On November 27, 2024, the day the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect, the Syrian rebels took advantage of the opportunity and launched an attack against Bashar al-Assad’s army. After only 11 days, their forces had taken control of Damascus and completed the conquest of Syria. Assad himself fled to Russia.
Many were amazed at the dizzying speed with which the Syrian regime fell, and at the depth of hatred among the enraged crowd that wrecked the statue of the elder Assad and dragged it through Damascus.
The person least surprised was Lt. Col. (Res.) Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a member of the IDSF movement and one of the leading experts in Middle East studies. His analysis seems to imply that the Baath regime in Syria could have come to no different end.
Greater infidels than Jews and Christians
“The rebels succeeded in taking control of Syria so quickly because Syria is a hollow country. The people don’t believe in it and the army isn’t willing to die for it,” Kedar said in a special conversation with Or Yissachar, head of the IDSF research department, after the dramatic developments in Syria. “My book ‘Assad in Search of Legitimacy’ (2005) proves what other Orientalists have tried to deny or ignore,” claims Kedar, “which is that Hafez Assad, and later his son Bashar, tried in vain all these years to become legitimate rulers in the eyes of the public. They never succeeded. They didn’t have a nickel’s worth of legitimacy. Nothing, zero, nada. They ruled by force. Everything was phony, and that’s why it fell apart so quickly.”
Kedar explains that this is a chronicle of a collapse foretold. “Syria’s biggest problem is that in 1966 it was taken over by members of the Alawite religion, a minority who are considered by the country’s Sunni Muslim majority to be infidels – idolaters whose fate is to either convert to Islam or be slaughtered. The renowned medieval Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyyah called the Alawites ‘greater infidels than the Jews and Christians.’ Therefore, from the perspective of Muslims, an Alawite cannot be a ruler.”
Brutal repression and strategic surprise
“To deal with the hostility of the Muslim majority towards them,” says Kedar, “the Alawite leaders from the Marxist faction of the Baath Party – the secular nationalist party that has ruled Syria since taking over in 1966 – established a terrible dictatorial regime. It suppressed rebellions brutally. In 1976, the Muslim Brotherhood mounted an uprising in Syria and thousands of Sunni rebels fought against the government. The uprising ended in February 1982 with the Great Hama Massacre, where between 20,000 and 40,000 people were murdered. Military forces under the command of Rifaat al-Assad, Hafez al-Assad’s younger brother, blew up houses with the residents inside – including old people, women, and children – and they killed other victims with gas. About 20,000 more people, who were taken into custody, were murdered in Palmyra prison.
“The next round began in March 2011, with a wave of anti-government protests that erupted as part of what was then called the ‘Arab Spring.’ Then too, in various regions, the rebellion was suppressed with deadly force. Many Syrian Muslims fled north to the Idlib region, close to Turkiye. The Turks helped them arm and equip themselves, organize, train, and prepare for the great day when they would break out and liberate the country from the rule of the Assad family.”
For 14 years, the rebels in the Idlib region waited, gathered strength, armed themselves, and watched for the opportunity to deliver the decisive blow to the Assad regime. “The turning point,” explains Kedar, “came with the end of Hezbollah’s war against Israel, which left the regime especially weakened.”
How did the rebels mount their surprise attack?
“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – an Islamist organization formerly called Jabhat al-Nusra and affiliated with al-Qaeda – was the first to attack, under the command of Muhammad al-Julani. The other rebel organizations quickly followed suit, to take advantage of the strategic surprise that wound up costing the Assad regime its life.”
Kedar describes the course of the battles: “First the rebel forces attacked in Aleppo, and a few days later they proceeded south to Hama and later to Homs. After that area was conquered, the Druze in As-Suwayda and the Bedouin in Daraa also joined the rebellion against the government. Then it was a short path to the conquest of Damascus and the final defeat of Assad.”
We will have won when Israeli flags are hoisted over former Iranian embassies
Although the rebels fought as a single front in the recent campaign, in reality they are a variety of organizations and their agendas differ and sometimes clash. “In the Idlib region, refugees from Daesh, Al Qaeda, and other organizations have accumulated over the years, especially after 2018. In contrast, there were also secular and multi-ethnic organizations without any religious agenda. They included Muslims, Christians, Druze, Alawites, and members of other groups. These organizations appear more moderate and pragmatic, and at least two of them accept Israel. I know this because I’m in contact with their leaders,” Kedar reveals.
Does the agenda of most rebels actually appear to be relatively moderate?
“The statements that most organizations are issuing are quite positive. Some even say that Israel has nothing to fear. One of the organizations I’m in contact with wrote to me that for them the great victory over Assad, the Iranians, and Hezbollah will be when the Iranian embassies in Damascus and Amman have Israeli flags flying, meaning those buildings have become the Israeli embassies.”
It would be better for the rebels to establish a liberal regime
“There is no unified Syrian people,” explains Kedar. “Syria is an artificial state. It’s deeply divided ethnically, into Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Armenians – and religiously, into Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Alawites – and tribally, into powerful clans and extended families, many of them armed and valuing their internal loyalties and their own agendas. Those groups were together only because of the arbitrary border that France established when it concluded its mandate in the region. The gaps and tensions along ethnic, religious, and tribal lines have prevented a true Syrian people from forming.” According to Kedar, this is precisely the reason that it would be beneficial for al-Julani to establish a relatively liberal regime.
“If Syria becomes an Islamist state like Daesh or a dictatorship that tries to impose a unified national identity, it could fall apart – because the Druze, Kurds, and other minorities would not want to live in such a state.” On the other hand, if Syria were a pluralistic state as it was in the 1950s, intervening less harshly in the lives of its citizens, then all sorts of forces that want independence – such as the Alawites in the coastal region – could very possibly be content with what they have and not try to dismantle the country.”
If the alternative is Iran – I prefer Daesh
When asked whether the disintegration of countries like Iran or Syria will negatively affect stability in the Middle East, Kedar replies surprisingly that on the contrary, it will only improve stability.
“Only the Emirates, which are homogeneous countries, have remained stable over many years in this region. In contrast, countries made of several groups, heterogeneous countries, are very unstable. Consider, for example, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, and Libya. They each include ethnic, religious, and tribal groups that don’t associate with each other, so why force them to live in a single framework?
If an extremist Islamist state like Daesh is established, is it still good for Israel that the Assad regime has fallen?
“Even the worst militias in Syria pose a threat that is primarily tactical – automatic weapons and heavy machine guns mounted on Toyotas. If I have to choose between that and a strategic threat from Iran in the form of ballistic missiles, and maybe nuclear weapons soon, then I prefer to deal with Daesh. Of course I really want to avoid that. But if the alternative is Iran, I prefer Daesh.”
Israel is ready for any scenario
Is uncertainty about the nature of Syria’s emerging regime the reason for the preventive measures that Israel has taken in recent weeks?
“Exactly. Israel is preparing for the worst-case scenario, in which extremist Islamists have control of Syria. That’s why we’re seeing a very large concentration of forces in the Golan. For the meantime, until it becomes clear where the new government is headed, the IDF has captured the Syrian side of Mount Hermon – which is higher than the Israeli side – and has also improved the Israeli positions on the Golan itself. These steps are important and it’s good that they were taken as a way of warding off danger and ensuring that we don’t relive October 7th – this time on the Golan – with military forces entering the State of Israel because it fell asleep on the watch.
“It’s impossible to know what will happen in Syria,” concludes Kedar. “It could be an Islamist terrorist state like Daesh, or an open, modern, liberal state like Syria was in the past. We have to wait and see. We can only hope that a reasonable, normal government will be established there that Israel can reach a dialogue with, so that we all can feel calmer about what’s happening across the border.”
