Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 01.06.2025
“DAMASCUS/AMMAN, May 27 (Reuters) – Israel and Syria are in direct contact and have in recent weeks held face-to-face meetings aimed at calming tensions and preventing conflict in the border region between the two longtime foes, five people familiar with the matter said.
The contacts mark a significant development in ties between states that have been on opposite sides of conflict in the Middle East for decades, as the U.S. encourages the new Islamist rulers in Damascus to establish relations with Israel and Israel eases its bombardment of Syria” [i]
Robert Inlakesh in The Palestine Chronicle writes:
“We have reached the point where there can no longer be any denial. Syria’s new leadership has repeatedly signalled its willingness to sell out the Palestinian people, just to get in the US’ good books. From launching anti-Palestinian crackdowns to repeatedly expressing interest in normalization, Damascus is pursuing collaboration with a regime carrying out a genocide.
The most recent revelations from two US congressmen, that Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara’a is seeking to join the so-called ‘Abraham Accords’ and normalize ties with Israel, have sparked outrage amongst many Syrians, while loyalists of the new administration continue to make excuses.
Unfortunately, due to the divisive nature of the Syrian issue, there are very few willing to perform any kind of critical analysis of the decisions taken by the newly-instated government in Damascus. If you attempt to do this, you are instantly framed as an ‘Assadist’ or that you are undermining the Syrian people. This toxic way of approaching the issue needs to be changed, and the facts must be established. It is a similar tactic used by Zionists, who claim that by criticizing Israel, you are being antisemitic.
If Ahmed al-Shara’a does normalize ties with Israel, he and his regime will be complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, the occupation of the Holy sites in al-Quds, and the surrendering of Syrian lands, which Israel will never relinquish unless forced to do so”. [ii]
How to explain this betrayal?
The revolution in Syria that removed Assad, who escaped to Moscow, was a political revolution; it did not accomplish even the tasks of the democratic revolution, that its most important task is to throw out the imperialist control of Syria. The new Syrian government has become an obstacle to the democratic revolution.
Trotsky’s theory and strategy of the Permanent Revolution explain this betrayal:
Trotsky explained that the revolution in countries that did not go through the democratic revolution, the bourgeoisie came in this age too late, and they are afraid of losing control of the masses. The struggle that begins with the democratic tasks must be led by the workers in alliance with the poor peasants, and lead to a socialist revolution that the tempo of accomplishing the socialist tasks depends on the tempo of the world revolution.
If this does not happen, and a workers’ revolution led by a revolutionary party does not exist, we get a government of weak bourgeois ready to submit to the imperialists, as is happening in Syria.
Complete the democratic revolution led by the working class, led by a revolutionary party!
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.palestinechronicle.com/willing-to-normalize-why-syrias-betrayal-of-palestine-doesnt-even-make-strategic-sense/
[ii] https://www.palestinechronicle.com/willing-to-normalize-why-syrias-betrayal-of-palestine-doesnt-even-make-strategic-sense/