DAILY BEAST May 9, 2014

To protect the innocent and to defeat the Assad dictatorship, Syrians should work with Israel to create a safe haven.

I spent more than a decade in Syrian prisons and therefore know what kind of regime this is. It is one which believes that torture is a form of dialogue. This was long before the Syrian uprising. Long before my countrymen went to the streets in a peaceful protest calling for freedom. Long before the death toll reached 150,000.

In the past three years, we Syrians have learned a lot about who our friends are and who our enemies are. Russia and Iran provide the backing critical for Bashar Assad to remain in power. Hezbollah filled the ranks of the Syrian army. Islamist radicals were brought in from other parts of the region attempting to take Syria away from the Syrian people who had risen to protest.

The United Nations and its allies try to support us by allowing diplomacy under the Geneva convention. But the Geneva process has effectively collapsed and we must again realize that much more must be done to stop the Assad dictatorship from continuing to slaughter its people. While we received humanitarian aid from America and Europe, more could have been done to weaken Assad.

Once, Israel was blamed for everything. But Israel is not our enemy anymore. We see how Israel opened its doors to our injured. We see how Syrian children are treated in Assad’s prisons and how they are treated in Israeli hospitals. Israel gave food while Assad starved his own people. Syria has only one enemy now: the Assad regime backed by Iran and Hezbollah. I meet with Syrian dissidents and military leaders daily and have seen how, after decades of brainwashing, their mentality has begun to change.

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