Syria has fallen and history will be strewn with an endless banquet of takes and explanations as to what happened, and why.
Syria
Syria was viewed by the two families as the lynchpin, the supply line, between Iran and Hezbollah, Tehran’s critically important military ally in Lebanon. Severing that link was a priority. It was chiefly Hezbollah’s well-fortified and concealed positions in south Lebanon, as well as its large stockpile of rockets and missiles delivered by Iran, that kept Israel in check militarily. Israel received an unexpected, bloody nose when it tried to reoccupy south Lebanon in 2006. It was forced to beg for a cease fire half way through the conflict – a failure that infuriated Washington’s neocons at the time. Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal was also a brake on Israel’s ambitions to ethnically cleanse – or worse – the Palestinians from their lands in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as current events have demonstrated.
Ultimately, Israel realized there was no way to complete its genocide of Gaza without neutralizing Hezbollah and Syria, and containing Iran. So how involved in practice was Washington in Assad’s fall?
There are plenty of clues marking the way.
After Israel’s 2006 failure, the US looked for a new route to reach the same destination. The answer was a covert operation. This idea was born in secret shortly after the Arab Spring erupted in 2011. This covert military operation was designed to work in conjunction with the aim to throttle the Syrian economy-the Caesar sanctions on Syria.
An email sent to Clinton earlier, in spring 2012, had laid out the State Department policy. “US diplomats and Pentagon can start strengthening the opposition. It will take time,” the email asserted. “The payoff will be substantial. Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East… Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsors since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance and missiles.”
The chief beneficiary was clear too: “America can and should help those [Syrian rebels] – and by doing so help Israel.” According to US officials, the CIA had nearly 10,000 fighters by summer 2015, at an annual cost of $100,000 per rebel.
Riyadh and Qatar supplied yet more money and weapons, drawing in Islamist fighters and mercenaries from the wider region. Jordan hosted the training bases. The CIA and the Saudis jointly supplied the rebels with the intelligence needed to guide their operations in Syria. In total, roughly some $200 billion was spent on this regime-change operation. Of this amount, about half the cost was footed by Qatar, and the rest by the CIA and British Intelligence. Israel, which had long been lobbying Washington for such a covert program against the Syrian government, took a leading role, too. It bombed Syrian infrastructure to keep Assad under pressure. It supplied its own intelligence to the rebels and offered medical facilities to the rebels, at a cost of more than $ 200,000 a month.
After the CIA operation finally came to light in 2016, Washington formally shut it down. But the effectiveness of Operation Timber Sycamore had already been severely hampered by the Russian military entering Syria in late 2015, at Assad’s invitation.Eventually the battle fronts hardened into stalemate. In 2017, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed the Astana Process, which stopped the fighting.
Despite myriad assertions, it is not true that the Palestinian armed factions opposed Assad. With the exception of the Hamas Political Bureau between 2012 and 2020, including the PFLP, PFLP-GC, DFLP, PIJ, PLA, Liwa Al Quds, and Fatah al-Intifada. It is true that elements of the Hamas politburo (in Qatar – particularly Khaled Meshal), was always closer to the Qatari/Turkish line and broke with Assad from 2012-20.
From the other side, it’s also true that Bashar al-Assad, was made an offer by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and others to accrue huge personal benefits if he gave up on Palestine and Lebanon, and cut ties with the Resistance. He refused. Even up until the last days of his rule, the UAE’s pro-West dictator MBZ told Assad to cut the Axis of Resistance, in return for the US keeping him in power. He refused.
He was made such offers because Syria was the backbone of Palestine and the Lebanese Resistance, without which both will find it very difficult to recover from a logistical perspective. The arms, money, and intelligence that are essential to fighting guerrilla warfare on a serious scale require state support, and Syria under Bashar was the route for all supplies to reach Lebanon and Palestine, which is why they were targeted by the Zionists. The aim seems obvious: Israel had hoped to defeat Hezbollah and thus eliminate Iran’s influence. But having lost, Israel has gone to Plan B, which is to eliminate Iran’s ability to resupply Hezbollah via Syria. To do that, Assad must fall. Not one to waste an opportunity, Erdogan appears to have played along for his own gains. Israel’s handprint on the attack was obvious when Syrian Army was hit with a major “exploding beeper and radio” attack, wounding many SAA servicemen—a perfect replay of the same attack on Hamas earlier.
The Empire as a whole—which includes the US and UK—have of course activated all their terrorist sleeper cells to assist the offensive because it serves them to keep Iran and Russia busy, particularly vis-a-vis Ukraine. Israel was shocked to realize that they could not defeat Hezbollah on the ground, and that Hezbollah stood to only grow more powerful in the future. As such, its conduits for support had to be excised, and thus Syria needed to be wrested from the arms of Iran. Of course, it’s never just one thing: Israel’s interests happened to dovetail with many others, including those of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, the US and its proxy, etc.
As a last note, one consideration for the offensive is also Trump’s victory. Just like Israel appeared to take advantage of Biden’s total absence from duty—an empty and wayward White House run by low level State Dept. apparatchiks—in launching its various terror, genocide, and war campaigns against Gaza and Lebanon, now too Turkey may have realized time is ticking. Not only has Trump verbalized a desire to withdraw US troops from Syria. Turkey and Israel both may sense that their chance to topple Assad and inflict a fatal wound on Syria could be running out before Trump reshuffles the cards.
After the Astana Process in 2017, Israel bombed Syria hundreds of times in what Israeli media dubbed the “war between the wars.” Israeli attacks intensified further after the start of the war in Gaza over a year ago. Israel claimed it was targeting weapons facilities used to support Hezbollah and the Islamic resistance in Lebanon.
Now, years later, the battle lines have suddenly come undone. As Washington envisioned 23 years ago, Assad is the latest Middle Eastern dictator not to Israel’s liking to be overthrown.
With the passage of time, more information comes to light. With this, we can now do a more defined timeline of events in Syria.
The Arab Spring was planned to be launched in late 2010. We have explained the reasons for this in previous articles. In 2009, Assad refused the offer by Qatar to build a gas pipeline from Qatar to the eastern Mediterranean, going through Syria. Assad refused. David Rockefeller gave instructions to his CIA to prepare a plan to topple Assad- a regime-change operation. This refusal by Assad gave impetus to the CIA to topple the government and destroy Syria. This is in accord with the earlier plan of the Pentagon to “destroy 7 Arab/Muslim countries with 5 years”. It took the CIA more than a year to plan this operation. By mid-2010, the go-ahead was given to the CIA, who then launched this operation a year later- which was code-named “Operation Timber Sycamore”.
Over the next few years, Syria went through a very dirty war. This cost the CIA and the other Arab states some $200 billion. The manpower came from various “rent-a jihadists” mobs drawn from multiple countries from Central Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.; in addition, the CIA, M16. Mossad, French intelligence and MIT (Turkish) provided logistical and medical aid. Syria went from having a GNP of some $70-80 billion in 2010. By the end of 2024, its GNP had shrunk to some $9 billion- a fall of some 85 %, which led to corruption and a weakening of the state.
Here’s the timeline
2011 – regime-change operations begin
2013 both Hezbollah and Iran send help to Syria to fight these rebels
2015 – Russia steps in to help Assad defeat the rebels
2017 – A stalemate results in a cease-fire that produced the Astana Accords, between Iran, Turkey and Russia
2018 – Assad refuses Russian help in modernizing and upgrading the Syrian army
2020 – Turkey makes a renewed offensive to capture Manbij, but was stopped, and the Astana Process was further guaranteed by the three participants, at Sochi
2021-2023 – Assad is welcomed back into the Arab League. Some Arab states told Assad to distance Syria from Iran and Russia. Syria needed funds to rebuild Syria. Before this, he placed all his eggs into the Russian and Iranian baskets. After the Arabs spoke to Assad, he took out some eggs from the Russian and Iranian baskets, and placed them in the Arab basket. This turned out to be a big mistake
2024 – Assad refused to listen to warnings from Iran on the emerging threat coming from the growing presence from the Turkish proxy force based in Idlib.
November 18 – Ronen Bar, Israel’s Shin Bet chief, meets with heads of MIT, Turkey’s Intelligence.
November 25 – NATO Chief Mark Rutte meets with Erdogan.
November 26 – jihadists assembled by HTS, supported by Turkish Intel, plus a hefty terrorist coalition, launch a lightning-fast attack against Aleppo. Right before the ceasefire, Tel Aviv smashed virtually all communication routes between Syria and Lebanon. Netanyahu subsequently stressed that the focus now is on “the Iranian threat”, essential to smash the Axis of Resistance.
26 November – Netanyahu gives a speech in which he announced the ceasefire with Lebanon, and issued a warning to Assad against “playing with fire” and claimed that “Israel is changing the face of the Middle East.” This declaration appeared to have ignited a well-coordinated assault by NATO-backed armed factions against the Syrian government.
November 27- The Lebanese cease-fire comes into effect
November 28 – Turkey – through HTS – begins the offensive, and within two days Aleppo is taken
November 29 – Assad flies to Moscow and meets with Putin, who informs him that “it’s too late to save Syria; its better that you save yourself first, and let’s see how this move by Turkey plays out “
December 8 Sunday – Damascus falls to HTS. Assad leaves Damascus to the Russian base in Latakia, and then goes on to Moscow. That evening, Netanyahu and Putin hold their longest ever conversation in years. It was not until Sunday, December 8, that he left Damascus for Lattakia, to visit a Russian military base to “oversee combat operations.” However, Assad recalls that it soon became clear that all forces had withdrawn, leaving the final defense line unprotected, while armed groups were simultaneously drone-striking the Hmeimim airbase, prompting Moscow to order an immediate evacuation the same day. Assad also reiterated his commitment to his country, stating that he had not exploited the situation in Syria for personal gain, nor was he tempted by offers, reiterating that he remains the same person who “stood by his officers and soldiers, just meters from terrorists in the most dangerous and intense battlefields.” He further stressed that he and his family remained in Syria despite all security threats and attempted incursions into the capital for 14 years since the war’s onset, additionally touching on his loyalty to the Resistance in Palestine and Lebanon and his allies. Concluding his statement, the former president emphasized that his position as president had been rendered useless in light of the events, hoping Syria”.
For now, we can say that it appears that an agreement was reached between Russia, Iran, some Gulf States and the US. This allowed the with some apparent guarantees on an orderly transition, including an order from the Syrian government side for the Army to stand down, and commitments from some of the opposition about avoiding looting and attacks on minorities, desecration of religious shrines and the like. The deal will also Russia to maintain its air and Naval base in Syria, but it is not clear how that will turn out. But this was not just an isolated coincidence. Not only were fighters attacking Syria from the North, but two other fronts were opened at the same time showing clear co-ordination; from the North East the Kurdish. And from the South, there is a relatively new grouping called the Southern Operations Room. Who were these groups and who is backing them?
First, in the North, were two groups. The first is the rebranded name for former constituents of the Free Syria Army, now called SNA- a collection of militias most of which have been supported directly in the past by the US. The second is HTS, supported by the US, UK, Turkey and Israel.
*Dismantling Syria Strike by Strike
Although Israel’s broader ambitions were not realized, its tactical gains during the intervening years were significant. degraded the capabilities of resistance forces, and Israel leveraged Syria’s internal challenges – its economic collapse, societal disarray, and the Syrian military’s overstretched resources – to establish its dominance. These operations set the stage for the larger-scale assault that followed Assad’s fall.
The collapse of the Syrian government marked the beginning of Israel’s most expansive military campaign in the region. Under the banner of ‘Bashan Arrow,’ Israel launched an unrelenting series of attacks against the Syrian state and its defenses by targetting critical infrastructure, including military bases, radar systems, air force installations, intelligence headquarters, and scientific research facilities. Even the capital, Damascus, was not spared. The aerial bombardments were accompanied by a ground incursion focused on border areas near Lebanon. Israeli forces advanced into the southwestern countryside of Damascus, targeting the strategic peaks of the Golan – mainly Mount Hermon.
Last week, those heights were declared “recaptured” by Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz, 51 years after Tel Aviv’s initial loss, in an operation that dismantled years of fortifications built by the Syrian military and its allies in the Axis of Resistance. The Israeli military has claimed significant success in dismantling the Syrian military infrastructure during a massive aerial campaign, described as one of the largest operations in the Israeli occupation’s history. According to Israeli media, the offensive, dubbed Operation Bashan Arrow targeted Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles over the past 48 hours. Estimates indicate that 80% of the Syrian army’s military infrastructure has been destroyed.
Rebuilding the Syrian military will require “hundreds of billions of dollars” and could take an entire generation. The report highlighted that the Syrian army, once considered a formidable force, has now been substantially weakened. Rebuilding its capabilities will depend on significant support, potentially from Russia Iran and North Korea. Despite the scale of the destruction, the report cautioned that Syria could still pose a security threat in the coming years.
December 8 –Israeli airstrikes hit the Mazzeh district of Damascus and an airbase in Suwayda in southern Syria; just hours after the Syrian government fell to foreign-backed extremists. Dozens of Israeli airstrikes hit the Mazzeh Military Airport along with customs and intelligence buildings, the security square, scientific research facilities, and defense laboratories. At least six strikes hit the air base, which is located near the Druze-majority city of Suwayda. The base has a large stockpile of rockets and missiles left behind by the Syrian army. The city of Suwayda is critical for Israel, as it intends to cut a passage linking the Golan Heights to the north eastern part of Syria- creating a direct road link between Israel and the Kurds, who are under US military protection. The airbase was evacuated by the Syrian army overnight as militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took control of the capital, Damascus.
December 9 – Monday- Israel begins bombing Syrian military infrastructure. The targets for the first week were known, but much was not known of many other sites. The question is – did Putin give Netanyahu the co-ordinates for the storage of Russian equipment, ammo and other supplies. Because one day after the Putin calls, Israel began destroying military equipment and ammo at various sites throughout Syria- the most spectacular one being the destruction of a vast missile storage depot in Tartus – not far from the Russian base. Heavy airstrikes have destroyed weapons and ammo depots, factories, research facilities, and all military airfields and naval bases since extremist armed groups entered the capital, Damascus, and on Sunday morning, extremist armed factions across Syria are carrying out executions of civilians and soldiers amid the chaos following the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government.
10 December – a video circulating on social media showed HTS members carrying out field executions of unarmed men in the village of Al-Rabia in the countryside of Latakia. The militants referred to the men as ‘Shabiha’, a derogatory term long used to describe pro-government Syrian soldiers and civilians.
The HTS military operations administration reported ongoing clashes in Al-Rabia, including the encirclement of a group of officers inside a fortified farm in the village. ISIS militants killed 54 Syrian army soldiers who were fleeing an attack by the terror group in the central province of Homs; three people, including a woman.
December 11 – Tuesday – the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) carried out executions and assaulted properties of nearly 30,000 Kurdish families in Manbij City. In the Nawaha and Al-Asadiya neighborhoods, SNA militants burned houses of civilians, stole their property, and executed many civilians. Syrian reported the assassination on Tuesday of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Bouti by unknown attackers. Bhouti was the son of the world-renowned Sunni Muslim scholar Sheikh Muhammad Saeed Ramadan al-Bouti, who was assassinated along with 40 others in a mosque in 2013 by members of the Nusra Front, now known as HTS. The elder Bouti was an advocate of Sufism, and an opponent of Salafi interpretations of Islam that teach hatred against non-Muslims. Bouti was a strong supporter of Bashar al-Assad’s government and spoke against the extremist armed groups attacking Syrian civilians, police, and soldiers during the war that began in 2011.
December 15 – Then, there are multiple incidents proving Israel helping HTS and the rebel groups. For example:
Israel has carried out airstrikes against “Iranian-backed forces” in support of HTS
Israeli warplanes turned away an Iranian cargo plane heading toward Damascus
ISIS has now activated and attacked east of Hama in support as well, claiming to have captured Al-Qaim.
Unverified reports have claimed the Kurds are double-dealing all over, including near Deir Ezor, with claims they attempted to take over SAA positions but were repelled
“Local resistance” provocateurs and sleeper cells activated in major cities, particularly Daraa in the south, ambushing or attacking government vehicles, sites, etc.
December 16 – Israeli warships fired missiles at the ports of Latakia and Al-Bayda over the past 48 hours, the IDF said on Tuesday evening. It added that 15 Syrian naval vessels were docked at the ports during the attacks.
“Dozens of sea-to-sea missiles with ranges of 80-190 km were destroyed,” the IDF wrote on X, posting a video of the strikes on unspecified vessels.
Al Jazeera posted photos of what it said were destroyed Syrian Navy ships. An AFP reporter in Latakia noted that smoke was coming from at least three Soviet-era vessels armed with machine guns and missile launchers.
In the details, the IOF said that two sites belonging to the Syrian Navy were attacked in the port of al-Bayda and the port of Latakia, where 15 naval vessels belonging to the Syrian Navy were docked, on Monday. Among the targets that were targeted were dozens of sea-to-sea missiles with a range of between 80 and 190 km, each of which carries dozens of kilograms of explosives that threaten Israeli naval vessels, and 350 air strikes were launched targeting various types of surface-to-air missile batteries, Syrian Air Force airports, and dozens of different production site targets in the areas of Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia, and Palmyra. The IOF added that these waves of raids destroyed weapons and equipment, including Scud missiles, cruise missiles, surface-to-sea missiles, surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, fighter jets and attack helicopters, radars, tanks, aircraft hangars, and others. It was also announced that the Northern Command in “Israel” targeted more than 130 targets on Syrian territory, including weapons depots, military buildings, missile launch pads, and firing positions.
This comes after the Israeli military command had announced that it destroyed the vast majority of the Syrian air defense array, which includes highly-prized Pantsir and Buk batteries. According to the command, this has awarded the Israeli Air Force air superiority in Syrian air space, allowing it to carry out operations safely in the future.
Netanyahu stated that he authorized the IDF to “bomb strategic military capabilities left by the Syrian army, so that they would not fall into the hands of the jihadists.” Israeli media described the blitzkrieg as the “most intense” bombing of Syria since the October 1973 War. Channel 12 that “the air force is operating on a very broad scale across Syria to destroy the remnants of the Syrian Army.” “In more than 800 raids, the air force destroyed tanks, planes, helicopters, ships, air defense systems, missiles, military factories, and security facilities … If this operation succeeds, the new rebel regime will have to start from scratch, with simple weapons like M16s and Kalashnikovs, to build its military capabilities as a new state,” the Israeli broadcaster said in its report broadcast on Monday night.
A video report published by Israel’s Channel 12 shows militants loading boxes of weapons collected from southern Syria into Israeli vehicles to be transported to Israeli territory. “Hundreds of ammunition boxes, mortars, bombs grenades and many weapons – that’s the loot that Israeli army forces now collect inside Syria,” the presenter describes. Israeli soldiers then show crates, canisters and grenades of “chemical substance” designed to irritate skin. The soldiers take no precautions when handling the weapons, indicating that they are not highly dangerous or lethal. The presenter then states that the Israeli occupation forces plan to stay for the long term, or as long as international considerations allow.
December 18 – Several civilians were killed and injured in what has been described as the heaviest and most violent attacks on Syria since the onset of Israeli aggression. The intense bombardment on the city was so powerful that it caused an earthquake-like tremor, which residents could physically feel. Israeli media reporting on the bombing described the aggression as a “Hiroshima in Tartus” due to the intensity of the attacks.
“Israeli warplanes launched strikes targeting a series of sites including air defense units and surface-to-surface missile depots,” with the blasts so powerful they registered as a magnitude 3.0 on seismic sensors. Videos circulating online captured the moment, showing a bright flash followed by a towering mushroom cloud of smoke. The blast signal traveled nearly twice as fast as a typical earthquake, detected as far as 820km away in Iznik in western Turkey by a magnetometer station.
December 20th – Erdogan has voiced support for the jihadist insurgency in Syria, urging the Islamists to continue their march to Damascus. “Idlib, Hama, Homs, and the target, of course, are Damascus. The opposition’s march continues, our wish is that this march in Syria continues without accidents or disasters”.
With Israel deepening its occupation of the Golan Heights, its long term relationship with militants is paying off and ensuring that Syria will be incapable of defending itself, regardless of who is in power.
The unprecedented wave of airstrikes in Syria followed Israel’s unilateral occupation “of the buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights, a move the UN said constituted a violation of a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria.
Israel’s military intervention was the culmination of years of preparation. In 2018, Israel had attempted to create a buffer zone in southern Syria, only to be thwarted by Syrian and allied forces that reclaimed the disengagement zone and the surrounding western mountains separating the border with neighboring Lebanon. But with the Syrian state now in shambles, Tel Aviv saw a rare and irreplaceable opportunity to go for the jugular. Years of anticipation and strategic planning materialized in a swift campaign aimed at neutralizing perceived threats and securing long-term advantages.
“This is a historic day for the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers,” Netanyahu said in a speech broadcast from the occupied Golan Heights.
*Israel takes over the Golan Heights
Netanyahu claimed that the 1974 truce agreement had “collapsed” along with the Syrian government. “We gave the Israeli army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel. This is a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found,” the Israeli premier alleged.
including the settlement expansions, and attempts to breach the disengagement zone to Russia has boosted its presence in nine observation posts in southern Syria , around the Golan Heights , in coordination with Damascus to “prevent potential Israeli escalations “.
Moscow has reinforced posts located in the countryside of Daraa and Quneitra governorates near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where Tel Aviv has revived efforts to build a ‘along the disengagement zone similar to those erected along the borders with Lebanon, Egypt, Gaza, and throughout the West Bank.
In mid-November, the UN accused Israel of violating a 50-year-old ceasefire agreement with Syria by starting construction work on the wall. Satellite imagery published confirmed extensive construction and road paving extending for 7.5 kilometres along the Alpha Line, with armoured vehicles and tanks providing security. The Israeli violations in occupied Syrian land come as the Russian and Syrian armies recently increased joint operations across the country.
All Israeli actions in the Golan construct a separation wall, are still today considered flagrant violations of international law. Even as of this writing, Israel appears to be making a play toward Damascus, which Smotrich and others have promised to capture. This comes in light of the IOF having established seven permanent positions throughout the buffer zone which stretches across the rural areas of Damascus, Daraa, and Quneitra. The positions are as follows: Hermon 1, Hermon 2, and the Beit Jinn Gap on the slopes of Mount Sheikh in the southwestern rural area of Damascus; Points 1 and 2 in Mount Hermon provide a strategic vantage point, overlooking the capital Damascus and its entire western suburbs. To date, “Israel” has taken control of southern Syria, demolishing all Syrian military sites on the slopes of Mount Hermon and the hills of Quneitra and Daraa.
The Israeli occupation’s military has expanded its advance in southern Syria, starting from the town of Sayda and moving eastward, advancing 9 kilometers deep, reaching three important water bodies in the area: Sheikh Hussein, the Sahm Golan Dam, and the western Bakara.
December 22 – On Monday morning, the occupation resumed its aggression on Syria, targeting a military site in the al-Bukamal desert in the eastern Deir Ezzor province. These strikes coincide with a ground advance into Syrian territories by mechanized Israeli forces, who have occupied the buffer zone east of the Golan, as well as other areas. Israeli occupation forces expanded their advance into the Quneitra province, adding that occupation troops are just 15 km off of the highway connecting Lebanon’s capital to Syria’s.
The new leadership in Damascus, led by Jolani, has largely kept quiet about the Israeli occupation of southern Syria and the relentless attacks across the country. “We are open to friendship with everyone in the region – including Israel. We don’t have enemies other than the Assad regime, Hezbollah and Iran. What Israel did against Hezbollah in Lebanon helped us a great deal. Now we are taking care of the rest,” the commander stated.
Israeli troops earlier advanced from the Golan Heights deeper into Syria, expanding the territory they have been occupying since 1967. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF intends to set up a “sterile defense zone” in southern Syria in order to prevent “terrorist groups” from taking advantage of the chaos and threatening the Jewish state. The story continues in Part 2.