Oz Katerji wrote in "Haaretz" in July 2017, that "[v]irtually any group that speaks out on the Assad regime’s campaign of systematic slaughter have been targeted by this coterie", consisting of Blumenthal, Gareth Porter, Ben Norton and Rania Khalek "with the express intention of defending a regime guilty of human extermination." Far from being anti-war, they are "acting as full-time advocates for Russian and Iranian military imperialism in Syria and to provide them immunity in the American public square from war crimes charges." Gershom Gorenberg wrote on October 14, 2016 for "The American Prospect" that "Blumenthal's concern for Arab lives and rights seems to vanish once he locates the Assad regime as an opponent of American hegemony." In separate articles, Charles Davis and Oz Katerji wrote that, in January 2017, following claims made by the Syrian government, Blumenthal blamed the contamination of the water supply for Damascus in the Wadi Barada valley on militants opposed to the government. A subsequent report by the UN found that “Syria’s air force deliberately bombed water sources in December [2016], a war crime that cut off water [to] 5.5 million people in and around the capital Damascus." He tweeted in April 2018 that every time government forces "liberate" a rebel held area those opponents of Assad "allege a chemical attack." Around the same time, Blumenthal told Sky News Australia that it was quite probable the Syrian rebels were responsible for the Douma chemical attack. "I cannot think of one pundit on the national scene, in cable news or in any major newspaper who has questioned the drive for regime change in Syria", he told Al Jazeera in an interview in June 2018. It is "left to a small group of journalists and online activists to really sift through what we believe is disinformation from our own governments aimed at stimulating a war of regime change."