Karim Franceschi Profile picture
Nov 22 11 tweets 3 min read Read on X
🧵 1/
#Syria 🇸🇾 today is a chessboard where every actor claims survival, security, or ideology — but the actual game is pure Machiavellian statecraft.

Nobody embodies that better than Netanyahu, who just openly laid out Israel’s Syria strategy in a way few leaders dare. ↓ Image
2/
After touring the occupied Golan and Quneitra front, Netanyahu declared:

“Southern Syria is now our buffer zone… under our control. Neither the Syrian army nor Turkey will be allowed in.”

Spelling out the new doctrine of permanent Israeli protectorate carved out of Syria.
3/
This statement didn’t happen in a vacuum.
Turkey (the single most disruptive foreign actor inside Syria) has spent a decade weaponizing proxy factions, running intelligence networks, engineering demographic change, and blocking every attempt at Syrian reunification.
4/
From MIT’s arms shipments to ISIS, to the ethnic cleansings in the North Syria, to the ongoing Sabotage of SDF–STG negotiations — the The AKP–MHP alliance has shaped the war more than anyone.

In The Prince by Machiavelli, there's a quote that perfectly encapsulate them. Image
5/
Then came Netanyahu’s interview with t. me/AliExpress

“We want a modus vivendi with Ankara… but they are stubborn and talk too much. We respond. In practice, we blocked them in southern Syria.”

In Machiavellian terms: We dictate the rules, you adapt.
6/
He also claimed Israel bombed T4 Airbase to stop Turkey. A critical Iran–Syria logistics artery and potential air-defense hub.

Thus preserving Israeli air dominance over Syria — and forcing Turkish troops to turn on their heels.

7/
Israel has repeatedly targeted Syria's T4 base (6 strikes since '18). The core aims:

->Never allow Syria to rebuild a functional air-defense system.
->Never let Iran establish a protected corridor.
->Never allow a sovereign Syrian state to emerge with military autonomy.
8/
In citing the “Nagal Committee” report which says Israel should prepare for a possible direct conflict with Turkey.

The Syrian Turkish proxies are seen as a new, powerful threat to Israel.

→ In some scenarios even more dangerous than Iran.
9/
Syria will be a permanent buffer zone no matter what: Through force or through deals.

Netanyahu says Syria too has an interest in a security agreement, implying:

The Jolani side wants an arrangement but has conditions: Israel withdraws from areas it has occupied since December 8, 2024

Golan occupied in 1967 isn’t even on the table in those conditions.
10/
Israeli official talk about Jolani going to Washington, returning “overconfident,” wanting to bring Russian troops to the border, etc. → The message:

“Know your limits; don’t overplay your hand.”

At the same time, another Israeli minister mocks Jolani as having nothing but the smell of Trump’s cologne on him – i.e., dismissing his real power.
END/
So Jolani is simultaneously:

Useful in Israel’s new regional design (as a counterweight to Hezbollah / Iran),

But kept in his place; if he pushes too far, Israel threatens to crush him.

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More from @karimfranceschi

Oct 1
1/ I was recently contacted about a man who claims to have been “in my battalion.” He rose on stolen valor, built a social platform, crowdfunded a boat—and then used other activists as his security blanket. I won’t make his name the story. This is.
2/ But before anyone labels me a spoilsport: I do not support the genocide in Gaza. My critique comes from a decolonial, field-worn anthropology — from fighting alongside Kurds in Syria and watching how solidarity is co-opted.
3/ The Sumud/Global flotilla is being praised as courageous. Yet it is being escorted — at least for part of the voyage — by the Italian navy. That matters. Reuters reports Italy will stop escorting only when the flotilla reaches ~150 nm from Gaza, and has already deployed ships.
Read 17 tweets
Sep 28
ASSESSMENT OF HAMAS VIDEO RELEASE
1/
Drawing on my experience as a former commander with the YPG International Battalion during the Raqqa campaign, I assess several key elements in this video.

2/
Much of the operational picture is deliberately absent. For example, sniper teams are not shown but were almost certainly employed to suppress defenses around the target site — a construction facility likely serving as a forward IDF outpost.
3/
The terrain provided unobstructed 360-degree visibility, and it is plausible that 20 or more IDF personnel were stationed there.
Read 12 tweets
Sep 27
1/ Syria is on the brink of another Civil War.
This week has been the bloodiest in months for the SDF, and the pressure is mounting. Image
2/ On 24 Sept, in Deir Hafer, Syrian government forces used two suicide drones and sustained artillery fire on SDF positions and nearby villages.

Casualties: 1 SDF fighter killed, 8 civilians killed (including children), 4 children wounded.
3/ On 25 Sept, in al-Bahra al-Wusta (east of Deir Ezzor), ISIS militants attacked an SDF position.

Casualties: 5 SDF fighters killed, 1 wounded.
Read 9 tweets
Sep 18
That’s me in 2016, one of the founders of the Antifascist Internationalist Tabur—later dubbed Antifa Platoon by Rolling Stone magazine.

Now, as Trump announces he’s designating Antifa a major terrorist organization, I want to share my own experience. You be the judge. Thread 🧵 Image
As an Italian antifascist, I carry a heritage. When I sang “Bella Ciao” with my Kurdish comrades during the siege of Kobani, I was using the same words my father had sung on the hills of Tuscany with his partisan comrades as they fought against the Nazi-Fascist occupation. /2 Image
We fought within the "The Global Coalition To Defeat ISIS". Despite media sensationalism, in reality we were little more than a small fire team within the YPG, flying the Antifa flag for a photo op. We disbanded around the time of the Tabqa battle, which was our first real engagement. /3Image
Read 16 tweets
Aug 31
In the month of August, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) executed twelve combined strike operations against PKK positions in northern Iraq.

Why is this happening against the backdrop of the ongoing peace process?

A thread—🧵
These operations incorporated air-delivered munitions and artillery fire support. Simultaneously, persistent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) activity was observed across the battlespace, in support of strike coordination & damage assessment. [HPG sources]

/2
During this period, a Turkish parliamentary commission was already in motion to formalize political engagement, while the PKK undertook visible steps toward de-escalation, including a disarmament ceremony and its formal declaration of organizational dissolution.

/3
Read 7 tweets
Aug 23
Picture a bar in Nepal. Modam Kumal serves tea, makes barely enough to live. Then comes the offer: “security job in Russia.” A contract he can’t read. He signs. Weeks later, he’s not guarding doors in Moscow — he’s crawling through mud in Donetsk, under fire. Image
Now imagine Sierra Leone. Richard Kanu sells what he can, pays $3,000 for a visa. A new beginning, he thinks. Instead, recruiters hand him a rifle. His dream of wages becomes a trench. His labor — stolen, militarized. 2/8
Flash to Kyiv. A man walks to work, papers in his pocket. A van pulls up. Draft officers grab him, no warning. This isn’t rumor — it has a name: “busification.” A one-way ride from the street to a barracks, from routine life to the front. 3/8
Read 8 tweets

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