Syria's new regime slashes anti-Israel media coverage, study shows
The study shows a dramatic drop in the volume of Israel-related content, alongside a slight moderation in tone. Under Assad, Israel-related content appeared in as much as 43% of SANA reports.
The number of Israel-related reports in Syrian state media has plummeted since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December, according to new research by the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI).
In a report published Monday, researchers at JPPI’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Information and Consulting Center analyzed hundreds of commentaries and opinion columns in key Syrian newspapers and the official state news agency, SANA. The team compared the first five months of 2024 under President Ahmed al-Shara with the same period last year under Assad.
The study shows a dramatic drop in the volume of Israel-related content, alongside a slight moderation in tone. Under Assad, Israel-related content appeared in as much as 43% of SANA reports. Under al-Shara, that figure has dropped to just 7%.
The team, led by Shlomi Bereznik and Eli Kannai, also used AI-based tools to evaluate the tone of opinion pieces in the regime-aligned dailies Al-Thawra and Al-Hurriya (formerly Tishreen).
In Al-Thawra, nearly 25% of opinion pieces (147 out of 595) during Assad's final year in power dealt with Israel, with over 95% classified as "highly negative." This year, only 5% of opinion columns discussed Israel. Of those, 65% were still labeled "highly negative," but 18% were classified as "neutral" – a tone virtually absent in the previous year.
In Al-Hurriya, sentiment remained strongly negative, with 78% of pieces deemed "highly negative," and 11% each as "negative" and "somewhat negative."
The tone is still hostile, but the change in volume shows something deeper
"The tone is still hostile, but the change in volume and nuance indicates something deeper," said Yaakov Katz, director of JPPI’s Glazer Center. "The new Syrian government is clearly signaling its shift toward the West. Al-Shara’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Riyadh, and the U.S. decision to lift sanctions on Syria, are part of that trend.""Even a modest decrease in anti-Israel rhetoric in official media sends a signal. It’s not normalization yet, but it is an opening."
In Assad-era coverage, Israel was routinely described as a colonial aggressor seeking to dominate Syria and destabilize the region. While that narrative persists, researchers noted fewer articles advancing conspiratorial claims and more pieces omitting Israel entirely.
The JPPI report follows a similar study of Egyptian media that found 30% of opinion columns still focused on Israel, showing that Syria under al-Shara is now among the lowest in the region in terms of state-sponsored media focus on Israel.
The full study will be presented at a JPPI conference later this month in Jerusalem.
