(JNS) War with Syria is “inevitable,” Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli said in an X post on Tuesday.
Chikli was responding to video footage of anti-Israel incitement at a Syrian military parade marking the anniversary of last year’s Sunni Islamist revolution that toppled the five-decade Assad dynasty.
In the video, Syrian soldiers loyal to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa chant, “Gaza, our rallying cry, victory and steadfastness, night and day.
“We rise against you, [Israeli] enemy, we rise, from mountains of fire we make our way. From my blood I forge my ammunition, from your blood, rivers will flow,” the Syrian troops added.
Other videos posted to social media on Tuesday showed Syrian soldiers shouting, “Gaza, Gaza, we’re with you to the death” and “I’m marching towards you, my enemy.”
War is inevitable https://t.co/K65CIkTR1r
— עמיחי שיקלי – Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) December 9, 2025
What is unfolding in Syria, Chikli told JNS on Wednesday, is the emergence of “a jihadist state and a jihadist army” in Damascus.
Al-Sharaa, an erstwhile Al Qaeda terrorist who used to go by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, “never changed his ideology,” he said.
“Children as young as seven and eight are carrying weapons and being brainwashed. There is zero difference in ideology between [slain Hamas terrorist leader Yahya] Sinwar and al-Julani, and zero difference in education between them. Therefore, war is inevitable,” he added.
“Movements like Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham are fragments of the same Muslim Brotherhood ideology—the same Islamist ideology that seeks to establish a Caliphate and global dominance,” Chikli continued.
In Islam, the senior Cabinet minister noted, there is no room for other religions. The faith divides the world into two spheres, Dar al-Islam (“Abode of Islam”) and Dar al-Harb (“Abode of War”).
“You have jihad in Europe, which is currently being led in a non-violent way, using the weaknesses of democracy to push Islam forward. London is controlled by Islamists, and we can see similar shifts in Birmingham and Leeds. Islamists are controlling the streets in Belgium, France and Germany. In the Middle East, it is much more violent, as we saw with Hamas and during the civil war in Syria and Iraq,” Chikli continued.
Reviewing al-Sharaa’s first year in power, Chikli pointed to massacres of minorities, that left at least 1,500 Alawites and at least 1,000 Druze dead—though Druze sources estimate the toll at 5,000—as well as the threat facing the Kurds as Turkey advances toward Manbij and Deir Ezzor.
“We are witnessing ethnic cleansing of Alawite, Druze and Kurdish minorities,” Chikli told JNS, “and the saddest part is that Western countries are supporting al-Julani because of financial interests.”
Following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that killed some 1,200 people, primarily Jewish civilians, in southern Israel, Jerusalem learned to listen to the intentions of its enemies, he said. “Al-Julani is clear about his intentions, and so is [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan.”
Asked whether others in the Cabinet share his views, Chikli told JNS that while he has yet to discuss the matter with fellow ministers, based on his experience working with many of them, he believes they understand the threat very well, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel remains ready to negotiate a security deal with Damascus but will “stand by its principles” to prevent a second Oct. 7, Netanyahu has said.
“After Oct. 7, we are determined to defend our communities along our borders, including the northern border,” the premier stated last week.
Israel’s policies are aimed at “preventing the entrenchment of terrorists and hostile activities against us, protecting Druze allies and ensuring that the State of Israel is safe from ground or other attacks,” he added.
Al-Sharaa has demanded a return to the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War and an Israeli withdrawal from territory captured by Jerusalem in the wake of Assad’s toppling.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told lawmakers last month that the Jewish state was not expected to make peace with Damascus, as hostile forces, among them Iran-backed Houthis, were planning terrorist attacks on villages on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights from southern Syria.
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