The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news network reported Monday that Syrian President Bashar Assad has dismissed Syrian Information Minister Mohammad Ramez Tourjman, apparently because of an Israel Hayom video interview filmed and broadcast three weeks ago.
The interview, part of Israel Hayom's Insider series, was with Dr. Jonathan Spyer, a British-Israeli journalist who recently visited Syria.
Spyer, who is also the director of the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, entered Syria as recently as April 2016 using a foreign passport.
Tourjman, who was replaced by Syrian official Imad Abdullah Sarah, was not the only minister dismissed from the Syrian government this week.
Al-Arabiya said Defense Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij had also been fired and was replaced by the Syrian army chief of staff, Gen. Ali Abdullah Ayoub.
However, senior officials in Damascus denied that al-Freij's dismissal was connected to Spyer's admission into the country, Al-Arabiya said. They said al-Freij was dismissed because he was under suspicion for corruption, including accusations that he accepted bribes to grant exemptions to Syrian civilians from being drafted.
Spyer was interviewed by Israel Hayom's Steve Ganot about his book, "Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars," which he wrote after successfully infiltrating areas under control of the Assad regime.
Spyer even participated in a propaganda tour funded by the Syrian government.
In his book, he revealed that he was able to interview several Syrian government ministers and officials by using a fake identity during his time in Syria.
He also asserted that the Syrian government was negligent, as evidenced by the fact that his true identity was not discovered at any point. It was this assertion that apparently led to the dismissal of the information minister.
Spyer said he had visited Syria seven or eight times, and Iraq five or six times.
In his book, Spyer wrote about his trips to Syria, the danger he faced visiting Beirut under a false identity and what would have happened had he been exposed as an Israeli.
He said that now that his book has been published and the Syrian government has been reshuffled, he will likely not be able to return to those countries.
"Because Syria and Iraq are divided into different areas of authority, the issue would be different in each of them. I certainly cannot go back to regime-controlled Syria and of course today with the Assad regime moving forward, regime-controlled Syria is about 70% of the country," he said.
Likewise, he said he would not attempt to enter Beirut, as the Lebanese border control is connected to Hezbollah.
On the other hand, "Syria east of the Euphrates is controlled by the Kurdish forces, allied with the Americans, so I could definitely go back to eastern Syria," he said.
"And when it comes to Iraq, the Kurdish part of Iraq, certainly. Probably the government controlled part of Iraq, Baghdad and so on, I could probably go there too."
Responding to whether he discloses his Israeli identity while reporting in these areas, he said, "Generally I would tend not to volunteer that information just because there's no real reason to. It can't do any good and can only potentially perhaps do harm, but again it does vary because with the Arabs in the Arab areas of Syria and Iraq it's very important that people should not know and nobody ever does."
However, "with the Kurdish part it's a bit different. Many of the Kurds actually have a great deal of sympathy with Israel, so if I know somebody well or somebody knows me well, then, you know there have been people who have certainly known that and it's not been any problem at all."
Speaking of the defeat of Islamic State, Spyer said it "has not completely been defeated," and what has been defeated is only the "quasi state that it established in 2014."
