Orientul Mijlociu

On October 10, 2023, Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mash’al published an announcement calling on the entire Islamic ummah (nation) to join the jihad battle for Al-Aqsa Mosque and to provide economic aid to the Gaza Strip. He stressed that this call was addressed first and foremost to all the Arab countries closest to Israel, with an emphasis on Jordan.

Dr. Mahmoud Al-Shajrawi of the Palestine Scholars Association in the Diaspora said on an October 9, 2023 show on Al-Quds Al-Youm TV (Palestinian Islamic Jihad – Gaza) that his organization issued a “wonderful” fatwa stating that it is permissible to kill Israelis wherever they may be, whether it is in the West Bank, within Israel’s 1948 border, or in the Arab countries that have normalized relations with Israel.

Regardless of the precise strategy of the Palestinian group Hamas, or any other Palestinian movement for that matter, the daring Palestinian military campaign, deep inside Israel, on Saturday, October 7, was only possible because Palestinians are simply fed up.

Uncertainty is rising for Syrian refugees everywhere. Borders are tightening in Europe, deportations from Lebanon and Turkey are increasing, and Syria remains inhospitable for returning refugees. Jordan is considered to be a Syrian refugee “success story” due to its record of hospitality. However, Syrians who reside in the country are increasingly concerned about changes in the government’s posture toward them. They fear that their host government may be running out of patience and they may soon be pressured to leave.

The situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate as the health sector collapses and bodies begin piling up in front of hospitals.

Three days into the Israeli siege and bombardment, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is quickly worsening, with the death toll now over 1,400 and the number of displaced surpassing 300,000.

“Flood Of Vengeance – From Syria To Palestine (Source: Al-Watan, Syria, October 8, 2023.

Arab online news outlets, among them those affiliated with the Syrian opposition, are reporting on intensified preparations by Hizbullah and Iranian militias in Syria, in advance of the possibility that the current war between Israel and Hamas will expand to the Syrian front.

Azerbaijan’s late September military operation to retake the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, the self-styled “Republic of Artsakh,” caused most of the residents to flee to Armenia and the government of breakaway region to announce it will dissolve by 1 January 2024.

The United States is flowing military supplies to Israel as the country battles against Hamas terrorists, President Joe Biden said Tuesday.

“We stand with Israel,” the president said during an announcement at the White House.

Senior Hamas official Ali Baraka said in an October 8, 2023 interview that aired on Russia Today TV that Hamas had been secretly planning the invasion of southern Israel for two years, even as it was making it seem like it was busy governing the Gaza Strip. He explained that this is the reason Hamas did not join the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in its previous round of fighting against Israel. He said that Hamas notified its allies in other Palestinian factions, in Hizbullah, in Iran, in Turkey, and in Russia only after the invasion started, and he stated that any prisoner exchange deal should involve Hamas prisoners held in the United States. Later in the interview, Baraka said that Hamas has a license from Russia to locally produce bullets for Kalashnikovs, that Russia sympathizes with Hamas, and that it is pleased with the war because it is easing American pressure on it with regard to the war in Ukraine.

Key points

• After 12 years of civil war, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has consolidated its power and defeated credible threats to its rule. The anti-Assad armed opposition, which once controlled half of Syria, is relegated to the northwestern province of Idlib.
• While the Biden administration recognizes that Assad will likely remain in office, U.S. policy remains punitive, maintaining comprehensive sanctions on Syria until Assad negotiates political reforms with his opponents and agrees to free and fair elections.
• This policy will not produce the desired results. Assad is firmly entrenched, benefits from the help of security partners in Iran and Russia, who prefer that he stays in power, and remains highly unlikely to comply with U.S. demands. The status quo amounts to collective punishment of the Syrian population.
• Approximately 900 U.S. troops remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to train and advise the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS. But ISIS lost its territorial caliphate more than four years ago. The risk of keeping U.S. forces there in perpetuity which includes sporadic attacks on U.S. positions and escalation risks with various actors, outweighs any rewards.
• Neither the sanctions nor the occupation of eastern Syria serves U.S. security interests. The former does no good, and the latter risks embroiling the United States in a mission without an end date.
• The United States should withdraw its remaining forces and offload what is left of the counter-ISIS mission to local actors. The United States should also reduce if not end its failing sanctions regime.