Is Sharaa’s Syria Coddling Terrorists?

Terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (pij) has been building its capabilities in Syria, Israeli public broadcaster kan reported yesterday. kan says pij has been muscling up its armed wing, the al-Quds Brigade, in and around Palestinian refugee camps near Damascus. pij reportedly favored Syria for this purpose because of U.S. pressure on Israel not to strike Syria, which the U.S. views as a potential ally. pij denies the allegations.

kan says the Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa is fully aware of this militarization, even to the point of appointing a presidential envoy to facilitate communication between Syria and pij.

pij aided Hamas’s invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. It helped Hamas hold Israelis hostage throughout the war. It has its own heavily developed arsenal and has started its own wars against Israel for years. Some analysts consider the group to be even more radical than Hamas.

The U.S. said a condition for normalizing relations with Syria is to expel Palestinian terror groups. Sharaa agreed. If kan’s reporting is accurate, Sharaa either feels powerless to enforce the agreement or is deliberately flouting it and hoping the rest of the world won’t notice. Either way, Syria is becoming a haven for Palestinian terrorists.

Psalm 83 prophesies that Syria and the Palestinians will join forces in a covert alliance “that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (verse 4). Syria’s current government is an offshoot of al Qaeda, the terrorist group that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. It is this same group that President Donald Trump claims can be a partner for peace. This news on pij is another proof that Sharaa is not the friend of the West he claims to be.