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No Sympathy

61 0
24.06.2026

Yesterday, at the JNS policy summit in Jerusalem, my panel was titled Syrian Security Challenges. Together with Jonathan Spyer, we reminded the audience that nothing has changed for the Syrians: minorities continue to be persecuted, jihadists and criminals have been integrated into the new government and the new Syrian army, the population remains poor, and the suffering that defined decades under the Assad dictatorship has not lifted. Jonathan spoke about the Hol Camp — once holding tens of thousands of ISIS members, their families, and their victims, now gradually emptied through releases, escapes, and quiet resettlements that the world has barely registered — people who had been abducted, enslaved, forcibly married, converted, and impregnated. I sat there wondering how much the world actually knows about this, the security challenges it poses, and the tragedies its inaction and indifference have brought upon millions.

From an Israeli strategic perspective, one genuine shift has occurred: the fall of Assad severed the land corridor connecting Hezbollah to the mullahs’ regime in Iran, a development with real consequences for the balance of threat. But that is an Israeli gain, not a Syrian one. For the Syrians, the faces in power have changed but he tragedy has not.

Meanwhile, Iranian dissidents sit in dark prison cells awaiting execution. Afghan women are dying slowly in cold, dark confinement while the world ignores their enslavement at the hands of one of the most backward Islamist movements on earth. How are Ukrainians living today? What about the Russians who never chose this war and are paying its price anyway? What about the people of North Korea? Of Somalia? Of Nigeria?

And yet, somehow, the world has reserved its most passionate solidarity for the Palestinians alone.

This asymmetry is neither accidental nor driven by sympathy. Genuine sympathy would be indiscriminate. It would not skip over Yazidi women sold in open markets, or Uyghur Muslims sterilized by state decree, or Christian communities burned out of their homes in sub-Saharan Africa. Sympathy does not........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)