Author: M Barbu

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.

More than a half century after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 242—which established the principle by which Israel would give up territory it gained in the war in exchange for peace and security—the Israelis and the Palestinians have made no meaningful, much less lasting, progress on their core differences.

It is time for this to change. What little opportunity still exists for realizing progress toward a durable agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians—one that would serve both parties’ interests—is fast fading. Political and physical barriers to compromise will soon pass a tipping point.

According to the Department of Justice, in the early 1990s, the Muslim Brotherhood, planned to establish a network of organizations in the US to spread a militant Islamist message and raise money for Hamas. The Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) became the chief fundraising arm for the Palestine Committee in the US, created by the MB to support Hamas. In 2008, HLF leaders were convicted of crimes, including providing material support for Hamas.

The demonstrations organized by the Druze community in Suwayda, demanding the right to self-determination and declaring independence from Syria, were neither a fleeting episode nor a simple reaction to the brutal crackdown launched by the transitional authority in Damascus last July. That assault on the Mount of Druze claimed thousands of deaths and grave human rights violations, leaving enduring scars on the community.

A recent article by Dr. Ahmed Muwaffaq Zaidan on Al Jazeera, urging the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, has stirred debate. Some welcomed the idea as a way to move beyond a long-burdensome legacy; others saw it as a worrying signal of exclusion at a moment that calls for unity.