Bashar Assad

Israeli soldiers pass through the city of Sidon southward during the Lebanon War, April 9, 1983. (GPO)

Israel left Lebanon 20 years ago. We’re still fighting for our liberation

Hezbollah were viewed as heroes for forcing the Israeli army out of southern Lebanon. Today, they are responsible for killing countless Syrians and Palestinians. Reflections by a Lebanese Palestinian on 'Liberation Day.'

By Elia Ayoub May 25, 2020

Revolutionary Guard Major-General and commander of the Quds Forces Qassem Soleimani, 2015.

You don’t need to mourn Qassem Soleimani to be deeply worried

Reflections of an Iranian dissident in exile.

By Arash Azizi January 5, 2020

Tariq Al-Bab, Aleppo, 2013. (Basma/Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

Downstairs, from heavenly Aleppo

Aleppo, your stories will come back to my ears, like a child who sits on his grandmother’s knees. By Mati Shemoelof Aleppo, I, Matityaho Ibn Shifra, your old daughter, a grandson of your Arab-Jews, mourn the erasure of your city of poetry, Aleppo, how did they forget to save your libraries? Aleppo, was it not…

By +972 Magazine February 18, 2017

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Sadiq Jalal al-Azm seen during a lecture series at University of California, Los Angeles's Department of Near Eastern Studies in 2006. (Bgadsby)

Goodbye to the Syrian intellectual who sought to liberate his homeland

Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, who passed away last week, was a Syrian intellectual of the highest order. He placed a mirror in front of both the Arab world and its tendency to blame the West for all its ills. By Dror Ze’evi The Arab states are in trouble. Their citizens are unable to break through the…

By +972 Magazine December 18, 2016

Lebanese President Michel Aoun, September 15, 2015. (photo: Imadmhj/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Why it took Lebanon two years to elect a president

The problem with Lebanese electoral politics is far less sectarian than we are often led to believe. And you thought the American elections were a headache? By Aurélie Daher At last! The Lebanese parties finally decided on October 31 to give the country a new president, after the position had been vacant since the last…

By +972 Magazine November 3, 2016

An anti-regime demonstration in Menbej, in the Aleppo countryside, March 8, 2013. (Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

Western democracies, it’s on you to end the carnage in Syria

Only once Western democracies have committed their resources to ending the atrocities in Syria can they turn inward to rid their societies of the hate and bigotry that plagues them. By Ilan Manor Words matter. Words help us understand the world we inhabit and shape our response to events far and near. Some refer to the events unfolding in Syria…

By +972 Magazine October 7, 2016

Destruction due to shelling in Douma, a town under siege northeast of Damascus. (photo: Adasa Sham)

After chemical attack, Damascus suburbs face starvation

Since the beginning of 2013, Assad’s forces have laid siege on the suburbs of the capital known as Ghouta, which was the target of a chemical weapons attack earlier this summer. Regime forces are stopping food and other goods from coming in and as winter approaches, activists are warning that the situation is about to…

By +972 Magazine October 3, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

Obama puts U.S. on collision course with Russia

The Syria crisis doesn’t look like it’s going away. It looks like it’s escalating. What if Russia doesn’t get Assad to hand over his entire chemical weapons arsenal, as Obama – backed loudly, of course, by Netanyahu – is demanding? Is Obama going to bomb Syria like he’s been threatening? At this point, with…

By Larry Derfner September 12, 2013

Southwest Minnesota (photo: Ami Kaufman)

Tel Aviv to Lake Wobegon: My heart is in the East

Today is one of those days where I remember a poem by the famous Jewish poet of medieval Spain, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. The first line of Libi Ba’Mizrach, probably his most famous work of art, is: “My heart is in the East, and I am in the uttermost West.” Rabbi Halevi, of course, was speaking…

By Ami Kaufman August 27, 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama (Center for American Progress/CC)

Why Obama should stay out of Syria

It’s a mission impossible. Because of the severe (and understandable) limitations it’s placing on a possible military intervention in Syria, the Obama administration would do better to pass on the idea. The U.S. shouldn’t try to play the humanitarian in a civil war like that one under such self-imposed restrictions; it’s much more likely to…

By Larry Derfner August 26, 2013

A woman carries a sign in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, October 11, 2011 (Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

Why boycotts against Israel are fair game

Israel is unique in one very important way: for other malefactors like Syria and Sudan, there is no need to convince the international public of their wrongs. If it wasn’t a persuasive argument, Israel’s defenders wouldn’t keep using it, like they are now against Alice Walker: Why are these left-wingers singling Israel out for boycott,…

By Larry Derfner June 21, 2013

Bombed out buildings in Aleppo, Syria. December 26, 2012 (Freedom House/CC)

The least terrible policy in Syria: Doing nothing

Sending armies or air forces to stop jihadists from grabbing Syria’s chemical weapons would be inordinately daunting and dangerous – and inconclusive. I, too, would like to neutralize the threat of the jihadists in Syria, and Hezbollah, and the possibility that they will take control of Assad’s chemical weapons (and worse, much worse, his…

By Larry Derfner April 29, 2013

Syrian President Bashar al Assad (PanArmenianPhoto/CC BY NC ND 2.0)

WATCH: What is behind Israeli apathy toward massacres in Syria?

The civil war in Syria has been raging for over two years, with President Bashar Assad on one side and the rebels on the other. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed in the fighting. Although information about what is actually occurring in Syria is only a click away, Israeli society, it seems,…

By Social TV April 10, 2013