[IsraelTimes] Amy Schumer, Mila Kunis, Erin Foster, Matthew Weiner among those who say expulsion would be ‘inversion of justice’ as Israel responds to ‘greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust’
Artists and entertainment industry officials have signed an open letter rejecting calls to ban Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest, ahead of the competition set to take place in Vienna next month. The latest signatories to the letter included comedian Amy Schumer, actress Mila Kunis, singer Matisyahu, actors Anthony Edwards and Jerry O’Connell, and writers Erin Foster and Matthew Weiner, said pro-Israel industry group Creative Community For Peace, which organized the initiatives.
Their names were added to a similar call in a 2024 letter signed by over 400 people, including actors Helen Mirren and Liev Schreiber, and musician Gene Simmons.
Creative Community For Peace said that there were now over 1,000 signatories.
There have been growing calls to remove Israel from Eurovision over the destruction in Gazoo during the war following the Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... -led onslaught onslaught of October 7, 2023. Last year’s winner has said he hoped Israel would be kicked out, and five nations pulled out of this year’s Eurovision after the contest’s governing body in December overruled calls to boycott Israel.
Israel will be represented at the upcoming contest by Noam Bettan with the song "Michelle." The 28-year-old was born in Israel to French immigrants colonists and performs the song mainly in French, with some Hebrew and a smattering of English. Bettan is expected to face protests, threats, booing and Paleostinian flags, much like Eden Golan in Malmö, Sweden, in 2024 and Eden Raphael in Basel, Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... , in 2025.
[Just The News] The Home Office of the United Kingdom is investigating reports that some migrants are being advised to falsely claim to be gay or victims of domestic abuse in order to secure asylum in the country.
The probe was sparked by reporting from the BBC, which found some individuals and organizations are coaching migrants to make false claims to avoid losing their legal status in the country.
The BBC investigation found that some migrants whose visas are due to expire are given fake cover stories and taught how to fabricate evidence to bolster asylum claims. In some cases, law firms and advisers are charging thousands of pounds for advising the migrants.
"Both the Home Office and Immigration Advice Authority are investigating the claims made by the BBC, both yesterday and today, to ensure anyone potentially abusing our immigration system is held accountable," a spokesman for the British Prime Minister told BBC. "Any attempt to misuse protections designed to protect genuine victims from the devastation of domestic abuse is shameful and completely unacceptable." But will likely continue.
According to British government data, immigrants from Pakistan file, by far, the most asylum claims which cite sexual orientation. Bangladesh, another Muslim-majority country, is second.
I never noticed any concerns until the past few years. Granted I’ve lived a sheltered life, but even so.
One in 4 Jewish college students say they either felt or were excluded from a campus activity because of their Jewish identity, a new survey by the American Jewish Committee and Hillel International found.
“While we welcome the fact that the vast majority of campuses have not been disrupted by uncontrolled protests in the past year, the data make clear that Jewish students are still experiencing antisemitism on their campuses,” AJC Vice President Laura Frank stated in a news release.
Meanwhile, one in three said they “avoided displaying their Jewish identity due to fear of antisemitism.” This includes wearing, carrying, or displaying things that associate them with Judaism or Israel.
“When looking at campus antisemitism from an institutional standpoint, 32% of Jewish college students say that they have felt that student life and/or student activities have promoted antisemitism or fueled a learning environment that is hostile to Jews,” according to the survey.
Update: Vanderbilt has removed this offensive lesson assignment and have started an investigation into the instructor.
Trump administration sues University of California system over alleged antisemitism at UCLA
[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump’s administration says it has sued the University of California system over alleged unlawful discrimination against Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA involving an “antisemitic hostile work environment.” The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, marks the latest instance of the administration taking legal action against a prominent US university and represents its latest dispute with Democratic-governed California, the most populous US state.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit alleges that UCLA violated federal civil rights law by “failing to prevent and correct discriminatory and harassing conduct” after the assault on Israel led by the Palestinian terror group Hamas on October 7, 2023. Numerous Jewish and Israeli employees have been forced to take leave, work from home and leave their jobs to avoid the hostile work environment, the department says in a statement.
PJ Media has more on the circumstances that drove the lawsuit here.
UC faculty urge regents to enforce rules amid antisemitism investigations
[SantaCruzSentinal] Hundreds of University of California faculty members are urging the system’s governing board to crack down on what they describe as the “misuse of UC authority” for organized political activism, warning that failing to enforce existing policies could fuel allegations of antisemitism and jeopardize federal research funding.
The letter, sent Thursday to the University of California Board of Regents, comes as the university system faces multiple federal investigations into alleged antisemitism on its campuses, including Title VI civil rights complaints tied to the Israel-Hamas war and campus protests.
Faculty who signed the letter called on university leaders to draw a clear boundary between individual faculty members’ free speech rights and the use of university branding, resources and official platforms to promote political advocacy. They argue that when faculty members appear to speak with institutional backing, it risks exposing the university to legal and financial consequences.
“The issue is not that the university doesn’t have the rules,” said Ilan Benjamin, a chemistry professor at UC Santa Cruz who helped organize the letter. “We are only asking the university to enforce its own rules and discipline people who violate (them).”
The faculty organized the letter in response to a 158-page report released this month by the AMCHA Initiative, an advocacy organization that monitors antisemitism on college campuses. The report concluded that the University of California has failed to enforce policies restricting faculty from using university resources and platforms to advance political advocacy. It specifically cited incidents at UCLA, UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley, arguing that those actions created conditions that fostered hostility and discrimination against Jewish students.
Khan started receiving a taxpayer-funded salary in August when she began working for NYC Health + Hospitals, according to her LinkedIn profile, which she also deleted. Her role providing "assistance and counseling to clients and their families who are dealing with social, emotional and environmental problems" likely involves assisting Zionists, considering the New York metropolitan area has the largest population of Jews in the country.
Jewish professor sues university for religious discrimination
[NYPost] A New Jersey research university that collected some $70 million in public funding last year repeatedly discriminated against a distinguished Israeli-born Jewish professor due to his Orthodox beliefs, derailing his academic career, according to
It's purposeful and it's methodical and I can tell you exactly how it works because I've seen it a CUNY where they stopped recruiting at even prestigious Jewish schools about a decade ago and where they expunged EVERY.SINGLE.JEW. from senior leadership at the university in a 20%…
I think Jewish kids and parents are taking themselves where they feel accepted rather than hated. Let the Ivies enjoy the consequences of their self-righteous support of viciousness.
US judge says Trump administration can demand list of Jews at Penn for antisemitism probe
[IsraelTimes] The ruling of Judge Gerald J. Pappert of Philadelphia’s Federal District Court finds that the federal government’s request for the information, which the university and Jewish groups at the school denounced, is normal for discrimination investigations.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began investigating the university in December 2023 for allegedly allowing discrimination against Jewish employees. The federal commission sued Penn’s trustees last year, claiming that the university had refused to comply with the subpoena, leading to a legal battle.
The finding sets a precedent that attacking Jews as “colonizers” may be regarded as illegal harassment, according to a statement Tuesday by StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, which represented the targeted academic, Computer Networking and Information Technology Professor Abigail Bornstein.
During a public CCSF Board of Trustees meeting on May 29, 2025, after Bornstein opposed a proposed budget item, the local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president, Maria Salazar-Colon, aggressively chastised her, speaking by video link.
“I really wish that that colonizer, Abigail Dumb-stein, would shut her damn mouth and not speak on SEIU items,” she charged, adding that Bornstein was “dumber than a bag of rocks” and should “shut the fuck up.” She added: “I’m sick of her shit. Shut the fuck up,” before abruptly ending her 90-second rant.
The school informed families about the posts and told the New York Times that the posts did not reflect Fairfield Prep’s values.
“We are very aware of the offensive antisemitic comments and posts,” a spokeswoman said. “Antisemitism is repugnant and antithetical to our values as a school and antithetical to the Jesuit tradition. There have been disciplinary actions that have been taken related to the social media posts.”
On April 25, 2024, over 200 members of NSJP's chapters and affiliates at CUNY gathered to set up an encampment in a public square at CUNY's campus at the City College of New York ("CCNY"). In the late afternoon on April 26, 2024, Plaintiff Horowitz entered CCNY's campus to film a video. He approached the encampment with an American flag.
A mob of protestors from the encampment surrounded him. After swarming from the encampment to surround Horowitz, the mob immediately ripped the American flag from Horowitz hands, smashed it on the ground, and began beating him. The attack occurred during the middle of the day, in broad daylight, in full view of the surrounding campus, the encampment, and hundreds of onlookers. The mob's members kicked, punched, and headbutted Horowitz, aiming strikes at his throat, spleen, and kidney.
After this third round of mobbing occurred, officers from CUNY's campus police and the NYPD arrived and detained Horowitz, but they did not detain anyone from the mob. The police bodily removed Horowitz him from the scene in a tight armlock.
Horowitz sued, and the court held that plaintiff had adequately alleged facts that would hold defendants liable for civil conspiracy.
🚨 UPDATE FROM DEPAUL UNIVERSITY:
Due to relentless exposure and humiliation from American patriots on X, the Students for Justice in Palestine are now BANNED from operating on campus.
Last week, the SJP screamed their brains out during a campus rally for “Palestine,” calling… pic.twitter.com/BiEivn2PBG
“After 13 years of dedicated study, I am very proud to have completed my PhD and to return home on my own timeline,” Rumeysa Ozturk said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Ozturk, a student at Tufts University near Boston, who completed her PhD in child study and human development in February, was detained by federal agents in March 2025 and held in Louisiana for six weeks.
Too many Gov. approved Modern History & Social Studies printed school books, clearly go to great lengths to indoctrinate grade school students.
At a particular church school, the teachers use the same books. BUT! Use the books to show, & demonstrate how misinformation, immorality, & lies are spread.
Then the Teachers teach the students the actual historical facts, and what are civilized moral standards.
#2
This is really shameful. Of the problems I imagined America having in the 21st century, rampant Jew-hatred at major universities was not one. The Ivies in particular should never be forgiven for this.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/19/2026 8:48 Comments ||
Top||
[Rudaw] The US Department of the Treasury on Friday announced sanctions against seven Iraqi militia commanders accused of orchestrating attacks against American personnel and interests in Iraq, in a move Washington says targets Iran-backed gangs operating in the country.
In a statement, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said the individuals are senior figures in groups including Kata’ib Hizballah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Kata’ib Sayyed ...Arabic term meaning your/his lordship. Groveling in His Exalted Presence is encouraged... al-Shuhada, which it described as "some of Iraq’s most violent mostly peaceful Iran-aligned militia organizations."
The announcement of the sanctions follows a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... that halted nearly 40 days of war, which began on February 28 after the US and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran.
In retaliation, Tehran and its affiliated militia groups in Iraq carried out thousands of drone and missile attacks against Israel and US interests in the region, including those in the Kurdistan Region.
According to the OFAC, the sanctioned militia commanders have been responsible for "planning, directing, and executing attacks against U.S. personnel, facilities, and interests in Iraq," adding that the groups "operate with near impunity" while "undermining Iraq’s illusory sovereignty and democratic processes."
In late March, Kata’ib Hezbollah kidnapped American journalist Shelly Kittleson in central Baghdad in broad daylight and released her a week later, provided that she should leave the country immediately.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would continue to respond to such threats.
"We will not allow Iraq’s terrorist militias, backed by Iran, to threaten American lives or interests," the statement cited him as saying. "Those who enable these militias’ violence will be held accountable."
Among those named were three commanders affiliated with Kata’ib Hizballah - Ammar Jasim Kadhim al-Rammahi, Radhwan Yousif Hameed Almohammed, and Hasan Dheyab Hamzah - accused of directing and coordinating attacks against US forces. The Treasury also designated Safaa Adnan Jabbar Suwaed of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, Khalid Jameel Abed Albakhatra and Saeed Kadhim Mukhamis of Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and Husham Hashim Jaythoom of Harakat al-Nujaba.
The statement noted that some of the groups have grabbed credit for thousands of attacks and have received funding, training, and weapons support from Iran. It also said Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq had used Iranian drones to target US and coalition forces in northern Iraq as recently as March 2026.
Under the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the designated individuals within US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. OFAC warned that foreign financial institutions facilitating significant transactions for those designated could face secondary sanctions.
"The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior," the statement added.
[IsraelITimes] Israel has proven itself to be a “GREAT ally” of the United States, US President Donald Trump declares in a post on his Truth Social platform, showering the Jewish State with praise.
“Whether people like Israel or not, they have proven to be a GREAT Ally of the United States of America,” he declares.
“They are Courageous, Bold, Loyal, and Smart and, unlike others that have shown their true colors in a moment of conflict and stress, Israel fights hard, and knows how to WIN!” he declares.
It is unclear what prompted the statement, although it comes not long after former US vice president Kamala Harris accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging the US into an unwanted war with Iran.
[IsraelTimes] An American policy analyst identifies what he says are major holes in a report published Friday by the UN Women’s agency, which claimed that 38,000 women and girls were killed in Gaza by the end of 2025 and that a projected 120,000 were killed in total.
These projected figures are far above the death toll currently reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, which stands at 72,345 as of April 16.
Israel Policy Forum senior policy associate Gabriel Epstein tells The Times of Israel that the UN agency’s 38,000 figure was derived by blindly applying projections regarding both an overall claimed undercount and the gender and age breakdown from studies conducted earlier in the war, rather than using actual and current Health Ministry data.
Both the 41% undercount that UN Women assumed and the proportions the agency used to pull out girls from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry’s child category and for adult women from the elderly category are inexplicably from a study relying on a much less complete June 2024 dataset, not current figures published in November 2025, Epstein points out.
Moreover, the UN agency then took those old figures and applied them to the more up-to-date statistics.
The Gaza health ministry’s own breakdown from November 2025 says 40.8% of the children killed were girls, while the UN agency report claims it is 44.6%.
For elderly women, too, the UN report’s percentage was higher than the more updated information provided by the Gaza health ministry — 39.9% compared to 37.2%.
“The current proportions were easily accessible from the November 2025 dataset, so this is a serious error,” Epstein says.
November 2025 Gaza health ministry data says 8,423 girls between the ages of 0 and 17 have been killed; 10,620 women between the ages of 18 and 59; and 1,820 elderly women above the age of 60, totaling 20,863 female deaths.
This would make up 30.32 percent of the 68,420 deaths on the health ministry’s unique death list.
The projections pushed by UN Women would then imply 18,000 uncounted deaths of women and girls alone. However, local Hamas-run agencies in Gaza currently estimate roughly 3,500 missing persons and some 8,000 unrecovered bodies, or 11,500 total, including men and boys. These estimations are irreconcilable with UN Women’s assumptions about the overall death toll or for women and girls specifically, Epstein says.
“Basically, this is a projection on top of a projection that mixes data and assumptions from different time periods and relies on a number of unsupported assumptions to arrive at a result that is not matched either by the existing ground data or plausible assessments of uncounted deaths in Gaza,” Epstein says.
[IsraelTimes] Residents of Deir al-Balah set to cast ballots for city council later this month, after 20 years of Hamas blocking voting, though unclear if terror group will honor results "These Dominion machines are awesome"
In recent days, a type of notice not seen there for decades has begun appearing plastered on exterior walls in the central Gazook city of Deir al-Balah: posters explaining how to vote in upcoming municipal elections.
Home to some 75,000 people before the war, residents of Deir al-Balah, like all other Gazook cities, have not been able to vote for their own local representatives since Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... took over the Strip in 2007. Throughout its decades of controlling the enclave, Hamas has appointed city council members, repeatedly preventing municipal elections from being held alongside those that have continued in Paleostinian Authority areas in the West Bank.
Among those appointed to city leadership have been figures accused by Israel of engaging in terror activity, including former mayor Imad Jarou. Israel said in December 2024 that it had killed Jarou, calling him an active member of the group’s military wing. Following his killing, Hamas appointed the current mayor, Nizar Ayyash.
Now, with Hamas’s rule weakened by years of war, the PA’s Central Election Committee has launched a bid to hold open elections in the city on April 25, alongside elections set to be held in cities across the West Bank.
Hamas still exercises de facto control over the Strip, and it remains unclear to what extent the results will be honored. And though the Strip’s governance is set to transition to a technocratic committee under the US-led ceasefire plan, developments in Deir al-Balah are still largely an anomaly in an enclave where nearly all municipal officials are still being appointed by Hamas.
Nonetheless, a source close to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> , told The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity that the move is a significant step toward signaling its vision of a future Paleostinian polity.
[IsraelTimes] Pair accuses fellow diners of genocide, cite white supremacist meme of mass expulsions of Jews; one says ‘Viva Iran’ before they sing ‘Boom, boom Tel Aviv’
The X account @uzmabashir638 no longer exists. I guess she didn’t appreciate the backlash against her little vacation jihad.
[IsraelTimes] Group claims the US-Israeli citizen took part in war crimes while serving as a combat engineer in Gaza, says Sri Lanka has ‘a duty’ to investigate him and prosecute if necessary
The Hind Rajab Foundation
…another Hezbollah front project, launched 2024 in Belgium by Dyab Abou Jahjah. It’s a lawfare boiler room generating endless lawsuits against Israelis daring to travel outside their country on the pretext that as Israeli soldiers they must have committed war crimes…
recently filed a complaint with authorities in Sri Lanka against an Israeli-American IDF soldier who is visiting the country, the group announced on Friday, accusing him of war crimes allegedly committed in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip.
The foundation, a pro-Paleostinian, anti-Israel legal group based in Belgium and named for a 6-year-old Gazook girl killed in January 2024, has filed dozens of criminal complaints against Israeli soldiers and officials who are visiting or stationed abroad over the past two years.
According to the group, the soldier, a dual national of Israel and the United States, is currently travelling in Sri Lanka following the end of his army service.
The complaint alleges that the recently released soldier, a member of the 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion, voluntarily enlisted to the IDF in the wake of the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... -led October 7, 2023, massacre, and was deployed to Gaza.
The 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion is a "central operational unit in the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure across Gaza," the foundation claimed in its statement. "While nominally tasked with engineering functions such as mine clearance and fortification, its activities in practice have consisted of the systematic demolition of civilian areas."
The foundation claimed to have established a "direct connection" between the ex-soldier and "at least one incident of unlawful destruction in Khan Younis in October-November 2025."
The soldier, it said, had published "visual evidence" of his activities in Gaza on social media, including an image where he can be seen "holding a detonation cable inside a destroyed civilian building alongside fellow soldiers, indicating active participation in a controlled demolition."
It further asserted that as a member of the battalion, the soldier carried out a number of actions that could "constitute multiple war crimes under international law," including intentionally attacking civilian areas and property and unjustified destruction of property.
Israel vehemently denies it has committed war crimes or genocide in Gaza, and says it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities, stressing that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Since the released soldier is currently in Sri Lanka, the group said it had urged the country to take "appropriate legal action" against him.
"States have a duty to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute individuals suspected of committing grave breaches of international humanitarian law," it asserted. "The presence of such individuals on their territory engages their responsibility to act."
There was no immediate response from Sri Lankan authorities.
According to the foundation, the case of the US-Israeli soldier is not "isolated," but rather "part of a broader pattern of conduct by members of the 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion and other units operating in Gaza."
Israel vehemently denies it has committed war crimes or genocide in Gaza, and says it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities, stressing that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Beginning in 2024, the Hind Rajab Foundation has used social media posts by Israeli soldiers, officers, and reservists to locate them in an attempt to have them arrested for alleged war crimes when they travel abroad. The group has sparked alarm within Israel, prompting the IDF to create new rules to better protect troops’ privacy and keep them from being victims of doxxing — the practice of publishing someone’s personal information online to expose them.
While the group has spurred European authorities to detain a number of IDF soldiers and forced a soldier visiting Brazil to flee back to Israel fearing arrest, it has been unsuccessful in court, and no soldier targeted by the group has been prosecuted for war crimes or any other alleged offenses committed in Gaza.
[HOT AIR] AI is the hot new thing, and Iran has been using quite a bit of it in the propaganda war against the United States and Israel.
Iranian Lego memes are all the rage, with the regime trying to make fun of Americans and our military, and the Iranian regime even put out an AI-generated video of Jesus Himself slapping Trump around.
BLUF:
An Iranian regime military spokesman has an army of fans, but is he real, or an Artificial Intelligence-generated depiction of a man killed a while back in American-Israeli strikes?
Despite suspicion that he is dead, the spokesman for the united command of Iran’s military forces, Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, keeps popping up on local television stations and across the web. A charismatic, fatigue-clad personality, the military man threatens American forces in the region with the worst punishment and trolls President Trump and other officials.
There is no confirmation of a widely spread assertion across the web that Colonel Zolfaghari was killed in a joint American-Israeli strike on March 7. No official Iranian obituary has been issued. Yet now the Israel Defense Forces adds its voice to a growing chorus of skeptics, challenging Iranian followers to prove that Colonel Zolfaghari is alive.
It's not holding another man's crank (like he used to)?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/19/2026 9:59 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Generative AI has a hard time with hands. Even though there is a lot of training data, hands can be in so many positions and orientations that the AI cannot get a good read on their actual shape. Same with cats.
Thank Gawd Eisenhower did not have to contend with Lego memes on D-Day. They might have changed the course of the war.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] In mid-April, the US concluded its mission in Syria and withdrew its last military personnel from the Arab country. This was confirmed by Central Command spokesman Tim Hawkins, who noted that the Pentagon would be prepared to "return again" if the operational situation required it.
The end of the Syrian campaign is, in many ways, a turning point in the history of US missions in the Middle East. And, predictably, debates about the "legacy" Americans are leaving behind began almost immediately.
LONG PRESENCE
The American military presence in Syria lasted for almost 12 years, since September 2014, when Washington and its close European allies formed a coalition to fight the local terrorist underground.
However, even after its defeat in 2018, the Pentagon was in no hurry to withdraw troops, using Syrian facilities as leverage against the Bashar al-Assad regime and its allied players in the Middle East—primarily Iran.
During this time, the contingent's size changed at least several times—at peak moments, the Pentagon kept more than 6,500 fighters at bases in the republic (not counting more than 50,000 loyalists from among the Kurdish and Arab militias).
The process of "complete withdrawal" of forces, initiated back in 2018, dragged on for nearly eight years. During this time, Washington increased its ground force at least several times and changed its missions. This included using Syrian facilities to curb Iran's regional expansion.
The story came to a close only in mid-April, when American specialists left the Kasrak airbase in the northeast – the last major stronghold on Syrian territory.
Interestingly, the Americans withdrew through Jordan (and not through Iraq, as originally planned), and some of the equipment and ammunition that didn't fit into the main "train" or were beyond repair were destroyed on the spot. Furthermore, the initial footage from the scene, captured by Syrian soldiers, hints at the haste with which the contingent was dispersed from their established positions.
All this suggests that the accelerated withdrawal of forces was largely provoked from outside, including fears of massive strikes on Syrian territory from Iran.
THE SYRIAN ACCOUNT
As soon as the last American soldier left Syria, gossip began in the United States about the cost of this campaign.
The Pentagon did not maintain a separate "Syria account," including expenditures on this area either in the statistics of the global war on terrorism or in the military presence in the Middle East, and therefore responded to the public inquiry in an extremely vague manner, hinting at the opportunity that this campaign is not even among the five most expensive missions in US history.
Preliminary estimates are indeed quite modest. Over the past dozen years, Washington has spent between $15 and $25 billion on Syria, with over $11 billion of that spent in the first two years.
By comparison, the current campaign against Iran surpassed the indicated price mark by the middle of the second week.
On the other hand, the cost of a campaign is measured not only by its costs but also by its gains. And here, the United States faces a much more complex situation. Of course, they achieved all their stated goals—both public (defeating terrorist forces) and hidden (undermining Iranian influence in Damascus, changing the local regime). This allowed them to consider the campaign a success and eliminate the need for a permanent presence in Syria.
At the same time, the US had nothing left behind – in its apparatus games, the White House was forced to sacrifice Kurdish loyalists, refuse support for local Arab tribal militias, ignore the problems of local minorities (which deepened Syria's internal divisions), and cede control of key oil fields to new elites.
External control over the new Syrian government is not as strong as American strategists would like. Although Damascus heeds signals from Washington, it acts at its own discretion. This includes avoiding attempts to "forcefully ally" it with Israel and create a bridgehead in the border area to increase pressure on Iran. Most of the American advisers' instructions have been implemented by the Syrians only formally.
TIME FOR CHANGE
The US withdrawal from Syria created conditions for a shift in the balance of power. In particular, Israel now has greater room to maneuver.
His forces had previously had no intention of leaving the “buffer territories” in the Druze Mountains region, citing national security interests and the “lack of sustainable guarantees” from official Damascus – although until recently they had to take the American deterrent factor into account.
Now, with Washington distancing itself, it will be easier to justify creeping expansion, and its pace will likely accelerate. Moreover, Syria's proximity to Lebanon opens up additional opportunities to draw down the forces of the pro-Iranian "Axis of Resistance," which the Netanyahu government will not fail to exploit.
Turkey will also have more opportunities, becoming an official "senior partner" for Damascus after the withdrawal of US troops and will participate more actively in local domestic political processes.
The Arabian monarchies (primarily Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia) will also try to seize some of the "laurels," but for them, political benefits and influence in Syria will be distributed more on a residual basis and under active control from Ankara.
Iran also does not see the ongoing changes as a sign of a return to its former influence in Syria, although it interprets the accelerated exodus of Americans as one of the “convincing results” of the recent regional war.
It is possible that Tehran will try to test the waters in the near future and lay the foundations for new groups for the "Axis of Resistance" (especially since there are still plenty of people dissatisfied with the current status quo in Syria), but this process will take longer than it did in the early 2010s.
As for Russia and China, Washington's refusal to play on the "Syrian board" will not yield significant dividends for them. Especially since the rivalry is gradually shifting toward North Africa, specifically Libya, where American interests are persistently trying to prevent Moscow and Beijing from gaining a foothold.
And although the main battles in these places are taking place mostly in secret, their effects could become public in the near future.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
[Just The News] The Home Office of the United Kingdom is investigating reports that some migrants are being advised to falsely claim to be gay or victims of domestic abuse in order to secure asylum in the country. 
...Arabic term meaning 
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
[HOT AIR] AI is the hot new thing, and Iran has been using quite a bit of it in the propaganda war against the United States and Israel. 
