Israeli forces near Damascus, Syria<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s latest<\/a> attack on Damascus was not an isolated air strike. It was a doctrine in motion.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, warplanes struck the Syrian<\/a> defence ministry, military headquarters, and the vicinity of the presidential palace. Not near the frontlines or the border, but\u00a0in the symbolic and sovereign heart of the Syrian capital.<\/p>\n The excuse was thin: a supposed effort to protect Syria\u2019s Druze minority. But no one should be fooled.<\/p>\n This was not about protection. It was about projection of power and arrogance.<\/p>\n It was not about the Druze<\/a> – who are Syrian Arabs and part of Syria\u2019s national fabric – but about imposing a long-standing Israeli<\/a> doctrine of regional fragmentation, one that stretches from the blood-soaked rubble of Gaza <\/a>to the bombed ministries of Damascus and the destabilisation of entire nations beyond.<\/p>\n Israel, which has murdered over 60,000 Palestinians – most of them women and children – in Gaza, wounded more than 130,000, and destroyed nearly 80 percent of the territory\u2019s buildings, cannot now masquerade as a protector of minorities.<\/p>\n A state that is building what is fast becoming the world\u2019s largest open-air concentration camp, uses starvation as a weapon<\/a>, commits daily apartheid<\/a> in the Occupied West Bank and enshrines discrimination in its Basic Law<\/a>, cannot lay claim to any moral high ground.<\/p>\n It has none. Least of all when it comes to feigning concern for Syria\u2019s Druze – whose fate it exploits to mask far more sinister intentions.<\/p>\n The choice of target was not strategic. It was symbolic.<\/p>\n The Umayyad Square is not merely an intersection – it is the soul of Damascus. It stands as a monument to Syrian pride and Arab dignity. It bears the Damascene Sword and echoes with the legacy of the Umayyad Caliphate, which once stretched from the Pyrenees to the steppes of Central Asia. It was in this very square that Syrians, only eight months ago, celebrated<\/a> the fall of six decades of dictatorship.<\/p>\n And it was there, in the middle of a working day, that Israel struck – knowing the square is surrounded by international and Arab TV stations, and that the footage would loop endlessly across satellite channels and social media feeds.<\/p>\n This was not just a bombardment. It was an act of televised humiliation. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz made that clear when he proudly shared a clip <\/a>of a terrified Syrian presenter abandoning her seat on live broadcast as the defence ministry burned in the background.<\/p>\n It was theatre designed to shock Syrians and to frighten Arabs.<\/p>\n This strike was not just illegal or\u00a0immoral, it\u00a0was another step in a long-term strategy – a doctrine – that aims to impose Israeli hegemony on a fragmented, weakened, divided region.<\/p>\n It is neither new nor reactionary. It is a pillar of Israeli strategy, pursued across decades, governments, borders, and wars. Since the revolution in Syria and the fall of Assad regime, Israel has conducted<\/a> more attacks on Syria than in all previous decades combined.<\/p>\n It has systematically destroyed military infrastructure, launched hundreds of incursions, and deepened its occupation of strategic terrain, including vital mountain ranges in southern Syria.<\/p>\n Its air raids have become routine, even banal – intended to normalise violation, erase sovereignty, and dismantle Syria\u2019s regional standing.<\/p>\n But this goes beyond actions – it is a mindset, one that Israeli leaders have been increasingly explicit about. Gideon\u202fSaar, Israeli foreign minister, declared<\/a> just one day after Assad\u2019s flight: “The idea of a single sovereign Syria is unrealistic.”<\/p>\nA televised humiliation act<\/strong><\/h2>\n