Syrian Minorities Fear Retribution, Israel-Hamas Talks, ABC Settles Trump Lawsuit

0:02Some people aren't sure how much to celebrate the fall of Syria's government. We've heard people dance in the streets. Now we hear from Syrians who ask if the collapse of the old order might bring retribution against them. I'm Leila Fawdell in Damascus with Stephen Skeep in Washington, and this is Up First from NPR News. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is trying one more time for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. This is a moment to bring this to an end. Which is something American diplomats have said many times before. What makes this time any different? Also, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with President-elect Trump.

0:41The network will donate millions to his presidential library, even though experts felt ABC had a strong legal defense. So why pay? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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2:21The fall of Syria's longtime president means different things to different people there. In the past few days, we've watched many Syrians break into impromptu dance parties in the street.

2:36But in that joy over their newfound freedom, there is also grief and desperation for the families of the tens of thousands of people who disappeared under Bashar al-Assad's rule and the hundreds of thousands killed in a civil war. And then there are people who are worried what the new leadership might do to them. Okay, Layla, let's follow up on this. Who would be concerned about life not improving or even getting worse after this regime is gone? Yeah, I mean, Assad really leaned on religious and ethnic minorities and marginalized communities to shore up support against the opposition, stoking fears that they would be even more oppressed if the most extreme within his opponents rose to the top.

3:22And because Halawhites are of the same sect as Assad, it's an offshoot of Shia Islam, they dominated the top ranks of the military and intelligence. There's this assumption that the community was more loyal to Assad than others in Syria. So now they feel like they could pay the price for Assad and his top loyalist crimes against Syrians when they lived under the same oppression that other Syrians lived under. Well, since you raise it, let me ask if people did anything that they now need to be worried about. Did people in that Alawite sect lead a life of privilege under the old regime? In short, no.

4:00I mean, the elite are a tiny sliver of an otherwise really poor community. And as I said, loyalists, the elite in Syria, were Sunni, were Alawite, were Christian. And it's evident, this poverty, as soon as you drive into the Meza 86 neighborhood in Damascus that's in the shadow of Bashar al-Assad's palace. Right away, you see the cinderblock homes, the electric wires tangled and hanging in the narrow alleys, the potholed streets. A lot of families here say Alawad stayed in military service because the Assad family gave them no other economic choices. Listen to what Ibrahim Aysa, who runs a perfume shop in the area, said.

4:41The regime would make us poor. They wouldn't give us food or drink or jobs. They would make us poor by burning our agriculture, our forests, so we wouldn't work in agriculture, forcing us into the army. And if you could see Isa, I mean, he was so excited that Assad is gone. He had this twinkle in his eyes and what seemed like an incurable smile because he can finally leave his neighborhood. He was evading military service for two years because he didn't want to fight fellow Syrians. That military service is mandatory. And because conscripts are paid next to nothing to fight for this regime, that gave them next to nothing.

5:16So he couldn't risk getting snatched up at a checkpoint. Okay, so he's against the old regime. He's still worried about being targeted by the new regime. Are people where you were being targeted? I mean, in a word, no, not in this neighborhood. When the rebel fighters first came to their neighborhood, they were polite and peaceful, people in the area told me. They took away weapons from soldiers and told them, go home. Now you're civilians. The new leadership has said they will be protected and part of a new Syria, but they're still scared. This is a community that had both soldiers in Assad's army and people fighting with the rebels.

5:51They've bled in this country's civil war on both sides. The community was also targeted with bombings by extremists, including in this neighborhood. And now they're starting to see threats on Facebook, warning Alawites that revenge killings are coming. One showed me a video of an Adalwhite shrine that he said was recently burned outside of Damascus. And it is showing up not from leadership, but in their daily lives. I met a man who is engaged to a Sunni Arab woman, and the family loved him until Esed fled. Now some have turned on him and don't want him in the family because of his religious sect.

6:27And another woman is having a neighborhood dispute about the pipes leaking in her apartment from the apartment above. And that neighbor is Sunni. And now she leans out the window and taunts them saying, where are the Halawhites? The tables have turned. So there's definitely apprehension and concern that they'll become scapegoats. But they hope that fear is just that, fear of the unknown. Leila, thanks for all the subtleties. Really appreciate it. You're welcome, Steve.

6:59There's renewed hope for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Senior Biden administration officials have been in the region pushing the negotiations, which they say have been intense lately. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is just back from his latest trip to the Middle East. This is a moment to bring this to an end and bring this to an end in a way that gets the hostages home and finally brings relief to people who suffered and continue to suffer every single day. Israeli airstrikes in Gaza continue with the Palestinian death toll climbing to nearly 45 ,000. NPR's diplomatic correspondent Michelle Kellerman joins us now from Tel Aviv.

7:38Good morning, Michelle. Good morning, Leila. So we've heard many, many times that negotiations are underway, are intense, and there's optimism that a possible deal is afoot, and then no deal. What are you hearing from U.S. officials that makes it different this time? Well, they say the whole context in the region has changed. Hamas has been degraded to the point where it can't carry out another October 7th-like attack. Israeli strikes and assassinations have degraded the Iranian Bakhtizbala in Lebanon, and there's a ceasefire there now. And Iran lost its client state in Syria with the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

8:16So many say that Hamas is now being more flexible. A source close to the negotiations also told NPR that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a deal because he wants to focus more on Iran. So what do we know about this deal that's emerging and the sticking points? Well, it would be a lengthy ceasefire up to two months. Hamas would release some hostages in exchange for Palestinian detainees released from Israeli jails. But exactly who is being debated? And there are a lot of big open questions about Hamas's future role, about who runs Gaza, and how to secure Gaza to get vital aid in. So this deal would really just be a start.

8:58And you're there in Israel. What are you hearing from family members of some of the 100 hostages still being held in Gaza? Are they optimistic? Well, I woke up this morning to skywriting planes painting huge ribbons in the sky to draw attention to the hostages. Families are cautious. You know, they've been here before, only to be disappointed by Netanyahu. I met Efrat Machikawa in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night at a rally for the hostages. She said only diplomacy can get her uncle, who turned 80 in captivity, out of Gaza. War has only sad endings. We cannot talk of a victory to neither side.

9:41And a lot are really worried about the talk of a partial deal. They want Netanyahu to bring everyone back. What have you heard from Palestinians in Gaza who are living under these airstrikes and in this war about a possible ceasefire and hostage detainee exchange? Well, I mean, they're desperate for an end to the relentless Israeli strikes that have destroyed hospitals and schools. The Israeli military says it's targeting Hamas fighters. But we're hearing from Gaza health officials that many women and children have been killed in these strikes, as well as medical staff. You know, Leila, over 100 were reported killed this weekend alone.

10:19And these strikes continue months after the U.S. and others said that Israel had already reached its military goals in Gaza. NPR's diplomatic correspondent, Michelle Killerman. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you.

10:37Why did ABC News settle a lawsuit with President-elect Trump? The TV network is making a$15 million donation to Trump's future presidential library and also posting a statement of regret. That is the settlement over remarks by anchor George Stephanopoulos during an interview. The settlement comes just as an incoming administration talks of using the power of government and the legal system to penalize news coverage they don't like. NPR media correspondent David Falkenflick is covering all this. David, good morning. Good morning, Steve. What was the lawsuit about? So let's go back to March. Donald Trump, former president, surging in the Republican primaries.

11:17Stephanopoulos on the Sunday Public Affairs show this week. He was speaking with Nancy Mace. She's a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina, used to be a real critic of Trump, became a supporter of him. She had talked poignantly about how she'd been raped as a teen. And George Stephanopoulos is saying, well, then why do you support Donald Trump? And he kept saying relentlessly, look, he was found liable in a civil suit of rape. Well, that's not actually quite right. He was found guilty of sexual abuse. And the jury in that civil trial did not find him liable of rape. What the judge said in the case, pointedly, however, was that what he was found liable for did fall under the definition of what everybody in America in common conversation might understand to be rape, but that it didn't fit under the precise technical definition of rape under New York state law.

12:07I'm just thinking about that. So according to the judge, this is something of a subtlety and it's involving a public figure where normally you can have very, very wide latitude to say all sorts of things. What had legal experts said about the merits of Trump's case against ABC News? Sure. I spoke to six First Amendment media lawyers over this weekend and they kind of agreed with my gut instinct on this. They said what George Stefanoff did was a screw up. And a number of them said they would have expected ABC and Stephanopoulos to clarify the distinction pretty promptly. But they also said this should have been a pretty easy call to defend in court because what Stephanopoulos said was close to what the judge said.

12:47But in precise, there's kind of a case law defense of something being substantially true. And as you point out, you know, public figures, you know, under a major court case decided by the Supreme Court called New York Times v. Sullivan 60 years ago, they gave great protections to what people say in the press and in public about public officials to allow for sort of a rolling and roiling freedom of speech about politicians that you don't have to be perfect. And so you can say things that are critical about public figures and they can't just use the courts against you. A president or a former president or a future president would be somebody at the very top of the pyramid of public figures.

13:23Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It matters who you are. If you're totally a private citizen, maybe if somebody says something terrible about you, you can sue. It gets harder when you get more famous. So why, in this case, did ABC News settle? Well, it remains a mystery why they didn't clarify. But why did they settle? They say they're happy to be past it. We don't know exactly, but this is a major amount of money, particularly for a public figure. It also comes at a time as a number of news organizations and a number of owners and leaders of news organizations appear trying to make peace with Trump. You think of the killed endorsements of Vice President Harris in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post.

13:58You know, a top executive over ABC News was seen at Mar-a-Lago meeting with a key incoming figure in the new Trump administration. And finally, this is all, of course, at a time when incoming president-elect Donald Trump and the officials around him have suggested a strong not only willingness but intent to use the powers of government against the press, the powers of regulation, desire to go after reporters and publishers over printing government secrets, and now very much the courts as well. And President David Folkenflik, thanks so much. You bet.

14:34And that's Up First for this Monday, December 16th. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Leila Faldin. We here at Up First give you three big stories of the day. Our Consider This colleagues take a different approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you in just 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. NPR's Team Damascus for Up First includes Arzu Resvani and Taylor Haney. Today's episode was edited by Carrie Kahn, Emily Kopp, H.J. Mai, and Mohamed El-Bardisi. It was produced by Ziad Batch, Nia Dumas, and Katie Klein. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is Zach Coleman.

15:12Join us tomorrow.

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