Orientul Mijlociu

For nearly two years, Western media has normalised Israeli war crimes and dehumanised Palestinians amid Gaza’s ongoing genocide, argues Assal Rad.

Language is not neutral; it shapes the way we perceive global events with profound implications for public opinion. In the context of the Gaza genocide, the discourse deployed by Western media is far from objective. It often contributes to the dehumanisation of Palestinians while reinforcing pro-Israel narratives. This bias is not just about what is reported, and what is not, but also about how the story is told.

This past July, a cleric from Gaza with 1 million followers on TikTok launched a fundraising campaign on US-based crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. The stated goal: to raise 500,000 euros “for humanitarian needs and aid to civilians in Gaza.”

But behind the scenes, a covert team sought to uncover his true goals and quickly tracked down his connections to a cleric named Al-Sharif, a member of the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Preachers’ Forum. Using facial recognition software, the team tracked down footage on social media showing the recruiter calling on Gazan youth to become “Soldiers of the next October 7.” The evidence was handed over to GoFundMe. The result: the fundraising campaign was frozen within 36 hours.

The Syrian leader is heading a neo-Jihadism that is more insidious and dangerous than all other forms of political Islamism and Salafi-Jihadism the world has known so far.

Syria’s interim self-appointed president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who served for two decades as a militant in the al-Qaeda terrorist organization under the alias Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, told the press recently that he does not see himself as an extension of political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood or classical Salafi-jihadists like ISIS and al-Qaeda. To those who are blind to the many shades of jihadism, these statements might seem to signal that al-Jolani is abandoning his jihadist beliefs or that Syria is entering a post-Islamist era. In reality, these statements are a declaration of the evolution of an even more volatile and dangerous hybrid ideology: neo-Jihadism.

The worst drought in decades is gripping much of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, drying out rivers and lakes, shriveling crops and leading to dayslong tap water cutoffs in major cities.

The situation is particularly dire in Syria, where experts say rainfall has been declining for decades and where the fledgling government is trying to stitch the country back together following a 14-year civil war that left millions impoverished and reliant on foreign aid.

As Israel seeks to reshape the region, the settler movement senses an opportunity to make ‘Greater Israel’ a reality, eyeing land in Syria, Lebanon, and beyond

In a move that sparked international condemnation, a group of Israeli settlers crossed into Syrian territory near the village of Bariqa in Quneitra province on 18 August and attempted to establish a new settlement on Israeli military-controlled land.

Despite efforts to integrate diverse rebel factions into a unified military structure, a report notes significant challenges, including defections, tribal conflicts, and difficulties in maintaining regular salary payments.

A recent report has revealed that 22 senior military officials in the New Syrian Army, including key figures such as the Minister of Defense, Deputy Minister of Defense, and Chief of Staff, have backgrounds tied to jihadist organizations, raising significant concerns about the stability of Syria’s new regime and potential security threats to neighboring countries, including Israel.

Syria has reached a significant milestone in its economic recovery with the export of its first crude oil shipment in 14 years. On Monday, 1 September 2025, 600,000 barrels of heavy crude were dispatched from the port of Tartous aboard the tanker Nissos Christiana, as announced by the Syrian Ministry of Energy.

The relationship between Syria and Iraq resists simple classification within conventional models of regional systems, yet it stands as one of the defining features of the Arab Levant’s modern history. This unique and enduring bond cannot be explained solely through the lens of ancient sectarian or theological divisions. To reduce it to historical rivalries—such as those between the Umayyads and Hashemites, or Sunni and Shia factions—is to perpetuate a flawed narrative of perpetual sectarian conflict.

Interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa pledged to dismantle his country’s massive illegal drug trade when he took power in December, but the dangerous amphetamine captagon is still flowing.

On September 1, Jordanian security forces announced that they “foiled two large-scale drug-smuggling attempts along the country’s eastern border [with Syria].” In August, Jordanian authorities intercepted at least 10 drug shipments, a significant increase from previous months.

On June 29, 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in al-Sham (ISIS), was recorded on video speaking at the al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, Iraq. (“Al-Sham” is the traditional Arabic name for the Levant.) He declared himself to be the caliph or divinely inspired absolute ruler of an Islamic state.

ISIS had risen from the ashes of al-Qa’ida in Iraq, bringing together Syrian jhadists released by Asad’s regime, former members of Saddam Hussein’s army in Iraq, and Sunni tribal fighters from across rural Iraq. In Syria, ISIS joined other jihadist groups in fighting Asad. As its battlefield victories mounted, ISIS broke with al-Qai’da in declaring an Islamic state across eastern Syria and northern Iraq, with al-Raqqa in Syria as its capital.