The horrifying civilian massacres carried out across the Syrian coast are stupefyingly awful, on a scale reminiscent of the height of the ISIS insurgency in Iraq. Yet, there are still countless people identifying as Muslims who are trying to defend these actions. Their predominant ideology is not that of “Sunni Islam”, but rather of a nationalist identity rooted in a theological justification, in other words, a Muslims Zionism.

As a disclaimer, I write this as a practicing Sunni Muslim who is appalled at the way my faith has been weaponized to justify the very atrocities that Allah (SWT) tells us to fight against and prevent at all costs.

The Division of Syria

It has long been the agenda of the Zionist Entity to divide Syria into a number of weakened and defenseless Statelets, many of which it seeks to establish ties with and also of which justify its existence as a self-described “Jewish State”.

While the Zionist regime’s alliance with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has long been known, the Israelis doubled down on throwing their weight behind the group that controls Syria’s north-east on December 8, 2024. Simultaneously, the Zionists occupied the entirety of the Golan Heights and carried out their largest ever air campaign to destroy Syria’s military capabilities. 

For years, the Zionist regime provided material and financial support, in addition to medical aid, to at least a dozen Syrian opposition groups, including Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda in Syria). Al-Nusra would of course later become Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now rules over Damascus with an iron fist. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who now prefers to go by Ahmed al-Sharaa, was originally an MI6 (British intelligence) project and was a former commander of ISIS.

The Zionists understood that the groups they were backing, including what would later become “HTS”, were led by foreign intelligence operatives, but that their rank and file were fanatical militants. This worked well for the Israelis in two ways: while the leadership of the group can be manipulated, the fanatical takfiris who actually believe in their group’s ideology are left to commit atrocities against civilians that will drive them towards federalization.

Although this history is largely forgotten, significant portions of Syria’s minority groups were in support of the movement to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, yet what changed their minds and made them rally around the former Syrian leader was the behavior of the sectarian death squads who ended up leading the Syrian opposition.

However, after 2018, as the Syrian economy went into steep decline and the civil war became a frozen conflict, the vision that many Syrians had adopted for their future had faded. The US and EU sanctions strangled the country and plunged the people of Syria into poverty. 

By the time al-Jolani came to launch his assault on Aleppo, the entire State ended up crumbling and this occurred without any major fighting. On top of this, it appeared briefly as if the HTS militants were not going to carry out the kinds of massacres many had long feared they would.

Yet, after two months, the sectarian field executions did not stop, the Israelis were essentially at the gates of Damascus and the new government was still incapable of getting its affairs in order. The real question here is whether Jolani is part of a conspiracy to commit civilian massacres with the aim of dividing Syria, or if he is just a useful idiot that is behaving as a murderous dictator. 

When the rebellion occurred on the Syrian coast, the instant response was the mass deployment of paramilitary forces and security services, while sectarian demonstrators chanted for the blood of the Alawites. The official justification for the massacres that followed - including civilians who had even been opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s rule - was that “remnants of the regime” were to be hunted down. 

What followed was the largest gift to the Israelis that could ever have been given, sectarian gangsters burst into civilian homes and murdered men, women, and children. Even babies were not spared from the brutality of the new regime. Elderly men were tossed around, humiliated and shot in the streets, teenagers taken into the open and executed. When their Sunni neighbours tried to intervene to stop the massacres, they were murdered too. 

It is clear that these actions were carried out with genocidal intent, and no reasonable person can deny the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. On a personal note, it is so bad that Sunni Syrian contacts of mine in Hama and Homs have told me that they are too scared to share their opinions on social media for fear of being targeted.

While it is certainly the malicious agenda of the Zionists to divide Syria, the blame cannot now be placed upon the reactions of the minority communities who seek to preserve their own livelihoods, but instead on the new administration in Damascus that has committed the atrocities. If the country continues on its current trajectory, there won’t be a country called Syria any more and this is the fault of the sectarian death squads who worked to divide the country.

The Israelis are now grinning, waiting for the opportunity to seize more territory and use collaborators to carve out a series of regimes that will work in their favour. Meanwhile, not a single bullet from Jolani's men has been directed at the occupying entity.

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Sunni Nationalism: A Muslims Zionism

When looking at the atrocities committed at the hands of Syrian de-facto leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani’s Security Forces and allied paramilitary groups, it is impossible for the sane mind to justify it. That’s why the Syrian and foreign cheerleaders for the fall of the previous regime now have to be separated into three categories: 

1. The paid propagandist who has no principles.
2. The emotion-driven reactionary.
3. The Nationalist.

The first category is paid to publish propaganda, it is not far fetched to imagine some of them justifying the murder of their own family members for the right price, therefore their ideology is not so important.

The next category is those who have supported Abu Mohammed al-Jolani due to an emotional reaction they had to the fall of Bashar al-Assad, these people are not bad, but were duped by the propaganda. Many of them are scrambling to make sense of what just happened, after years of talking publicly about their “blessed revolution” that was fought to build a “free Syria”, they are now desperately trying to make sense of what is unfolding.

The third category that I believe needs to be properly addressed is the Nationalist. Why do I choose to label this group as Nationalists? Because that is what they are. This group has essentially copied the Zionist model and changed some minor details in order to arrive at “Sunni Nationalism”.

It is important to put this all into perspective. Zionism, as a form of nationalism, weaponized the Jewish faith to serve as its theological backbone. It used Judaism to argue that Jews from Poland, Spain, Russia, England, Iran, Yemen, Ethiopia, and so on, have the same identity and all somehow lay claim to the land of Palestine.

The Sunni Nationalist uses a version of Sunni Islam as their theological backbone, which also justifies their belief that a Sunni Muslim - whether they be from China, Uzbekistan, Germany, Portugal, Libya, Iraq, Pakistan or anywhere else - has the right to any region they choose, based upon religious justifications. The caveat is that the Sunni in question must agree with the group's prevailing ideology.

In reality, Sunni Muslims from Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, or Jordan are completely different culturally, ethnically, and all speak different languages, yet under a Nationalist ideology, they can justify their takeover of Syria in the name of creating a rule for their identity group.

It could also be compared to White Supremacy, which also has landed itself the label “White Nationalism”. Although the White Supremacist may sometimes weaponize Christianity, it is less prevalent than in the other two cases that were mentioned, yet the same basic principle holds. It is a supremacist ideology, which claims that through adhering to Western principles and being “White” skinned, suddenly the plethora of ethnic and religious groups throughout Europe are all the same. This ignores cultural differences, genetics, and also a lack of shared languages, yet none of these matters to the ignorant White Nationalist who swears his/her group is superior and that “White” is a real identity. 

When it comes to the Sunni Nationalist, who often fall under the Salafist branch, they cannot actually justify their stance based upon Islam, so instead they cherry pick quotes from Hadith or scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah. There is rarely ever any honest analysis about how Ibn Taymiyyah was reacting to cataclysmic developments around him, specifically the events surrounding the Mongol sacking of Baghdad that crushed a once dominant Muslim-Arab empire. 

These Sunni Nationalists ignore nuance, their Sheikhs are almost all receiving finances from pro-Western Arab regimes and sometimes the Zionists directly. Ultimately, while some of their content may be genuinely just to do with religion, there’s another far more pernicious element for which they are paid handsomely. These individuals preach in the same way the religious authorities in Europe did in order to rally the crusaders around Christianity. Their message is political speech, cloaked in religiosity, with the purpose of pushing identity politics to justify a nationalist agenda.

Zionism is the exact same Nationalistic curse. Its claims do not make factual sense, as Judaism and history do not support its conclusions, but this does not matter to the Zionist. Perhaps the most powerful political ideology is nationalism, although the phrase may be traced back to French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, the basic concepts that make it possible are much older.

Just as Zionism is not Judaism, nor is Sunni Nationalism akin to Islam. These nationalist ideologies also breed delusion on a grand scale, a great example of this is the Sunni Nationalists who claim to support Palestine and seek the liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque. These same people ignore the CIA and MI6 influence on what they call a “blessed revolution”, they ignore the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into the project to overthrow the government. They ignore the civilian massacres carried out by Al-Qaeda affiliates and ignore even those same Takfiri groups receiving funding, weapons and medical aid from the Israeli occupation.

This level of mental gymnastics that results from the brain rot of their nationalist ideology allowed for some of them to parade around in the streets with photos of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, while celebrating the downfall of Baathism. In the end, they have a leader who receives the backing of the European Union, who signals intent for normalizing ties with the Israelis, who was once supposedly a hardline religious fundamentalist, but is now seeking a “democratic and pluralistic Syria” according to his recent speeches. 

None of the economic or political moves that contradict what are supposed to be their core beliefs, which are frequently made by Ahmed al-Sharaa and his administration, are enough to sow a seed of doubt for these nationalists. Yet, this ideology will ultimately collapse with time, because it is totally dependent upon foreign backers and it will eventually lack a mortal enemy. As much as they try to fixate on Iran and “the Shia” as their enemy, this is a failing strategy.

While Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other Palestinian Resistance movements are struggling against the Zionist Entity’s brutal occupation on the frontlines, they receive support from the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance alone, with not one of these Sunni Nationalist groups even lifting a finger for them. 

It is clear that the agenda to carve out Sunni Nationalism is a Zionist project, it not only uses self-described Muslims as warriors for the United States and Israeli interests, but also produces the perfect archetype to fit their orientalist depictions of Muslims. This is perhaps one of the most successful psyops in history, turning Muslims into hollowed out Nationalists who are obsessed with identity and care not for logic nor the teachings of their pure faith. 

Already, the Zionists are jumping on the massacres that the Takfiris are committing, using them to portray Muslims as animals and claim that we as Muslims are hostile to Christians. Unfortunately, due to this Sunni Nationalist identity politics, many are now trying to make excuses for the mass slaughter of Syria’s minorities, which demonstrates how awful this ideology truly is.

In the wake of the war on Gaza, for the first time in decades, sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia began to fade. However, it is clear that the Zionist entity and its allies were not going to allow unity. Sectarian content is also being pushed far and wide. It is no mistake that a series called Muawiya was prepared just in time for Ramadan, nor is it a mistake that sectarian content is noticeably being promoted across social media platforms. 

The Zionists and their allies want to divide the people, because if they unite, they understand that their project across West Asia will collapse. The enemy is not Sunnis, Alawites, Shia, Christians, Druze, Kurds or any other sect. The situation will never improve until the people break out of the spell of hating their own neighbors, who have lived, fought and died alongside each other for centuries.