By Peter Števkov

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad will go down in history as one of the most cynical operations by the powers in the Middle East.

And suddenly everything changed in a few days. The world was left in awe, the great powers were silent, Assad surprisingly gave up power and flew to Moscow, Israel acted quickly.

It is almost impossible to unravel the complexity of it all, but something can indeed be unraveled, and it inspires amazement.

While the West celebrated the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the main Middle Eastern protégé of the US and Europe in the region – Israel – bombed the remnants of Syrian military infrastructure. Airports, air defense installations, tanks, ammunition depots, all military targets. According to witnesses, Syria was left with practically nothing in its arsenal.

Israel also rapidly expanded its occupation of the Golan Heights, capturing the peak of Mount Hermon. This is the highest mountain in Syria, which will give Jerusalem unlimited visibility over the entire country. Previously, Israel had a blind spot in its radar coverage of Syria behind Hermon.

Read more: The Fall of Syria: How the US-Israeli-Islamist Alliance Tore the Middle East Apart

The speech as given by prince Leo von Hohenberg, the great-grandson of archduke Franz Ferdinand in November of 2024 at the Artstetten castle in Austria as a part of a peace initiative.

Artstetten 2024 11 16

Allow me to clarify right away that I am not a historian, a politician, or philosopher. In fact, I have no particular qualification to stand here and speak to you, other than by an accident of birth. I am, however, a father, a husband, an officer of the Austrian army reserve, and a Christian, and I feel a duty to try to do whatever I can in the service of peace. Just like all of you here, I want to safeguard our beliefs, norms, and freedoms as the basis for a fulfilling and peaceful life for the next generation.

The upheavals of the last decade with mass migration, the total erosion of the traditional
values of the West and, more recently, general warmongering have prompted me to make a statement here. The assassination of my great-grandfather heralded the first catastrophe of the 20th century, which was preceded by a wave of moral confusion and, ultimately, enthusiasm for war, not unlike our current situation.

Before I can speak about peace, I would like to step back and analyze, how we came to our current situation: a divided world that is again steering dangerously near to world war, and which is currently experiencing a war of a different kind.

Read more: Speech in Defense of Tradition, Peace and Christian Values by Leo von Hohenberg

This is the speech delivered by Dr. Jurášek (photo above, far right), a counselor to the Slovak prime-minister, at the Conservative Summit, held in Bratislava in November 2024. Presented here with the kind permission of the author.
-- from the Editor
Nov. 29, 2024

What is the best way to preserve and spread national and conservative values?

For long years I believed it is this: to deeply follow your conscience, intuition, what you feel deep inside, do it with your full heart, positive attitude, pure intention and to not care whether it is popular or politically effective. I believed that if you do the right thing, then God, Providence, Fate, vis maior – you name it – will make the rights thing happen at the right time.

For me, that meant I did not care about what is popular, just what is true; I did not care whether my articles were read by a hundred or by a hundred thousand, whether I was praised by anyone, whether I would one day be elected or have a career in politics. I did not want any sponsors, I did not want to work with political parties. I did not want any money for what I was doing. It had to be pure, volunteering, bottom-up, grassroots. That was the purest form of activism I could envision. I felt as a speck of light against a big, bad system.

Actually, there is a name for this approach. It was coined by Václav Havel, with whom I disagree on many things, but I believe he got this one right. He named it the “power of the powerless”, which basically means that if you face a big, bad, totalitarian system, it might feel hopeless at first. But if you observe more carefully, you find that the system has many internal tensions and inconsistencies. Many people follow it out of fear, greed or mindless, mechanical habit; there is very little authenticity and morality. So even though the system may seem powerful from outside, it is dead inside.

Read more: Conservatism: power of the powerless or state ideology?