After Almost 6 Decades "Empty Seat" at Rockefeller
al-Sharaa is really a consumate pragmatist and very canny, chameleon-like political operator with some sense of an ultimate objective but no real ideology, coupled with a tremendous will-to-power (in the best sense). A very rare and unusual species. Syria’s relations with the US and potential talks about future ties with Israel were among the key topics discussed on the sidelines of UNGA, as Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa sat for a discussion with former US military commander and CIA director David Petraeus.
“When a veteran American diplomat met a Syrian rebel commander in 2023, they had a surprisingly cordial chat about their lives on enemy sides … The commander recalled shooting at mobile homes in Baghdad where the diplomat was living.” Now, again, al-Sharaa is a Syrian president. I fear current and future dictators not former terrorists. Al-Sharaa’s forces have committed sectarian massacres, his opponents proudly admit they’re backed by Netanyahu’s Air Force [IDF air force]. The world is nuanced so all conspiracy theorists end up repeating tired mantras in a new world.
Turning the page on decades of distance, Syria’s president addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, marking the first time any president from his country has done so in almost 60 years [last time is 1967 or 58 years ago]. As he spoke, hundreds of people gathered in front of giant screens in Syrian cities and towns to witness the speech while waving the country’s flags.
After six decades of dictatorship that killed 1 million people and tortured hundreds of thousands, “Syria is reclaiming its rightful place among the nations of the world,” Ahmad al-Sharaa told the international community.
Al-Sharaa became the first Syrian head of state to speak at the United Nations since Noureddine Attasi gave a speech in 1967 shortly after the Arab-Israeli war, during which Damascus lost control of the Golan Heights. Israel annexed it in 1981.
Since the Assad family came to power in Syria in 1970 in a bloodless coup that overthrew Attasi, relations with the United States have been mostly cold, as Damascus was an ally of the former Soviet Union. Over the past decades, Syrian foreign ministers represented the country at the U.N. General Assembly.
An appearance after the collapse of the Assad family’s regime
The Assad family dynasty’s autocratic, repressive 54-year rule abruptly collapsed in December, when then-President Bashar Assad was ousted in a lightning insurgent offensive led by al-Sharaa. Assad’s fall marked a major shift in the 14-year civil war.
Al-Sharaa blasted Israel in his speech, saying that it did not stop its threats to his country since Assad’s fall and adding that its policies “contradict with the international community’s support to Syria and its people” and endanger the region.
Negotiations have been ongoing for a security deal that al-Sharaa has said he hopes will bring about a withdrawal of Israeli forces and return to a 1974 disengagement agreement. While al-Sharaa said last week that a deal could be reached in a matter of days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday appeared to downplay the odds of a breakthrough.
Later Wednesday, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that negotiations are underway, adding that their conclusion “involves ensuring Israel’s interests, which include, among other things, the demilitarization of southwestern Syria and maintaining the safety and security” of the Druze religious minority in the country.
Since assuming power, al-Sharaa has preached coexistence and sought to reassure Syria’s minority communities, but the country has been threatened by outbreaks of sectarian violence that left hundreds dead earlier this year. Gunmen affiliated with the new government were also accused of atrocities against civilians from the Druze and Alawite religious minorities in southern Syria’s Sweida province and the coastal region.
Al-Sharaa said in his speech that the Syrian state has worked on forming fact-finding missions and gave the United Nations the right to investigate the killings.
“I promise to bring anyone whose hands are tainted with the blood of Syrian people to justice,” he added.
The fight against drugs has progressed
Al-Sharaa said Syria’s new authorities have destroyed the drug business that Assad used to fund his government as it was under harsh Western sanctions that, along with the war, paralyzed the economy. Assad’s fall revealed industrial-scale manufacturing facilities of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon, also known as fenethylline, which experts say fed a $10 billion annual global trade in the highly addictive drug.
Over the past months, Syrian authorities have closed Captagon factories in different parts of Syria part of their campaign to end the illegal trade.
Al-Sharaa urged Western countries to lift the Assad-era sanctions “so that they are not a tool to shackle the Syrian people.”
U.S. President Donald Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and announced that he would lift decades of sanctions. He followed through by ordering a large swath of them lifted or waived.
However, the most stringent sanctions were imposed by Congress in 2019 and will require a congressional vote to permanently remove them.
Speaking to reporters outside the U.N. after his speech, al-Sharaa said that he hopes that the sanctions would eventually be lifted.
“Syria does not wish the pain it passed through for anyone” and feels “the suffering of war and destruction,” al-Sharaa said, expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza amid Israel’s war there.
Syrian divisions manifest in New York
In Damascus, cheering crowds gathered in the central Umayyad Square to celebrate al-Sharaa’s speech. At Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza near the U.N., members of the Syrian diaspora faced off in dueling demonstrations, one in support of the new authorities in Damascus and one against.
Pro-government demonstrators hoisted the three-starred “revolution flag” that has now become the official flag of Syria. On the other side, many lifted the five-color Druze flag. Some shouted and cursed at each other across the barricades.
On the Druze side, Farah Taki, originally from Sweida, said her aunts there were displaced by the recent violence and she had come from Chicago to protest al-Sharaa’s visit.
“It’s disgrace that New York is welcoming an ex-Qaida member at the U.N., and allowing him even to speak,” she said. The insurgent group that al-Sharaa formerly led was once affiliated with al-Qaida but later cut ties.
On the other side of the barricades, Dina Keenawari, a Syrian American originally from Damascus, had come from Florida to show her support for al-Sharaa.
“We’ve lived under tyranny for the past 50 years, and now we’re turning a new chapter, and we’re looking forward,” she said. “And we’re proud of him.”
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If you feel powerless to help Gaza, you still has a choice: donate. When so much of what exists is false, authenticity is a powerful weapon we can wield that the state never could. So if you feel lost, hopeless, depressed, angry and afraid, I implore you to return - again and again - to the feeling of love that exists within you that brought you here in the first place. It is only through this that we can remake the world. To redress Gaza’s famine, displacement, and destruction, independent and impartial humanitarian organizations - UN agencies, international and national NGOs - must be allowed to deliver relief at scale. To salvage Gaza’s people from the devastation inflicted by Israel, it must be unified with the West Bank to form an independent and sovereign Palestinian State, not to be parceled and colonized by the former.
Meanwhile, children continue to be shredded by US bombs, and the starvation reaches new depths of hellish collective punishment. If both parties are going to continue to support an ongoing genocide, at least they can both be honest about doing so, rather than having one openly bloodthirsty party, and another—unconvincingly—playing the role of powerless, bumbling humanitarian.
Please keep donate Gaza especially if you, as reader, has [background] International Relation [whatever universities]. IR Graduate means [you must, at least] get some semester [about] studying Middle East [in macro, not specifically Gaza].
We need more people to share fundraisers instead of only talking about Gaza. Some people think that those in Gaza don’t need money but that’s wrong. Almost everyone lost their source of income while essentials, food & medicine get sold for astronomical prices. So I put my attempt in all social media as I can, in twitter / X, in substack [since October 2023 I put link donation], in bluesky or bsky, in threads, in instagram.
Link to donate World Food Programme - Palestine appeal: click here
[Daniel Brühl]
Most campaign shared or circulated in social media are for REAL people in Gaza. They’re legit. There are a lot of small campaigns for struggling families. This is their only lifeline. By donating & sharing, you are literally making history and alleviating part of their pain
Please do not rely on me alone for sharing your campaign. I’m only 1 person and sometimes I’m not online which is unreliable. I never ignore anybody on purpose but I have a very limited capacity & very little energy and time.
[Refaat Alareer IF I MUST DIE] Refaat Alareer was extremely hungry, November 2023, days before killed by Israel airstrike. If November 2023 already [one-by-one Gazan] extremely hungry, imagine September 2025 or almost 2 years Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.
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