I'm John Batchel with my colleagues. That is McCutter. And we're speaking with Malcolm

Honan on the Conference of Presidents, not only about the ongoing tragedy in Australia, questions

to be answered, but also the reawakening of Iran's multiple front attack on Israel.

Hezbollah is active.

Hamas is defiant.

But Syria, since the beginning of the war,

has passed into hands that are seen as benign by major powers, including the United States.

The puzzle here is Syria is run by a self-named president named Al-Shara,

who's an al-Qaeda veteran who has connections over time to ISIS.

And now we have the claim that ISIS personnel opened fire on Americans and their

interpreters in a meal setting in Syria. This is something that is alarming but needs to be

investigated. So I'll leave that alone and go right to the concern about the Syrian border

with Israel.

Israel occupies a buffer zone in Mount Hermon, but that does not at all answer the problem that we have with Al-Shara sitting in Damascus.

After the attack on the Suwaita province, where the Jews live, the attack on the aloites on the coast.

Malcolm, what is the thinking in Jerusalem now about Al-Shara and Damascus?

Is there any additional worry that something is cooking?

Well, there continues to be great concern because of the reasons you cited of his background,

and also because of some of the activities we see that southern Syria is awash with weapons,

weapons trafficking routes around back networks,

and Israel is being asked to make concessions to a government led by former al-Qaeda official, and its coalition, his coalition still includes

figures that praised October 7th and endorsed armed resistance against Israel.

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