Syrian Opposition Leader wants Israelis to Understand the Complexities facing Syria

And he wants a strong Israel.

This is a continuation of a conversation I had with Fahad Almasri, President of the National Salvation Front in Syria. In the previous part, we talked about Syria’s silence during the current Hamas-Hezbollah war against Israel. In this part, we talk about the conditions under which a New Syria, a post-Assad regime, can come about. Navonel Glick translated, bridging the language gap between my English and Almasri’s French.

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When asked why he is leading an opposition against President Bashar Assad, Fahad Almasri answers that it is related to how he was treated by the Syrian regime as a child and how he has been treated since then, as an adult, by the Syrian regime.

I'm the fruit of the behaviour of the Syrian regime toward its population.

The National Salvation Front in Syria wants a new regime in the country and they want peace with Israel. Almasri first spoke out to the Israeli population in 2016 in a video posted on Facebook and he has since been interviewed on occasion on Israeli television and news sites. I will report on his protocol for peace in a separate article.

It is interesting but not surprising that his video likely had more impact within Syria than it did in Israel (not surprising because it was in Arabic with no Hebrew subtitles).

Fahad claims that we must “excuse the populations in the region” for their anti-Israeli attitudes because the Arab media constructs psychological barriers in the people’s minds against Israel. (In the next article in this series I will discuss how Almasri overcame his own psychological barriers against our country.)

“When I released the video in 2016 in which I talked about peace between Israel and the New Syria,” Almasri explains,

… it was a shock for the Syrian population and the Arab population. But after a few months, the majority of Syrians who listened to my speech reflected on it and came to see that I was correct. I assure you that almost 99% of the people who were against me now support my project.

The question is: how does Syria get there? In order for a New Syria to be possible, Assad has to fall, according to Almasri.

Of course, for us, since 2011, Assad is finished. We anticipate the fall of the Syrian regime, we expect it will happen. But psychologically, in our eyes, Assad fell since 2011:  since he used the military forces against the Syrian people, the civilian population, since he bombed cities and villages, since he turned millions of Syrians into refugees. Of course, Assad needs to go.

Glick had a question: Was there no hope that the Syrian Democratic Forces could defeat Assad? One thing that was said in the West is that the Syrian Democratic Forces have not managed to unite, to find a representative who could bring about change.  I understand that Russia came in to provide stability. Is that true?

Fahad agrees that Russia came in and started to serve as a stabilizing factor and that the Syrian Democratic Forces were not sufficiently united whereby the internal fighting and absence of a unifying leader is what lost them the war.

The Syrian Democratic Forces made mistakes because they are isolated from the national political scene and the opposition. They are supported by the United States but that's not enough. The United States and its allies must push the Syrian Democratic Forces to unite with the other Syrian national forces for the future of Syria. That's the first thing.

The second thing is that there is a total lack of political experience in the country. For more than 70 years, there has been no political life in Syria. Now we all, all Syrians, have to learn about politics.

Fahad explained how the north of the country is split because of Turkish interference. Turkey has made military advances into Syrian territory in the north and northeast because Erdoğan still believes in the Ottoman Empire. Schoolchildren in the north have to learn Turkish in schools. Furthermore, Erdoğan confounds Turkish Kurds with Syrian Kurds and they are not the same.

But to their credit, Fahad continues, Turkey has welcomed almost 3.5 million Syrian refugees. He says that Syria has to find a way to establish stable and strategic relations with Turkey by identifying interests common to the two countries and he believes he will be able to recover Syrian territory from Turkey.

For Syrians, the Kurds are their partners and Almasri is in contact with Kurdish democratic forces in the attempt to form an alliance with them. In fact:

There must be a real partnership with all the Syrian forces in all parts of the country. For this reason, I began dialogues to unify all the forces: with the Kurds in the north, with the Druze in Suwayda, with Damascus, and with the Alawites along the Syrian coast.

I am the only Syrian who has very strong ties with the Alawites. They are also very close to Assad. So if the Alawites jump to our side, this can ensure the future of Syria.

I am the only one with connections to pretty much every group in the country and we need the USA and other allies to put pressure on all these different groups to unify and create a front to provide an alternative, democratic regime for Syria.

Question: President Bashar Assad is Alawite and the Alawites are a small majority in Syria holding most of the power. Why would they give up their power?

Not all the Alawites are with Assad. They are Syrians. They defend their nation. They defend their country. They don't defend Assad. That's very important to understand.

Beginning in 2018, I helped 35 Alawite officers create the Movement of the Free Alawite Officers, a top-secret organization along the Syrian coast to show all Syrian citizens that there are Alawites who are with them. In videos, officers (still in active service and masked to protect their identities) speak to the Syrian people about their desire to help bring about a law-abiding society in which all criminals against the people, regardless of affiliation, will be brought to justice.

In a brief phone conversation with Almasri yesterday, after congratulating Israel on the elimination of Sinwar, he said the IDF should continue its good deeds and put Assad on the list either before or after Khamenei. I laughed and reminded me of what he told me in our interview about the assassination of Assad:

It should be the Alawites who kill Assad. Not Israel, not the United States, not another force. Why? Why should the Alawites assassinate Assad? Because it would be a relief to the majority of Syrians to know that the Alawites are on the side of the whole nation, that they are our partners in building the New Syria.

Almasri explained that the Syrian army is weak, with

…63 militias operating in Damascus alone and that does not include the Palestinian militias that are armed and supporting Assad. This chaos has created the feeling, even among the most ardent Assad loyalists, even his central nucleus that is suffering from economic and security crises, that there needs to be change.

These militias are acting as terrorists against the Syrian population itself, defending the current regime and Iranian interests in Syria.

At the same time, Russia has strategic political, economic, and military interests in Syria that it wants to protect. Russia is coordinating with Israel during this war to provide stability and prevent Syria from entering the war against Israel.

In fact, several news sites report on Assad and Russia cooperation to prevent, not always successfully, Hezbollah drone attacks against Israel from Syrian territory. Repeated strikes against Iranian weapons storage facilities in Latakia and elsewhere, attributed to Israel, do not draw a response from Assad even when they cause damage to private civilian property or civilian injuries.

Almasri ends this section of the interview with this:

I think that the regional military power should not be Turkey, not Iran, and not Russia. The advanced regional power should be Israel. That would be in the best interests of the region.

To me, this suggests the belief that an Israel, strong enough to deter our enemies, becomes:

• strong enough to want as an ally, and

• strong enough to help establish an environment in which Assad can no longer be a threat to his own people and a Syrian national armed force can arise that is capable of ridding the country of the militias terrorizing them.

Aside from this being good for Syrians, a stable, democratic Syria can only be good for Israel.

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