Opinion | Dr. Eddie Cohen
Assad’s Syria was a brutal secular dictatorship with a devastating civil war, while today’s Syria is a state undergoing an Islamist-nationalist transition—more stable security-wise, but without freedom or religious liberty. Minorities are living a nightmare. Several massacres have already been carried out against them. Syria today is a Syria of one color, one religion. Sunni Arabs are in charge. They own the house.
Assad’s ouster in 2024 brought no real good news for the Syrian people. ISIS seized power. Initially, al-Jolani and the organizations that liberated Syria from Assad’s rule tried to present themselves as an Islamic but not extremist group, and as a force that provided an alternative to the regime and to moderate rebel forces.
Syria is experiencing upheaval these days not only because of the massacres against the Alawites in early March 2025 or against the Druze last July, but also because of fundamental social change. In effect, the country is getting a facelift, and all indicators show that Syria today is not the country we knew in previous decades. What was a secular state for more than 60 years under the Assad family’s rule is becoming an extremist Islamic state, Taliban-style.
Gender segregation between boys and girls in the education system, prohibition of alcohol sales in certain places—but worst of all, education for incitement. Education against minorities, against Jews, and against the West. Generations of ISIS are being raised in this spirit. Right next to us. Like Hamas but bigger.
Syria is following Afghanistan’s path and is currently in the midst of an Islamization process that began with the elimination of Assad’s secular regime and reached its peak with the declaration of the new constitution, which established that secular institutions will now be subject to Islamic Sharia law. Indeed, in many places in Syria, secular courts have already been replaced by Muslim courts that operate according to Islamic law. From Israel’s perspective, a generation is growing up that hates Israel, expresses solidarity with the ‘Palestinians’, and learns from ISIS operatives who control the country how to slaughter Jews and minorities—with emphasis on the Druze and Alawites, as this boy said in the shocking video.