Sharaa is smart enough to know that invading Lebanon is a bad idea without getting advice from Erdogan. He's using Turkey as an excuse.

Just recorded a really interesting conversation for the first episode of PRISM Podcast on Syria’s economic recovery, reconstruction, energy politics, refugee returns, and evolving EU–Syria relations. 🎧 The Future of Syria: Economic Recovery and EU–Syria Relations Listen: open.spotify.com/episode/7HS… We discussed everything from electricity shortages and banking constraints to reconstruction risks, Gulf investment, the northeast’s political economy, refugee returns, and the challenge of turning political normalization into actual economic recovery people can feel in their daily lives. A big thank you to Umutcan Yüksel of the European University Institute (EUI) for the invitation and discussion. We also touched on some themes I’ve been working on recently regarding the gap between macro-level stabilization and the lived economic reality of ordinary Syrians, the risks of uneven recovery, and why implementation (not announcements) will ultimately determine whether Syria’s recovery is real.

Islam en France. La politique du soupçon permanent @OrientXXI orientxxi.info/Islam-en-Fran…

Following our last discussion on Syria and the future of Islamism, @ThomasPierret joins us for another episode of @ProteanView––this time to discuss the Left's fractured response to the Syrian revolution. muftah.org/p/syria-and-the-l…

Latest SiT Syria poll syriaintransition.com/en/hom…

Syria has seen a growing number of protests across the country, mostly on socio-economic issues. Here our mapping of protests in the month of April alone. @TheSyriaReport

We've always known that refugees' intentions to return don't always translate to actual return over time. But get this: A whopping two-thirds of refugees who returned to Syria had responded to recent surveys that they don't intend to return. It makes me question the usefulness of the entire exercise of attitudinal surveys for policy design! reliefweb.int/report/syrian-…

Hassan Abdelazim passed away at 94. A Nasserite, he was a leading figure in Syria’s pre-war opposition and its internal feuds, from the Hafez-era Tajammou to the Damascus Spring and Damascus Declaration. Played a minor role after 2011 via the Hayat Tansiq internal opposition body

🇱🇧 🇦🇲 “As an Armenian, watching the systematic erasure of South Lebanon feels like a recurring nightmare that the world refuses to wake up from… It’s living again the hollow silence that met our own ancestors in 1915.” open.substack.com/pub/arazbe… by @Arazbedros via @BeirutCalling

I can't believe my ears. My MFA @jnbarrot is using a racist quote from Golda Meir where she says that "Israelis forgive Arabs for killing their children but cannot forgive them for forcing them to kill their own children". Epitomy of orwellian rhetoric after 2.5 years of genocide

We stand in full solidarity with the journalist @shellykittleson who was abducted in Baghdad, and we express our deep concern over what has happened. We hope she is safe and will soon return to her family and loved ones, and that security prevails and press freedom receives the protection it deserves.

Can Syria’s private banks actually shoulder the burden of financing economic development? We look at a surprising fact: the total capital of all private banks in Syria combined is no more than that of a single regional bank in Jordan or Tunisia. Is this capital base enough to support the economy, or is it too small for the challenges ahead? Read the full analysis: karamshaar.com/syria-in-figu…