Daily Inspiration Quote by Bashar al-Assad

"Since its very inception, Israel has been a threat" is less an observation than a political instrument: a way to freeze a complex regional history into a single, permanent indictment. Assad’s phrasing does heavy lifting. "Since its very inception" erases timelines, negotiations, and shifting alliances; it turns Israel from a state with policies into an origin story of danger. That absolutism is the point. If the threat is congenital, then no Israeli action can meaningfully alter it, and no Syrian compromise can ever be more than capitulation.

The subtext is aimed in multiple directions. Externally, it slots Syria into the long-standing Arab nationalist narrative of anti-Zionism, a posture that can still purchase legitimacy in parts of the region even as several Arab states normalize relations with Israel. Internally, it functions as regime glue. Authoritarian governments often rely on an enduring outside enemy to justify securitization, repression, and the suspension of ordinary political accountability. When a leader defines the national horizon as permanent siege, dissent becomes easier to brand as sabotage.

Context matters: Assad has made variations of this claim across moments when his own legitimacy was under severe stress, especially after 2011. Casting Israel as an existential menace doesn’t just redirect anger outward; it reframes Syria’s crises as chapters in a larger civilizational struggle rather than consequences of domestic governance. The line’s rhetorical power lies in its simplicity, but that simplicity is also its tell: it’s designed to close debate, not invite strategy.