The organization that led the overthrow of the Assad regime and completed the dismantling of the Shiite arc, which was initiated by the air force, is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani – the Organization for the Liberation of Greater Syria.
HTS essentially serves as the military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, supported by the two nations leading the Brotherhood: Turkey and Qatar. While Turkey provided the organization with military equipment and training, Qatar supplied the funding.
In many ways, HTS could be considered Hamas's twin, and Jolani might prove to be Sinwar's counterpart – but not quite. While Hamas was connected to Iran rather than Turkey and developed strategies of annihilation against Israel, Turkey's connection to HTS might give it a more practical and pragmatic appearance, preferring to focus on Syrian affairs rather than the liberation of Palestine – what we hoped Sinwar would be, but wasn't.
However, this shouldn't reassure us. The mere threat of finding Erdogan on our borders requires us to prepare for the worst-case scenario, compelling us to conduct a quick preliminary survey of the forces operating in Sunni Syria to assess potential threats and find possible partners.
First, we must correctly characterize Jolani and his organization. He doesn't align with ISIS, as many among us mistakenly identified, but rather with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood automatically creates two enemies for him, one being the real ISIS, which lives and operates in Syria. In fact, within the coalition of forces that operated with Jolani, there were several ISIS groups.
It's true that Jolani began his journey with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi but split with him over global jihad. He didn't want to enlist in the war against the West and returned to Syria to focus on liberating Syria. He established Nusrat al-Sharia, loosely translated as "Saving the Sunni Religion," which became al-Nusra, focusing solely on liberating Syria from Assad's rule and separating it from Shiite influence.
What should interest us is that in Damascus, Jolani connected with Khaled Mashal, who was the head of Hamas's Political Bureau in Damascus. Both used to pray at the al-Shafi'i mosque and plotted the Syrian rebellion under Bashar al-Assad's nose. Mashal provided the Yarmouk camp for initial recruitments along with Hamas's Afghanistan veterans under his command, and from these recruitments would later emerge al-Nusra cells and their Palestinian wing called Aknaf Bait al-Maqdis – the Environs of Jerusalem. When Assad discovered the betrayal, he ordered the destruction of all refugee camps in Syria, thereby ending the right of return.
One could say that during those days, Mashal recruited Jolani to serve Qatar and Turkey, and the rest is history.
Recently, it was revealed that his real name is Ahmad al-Shara, meaning he's a relative of Farouk al-Shara, Assad's foreign minister who rebelled against him and joined the opposition, possibly indicating the family connection between the two rebels against Assad. The al-Shara family is from southern Syria, and it's worth remembering that the overt rebellion actually began in Daraa, only after which Jolani's and Mashal's dormant cells awakened. There's a version suggesting that Jolani himself comes from a family displaced from the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War, therefore the question of when he'll raise the Golan issue is just a matter of time.
But until then, he'll need to deal with the ISIS problem. Not only did he abandon Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and refuse to recognize his caliphate, but ISIS suspects he was the one who provided the West with information that led to the U.S. elimination of several of their leaders, and ISIS terrorism against him can be expected.
That's one side. The other side consists of Sunni Arab states opposing the Muslim Brotherhood, primarily Egypt, which has reason to fear a new outbreak of the Muslim Brotherhood within its territory, who also have dormant cells equipped with weapons smuggled from Libya. And who knows how Turkey, deeply entrenched in Libya, might not exploit this momentum within Egypt as well.
The same can be said about Saudi Arabia versus Qatar, and the Gulf states versus the Muslim Brotherhood, which they define as a terrorist movement. They will seek connections with those parts of the Syrian fabric that are unwilling to exchange Shiite tyranny for Sunni religious coercion.
When we discussed the strong connection between Turkey and HTS, we should add an asterisk. When Erdogan demanded that Jolani fight the Kurds – he refused. This could be because the Kurds fought ISIS, and he also saw ISIS as enemies, or because he didn't want to get involved with the Americans.
The Kurds represent the main threat to Turkey because if they rebel within Turkey, Turkey will split. The ruling party in the Kurdish region is the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, which is a communist party, even Trotskyist, a sister party of the PKK in Turkey, which is the Kurdish underground movement against Turkish rule.
The PYD didn't participate in the rebellion against Assad and was considered loyal to him; I was even told that at Qamishli airport, there was an Assad intelligence office.
On the other hand, the PYD faction in Iraq is actually connected to Iran, and through it, there is Iranian influence in Syrian Kurdistan. Therefore, when Israel talks about connections with the Kurds, we need to know who we're dealing with.
The communist nature of the PYD doesn't suit the conservative-religious character of the Kurds, and they rule them quite forcefully.
The PYD held on largely because it was Assad's ally against Turkey, but opposing it are other Kurdish forces that rebelled against Assad's father, representing the conservative forces of Kurdish society. After the rebellion was suppressed, the rebellion leaders fled Syria, and if Israel is seeking connections with Kurds, their potential could be examined.
The enmity between ISIS and Jolani could lead to surprising developments in Sunni Syria's relationship with Iran. If the Sunni fault line in Syria will be between the Brotherhood and ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood might connect with… Iran. There are precedents for this, Hamas for example, and even President Morsi at the time, due to tensions between Muslim Brotherhood Egypt and Saudi Arabia, connected with Iran.
About two weeks ago, I listened to Itay Engel on Army Radio, and he recounted that when he entered Syria during the days of the great rebellion, he was received by Free Syrian Army forces, which was the leading force of the rebellion in those days, under the political leadership of the Federation of Bedouin Tribes in Syria and Iraq. He was surprised to hear from them great love for Israel and a strong desire to form an alliance with it.
The Free Syrian Army is no longer the leading force in the rebellion as it was then. Its political line was liberating Syria from Assad's tyranny and equal opposition to Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
If we want to find a reliable ally in the new Syria – it's there, and to build around it the pro-Israel political forces in Syria, of which there are many.
Israel's greatest asset is, surprisingly, the great sympathy the Jewish state enjoys among Sunnis. After so many missed opportunities and failures – we must not miss this opportunity.
פנחס ענברי - מזרח תיכון מסובך במילים פשוטות 