📄 Extracted Text (13,489 words)
[00:00:02] Yeah, it's complicated. Obviously, these
[00:00:04] uh these are historic longtime rivalries
[00:00:06] between different groups in the south,
[00:00:08] west of Syria, Bedwins, uh the Drews
[00:00:11] community, and it led to an unfortunate
[00:00:13] situation um and a misunderstanding, it
[00:00:15] looks like, between the Israeli side and
[00:00:17] the Syrian side. So, we've been engaged
[00:00:19] with them all morning long, um and all
[00:00:21] night long with both sides. and we think
[00:00:23] uh we're on our way towards a a real
[00:00:26] deescalation and then hopefully get back
[00:00:28] on track uh in helping Syria build a
[00:00:30] country and and arriving at a at a
[00:00:32] situation there in the Middle East is
[00:00:33] far more stable. So, in the next few
[00:00:35] hours, we hope to see some some real
[00:00:37] progress to end what you've been seeing
[00:00:39] over the last couple hours.
[00:00:41] Okay. Well, that was Secretary of State
[00:00:43] Marco Rubio commentaring uh commenting
[00:00:45] on this latest round of uh violence or
[00:00:49] cycle of violence within Syria. Hello
[00:00:51] and welcome to State of Play on Mint
[00:00:53] Press News. Today we turn, of course, to
[00:00:56] Syria, luckily a non-controversial t
[00:00:59] topic at all. That was sarcasm if you're
[00:01:02] just listening to the audio podcast, and
[00:01:04] unpack the madness and contradictions
[00:01:05] that have unfolded amidst this latest
[00:01:07] cycle of violence that broke out between
[00:01:09] Drews and Bedawin tribesmen over the
[00:01:11] past few days. Then the government
[00:01:13] forces got involved, which led to more
[00:01:15] violence. Then Israel used it
[00:01:16] long-standing doctrine of the periphery
[00:01:18] to escalate violence even further by
[00:01:20] bombing a military headquarters and
[00:01:23] governmental building in Damascus to
[00:01:25] show who's boss. All right, thanks so
[00:01:28] much y'all. We're going to just lot lot
[00:01:30] to cover with Syria. So today we are
[00:01:32] joined for our Thursday episode on State
[00:01:35] of Play by um a Mint Press News uh staff
[00:01:38] writer Robert Enllesh who has lived in
[00:01:41] the occupied Palestinian territories and
[00:01:44] is one of my favorite regional
[00:01:46] commentators on stuff regarding West
[00:01:49] Asia. And then Ahmmed from Prop and Co.
[00:01:53] He's a journalist and activist. Um who I
[00:01:56] was just with uh during the Trump
[00:01:59] military pride parade, Mussolini Pride
[00:02:01] Parade in DC talking to me bag of
[00:02:04] people. So he also does work with Max
[00:02:06] Blumenthal and I've been liking your
[00:02:08] stuff, man. Thanks for so much for
[00:02:10] coming on again.
[00:02:11] >> Yeah, thanks for having me.
[00:02:13] >> All right, Syria. So guys, just strap in
[00:02:16] for like the monologue and then we're
[00:02:18] just going to open up and see where the
[00:02:19] conversation goes because there's
[00:02:20] actually like too much to cover here to
[00:02:23] really plot it out within an hour. So,
[00:02:26] we're just going to see what we get to
[00:02:27] and we're going to cover the main
[00:02:28] points. But real quick, I just wanted to
[00:02:30] talk about Israeli political and
[00:02:33] military doctrines because once they're
[00:02:36] like put in place, they never really
[00:02:38] change. You got the DA doctrine, the
[00:02:40] collective punishment of civilians in
[00:02:41] order to pressure for diplomatic
[00:02:43] concessions, uh, which they're actively
[00:02:45] losing in Gaza, and then Lebanon too as
[00:02:49] well. And then you've got like the
[00:02:50] Hannibal directive, Samsonop, you know,
[00:02:52] all these doctrines were put in place a
[00:02:54] long time ago and they're still here.
[00:02:56] So, I just want to talk about the
[00:02:57] doctrine of the periphery. It's kind of
[00:02:58] transmuted over, you know, the past few
[00:03:02] decades, but it's an Israeli foreign
[00:03:06] policy strategy that involves
[00:03:08] cultivating relations with non-Arab and
[00:03:10] non-Muslim countries and populations
[00:03:13] within countries in the Middle East and
[00:03:14] beyond as a way to counter potential
[00:03:17] threats from hostile Arab states. This
[00:03:20] approach initially developed in the 50s
[00:03:22] during uh Bengurian's day aimed to
[00:03:25] create alliances and partners with
[00:03:27] nations perceived as being on the quote
[00:03:29] periphery of the Arab world, thus
[00:03:31] bolstering Israel security and
[00:03:32] influence. Israel sought alliances with
[00:03:34] countries like Turkey, Iran, and of
[00:03:37] course, Israel and Iran have had a long
[00:03:39] time uh long-standing intelligence
[00:03:41] relationship even though they beef
[00:03:43] publicly. We're going to talk about
[00:03:44] Erdogan and why you shouldn't really pay
[00:03:46] too much attention to his bluster about
[00:03:48] Israeli impunity. Um, it also included
[00:03:52] imperial Iran before the revolution
[00:03:54] under the sha Ethiopia as well as
[00:03:56] minority groups like the Kurds and Drews
[00:03:58] in Syria and Marinite Christians in
[00:04:01] Lebanon. And yesterday, of course, we
[00:04:02] just saw US Secretary of State Marco
[00:04:04] Rubio characterize Israeli aggression in
[00:04:07] Syria as a misunderstanding. It is not
[00:04:10] for many reasons. Uh I mean we could
[00:04:13] talk about Netanyahu's trial being
[00:04:16] corruption trial being postponed. Uh the
[00:04:18] messianic uh vision of a greater Israel
[00:04:21] factionalism within IDF defense circles.
[00:04:24] But the current purpose of the doctrine
[00:04:25] of periphery is to use the supposed
[00:04:27] defense of minority groups around its
[00:04:30] borders to justify adventurous military
[00:04:32] and destabilizing operations against its
[00:04:34] neighbors. So no actors in s this Syria
[00:04:37] drama really want to see Syria become a
[00:04:40] sovereign nation. And Robert's really
[00:04:41] going to get into that. Uh, Israel
[00:04:43] continues to dismantle its military
[00:04:45] infrastructure, obviously with the
[00:04:46] strikes earlier this week. Qatar and
[00:04:48] Turkey have cleared its debt with the
[00:04:49] World Bank so it can take out
[00:04:51] significant IMF loans, you know, debt
[00:04:53] traps, and the US has given the green
[00:04:55] light to those countries to invest $7
[00:04:57] billion in Syria's energy grid. It will
[00:05:00] become a neoc colony or a failed state
[00:05:03] at this rate. If Syria seems
[00:05:05] overwhelming and confusing to you, I
[00:05:07] repeat the following until it all makes
[00:05:09] sense. This is a bit reductive, but
[00:05:10] Israel is an extension of the American
[00:05:12] Empire to conduct adventurous wars and
[00:05:15] destabilizing operations to carve West
[00:05:18] Asia into vassel states that will allow
[00:05:20] their people and resources to be
[00:05:22] exploited by the transnational
[00:05:23] capitalist class and security elite. And
[00:05:26] so part of the transnational elite
[00:05:28] includes, you know, policy makers in
[00:05:29] Gulf states like Qatar and longtime
[00:05:31] intelligence collaborator Turkey to the
[00:05:34] north who is not even trying to expand
[00:05:35] its influence, who's not just trying to
[00:05:37] expand its influence in Syria, but also
[00:05:40] in Lebanon, eyeing the deep water port
[00:05:42] in Tripoli. So, real quick, I think we
[00:05:45] should um basically just give a I've got
[00:05:49] another couple minutes to just lay out
[00:05:52] kind of what happened in broad detail
[00:05:54] and then uh we're just really going to
[00:05:56] get into it. So, according to Axio News,
[00:05:59] the Trump administration, this was a
[00:06:01] reporting late last night, has asked
[00:06:03] Israel to halt its strikes on Syrian
[00:06:05] government targets and to open direct
[00:06:07] talks with Damascus. Uh, US officials
[00:06:10] are highly concerned that the Israeli
[00:06:12] attacks, including on Syrian military
[00:06:14] headquarters in Damascus and near the
[00:06:16] presidential palace, could destabilize
[00:06:18] the new Syrian government, which they're
[00:06:20] trying to get into Swift, which they're
[00:06:21] uh offering sanctions relief for uh
[00:06:24] policy compliance. Uh the officials said
[00:06:27] in the past 24 uh 48 hours could
[00:06:29] seriously undermine progress towards a
[00:06:31] new security agreement between Israel
[00:06:33] and Syria as a first step towards
[00:06:34] normalization. Those discussions had
[00:06:36] previously been showing significant
[00:06:38] progress. In recent days, there have
[00:06:40] been clashes between Drews militia and a
[00:06:42] Bedawin gang in the city of uh Sueda in
[00:06:45] southern Syria. And there has been
[00:06:46] sporadic violence between members of the
[00:06:48] two minority groups since uh Basar
[00:06:50] al-Assad was toppled in December and
[00:06:52] replaced by ex-militant Ahmed al-Shara.
[00:06:55] Uh this of course goes back way before
[00:06:59] um the uh the fall of the Assad regime.
[00:07:01] But when the Syrian government sent in
[00:07:03] tanks to try to restore order, the
[00:07:05] Israeli air force attacked those tanks,
[00:07:07] the US officials said Syria had notified
[00:07:10] Israel in advance about the tanks and
[00:07:12] said its response was not directed at
[00:07:14] Israel. But Israel officials claimed the
[00:07:16] tanks entered a zone that Israel, which
[00:07:18] is occupying illegally parts of western
[00:07:20] Syria, has demanded be demilitarized of
[00:07:23] heavy weapons. And over the past 24
[00:07:25] hours, clashes continued in Suea between
[00:07:28] Drews the Bedawin's militias affiliated
[00:07:30] with the Syrian government and Syrian
[00:07:32] security forces. According to the Syrian
[00:07:34] human rights observatory in London, very
[00:07:37] problematic organization, by the way, at
[00:07:39] least 200 pe uh 50 people have been
[00:07:41] killed. However, this is a big however,
[00:07:44] uh a senior US official said US
[00:07:46] intelligence does not show any
[00:07:48] involvement of the Syrian government
[00:07:49] atrocities in Suea. Okay. Okay. Well, if
[00:07:52] the US intelligence line is that, I'm
[00:07:54] sure it didn't happen. And then a US
[00:07:56] official said the Israeli government
[00:07:58] told the Trump administration it sees
[00:07:59] what happened in Suya as October 7th
[00:08:02] like attack on the Drews community.
[00:08:05] Okay, so basically everything was going
[00:08:07] swimmingly. Normalization was going
[00:08:09] steadily, not really at all. Uh Qar and
[00:08:12] Turkey paid off Syria's loan to the
[00:08:13] World Bank so we can take out an even
[00:08:15] bigger debt trap loan and start the
[00:08:17] multi-year process of getting into the
[00:08:19] swift banking system. So I guess why
[00:08:21] would Israel do this now? The only
[00:08:22] reason I see and it's not only it's not
[00:08:24] really a rational one politically is to
[00:08:26] use minority communities as an excuse to
[00:08:28] seize more land and further degrade the
[00:08:31] military and civil infrastructure of the
[00:08:33] new government which actually doesn't
[00:08:35] serve its regional political interests.
[00:08:37] I don't think unless your overriding
[00:08:38] goal is a messianic vision of a greater
[00:08:41] Israel. So first Robert, what do you
[00:08:43] think is going on with these strikes?
[00:08:45] What were the purpose? Uh and what did
[00:08:47] they actually achieve? Uh well, we could
[00:08:50] track this back to 2013 when the
[00:08:53] Israelis hatched uh a plot essentially
[00:08:56] to expand their buffer zone in southern
[00:08:58] Syria. Uh they wanted to expand uh the
[00:09:02] territorial
[00:09:04] uh domination that they have in the
[00:09:06] Golden Heights region. And then uh they
[00:09:08] sought to use the Drews as a minority
[00:09:11] group, as uh a buffer state of sorts, a
[00:09:15] rump state uh which then uh would be
[00:09:19] allied with the Israelis. Um, and in
[00:09:22] order to do this at the same time as
[00:09:24] they were putting forth these drafts
[00:09:26] which they worked with the Jordanians
[00:09:28] and the Americans on uh back in 2013 and
[00:09:31] and these you know uh proposals for an
[00:09:35] extended buffer zone had been going on
[00:09:37] for decades of course uh after Israel
[00:09:39] formerly annexed the Golden Heights in
[00:09:42] 1981. Uh but they also started backing
[00:09:46] around a dozen armed groups in the south
[00:09:49] of Syria that were uh opposition to uh
[00:09:53] Bashar al-Assad. And so simultaneously
[00:09:56] while they were making inroads with uh
[00:09:59] the Drews or attempting to make inroads
[00:10:01] with the Drews, what they were doing was
[00:10:03] backing militant groups, some of whom
[00:10:05] were affiliated with al-Qaeda uh and
[00:10:08] dash uh including by the way uh
[00:10:12] al-Nusra, which now we know as a uh
[00:10:17] which runs the Syrian government today.
[00:10:19] rebranded, changed somewhat, changed uh
[00:10:22] its orientation slightly. Um still many
[00:10:25] of its people have the same mentality.
[00:10:28] Uh but the Israelis backed it at the
[00:10:30] same time that it was working with Dish
[00:10:33] uh and the same time that it was killing
[00:10:36] the Drew minority. So essentially what
[00:10:38] it did all the way back from 2013 was
[00:10:41] that the Israelis were planning to play
[00:10:44] both sides. Um that was their goal.
[00:10:46] Ultimately, they don't care who's in
[00:10:48] power. They don't care who's fighting
[00:10:50] who. They don't care what minority is
[00:10:52] killing what minority. They don't care
[00:10:54] about uh Sunni sectarianism or Drew
[00:10:57] sectarianism. They want them to fight
[00:10:59] each other so that they can dominate the
[00:11:00] south of Syria. Um so bringing this up
[00:11:04] to uh today, it's a very similar
[00:11:06] strategy. They back certain separatist
[00:11:08] movements in the south. They started a
[00:11:10] new strategy in 2020 where they started
[00:11:13] backing along with the US forces in Tanf
[00:11:17] uh this group called the Syrian Aliwa
[00:11:19] party um which sought to uh create an
[00:11:24] alliance with the USbacked forces in
[00:11:26] Alam uh in order to take over the south
[00:11:28] of Syria and create a Drews uh state
[00:11:31] that was basic and it was uh looking as
[00:11:34] well to combat uh Iranianbacked groups
[00:11:36] in the south of Syria. Uh now a lot of
[00:11:39] those groups are still there. In the
[00:11:41] final years of uh the Syrian government
[00:11:44] of Bashar al-Assad, uh the country
[00:11:46] collapsed into economic ruin. Um there
[00:11:50] was a lot of embezzling, a lot of the
[00:11:52] captagon trade was rampant. Um and so
[00:11:55] these gangs flourished. Um so you've got
[00:11:58] just uh you know an endless supply of
[00:12:01] militants to draw from, to fund, to get
[00:12:04] to do your dirty work inside of Syria.
[00:12:07] And at the same time now these the Drews
[00:12:10] civilian population are threatened by
[00:12:13] sectarian death squads which exist
[00:12:15] throughout the country. Um and then you
[00:12:17] have the Syrian government now led by
[00:12:19] Ahmed Desara formerly Golani. Um and
[00:12:23] he's not capable of controlling his
[00:12:25] forces. And a lot of people have a
[00:12:27] debate over that uh over this but I
[00:12:29] think it's very clear right now. They
[00:12:30] struck a ceasefire agreement with the
[00:12:32] Drew spiritual leadership uh yesterday
[00:12:36] and still the Bedo Bedawin tribes are
[00:12:38] still capturing villages in Sueda right
[00:12:40] now in the Sueda province. Um and then
[00:12:43] the Drew separatist groups uh there's
[00:12:45] reports of them killing civilians and
[00:12:47] ethnically cleansing uh Bedawins. Um we
[00:12:51] don't know what uh is completely correct
[00:12:54] in terms of uh the reports coming out.
[00:12:56] There's reports of all different
[00:12:57] massacres, some of which are concerned
[00:12:59] uh confirmed, some of which are not. Um,
[00:13:02] but the Syrian government doesn't have
[00:13:04] control over the country essentially.
[00:13:06] Um, it's a series of militant groups,
[00:13:08] uh, foreign fighters, uh, tribalists all
[00:13:12] over the country, which essentially have
[00:13:14] even if there's Syrian security forces
[00:13:16] there from the new security apparatus,
[00:13:19] which uh, when this new government came
[00:13:21] in, it wiped the old security apparatus.
[00:13:23] it disbanded the Syrian Arab army and
[00:13:26] then formed its own. Um the the people
[00:13:30] with the power in a lot of these areas
[00:13:32] like Sueda are
[00:13:34] the locals. Um they have militia forces.
[00:13:36] The same as in D um and the same was the
[00:13:40] case in the coast as well um which led
[00:13:42] to these massacres of uh the Alawi a few
[00:13:46] months ago. And so like um Ahmad over at
[00:13:49] Provinco you talk a lot about like
[00:13:51] messaging and stuff uh especially with
[00:13:53] regards to this like looking at a lot of
[00:13:55] the government aligned channels and
[00:13:58] influencers and bloggers journalists if
[00:14:00] you want to call them uh there's
[00:14:02] definitely not this sense that um you
[00:14:05] know Israel is trying to do or like
[00:14:07] western powers are trying to do this
[00:14:08] dividay at emperor divide and rule
[00:14:10] strategy. Uh I just wanted to play one
[00:14:12] clip and then get your uh response to
[00:14:14] it. Uh this is from uh Selene Cassm. She
[00:14:18] is a former Syria diaspora blogger who's
[00:14:22] now back in Damascus.
[00:14:25] >> Square in the heart of Damascus where
[00:14:27] Israel has been relentlessly bombing
[00:14:29] since the morning. Um it's also been
[00:14:31] bombing since yesterday
[00:14:34] or the suburbs of Damascus and
[00:14:36] continuing to break international law as
[00:14:39] it does in Syria and all over the
[00:14:40] region. Israel is doing this at a time
[00:14:42] where Syria is trying to gain its
[00:14:46] sovereignty, to gain its its its its
[00:14:50] ground to start building our country.
[00:14:52] But we won't be able to do so when this
[00:14:54] continues to happen and when there are
[00:14:56] external factors coming in to pretend
[00:14:59] like they want to protect minorities or
[00:15:01] to pretend um something that they
[00:15:04] definitely are not going to do and they
[00:15:07] do not do. And you can ask anyone from
[00:15:11] >> so this is like pretty pretty good right
[00:15:13] now but it's about to take a sharp left
[00:15:15] turn.
[00:15:15] >> All of these sects and they will tell
[00:15:17] you that Israel will not protect them
[00:15:19] and is playing on this game to continue
[00:15:22] its war. Um it's endless war in the
[00:15:25] region. As someone from the golden
[00:15:26] heights, we know very well that the
[00:15:30] Assad family was the best and most
[00:15:33] supportive protector to Israel and
[00:15:36] Israel's existence all of those years
[00:15:39] ever since Hus Assad came into power and
[00:15:41] the reason as to why he came into power.
[00:15:44] So today when the Assad family is gone,
[00:15:48] this is what happens and and this is
[00:15:50] what upsets them and and and continues
[00:15:52] to to aggravate them. um in their
[00:15:56] occupational nature and and the way that
[00:15:58] they are.
[00:16:00] >> This is not the first time I've heard
[00:16:02] this idea as well.
[00:16:05] >> Yeah. I mean, it's complete nonsense.
[00:16:08] you know, with all due respect to her
[00:16:10] and the other Syrians that, you know,
[00:16:12] they were upset with Bashar al-Assad.
[00:16:15] They had plenty of reasons to be, and
[00:16:18] now they're kind of idealistic and
[00:16:21] hopeful and romanticizing this idea of,
[00:16:23] you know, rebuilding the Syrian state.
[00:16:26] Uh, but they're using this excuse or
[00:16:28] this idea that they're being bombed by
[00:16:30] Israel now as like some sort of evidence
[00:16:31] that they haven't been collaborating
[00:16:33] with the Zionists when they are. And the
[00:16:36] reason why they're being bombed is
[00:16:37] because Israel is exerting their
[00:16:39] influence and establishing themselves as
[00:16:42] top dog in Syria now. And that's why,
[00:16:44] you know, Syria doesn't have any air
[00:16:46] defenses. And so Israel can do whatever
[00:16:50] it pleases. And you keep you always see
[00:16:52] these false reports where they say
[00:16:53] Turkeykey's about to, you know, enforce
[00:16:55] a no-fly zone or Turkey has an entire
[00:16:58] squadron of fighter jets or about to
[00:16:59] intercept Israeli jets above the skies
[00:17:01] of Damascus. That's not going to happen.
[00:17:04] And Turkey just recently arranged a day
[00:17:06] before all this chaos ensued. They
[00:17:08] arranged a meeting between Syria in and
[00:17:11] Israel in Azerbaian. And in Aarbaian,
[00:17:13] they were discussing uh you know, you
[00:17:17] know, just relations between them. And
[00:17:19] to Syria's credit, you know, they said,
[00:17:21] "We're not ready to normalize, you know,
[00:17:22] we want to focus on this 1974
[00:17:24] agreement," which is delusional and
[00:17:26] naive because Israel obviously doesn't
[00:17:28] respect who they're negotiating with.
[00:17:30] That's why they met with them and then a
[00:17:32] few days later were bombing them in
[00:17:35] order to support,
[00:17:36] you know, armed militants that don't
[00:17:38] want to be part of the central
[00:17:39] government. So, they're undermining
[00:17:40] their territorial integrity, undermining
[00:17:42] the security uh of the state and the
[00:17:45] power of the state, you know, and they
[00:17:46] did that just after meeting them. So,
[00:17:48] they're bombing them to send a very
[00:17:49] clear message. And it worked. You know,
[00:17:52] the security forces were forced to
[00:17:53] retreat back to Damascus with their tail
[00:17:55] between their legs. And and I say that
[00:17:57] bluntly. I know if they're, you know,
[00:17:59] Syrians that are supportive of the new
[00:18:00] government that hear this might not like
[00:18:02] it, but it is what it is. I don't think
[00:18:03] we can keep our head in the sand about
[00:18:04] it anymore. The Syrians are like
[00:18:07] surprised and enraged because from their
[00:18:09] perspective, they're like, you know,
[00:18:10] we've been making concession after
[00:18:12] concession after concession to the
[00:18:13] Israelis. You know, this is proof that
[00:18:15] they're genocidal. It's like, well, you
[00:18:16] should have known that from the
[00:18:17] beginning and you shouldn't have been
[00:18:18] making these concessions in the first
[00:18:19] place. You've been arresting Palestinian
[00:18:21] resistance. You've been allowing
[00:18:22] genocidal rabbis who support the
[00:18:24] genocide in Gaza to come to Damascus.
[00:18:27] You give Eli Cohen's belongings, the
[00:18:30] worst traitor in Syria's history, an
[00:18:33] Israeli MSAD agent that deeply
[00:18:35] penetrated and infiltrated the Syrian
[00:18:36] government. He's one of the MSAD's most
[00:18:39] uh prized uh spies and he undermined
[00:18:42] Syria's interests and they give his
[00:18:44] belongings back to the Israelis. They
[00:18:46] welcome Zionist businessmen like
[00:18:48] Jonathan Bass to come and negotiate
[00:18:50] energy deals so that they can profit off
[00:18:53] of Syria's resources. So they make all
[00:18:55] these concessions and then they're
[00:18:57] surprised when Israel still doesn't
[00:18:58] respect them. It's because they only
[00:18:59] respect power and force and you're not
[00:19:01] willing to go to war with them. I'll say
[00:19:04] this, I'll concede that, you know, Syria
[00:19:07] isn't in a position to really fight
[00:19:10] Israel. Galani could be assassinated at
[00:19:12] any moment. So it's not surprising that
[00:19:15] he would not necessarily, you know, join
[00:19:18] the resistance and fight them. But I I
[00:19:21] think it's time to just be honest about
[00:19:22] what's happening and wake up to the
[00:19:24] reality. And so those are my thoughts on
[00:19:27] her comments.
[00:19:28] >> So the thing is like Galani or Al Shara,
[00:19:31] whatever you want to call him, uh
[00:19:33] depending on your political affiliation
[00:19:35] or stance, uh it it basically seems to
[00:19:38] me looking at his whole career based off
[00:19:40] interviews he's given, I think one of
[00:19:41] the most telltale comments he's ever
[00:19:43] made was, "I joined al-Qaeda to quote
[00:19:46] learn new skills and get involved in
[00:19:48] politics." And I do believe that, you
[00:19:50] know, we could call him an ex-militant.
[00:19:52] I don't think that political ideology is
[00:19:54] necessarily useful for him anymore, but
[00:19:57] you know, he wants access to political
[00:19:59] power. It seems to be the driving force
[00:20:01] behind his entire career and his entire
[00:20:02] life. And he's ideologically mutable. He
[00:20:05] can change in order for his own
[00:20:07] survival. And it just seems, Robert, I
[00:20:09] like your thoughts, like this is just
[00:20:11] him, all these concessions he's giving
[00:20:13] with Syria. Um him uh basically uh
[00:20:18] folding to Western foreign policy
[00:20:20] objectives is just more of that.
[00:20:23] >> Well, that's the route he's gone down.
[00:20:25] He's seeking the approval of the West
[00:20:27] and he's trying to appease the Israelis
[00:20:29] at every single turn. Um an Israeli
[00:20:32] journalist, a prominent Israeli
[00:20:34] journalist uh just the other day
[00:20:36] commented for the Washington Institute
[00:20:37] for Naries Policy that uh Ahmed his
[00:20:41] government set up communication with the
[00:20:43] Israelis less than 3 days after entering
[00:20:45] Damascus. So clearly it was a priority
[00:20:48] to open up discussions if this is true
[00:20:51] with the Israelis. It's one of the first
[00:20:52] things that they did. We had the
[00:20:54] statements coming out from the new
[00:20:55] Syrian leaders um from the very first
[00:20:58] week as soon as they got into power that
[00:21:01] they were not going to contest Israel.
[00:21:03] Um in the case of the mayor of Damascus
[00:21:06] that he was uh seeking normalization
[00:21:08] with the Israelis. Um and so the what we
[00:21:11] see now is they don't really know what
[00:21:15] to do. Ahmed Des yesterday he appeared
[00:21:18] uh uh for an for a speech. He spoke for
[00:21:22] five minutes after hundreds and hundreds
[00:21:25] of his soldiers had been blown up by
[00:21:28] Israeli air strikes and his own people
[00:21:30] are in the streets calling for
[00:21:32] retaliation but he can't do anything
[00:21:35] because he's completely beholden uh to
[00:21:37] his western handlers essentially. That's
[00:21:40] what's happened here because he's sought
[00:21:42] the economic route. He's like, "Well,
[00:21:44] maybe if we do what Sudan did uh after
[00:21:47] the overthrow of Bashir and uh you know,
[00:21:49] we get the sanctions dropped, we get off
[00:21:51] our terrorist designations um and we uh
[00:21:55] get sanctions relief and all of this,
[00:21:58] then suddenly uh we can recover as a
[00:22:00] country and we can at least revive uh
[00:22:02] the country economically." But while
[00:22:04] he's trying to do that, he's got a
[00:22:07] myriad of militant groups which he
[00:22:08] cannot control. And a lot of people will
[00:22:10] say that that's an excuse for him. I
[00:22:12] don't think it's an excuse. Even his
[00:22:15] forces within what is the Syrian uh
[00:22:17] armed forces right now when they were
[00:22:19] sent to Seda and by the way a lot of
[00:22:21] people on the pro uh government side are
[00:22:24] arguing that the Drews started it all. I
[00:22:26] acknowledge there are Drew separatist
[00:22:28] movements. There are Drew sectarian
[00:22:30] militias, but they didn't start it.
[00:22:32] There was a kidnapping on July 11 by
[00:22:35] Bedawin uh uh tribesmen who kidnapped a
[00:22:39] Drews uh uh trader who was traveling to
[00:22:41] Damascus. Then there was an ambush on a
[00:22:43] checkpoint um and things uh basically
[00:22:48] exploded from there. Um but also look
[00:22:50] what happened in that scenario. Indor uh
[00:22:54] tribal forces in Dzour jumped on pickup
[00:22:56] trucks and hence headed straight for
[00:22:58] Sueda uh talking about uh killing the
[00:23:02] Drews. That was what they were talking
[00:23:04] about. They're there with their scissors
[00:23:05] talking about chopping off their
[00:23:07] mustaches. And for the Syrian government
[00:23:09] right now, it's not actually a good look
[00:23:11] for them to do this. when they sent
[00:23:12] their forces originally into northern
[00:23:14] Sueda, they I think probably Ahmed
[00:23:16] Ashara probably wanted them to calm it
[00:23:18] down because he knew the Israelis were
[00:23:20] going to commit these air strikes. The
[00:23:22] reason why the Israelis are committing
[00:23:23] the air strikes, by the way, are
[00:23:24] twofold. Number one, it does want to
[00:23:26] expand its territory and it does want to
[00:23:28] work with the Drews to uh form sort of a
[00:23:31] rump state in the south. but also it has
[00:23:33] to appease its own Israeli Jewish
[00:23:35] population who protest on the street and
[00:23:37] they want uh there to be Israeli
[00:23:39] intervention on their behalf. So Ahmed
[00:23:42] Ashara sends his men from Damascus.
[00:23:44] They're not enough and they start siding
[00:23:46] with the uh Bedawin forces um and
[00:23:50] committing sectarian war crimes
[00:23:52] according to all of the reports on the
[00:23:53] ground. Then the Drews mobilize. Then
[00:23:56] suddenly Julani has to send more of his
[00:23:58] men from Damascus. He tries to send
[00:24:01] special forces units. Uh but it doesn't
[00:24:03] work. It doesn't work because many of
[00:24:05] these men are they're sectarian militia
[00:24:08] men. It's not yet a formal army. We
[00:24:11] can't even think about Syria and the
[00:24:12] Syrian state as what we thought about it
[00:24:15] before during uh the civil war. We can't
[00:24:18] think of Syria as the same entity. It's
[00:24:20] not anymore. Um and then that allows and
[00:24:23] open the door for groups from Idlib to
[00:24:25] come down as well. So basically you have
[00:24:28] all of these different groups uh
[00:24:30] including foreign fighters, people who
[00:24:33] are are sectarian u and they're
[00:24:35] sectarian death squads essentially who
[00:24:37] came in um and are going to obviously
[00:24:40] commit massacres against civilians and
[00:24:42] that's been documented. We don't know
[00:24:44] all of the cases whether they're true or
[00:24:46] not because you know there's a lot of
[00:24:48] lies uh when these sort of uh tensions
[00:24:52] arise as happened in the coast. some of
[00:24:54] the cases we heard were not true. But
[00:24:56] they killed thousands of civilians and
[00:24:58] there's no dispute over that. Um, and
[00:25:00] it's not even a good thing for the
[00:25:01] Syrian government for this to happen.
[00:25:04] Just logically, it doesn't make sense
[00:25:05] for them to do it. But that's what
[00:25:07] happens when you've got 30,000 men who
[00:25:10] were just part of al-Qaeda linked groups
[00:25:12] who are not properly trained, who are
[00:25:15] not disciplined, uh, who are extremely
[00:25:17] ideological, and then you send them in
[00:25:19] to minority areas. So, I I think what
[00:25:23] we're seeing here is that they're
[00:25:25] surprised because they coordinated,
[00:25:26] according to Axios News, the Syrians
[00:25:28] coordinated the entrance of tanks into
[00:25:31] SUA, but then Israel bombed them anyway.
[00:25:33] And that, you know, all these people are
[00:25:35] getting up and they're like, "Oh, well,
[00:25:36] Israel's bombing and this proves that
[00:25:38] somehow, you know, uh, we must be
[00:25:40] fighting them." Well, they just killed
[00:25:42] hundreds of your troops and you haven't
[00:25:44] moved. They've been invading your
[00:25:45] country for months, months and months
[00:25:47] now. They've taken over key water
[00:25:48] resources, occupied villages, ethnically
[00:25:51] cleansed villages, and nothing. They
[00:25:53] bomb Damascus every other week, and
[00:25:55] there's literally no response, which is
[00:25:57] the exact same thing these people were
[00:25:58] accusing Bashar Assad of doing, not
[00:26:01] responding when for years, he didn't
[00:26:04] respond to Israeli air strikes
[00:26:05] throughout Syria. Um, but at least back
[00:26:08] then, they wouldn't invade. There were
[00:26:10] red lines. Uh, but now they can get away
[00:26:12] with anything because Israel understands
[00:26:14] Syria's weak. That was its plan all
[00:26:16] along to weaken Syria to basically do
[00:26:19] whatever it wants with it. And then you
[00:26:20] have a government which is incapable of
[00:26:23] controlling its the forces it's aligned
[00:26:25] with uniting the country. Um and now it
[00:26:29] can't even manage this situation like
[00:26:32] even though it had agreements with the
[00:26:33] Drews and it has agreements and it works
[00:26:35] in security coordination with the
[00:26:36] Israelis. Uh so it's a mess. It's a
[00:26:39] complete mess and we're not even getting
[00:26:41] into what happened with the Kurds um and
[00:26:43] the agreement struck with them and the
[00:26:46] lack of initiative there on part of the
[00:26:47] Syrian government to implement that.
[00:26:49] It's just everywhere you turn in Syria,
[00:26:52] it's chaos. And then we have the rise of
[00:26:54] groups like Dash again because they are
[00:26:56] coming back. They are uh resurging um
[00:27:00] and threatening to come back in a major
[00:27:02] way. Um, and there's also been a number
[00:27:04] of uh plots to assassinate Ahmed Des at
[00:27:07] this point, too. Um, so I don't even see
[00:27:10] Syria at this point as a country yet.
[00:27:12] It's it's trying to become a country, I
[00:27:14] guess, but it's not a country. We can't
[00:27:16] look at it as the Syria we once knew.
[00:27:19] That's gone. We're back to like 1949
[00:27:23] uh when the CIA overthrew the Syrian uh
[00:27:26] government and there was over a decade
[00:27:28] of of chaos and things really didn't
[00:27:31] begin to stabilize until the 1960s.
[00:27:33] That's sort of where we're at right now.
[00:27:36] and and Ahmad when you like monitor like
[00:27:38] discourse um about this like online and
[00:27:41] I know that's the most access like we
[00:27:43] can get to like what people are thinking
[00:27:45] you know uh the accounts they follow and
[00:27:47] stuff like that like is is there any
[00:27:49] sort of like discussion about how like
[00:27:52] these other countries play into it
[00:27:54] Turkey Qatar the United States or is it
[00:27:56] just solely fixed on Israel because that
[00:27:58] would be um very like beneficial to uh
[00:28:02] US plans within the region if if they
[00:28:05] just like only solely focused on Israel,
[00:28:08] not the other players on the board.
[00:28:11] >> Uh could you clarify your question a
[00:28:13] little further?
[00:28:14] >> Yeah. So, um I I guess like you you were
[00:28:17] talking about messaging and stuff around
[00:28:19] this and trying to find a more unifying
[00:28:21] narrative. Are you seeing um like any
[00:28:24] accounts within Syria that are like
[00:28:26] friendly towards the government uh
[00:28:28] mention any other players right now
[00:28:30] beyond Israel?
[00:28:31] >> Yeah, there there wasn't a Syrian. I
[00:28:34] believe there was a aqatari uh
[00:28:36] influencer. I'll have to find the tweet
[00:28:37] and send it to you. Uh but he was
[00:28:40] pointing out that the Gulf States need
[00:28:42] to take a firm stance and stand behind
[00:28:45] this new Syrian government and if they
[00:28:47] don't then they really risk emboldening
[00:28:48] Israel to do even more and eventually
[00:28:50] this will you know expand and this
[00:28:52] conflict will just spread and it'll
[00:28:54] enter other countries as well. And uh so
[00:28:57] yeah there is that kind of discourse. I
[00:28:59] think people are slowly starting to wake
[00:29:01] up and be disappointed in Turkey because
[00:29:03] they felt like, you know, there were all
[00:29:05] these promises that Turkey was going to
[00:29:07] establish a base and that Turkey would
[00:29:08] provide air defense and that Turkey
[00:29:10] would provide uh fighter jets to protect
[00:29:13] Syria. And it's very clear that they
[00:29:15] can't and they won't do that because
[00:29:16] they're not willing to a risk the
[00:29:18] relationship they have with Israel
[00:29:20] because they do have a sort of deacto
[00:29:22] alliance with Azerbaijan and Turkey. uh
[00:29:25] you know, Israel likes Turkey staying
[00:29:26] busy in Central Asia and they're happy
[00:29:28] to see them expand there as long as they
[00:29:30] don't expand in the Middle East uh or in
[00:29:33] Syria and other places. And so they kind
[00:29:35] of have a deacto alliance. Everybody
[00:29:36] knows that Azerbani oil goes to Israel
[00:29:38] through Turkey.
[00:29:40] >> And so, you know, Turkey basically
[00:29:43] Turkey got what they wanted, which was
[00:29:44] like a little tiny buffer zone in the
[00:29:46] north of Syria just in case they need to
[00:29:49] bump heads with a Kurdish state. But,
[00:29:51] you know, that clock is ticking. that's
[00:29:53] going to come. As Robert has like very
[00:29:55] excellently laid out, Syria is uh I
[00:29:58] don't know if I can curse, but it's, you
[00:30:00] know,
[00:30:00] >> Yes, you can.
[00:30:01] >> Okay. Well, it's a cluster [ __ ] and
[00:30:03] it's going to get worse. And the whole
[00:30:05] point is to establish a microbuffer Drew
[00:30:08] state between them and this new Syrian
[00:30:11] state. They're going to establish
[00:30:13] everyone knows about this David corridor
[00:30:15] or they're starting to learn about it
[00:30:17] which stretches from you know occupied
[00:30:19] Palestine Israel basically uh the Seda
[00:30:23] area all the way to you know in the the
[00:30:25] Elan US bases in the middle of that and
[00:30:28] so they have like this land and military
[00:30:30] uh this airspace corridor where Israeli
[00:30:32] fighter jets don't need permission
[00:30:34] they'll just fly over and go straight to
[00:30:35] Iran to bomb them they'll have a land
[00:30:37] route in order to provide weapons to the
[00:30:39] Kurds so that they can establish a proxy
[00:30:41] conflict in Iran. And yeah, basically
[00:30:44] they're they're laying the groundwork
[00:30:46] for uh both Iraq and Syria to be carved
[00:30:50] up. And the point is to help establish
[00:30:53] autonomous governments and institutions
[00:30:56] uh particularly for the Kurds. So in
[00:30:58] preparation for the establishment of an
[00:31:00] independent state and so they start with
[00:31:03] autonomy. So they made this agreement
[00:31:05] with the Syrian state. They're
[00:31:06] technically part of the Syrian state,
[00:31:07] but how are they actually, you know,
[00:31:09] what control does the Syrian state have
[00:31:10] over them? They have nothing. They
[00:31:12] govern themselves. They police
[00:31:13] themselves. They have their own
[00:31:14] military. They control the territory.
[00:31:15] They control the checkpoints. Syrian
[00:31:17] forces can't go without permission. And
[00:31:19] they're very uh rarely allowed to enter
[00:31:21] anyway. And when they do, you have
[00:31:23] clashes and kidnappings and fights and
[00:31:25] and it's the last thing that Golani
[00:31:26] wants. So, Robert's right. You know,
[00:31:28] Syria isn't really a state. And that is
[00:31:30] going to become more and more clear. I
[00:31:31] think I honestly I was surprised to see
[00:31:33] sanctions get lifted in such a short
[00:31:35] amount of time, but now
[00:31:37] >> I think it really telegraphs US
[00:31:39] intentions within the region.
[00:31:42] >> The lifting of the sanctions, you mean?
[00:31:43] >> Yeah. So quickly.
[00:31:45] >> Yeah. Well, you know, on top of that, I
[00:31:47] I think it's just they know that they'll
[00:31:50] lift sanctions, but it'll still be chaos
[00:31:52] and there won't be a lot of investment
[00:31:53] going in there anyway. And so the
[00:31:54] Israelis don't have to worry about all
[00:31:56] of a sudden they're getting pumped
[00:31:57] because there's going to be so much
[00:31:58] instability that you know who's going to
[00:32:00] want to invest in Syria right now. It's
[00:32:02] going to be decades before you can have
[00:32:04] any serious investment. I mean Iraq is a
[00:32:07] [ __ ] show and has been a [ __ ] show for
[00:32:08] over two decades now and it's going to
[00:32:10] continue to be a [ __ ] show. There are
[00:32:11] very slowm moving projects and and
[00:32:14] you're not even talking about whether
[00:32:15] all the different groups in Syria agree,
[00:32:17] right? Like if you want to establish uh
[00:32:20] oil infrastructure in Syria, everyone
[00:32:22] wants a piece of the pie. They argue
[00:32:23] over that. They fight over that. There's
[00:32:25] corruption. There's delays. There's
[00:32:26] payoffs. There's bribes. That's it.
[00:32:28] Syria is a defunct state. That's what
[00:32:29] they always wanted. And so, uh, I think
[00:32:33] more and more Syrians are going to wake
[00:32:34] up to that. Uh, I was speaking to Dr.
[00:32:37] Fouad Isadi from Iran today from Tehran
[00:32:40] University and he said that Iran
[00:32:42] basically their position is to wait it
[00:32:43] out and that they think at some point
[00:32:46] there will naturally be uh local Syrian
[00:32:49] resistance forces that take up
[00:32:51] resistance themselves because they
[00:32:53] they'll realize the Syrian government is
[00:32:54] incapable and unwilling. And so we'll
[00:32:58] see uh how the discourse continues. But
[00:33:01] we are seeing more and more people kind
[00:33:03] of complain about Turkey and and wonder,
[00:33:05] you know, what the Gulf's intentions
[00:33:07] are. And now I think they're fully awake
[00:33:08] to the idea that Israel definitely
[00:33:11] intends nothing good for them.
[00:33:13] >> And I do and I I wanted to uh remark
[00:33:16] once on like foreign intervention in
[00:33:18] terms of their like natural resources.
[00:33:20] There's not even enough stability within
[00:33:23] Syria to actually start like ex the real
[00:33:27] time like exploitation process. I'm just
[00:33:30] going to bring this article up from
[00:33:32] earlier this month. Uh here we go. Uh
[00:33:36] sorry, putting it on screen.
[00:33:39] This is from Reuters. Uh from June 2nd
[00:33:43] for Syria, Qatar's 7 billion and also
[00:33:46] Turkeykey's involved in this and the US
[00:33:48] is in some sort of like energy
[00:33:50] consortium in Syria. 7 billion power
[00:33:53] plan hinges on fixing its grid.
[00:33:56] and Damascus June 2nd. Reuters Qatar's
[00:33:59] pledge to help war torn Syria rebuild,
[00:34:02] but its $7 billion plans for new power
[00:34:05] plants will mean little unless Damascus
[00:34:07] can stop armed gangs from looting power
[00:34:09] cables faster than the cash government
[00:34:12] can fix them. The deal announcement last
[00:34:14] week by an international consortium led
[00:34:16] by Qatar's UCCC Holdings promises to
[00:34:19] massively expand uh Syria's generation
[00:34:22] capacity and it marks Syria's biggest
[00:34:23] foreign investment announcement since
[00:34:25] President Donald Trump unexpectedly
[00:34:27] announced the lifting of US sanctions on
[00:34:30] Damascus last month. So, uh yeah, I mean
[00:34:34] it's not even stable enough to get these
[00:34:35] projects going.
[00:34:38] >> No. And I think as well that's part of
[00:34:40] the reason why they lifted the sanctions
[00:34:42] so quickly because there is a threat to
[00:34:44] the current government's rule. I think
[00:34:47] people are not happy with the way things
[00:34:50] are going in general. All the people I
[00:34:52] speak to in Syria are even some of the
[00:34:55] people that were very uh positive at the
[00:34:58] start um and they were cautious of
[00:35:01] course uh but they believe that things
[00:35:03] could go in a more positive direction.
[00:35:05] uh they're saying that for instance if
[00:35:07] you go uh to some villages uh
[00:35:09] surrounding hums and hammer uh there's
[00:35:12] people that used to go to the masid uh
[00:35:14] to the mosque to pray their five prayers
[00:35:16] each of the five prayers they pray
[00:35:18] prayed every single day in the masid
[00:35:20] they go only to the juma prayer which is
[00:35:22] on uh a Friday um now they don't bother
[00:35:26] going for the other prayers because the
[00:35:28] people that have been put inside their
[00:35:30] mosques are extremists who are wanting
[00:35:32] to preach a way of life that is not
[00:35:35] congruent with Syrians uh and the Syrian
[00:35:38] uh way of understanding
[00:35:41] uh Islam and Syrian society.
[00:35:44] >> Oh wait, were these the uh the
[00:35:45] governmentapp appointed imams that they
[00:35:47] were sending out?
[00:35:49] >> Yeah, they had them and then they have
[00:35:50] others as well. Like you'll have these
[00:35:52] people that for instance just go into
[00:35:53] the streets with loudspeakers. They call
[00:35:55] it dawa. and uh and they're going off at
[00:35:58] Christians and they're going off at
[00:35:59] other Sunni Muslims and telling them how
[00:36:02] to dress and how to uh you know practice
[00:36:04] their faith and everything. Um and
[00:36:06] people don't want these salivists in the
[00:36:09] street telling them what to do,
[00:36:10] especially from other countries. They've
[00:36:13] never seen these people before,
[00:36:14] especially if you go to cities like
[00:36:16] Damascus where they're not like super
[00:36:19] conservative religious people in many
[00:36:21] areas in Damascus. So the way that
[00:36:24] they've been forced to live now and the
[00:36:26] new rule that's come, of course, uh
[00:36:28] they're not just it's not like
[00:36:29] Afghanistan there. Uh that would be an
[00:36:31] incorrect portrayal, but there's
[00:36:33] frequent kidnappings. People are getting
[00:36:35] shot dead in the streets uh frequently
[00:36:38] all the time. People disappear. Um
[00:36:41] people's wives are stolen and trafficked
[00:36:43] off to Idlib. And there's confirmed
[00:36:45] stories of these. you know, you get many
[00:36:47] different horror stories and it's hard
[00:36:48] to decipher through them. But once you
[00:36:50] get so many of them from so many
[00:36:52] different sources and as well friends
[00:36:54] telling you about them, too. I don't
[00:36:56] think all of these are lies. Like this
[00:36:58] is there's just so much that is
[00:37:01] constantly coming through every single
[00:37:02] day, whether it's sources or uh I see it
[00:37:05] uh through uh media sources.
[00:37:09] You it's just it's insanity what's going
[00:37:11] on and there's no stable situation for
[00:37:13] the people there. And I think that
[00:37:16] combined with the fact that, you know,
[00:37:17] there's a lot of people that brag about
[00:37:19] the the value of the Syrian currency.
[00:37:21] Well, the Syrian currency is getting
[00:37:23] better and there's some investments
[00:37:24] coming in. People don't care when they
[00:37:26] don't have jobs anymore because before,
[00:37:28] you know, they laid off loads of
[00:37:30] government employees when this new
[00:37:32] government came in. Um, so before people
[00:37:35] would get a salary and it would buy them
[00:37:37] nothing and now they have no salary. So
[00:37:38] it doesn't matter what the value of the
[00:37:40] Syrian currency is. At the end of the
[00:37:42] day, you still can't live properly. Oh
[00:37:44] well, there's some more electricity. But
[00:37:46] that's not enough for the people,
[00:37:48] especially with all of the sectarian
[00:37:50] tensions that are going on as well.
[00:37:52] That's another thing that pressures
[00:37:54] people. So they're working, the
[00:37:56] Americans especially coming there,
[00:37:58] they're working to try and recover the
[00:38:01] economy somewhat, which they won't be
[00:38:03] able to do overnight. And we saw how
[00:38:05] that played out in Sudan. There's a
[00:38:07] model that just happened a few years ago
[00:38:09] where we see exactly what happens when
[00:38:11] you have all of the these different
[00:38:13] groups opposing each other and a power
[00:38:15] struggle that's ongoing inside of your
[00:38:16] country. Um, and amidst that you go full
[00:38:21] swing to the west, you want to get your
[00:38:23] IMF loans. You want to get your
[00:38:25] sanctions lifted and off of these
[00:38:26] terrorist lists and everything. You go
[00:38:28] and you seek normalization with the
[00:38:30] Israelis and you get on board with their
[00:38:32] so-called Abraham Accords and then
[00:38:34] suddenly you're exactly where you began.
[00:38:37] The Israelis are are trying to plunge
[00:38:39] your country into civil war. In the case
[00:38:40] of Sudan, they backed both sides at the
[00:38:42] start. Now the government is sort of
[00:38:44] allied uh itself with Iran in Sudan, but
[00:38:47] they backed both the the the army uh and
[00:38:50] the rapid support forces in Sudan. The
[00:38:52] Israelis backed both sides. One side was
[00:38:54] backed by the MSAD, the other side
[00:38:56] backed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
[00:38:58] Um, and the same thing is in Syria here.
[00:39:01] They're making they have communication
[00:39:03] with the Syrian government. They're
[00:39:05] allied with the Syrian government on uh
[00:39:07] some security uh coordination issues.
[00:39:10] They're trying to draft some sort of an
[00:39:11] agreement with them, but at the same
[00:39:13] time, simultaneously, they're backing
[00:39:15] separatist militia groups that will go
[00:39:18] and take them out and kill their own
[00:39:20] forces. And then you have the people who
[00:39:22] are living in and I don't blame them. I
[00:39:24] don't blame them because if you're a
[00:39:26] Syrian and you accept what has happened
[00:39:28] to your country like many people I I now
[00:39:31] know many Syrians, they're devastated.
[00:39:33] They're absolutely devastated on both
[00:39:35] sides. Whether they were supporters
[00:39:36] before of keeping Bashar al Assad on
[00:39:39] site in power or they were supporters uh
[00:39:42] of the opposition. Both of them when
[00:39:45] they come to this realization they
[00:39:46] become devastated because they realize
[00:39:48] what has happened to their country. They
[00:39:50] realize how their country has fallen
[00:39:51] apart and they realize that that vision
[00:39:54] that they had, that revolutionary vision
[00:39:56] that they had uh is gone. Those
[00:39:58] principles that Syria used to stand for,
[00:40:01] like standing behind the Palestinian
[00:40:03] cause, for instance, like wanting to
[00:40:05] fight to retake its territory in the
[00:40:07] Jolan, that's gone. It's gone now. Um at
[00:40:10] least for now. It there is a
[00:40:12] possibility, and I will note this. Um,
[00:40:14] and this is something I I think that
[00:40:16] people should know from history in
[00:40:18] southern Lebanon when the Israelis uh
[00:40:21] invaded in 1982.
[00:40:23] Some of the Shi population, and this is
[00:40:26] really hard for people to imagine now,
[00:40:28] some of the Shi population came and
[00:40:30] threw rice at their feet and they were
[00:40:32] happy that they came in. And there were
[00:40:34] people in the Shia population in
[00:40:36] southern Lebanon who believed that the
[00:40:38] PLO had a state within a state and they
[00:40:40] didn't like that and they wanted the PLO
[00:40:42] removed. There were people in the south
[00:40:44] like that, right? And the the Shia
[00:40:46] population was not the Shia population
[00:40:48] of South Lebanon that we know today are
[00:40:51] now after the invasion of 82, the
[00:40:53] massacre of between 15 to 20,000
[00:40:56] Lebanese and Palestinians. And then
[00:40:58] afterwards, after the PLO did disarm uh
[00:41:01] to a certain extent and uh moved to
[00:41:03] Tunisia and left the camps open after
[00:41:06] those massacres like Sabra and Chhatila
[00:41:08] which affected the Shia as well in the
[00:41:10] south. Suddenly they transformed into
[00:41:13] the most revolutionary anti-Israel
[00:41:15] population that you could imagine and
[00:41:17] Hisbala was born. So uh this is
[00:41:20] something that we can't predict what
[00:41:23] will happen in the future. We can't just
[00:41:25] say Syria is dead. In fact, the Israelis
[00:41:27] could mess up and they could invade
[00:41:28] Syria and they could uh you know get
[00:41:31] bogged down in a fight against certain
[00:41:32] militant groups who won't stop fighting
[00:41:34] them and they could have a Vietnam style
[00:41:36] situation which they don't want. They
[00:41:38] desperately don't want ground conversion
[00:41:40] because they know they can't sustain it
[00:41:41] at this at this time
[00:41:43] >> uh due to their military their ground
[00:41:45] forces being significantly weakened.
[00:41:48] >> Um but there is still hope that
[00:41:51] something will emerge in the future.
[00:41:53] >> Right. And so this actually brings me uh
[00:41:55] to uh Ahmad one of Ahmad's uh things
[00:41:59] that he posted. Yes. Was it yesterday or
[00:42:01] the day before? One second.
[00:42:02] >> Yeah, it was it was yesterday.
[00:42:04] >> Hang on. Where is it?
[00:42:07] Yeah, we open it up with some Kiss
[00:42:09] Kissingeresque stuff. There are no
[00:42:11] permanent friends, no permanent enemies,
[00:42:13] only permanent interests. Uh, Galani is
[00:42:15] a shrewd operator. He flirted with
[00:42:17] Israel about common enemies, but what
[00:42:19] did it get him? Bombs on Damascus. He
[00:42:21] can and should flip sides. It's time to
[00:42:23] allow weapons to flow back to Hezbollah
[00:42:25] and Lebanon and open up a front on your
[00:42:28] south. Apply pressure on Israel
[00:42:29] separately, but at the same time, um,
[00:42:32] the region needs to stop allowing Israel
[00:42:33] to fight them one-on-one. I mean, yeah,
[00:42:35] this is all like good, but honestly,
[00:42:38] allowing arms to flow back into the
[00:42:41] south of Lebanon,
[00:42:43] I'm not sure that's going to happen,
[00:42:45] though, do you?
[00:42:46] >> No, it's not going to happen at all. And
[00:42:48] that's why people comments calling me
[00:42:50] idealistic and uh wishful and naive.
[00:42:53] >> Uh I'm aware of, you know, the uh high
[00:42:57] probability that it will not happen. Um,
[00:43:00] but I I do think that, you know, to
[00:43:03] Robert's point, you know, just like
[00:43:04] Azbollah was born out of the occupation
[00:43:06] of the south. Uh, there's the potential
[00:43:09] to see that in Syria. And, you know, uh,
[00:43:12] whoever Golani or Ahmed Shara, whatever
[00:43:14] you want to call him, whoever he's been
[00:43:16] coordinating with in order to sustain
[00:43:17] his position, at the end of the day, if
[00:43:19] the pressure is great enough, you know,
[00:43:21] from the bottom up, he'll either have to
[00:43:23] be removed or he'll pivot himself. And
[00:43:27] you know, I think what if if I am going
[00:43:30] to continue to be idealistic and and and
[00:43:32] wishful, you know, I'm going to just say
[00:43:34] that my hope is that the region can
[00:43:37] understand that their security um they
[00:43:41] depend on each other for security and
[00:43:43] they need to stop undermining one
[00:43:45] another and start supporting and
[00:43:46] uplifting one another and and presenting
[00:43:48] a true front against the state of Israel
[00:43:51] and resisting them. And if they don't
[00:43:52] want to do so militarily, that's fine.
[00:43:54] But they can do so economically,
[00:43:56] politically, diplomatically. We haven't
[00:43:58] seen that in the region at all. We
[00:44:01] haven't seen it from Jordan. They've
[00:44:02] allowed food, goods, supplies. While Ga
[00:44:05] While Israel starves Gaza, Jordan feeds
[00:44:08] Israel. While Gaza has no power and
[00:44:11] electricity, Turkey fuels Israel. while
[00:44:16] the Houthis blockade the Red Sea in
[00:44:18] order to put pressure on Israel. Saudi
[00:44:19] and the UAE allowed trade routes, you
[00:44:21] know, all the way up through Jordan to
[00:44:23] keep feeding and supplying Israel. So,
[00:44:25] we haven't really seen an attempt to try
[00:44:27] and stop Israel from not only carrying
[00:44:30] out their genocide, but expanding their
[00:44:33] violence all across the region. So my
[00:44:36] idealistic and naive hope is that the
[00:44:39] region will come together including Iran
[00:44:42] because Iran has demonstrated that you
[00:44:44] know their interests are are strictly in
[00:44:47] confronting Israel's aggression and that
[00:44:50] was the whole point for their
[00:44:51] involvement in Syria. The the whole
[00:44:52] point was to you know people want to
[00:44:54] make it about Shia conquest of Sunni
[00:44:56] lands. You know, I don't want to suggest
[00:44:58] that there aren't sectarian um
[00:45:01] extremists and things of that nature,
[00:45:03] but you know, this was strictly
[00:45:04] geopolitical. So, my hope is that the
[00:45:06] realignment in the region will see all
[00:45:09] of these nations uh align their
[00:45:12] geopolitical interests with one another.
[00:45:13] So, there is no need to engage in proxy
[00:45:15] conflict in order to one up each other
[00:45:17] and gain influence over each other in
[00:45:18] order to feel more safe and secure. And
[00:45:21] I'm hoping that in Syria after 14 years
[00:45:24] of conflict and the Syrian population uh
[00:45:28] increasingly being anim, you know,
[00:45:29] having animosity and hatred of Iran that
[00:45:32] they begin to see one another as needing
[00:45:35] each other in order to fight off the
[00:45:37] real cancer in the region, which is the
[00:45:39] state of Israel. And I think uh there's
[00:45:41] an opportunity for that. And I think,
[00:45:43] you know, whether people want to believe
[00:45:44] in that or not doesn't matter if it
[00:45:46] really is in everyone's interest. And I
[00:45:48] think it'll force itself naturally. And
[00:45:51] so we might see that in the coming
[00:45:52] years. I don't know how or when that'll
[00:45:54] play out, but
[00:45:57] that's my hope.
[00:45:58] >> Yeah. You know, I I do think there's
[00:46:00] some some comfort in the fact that no
[00:46:03] how no matter how you cut it, uh US
[00:46:06] global dominance and power projection is
[00:46:09] hope it's irrevocably on the decline.
[00:46:11] you know, uh, the the war with Iran, the
[00:46:15] 12-day war with Iran, you know, was a a
[00:46:18] PR success if you're like in MAGA World
[00:46:21] or you're like a like a Warhawk in DC,
[00:46:24] uh, like at the Sabon Institute or
[00:46:26] something like that. But anyone who's
[00:46:28] serious about this knows that it did not
[00:46:30] go well. Um, that was only the first
[00:46:33] cycle of violence that we'll see. either
[00:46:35] trying to ramp up and figure out what
[00:46:36] the next manifestation to armed conflict
[00:46:39] and confrontation with Iran will be. But
[00:46:41] this actually kind of brings in um
[00:46:44] Lebanon. And at the last segment, I I
[00:46:47] think we need to address what's
[00:46:48] happening there because we're seeing a
[00:46:49] lot of this the same dynamics. We're
[00:46:52] seeing the US and Israel uh Israel come
[00:46:54] in to try to pressure um the president
[00:46:59] and the Lebanese government to
[00:47:02] demilitarize Hezbollah. You're also
[00:47:04] seeing Turkey in the north trying to uh
[00:47:08] gain influence and de facto control over
[00:47:11] critical infrastructure. There's a
[00:47:13] airirst strip up there and there's the
[00:47:15] deep water port of Tripoli and also like
[00:47:17] Saudi is involved as well in a influence
[00:47:20] battle at the ballot box within the
[00:47:22] Lebanese government. Uh so it's kind of
[00:47:24] like a similar situation. Uh obviously
[00:47:26] completely different demographics and
[00:47:28] history and stuff like that, but it's
[00:47:30] the same kind of playbook. this dividend
[00:47:32] day at Emperor uh use uh IMF relief
[00:47:35] because of course in Lebanon uh they
[00:47:37] need a lot of foreign investment and aid
[00:47:40] to rebuild what Israel destroyed and uh
[00:47:44] so that's being leveraged with the
[00:47:45] government as well and you know the
[00:47:48] French are involved so I think like I
[00:47:51] don't know maybe we should discuss that
[00:47:53] as well because it's all part of the
[00:47:54] same playbook and and plan for like a
[00:47:57] panab normalization
[00:47:59] with Israel to secure the uh to secure
[00:48:02] the entire region for things like the
[00:48:04] IMAT corridor and a bunch of long-term
[00:48:07] long-standing trade and business deals
[00:48:09] that have been in the works for a long
[00:48:11] time.
[00:48:12] >> Well, I think what they're doing with
[00:48:14] Lebanon uh will inevitably lead if the
[00:48:17] Lebanese government would be so stupid
[00:48:20] as to implement uh the demands of the
[00:48:23] United States would lead to civil war.
[00:48:25] Um and that's also something a threat
[00:48:27] which comes from some of these militant
[00:48:29] groups which are operating in Syria
[00:48:31] which have not been in any way
[00:48:33] restrained uh which could join in on uh
[00:48:36] such a fight and destabilize all of
[00:48:38] Lebanon. Um I believe that at this stage
[00:48:41] I don't think the Syrian forces are
[00:48:43] capable of taking over Lebanon or
[00:48:46] something like this. I just don't think
[00:48:47] they're powerful enough. I mean uh
[00:48:49] there's some reports saying up to 2,000
[00:48:51] of them were just killed uh in Sueda. I
[00:48:54] don't know if that's correct exactly,
[00:48:55] but between 700 to 2,000 of them were
[00:48:58] just killed. Um, so I I don't exactly
[00:49:01] think that they could take on Lebanon,
[00:49:03] but they could cause a problem. Um, and
[00:49:05] definitely if they had some cells um
[00:49:08] inside of Lebanon, they could cause a
[00:49:10] lot of instability and there are of
[00:49:12] course Zia's men uh of the Lebanese
[00:49:15] forces which could also pose some kind
[00:49:17] of threat. Um and Hezbollah at this time
[00:49:21] it's very clear that it has to launch
[00:49:24] some sort of armed action in the future
[00:49:28] uh in order to restore its prestige and
[00:49:31] again to uh liberate the south of the
[00:49:35] country at least to stop the air strikes
[00:49:38] and the frequent Israeli incursions into
[00:49:41] their territory which they've not been
[00:49:43] able to do. They've left this old to the
[00:49:44] Lebanese army and the Lebanese army as
[00:49:47] everybody knows will never fire a single
[00:49:48] bullet in the direction of the Israelis.
[00:49:51] It's sort of similar to how the uh
[00:49:54] Syrian military now would never fire a
[00:49:56] bullet towards uh the Israelis. It's
[00:49:58] only the resistance that will do that.
[00:50:00] In the case of Syria, the resistance if
[00:50:01] it tries to rise its crackdown upon. But
[00:50:04] Hezbollah is still very strong. It's
[00:50:06] lost a portion of its uh arsenal. It's
[00:50:10] lost its senior leadership. Um it
[00:50:13] >> supplyines
[00:50:14] >> supply lines uh there are still weapons
[00:50:16] that are coming in over the Syrian
[00:50:18] border because again Syria is not uh a
[00:50:22] state as it was before. There's a lot of
[00:50:24] different groups that will sell weapons
[00:50:26] over the Lebanese border that will
[00:50:28] smuggle weapons for money and there's a
[00:50:30] lot of weapons in Syria. So there's
[00:50:31] still stuff coming in but those
[00:50:34] advanced, you know, precision missiles
[00:50:36] and things like that, they're not going
[00:50:37] to be coming in unless Iran has some
[00:50:40] method we don't know about. uh in in
[00:50:42] delivering them. But Hezbollah still has
[00:50:44] a force uh of around a 100,000 fighters.
[00:50:48] It still has all the weapons, the light
[00:50:50] weapons that it needs to fight the
[00:50:52] Israelis on the ground. Um and so in my
[00:50:55] opinion, Hezbollah doesn't actually need
[00:50:58] these uh precision uh these long range
[00:51:01] or medium-range precision missiles. Um I
[00:51:04] think that was there um as a deterrent
[00:51:08] in the past. I think that th those
[00:51:10] weapons were there as a deterrent and
[00:51:12] they believed
[00:51:14] um and this was sort of the model that
[00:51:16] seat had set up. They believed that
[00:51:19] there was a level of deterrence against
[00:51:21] the Israelis after October 7. Um as has
[00:51:26] been admitted now by Israeli officials,
[00:51:29] Israel is a different country. It's not
[00:51:31] the same anymore. It's a different
[00:51:33] entity. It doesn't think the same. It
[00:51:35] doesn't operate the same. In my opinion,
[00:51:38] the Israel we knew before doesn't exist
[00:51:40] anymore. Um, this is a position that
[00:51:42] I've had for some time. I think now that
[00:51:45] Iran and Hezbollah and the likes and
[00:51:46] Hamas and everybody have sort of
[00:51:48] accepted that now this is an existential
[00:51:51] war, an existential threat and the
[00:51:53] Israelis are operating under a different
[00:51:55] mindset where there is no deterrence.
[00:51:57] Nobody has deterrence anymore against
[00:51:59] anyone. the Israelis will act based upon
[00:52:03] interest and what they perceive as uh
[00:52:06] being an attack that will not begget um
[00:52:10] considerable consequences. I think they
[00:52:12] miscalculated when it came to Iran.
[00:52:15] However, their strikes on Lebanon were
[00:52:17] definitely devastating. But in the
[00:52:19] future, I foresee that we will have some
[00:52:22] sort of conflict between the Israelis
[00:52:24] and Hisbalah. But I don't expect
[00:52:26] Hezbollah to operate in the way that it
[00:52:29] did before where it is uh quite
[00:52:31] strategic and reserved. I think uh what
[00:52:34] you're seeing brew especially in the
[00:52:36] Lebanese the South Lebanese population
[00:52:39] is a desire for uh a different kind of
[00:52:42] war, a different kind of attack, a
[00:52:44] different kind of offensive um which
[00:52:47] will not in my opinion need these uh
[00:52:49] precision weapons. It will need light
[00:52:50] weapons uh for it to happen. and but it
[00:52:53] just depends upon that situation in
[00:52:56] sovereign Lebanon and what is the
[00:52:58] perfect circumstance for Hzbalah to act.
[00:53:01] Right now it's not within their interest
[00:53:03] to open up uh the war once again when
[00:53:05] they don't have a goal. They don't know
[00:53:07] what they're doing. Uh they're just
[00:53:08] fighting for the sake of defense. If
[00:53:10] that's the case, you can keep fighting
[00:53:12] the Israelis. They can't win on the
[00:53:14] ground. Uh but you are not going to
[00:53:16] achieve anything. Um so I think we're
[00:53:20] going in that direction. Meanwhile, the
[00:53:21] Israelis are attempting and the US is
[00:53:23] attempting to stir chaos inside of
[00:53:25] Lebanon because they would love a
[00:53:27] situation where Lebanon looks exactly
[00:53:30] like Syria. Um that that's their dream
[00:53:33] scenario. Uh and they are working
[00:53:35] towards it.
[00:53:37] >> Yeah. Um they they I mean I made an
[00:53:39] episode about this like almost two years
[00:53:41] ago, how they they've been trying to do
[00:53:43] this and put actors in place to
[00:53:45] effectuate this within certain um armed
[00:53:47] groups and militias outside the sphere
[00:53:49] of Hezbollah within Lebanon for some
[00:53:52] time. And I guess like finally like in
[00:53:55] the end like this is this belligerent is
[00:53:57] Israeli policy uh you know it's been
[00:54:00] empowered uh by US political and
[00:54:02] military cover for the past two years.
[00:54:05] is the state policy of bombing
[00:54:06] hospitals. It's fine now. Why not bomb
[00:54:09] military buildings? Uh it's just kind of
[00:54:11] like accepted now that this is what's
[00:54:13] going to happen and if you don't get in
[00:54:16] line, you're just going to get bombed
[00:54:18] into oblivion. Um I'm wondering like
[00:54:22] what your thoughts, Ahmad, on on this
[00:54:24] general like policy and if it will
[00:54:26] eventually like backfire.
[00:54:30] Well, the Israelis have always been
[00:54:32] hellbent on achieving their goal of
[00:54:34] expansion. You know, they need a buffer
[00:54:36] for their territory
[00:54:39] and they also just view themselves, you
[00:54:40] know, religiously, uh, politically, they
[00:54:43] view themselves as the superior
[00:54:45] civilization, the superior race, and
[00:54:48] they want to manifest that. And they
[00:54:50] want to come out of the closet as the
[00:54:52] hedgeimon. They want all the Arab states
[00:54:54] to come out of the closet as
[00:54:55] collaborators. They want to make it
[00:54:56] clear that they're top dog and they're
[00:54:58] in charge. And while Israel is an
[00:55:01] extension of US imperialism, they also
[00:55:03] sort of uh dictate US foreign policy in
[00:55:06] the region now. And so there's there's a
[00:55:08] conflict of interest and they oftentimes
[00:55:10] will bump heads and do things that are
[00:55:12] not in the US's interest. You know, the
[00:55:14] US's strategy in every region of the
[00:55:17] world is divide and conquer. They need
[00:55:18] everyone to be on par with one another.
[00:55:20] They don't necessarily like one nation
[00:55:23] having more influence. I mean, even in
[00:55:24] Europe, they didn't really like the idea
[00:55:27] that Germany was going to be this vastly
[00:55:29] superior economy and dominate the
[00:55:30] European Union by having these pipelines
[00:55:33] with Russia where they got cheap fuel to
[00:55:35] power their economy. So, what' they do?
[00:55:37] They blew it up even though it it it
[00:55:39] hurt Germany and but that served their
[00:55:41] interests to an extent because and and
[00:55:43] Patrick Hennington talks about this. Um
[00:55:46] but yeah, I mean they wanted to ensure
[00:55:48] that Europe remains uh divided but no
[00:55:52] nation can overtake the other so that
[00:55:55] they can better control it. Well, in the
[00:55:56] Middle East, they're kind of
[00:55:58] contradicting this policy by allowing
[00:56:00] Israel to become stronger and stronger
[00:56:01] and stronger and coming out as you know
[00:56:03] a potential regional hegeon, which
[00:56:05] they're very close to. They haven't
[00:56:06] fully established yet, but this is what
[00:56:08] they're moving towards. So there's a
[00:56:10] conflict of interest in terms of the US
[00:56:12] policy and what Israel's goals are. But
[00:56:16] you know, this is what Israel wants to
[00:56:17] achieve. They've been talking about this
[00:56:18] since the very beginning. And October
[00:56:21] 7th is this juicy lemon that they keep
[00:56:24] squeezing and and beating in order to
[00:56:25] get as much lemon juice out of. And it
[00:56:27] doesn't just stop with Gaza and dumping,
[00:56:29] you know, the eventually they will
[00:56:31] ethnically cleanse Gaza fully. Uh they
[00:56:34] will, you know, annex the West Bank. uh
[00:56:37] potentially, you know, dump them into
[00:56:39] Jordan and parts of Syria maybe even and
[00:56:43] they're, you know, looking to ex have
[00:56:45] another round with Iran and just
[00:56:47] continuously expanding their their
[00:56:49] interest. So, this is what they've
[00:56:50] always been wanting to do and they're
[00:56:51] doing it right now. They've been doing
[00:56:53] it every day since October 7th out in
[00:56:55] the open and they're going to continue
[00:56:56] to do so until they get everything that
[00:56:58] they want unless the region stands, you
[00:57:01] know, against them because I don't think
[00:57:02] Iran can do it alone. And I don't even
[00:57:05] know that, you know, you can militarily
[00:57:07] defeat Israel given that, you know,
[00:57:09] they're a nuclearpowered state. So, I
[00:57:11] don't know what their defeat looks like
[00:57:13] and I don't know if they it can they can
[00:57:14] even be defeated in a constructive way.
[00:57:17] It could be very destructive for
[00:57:18] everyone. Um, but either they're
[00:57:21] confronted or they're allowed to
[00:57:22] succeed,
[00:57:23] >> right? And and I guess Robert, like
[00:57:26] would you characterize all like their
[00:57:28] decisions though while incredibly
[00:57:29] violent and yes, they're going for
[00:57:31] complete annexation and ethnic cleansing
[00:57:33] within the occupied Palestinian
[00:57:34] territories definitely seems like it's
[00:57:38] inherently self-destructive.
[00:57:40] >> I I believe so. Whilst I agree with most
[00:57:43] of what Ahmed said, um I disagree on the
[00:57:46] ethnic cleansing. Um I I believe that
[00:57:48] the Israelis absolutely will get away
[00:57:50] with annexing the West Bank. I don't
[00:57:51] think there's any push back in the West
[00:57:53] Bank. Um we could go into why that is.
[00:57:55] Um I I don't see there being significant
[00:57:58] push back even after the annexation. I
[00:58:00] don't uh see there being anything. U so
[00:58:03] but when it comes to Gaza specifically
[00:58:06] and the ethnic cleansing, I don't
[00:58:07] believe Israel can achieve it. And the
[00:58:09] reason why is not because they're not
[00:58:10] evil enough to achieve it. Um it's two
[00:58:13] reasons. Number one, I don't see them
[00:58:16] militarily being able to do it. Uh,
[00:58:19] number one, um, all of their plans and
[00:58:21] schemes fail every single time they go
[00:58:23] into Gaza. Uh, this new Gideon's
[00:58:26] chariots, uh, its wheels have fallen
[00:58:28] off. They don't know what they're doing.
[00:58:30] They were speaking for months about how
[00:58:33] wonderful the next military operation in
[00:58:35] phase two of their war in Gaza was going
[00:58:37] to be. And then they sent their troops
[00:58:39] in there and they started getting uh you
[00:58:42] know uh IEDs thrown into their armored
[00:58:45] personnel carriers and uh getting
[00:58:47] sniped. Uh and then they had no answer.
[00:58:49] They didn't know what they were doing.
[00:58:51] Uh they were always they always just go
[00:58:53] and invade a hospital randomly to say
[00:58:55] that we completed our mission. Um, but
[00:58:58] the the second major reason is because
[00:59:00] if you ethnically cleanse the population
[00:59:02] of the Gaza Strip, you're going to have
[00:59:04] to put them primarily in two neighboring
[00:59:07] countries. That's Jordan and Egypt. At
[00:59:10] the very least, Egypt. So, what is 1.8
[00:59:13] million traumatized people from Gaza
[00:59:15] going to do when they reach Egypt and
[00:59:18] Jordan?
[00:59:19] >> Wounded child, no surviving family.
[00:59:22] >> What's going to happen in that case?
[00:59:24] It's very obvious. Many of them have
[00:59:26] military training as well. There will be
[00:59:27] fighters that get through, of course,
[00:59:29] because you're ethnically cleansing
[00:59:30] everyone. So, there's a lot of people
[00:59:32] who are policemen. They were working in
[00:59:33] the security apparatus. They're expat
[00:59:35] people who are working with the
[00:59:37] Palestinian authority, security forces.
[00:59:40] Um, and then you have the myriad of uh
[00:59:43] resistance groups operating inside Gaza,
[00:59:46] which
[00:59:47] since the the war has happened, even
[00:59:49] more people are recruited into them. So
[00:59:51] you have this population and then you
[00:59:53] what? You just expel them into the Sinai
[00:59:55] and you expel them into Jordan. If
[00:59:57] they're in Jordan, it's very obvious
[00:59:58] what's going to happen. And the
[01:00:00] populations in those countries, even
[01:00:01] though they're not doing anything now,
[01:00:03] will not oppose that happening from
[01:00:06] their country. They won't be able to,
[01:00:08] especially in Jordan. In Jordan, there
[01:00:11] is a desire for that to happen. And the
[01:00:14] regime in Jordan covers up all of the
[01:00:16] protests. It arrests all the ring
[01:00:18] leaders. It prevents people from taking
[01:00:20] phones. If if you in Jordan, you go in
[01:00:22] Jordan, you go to a protest, which are
[01:00:23] happening all the time, by the way, but
[01:00:25] we don't see them anymore. The Jordanian
[01:00:26] security forces will take away your
[01:00:28] phone and delete the footage because
[01:00:31] they don't want anything to come out.
[01:00:32] But the reality is majority of the
[01:00:34] people in Jordan are Palestinians. Um,
[01:00:37] and a lot of those people would be
[01:00:39] willing to get on board with resistance
[01:00:41] if it did emerge. Um, and we've seen
[01:00:44] that before. So, if you put all of these
[01:00:47] people in these countries, it's obvious
[01:00:49] what's going to happen. and even the
[01:00:50] Israelis. I guarantee that those are
[01:00:53] discussions that are happening behind
[01:00:54] closed doors. If we do do this, then not
[01:00:58] only is this going to be chaos and it's
[01:01:01] going uh to be very costly when we try
[01:01:04] and do it because there is always always
[01:01:06] as well the possibility that Hamas and
[01:01:09] the Palestinian groups if they see that
[01:01:11] this is going to happen uh will launch a
[01:01:14] massive offensive and just not care uh
[01:01:16] and just go all in because at that point
[01:01:19] why not um and
[01:01:23] >> I hope I hope you're right And you know,
[01:01:26] you raise a lot of uh correct and
[01:01:28] important things. I I'll just play
[01:01:30] devil's advocate, I suppose, uh
[01:01:32] literally for for the Israelis, but you
[01:01:35] know, they're aware of this and there
[01:01:36] have been discussions that, you know,
[01:01:38] they intend to send portions of the
[01:01:40] Palestinians from Gaza to different
[01:01:42] European countries to Canada, to the
[01:01:44] United States. They're, you know,
[01:01:46] already preparing to have tens of
[01:01:47] thousands of visas for every country.
[01:01:49] And the Zionists are going to use their
[01:01:51] influence, you know, through their
[01:01:52] lobbies in these countries to solicit
[01:01:55] support for that. And it'll be presented
[01:01:57] as a humanitarian project. And this is
[01:01:59] what Trump has said. Oh, you know, Gaza
[01:02:00] can't be lived in anymore. And it's
[01:02:02] true. Gaza cannot be lived in for God
[01:02:03] knows how long. And little by little,
[01:02:05] they chip away at what's left of the
[01:02:07] infrastructure, which is already, you
[01:02:09] know, very little and it's nothing. And
[01:02:11] they just they're destroying more and
[01:02:12] more water wells. are trying to make it
[01:02:14] completely unlivable so that surrounding
[01:02:16] nations have no choice but to you know
[01:02:19] at least take some Palestinians and and
[01:02:21] the Egyptians have created you know by
[01:02:23] destroying Rafa touching Gaza they've
[01:02:26] created like a another corridor they've
[01:02:28] created another Ghaza the size of Gaza
[01:02:30] and there are concent it's a
[01:02:32] concentration camp there there are walls
[01:02:33] there as well and part of that is to
[01:02:35] establish a buffer zone the other part
[01:02:37] of that as well and if you look at those
[01:02:39] pictures now there are already
[01:02:41] Palestinian refugees living like intense
[01:02:43] in those areas. Their plan is to prepare
[01:02:45] for the inevitable poss well, I don't
[01:02:47] want to say inevitable, but for the
[01:02:48] possibility that Palestinians from Gaza
[01:02:50] are ethnically cleansed into there. And
[01:02:52] so they're preparing, you know, a larger
[01:02:55] concentration camp. They're preparing
[01:02:56] for the security. And this is the whole
[01:02:59] point of the Gaza Humanitarian
[01:03:00] Foundation, to starve the population,
[01:03:02] force them further and further south.
[01:03:04] And we see like you think, well,
[01:03:05] Palestinians maybe they'll never go
[01:03:06] south, but then every single day they
[01:03:09] risk their lives despite knowing that
[01:03:10] they could and probably will die, but
[01:03:13] they still go because you need food at
[01:03:15] the end of the day. And there are a lot
[01:03:16] of Palestinians who uh when I went to
[01:03:18] Egypt, I went on a charity project and I
[01:03:20] filmed for a nonprofit there um speaking
[01:03:23] to Palestinians from Gaza who were in
[01:03:26] Egypt and they say that, you know, one,
[01:03:29] they're not happy about the situation.
[01:03:32] And I'm not trying to make people
[01:03:33] pessimistic and negative, but you know,
[01:03:35] they don't want to they don't want to go
[01:03:37] through this anymore. So, there are a
[01:03:38] lot of Palestinians willing to resist
[01:03:40] and fight and die. And there are many of
[01:03:41] them that are just it's time to they're
[01:03:44] done. They they don't want to live like
[01:03:45] this anymore. And they can't be blamed
[01:03:47] for that. So, it's all unfortunate. I
[01:03:49] hope you're right that it can't be done.
[01:03:51] But, I think they're thinning the
[01:03:53] population through murder and starvation
[01:03:54] anyway. And I think their intention is
[01:03:56] to continue doing that and then open the
[01:03:58] floodgates and offer visas. And if
[01:04:00] you're a Palestinian who's been
[01:04:01] suffering for 2 years under genocide and
[01:04:04] you can go to Canada and you have
[01:04:06] friends and cousins there, you'll go. So
[01:04:08] that's their plan. Uh and I think that
[01:04:11] you know it there's the potential that
[01:04:12] we see that in the the coming year.
[01:04:15] >> Well, there's a portion just to jump in
[01:04:17] there because I have uh family extended
[01:04:20] family both in Gaza and in Egypt who
[01:04:22] left earlier on during the war. Um those
[01:04:25] in Egypt, they say that they want to go
[01:04:26] back to um because the situation there
[01:04:29] sucks like you said like it's just
[01:04:31] untenable. Their life sucks. It there's
[01:04:33] nothing there for them. Um but that
[01:04:37] situation where there is a sense of
[01:04:40] hopelessness amongst the population
[01:04:42] doesn't necessarily translate into a
[01:04:46] mass uh migration to uh Canada or France
[01:04:51] or wherever else of 1.8 million people.
[01:04:54] The majority of those people, number
[01:04:55] one, it's funds. If they have family
[01:04:57] elsewhere and stuff like this, for
[01:04:59] instance, they can go. There's already
[01:05:01] hundreds of thousands of people who have
[01:05:03] left. So, uh there are people that want
[01:05:06] to leave. There's hundreds of thousands
[01:05:08] of more uh more people in Gaza who when
[01:05:12] pled say, "Yeah, like this is the
[01:05:14] sentiment like of a large portion of the
[01:05:16] population. We would we would go
[01:05:18] somewhere if we could." However, to get
[01:05:21] them all to move to European countries
[01:05:24] so far away um and to facilitate this, I
[01:05:27] don't think it's realistic. And the
[01:05:29] Israelis as well in terms of doing that,
[01:05:31] they had the perfect opportunity to do
[01:05:33] this earlier on in the war, but they
[01:05:35] didn't do it. Um and they haven't been
[01:05:38] able to get away with it the entire
[01:05:39] time. And they're also not coordinated
[01:05:41] enough because their their armed forces
[01:05:43] don't listen to them uh listen to their
[01:05:45] own orders. They just go in and shoot
[01:05:47] and kill and bomb whoever they want,
[01:05:49] whenever they want uh when they're in
[01:05:51] front of them. That's why, for instance,
[01:05:52] this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation when
[01:05:55] people go and get the aid, that's not
[01:05:57] like the Israelis getting an order to
[01:05:59] shoot. It's like, yeah, go ahead. Do
[01:06:01] what you want. Like, go ahead. And they
[01:06:03] do. And they and they shoot people in
[01:06:05] the head. Um, and they get, you know, a
[01:06:07] buzz out of it. And they use their
[01:06:08] drones to gun them down, too. Um, and
[01:06:11] they're not professional enough to
[01:06:13] actually pull that off in my opinion.
[01:06:16] Um, because they try they end up like
[01:06:18] they're like go here and then they bomb
[01:06:20] them there,
[01:06:21] >> you know. So I don't think that they are
[01:06:24] going to do that. I think that it would
[01:06:26] destabilize Egypt because you it's not
[01:06:28] just sort of like okay we get these
[01:06:30] Palestinians who are living you know in
[01:06:32] chunks like 20,000 today 50,000 tomorrow
[01:06:35] where we put them all on planes take
[01:06:37] them for the Egyptian border take them
[01:06:38] all on planes in a very orderly fashion
[01:06:41] to Europe and to North America you would
[01:06:44] have to physically because Egypt opposes
[01:06:46] the ethnic cleansing and for very good
[01:06:49] reason you would have to physically
[01:06:50] force them over so that's one step then
[01:06:53] the next step is once you physically
[01:06:55] force 1.8 million people into the Sinai,
[01:06:59] then you need to somehow organize these
[01:07:01] people and then you need to assembly
[01:07:04] line take them out to different
[01:07:05] countries. It's just impossible. It just
[01:07:08] won't happen. Like in my opinion, I just
[01:07:10] don't see it happening. And a lot of
[01:07:11] those people, maybe there's hundreds of
[01:07:13] thousands of them that do want to go to
[01:07:14] European countries. they have family
[01:07:16] members everywhere, you know, and and
[01:07:18] they'll move to those countries, but I
[01:07:20] don't see it being possible to get that
[01:07:23] entire the bulk of them to go to those
[01:07:26] countries. I just don't see it as being
[01:07:28] a positive.
[01:07:30] >> But I might be wrong. I mean, with with
[01:07:33] the with the rise of uh far-right
[01:07:35] movements within Europe, intensely
[01:07:37] anti-immigrant, especially anti-Syrian
[01:07:39] from the civil war specifically, and
[01:07:42] with the new ICE initiatives and
[01:07:44] deportations within the United States
[01:07:47] itself, which influences Canadian
[01:07:49] immigration policy as well, it's just
[01:07:53] it's just a it's just a really weird um
[01:07:55] awkward political situation. And really
[01:07:58] the only conclusion is that, you know,
[01:07:59] since it's not workable diplomatically
[01:08:01] or logistically at this stage, they're
[01:08:03] just going to try and erase and delete
[01:08:06] as many Gaza uh people in Gaza as
[01:08:08] possible and just keep it going. U make
[01:08:11] it one month to the next one one um
[01:08:15] corruption trial hearing delay to the
[01:08:17] next corruption trial hearing delay. I
[01:08:19] mean like the entire the the our entire
[01:08:22] strategy right now and when I say our I
[01:08:25] include Israel in that as well because
[01:08:27] they're a colony but they exert
[01:08:28] unprecedented
[01:08:30] uh influence upon us and our own policy
[01:08:33] that's ever existed within colonial
[01:08:35] history. That's for damn sure. But um
[01:08:41] when it comes uh to this this one issue
[01:08:43] um it's basically just destabilize,
[01:08:47] play for time, exploit chaos, play for
[01:08:51] more time. And you know that's what the
[01:08:53] Iranian ceasefire is. That's what the
[01:08:54] shift here is. That's what the bombing
[01:08:56] of Syria is. Playing for time for
[01:08:59] Netanyahu's own legal issues. That's
[01:09:01] also a part of it. Um I I would say that
[01:09:05] you know while there are a lot of smart
[01:09:07] people within the uh DC beltway
[01:09:11] and within the def defense circles there
[01:09:14] isn't really a cohesive strategy for it
[01:09:16] how this ends. This is this is giving
[01:09:19] Iraq war, global war on terror. Uh we're
[01:09:22] just going to play monthtomonth uh
[01:09:24] continue to implement policies that
[01:09:26] don't work while at the same time trying
[01:09:29] to control the dimensions of the
[01:09:31] conflicts in Lebanon and Syria because
[01:09:33] we don't want to deal with the
[01:09:35] immigrants. I mean bottom line is like
[01:09:37] we could talk about this for hours but
[01:09:39] but it's it's a mess. Um it's an
[01:09:42] absolute mess and I just wanted to see
[01:09:44] like in terms of like messaging going
[01:09:47] forward how to approach people like in
[01:09:49] Syria we we know that or uh in the
[01:09:52] diaspora that there was a lot of uh
[01:09:55] fragmenting over the Palestine movement
[01:09:58] and as we end here because we're out of
[01:10:00] time I think Ahmad uh wanted uh you've
[01:10:04] been trying to like give an olive branch
[01:10:08] or try to bring more people together
[01:10:10] that were divided over the fall of the
[01:10:13] Assad regime.
[01:10:16] >> Yeah. And and I don't know how to do
[01:10:17] that. I haven't having a lot of success.
[01:10:19] I get mocked for it all the time. But I
[01:10:22] think, you know, like any situation in
[01:10:24] which you're trying to bring two very uh
[01:10:28] upset uh opposites towards one another.
[01:10:32] Uh you just have to be empathetic and
[01:10:35] you have to be willing to understand
[01:10:37] each other's perspectives. And so I
[01:10:39] think a lot of Syrians um don't like
[01:10:42] being lectured to or told that you are
[01:10:47] either Zionists willingly or you've been
[01:10:49] duped into fighting for your quote
[01:10:52] unquote freedom. Now look how free you
[01:10:54] are. Um even though that might be true,
[01:10:57] right? Uh so it just it's about you know
[01:11:02] I think what's most important is the
[01:11:04] interests. If they're aligned, naturally
[01:11:06] people will be forced to come together
[01:11:08] again. And we see that when you know
[01:11:10] even though the axis those who support
[01:11:12] the Axis are like uh hey look we told
[01:11:15] you so when Israel bombs them at the
[01:11:16] same time they still condemn it. And
[01:11:18] both Iran and Hezbollah put out a
[01:11:19] statement saying you know we support the
[01:11:21] territorial integrity of Syria. That
[01:11:22] doesn't mean they support Galani. That
[01:11:24] doesn't mean uh that they're happy this
[01:11:25] is taking place. Um, but you know, they
[01:11:28] they still understand that Israeli
[01:11:31] aggression needs to be stopped, right?
[01:11:32] And so I think that's naturally stronger
[01:11:35] than trying to make any kind of
[01:11:36] argument. But I think we just have to
[01:11:38] empathize and understand uh each other's
[01:11:40] perspectives. You know, what why was
[01:11:42] Iran and Hezbollah interested in what
[01:11:44] they were doing in Syria? Why didn't
[01:11:45] they view the revolution as legitimate?
[01:11:47] I think it's time for Syrians that
[01:11:48] question and vice versa. I think it's
[01:11:50] time for people who support the Axis and
[01:11:53] those who were against the revolution
[01:11:54] and and and understood what the CIA was
[01:11:57] up to and and and all these different
[01:11:58] things. I think it's time for them to
[01:12:00] also ask themselves, well, why would
[01:12:01] Syrians, you know, be so opposed to
[01:12:03] Bashar al-Assad? What was life like for
[01:12:05] them? You know, can I understand their
[01:12:07] perspective or not? And if you can
[01:12:09] understand each other's perspectives and
[01:12:10] empathize one another, then you can
[01:12:12] improve your language and create more
[01:12:13] dialogue and discussion and
[01:12:15] understanding. And I don't know if that
[01:12:16] will work in the end, but that's all
[01:12:18] that I can imagine. And I think that's,
[01:12:20] you know, kind of what I try to do. Even
[01:12:22] though people might look at my tweets
[01:12:23] and say, "Hey, you're being a bit
[01:12:24] abrasive." But I do it, you know, I try
[01:12:27] to be empathetic and sometimes I have to
[01:12:28] be abrasive. But, uh, it isn't working,
[01:12:30] but I hope that, uh, it can, and I'm
[01:12:33] going to continue to try.
[01:12:35] >> Yeah. Agitate, educate, organize. you
[01:12:37] know, you it's not as big of a golden uh
[01:12:40] window of opportunity, but this this um
[01:12:44] bombing of Damascus, this new fresh
[01:12:46] bombing of Damascus, hopefully can
[01:12:48] provide like a sort of like window of
[01:12:50] outreach that we're seeing in America
[01:12:53] now with the disenfranchised MAGA voters
[01:12:55] over the Epstein files. It's like, yeah,
[01:12:57] we can we can all get behind the fact
[01:12:59] that this is wrong. So, maybe we can
[01:13:01] talk about it. I don't know. But, uh
[01:13:04] >> have you seen the Dave Chappelle uh
[01:13:06] meme? It's like a a GIF meme, but it's
[01:13:09] from his early skits, I think, when he's
[01:13:11] dressed up as is it Charlie Murphy, but
[01:13:13] you know, he's doing the come here like
[01:13:15] welcome.
[01:13:17] >> Yeah.
[01:13:17] >> Send it to you. Yeah.
[01:13:19] >> Oh, that's from the that's from the
[01:13:20] Chappelle. Oh, that's when he did
[01:13:23] >> show. Yeah. Yeah. I think when he was
[01:13:24] dressed up as Charlie Murphy, there's
[01:13:25] this gift where he's like, you know,
[01:13:27] welcoming people.
[01:13:28] >> Yeah. Come on in. Like obviously,
[01:13:31] you know, the same people that are uh
[01:13:34] determining bad domestic policy within
[01:13:37] the United States are the same one
[01:13:38] trying to carve up the Middle East and
[01:13:40] push for an Abraham Accords 2.0. So
[01:13:43] anyways guys, we are super out of time.
[01:13:45] I appreciate you staying on an extra
[01:13:47] like almost 15 minutes to get into this.
[01:13:50] So, uh, yeah, Syria, man, it's, uh,
[01:13:54] gonna eventually calm down or or at
[01:13:56] least in terms of, uh, international
[01:13:59] headlines for a couple months and then
[01:14:01] probably kick off again with something
[01:14:03] new. Uh, that's kind of the cycle we've
[01:14:05] been seeing, uh, since last December.
[01:14:07] So, thanks so much, Ahmad from
[01:14:09] Propaganda and Company and Robert
[01:14:11] Inlakesh here at Mint Press News. Thanks
[01:14:14] y'all. And hey, we are doing two shows a
[01:14:17] week. Monday is just me where I do the
[01:14:20] whole breakdown of all the horrendous
[01:14:22] news that you missed over the weekend
[01:14:24] and then we do the Thursday uh
[01:14:26] discussion episode. So uh hopefully you
[01:14:29] guys like, share, and subscribe and
[01:14:31] become regular viewers of that. This has
[01:14:33] been State of Play on Mint Press News.
[01:14:35] Have a great weekend. Um get out into
[01:14:37] your community, try to do something
[01:14:39] social and life does go on. We'll be
[01:14:42] here Monday to tell you every horrible
[01:14:44] thing that you missed. See y'all next
[01:14:47] week.
[01:14:48] Hey, thanks for having me, man. And
[01:14:49] Robert, it was a pleasure meeting you.
[01:14:51] >> Same.
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