What Happened in Syria: The Fall of Assad
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
Brutal Dictator Bashar al-Assad Toppled in Syria
Author’s note: I’m learning about the context of what’s going on in Syria, and am not as well versed on it as I am on Palestine in this critical moment. I have included links to resources below for more detail about what has happened and its implications for the future.
Last weekend, more than a decade after the Syrian civil war began, Syria’s former President Bashar al-Assad fled Syria for Moscow as rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an affiliate of Al Qaeda, descended upon Syria’s capital city of Damascus. In what’s been described as essentially “a bloodless coup,” HTS took Damascus, declaring victory over Assad. This ended five decades of brutal rule over the Syrian people by the Assad family.
Photo: Syrians celebrate the fall of Assad in Damascus, Syria’s capital city, after Friday (Jummah) prayers; Credit: Ghaith Alsayed | AP
Over the last decade, the world has seen the brutality of the Assad regime - from its violent crackdowns on peaceful protestors, its destructive warfare that led Syrian refugees to flee their homeland for safety in other places (namely Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Germany), and its criminal use of chemical weapons against its own people. The world knew he was a monster – what we did not know is how fragile his operations and rule had become over the last year.
From what I have gleaned thus far, it seems that following factors contributed to the collapse: 1) civil war and sanctions crippled Syria’s economy; 2) Russia has been drained of resources and focus on Syria due to its war in Ukraine and the sanctions that have weakened its own economy; and 3) Israel’s invasion of Lebanon has deepened the country’s economic contraction and weakened Hezbollah. And that’s just scratching the surface…
In the hours and days that followed Syria’s liberation last weekend, the world began learning more about Assad’s crimes against the Syrian people - namely through his notorious prisons. Photos and videos from inside the prisons showed people trapped in underground dungeons, imprisoned toddlers who had never known freedom, torture devices, and mass graves.
The fall of Assad represents a new chapter for the Syrian people. Families are being united, exiled Syrians abroad are now able to make plans to visit their homeland, and most importantly, the Syrian people have a chance at self determination and charting their own future.
However, the road ahead is also very uncertain. Assad was a monster who tortured, killed, and gassed his own people to hold onto power; and his overthrow has brought this moment of liberation and joy to many Syrians within Syria and abroad. However, the power vacuum that now exists and the players involved all have their own agenda concerning Syria - HTS, the United States, Israel, and Turkey. At this point, the consensus seems to be that only time will tell what will happen:
Will Syria become a truly democratic state with a government that fairly represents the diversity of its people?
Will foreign powers effectively carve up Syria to suit their interests?
Will Israel annex the Golan Heights and steal more Syrian land?
Since the fall of Assad, it has been reported that the Israeli military has destroyed all of Syria’s military equipment and installations. In fact, the U.S. and Turkey also launched strikes in Syria after the fall of Assad to “protect interests.” Ahead of the fall of Assad, over the course of the last year, Israel had been routinely bombing Syria as it bombed Gaza and Lebanon and conducted airstrikes in Iran and Yemen. Additionally, the Israeli military has moved past the Golan Heights into the buffer zone, occupying more Syrian land.
At minimum, Israel appears positioned to take the Golan Heights, Syrian territory that Israel has illegally held under military occupation since 1967, and could attempt to occupy even more Syrian land under the excuse of “defense” in the days, weeks, and months to come.
The extreme vision of “Greater Israel” that Israel’s most extremist and right wing politicians eschew includes more than half of present-day Syria. Syria is strategically located to the north of Jordan, west of Iraq, and south of Turkey. It borders the Israeli state at its southernmost tip.
Photo: the map of “Greater Israel”
Syria has been liberated from an oppressor, but the reality is that Syria’s future, and the future of the entire Levant is uncertain.
Resources to watch/listen to on the collapse of the Assad regime and the future of Syria:
Center for Political Education Special PSA on Syria with Samer Araabi
Jadaliyya “The Collapse of the Syrian Regime with Omar Dahi and Bassam Hadad”
Too Little Too Late: The White House Releases a Strategy to Combat Islamophobia & Anti-Arab Hate
In the twilight of Joe Biden’s final days as President, as he prepares to hand the power of the presidency back over to Donald Trump, The White House finally released a strategy to combat Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate on December 12, 2024.
Why is this strategy coming now? Likely to check off a box saying that it was something the Biden Harris White House handled, but this is too little too late and its notable at how much of an empty gesture this “strategy” is given the timing and the fact Biden knows his successor will never implement it. Had it been produced before Biden’s lame duck period, it could have been taken more seriously. But it arrives too late and the Muslim American community knows it rings hollow.
Why? First of all, the spike in Islamophobic and anti-Arab hate incidents have directly been tied to the genocide in Gaza - mainly due to the biased corporate media coverage of it, the AIPAC rhetoric and fearmongering parroted by U.S. elected leaders abusing their platforms, and directly by what Biden as POTUS has had to say about whose human rights matter and whose do not. As we know, Biden is a proud Zionist who has made his commitment to protecting Israeli life a priority while arming and funding a literal genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza whose lives he’s made clear matter less. The people of the U.S. watch, learn, and internalize who doesn’t matter and who to hate from the examples our “leaders” set. The data is clear.
And the report fails to identify an end to the genocide in Gaza as a way to combat hate in the U.S., even though it is the main driver of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate here in this moment. There seems to be a refusal to acknowledge that the U.S.’s failing foreign policy is directly contributing to hate crimes and incidents against its own citizens.
This “strategy” comes almost a full 15 months since the genocide in Gaza began, and half a year after the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a report that 2023 was the worst year of Islamophobic hate incidents on record (spiking in the last three months of 2023, post-October 7th).
I hold no illusions about what Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate will be under a Trump presidency, but Biden has set a low bar for his successor and done little to meaningfully institute any protections for citizens who are Muslim and/or Arab, especially over the course of the last 15 months while our communities in the U.S. have been in crisis and it mattered most.
At the end of the day, Biden has done a lot of damage regarding the value of both Arab and Muslim life. At a level we have not seen since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Damning Amnesty International Report Concludes Israel is Committing Genocide in Gaza
Earlier this month, world renowned human rights organization Amnesty International released a nearly ~300 page report which concluded that Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza.
“Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
What does this mean? In 2022, Amnesty International was one of the first human rights organizations to release a report that concluded that Israel maintained a system of apartheid within its own borders and in the occupied territories of Palestine. This report, along with ones released earlier from Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, represented a sea change on the topic of apartheid in Israel. Amnesty’s report on the genocide Israel is conducting in Gaza is the first but will not be the last.
The genocide case against Israel is still underway at the International Court of Justice, and more human rights organizations will likely develop their own reports on the Gaza genocide over the course of the next year. These reports inform global consensus and will lead to Israel becoming more isolated than it already is, and further tarnish the United States on the world stage.
Like clockwork, Amnesty’s report was met with denial from the White House and condemnation from many pro-Israel U.S. elected officials. These are words and actions of complicity.
U.S. Officials Shamelessly Take Photos with War Criminal Yoav Gallant
Senator Corey Booker smiled shamelessly in a photograph with war criminal Yoav Gallant, one of the Israeli officials who has an active warrant out for his arrest from the International Criminal Court for his genocidal intent and actions in Gaza. Gallant was also normalized by The White House during this visit.
The genocide historians will have a lot of content to draw from to illustrate U.S. complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
Photo: Former Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and U.S. Senator Corey Booker (New Jersey)
Up Next
In my next newsletter, I’ll cover the American public’s response to the assassination of the United Health Care CEO and how it represents a tipping point.
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