Will the Real Al-Golani Please Stand Up?

Will the real Syrian stand up? Abu Mohammed al-Golani, or al-Joulani, is now shedding his nom de guerre, asking instead to be addressed by his birth name, Ahmad al-Sharaa. Earlier he also renamed his militia to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — “Levant Liberation Committee.” It used to be al-Nousra Front, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. Also, too, the likely next Syrian strong man has shed his fatigues for a blazer, and, notably, has trimmed his beard. “He looks like Herzl,” conspiracy theorists are claiming on social media, indicating that a faint resemblance between the Jihadist group’s leader and the father of political Zionism “proves” that Israel is behind the Mideast’s most significant coup in decades. Not bad for a Mr. Hyde who now wants to be known as Dr. Jekyll — a nationalist and a benevolent ruler. A Salafist Islamist, Mr. Sharaa, though, is no Viennese newspaperman of the 19th century. Mr. Sharaa was born 1982 at Riyadh. His grandparents reportedly emigrated to Saudi Arabia from the Golan Heights after Israel took it over in 1967. Hence the al-Joulani handle: “Of the Golan.” He caught the Jihad fever in Iraq, where he became a favorite of the ISIS “Caliph,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Proving adept at killing Americans, he then moved to his ancestors’ land, where he became a protege of al-Qaeda’s chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri.No longer. Now Mr. Sharaa claims to represent Syrians of all stripes — not just the Islamists. When a Syrian girl asked recently for a selfie, though, he first demanded she cover her hair. The girl noted later that her idol didn’t force others to do the same, just the ones who wanted to be photographed with him. Asked by the BBC Wednesday about mandated dress codes for women, Mr. Sharaa evaded. That decision is up to a constitutional committee, he said.Much has been made of Mr. Sharaa’s conciliatory statements on the region. Israel is, after all, a top reason that his militia was able to capture Damascus with nary a shot. “We don’t want conflict either with Israel or with other countries,” Mr. Sharaa tells France 24. “Syrians are tired and just need to live in peace.” Yet he also says that Israel must end its strikes in the country and withdraw from Syrian territory it had captured recently. Will he force the issue?Israel took over a demilitarized zone that has separated it from Syrian forces on the Golan. It also moved onto the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, a strategic overlook of the whole theater. Visiting the site Tuesday, Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel will stay there at least a year. Israel is also degrading President Al-Assad’s key military capabilities, including notorious chemical arms caches. Israelis trust, but are verifying, that the new Syria won’t attack.. So far, so good. Mr. Sharaa’s transformation to a moderate Syrian nationalist from a global Jihadist could well prove genuine. Yet, his endless press interviews with willing Western reporters seem mostly designed to ensure the removal of his group from global terrorist lists. Ending that designation could help the new Syria rebuild. Yet one must be on guard against the possibility that it could also prove an incentive to return to armed jihad. So which new Syria are we talking about? Will it be Joulanist or Sharaaist? Who would emerge as the strongest player at Damascus? Will Turkey and its proxy militias’ attacks on America’s allies, the Kurds, renew the civil war and revive ISIS? Millions will be hoping for the emergence of the kind of Syria that Mr. Sharaa is selling so adeptly to Western audiences. Yet we are old enough to have learned the hard way that a trimmed beard can easily be regrown.

Will the Real Al-Golani Please Stand Up?

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