Junior Research Fellow at the Crown Center. Porat was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University from 2009-2010 and he completed his PhD in Middle Eastern history with honors at Haifa University.
Dr. Liad Porat Middle East Brief 47, December 2010
Summary
In 2006, in a surprising move, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) joined forces with various secular and non-secular opposition groups to form the National Salvation Front (NSF) against the regime of Bashar al-Asad. When the Brotherhood withdrew from the NSF in April 2009, this was read by various commentators as a sign that the Brotherhood's leadership was steering the movement toward a historic reconciliation with the regime. In this Brief, Dr. Liad Porat contextualizes the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood's decision to abandon the NSF and demonstrates that the Ikhwan remains committed to toppling and replacing the Asad regime.It thus argues that what occurred in April 2009 constituted a continuation of the Ikhwan’s history in Syria rather than a break with it.
