I Met the Syrian President, and Here’s What I Learned | Rabbi Abraham Cooper

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW] A few weeks ago, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, a prominent advocate for religious freedom and human rights, was invited to the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, alongside fellow religious freedom advocate Johnnie Moore.

They had an intimate meeting with the new president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa.

In this episode, the rabbi shares what he learned about al-Sharaa and whether he believes a peace between Syria and Israel is possible in the near future.

“There’s a term in Hebrew: It’s called Kabdehu ve Hashdehu, [which] means show respect and verify,” he says. “So, this is not a ‘kumbaya’ moment. This is a moment where there’s great leverage.”

Cooper previously chaired the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom and also serves as associate dean and director of global social action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek:

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper:

Great to see you again, my dear friend. And being out here in California, it’s always refreshing to be with people who are promoting thought. 

Mr. Jekielek:

Thank you for that. Well, you know, you just had a truly incredible meeting. You met the president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa. I mean, this is someone who’s a former official of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. On the other hand, he seems to be bringing some sort of stability as well as openness, or at least that’s what certain people are saying. You’re one of the people that I’d be really interested in knowing what you think here. Tell me about the meeting. 

Rabbi Cooper:

Right. So just before we get to the meeting, I want to acknowledge and thank my close friend, Reverend Johnnie Moore, who was originally contacted by their foreign minister when the sanctions were still in place. We had an hour-long meeting across the street from the UN. And I remember Pastor Moore’s first two questions because they’re still totally relevant. How do we know he can trust you? And how do we know that you can deliver? 

That was and is and should be in the front of our minds. I know it is for the Secretary of State, who knows a great deal about the history of Syria. And I’m sure it’s a factor also for the president. I would say this about the person that I met together with Reverend Moore for two hours in  the presidential palace in Damascus, kind of an out-of-body experience, if you will. I walked away from that meeting convinced that we were really looking at a unicorn. I think despite his historic footprint, which is almost all terrorism, he is someone who understands the task ahead. 

If the nation of Syria is going to have a future, it needs an extreme makeover in terms of its infrastructure and everything else associated with growing a proper country. And I also think that right now the country is in no shape to take any sort of active or leading role in fighting any of the, if you will, the big boys in the bloc. And that includes, obviously, Turkey, which is close, the Iranians still, which is still dangerous. Israel, which the term he kept using was deconflicting. Israel is not an enemy. He wants to de-conflict. 

The leader that we met was someone who I think is mostly focused on domestic realities. He’s been in now for at least about half a year plus. And everyone is waiting to see, OK, what are you going to do for the people? What are you going to do for the nation? And do you have the wherewithal to actually stitch together a country, which right now is totally a fraction? 

The other issue, especially after we met the next day with a group of around 20 leading Christian leaders from around Syria who came to meet with us in Damascus, and there were even one or two people from Beirut, is how many of his allies, the people who came with him to Syria, that lightning-quick, amazing, shocking, if you will, development, how many of them share his broader vision? And I think that is almost as important as, is this guy really serious about pulling our chain? I happened to be in New York the day of the meeting, and I joined in that meeting, but I had a previously scheduled meeting at the UN-US mission just around the corner. And when I went afterwards, I said, I came to discuss a couple of issues. 

Let me tell you what happened in the past hour with, you know, with the foreign minister of Syria. And the reaction of three of the U.S. diplomats in the room was quite interesting, including one very seasoned diplomat, which was, are you kidding us? Do you see what the Taliban did to us? We took off the sanctions. They made all sorts of promises. And a few weeks later, girls couldn’t go back to school. I’m sure they represented the kind of advice that President Trump was getting across the board. 

And I think that, you know, President Trump is taking a chance, wants to change the game. And there is no doubt that if the sanctions stay in place, I don’t know if a united Syria would actually ever be possible. And also, on the other hand, some of the basic questions that the Christians posed to us. They have schools, Christian schools in Syria, among the best. And the people there were wondering, will an Islamist curriculum be forced upon those schools? 

Now, if that happens, I think you’ll see an even faster brain drain. I think you’ll probably see many Christians leaving. And that meeting took place just a few days before the horrific terrorist bombing of Christians in prayer in Damascus. So I was hoping to be able to also visit with the Druze community in Syria. I had spoken to a key leader on the road between Damascus and the enclave, one of the two big enclaves of the Druze. So huge questions are there. 

On the other hand, the leader that we met with was open. You could discuss, you can debate, you can try to get a change in approach. And I would say that of the two hours that we spent together, a full 40 minutes, one way or the other, also dealt with Israel. And I thought that his main message was, we’re not enemies, not enemies anymore. We need to de-conflict. 

And then he went into some detail about the list of things they want, you know, and expect or demand in return for further normalization. And so my personal view is the following: that the step-by-step discussions are already underway, and they’re going to be plowing through a lot of issues. That might be the best way to approach this whole thing. 

However, do not underestimate the X factor of Donald Trump. I think Bibi Netanyahu asked the president to be involved with the issue. I think the Syrians are shocked that he made the move that they desperately needed. So he’s got huge leverage. And you get the feeling that if he took Bibi, he took those two guys into the Oval Office or Camp David for a couple of hours, who knows what will come out at the other end. 

But from a practical point of view, I know that a lot of us are hoping that the Abraham Accords will be expanded. I’m not sure that in each case it’s going to exactly fit that structure of a warm peace a la Bahrain, UAE [United Arab Emirates], and Morocco. But certainly, no one in Israel is interested in any more cold peace. So if the president sort of elevates this and wants to put it on a fast track, anything is possible. 

Having said that, as far as I know, in the months leading up to these developments, it was only one prominent Israeli who said we should talk to the guy. There was only one prominent Israeli who said we should talk to the guy. He happens to be a close friend, someone I respect. He’s a senior scholar also at the Washington Institute and on Israel’s Channel 12.

When he speaks, Ehud Yaari speaks, everyone in government down to the taxi drivers listen. He actually wrote an essay in which he said, well, we know who this guy is, but he is the president. And let’s talk to him because we still have needs in terms of our northern border. We should at least speak. Any of this type of thinker, researcher, journalist, essayist, when he writes something, everyone listens. When he wrote this essay, it was crickets. 

So I actually handed, with permission, a copy of his essay to the foreign minister in New York. I said, here, read it. When we spoke with the president in his palace, I mentioned him by name. I said, you know, Mr. President, if you want to talk directly to the people of Israel, most of whom obviously when they think of Syria, think of very, very difficult and even desperate times. There’s your guy, if you want to fast track it. Whoever would be the leader in Damascus, you’ve got a lot of big players; China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, U.S., and Israel. I think he’s got to try to figure out a way to move forward in terms of foreign policy and foreign aid and all the rest, while at the same time really giving special attention domestically. 

And I’m sure that you know about his public involvement with his wife in a number of meetings, when I saw that, I said, you know, what’s going on here? And then he was also seen, you ready for this, holding her hand on the way to dinner. And I mentioned this in the meeting. I said, you know, in the world we live in today, everything local is global and everything global is local. When you bring your wife to those meetings, the ripple effect continues throughout the region and throughout the world. So I was convinced that this is someone who’s worth having a serious, ongoing conversation with, or taking chances towards peace. 

And I think especially because the perception and the reality is that Israel is strong, and that the United States and this president has Israel’s back. Syria right now is weak. The people are exhausted from decades of the Assads and civil war and everything else that’s transpired. And every group is also fearful, like, what actually is going to happen to us? So that means that with the emphasis on domestic, with the need to rebuild, this is actually a good time. 

I put forward two suggestions for humanitarian projects. One is what I would call the DNA project. I’ve already spoken to my great friend, who’s one of my heroes, Father Patrick Desbois, who represents the Vatican in Paris. And he did, over the decades, he went to Ukraine as a Catholic priest to many of the places where Jews were mass murdered and buried in mass graves. He was in Central America when he disappeared. He was back in Iraq. The idea is very simple. You know, where all the Jewish people are united in trying to get back the remains of Eli Cohen, the famous Israeli spy, and Syria thanking him for getting his goodbye letter to his now widow and other things returned. They’re presumed dead. 

But the idea would be to bring in experts on a volunteer basis, anyone who wants to give their DNA, and then have teams working with someone like Father DesBois to do the match and try to help people get closure. And I said this is a project that every family in Syria will appreciate if you decide to launch. And if you want to do it, we’re available. The other one is more basic. Jan, you would have done it. Anyone would have done it. 

When you’re flying in from Doha, you know, watching the map, it’s all desert. You’re talking about, you know, just hundreds, maybe thousands or more square kilometers of desert. I said, look, this is a no-brainer. You have the Arava Institute in Israel. You’ve got other water experts. You’ve got agricultural experts, just call them up and bring them in, let them help you. And if you can’t do that yet, we’re here. 

We did it previously before the Abraham Accords. Give us a list of people that you know who are involved in this effort in Syria. We’ll invite them. We’re an NGO; it doesn’t have to even be government to government. I don’t think he’s ready yet for number two. I think he’s got his list. The Israelis have their list. We’ll have to see. Again, it might be incremental, but you never know with this particular president. On the first issue I raised, I have not received any response yet because maybe I’m the first person to raise the idea.

Mr. Jekielek:

So many vantage points here. President Trump has removed sanctions from Syria, so he clearly believes that there’s a possibility here. I think you’re echoing that same idea from your encounter with him as well. A couple of things I’d like to kind of clarify, maybe definitions of things that  people might not be aware of. First of all, like cold peace, warm peace. What’s the difference there?

Rabbi Cooper:

So the largest and most important Arab country is Egypt. It was at war with Israel in ’48, in ’56, in ’67, in ’73. Eventually, finally, it led to a peace treaty. But it’s been a cold peace. There are virtually no Egyptians who visited Israel over these decades. They still get their information from the swamp led by Al Jazeera and company. And that’s a terrible tragedy for everyone concerned. That’s a cold peace. 

King Hussein of Jordan, whom I met numerous times, was a good friend of our founder, Rabbi Marvin Hier. He also, in a way, was a unicorn. And after joining in the war, decided and invested heavily in peace. His son is not the same sort of strong leader that his father was. And as a result today, Jordan, with the increasing Palestinian population, many of them who are open Hamas cheerleaders and supporters, for someone like me with a kippah going across the border would be a very unpleasant experience. I no longer travel through Amman for obvious reasons. And this is a nation that’s technically at peace with Israel, but it is a frigid peace with the possibility of the border, God forbid, also heating up. 

Having just spent basically two days, a little less, in Syria, just driving from the international airport to Damascus, if the United States won’t lead the way in, of course, trust and verify. But if we don’t lead the way in the rehabilitation of this country, we’ve got China, you’ve got others who are lining up, you know, with a kind of price tag that doesn’t fit the worldview of this president, and certainly would make life even tougher, you know, for Israel. 

So there’s a term in Hebrew. It’s called Habdehu v’chashdehu. Habdehu means show respect and verify. So this is not a kumbaya moment. This is a moment where there’s great leverage and timing-wise created by a president Jewish history, both in Damascus and Aleppo, with Jewish communities there, Jewish businesspeople who I think helped found Damascus. 

There is a great deal of nostalgia, but you’re also looking at, you know, 50 years later, there’s a lot of work that has to be done to, first of all, make sure it’s a peaceful country, and that, I don’t know if Jews will ever be coming back, but a part of the rehabilitation and going towards warm peace would be exactly that, allowing families to come to cemeteries to pray over their loved ones. People like me who are going to come with my phylacteries and prayer shawl and say, okay, where’s the nearest synagogue so I can say my prayers? 

Those kinds of steps, which I think would also benefit all the religious minorities that are still there, are the kinds of steps that I think are being contemplated. I grew up with the children of Syrian Jews who fled Assad Sr., so I love their subculture. They’re amazing people, the Syrian Jews. And they’ve already, some have visited, some have had meetings with the foreign minister. And I hope and pray all of that will go well. But I made clear from the beginning that my connection to this issue has nothing to do with nostalgia. It’s nothing to do with looking forward. 

Mr. Jekielek:

You mentioned at the beginning that it’s sort of an out-of-body experience to be at the presidential palace in Damascus. Of course, you know, again, the unspoken thing is that there are no Jews in Syria for, you know, very unfortunate reasons. And I suspect that you didn’t expect that you would ever be going there in the near term, right?

Rabbi Cooper:

Yes, I never thought I would ever set foot in Damascus. And also, just for a reality check, at every major intersection and some other places too, there were young men in uniform with AK-47s with four to six clips on their vests. So we’re not yet talking about a normalized situation. You’d have to wear triple bifocal rose-colored glasses to be blind to that reality. But it is at this point worth taking a shot. 

But again, very important, especially for the U.S. as it takes the lead. It needs to be verified. And if things go wobbly, God forbid, we’ll snap back. Remember, some of these sanctions go back, I think, to 2008. And you had escalating sanctions as the horrific behavior of Assad Jr. and just almost impossible to run a 21st-century economy with those sanctions. So that’s huge leverage. The fact that the person who holds the key to all of it is the president of the United States, I think is a good thing, considering who else might have been holding the leverage. 

Mr. Jekielek:

So the Abraham Accords, I want to kind of revisit what they are even in the first place. So there might be people watching that aren’t aware. And I might add, you know, I’ve seen some people saying that, you know, as an Abraham yourself, you might have played a significant role in these accords. 

Rabbi Cooper:

Right. So a few things. First of all, you do have a scoop. I may be the only Jewish leader who doesn’t take credit for the Abraham Accords. You’ve seen it, live and in color. Rabbi Hier and I have a letter, a beautiful note from then Secretary of State Pompeo, thanking us for helping with the building blocks that helped build the momentum towards the Abraham Accords. That is the most accurate way to place it. 

When I was together with Rabbi Hier in the palace in 2017 in Manama, Bahrain, in front of the whole brain trust in Hamad, I had one question. I said, your majesty, what would you say if the Simon Wiesenthal Center were to invite some of your citizens to Jerusalem as our guests? And in front of everyone, without hesitation, he said, my citizens can go anywhere. And two years before the Accords, we hosted 24 faith leaders in Jerusalem for four days. 

And by the way, it started the day after the 45th president of the United States announced that they were moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. No one believed that this group would show up. They did. And these are important, symbolic, incremental, and practical steps when you can help create ambassadors for peace within those cultures and societies. You know, not just photo ops with, quote-unquote, faith leaders; priests, rabbis, or imams. 

Yes, all of that is good, but the most important thing, and what I’m going to try to devote whatever number of years the good Lord gives me to function at a proper level, is to try to put in play verifiable humanitarian projects, because that will bring together people already in those societies who care about certain issues and may have an expertise. It will surely bring together some faith leaders. Besides the politicians, it will also, I believe, attract significant interest on the part of business folks whose reach may be, in this case, in Syria or in other countries, we’re going to have announcements. 

I just keep coming back to something that my great mentor and teacher, Ambassador Alfred Balitzer, who was President Reagan’s first ambassador to Brunei, no less, said, remember, the diplomats sign treaties, but people make peace. There’s no question also that in the coming weeks, all eyes will be on Saudi Arabia to see whether there’ll be some incremental positive movement in the right direction. I know that President Trump loves the big deal and putting a lot of pieces of a puzzle together. Who knows? Anything is possible. 

But the Israelis right now, the people of Israel, were paid a very heavy price, starting with October 7, 2023, through ballistic missiles that continue as we speak, like this from Yemen. And with so many deaths and so many limbs lost, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who’s done, I think, some remarkable things, is also a lightning rod within Israeli society between different groups. But whoever is running Israel has to account for the fact that the younger generation of Israelis stepped forward to defend Israel in the most incredible way. 

These are people from left, right, center, you know, with nose rings, with payas, and everything else in between. They don’t want to have to go out into the field again when it comes to their neighbors in the course of their lifetime. If you’re having deals, they have to be verifiable. And in the Middle East, that’s pretty tough to keep things going for a very, very long time. 

But I get where the president is coming from. I applaud him for taking the shot. And I also applaud him for having a good secretary of state to do the trust and verify part of this, along with hopefully the foreign affairs committees of both houses. Congress has a big role to play going forward, not only with Syria, but I think any of the other announcements that will be made. 

Mr. Jekielek:

You alluded to something a little bit earlier. Of course, you’re the former chair of USURF, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. And I think we first kind of bonded around this idea that religious freedom, wherever it is, really is a kind of a barometer for the decency or the goodness of a society. 

Rabbi Cooper:

Yes. As it happens, I really got to know Johnnie Moore because he preceded me by a couple of years and was a commissioner on USURF, being in Washington for one of those meetings. And that’s what really started, I guess you can call it our bromance over all these years, just in some challenging locations. 

So for me, and I mentioned this also to the president, I said, we look at human rights through the lens of religious freedom and how a lot, maybe says everything about the health of the society and its future. I’m absolutely convinced that the people, the world leaders who spend the most time thinking about God are the president of China, the head of North Korea, and all the other tin pot and real players. Because when you’re an authoritarian leader and you control everything in your society, you know in your gut that you don’t control everything. And you have to figure out how do I install myself as God when I can’t fight the God I can’t see? So whatever his theological base is right now or not, in terms of the president, that’s polygamy is what makes up Syria. 

And if you’re looking for some advice, and in this case, I gave it without waiting to be asked, if you want to know if you’re on the proper track, how are the minorities, the religious minorities, how do they feel? Is there a sense of trust? Is that something you can build on? And I think right now, Christians are still, and others, just holding their breath, waiting to see what kind of government will actually be put into place, and if all of the groups will be represented on ministerial levels. It’s going to be a very, very long road, but if there are any successes along the way, you have to give the President of the United States his due for making any of those positive outcomes possible. But we have to stay in the game. And also to show some respect to Israel, which has had to pay desperately with high casualty rates in terms of the Golan Heights. 

Look, I’m 48 years at the Wiesenthal Center. Remember a guy named Mustafa Tlass? He was the longtime defense minister during the wars with Israel. He was also going for his PhD at the Sorbonne. His main book is called The Matzah of Zion, in which he endorsed the 1841 blood libel in Damascus, in which a Jew was murdered. And the cover of that book in color, which was a wild bestseller across the Middle East, this is before the internet, showed a guy with earlocks, payas, a hooked nose, with a knife, slitting the throat of a child with blood dripping into a pan. 

So anti-Semitism is not only the fault of the Assads. There were plenty historically, even before there was a state of Israel. You had one of the worst Nazi war criminals who was able to live out his life in Damascus, because he helped train the Mukhabarat how to torture people. And the Israelis, unfortunately, were only able to get one letter bomb to him, so he lost a few fingers. But he died peacefully in Syria. 

So, and this is very important, I think, for the president and the United States and others to understand. If you’re going to get true peace with Syria, they also have to deal eventually with their past. Without that, it’s only going to be limited. On the other hand, with the UAE and Bahrain, they were never at war with Israel. You know, tiny Jewish communities were there for hundreds of years. 

So what happens now in Syria is going to have great geopolitical impact, but I think also you’re looking at the Lebanese government watching very carefully what’s going on. You know, the possibility that you’ll have de-confliction, which means not shooting at each other anymore, from Israel’s northern area, and focusing on how to help the people improve their lives and their economic possibilities. That would be a historic achievement for all concerned. Whether this is the team that’s going to deliver it or not, I can only default back to what our sages, Jewish sages, have said, that from the time of the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, there are no more. The power of prophecy has left. Only fools prophesy. So I prefer not to be a fool. 

I’m not a diplomat of the United States. I’m a taxpayer in Israel because I have eight grandchildren and a great-grandson now, so I’m an indirect taxpayer. But I’m not a citizen of that country. I’m a proud Zionist. And when the Syrian foreign minister invited us, they knew exactly who Johnnie Moore was, the president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, and a great human rights activist. And they certainly know who I am. So if we had that invitation, it was something that we had to take. I never hesitated. And I’m also, you know, grateful that we got there, did our thing, and were able to come home to the greatest country in the world. 

Mr. Jekielek:

Rabbi Cooper, this has been an amazing conversation. Maybe just as we finish, a quick word on the Abraham Accords and their potential expansion. There’s been hints that some big things are in the works. I know you don’t want to prophesy, but perhaps you know about some things that may be a bit in the works? 

Rabbi Cooper:

So the amazing thing about the Abraham Accords, which you have to give President number 45 and his team, Pompeo and others, unbelievable credit for breaking the mold. And you heard throughout those years leading up to from the pundits, oh no, you can’t do anything towards peace, broader peace in the Middle East until you solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Well, we kept hearing from Arab leaders saying, we’ve been supporting these guys for 70 years, and if we can do things with Israel that are going to help us, we’ll continue to support the Palestinians, but they no longer have veto power. That was achievement number one, just a discussion to broaden it. 

And again, that real normalization, the opportunity to visit the countries openly as Jews and for statements during difficult times and actions from Arab leaders who just spoke a different language. They don’t see Israel as an enemy. That itself for Israel and the Jewish people was an unbelievable shock. And the third country, which is Morocco. Well, Morocco and Israel, I would say they were pregnant for 40 years. This effort, it’s a huge step forward. It’s a matter of not just exchanging ambassadors. It’s a matter of joint projects. It’s a matter of humanitarian efforts. 

And going forward, what’s the wish list? So believe it or not, Indonesia is part of my wish list. I’ve been there. It’s the largest Muslim country in the world. I have hosted religious  Muslims from Indonesia in Israel, in the Jewish state. I believe that the kind of leadership that the late President Wahid exhibited was philo-Semite, the way he visited Israel.  That is near the top of my wish list. I don’t know that it will happen, but even talking about it indicates that there is a lot more activity going on. 

And then certainly Saudi Arabia is key. Something’s going to have to come, whether it’s, you know, peace treaties, whether they’re going to have a signing on the White House lawn? I don’t know. Obviously, we’re still talking when you have 50 Israeli hostages alive and dead under the ground in Gaza, even at this stage, with the war not yet finished there. That for sure is a complication. So I would say Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, there may be some other countries. 

Obviously, Algeria is not one of them, unfortunately. They’re off in a completely different orbit. And the problem is with Libya and Lebanon are they’re failed states. So it’s tough. There are many people I’ve already met from Libya, you know, who want to make peace with Israel, but who may not control more than just the peace of that territory. And it will be, I think, a great indication of just how the times have changed as a result of Israel’s counterattacks and successes. and the United States bombing. 

If Lebanon comes in, if Syria comes in, you have the beginning of the reshaping of the map of the Middle East. And I believe it will, if anything, create more pressure internally in Iran, which is for another meeting and another conversation with people who know a lot more. But with this president and some of the steps that he’s made with the courage and tenacity of the nation of Israel, in the face of the military threats, nor in the face of the lies that continue to be embedded into the international community by the United Nations and by so many NGOs. It’s going to take quite something to unravel that mess. 

And I want to commend my good friend, Reverend Johnnie Moore, who is currently also the chair of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which if you don’t know anything about it, you would think that they’re the worst group of war criminals. What is their sin? They have now supplied people in Gaza with 55 million meals in a couple of weeks. And the original sin is they rely on security that’s provided by the IDF. And that is the original sin today in the international community. They keep pushing Israel out to make it a pariah like South Africa. 

And to see the courage and foresight of this group to move in, initially using some, I think, good American know-how and showing flexibility and ensuring that at least 55 million meals didn’t go directly to Hamas to enable them to continue to hold the people of Gaza hostage. So I, for one, am all for, I guess, I’m an example of citizens being involved in humanitarian efforts on global issues. But again, it is very, very important for us to understand what our role is and what it isn’t.

Mr. Jekielek:

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, it’s such a pleasure to have you on the show..

Rabbi Cooper:

Thank you, good to see you. 

This interview has been partially edited for clarity and brevity.