Apr. 26, 2017

• Changing Views of Israel in Syria – Elizabeth Tsurkov
  On April 17, 2018, Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, a popular Syrian opposition website posted an infographic comparing Israeli prisons to those of the Assad regime. It showed that while 7,000 Palestinians are incarcerated in Israel, 220,000 Syrians are held in regime detention facilities. It also notes that 65,000 Syrians have died in regime detention over the past seven years.
  Shadi Martini serves as the director of humanitarian relief and regional relations for the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees, an organization providing much of the aid passing through Israel. “People are really seeing Israel in a different way,” he says. “People are not even afraid to talk about working with Israel, because their friends and families support them; otherwise, they would have stayed silent.”
  The shift in views regarding Israel is coupled with an increasingly negative view of Palestinians among Syrian opposition supporters. Inside Syria, all but one Palestinian armed group have fought on the side of the regime. Palestinian organizations such as Fatah, the PLO and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have either sided with the regime or remained silent about its crimes. (Forward)