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By Ruth Riegler Andy Burnham, the UK's new Prime Minister, likes to present himself as the enemy of remote Westminster rule: a plain-speaking northern “man of the people” promising to return decisions to the communities affected by them. Yet on his first visit to Scotland as prime minister on Thursday, Burnham declared another independence referendum “off limits.” Scotland may apparently gratefully receive whatever additional powers Westminster graciously chooses to bestow, but may not decide whether Westminster should rule it at all. After decades as an MP, cabinet minister and mayor—and now as prime minister—Burnham is, despite his posturing, not outside Britain’s political establishment. He is at its summit. Nor does his decision to open a “No 10 North” in his home city of Manchester as an effort to showcase his dedication to 'the North' actually decentralise the United Kingdom. Instead, it moves part of the British government from southern England to northern England, while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland remain territories whose constitutional demands can be dismissed from either office. Even the clichés reveal the Anglocentric reality of British politics. Burnham is presented as an authentic northerner rather than a metropolitan “southern softie.” But 'the North' and 'the South' in question refer always to northern and southern England. Scotland—north of this supposedly definitive North—barely exists except maybe as a minor province or colonial outpost. English preferences are thus depicted as British policy, while Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish preferences become chippy provincial complaints about it. Brexit, Britishness and Belonging Brexit made this imbalance impossible to ignore. It did not create the universal evils of xenophobia, religious bigotry (particularly Islamophobia) or ethnocentric nationalism, of course, but it legitimised and empowered them, lending them a veil of respectability. Its mythology was and remains overwhelmingly Anglocentric: Churchill, Big Ben, British bulldogs, the London Blitz and supposed imperial greatness, all presented as the shared inheritance of a multinational state. These are principally English symbols, however, repackaged as “British” and used to define who truly belongs. There is no claim that Brexit was supported exclusively by England, of course, and English patriotism is obviously not inherently more racist than any other. Scotland certainly has its own share of racists, xenophobes and a growing far right, while many unionists—including English unionists—reject Brexit’s ugliness. The divide is not between imaginary virtuous Scots and suspect English people. It's between civic belonging and exclusionary nationalism built on ancestry, conformity and hostility towards outsiders. The Life in the UK citizenship test is the bureaucratic expression of the same Westminster politics. As Mahmoud Bitar recently noted in a Radio Free Syria article, applicants must memorise thousands of facts, including cultural trivia and selective history that the majority of people born in Britain could not answer. The handbook is more interested in Big Ben, Edward Elgar, roast beef and cricket than in explaining the NHS, schools or emergency services. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland appear as supplementary minor details within an overwhelmingly English story. Syrian-British filmmaker Hassan Akkad exposed the absurdity through a December 2022 survey based on the official test; only 15 participants passed. His survey is not new, but its relevance remains. Belonging is assumed for those born in the UK, regardless of what they know. For newcomers, it is conditional, examinable and expensive: the test costs £50 per attempt, while adult naturalisation now costs more than £1,800 before other expenses. Citizenship is, thus, treated not as the culmination of participation in society, but as a costly privilege for which immigrants must prove themselves worthy through a tarted-up Anglocentric pub quiz. The Westminster Outsiders While Burnham may sound more sympathetic than Nigel Farage, he has not fundamentally rejected the Farage-oriented direction of British immigration policy. Questioning whether Labour’s proposed ten-year qualifying period for permanent settlement should apply retrospectively is not the same as opposing it. Burnham supported Labour’s restrictive Immigration and Asylum Bill, retained Shabana Mahmood as home secretary and retreated from his earlier opposition to the “no recourse to public funds” rule. A more pronounced regional accent than his predecessor Keir Starmer's should certainly not be mistaken for a different political destination. In his 'man of the people' persona, Burnham exemplifies a wider Westminster fashion: politicians who have spent their careers inside Britain’s governing institutions posing as plain-speaking outsiders fighting a “metropolitan elite.” It is Farage’s populist bilge with some of the cruder edges polished off. The supposed anti-elitism of Westminster's doughty self-styled tribunes of the proletariat rarely targets concentrated wealth or corporate power, however. Instead, anger is redirected - subtly or more directly - towards immigrants, refugees, lawyers, academics and human-rights organisations. Farage’s greatest success has been persuading Westminster politicians to accept his premises and compete to deliver them more respectably. The SNP, whatever its weaknesses, has largely avoided this theatrical “ordinary man who tells it like it is” routine. Its case for independence does not require inventing refugees, immigrants or English people as Scotland’s enemy. From Scotland to Syria One of Burnham’s other first acts as prime minister was to appoint Ed Miliband as foreign secretary. For Syrians, that carries bitter historical weight. As Labour leader in 2013, Miliband opposed the proposed British military response following Assad’s chemical attack on Ghouta. Parliament rejected action, the supposed international “red line” collapsed, and Assad continued to bomb, gas, torture and dispossess Syrians with Russian and Iranian support. Miliband has since insisted that he does not regret his decision, invoking the possibility that whatever followed Assad might have been worse. Syrians demanding freedom were reduced to objects of Western risk management, their aspirations subordinated to Westminster’s preference for what it considered predictable stability. Scotland and Syria plainly cannot be equated. Westminster is not the Assad regime, and constitutional independence is not liberation from a genocidal dictatorship. But both cases expose a recognisable Westminster instinct: the assumption that other peoples’ aspirations may be overruled whenever they conflict with Westminster’s calculations. Syrians demanding freedom were told the alternative might be "too dangerous". Scots reconsidering the Union are told the question itself is “off limits.” Scotland is supposedly an equal nation in a voluntary union, yet its constitutional future can be prohibited by a government dominated numerically and politically by England. That is not a partnership of equals. The Britain of 2014 No Longer Exists Unionists invariably reply that Scotland rejected independence in 2014, when 55.3% voted No and 44.7% Yes. The result was accepted—but almost 45% supporting independence was hardly an overwhelming or permanent rejection, particularly after Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats united as Better Together to campaign tirelessly against independence and virtually the entire UK press warned of catastrophe if Scotland left. More importantly, Scotland voted to remain in a Britain that was still inside the European Union. UK membership was presented as the safe way to protect Scotland’s place in Europe. Less than two years later, with Brexit, Scotland voted by 62% to remain in the EU but was removed anyway because of the UK-wide result, determined principally by England’s much larger electorate. Brexit has since devastated UK trade, investment and growth. The Office for Budget Responsibility projects that UK trade intensity will ultimately be 15% lower and potential productivity 4% lower than they would otherwise have been. The political country offered to Scots in 2014 no longer exists. Democracy does not freeze after one vote, particularly when new generations have reached voting age and the constitutional conditions have been transformed. While the referendum 'allowed' Scotland to decide whether to leave the Union, it's often forgotten that Scots - outside a minute 'metropolitan elite' - were never actually asked whether they wished to enter it. The 1707 Act of Union was approved by a Parliament representing aristocrats and wealthy landowners, not the nation's people. More than three centuries later, another British prime minister claims the authority to declare reconsideration of that arrangement “off limits.” Two Visions of the Future This is not to deny that Scottish independence, like any popular cause, attracts cynical bandwagon-jumpers eager to exploit it for their own purposes. The overnight conversion of super-grifter and Assad propagandist George Galloway from lifelong unionist to self-appointed doughty champion of Scotland’s right to self-determination is typically shameless. Galloway campaigned against independence in 2014, shared a Kremlin-promoted Brexit platform with Nigel Farage, tirelessly mocked the pro-independence SNP and later launched the resolutely unionist All for Unity party. His current vehicle is the Workers Party of Britain, although another rebranding will doubtless arrive eventually: Galloway has had more parties than Paris Hilton, though without her charm or sincerity. His newfound love for Scots self-determination suggests his unerring instinct for self-advancement has persuaded him that the political wind is changing. Other malign actors—including Galloway’s allies in Moscow and Tehran—have likewise attempted to appropriate Scottish independence for their own objectives. Their interest has nothing to do with Scotland’s democratic rights and everything to do with a cynical effort to exploit the movement to manufacture division and enmity between Scotland and England. Supporters of civic Scottish independence understand those motives perfectly well and categorically reject them. Scottish independence is not about hatred of England or creating a smaller version of regressive Brexit ethnonationalism. It's about the right of Scotland's people, old and new, to decide how Scotland is governed. In the words of Scottish actor/director Peter Mullan, "I've got nothing against the English, but I don't want Westminster ruling my country. I want neighbours, not masters." Independence would certainly not automatically abolish the universal idiocies of racism and other bigotry, defeat the far right or make every Scottish government progressive. Freedom doesn't remove political responsibility; it creates it. But it would give Scotland the power and responsibility to determine what citizenship means, how refugees are treated and whether its institutions are founded on exclusion or equal belonging. The mainstream independence movement offers a fundamentally different conception of nationality from that of Brexit. The famous Scots proverb, “We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns,” is both a fundamental principle and a means of defining Scottishness and citizenship through residence, participation and shared civic responsibility, not ancestry or ethnic pedigree; in short, if Scotland's your home, you're part of Scotland. Old Scots or new are equal parts of the nation's fabric. Versions of the same choice, between authoritarianism and civic citizenship confront societies worldwide. Syrians revolted against a dictatorship sustained through terror, sectarian manipulation and the insistence that only the Assad dynasty could prevent chaos. Across the world, far-right movements promise security and supposedly restored greatness attained through exclusion, supremacism and vilification of immigrants, refugees and minorities. Authoritarians portray pluralism as weakness, freedom as disorder and human rights as obstacles to power. Progressive vs Regressive, Belonging vs 'Tolerance' Against them stands another vision: progressive, outward-looking nations in which citizenship does not depend on ethnicity; refugees are treated as fellow people rather than invading populations; minorities are equal citizens with the same rights rather than conditional tolerance; and sovereignty belongs to the people who make their homes in a country. The question facing Scotland is therefore not merely whether decisions should be made in Edinburgh or London. It is what kind of nation Scotland wishes to become: a regressive, inward-looking country defining belonging through exclusion, inherited mythology and fear of outsiders, or a democratic, progressive, outward-looking society founded on freedom, human rights and equal citizenship. Westminster has told Scotland that choosing its own future is “off limits.” No nation that considers itself democratic should accept that answer. Scotland’s future belongs neither to Westminster nor to any ethnic or ancestral category. It belongs to all of us who call Scotland our home. https://radiofreesyria.com/off-limits-british-citizenship-andy-burnham-and-scotlands-right-to-choose/

By Mahmoud Bitar | July 23, 2026 Germany has not overcome its history. It has outsourced its atonement. For 80 years, Germany has told the world it learned from the Holocaust. Its memorials are immaculate, its museums vast, its apologies rehearsed. But atonement without accountability is just performance. And the people paying for that performance today are Palestinians. Palestinians did not commit the Holocaust. They did not put Jews in cattle cars. They did not build Auschwitz. They did not murder six million Jews. Yet it is Palestinians who live the daily consequences of Germany's need to prove it is no longer what it was.This is how German guilt works. It works when Germany declares Israel's security as its Staatsräson — its reason of state — while Palestinian security does not even merit a footnote. No German chancellor has ever declared Palestinian life a reason of state.It works when Germany ships weapons to Israel as Gaza is bombed to rubble. Warships, artillery, air-defense systems — all approved by a government that claims to have learned that "never again" means never again for anyone. It works when Berlin police arrest and beat protesters for wearing a keffiyeh, when universities cancel Palestinian academics, when chanting "from the river to the sea" is criminalized faster than actual antisemitic violence on German streets. Germany has confused silencing Palestinians with fighting antisemitism. The logic is cruel but clear. Europe could not live with its Jews, so it decided Palestinians should pay the price. Germany was the epicenter of that European antisemitism. After the Holocaust, instead of confronting that it had made Jewish life in Europe impossible, the West facilitated the dispossession of another people to ease its own conscience. In 1948, Palestinians were made stateless so Europeans could feel less guilty. In Gaza today, Palestinians are starved and bombed with German weapons so Germany can feel righteous. This is not remembrance. It is the displacement of guilt. Germany has not stopped deciding which lives are expendable. It has simply changed the category. True atonement would mean Germany says never again to anyone. Never again genocide. Never again ghettos. Never again collective punishment. Never again dehumanization. Whether the victim is Jewish or Palestinian. Until Germany understands that Palestinian freedom is not a threat to Jewish safety but a condition for it, its guilt will remain what it has always been: a burden forced upon Palestinians to carry. https://radiofreesyria.com/why-palestinians-are-paying-the-price-for-german-guilt/

By Ruth Riegler Former senior United Nations official Martin Griffiths has made a remarkable admission about Syria: dialogue failed, military action ended the suffering, and the international community was wrong to rule out the removal of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. In an article published by Al Jazeera on Wednesday that amounts to a rare public mea culpa, Griffiths writes that he “cannot claim innocence before the Syrian people” after 15 years of failed international engagement. As a senior member of the UN Special Envoy’s Office and later head of UN humanitarian affairs, he dealt directly with senior regime officials, including Assad himself. His honesty—and his urgent appeal for the world to now help Syrians rebuild their country—are welcome. But both are devastatingly late. "We will never let them out. Nor will we ever admit to this truth" In the article, Griffiths recounts an exchange from 2012, when he was conducting daily negotiations with the regime in Damascus. After he repeatedly raised the issue of detainees, a regime official ordered the microphones switched off and the pens put down. “Stop wasting your time on this,” the official told him. “We will never let them out. Nor will we ever admit to this truth.” That should have ended any illusion about the nature of the regime. It was not a misunderstood government waiting for the right diplomatic formula. Imprisonment, torture and enforced disappearance were not regrettable excesses that international officials might persuade it to correct. They were deliberate instruments of over 50 years of dictatorship. Yet the meetings—and the disingenuous illusions—continued. A decade later, Griffiths raised the prisons directly with Assad. The dictator replied that he had already emptied them and that no detainees remained. The lie was grotesque but unsurprising. Syrians had spent years telling the world that Assad lied reflexively while his security apparatus detained, tortured and murdered on an industrial scale. And the world spent the years not caring enough to listen. Griffiths now writes: “The Syrian people were saved by military action.” For someone who devoted his career to negotiation, he says, it is a “bitter truth” that action rather than dialogue was required—and had been required years earlier. Syrians already knew that. They knew it when peaceful protesters were shot in the streets. They knew it when detainees emerged bearing the marks of torture, or never emerged at all. They knew it when regime aircraft bombed homes, hospitals, schools and markets, and when chemical weapons were used against civilians. Those who insisted that Assad would never negotiate away the machinery keeping him in power were dismissed as unrealistic, belligerent or insufficiently committed to peace. Calls for meaningful protection were treated as dangerously simplistic. Repeating a diplomatic process that had already failed was presented as responsible statesmanship. Global consequences But the consequences didn't end at Syria’s borders The decision to abandon Syrians to Assad’s bombs helped teach Russia that spectacular brutality could be rewarded rather than punished. Moscow intervened to preserve a regime responsible for mass killing, deliberately attacked civilian infrastructure and used Syria as both a military testing ground and a laboratory for disinformation. It demonstrated that international law could be paralysed, evidence could be buried beneath conspiracy theories and hospitals could be bombed without producing meaningful consequences. Russia didn't begin its aggression in Syria, and Syria alone didn't cause its later actions. But the impunity Moscow enjoyed there helped confirm that escalation worked and Western warnings frequently did not. The lessons were not lost when Russia expanded its war against Ukraine. Authoritarians elsewhere, from Tel Aviv to Myanmar, across the world, learned something similar. A ruler could imprison and kill opponents, reduce cities to rubble and force millions into exile, then rebrand himself as the indispensable guardian of “stability”. If every opponent was labelled a terrorist and every alternative depicted as chaos, much of the world would eventually ask the victims to accommodate their oppressor. That argument was repeated endlessly about Syria: Assad was nasty, commentators conceded, but whatever followed him might be worse. The Syrian people therefore had to be “realistic”, accept his continued rule and negotiate with the apparatus imprisoning, torturing and bombing them. Those offering this advice would not have lived under that apparatus for a second. Much of the Western political and media establishment treated Syria as a minor detail: a distant Middle Eastern tragedy, all very sad of course, but ultimately peripheral to the serious business of Western politics. At best, the response was benign indifference. At worst, Syrians were depicted as an inconvenient population whose demands for freedom threatened the preferred illusion of stability. Meanwhile, the far right embraced Assad as a model strongman. His propaganda—civilisation against barbarism, order against chaos, the state against terrorists—fitted easily into its own politics. Refugees driven from Syria by the regime and its allies were then used to fuel xenophobia and electoral authoritarianism across Europe. Western governments helped create the displacement and instability they later cited as reasons to retreat further into isolation, border violence and anti-refugee politics. Having abandoned Syrians, they then punished them for fleeing the consequences of that abandonment. Griffiths now identifies the international community’s “original sin” as excluding regime change from the outset as a route to ending Syria’s suffering. That conclusion requires more than applause for his candour. Performative processes created to benefit Assad It requires asking what senior international officials understood, when they understood it and what they told governments and the wider UN system. Once Griffiths had been explicitly informed in 2012 that detainees would never be released or acknowledged, why did international institutions continue performing a political process built on the possibility that Assad might compromise? Diplomats and humanitarian officials sometimes have no choice but to meet monstrous people. Griffiths is right about that. The deeper failure was allowing engagement to become an end in itself, creating the appearance of international action while Syrians continued to die. Syria was never merely a local tragedy, and its abandonment was never a cost-free decision. It weakened the prohibition against chemical weapons, rewarded Russian aggression, vindicated authoritarian propaganda and helped turn refugees into political weapons. It showed rulers and movements across the world that sufficient brutality, accompanied by sufficient disinformation, could exhaust democratic resistance and international concern. The world did not simply fail Syria. In failing Syria, it helped remake itself and to empower would-be Assads everywhere. Griffiths’ admission matters because so few senior international figures have accepted even partial responsibility. But belated honesty cannot restore the dead or return the years stolen from millions of Syrians. Nor should Syria’s story end with international failure. After being abandoned, outgunned and repeatedly told that their revolution had failed, Syrians ultimately overthrew Assad themselves. Alone and unaided by the international powers that had spent years explaining why his removal was impossible, they accomplished what conferences, envoys and negotiations never could. Their revolution was historic in every sense. It ended more than half a century of dynastic dictatorship, shattered the supposed permanence of one of the world’s most brutal police states and freed Syria’s prisons from a regime that had confidently told Griffiths it would never release—or even acknowledge—those detained inside them. Syrians were not merely victims whom the world failed to save. They were witnesses whom it chose not to believe, and revolutionaries who ultimately proved it wrong. Liberation was the beginning, support is essential But liberation is not the end of Syria’s story. The country Syrians have reclaimed has been devastated by years of war, mass displacement, economic collapse and systematic destruction. Griffiths is right that Syria now urgently needs international support, the removal of remaining sanctions, legal and institutional development, and responsible investment capable of creating employment and rebuilding essential services. That support must not be conditional on denying Syrians the freedom and political agency for which they sacrificed so much. Nor should it reproduce the old international habit of treating Syrians as passive recipients of decisions made elsewhere. Reconstruction must be Syrian-led, transparent and inclusive, with international partners supporting rather than directing the country’s future. Helping Syria rebuild is not charity, and it is not a peripheral concern confined to another supposedly distant Middle Eastern crisis. The past 15 years should have demolished that illusion. Instability, authoritarianism, displacement, disinformation and impunity do not remain neatly within national borders. Neither do economic recovery, accountable government and peace. The world is interconnected. What it permitted in Syria helped empower Russia, embolden authoritarians and strengthen the far right far beyond the region. What happens in Syria now will also extend far beyond it. The international community cannot undo its decision to abandon Syrians when they most needed protection. It can, however, listen to them now and help them rebuild the country they liberated. Syrians accomplished the historic task of overthrowing Assad without the world’s help. They should not be left alone to carry the immense burden of rebuilding everything his regime and its allies destroyed. https://radiofreesyria.com/former-un-official-acknowledges-the-world-abandoned-syria-now-it-must-help-syrians-rebuild/

The United States House of Representatives has narrowly approved a record $1.15 trillion defence policy bill containing provisions that would substantially deepen military and technological cooperation with Israel, even as Israeli occupation forces intensify their attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, and expand their presence and operations inside Syria and Lebanon. The House passed its version of the 2027 National Defence Authorisation Act on Wednesday by 216 votes to 212. Six Democrats supported the measure, while seven Republicans voted against it. The bill would establish a formal mechanism to coordinate US-Israeli military research, weapons production and technological integration. Its scope reportedly includes artificial intelligence, drones, cyberwarfare, data-sharing and the incorporation of Israeli technology into critical US military systems and supply chains. Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who opposed the legislation, said the bill “tragically merges our military technology and supply chains with Israel’s”. “Let’s hope this version fails in the Senate because Section 219 is a betrayal of our sovereignty,” Massie wrote following the vote. The measure carries particular significance for Syria and Lebanon, where Israel has increasingly acted beyond its internationally recognised borders while continuing to receive extensive US military and diplomatic support. Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israeli forces have seized additional Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights, moved into the demilitarised buffer zone and established military positions inside Syria. They have also conducted repeated incursions, raids, arrests and searches in Quneitra and Daraa provinces, frequently setting up checkpoints and restricting the movement of Syrian civilians. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in June that Israeli troops would not withdraw from the territory they had occupied inside Syria. Israel has simultaneously continued air strikes across the country despite repeated condemnations from Damascus and demands that it respect Syrian sovereignty and the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Israeli forces have also expanded operations and their territorial reach inside Lebanon, amid a wider regional war launched jointly by the United States and Israel against Iran in February. Against this background, legislation binding the American and Israeli defence industries more closely together risks being seen across the region as more than routine military cooperation. It sends a signal that Israel’s territorial expansion and repeated violations of neighbouring states’ sovereignty carry no meaningful cost to its relationship with Washington. The bill also supports continued US military operations against Iran, a war whose cost the Pentagon has placed at $37.5 billion so far. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer previously described the legislation as a “permission slip” for the Trump administration to continue the war without adequate congressional oversight. Its passage is not yet assured. Senate Democrats blocked debate on their chamber’s version last week, while the House bill’s inclusion of the Trump-backed SAVE America Act, which would impose new voting restrictions, creates another substantial obstacle. The House and Senate must ultimately approve a negotiated final version before the legislation can be sent to President Donald Trump for signature. https://radiofreesyria.com/us-house-advances-1-15tn-defence-bill-deepening-american-military-integration-with-israel/

Israel has moved to clear a legal obstacle to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s proposal to surround a prison holding Palestinian detainees with a crocodile-filled moat. The obstacle was not an official concern that deliberately terrorising prisoners with lethal predators might constitute cruel or degrading treatment; it was the protected legal status of the crocodiles. Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman has reclassified the Nile crocodile as a “specially managed wild animal,” potentially allowing security bodies—including the Israel Prison Service—to keep the animals for what the government defines as security purposes. The decision advances Ben-Gvir’s proposed pilot scheme for Ketziot Prison in southern Israel, which holds Palestinian detainees, although the moat has not received final approval and has not been constructed. The episode presents a surreal but depressingly typical grotesque moral inversion: the crocodiles enter the process as protected creatures whose welfare and legal status required ministerial consideration. Palestinian prisoners enter it with fewer rights than animals. According to the Israeli news outlet Ynet, officials placed pressure on the Israel Nature and Parks Authority to transfer crocodiles from Hamat Gader for use around prisons. The authority initially rejected the proposal, arguing that such animals could be kept only for education, research and public-information purposes. “We are supposed to protect them, not have them protect us,” officials reportedly told Ben-Gvir and Silman. Silman’s own ministry legal adviser, Neta Drori, also warned that the proposal lacked sufficient professional and factual foundations, had no known precedent in a modern prison and could not legally proceed through the mechanism being used. The adviser called for an extensive animal-welfare assessment, noting that the Prison Service had no apparent expertise in caring for dangerous wild animals. Concerns were also raised about escapes, the possibility of crocodiles entering the wild and the danger to human life. Silman proceeded despite those objections, effectively creating a new regulatory category under which wild animals could be held by security organisations. Legal officials reportedly maintain that primary legislation would be required and that the minister does not possess the authority to implement the plan through reclassification alone. The Nature and Parks Authority council is expected to consider the proposal again. A medieval moat designed as a political spectacle The proposal has been dubbed Israel’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” after the controversial migrant detention centre opened in the Florida Everglades under US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. That comparison, however, makes the Israeli proposal sound less primitive than it is. Ketziot is already a high-security prison in one of the world’s most heavily securitised states in which Palestinians are subject to an effectively apartheid system. Crocodiles are not necessary to guard it. The function of the animals is psychological and theatrical: to confront Palestinian detainees with the prospect of being attacked and killed by non-human predators, while presenting that prospect to Ben-Gvir’s gloating political supporters as entertainment and proof of his barbaric cruelty. While gloating at the prospect of medieval barbarism involved in creating a crocodile-filled moat as a 'security' feature, Ben-Gvir has also repeatedly presented himself as an authority on the supposed barbarism of others. In July 2025, he called Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa a “jihadist,” declared that “once a jihadist, always a jihadist,” and demanded that Israel “eliminate” him, calling President al-Sharaa “the head of the snake.” The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society described Ben Gvir's latest proposal as an exercise in revenge, humiliation and psychological intimidation. Its spokesperson Amani Sarahna told The New Arab that the objective was to break detainees psychologically after subjecting them to policies that had already devastated them physically. The plan forms part of a broader deterioration in conditions for Palestinians held in Israeli custody. Palestinian and international rights organisations have already documented instances of beatings, starvation, sexual abuse, medical neglect, prolonged restraints and degrading treatment. Many Palestinian detainees are held under administrative detention without charge or trial. Not every prisoner at Ketziot is a Hamas member, and describing all Palestinian “security prisoners” as convicted militants is another means of obscuring both the range of people held there and Israel’s extensive use of detention without trial. Even if the crocodile moat is never built, the fact that two government ministers have pursued regulatory changes to make it possible is significant. The threatened violence is not an accidental flaw in the scheme. It is its political purpose. Netanyahu’s cabinet The proposal is being advanced by a government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains at large under an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. The ICC issued the warrant in November 2024 after finding reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts in Gaza. Israel rejects the allegations and disputes the court’s jurisdiction, but the ICC continues to list Netanyahu as a wanted defendant. While an arrest warrant is not a conviction, and Netanyahu, like his peer and fellow ICC arrest warrant subject Vladimir Putin, is entitled to contest the charges if brought before the court, it is nevertheless extraordinary, if fitting, that a sitting prime minister wanted by the world’s permanent criminal court presides over a cabinet in which ministers treat a crocodile-filled prison moat as a serious policy proposal. Netanyahu did not accidentally find himself surrounded by figures such as Ben-Gvir and Silman. His government depends upon them, empowers them and has repeatedly accommodated their politics. Ben-Gvir’s proposal is therefore not merely the eccentric fantasy of one extremist minister. Other parts of the state apparatus have been asked to facilitate it, and an environment minister has acted against legal and professional objections to bring it closer to implementation. The legal objections reported so far have concentrated heavily on ministerial authority, wildlife regulation, public safety and the welfare of the crocodiles. While all these are legitimate concerns, their prominence underlines the central obscenity: the animals are recognised as living creatures requiring protection, while the intended use of crocodiles to further terrorize Palestinian prisoners is being treated as a security innovation. That is not prison security. It is medieval imagery repackaged as government policy—and another indication of the values that have become normal within Netanyahu’s cabinet. https://radiofreesyria.com/israel-changes-wildlife-rules-to-advance-ben-gvirs-planned-crocodile-moat-around-palestinian-prison/

Syria is preparing to issue its first sovereign sukuk since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, offering the government a way to finance public projects and part of the budget deficit without simply printing more money and fuelling inflation. Finance Minister Mohammed Yisr Barnieh recently chaired a meeting of the Securities and Sovereign Sukuk Committee to discuss a strategy covering government bonds, treasury bills and sukuk, according to a report by Enab Baladi. Syria’s 2026 budget includes projected revenues of approximately $8.7 billion and expenditure of $10.5 billion, leaving an estimated deficit of $1.8 billion. Economist Mahmoud Abdul Karim told Enab Baladi that an initial sukuk issue could raise between $500 million and $900 million under favourable conditions, although it is unlikely to be launched before the final quarter of 2026. For readers unfamiliar with Islamic finance, sukuk is the plural of the Arabic word sakk, meaning a certificate or legal document—the origin of the English word “cheque.” Sukuk are sometimes called “Islamic bonds,” but that description does not fully explain how they are intended to work. With a conventional government bond, investors lend money to the state and receive interest. Sukuk, by contrast, are structured around ownership of a share in an identifiable asset, service or project. Investors receive returns generated through that asset rather than interest simply charged on a debt. A government could, for example, issue sukuk linked to a power station, transport project or public building. Investors finance the asset and receive an agreed share of the income it generates. At the end of the agreed period, the certificates are normally redeemed. What does “Sharia-compliant” mean? • Sharia simply means the body of Islamic ethical and legal principles. In finance, these include several important restrictions: • Riba means interest or an unjustified increase on a loan. Islamic finance prohibits making money solely by lending money at interest, particularly when the lender is guaranteed a return while the borrower carries most of the risk. • Gharar means excessive uncertainty or ambiguity. The parties should understand what they are buying, what obligations they are assuming and how profits and risks will be distributed. • Maysir means gambling or highly speculative transactions in which wealth is gained largely by chance rather than productive activity.Investments in sectors regarded as harmful—including gambling, alcohol and pornography—are also excluded. • Takaful, mentioned in the report, is a cooperative form of Islamic insurance. Participants contribute to a shared fund used to compensate members who suffer losses, rather than transferring all risk to a commercial insurer in return for a premium. These rules do not abolish profit. Trade, investment and entrepreneurship are encouraged, but finance is supposed to remain connected to real assets and productive economic activity. In that respect, Islamic finance can be less exploitative in its underlying principles than much conventional financial activity. It discourages earning guaranteed profits from another person’s indebtedness, prohibits deliberately opaque contracts and seeks to prevent one party from transferring virtually all the risk to another. It also offers an alternative to the highly speculative end of Western financial markets, where complex derivatives and rapid trading can generate enormous private profits without necessarily financing new production, employment or public services. Sukuk are more accurately compared with conventional bonds than with shares traded on a stock exchange. Nevertheless, the broader contrast is significant: their purpose is to reconnect finance with ownership, tangible assets and shared commercial risk. That does not mean every product carrying a Sharia-compliant label is automatically fair. Analysts have noted that some sukuk are structured to reproduce almost exactly the payments and protections of conventional interest-bearing bonds, using different legal terminology. Strong regulation, genuine asset ownership and public transparency remain essential. An alternative to inflation For Syria, the immediate attraction is practical. Borrowing directly from the Central Bank effectively creates new money. When more currency chases a limited supply of goods, prices rise and the value of the currency falls. Syria experienced the catastrophic effects of this during the Assad era. The pound fell from approximately 47 to the US dollar before the war to more than 15,000 at the peak of its collapse, destroying savings and placing basic necessities beyond the reach of millions. Sukuk would instead draw on existing liquidity held by banks, companies and individual savers and direct it towards public investment. If properly managed, this could help finance infrastructure without adding the same inflationary pressure. The government also hopes gradually to create a benchmark “yield curve,” enabling banks and investors to assess the price and risk of longer-term Syrian investments. Listing sukuk on the Damascus Securities Exchange would allow investors to sell their certificates before maturity, while potentially bringing new activity to the country’s long-stagnant securities market. Small certificates, digital subscription Small certificates—possibly starting at $100—combined with digital subscription could also allow ordinary Syrians to participate, rather than limiting the market entirely to major banks and investment funds. The global sukuk market already exceeds $900 billion, making the proposed issue potentially attractive to Syrian, Gulf and other international investors seeking Sharia-compliant assets. Its success, however, will depend on what the money finances. Sukuk linked to electricity, transport, housing or other productive projects could generate both public benefits and income to repay investors. Using long-term borrowing simply to cover salaries and routine expenditure would create debt without generating the means to repay it. Transparency and sound financial management essential Transparency will therefore be decisive. Syria will need to disclose its debts, identify the assets supporting each issue and show how the proceeds are spent, with the need for sound financial management being at the root, as always. Handled properly, the proposed issue could mark a welcome break with the Assad regime’s ruinous reliance on currency creation and opaque public finances: directing existing capital into reconstruction, sharing returns through real economic activity and giving Syria a more stable way to fund its recovery. https://radiofreesyria.com/syria-plans-first-sovereign-sukuk-to-finance-reconstruction-without-printing-money/

By Mohanad Alabrash - The history of the Syrian parliament goes back to the early 20th century, with the institution passing through several constitutional and political stages: • 1919: The Syrian National Congress — considered the first national representative body in modern Syria. It included representatives from across the Levant, declared independence on March 8, 1920, pledged allegiance to Prince Faisal bin Hussein as a constitutional king, and drafted a provisional constitution. • 1920-1946 (French Mandate): Syria saw successive parliamentary councils and constituent assemblies, most notably the Constituent Assembly of 1928 which drafted the 1930 Constitution, despite constant interference and suspension by the Mandate authorities. • 1946-1963: After independence, parliament became an elected legislative institution. The country witnessed a relatively active parliamentary life, disrupted by the military coups that began in 1949. • 1963-2011: After the Ba'ath Party seized power, the nature of the system changed. Parliament operated under the dominance of the ruling party, with its independent legislative and oversight role sharply reduced. • 1973-2024: Under the 1973 constitution and later the 2012 constitution, it was named the People's Assembly. Regular elections were held, but its role was widely criticized for lack of independence and executive dominance. • After 2024: Following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, the legislative institution entered a new transitional phase. In 2025-2026, a new People's Assembly was formed under the Transitional Constitutional Declaration, with a different system for selecting members until a permanent constitution is adopted and direct legislative elections are held. What is Parliament and what does it do? Parliament is the legislative authority of the state. Its importance lies in representing citizens and participating in running the country's affairs. Its key functions are: • Enacting laws • Oversight of government • Approving the general budget • Representing citizens • Ratifying treaties and international agreements • Contributing to political stability In essence, parliament enhances democracy, ensures balance of powers, protects rights and freedoms, and enforces transparency and accountability. Is the new People's Assembly powerless? Let's clarify what the Constitutional Declaration actually says. A lot of talk is circulating that the new People's Assembly does not have the right to change laws. This is inaccurate. According to the Constitutional Declaration issued on March 13, 2025: Article 24: The People's Assembly assumes legislative authority until a permanent constitution is adopted. Article 30 clearly defines its powers: • Proposing and approving laws • Amending or repealing previous laws • Ratifying international treaties • Approving the general budget and general amnesty Legislatively, the Council has full authority. Where is the real problem? The problem is not in legislation, but in oversight of the executive. Article 35: The President appoints and dismisses ministers, with full executive power and no prime minister. And what does the Council have over them? Only one clause in Article 30: • Holding hearing sessions for ministers. No binding interpellation, no vote of no confidence, no right to dismiss a minister, not even the right to approve their appointment. As a member of the drafting committee himself stated, ministers report only to the President. We are facing a council that legislates, but does not monitor or hold the government accountable. And this is the core flaw in the balance of powers during the transitional phase. A legitimate question Imagine that in the Syrian Parliament — the People's Assembly, which is of paramount importance in determining the fate of the state — there are figures with big question marks over them, who will vote to approve or oppose decisive laws. These are figures who used to glorify the former regime. How can revolutionaries or citizens give confidence to such controversial figures? And will the formation of parties, political diversity, and a new political life be allowed? Or will we face retrenchment, closure, and monopolization of opinion under the logic of "I show you only what I see"? By God, this is a major catastrophe. In any case, we wait and see. https://radiofreesyria.com/the-syrian-parliaments-history-and-the-powers-of-the-peoples-assembly-in-the-transitional-phase/

A network of accounts on X has engaged in intensive, apparently coordinated activity to portray post-Assad Syria as a country consumed by terrorism, sectarian persecution and collapse, according to an extensive new investigation by the independent Arab news outlet Noon Post. The Arabic-language investigation, published on July 21, analysed 22,787 posts and interactions from 358 accounts. It identified a multi-layered structure in which some accounts produced or introduced content, others amplified it through extraordinarily concentrated reposting, and a third group recycled the same narratives through quotations, comments and reframing. The figures are striking. In a closer sample of 4,182 posts from 14 accounts during May and June 2026, 4,167—99.64 percent—were reposts. According to Noon Post, 99.16 percent of those reposts centred on just nine source accounts. The investigation documented 373 items appearing on two or more monitored accounts. Of these, 248 appeared on at least six accounts and 103 on nine or more. Speed was another indication that the activity was not simply the result of different users independently responding to the same news: 163 items were recirculated within ten minutes, while 1,017 reposts followed the preceding repost within one minute or less. In 43 cases, the same material appeared on nine or more accounts within a ten-minute period. A division of narrative labour Noon Post identified accounts including @WSyriaDev, @x_alhadath, @SahelNoFilter, @Bl3arabinews, @DimashqBetween, @al_liwaa_, @belektisad, @X_news_media and @R55P5 as belonging to the network’s central or source layer. These accounts did not necessarily repeat an identical message. Instead, the investigation found what amounted to a division of narrative roles, with different accounts concentrating on complementary themes. Some focused on claims that Syria’s minorities face an existential threat under the new authorities. Others associated Sunni or Umayyad identity with terrorism and extremism, promoted narratives of economic catastrophe or circulated nostalgia for the Assad regime. Amplification accounts then folded these strands into a broader picture of a country supposedly overwhelmed by chaos, fear and communal conflict. Minority-related terminology appeared in 63.2 percent of the posts examined from @SahelNoFilter, according to the investigation. Content from @R55P5 and @al_liwaa_ more frequently connected Sunni or Umayyad identity with terrorism, while @belektisad concentrated on economic collapse. This does not mean, of course, that every event discussed by the accounts was invented. The network drew on genuine tensions and unresolved issues: the stalled reintegration of Suwayda, disputes involving the Syrian Democratic Forces, indications of renewed Islamic State activity, demands for accountability, and escalating Israeli incursions in southern Syria. The apparent operation lay in selecting, reframing and intensively amplifying those events to create an overarching narrative: that the “new Syria” is governed by terrorists, that minorities face systematic persecution, and that the country’s transition has produced only disorder and danger. Accounts revived in concert The amplification layer included accounts such as @sara__fayyad, @alaa_alasad86, @samar_hatem1, @BassemEisaa, @rola__kheirbek, @maha_sleimann and @rana__machi. The last of these published 281 posts within the sample; 280 were reposts. Rather than interacting with a broad range of Syrian news and opinion, its activity remained concentrated within a small circle of sources. Several accounts had previously been dormant or only intermittently active before suddenly beginning intensive publication during May and June. On June 9, accounts including @sara__fayyad, @alaa_alasad86, @rana__machi, @maha_sleimann and @mohd_alcharee began posting within a two-minute period, between 14:11 and 14:13 GMT. Some had been inactive for approximately 270 days. Activity peaked around politically or emotionally charged events. On June 30, amid Israeli incursions in southern Syria and reports concerning the burning of the Sheikh Nasser al-Hakim shrine in rural Homs, the monitored network produced 957 posts. Other surges coincided with debate over transitional justice, the anniversary of the Mar Elias Church bombing and businessman Naguib Sawiris’s visit to Damascus. Noon Post also found closely timed changes to the digital identities of several source accounts. @DimashqBetween and @SahelNoFilter, both presented in a media or semi-media format, changed their profile and cover images on March 29 within minutes of one another. Some amplification accounts used profile pictures that appeared likely to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Their biographies often employed similar language about human rights, oppression and extremism, while some explicitly defined themselves through opposition to “al-Jolani,” Ahmed al-Sharaa’s former nom de guerre. None of these indicators alone proves central control. Taken together with the concentration, timing and repetition of the reposting, however, they present a pattern difficult to explain as wholly spontaneous activity. An Israel-linked digital environment The investigation becomes particularly significant when it traces how material moved beyond the original network into a wider political, media and human-rights environment with discernible pro-Israel links. Noon Post identified Sally Obaid as one connection between the network and these broader circles. Her account appeared 655 times in the analysed material: 261 reposts, 99 quotations, 284 direct mentions and 11 appearances in replies. The investigation documented 14 direct interactions between Obaid and Israeli or pro-Israel accounts, including eight involving the IDI Center. Obaid identifies herself as a fellow at the organisation, which describes its mission partly in terms of defending “Judeo-Christian principles.” Her personal links also lead to articles in pro-Israel publications, including JNS, where she has discussed Syria in relation to Israeli security and Israel’s northern border. The investigation separately recorded the presence of Israeli journalist Eddy Cohen, Israeli reporter Barak Ravid and several official or state-linked Israeli accounts within the network’s wider map of reposts, quotations, mentions and replies. These included @AmichaiChikli, the account of Israeli Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli, and @AvichayAdraee, the account of Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson and head of the Arab Media Branch of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. The accounts @N12News and @IsraelArabic also appeared, while IDI Center executive director @DanBurmawy was recorded 31 times. These findings do not establish that every interaction was coordinated, or that every person appearing in the dataset belonged to the amplification network. Nor do they prove that the network was organised, funded or directed by Israel or its intelligence services. They do, however, show an apparently artificial amplification operation intersecting repeatedly with a pro-Israel digital ecosystem and promoting narratives that can serve Israeli policy towards Syria. Israel has justified its continuing occupation, attacks and incursions partly by depicting the new Syrian authorities as jihadists and presenting itself as the protector of Syrian minorities. A coordinated campaign portraying Damascus as terrorist-controlled, minorities as facing imminent danger and Syria as incapable of governing itself reinforces that political argument—whatever the ultimate identity of those directing the activity. The unanswered question is therefore not whether unusual amplification occurred; Noon Post presents substantial evidence that it did. The remaining question is who organised or encouraged it, and to what end. https://radiofreesyria.com/damascus-is-ruled-by-terrorists-social-media-network-amplifying-sectarian-fear-and-pro-israel-narratives-on-syria/

By Ahlam Tabra July 20, 2026 Digital violence, or cyberbullying, has become one of the most common methods used to silence critical voices, especially those of women and female journalists. Women are no longer able to support each other in the face of these campaigns, for fear of being targeted in the same way, given the absence of clear laws protecting all victims of this violence. And it is not just women who are targeted. When campaigns target men, the abuse often extends to the women in their families, especially since most insults in the prevailing culture are directed at mothers, sisters, and wives. Thus, Syrian women are assassinated twice, once directly and once indirectly. To date, there are no Syrian statistics or studies documenting the extent of this phenomenon. However, observations by journalists confirm the existence of systematic cyberbullying campaigns that begin with a Facebook post criticizing the government's performance or drawing attention to a deficiency in one area, followed by a widespread and relentless campaign targeting the poster. The story might begin within WhatsApp groups that proliferated after the fall of the regime, containing hundreds of names of journalists, activists, and government figures who were once colleagues but now consider themselves on opposing sides. No one knows the origins of this division, but the new norm has become clear: anyone who criticizes is on the opposing side, and anyone who chooses to remain silent about mistakes is the sole supporter of the fledgling state, the only one who truly wants it to succeed, as if success can only be achieved through applause and indifference. These disagreements arise at a time when oversight, transparency, and accountability are absent. The information provided by the government is insufficient to build a cohesive relationship with either the citizen or the journalist. Therefore, we find ourselves connecting the dots, analyzing, searching, and digging for facts, discussing with those in positions of authority to obtain the meager information that is, for the most part, insufficient to form a well-defined opinion. In one of these groups, a journalist criticized the decision to suspend several websites under the pretext of incomplete paperwork. The group was supposed to be a space for discussion and the exchange of opinions. But what transpired after the discussion was entirely different. Abusive comments flooded her Facebook and Instagram accounts, accompanied by failed attempts to hack her social media accounts, register her email address on pornographic websites, and create temporary accounts using her image and posting explicit photos. The barrage of insults was relentless, leaving her bewildered and frightened, unsure of how to react. While digital security measures are important and protective steps are necessary, they offer no psychological or legal security. Legally, the problem is even more complex due to the lack of objective and fair application of the law.The case of activist Hassan Akkad, who was arrested on charges of so-called cybercrimes, perfectly illustrates this equation: if the complainant is wealthy and influential, the case moves with lightning speed, but if they are an ordinary citizen expressing an opinion, the case never moves. Dozens of Syrian female journalists have spoken out about being subjected to these campaigns. They did not remain silent. They resisted, endured, and spoke out about what they endured. Some were among the lucky ones who have supportive families that understand the nature of their work and a safe environment, which, in the absence of an accountability system, is often the only supportive space. These campaigns do not target women's work. They target them personally. Their appearance and honor are criticized and their image tarnished, without any discussion of their work or the ideas they present. Anyone who dares to offer a different perspective is a potential target. Reports from the United Nations and Amnesty International highlight the seriousness of digital violence. The UN states in a campaign on its official website that digital violence is on the rise, yet nearly half of the world's women and girls lack legal protection from online abuse. UN Women's campaign calls for a world where technology is a force for equality, not harm. But this reality becomes even more complex when it intersects with official discourse that imposes additional restrictions on women. So how can technology be transformed into a force for equality in Syria when we see arbitrary and discriminatory individual decisions against women within state institutions? Sometimes they demand that women refrain from wearing makeup, other times that they dress modestly, leaving the interpretation of modesty to the sole discretion of the decision-maker, who may dictate that only the face and hands should be visible. Then, voices emerge attacking women, applauding and endorsing these decisions. Many cases of digital violence against Syrian women go unreported. Women remain silent and disappear, especially those living in conservative local communities who cannot confront this overwhelming amount of vulgarity, which is not criminalized by law but for which society blames them. Digital violence is growing rapidly in Syria and is not limited to sexual harassment, bullying, and defamation. Its spread is fueled by a lack of digital literacy and social norms that hold women responsible for what they have endured, forcing them into silence for fear of scandal or family retaliation. The question remains open as the People's Assembly begins its work, which has very limited representation for women, consisting of only 22 women out of 207 members: Will we see national laws and legislation capable of understanding the diversity among women, and also capable of following up, prosecuting, and holding accountable the perpetrators in cases of defamation, blackmail, and systematic digital violence? https://radiofreesyria.com/cyberbullying-when-syrian-women-are-digitally-assassinated-twice/

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is consulting the US city’s lawyers over whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could legally be arrested when he visits New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September. Mamdani told The New York Times that the city is engaged in an “active conversation” with its Law Department ahead of Netanyahu’s expected visit. “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court.” The mayor acknowledged that he does not yet know whether he possesses the authority to order Netanyahu’s arrest. He said the city would act as forcefully as existing law permitted but would not attempt to create powers it did not possess. “Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” he said. Mamdani repeatedly promised during his mayoral campaign that Netanyahu would be arrested if he entered New York. His latest comments are more legally cautious, reflecting the considerable obstacles facing any attempt by a municipal government to execute an international arrest warrant. ICC warrant remains in force The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and then-Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024. The court said there were reasonable grounds to believe that they bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare and for crimes against humanity including murder, persecution and other inhumane acts in Gaza. The warrants constitute charges rather than convictions. Netanyahu and Gallant deny committing war crimes, while Israel disputes the ICC’s jurisdiction and has sought to have the warrants withdrawn. ICC judges rejected an Israeli request to withdraw Netanyahu’s warrant in July 2025 while the court considered Israel’s jurisdictional challenge. The warrant consequently remains active. All 125 countries that are parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the ICC, are generally required to cooperate with its warrants. The United States, however, is not an ICC member and does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction over US or Israeli nationals. An ICC warrant therefore has no automatic domestic force in New York. The NYPD would ordinarily require authority under US or state law, such as a warrant issued or recognised by an American court, before making an arrest. Federal authority and UN access Netanyahu’s status as a serving head of government creates an additional obstacle. The US federal government would almost certainly recognise him as possessing immunity from the jurisdiction of American courts while he remains Israel’s prime minister. Foreign relations, diplomatic recognition and the immunities afforded to foreign leaders are primarily federal responsibilities rather than matters that an individual mayor can determine. Netanyahu would also be travelling to attend the UN General Assembly. Under the agreement governing the United Nations headquarters in New York, the United States is expected to permit representatives of UN member states to travel to and from the organisation’s headquarters. Any attempt by New York authorities to detain him would therefore provoke an immediate confrontation with the federal government, which could ask the courts to prevent the city from acting. Mamdani’s consultation with the city Law Department may ultimately conclude that the mayor has no lawful mechanism through which to execute the ICC warrant without federal cooperation or a valid domestic arrest order. Nevertheless, the fact that New York’s mayor is formally examining the question gives the issue considerable political significance. The city hosts the United Nations and regularly receives leaders from governments accused of serious human rights violations, but municipal authorities possess little control over the diplomatic protections surrounding their visits. Netanyahu attacks Mamdani Netanyahu responded to Mamdani’s position by accusing the mayor of supporting Hamas and claiming that he “secretly” hates the United States. “I think he should look at who he’s condemning, who he’s praising,” Netanyahu said during a radio interview. He presented Israel as standing “shoulder to shoulder with American values” and accused Mamdani of championing Hamas. Mamdani has repeatedly rejected accusations of antisemitism and has said his criticism is directed at the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians. Netanyahu’s response did not address the specific allegations contained in the ICC warrant. Instead, it sought to recast the threat of legal action against him as hostility towards Israel, Jewish people and the United States. However, recent polling complicates attempts to portray Mamdani’s position as inherently antisemitic or outside the views of Jewish Americans. An Associated Press–NORC survey of 1,022 Jewish adults, conducted between 11 and 17 June, found that Mamdani was viewed favourably by 44 percent and unfavourably by 39 percent. Netanyahu was substantially less popular among the same respondents, with 32 percent viewing him favourably and 59 percent holding an unfavourable opinion. Mamdani therefore recorded a net-positive rating among American Jews, while Netanyahu’s rating was negative by 27 percentage points. Unequal reach of international justice The dispute exposes a central weakness in the international justice system: the ICC issues warrants but possesses no police force with which to execute them. Its authority depends on governments arresting suspects who enter their territory. While member states have legal obligations to cooperate, enforcement frequently remains subject to political alliances and calculations. The United States has strongly supported international efforts to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is also wanted by the ICC, while rejecting the court’s jurisdiction over Netanyahu. Washington has imposed sanctions on ICC officials in response to its investigations involving Israel. Netanyahu has previously visited the United States without facing arrest and is expected to travel to Washington later in July to meet President Donald Trump. His September trip to New York would ordinarily be similarly protected by the federal government. Mamdani may therefore find that the law provides him with no authority to fulfil his earlier promise. But the legal examination is consequential in itself. It will test whether New York City has any role beyond hosting an internationally wanted leader—and expose the distance between the principle that no official stands above international law and a system in which enforcement continues to depend heavily on the identity and alliances of the accused. https://radiofreesyria.com/mamdani-examining-whether-netanyahu-can-be-arrested-during-un-visit/

Syrian authorities have arrested at least 13 former officers, investigators and prison guards accused of involvement in torture, executions and other crimes at Sednaya Military Prison, since the fall of the Assad regime, according to a new report by the Shaam News Network. Those detained range from senior officials who managed the prison or supervised investigations to guards accused of directly torturing prisoners, participating in executions and transporting victims’ bodies for burial in mass graves. Their arrests represent an attempt to trace responsibility through the institution’s chain of command rather than focusing solely on its lowest-ranking personnel. Sednaya was not simply an abusive prison within the Assad regime’s vast detention network. It was one of the principal institutions through which the regime carried out systematic torture, enforced disappearance and mass killing. Amnesty International described the prison as a “human slaughterhouse”, estimating that between 5,000 and 13,000 detainees were secretly hanged there between September 2011 and December 2015 alone. Thousands of others are believed to have died through torture, starvation, disease and the deliberate denial of medical care. Former inmates described a place intended not merely to confine prisoners but to break and kill them. Detainees were subjected to repeated beatings, subjected to daily torture, deprived of food and medicine, forbidden to speak or even look at guards, and forced to live alongside the bodies of those who had died. Like Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng prison under the Khmer Rouge, now a genocide museum, Seddnaya became the defining physical symbol of a state machinery built around torture, disappearance and extermination. Senior officers among those detained Among the most prominent suspects arrested is Brigadier General Salem Daghestani, the former head of the Investigation Branch in the Air Force Intelligence Directorate and former head of Saydnaya’s investigation department. Other senior detainees reportedly include Colonel Thaer Hussein, former deputy director of Saydnaya; Major General Akram Salloum al-Abdullah, a former commander of the Military Police; and Colonel Haitham Rahhal, who served as a security officer at the prison. The detained guards include Aws Salloum, reportedly known as the 'Azrael of Sednaya', as well as Mahmoud Ali Ahmad, Hassan Marei Hassan al-Hussein, Mohammed Imad Mahrez and Alaa Saleh al-Ahmad. The Interior Ministry has previously broadcast statements by Hayyan Dawoud, Ramadan Issa and Maher Darwish concerning violations and crimes allegedly committed inside the prison. Initial investigations reportedly concern allegations of supervising and carrying out torture and executions, administering the prison’s system of abuse, and overseeing the removal of prisoners’ bodies. Some suspects are accused of transporting the bodies of detainees who died under torture and participating in their burial in mass graves, an issue that may prove vital to establishing the fate of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who remain missing. Arrest operations across Syria Security operations have been conducted in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, Tartous and other areas over recent months, targeting former officers and personnel accused of war crimes and serious violations. According to official accounts cited by SNN, the operations have relied on intelligence gathering and field surveillance. Some suspects were reportedly arrested while hiding in remote areas, while others were intercepted as they attempted to leave Syria through irregular routes. The Interior Ministry says those detained have been referred to the competent judicial authorities and that investigations are continuing. The distinction between arrest and conviction remains essential. The accusations against each suspect must be established through properly conducted, transparent trials, while statements or confessions broadcast by the authorities cannot substitute for evidence tested before a court. Accountability for Sednaya will require considerably more than confessions from individual guards. Investigators must establish who issued orders, supervised executions, maintained prisoner records, disposed of bodies and operated the wider system connecting the prison to the Military Police, intelligence services, military courts, hospitals and mass graves. A system, not isolated abuse The range of those detained is therefore significant. The arrests include alleged direct perpetrators, but also officials accused of managing investigations, prison security and military policing. This reflects the documented nature of Sednaya’s crimes. Torture and killing there were not spontaneous excesses committed by a few undisciplined guards. Former detainees and human rights investigations described an organised system involving arrests, interrogations, transfers, sham military proceedings, executions and the concealed disposal of victims’ bodies. The prison’s victims included peaceful protesters, activists, military defectors and people detained merely because of their relatives or places of origin. Many were forcibly disappeared, leaving their families without confirmation of whether they were alive or dead. After Sednaya was liberated in December 2024, thousands of Syrians searched desperately for missing relatives. For many, the opening of the prison brought no answer: their loved ones were not among those released, and records capable of revealing their fate remained absent, incomplete or deliberately concealed. The arrests consequently represent only an early stage in a far larger process. Justice will require open trials, the recovery and protection of documents, investigation of mass graves, identification of victims and answers for families who have waited years or decades. The Interior Ministry says its campaign will continue against everyone shown to have participated in crimes against detainees and civilians, with the stated aim of enforcing the rule of law, securing justice for victims and preventing those responsible from escaping accountability. For survivors and the families of the disappeared, those promises will ultimately be judged not by the number of arrests announced, but by whether Syria can expose the entire machinery behind Sednaya—and bring those who operated it to justice. https://radiofreesyria.com/from-commanders-to-guards-syria-pursues-sednaya-torture-suspects/

Iraq and Syria signed an agreement in Washington on Friday, 17 July, to reconstruct the long-defunct crude oil pipeline to Syria’s Mediterranean coast, one of 48 agreements and partnerships with US companies reportedly worth more than $60 billion. The pipeline could restore Syria’s historic role as a regional energy corridor while providing Iraq with an alternative export route to the Strait of Hormuz. The memorandum of understanding was signed on Friday by Basra Oil Company chief Bassem Abdul Karim Nasr and Syrian Petroleum Company CEO Youssef Qablawi during a US-Iraq business summit. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the ceremony. The US State Department welcomed the agreement, describing the pipeline as a “priority infrastructure project of bilateral and regional strategic significance”. It said a US-led international consortium would undertake the project’s technical and financial development. Iraq’s state news agency reported that Chevron would implement the project, which is intended to carry crude from Iraq to the Syrian Mediterranean port of Baniyas. According to the State Department, the rehabilitated pipeline would have an initial capacity of two million barrels per day—an extraordinarily ambitious target that would make it a major international energy route. Syria’s return as a regional corridor For Syria, the agreement represents considerably more than the reopening of an old pipeline. It could restore the country’s historic position as a commercial corridor connecting Iraq and the wider region to Mediterranean markets. The project could generate transit revenues, investment and employment while potentially improving Syria’s own access to energy. Reconstruction of the pipeline and its associated pumping stations, storage facilities and port infrastructure would also attract investment into areas extending far beyond the energy sector. It would create a significant shared economic interest between Damascus and Baghdad after decades in which relations between the neighbouring countries were repeatedly distorted by dictatorship, war and competing regional alliances. The old Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline demonstrated both Syria’s geographic importance and its vulnerability to regional politics. Damascus closed it in 1982 after Hafez al-Assad sided with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. It was reportedly reopened around 2000 before being put out of operation again during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Its proposed restoration would place Syria within a new network of energy, transport and commercial links emerging across Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, as regional governments search for routes less vulnerable to war or maritime disruption. It would also mark a striking change in the nature of Syria’s regional role. Under the Assad regime, the country served as an essential component of Iran’s land corridor to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The proposed pipeline points towards a different form of regional integration: commercially oriented, Mediterranean-facing and backed by international investment. An alternative to Hormuz The project’s significance extends beyond Syria. For Iraq, a Mediterranean export route would provide an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz and form part of a wider attempt to reduce the country’s vulnerability to Iranian pressure. Most Iraqi crude exports currently leave through southern terminals in the Gulf. The sharp decline in shipping through Hormuz during the US-Israeli war against Iran has exposed the risks of relying overwhelmingly on a single export route. Any prolonged closure of the strait could deprive Iraq of the revenues on which almost its entire state budget depends. A route through Syria would therefore offer Baghdad more than logistical convenience: it would provide economic protection from a conflict over which Iraq has limited control. The pipeline agreement formed part of 48 memoranda, partnerships and preliminary deals signed with American companies during Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s visit to Washington. The agreements, reportedly worth more than $60 billion, cover oil, electricity, communications, healthcare and infrastructure. They involve companies including Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, KBR, GE Vernova, Shell and Halliburton. Iraq also signed an agreement with Starlink to introduce satellite internet services. ConocoPhillips has separately agreed to acquire a 42 percent stake in BP’s Kirkuk operation, covering several major northern oilfields. The number and range of the agreements suggest that Baghdad is seeking a structural diversification of its international relationships rather than merely an emergency alternative to Hormuz. Greater distance from Iran This does not mean Iraq is abruptly abandoning Iran in favour of becoming an American client. Al-Zaidi has presented his approach as one of opening Iraq to international investment and broadening its partnerships, while the remaining US forces in Iraq are scheduled to withdraw by the end of September. Nevertheless, increased economic and energy independence would inevitably weaken some of the mechanisms through which Tehran has exercised influence over Iraq. Iraq has depended heavily on Iranian natural gas to operate its power stations. Iraqi officials said in 2025 that approximately 43 percent of the country’s electricity was generated using imported Iranian gas. Supply interruptions and problems arranging payments under US sanctions have repeatedly contributed to electricity shortages. Baghdad has consequently pursued Gulf electricity connections, alternative gas imports and projects to capture more of the gas currently flared at Iraqi oilfields. Each additional source reduces Iran’s ability to use energy supplies as political leverage. The economic changes also coincide with an effort to strengthen the Iraqi state against armed factions with longstanding ties to Tehran. Al-Zaidi recently said there would be no justification for the continued existence of an armed “resistance” following the withdrawal of US forces. Two powerful Iran-aligned factions, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Imam Ali Brigades, have announced steps towards handing over their weapons, although Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba remain resistant to disarmament. The issue remains perhaps the greatest test of claims that Iraq is moving towards greater strategic independence. New pipelines and foreign investment can broaden Baghdad’s choices, but they cannot by themselves dismantle the parallel military and political structures through which Iran has projected power. An ambitious but preliminary agreement The announcement remains a memorandum of understanding rather than a completed construction contract. Its route, cost, financing arrangements, timetable and security requirements have not yet been fully detailed. The projected initial capacity of two million barrels per day would represent an exceptionally large proportion of Iraq’s present exports, making the technical and financial feasibility of the target an important unanswered question. Nevertheless, the agreement carries clear strategic weight. For Syria, it offers the possibility of renewed investment and a restored role connecting its eastern neighbours with the Mediterranean. For Iraq, it offers an alternative to Hormuz and another step towards reducing reliance on Iran. The pipeline would not, by itself, create either country’s economic independence. But it could become part of the physical infrastructure of a changing regional order—one based less on armed corridors and political dependency, and more on trade between states. https://radiofreesyria.com/iraq-syria-pipeline-heads-60-billion-deal-package-as-syria-re-emerges-as-regional-corridor/

Around 700 Syrians from across the country gathered in Homs on Friday for a national dialogue forum exploring the city’s revolutionary history and the priorities facing Syria’s People’s Assembly during the country’s transitional period. The fourth edition of “Syrians’ Talk” was held in a park on the banks of the Orontes River in al-Waer, a district that endured years of siege before thousands of its residents were forcibly displaced under the former Assad regime. Organised by the “Wednesday Talk” dialogue forum, the event brought together members of the People’s Assembly, civil society activists, intellectuals and other participants from Syria’s different provinces. Revolution, Return, and Reconstruction Discussions centred on two principal themes. The first examined Homs’s history and its defining role in the Syrian Revolution, including the siege, destruction and mass displacement inflicted upon the city, as well as the return of its residents and their involvement in reconstruction. The second considered the immediate priorities of the People’s Assembly and the legislation required to rebuild state institutions, address the consequences of the previous era and respond to Syrians’ expectations. People’s Assembly member and organising committee member Nader al-Sanoufi told the Syrian Arab News Agency that Homs had been selected because of its symbolic importance in the history of the revolution. Unity and Reconcilation Participants toured the city’s old neighbourhoods to see the scale of the destruction and visited a number of mosques and churches in what organisers described as a message affirming Syrian unity and the need to overcome the consequences of the war. The tour included the Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque, al-Katib Cemetery, the Ka’b al-Ahbar Mosque and the Bustan al-Diwan neighbourhood. Participants also visited the Church of Our Lady of the Girdle, the Jesuit monastery and the Great al-Nouri Mosque before concluding at New Clock Square, known during the revolution as Sit-in Square. The square occupies a particularly significant place in the city’s recent history. It became a focal point for peaceful demonstrations during the revolution’s opening months and remains closely associated with Homs’s struggle and sacrifices. Organiser Wiam Badrakhan said the gathering provided an opportunity for Syrians to recount the story of the revolution in Homs through all its stages and to explain why the city became known as the “Capital of the Revolution.” She said the event brought together approximately 700 Syrian figures from every province in an unprecedented gathering in Homs since liberation. Strengthening dialogue, celebrating diversity Each edition of “Syrians’ Talk” is held in a different province, allowing its people to present their city’s experiences and history to Syrians from elsewhere in the country. Previous gatherings were held at the Monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi in al-Nabk, followed by events in Idlib and Masyaf. Organisers said the initiative will continue in other provinces as part of efforts to strengthen national dialogue and understanding of Syria’s regional diversity. People’s Assembly member Ahmad al-Ismail said the Homs meeting allowed representatives to hear the views and observations of participants from across Syria. Such contributions, he said, could support the Assembly’s work as it develops legislation addressing the legacy of the previous period and the requirements of rebuilding the state. Participant Jalal Nofal stressed that the Assembly’s primary responsibility is legislation and the adoption of laws, cautioning against expecting it to exercise powers outside its mandate. Community dialogue, he added, could help establish legislative priorities, with transitional justice among the most urgent. Building a state for all, acknowledging immense revolutionary sacrifices Civil society activist Khader Shartouh, from Salamiyah, said Syrians were united around the objective of building a national state capable of embracing every section of society. He also highlighted the immense sacrifices made by Homs throughout the revolution. For years, Homs was presented by Assad’s propaganda primarily as a security threat, while much international coverage showed the city chiefly through images of siege, devastation and displacement. Friday’s gathering offered a different picture: Homs as a meeting place where Syrians could preserve the memory of the revolution while debating the laws and institutions needed for their shared future. https://radiofreesyria.com/homs-capital-of-the-revolution-hosts-national-forum-on-syrias-future/

An extremist group of Israeli colonists has again crossed into an illegally Israeli-occupied area of Syria, remaining there for an entire day before being detained by Israeli troops, in the latest attempt by an expansionist movement with powerful political supporters to establish settlements on occupied Syrian territory. The 'Bashan Pioneers' members crossed near Majdal Shams in Quneitra on Thursday and were not located until Friday, according to the Israeli military. Additional activists attempted to cross from the southern Golan Heights on Friday but were stopped and handed to police. The Times of Israel, which reported the incident, described it as the latest in a series of illegal incursions by the Bashan Pioneers, a far-right movement campaigning for Israeli settlements inside Syria. The IDF condemned the crossings as a “criminal offence,” claiming that they diverted soldiers from operational duties, compromised security and endangered civilians and troops. But the military’s account leaves an obvious question unanswered: how does a well-organised extremist group repeatedly cross one of the most heavily guarded frontiers in the world—and, on this occasion, remain inside Syria for an entire day? Repeated incursions, little deterrence This was not an isolated security breach. Members of the Bashan Pioneers have crossed into Syria on several previous occasions, while other attempted incursions have reportedly been stopped. Seven activists crossed in December 2025, while in April 2026 dozens entered Syrian territory near Majdal Shams and reached the outskirts of the village of Hader. Israeli outlet Ynet reported that 42 activists crossed the old border fence “without any interference.” Images showed activists displaying Israeli flags while soldiers stood nearby. Some climbed onto the roof of a Syrian building before eventually being removed. Around 100 activists reportedly crossed again in early July, declaring their intention to establish a Jewish outpost in Syria. Previous participants have generally been handed to police and released. After an August 2025 incursion in which activists planted an Israeli flag and a sign inside Syrian territory, Ynet reported that those detained were released that evening and appeared unlikely to face prosecution. One breach might be explained as a security failure. Repeated crossings by a publicly identifiable organisation—sometimes involving dozens of people and conducted openly for publicity—are considerably harder to dismiss. The pattern does not prove that the activists received official assistance. It does, however, raise legitimate questions about military permissiveness, sympathetic personnel, political protection and the absence of meaningful legal consequences. The IDF’s latest demand that law enforcement authorities “bring those involved to justice” rings increasingly hollow when the same activists have repeatedly crossed, been returned and then tried again. Crossing into Israeli-controlled Syrian territory There is another misleading element in depicting the incidents simply as civilians slipping across Israel’s border. Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israeli forces have occupied the UN-monitored buffer zone and additional Syrian territory beyond it, in addition to bombing various sites. The IDF currently maintains nine military posts inside southern Syria and, by its own account, operates in areas up to 15 kilometres beyond the internationally recognised frontier. The settlers were therefore not disappearing beyond the Israeli military’s reach into uncontrolled hostile territory. They were moving further into Syrian land already occupied and patrolled by Israeli forces. The Times of Israel described this as “territory held by Israel’s army beyond its borders”—a conspicuously sanitised description of illegally occupied territory belonging to another country. Similarly, it reported that the would-be colonists hope to establish settlements “in the area,” rather than stating directly that their objective is the colonisation of Syrian land. Powerful political support The Bashan Pioneers are not simply an extremist fringe of trespassers operating without political backing. Israeli ministers and coalition lawmakers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, have expressed support for the movement. Its activists have also appealed to senior figures including Bezalel Smotrich and other far-right ministers to support settlement inside Syria. Representatives of the movement claim that numerous ministers and Knesset members support their objectives, although some are unwilling to say so publicly. The group openly presents its incursions as the beginning of a familiar process. Its representatives have noted that early Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights and West Bank were also initially portrayed as temporary, unauthorised or unrealistic before becoming permanent communities supported by the state. That history makes these crossings more than symbolic stunts. Unauthorised settlement has repeatedly served as a mechanism for creating “facts on the ground”: activists seize land, authorities formally disapprove but impose little deterrent, political supporters campaign for recognition, and what was once officially prohibited is gradually normalised. The apparent confrontation between the military and settlers can assist that process. The state retains plausible deniability while the activists introduce permanent settlement of Syrian territory into mainstream Israeli and Western political debate. “Security” and expansion The incursions are taking place as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior members of his government promote an increasingly expansionist position toward Syria. Netanyahu has demanded the complete demilitarisation of Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda and asserted that Syria’s own security forces must not operate south of Damascus. Defence Minister Israel Katz has said that Israeli troops will remain on Syrian territory indefinitely, despite repeated demands for their withdrawal from Damascus and the United Nations. Other Israeli government figures have used still more inflammatory language. Ben Gvir has repeatedly called for the assassination of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, while other Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened Syria with further military action. US President Donald Trump this week reportedly told Netanyahu to begin withdrawing Israeli forces from Syria. Israel has nevertheless continued to insist that its occupation is necessary for its own security. That justification reverses the reality of what has happened since Assad’s fall. Syria’s new government has not invaded Israel. It has repeatedly stated that it does not seek war and has largely refrained from responding militarily to Israeli attacks. Israel, by contrast, crossed the disengagement line, occupied additional Syrian territory, conducted hundreds of ground incursions and launched extensive airstrikes across the country. Its forces have destroyed Syrian military infrastructure, raided villages, established checkpoints, detained residents and opened fire during operations inside Syria. Even Israeli figures like journalist and security analyst Seth Frantzman have acknowledged the basic asymmetry: Israel invaded and acted aggressively against Syria, while Syria has acted with restraint, refusing to be goaded into the war that The danger of retaliation Syria’s military restraint should not be mistaken for acceptance of the occupation or any sort of cooperation between Damascus and Netanyahu. The country is emerging from 14 years of war, with much of its military capacity destroyed and its institutions only beginning to recover. It also faces an Israeli government possessing overwhelming military superiority and repeatedly threatening further attacks, whose first reaction to the fall of the Assad regime was to launch strikes on Syrian military bases and arsenals to further militarily cripple the new government; the coordinates of some of these sites were reportedly given to Tel Aviv by disgruntled Assad regime officers, further challenging the deposed regime's "resistance" credentials. Any Syrian military response, however justified as a defence of its territory, could provide Netanyahu’s government with the pretext for a much larger assault, with Israel sure to present the Syrian response in isolation as an unprovoked attack while airbrushing out the occupation, raids and airstrikes that preceded it from the story. There is already evidence of how easily this mechanism can operate. In June 2025, two projectiles fired from Syrian territory landed in open areas of the occupied Golan Heights without causing casualties. Although an obscure armed group claimed responsibility and Damascus denied involvement, Israel held al-Sharaa personally responsible and launched airstrikes against Syria. Damascus consequently faces a dangerous trap. If it refrains from military retaliation, Israel can continue entrenching its occupation. If it responds, Israel can cite that response as proof that Syria poses a threat and use it to justify further escalation. Restraint under those conditions is not collaboration. It is an attempt to recover Syrian territory without handing an expansionist Israeli government the war it is very clearly seeking. Israel’s security concerns cannot give it an unlimited right to bomb, demilitarise or occupy a neighbouring country—still less to dictate where that country’s own forces may deploy. Nor can they explain why Israeli civilians seeking to colonise Syrian land are repeatedly able to enter territory supposedly under intensive military control. The most important question is therefore not simply how the Bashan Pioneers crossed the border this time. It is why they remain confident that they can keep doing so—and what Israel’s government, military and police have done to convince them otherwise. So far, the answer appears to be very little. The activists have powerful political supporters, face few lasting consequences and operate within a climate in which permanent Israeli control of Syrian territory is increasingly presented as legitimate. Their latest day-long incursion looks less like an inexplicable security mishap than the foreseeable result of that political environment. https://radiofreesyria.com/how-do-israeli-colonists-keep-sneaking-into-syria-across-one-of-the-worlds-most-heavily-militarised-borders/

For fourteen years, the playbook never changed. Max Blumenthal, the son of former White House aide Sidney Blumenthal, built a second career not as a journalist covering Syria, but as a stenographer for Bashar al-Assad. The trips were regime-hosted. The visas were regime-approved. The itinerary rarely changed: a guided tour of Damascus, lavish praise for a dictatorship that turned a country into a graveyard, and then the real work—discrediting the people who tried to uncover its crimes. No target absorbed more of his attention than the White Helmets. The volunteer rescue workers who pulled children from the rubble after barrel bombs and Russian airstrikes were portrayed by Blumenthal as Al-Qaeda operatives, CIA proxies, or a public relations front. Victims of chemical attacks were mocked, and their testimony was dismissed as staged. Every allegation of sarin attacks, chlorine attacks, or systematic torture and killing was met with essentially the same response: Assad did not do it—and if he did, his enemies somehow deserved it. It was genocide denial packaged as journalism. Pose with regime loyalists, film a segment for The Grayzone, then return home to be celebrated as an anti-imperialist truth-teller by audiences far removed from the realities of war. That regime is gone now. Its archives have been opened. Sednaya Prison—the symbol of a vast system of repression that Assad's defenders long sought to minimize or deny—has been exposed to the world. The documentary record, the photographs, and the testimonies of survivors have fundamentally reshaped public understanding of what occurred. And so the stenographer needed a new patron.He appears to have found one in Tehran. In the aftermath of Assad's fall, Blumenthal has directed similar sympathetic coverage toward Iran's leadership. Critics argue that he has echoed official narratives, framed the Islamic Republic primarily as a victim of Western aggression, and downplayed or dismissed its record of domestic repression and regional influence. The cast around him appears familiar: many of the same fringe activists, livestreamers, and self-described journalists who defended Assad now devote similar energy to defending Tehran. The location has changed. The method has not. Sympathy for the rulers. Skepticism toward their victims. Doubt cast on documented abuses. From Damascus to Tehran, the client changes.The service remains the same. https://radiofreesyria.com/from-damascus-to-tehran-the-stenographer-changes-dictators/

US envoy Tom Barrack has outlined an ambitious regional economic programme centred on Iraq and involving Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, which he claimed could make the Strait of Hormuz “an afterthought” within two years. Speaking at a high-level US-Iraq business summit in Washington on Friday, Barrack said Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi was helping to lead a “brilliant realignment of security and strategic alliances” across the region. “What this young leader has in mind, aligned with Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, is a program that will make the Strait of Hormuz an afterthought in two years,” Barrack told representatives attending the US Chamber of Commerce event, according to The New Region. In a subsequent post on X, Barrack described the emerging project as a “transformative corridor across Mesopotamia, the Levant, Türkiye, and the Gulf,” which would make the strategically important waterway “far less consequential very soon.” The remarks appear to refer to a wider network of energy, transport and communications routes rather than one project alone. These could include the proposed revival of the Kirkuk–Baniyas oil pipeline, which would allow Iraqi oil to reach Syria’s Mediterranean coast without passing through Hormuz. Restoring Iraq-Syria pipeline Iraq and Syria have recently discussed restoring the approximately 800-kilometre pipeline, much of which has remained out of service since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Washington has reportedly backed the plan as part of its search for alternative export routes following repeated disruption to shipping in the Gulf. Other potential routes could connect Iraq with Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, creating an integrated network between the Gulf, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. Barrack did not provide details of the projects involved or explain how the six countries would participate. For Syria, such a programme could carry implications extending beyond the energy sector. Its geographical position could make it a transit country for oil, gas, electricity, goods and communications, potentially generating revenue and attracting investment in roads, railways, ports and other infrastructure. The proposal also places post-Assad Syria within a developing regional economic system rather than treating it solely as a recipient of humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. Barrack’s two-year timetable is nevertheless highly ambitious. Rehabilitating pipelines and constructing new infrastructure would require substantial investment, agreements among several governments and long-term security arrangements. The Strait of Hormuz currently carries around one-fifth of global oil and gas supplies and would remain a major international shipping route even if alternative corridors reduced dependence on it. The strategic purpose of the programme appears to be a reduction in the Iranian regime’s ability to use disruption or threatened disruption of Hormuz as leverage over neighbouring countries and international energy markets. Iranian currency tumbling to record lows The announcement coincided with another record fall in Iran’s currency. The US dollar reached approximately 1.918 million rials on Iran’s open market on Friday, surpassing its previous high as war, inflation and worsening economic conditions continued to weaken the rial. The currency collapse has primarily affected Iran’s population through falling wages and savings and rising prices for food, medicines and other necessities. It is therefore distinct from the pressure being placed on the Iranian regime’s regional strategy, although both developments arise from the same intensifying economic and military crisis. Renewed fighting and disruption around Hormuz also drove oil prices higher. Brent crude rose above $86 per barrel on Friday and was heading for a weekly increase of around 14 percent. Barrack praised Zaidi as offering an alternative to the regional “chaos” arising from the war with Iran and urged American businesses to invest in Iraq. Zaidi, who met President Donald Trump at the White House during his week-long US visit, has pledged to give American companies priority in Iraq’s energy, communications and technology sectors. The scale, ownership and financing of the proposed regional programme remain unclear. No detailed timetable has yet been published, and questions remain over how revenues would be distributed and what political, commercial or security conditions might accompany US support. Barrack’s statement nevertheless suggests that the proposed Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline forms part of a considerably larger plan to create alternative routes between the Gulf, Iraq and the Mediterranean, with Syria occupying a central geographical position. https://radiofreesyria.com/barrack-regional-corridor-through-syria-could-make-hormuz-an-afterthought-within-two-years/

From a Hotmail address called MY Syria to audio recordings of bribes for Meta employees - the inside story of how Hassan Akkad, Jamal Daood and Lama Alokaili were erased. Mahmoud Bitar | Damascus — July 17, 2026 On July 11, award-winning Syrian activist and filmmaker Hassan Akkad woke up to find his Instagram account - his archive of 10 years of activism on Syria - gone. The message from Meta was cold and final: "Your account has been reported multiple times for violating the copyright of others and your account will be disabled." The copyright owner is Nada Sakka, an Indonesian pop singer Akkad had never heard of, claiming her song he posted on June 25. Twenty-four hours later, while his account was already dead, a second strike arrived. A post criticizing Bashar al-Assad's rehabilitation at the 2023 Arab League Summit had been flagged by a Japanese account. The violation was the Japanese Copyright Act of 1970 with accusation that Akkad had "copied the complainant's entire profile and impersonated them." It was absurd and was also not an isolated glitch. It was the beginning of a pattern that now, with new documents obtained by this author, points to a paid, coordinated black market operating through Meta's own reporting system - a market whose ultimate beneficiary is one of the most notorious sanctioned war profiteers of the Assad era, Mohammed Hamsho.Exhibit A, B and C: MY Syria, MT PLUS and the Hotmail Heist The Stunning Studio report, which documents the coordinated attacks on Syrian activists, shows the same method was used against three different activists at the same time. Hassan Akkad: Deleted by claims from Indonesia and Japan. Jamal Daood: The Syrian activist and filmmaker found that his own personal photographs and videos were removed after a company called MY SYRIA, operating from [email protected], claimed it owned the intellectual property to his own work. On June 26, a post of his was taken down. Meta's notice read: "The removal decision was made by our technology." Lama Alokaili: Activist Lama Alokaili confirmed several of her personal videos that she personally filmed were blocked worldwide after claims by MT PLUS. The screenshot Meta sent her says: "Your reel is blocked worldwide." Shortly after, she received several WhatsApp messages from an unknown number claiming her Meta accounts had been compromised and that her personal information had been leaked. As the report states: "The arbitrary nature of these complaints raises serious doubts regarding the validity of the alleged intellectual property claims and reinforces the possibility that misleading or unfounded copyright complaints were used to facilitate the suspension." A Hotmail address claiming an activist's family photos. An Indonesian singer claiming a video about Syrian politics. A Japanese private citizen claiming a photo of Bashar al-Assad. Meta's technology believed all of them over the activists.Exhibit D: The Audio - "I Guarantee The Clients Will Pay"If the screenshots show the failed system, the final two pages of the report show the business model behind it. Following the suspensions, both Akkad and Alokaili received information from anonymous sources indicating that certain individuals had paid money to disable their accounts, as well as the accounts of other activists. Akkad received audio recordings and screenshots that allegedly indicate payments being made in exchange for disabling the personal Meta accounts of Syrian users, in addition to allegations that employees within Meta had been bribed to facilitate such activities. In the recordings, a speaker tells the party responsible for disabling accounts that he fully guaranteed "the group" that had sent him that the job would be done, but notes that waiting four days was too long given the amount of money involved. He adds that he also wanted approximately 30 accounts to be restored. The speaker states that four or five young men work with him. Then he makes two damning offers:"If I can solve this issue, I'll be able to fulfill your request to recover any account." "If there is an employee who can permanently shut them down, I'm ready. I guarantee that the clients will pay. The important thing is that it happens immediately, within 24 hours."The report concludes: "The information collected thus far indicates signs of the possible existence of a network operating unlawfully to disable and subsequently restore personal and public accounts in exchange for financial payments... with allegations that corrupt employees within Meta may have been exploited. "The Hamsho Connection: Why Akkad? Why were Akkad, Daood and Alokaili targeted in the same week? Look at what they were exposing. In January 2025, Mohammed Hamsho returned to Damascus. Hamsho is not just any businessman. He has been under U.S. sanctions since 2011. He is blacklisted by the UK and EU. He is accused by OCCRP of profiting from Syria's devastation by trading in rubble from bombed neighborhoods and of acting as a front for Maher al-Assad's Fourth Armored Division. He is also accused in a court counterclaim of participating in the displacement of thousands of Syrians, illegally profiting from their properties, and recruiting mercenaries. His return under state security escort was meant to be quiet. Activists like Hassan Akkad made it loud. Hamsho's response to exposure is documented. According to OCCRP, when activist Abdel Hamid Al Assaf shared a photo of Hamsho walking in Damascus under escort and called on authorities to bring him to court, Hamsho filed a defamation lawsuit, had him summoned to a police station on false pretenses, and forced him to sign a gag order under threat of detention. That is how you silence an activist in Damascus. But Hassan Akkad lives in London. Hamsho has no jurisdiction there. So you don't sue him in Damascus. You buy his deletion on Instagram. The report notes: "At this stage, we cannot confirm or refute the accuracy of the allegations concerning the individuals whose names have circulated." But the timing, the motive, and the method all point in one direction. The network that guarantees "the group" for money is the digital extension of the same impunity that let Hamsho walk back into Damascus. This is the ultimate failure of Meta's reporting system. ● It allows anonymous financial hitmen. MY Syria with a Hotmail and MT PLUS with no verifiable registration can claim ownership of an activist's own work and Meta's bot will execute the deletion. ● It creates a data leak. How did MT PLUS get Lama Alokaili's WhatsApp number and personal information after claiming her videos? ● It has no human failsafe. A Japanese copyright claim against a UK-based Syrian activist covering a sanctioned Syrian tycoon should trigger an immediate human rights review, not an auto-ban. The Stunning Studio report calls upon competent authorities to conduct an independent and impartial investigation and calls upon Meta to review its decisions and restore accounts suspended as a result of the abuse of its IP enforcement mechanisms. Meta must preserve all logs for MY Syria, MT PLUS, Nada Sakka and the Japanese claimant, disclose how many activist accounts were deleted via these entities, investigate the bribery allegation of its own employees, and immediately restore Hassan Akkad, Jamal Daood and Lama Alokaili with protected status. And it must answer one question: Who paid for the list of 30 accounts? Until then, Meta is not a platform. It is the new security escort for Mohammed Hamsho. Copyright was meant to protect artists. You turned it into a weapon for the man who sold the rubble of destroyed Syrian cities. https://radiofreesyria.com/the-instagram-hit-list-how-metas-failed-copyright-system-became-a-for-hire-weapon-for-assads-tycoon-hamsho-to-delete-syrian-activists-instagram-accounts/

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