The fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime is reminiscent of the sudden and rapid collapse of the Taliban and the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani. Just as the Taliban took Kabul within a week, HTS has made rapid territorial gains. These events are reminiscent of the overthrow of Najibullah's regime by mujahideen groups in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

When it comes to the roots of the Palestinian tragedy, many point to the Nakba ("Catastrophe") of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homeland. Others point to the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917 as the pivotal point that set the stage for the establishment of a Zionist state in historic Palestine. However, two years after the declaration was signed, a lesser-known but highly significant event occurred: the signing of the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement on January 3, 1919.