Israel seem to be concerned about what Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is saying. His pronouncements both in recent years and since the HTS victory in Syria have been measured and seem to reject the idea that his aim is to establish a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Syria. However, his past connections with the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS) and Al Qaeda are pointed to, as is his previous nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Julani as evidence of his ideological position. They say they want to see actions not just words.

Given the experience of diplomacy in the region a degree of scepticism is sensible. Fine words butter no parsnips as they say. Furthermore, words do have a remarkable degree of flexibility in the Middle East. The term “defence” comes to mind.

However, given what went before, in the murderous Assad regime, and the scenes of celebration from Syrians across the country it is difficult to simply dismiss al-Sharaa. Given this most nations and agencies seem content to adopt a wait and see policy. Wanting to see if the promising words do get translated into actions.

Israel, as so often, is the exception here. It is busily defending itself against an attack, of which there is neither sign nor capacity, by bombing any and all military facilities in Syria. They are also annexing land inside Syria to secure Israel’s border.

If the scepticism of western, commentators, journalists, diplomats and politicians proves well founded then Syria’s appalling condition may simply continue under new management. If this is the case it will confirm a view of islamist insurgents as simply interested in gaining power in order to impose a version of Islam which is authoritarian, brutal and misogynistic. Together with a new regime of corruption and crime.

If this happens it will reinforce the view that you can never trust such groups. That radical islamism, or indeed, for some, merely islamism, is an inherently authoritarian and regressive force. Given this they must be opposed and where possible eliminated and certainly kept away from any levers of power.

It is right that the establishment of another fundamentalist regime with no interest in the rule of law outside of strict religious control, or an independent, multi-faith civil society, or any form of participatory government would certainly add to the woes of the people of Syria with negative consequences for other peoples in the region.

It may however be the case that the threat that al-Sharaa poses is not if he does not do what he says but rather if he does do what he says.

Clearly, it is early days however the actions taken so far by the new regime led by al-Sharaa and HTS are unlike previous insurgent takeovers. No bloody reprisals, no looting and no ill-disciplined soldiery. No immediate implementation of fundamentalist Islamic social measures. Co-operation with the existing governmental institutions with the existing government being asked to remain in power until March 2025 to oversee a prcess of transition. Universities have been opened as opposed to closed. No curfews.

The army is being maintained not dissolved, the civil service is not being replaced with people whose qualifications are ideological fervour as opposed to administrative competence. The strong underpinning message and fundamental aim is claimed to be a commitment to rebuild Syria and the “…establishment of a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people“. It will be interesting to see what this council is in due course. But there have been clear commitments to religious tolerance, the rule of law, and a strong civil society.

What seems to have happened to date in Syria seems to be characterised by a very disciplined fighting force. Disciplined in their approach to fighting certainly. But more importantly, disciplined in victory.

al-Sharaa has been absolutely explicit that the country has no interest or capacity to engage in a war with Israel. This, despite the illegal and substantial programme of bombing being done by their neighbour to “defend” themselves.

What might ring alarm bells in the West and Israel is the commitment to a process of change by Syrians for Syrians. A demand that all foreign forces now leave Syria to allow them to get on with the immense task of rebuilding a country that has been systematically destroyed by a brutal despot.

One of the many problems of the region is the constant maneuvering by global powers and Arab neighbours to secure advantage it times of uncertainty. Attempting to obtain territorial or other advantages when states are riven with internal conflicts or political instability.

If al-Sharaa does substantially what he says, it will create a real dilemma for the West, Israel and other Arabic nations. A moderate muslim nation with genuinely independent institutions, religious tolerance and a genuine distribution of power is going to stick out, in the region, like a sore thumb.

Time will tell but al-Sharaa presents very well. His interview on CNN is illuminating as much for the tone and thoughtfulness of his comments as for what he actually says. He has learned the lesson of previous insurgent groups, terrorists or freedom fighters depending on you politics. He is not picking fights he knows he cannot win. There is no inflammatory rhetoric about the State of Israel or the West. He does not shy away from his Islamic faith but neither does he see this as monopolising power in a new Syria.

The. task of rebuilding Syria will be monumental. An economy that is on its knees. Fighting continuing in the north as the Kurdish cause has Turkey and the United States maneuvering for advantage. Its South Eastern border with Israel being eroded, together with a substantial bombing campaign as Israel defends itself. Loud calls for swift and public retribution against those of the former regime engaged in the systematic torture of relatives of suvivers. And on top of all this external forces trying to ensure al-Sharaa fails.

If it does not fall back into a brutal fundamentalism Syria could become a model for a new kind if Islamic regime with enourmous consequences across the whole of the middle east.

by

Changing the Middle East

The mediaeval barbarism of 7 October 2023 was cruelly twisted to secure maximum terroristic effect by having its atrocities filmed and then made available to the world, and thus despicably, to the victim’s relatives. Horror shows of murder, mutilation and abduction displaying a disregard for human life and revealing a visceral loathing for Jews.

It is not surprising that this action would instil fear in a nation built to protect its Jewish citizens from precisely this kind of merciless and violent persecution. Something Jews have experienced over the centuries culminating in Hitler’s effort to annihilate them in an industrial attempt at genocide.

Given all this, a strong, not to say fierce, response from the Israeli Government via the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was inevitable. Actions to defend Israel and secure retribution against the perpetrators was and is justified. Securing some justice for the innocent victims and recovering the hostages was and remains a justifiable goal. However, the scale and the nature of the response has raised questions and concerns from the start which have only deepened and multiplied over time.

Following the attack, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that Israel was at war with Hamas and it would not end until the group was completely eliminated from Gaza and the safety of Israel was secured.

The United States quickly got behind this goal followed by the UK and a range of other Western nations. This was seen as a war against a terrorist organisation which had carried out a 9/11 type outrage and was thus legitimate.

In addition to this specific if ambitious target, Prime Minister Netanyahu also spoke about how Israel’s response would “change the Middle East”. A much more ambiguous goal but, as the campaign has progressed, an increasingly ominous one.

An ever-mounting civilian toll has eaten away at the unwavering support promised at the outset. The increasing unease of Israel’s allies has resulted in ever more complex circumlocutions about the support and its being tied to care to minimise civilian casualties. With good reason.

Given the atrocious actions of Hamas that triggered the current war, Israel could adopt the moral high ground and very quickly did. At every opportunity it has justified its actions as self-defence by graphic reference back to the bestiality of what Hamas did on 10/7. Everything that Israel has done since then and all the civilian casualties of the Israeli action has been placed at the door of Hamas.

To be clear the actions of Hamas are inexcusable. They are war crimes that need to be brought to justice. However, that does not make them inexplicable. The actions were not irrational, motiveless violence. They have causes in a 70-year confrontation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. If this history is ignored it is unlikely a viable way forward will be found.

Not only are they not inexplicable but neither do they justify the level of sustained and indiscriminate bombing of civilian Palestinians.

The IDF claims it is only targeting Hamas. However, when one looks at the level of destruction wrought across the North, Central and finally Southern Gazza one can only conclude that the IDF are awfully bad shots. In truth the claim is not credible. In an area which is one of the most densely populated on earth it was inevitable that the scale of the bombing carried out would have a massive civilian toll.

The IDF blames this on the fact that Hamas adopted the morally despicable act of using their own citizens as human shields. However, the efficacy of human shields depends on the humanitarian values of those they are used against. The immoral act of using defenceless civilians as a shield is morally matched, not opposed, by the act of shooting through them.

The moral high ground is a slippery place and the actions of the Netanyahu government from the very start of the offensive indicated very unsure footing. Actions that included the closing of the borders, stopping food and medical supplies, the turning off of power and water to 2.3m people, ordering c1.m residents of Gaza City to move South within 24 hours.

The claims of moral authority because residents were warned to leave and go South ring hollow when those that do are bombed on their journey and again when they arrive in the “safe” South. They are then told to go West, toward the sea. The 2.3m population of Gaza appears to be being herded into a smaller and smaller fraction of the small pocket of the territory they live in.

All of this in order to prosecute a war against c40-60k Hamas fighters is difficult to see as proportionate or in accordance with international humanitarian law.

The treatment of prisoners of war further undermines the moral position of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government and the IDF. Palestinian men stripped to their shorts and filmed in a grossly choreographed display of walking forward with hands above their heads to place weapons on the ground. The weapons, carefully ringed by the IDF to ensure they are not missed. What do they think this demonstrates?

The claim is they had to be stripped to ensure they did not have suicide vests on or hidden weapons. Who do they think believes they could not be searched and have their clothes handed back to them. This was not about security, it was about humiliation. Humiliation filmed and broadcast to the world.

When one looks at what Prime Minister Netanyahu’s forces do it looks like the aim to “change the Middle East” is primary.

What Prime Minister Netanyahu’s war has done is displace pretty much the whole of the population of Gaza making them refugees in the territory they have been confined as refugees in over the past 70 years. He has destroyed Gaza’s economic infrastructure, its health facilities, its educational infrastructure, and many of its religious and cultural buildings. He has humiliated its men and starved its women and children. Worst of all he has achieved this by killing c 33k of its citizens, many of whom are women and children.

This through a campaign of bombing which, at the beginning of December, had inflicted a higher level of damage to buildings than the allies achieved in Dresden and Cologne in World War 2. According to the same source in the Financial Times “Gaza will go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns.”

Set aside whether you can win any conflict against groups like Hamas with bombs you certainly cannot do it without massive collateral damage. The sustained and comprehensive nature of the bombing seems precisely judged to do just that.

The whole of the population of Gaza has been traumatised unable to find the so-called safe areas they are directed to by the IDF. Desperate to secure food and water for their families they are forced to fight and scramble for any relief that gets through.

What can they look forward to? Suppose the IDF managed to kill all the members of Hamas tomorrow, then what? No homes, no jobs, no functioning health, education, security or other state service. Continued dependence on international relief.

There are three possible responses. First, resign yourself to the fate of a refugee in the largest open prison in the world. Second, seek to escape to somewhere else where you might be able to create a life for yourself. Third, create Hamas 2.0. Someone once said, if a person has nothing to live for they will soon find something to die for.

The West, but more specifically the United States and the UK, have stood shoulder to shoulder with their ally Prime Minister Netanyahu. They have believed his assurances about minimising the harm to the civilian population. As the death toll has mounted and the level of physical destruction become more and more apparent the allies have become increasingly uneasy.

The gap between what PM Netanyahu says he will do and what he does has become so wide that not even the most faithful ally can ignore it. Further, his adamant rejection of advice from his allies has prompted irritation amongst Western leaders which had begun to boil over.

When the killing stops the true numbers of those killed, injured and displaced will be far higher than anything that has been seen in the Middle East since the Six Day War in 1967. Arab losses in that war were roughly 20,000.

The level of physical destruction will be way beyond what might be justified by the doctrine of proportionate defence. The treatment of prisoners of war discussed above. The shooting of Israeli hostages, stripped to the waist waving white flags and shouting in Hebrew, by the IDF does not instil confidence that the IDF rules of engagement will have protected many Palestinian civilians.

In the end what this may look like is what a UN Commission defined as ethnic cleansing “… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

It is almost certain it will be perceived as that by Palestinian and Arab citizens across the Middle East, which should be a matter of concern to Israel. But what should perhaps be of more concern is the potential spread of this perception to a wider, developing nation cohort across the world and indeed to many citizens in developed nations watching the carnage on their screens.

The strategy of containment which has been pursued towards the Palestinians in recent years is clearly over. The events of 10/7 demonstrate it does not work even on its own terms. What appears to have replaced it is one of making Gazza unviable as a place to live. This is not new. Back in 2015 a UN Report set out the manifold ways in which the Palestinian territories viability was constantly undermined by Israel’s actions.

When this military campaign ends what happens?

Firstly, there will be a global focus on the area greater than there has been in many decades. Unless the civilian death toll is pure Hamas propaganda and the pictures of bombing devastation are deep fakes Israel will be perceived as having committed a whole host of crimes against international humanitarian law. These will be the focus of years of litigation and argument and will undermine the moral authority of Israel.

When it ends, someone will have to administer Gazza. If Israel takes on responsibility or they hand it to the Palestinian Authority the legitimacy of its governance will likely be zero, particularly if there is no prospect of a two-state solution.

If the Israeli blockade and economic strangle hold is maintained it will be a running sore and one which has much greater visibility than it has had in the past. Since its establishment in 1948 Israel has proved pretty much impervious to “international opinion” and has continued that position throughout the current war. Its ability to do this has been because its closest ally has been the richest and most powerful force on the earth.

Israel seems to take the support of the US for granted and abuses that position with apparent scant concern for the risk it might change. This is a mistake.

If Israel does not engage in good faith in a two-state solution what is the future? The plight of the Palestinian people will provide an excuse for new or re-established terrorist organisations to carry out atrocities against civilians in a country increasingly dominated by security. Provoking further state violence against civilians in territories with no security.

Global powers will seek to use the conflict to promote their own interests with merely rhetorical regard for the interests of the Palestinians, but also perhaps increasingly for the state of Israel.

The tit for tat ratchet between Israel and Iran has now been engaged. This may well achieve PM Netanyahu’s goal of changing the Middle East. But, as the saying goes, “be careful what you wish for”. The change might be one which brings continuing misery for the Palestinians but also growing insecurity and isolation for the State of Israel. No one can want eikther of these things.