Tweet Highlights Improbable Scenario: Syrian American Rabbi Blessing Syrian President in Washington

A recent tweet by journalist Michal Lev-Ram has drawn attention to a highly improbable and controversial scenario: a Syrian American rabbi blessing the Syrian president in Washington D.C. Lev-Ram, a tech and business reporter for the Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist, described the hypothetical event as "incredible/insane," underscoring its profound unlikelihood given current geopolitical realities.

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Syria in 2012, closing its embassy in Damascus and imposing extensive sanctions on the Assad regime. This diplomatic isolation means that a formal visit by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to Washington D.C., let alone a public blessing from a religious leader, would be an extraordinary and unprecedented event. Such an occurrence would contradict years of U.S. foreign policy aimed at isolating the Syrian government.

Historically, the Syrian Jewish diaspora, a significant portion of whom reside in the United States, largely emigrated from Syria due to decades of persecution and restrictions under the Assad family's rule. While Bashar al-Assad permitted the last remaining Jews to leave in the early 2000s, the community generally holds deep-seated grievances against the regime. Any public act of blessing or support for the Syrian president by a Syrian American rabbi would be met with widespread condemnation and be highly contentious within the diaspora and broader Jewish community.

The tweet, though not confirming an actual event, serves to highlight the extreme tension and historical animosity that would make such an interaction nearly impossible. It underscores the deep chasm between the Syrian regime and the Syrian American community, particularly its Jewish members, as well as the ongoing diplomatic freeze between Washington and Damascus. The "incredible/insane" framing by a seasoned journalist emphasizes the sheer improbability of the scenario.