By Sergio Rodriguez Gelfenstein
December 20, 2024

A Venezuelan international relations expert, Rodriguez Gelfenstein was previously Director of the International Relations of the Presidency of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, his country’s ambassador to Nicaragua and an adviser for international politics for TeleSUR. Translation: John Catalinotto.

Dec. 18 – The situation in Syria has generated more questions than answers. Some ten days after the seizure of power by the terrorists, there are still no clear ideas as to what will happen. Three powers are occupying parts of Syria: the United States, Israel and Türkiye. The new government has made not the slightest move to prevent this occupation.

Today the new regime is complicit in the partition of its country, the destruction of its sovereignty and the disappearance of the Syrian state.

Undoubtedly in the tactical sense, Israel, Türkiye and the United States are winners following the collapse of the regime of Bashir al-Assad. However, we must provide elements offering guidelines to understand the strategic consequences that this event could have.

Iran lost a costly logistical bridge that brought it closer to Lebanon and Palestine. Now we need to know how much military, financial and logistical capacity the occupying countries have to sustain their war effort, given that the Dec. 8 flight of Assad initiated a resistance struggle opposite to the one previously being waged.

In other words, the forces that held power in Syria have now become the opposition to the terrorist regime supported by Israel, Türkiye, the United States, Europe and the United Nations. It is clear that the logistical corridor to Lebanon has been cut off, but the logistical corridor to Syria through Iraq remains intact.

One question still hovers: How will the terrorist government sustain the country without the support of Iran and Russia? It seems clear that the Sunni Arab monarchies, in particular Qatar, will assume responsibility for sustaining the new regime. But for how long? We have already seen that their incursion in Yemen had little success.

On the other hand, it will also be necessary to verify how [Syria’s new leader] Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (now the Western powers call him the good terrorist) can deal with his international allies, each of which occupies a part of Syrian territory. Already today Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu has given orders to the Zionist army to remain in Syria at least until the end of 2025. The truth is that the Dec. 8 takeover of Syria did not eliminate the contradictions in that country; on the contrary, it deepened them.

Israel loses internal peace

Now the Zionist entity will have to find the mechanisms for its functioning in a situation in which the “internal peace” they boasted has disappeared forever. Let us see:

1. The war against Palestine had cost it $140 billion by September.
2. To this must be added the salaries of 360,000 reservists, removed from the economy; they will not be demobilized in the short term.
3. Some 48,000 Israeli companies have gone bankrupt from October 7, 2023, until now. This figure will approach 60,000 by the end of the year.
4. Tourism, one of the four main sources of the Zionist economy, fell by 78% with no signs of recovery.
5. The two main food-producing agricultural areas of the Zionist entity — in the north and around Gaza — are paralyzed. Israel has been forced to import food, which reaches the country mainly by land due to the paralysis of the Port of Eilat on the Red Sea by the action of the Yemeni Houthis and the semi-paralyzation of Haifa in the Mediterranean during the clashes with Hezbollah.
6. Some 700,000 Israelis with dual citizenship, owners of at least $1 million each, have left the country. Incidentally, their settlement in Europe has had an impact on the increase in the cost of housing there.
7. The U.S. company Intel, the world’s largest manufacturer of integrated circuits, cancelled a $25 billion project in the Zionist entity. Other technology companies have followed in its footsteps.
8. Out of 148 airlines that used to fly to Israel, today only 42 do so. Among those that suspended their flights are some of the most important airlines in the world, such as Cathay Pacific, Air Europa, Air India, Emirates, Korean Air, American, United and Delta Airlines, among others.
9. Israel’s military stockpiles no longer exist, including tanks, missiles, ammunition and artillery. They must be replenished at a cost of an additional $200 billion.
10. Moody’s, one of the three most important bond credit rating agencies in the world, downgraded Israel’s credit rating from A2 to Baa1 with a negative prognosis. This rating, one of the lowest on Moody’s scale, places Israel in the worst levels among the world’s countries.
11. Some 80% of homes in the north of occupied Palestine were damaged. They require eight to nine years to be repaired. The Israeli government does not want to discuss this despite the demand of the mayors of that area.
12. Finally, an intangible element needs to be repeated: The supposed invincibility of the Zionist entity was called into question after the failure of its 60-day war against Hezbollah in which it was unable to achieve any of its objectives. Along with this, fear and insecurity cover Zionism like an umbrella. Israeli citizens, for the first time in their existence, see  an uncertain future with little prospect of improvement of the situation.

For those who wonder where these data were obtained, do not believe that they were obtained from RT, Sputnik, the People’s Daily of China or Al Mayadeen. It is information obtained directly from Israel’s media.

Hezbollah can respond

The Zionist economy rests on four pillars: tourism, technology, agriculture and support from the West. All four have been hit. One might ask, for example, why during the attacks on Lebanon, the Zionist entity did not bomb the electrical system or the airports?

When Israel: attacked southern Lebanon, Hezbollah responded by doing the same to northern Israel; attacked the suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah responded by hitting the suburbs of Haifa; attacked Beirut; it received heavy blows in Tel Aviv; and after the assassination of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah flew at length over Netanyahu’s residence [Caesarea, Israel] when his family was there.

But even in this respect, the moral superiority of the resistance is overwhelming. They are not murderers like the Zionists. From then on, Netanyahu has been living and working in a basement.

Although Israel announced the end of Hezbollah, the reality is different. After two months of combat, Israel began to launch urgent messages in favor of the end of hostilities. Israel had been trying to repeat in Lebanon what it had done in Gaza, but it could not. The then Minister of Defense Yoav Galant himself announced that 12,000 soldiers had been neutralized (wounded or killed). Today, Israel has an army of reservists, made up of older people drawn from the national economy.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched 16,000 missiles against Israel in two months (an average of 265 per day), which basically hit the military industry, i.e. arms production and repair companies. This means an unquantified additional cost of war expenses.

Has anyone wondered why Hezbollah’s missiles did not cause deaths among the civilian population? Simply because public and private civilian buildings were never targeted. Hezbollah fighters responded as warriors, not killers. All this without adding the two Iranian missile barrages that the so famous “iron dome” could not intercept.

Hezbollah lost between 1,000 and 1,500 fighters. Israel caused great devastation among the civilian population and its installations. The cost of reconstruction is less than $20 billion. It has already begun. Each family that lost their homes (about 25,000 did) is being given an amount equivalent to $14,000 to rent a house for one year while new homes are being built. If at the end of the term, the housing still has not been delivered, the subsidy period will be automatically extended until they obtain their property.

Resistance still potent

Can anyone assume that the resistance was destroyed and is economically weakened when it is able to do this? Hezbollah also sent 4,000 fighters to Aleppo almost the day after the Zionist invasion of Lebanon ended. That is besides the 11,000 that were already there, but they had to be withdrawn because the Syrian army stopped fighting. Is it possible to sustain 15,000 men under arms in another country when that country has been destroyed?

Hezbollah lost 1,500 men out of the 120,000 it has in arms (trained and prepared for combat), although — it must be said — the recruitment potential is much higher. Israel said it was going to take Hezbollah out as far north as the Litani River, but to do that Israel would have to repeat what was done in Gaza.

In Lebanon that is impossible. The fighters are immersed in the people: They are peasants, shopkeepers, students, drivers, fishermen or employees who, when given an order to fight, take the weapon they have hidden in their homes or workplaces and take their place in the theater of war. Does anyone think it is possible to eliminate that?

I spoke with a person who lost 12 family members during the Israeli invasion. He told me that they are only a small part of his family of more than 200 people who are ready to continue fighting. It is also worth saying that this war was not Hezbollah’s war or that of the Axis of Resistance. Hamas unilaterally set it in motion.

The resistance was preparing and will continue to do so for battles that will be decisive and that have not yet begun. Its actions in this situation responded to an elementary sense of solidarity with the Palestinian people, but without risking the fundamental forces that will only be engaged when the irrevocable and conclusive combat is unleashed. Has anyone wondered why the 25,000 fighters of the Redwan regiment, Hezbollah’s special forces unit, did not get involved in these battles?

Resistance is ideology, behavior, thought

According to a Muslim friend of mine, “resistance is ideology, it is behavior, it is thought,” or, in the words of Ayatollah Khamenei: “Resistance thus understood is rooted in the belief of the nations of the region. I am not talking about the governments. The peoples recognize the importance of resistance. The roots of resistance are in the faith of the peoples, in their beliefs.”

It is true, the Syrian people and the Resistance suffered a hard tactical blow, but this is just beginning. Now, in addition to the war in Europe and Palestine, the strategic confrontation with China, the anti-colonial resistance in Africa and the need to maintain its 800 military bases and its 11 aircraft carrier task forces around the world, the United States must sustain the terrorist government in Syria, the genocidal Zionism of Israel and the Kurdish forces that must confront the Turkish government of Erdogan, its ally in NATO.

It is going to be interesting to see how they are going to do it when the U.S.’s next president’s goal is to “make America great again.” It is true that they can still sustain it with the dollar machine and their great communicational, cultural and media apparatus that has acquired great experience in lying without shame and redefining terrorists as “freedom fighters” for democracy.

How much longer will they be able to do it? Translating tactical victories into strategic successes only serves to deceive the unwary. I think of the fate of the empires of the past: the Roman, the Ottoman, the British, the Austro-Hungarian, among others, and I wonder where are they? History is wise, knowing it helps to understand the present and project the future.

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