Middle East Open Forum

Russia’s Support For The Assad Regime

2012-02-12T04:42:00.000-08:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

The Russian veto of the Security Council resolution on Syria on Feb. 4, 2012, is motivated by its reluctance to see the Assad regime replaced with a government that is potentially less friendly to Russia. Most of the political churning that took place at the UN pertaining to the Arab League peace plan is irrelevant posturing. Whether or not the Security Council approves the peace plan will not materially affect the course of events in Syria as long as Russia continues to back the Assad regime politically and militarily. In the mean time, the Syrian government, with the backing of Russia, is continuing its military campaign to crush the opposition and impose its illegitimate rule on the Syrian people. In spite of the government sponsored violence, the opposition is gaining strength and will persist in its struggle to free Syria from the brutal Assad regime. And more Syrians will die.

It is very unlikely that Western powers will interfere militarily in Syria as they did in Libya. Nor should they. But the Syrians’ struggle for freedom has become a grossly asymmetric conflict between lightly armed opposition and a heavily armed sectarian army that is supported by a continuous flow of lethal weapons from Russia. Therefore, the refusal of Russia to support a peaceful resolution of the Syrian conflict, because of the claim of interference in a sovereign country, is both disingenuous and hypocritical. Russia objects to outside interference in Syria while at the same time it ships war material to the Assad regime, oblivious of the fact that in doing so it is causing more bloodshed and undermining prospects for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Let us consider the claimed reasons for Russia’s support of the Assad regime. First, there is the hypothesis that Russia needs Syria as an outlet for its military exports in order to support the Russian military-industrial complex. This hypothesis doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because Syria is a poor country and is getting poorer by the day. Most of the military hardware “sold” to Syria is paid for by sovereign “I.O.U.” that is unlikely to be honored. The second reason mentioned is that Syria is one of the few countries in the Middle East whose foreign policy is aligned with that of Russia. During the past decades Russia has grown to rely on Syria to support its strategic plans in the region including the nuclear program in Iran and the projection of Russian naval power in the Mediterranean Sea with the Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria, as an anchor. Third, and finally, Russia is concerned that a replacement of the Assad regime with a democratically elected government will lead to the ascendency of an Islamist government that may be hostile to Russia, which is still tainted by its past of atheist communism.

The above reasons demonstrate that the Russian support for Assad is not rooted in love and affection for the Assad dynasty. The reasons are primarily strategic, pragmatic and short sighted. The flaws in the Russian strategy of supporting Assad are many. First, the Russians have not come up with a viable endgame for Syria. Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov went to Damascus after the veto in the Security Council and hoped to negotiate a solution to the Syrian crisis. He failed. He ran into an intransigent, criminal and sectarian government that is struggling for survival. Therefore, any illusions that Russia may have about a clever “endgame” involving a negotiated agreement between the opposition and the Syrian government should be abandoned. In the meantime, Russia’s continued military and political support of the existing Syrian regime means a prolongation and intensification of the civil war. As the Syrian conflict grinds on casualties will mount and sectarian divisions will widen with internal reconciliation becoming ever more difficult. Second, even though no guarantees can be made that the post-Assad government will be cozy with Russia, it is also a fact that the West and particularly the U.S. don’t enjoy much sympathy among the Syrian population. In fact, anything that has even a faint smell of the American government is actually noxious to Syrians. Therefore, Russian fears that a genuinely representative Syrian government will not be friendly to Russia are unfounded. Given that the U.S. continues to champion Israel and waged an unprovoked war on Iraq, most Syrians and other Arabs in the Middle East have a dim view of American foreign policy. By the same token, any illusions that the Syrian opposition may have about the long term steadfastness of American support should be dispelled forthwith. After all, any substantial assistance by the U.S. government to a future Syrian government will inevitably be blocked by the U.S. Congress which for all practical purposes is an Israeli occupied territory. AIPAC will not allow a constructive relationship between the U.S. and a representative Syrian government that has not made peace with Israel.

In view of the above, it is incumbent upon both the Russian leadership and the leadership of the Syrian opposition to reach an understanding about future relations. It is not too late for Russia to carry out a course correction and cease supporting a criminal and illegitimate Syrian dictatorship that has outlived its usefulness. Russian foreign policy experts are well aware that American support for dictatorships in the Middle East and elsewhere came at a very high price in good will among the masses. The Russians are well advised not to repeat this mistake by the U.S. In addition, Russian support of the Palestinian cause earns them political capital. Therefore, it is in the interest of both the Russian government and the Syrian opposition to reach some understanding that is mutually beneficial. A cooperative and collaborative relationship between Russia and a free Syrian government is natural and politically viable; there is nothing novel or ground breaking about it since it is a continuation of a collaborative relationship that has been in existance for almost half a century. All strategic interests can and should be accommodated and reconciled. The most viable Russian endgame for Syria should be reaching an understanding with the Syrian opposition and withdrawing military and political support for the Assad regime. This will hasten the transition to a new and representative government and reinforce the long standing goodwill for Russia among Syrians. It is also a moral imperative, and it will save lives.

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The Death Knell of The Two State Solution

2012-02-05T04:36:00.000-08:00

The Writing Has Always Been On The Wall

By Sam Bahour*

www.middleastforum.com

The human body is an amazing creation. It's not only the most complex system known to mankind, but it embodies within it signals that tell its owner that something has gone wrong. A similar signaling system exists in political bodies. Those tasked with reading the signals--be they individuals, physicians or politicians--can choose to consciously ignore the warning signs. The Middle East peace process between Palestinians and Israelis has been emitting SOS signals for decades, but only recently are those signals being received and analyzed for what they are transmitting- -a clear and irreversible message that the entire paradigm of "two states for two peoples" has collapsed.

Like doctors who peddle medications instead of practicing medicine, many politicians are under the influence of their narrow political interests and prefer not to call situations by their name. After so many years of failure--political, legal, diplomatic and economic--those who are paid to diagnose and treat reality are being replaced with voices from all corners of the world, voices convincingly making the case that the entire premise undertaken by the Palestine Liberation Organization, starting as far back as 1974, is no longer feasible.

Some will say that the PLO was tricked by the West into a path that was never intended to succeed. Others may claim that the PLO had no option but to acquiesce to the pressures placed upon it to enter, more recently, the Oslo peace process, in hopes that the West (mainly the US) would then pull its weight in bringing Israel in line with international law and UN resolutions. Regardless of the analysis of the past, very few people on the ground who are intimately involved in the attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli "conflict" would venture to spend any additional political capital on the notion that two independent states, Israel and Palestine, remain a way out of this man-made tragedy.

The measures were many, each of them a warning signal that sounded over and over again, but largely fell on deaf ears. The ignoring of a refugee population. A prolonged military occupation, unaccountable to the Fourth Geneva Convention. The launching of the illegal Israeli settlement project. The continued use of military force against Palestinians wherever they reside: Jordan, Lebanon, inside Israel, or the occupied territory. Assassinations and mass murder of Palestinians, from Lebanon to Tunis to every Palestinian city, in broad daylight for all to see. Seven hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians arrested and detained, many without charge and many tortured. A lopsided peace agreement (Oslo) that merely institutionalized the reality of military occupation. The election of Israeli prime ministers who, one after another, represented political programs that explicitly forbade the emergence of another state between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River. The list goes on and on. Each one of these signals emitted a deafening sound that was heard by all, and ignored by all who could change the course of events.

One of Israel's founding ministers of education and culture, Professor Ben-Zion Dinur, said it most sharply, according to the book "History of the Haganah": "In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don't agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force." With this theme as its explicit backdrop, it is no wonder that newly-established Israel had little chance of being a normal state among the community of nations. These words rang out long before the creation of the PLO and long before the unacceptable phenomenon of suicide bombings entered the scene.

Israel was founded on the infamous fallacy that it was built on a "land with no people, for a people with no land." Instead of acknowledging that this fallacy is a form of outright racism, Israel is legislating it into its laws. Since its inception, Israel has arrogantly refused to address the most crucial prerequisite of its establishment as a conventional state: accepting the Palestinians, those people that just happened to be living in that "empty" land that Israel was created on.

After over six decades of conflict and dispossession of the Palestinians, and after two decades of Palestinian political recognition of Israel on part of their lands, the Israeli people choose to sustain the conflict. They are bent not only on keeping their boot of occupation on the necks of Palestinians living under it, but on embarking on an accelerated path to disenfranchise, yet again, Palestinians who remained in Israel and assumed Israeli citizenship.

Today, Israel seems determined, more than ever, to forcefully prove the original premise of its statehood--an Israel with moveable borders and a Jewish-only population. Twelve Israeli prime ministers before Binyamin Netanyahu, six of them after the signing of Oslo, have failed at this nonsensical endeavor. He, too, will fail. If Israel cannot produce a leader to move the country from being a pariah to being a member of the Middle East, only Israel's Jewish population will be to blame.

This should not come as a surprise for Israelis who have studied their own history. Israel's founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, understood it well when he said, "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we came here and stole their country. Why should they accept that?" The fact of the matter is: Palestinians even accepted "that" and are still being rejected and punished.

It is clear that Israel has no plans to reach any form of lasting peace with Palestinians or concede to a two-state solution. Its spread of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory has created new facts on the ground that make it impossible to form a contiguous Palestinian state, even on the 22 percent of historic Palestine that Palestinians have been reduced to and agreed upon.

In light of this continuing Israeli policy of outright aggression and negation of Palestinian rights, Israelis should prepare themselves for the next generation of Palestinians, a much more savvy generation interlinked with a global world and a region that values rights over an artificial border. Soon, if the current trajectory continues, Palestinians will tell Israelis: "You win! You get it all--the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza, the Jordan Valley, the settlements, all the water, and guess what? You get us too! Now, where do we sign up for our health care cards?"

Published 23/1/2012 © bitterlemons.org

*Sam Bahour is a Ramallah-based management consultant.
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A Joke from Syria:

A Syrian guy caught a rooster on the loose and took it home. He asked his wife to roast the bird in the gas oven, but she said that the gas has been cut off. He then suggested that she cook it in the electric oven, but she said that the electricity has also been cut off. The man finally asked her to cook it on a kerosene burner, but the wife again pointed out that there has been no kerosene on the market for weeks.
That is when the rooster shouted “long live Bashar al Assad”.

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Christian Arabs’ Exaggerated Fear of Islamists

2012-01-29T00:43:00.000-08:00

And Fareed Zakaria's Opinion

By Rajai Masri

www.middleastforum.com

I was quite surprised by the exaggerated reaction of a great many of my Arab Christian friends over the near landslide victory of Islamists at the polls that are seeing Islamic Parties in a good number of Arab countries sharing unprecedented significant influence over national politics and the general direction of the state for the first time in the history of these countries. It is happening as part of free, clean and very transparent national elections where people freely expressed their preferences for the political party they wanted to have a majority in deciding the new direction of their future.

As a free thinker, yet a realist taking stock of the underpinning forces shaping the structure of our societies at large, I find the overreaction by the greater majority of my Arab Christian friends, who are all known for their patriotism and strong Arab nationalist feelings, is somehow exaggerated and misplace; somehow out of context and often times instinctive without proven justifiable rational or historic evidence.

Many new facts are at play that render the success of the Islamists at the polls if not positive development perceived from the socio-economic optic, is not a negative development that would alter the existence of the Arab societies and the status of the Christian Minorities in a negative way. A renowned American journalist and a syndicate columnist Fareed Zakaria seems to put that assertion in a nutshell in the current issue of the Time Magazine. Mr. Zakaria has written a very interesting piece on the subject under the title “The Real Threat in the Middle East.”

The salient quotations in Fareed Zakaria's article start with ridiculing statements made by no other than the Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu who currently presides over an extreme right wing Israeli coalition that I prefer to label, in calling a spade-a-spade, by what in my view it truly represents: an “Apartheid,” “Racist” and a “Colonialist” war cabinet. Mr. Zakaria’s comments entailed the following insightful highlights:

- As 2011 was coming to a close, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a remarkable speech to his parliament. Assessing the Arab Spring barely a year after it had begun, Netanyahu announced triumphantly that it had failed, that events had confirmed his extreme suspicion about the pro-democracy movements in the region. The Arab Spring was moving the Middle East “not forward, but backward.” During the uprising in Egypt, Netanyahu wanted the U.S. To stubbornly support Hosnı Mubarak – who had cooperated with Israel on mutual security issues – as millions of Egyptians gathered in public squares across the country to demand democracy?

- Leaving that aside, the evidence for Netanyahu's pessimism now is that parties advocating an Islamic approach to politics have won pluralities in Egypt's first post-Mubarak elections. None of these parties have abrogated civil liberties or persecuted minorities or limited women's rights. Each party has promised to abide by constitutional processes. This may all be a ruse, and they may prove less liberal over time – some surely will – but there is little current evidence from which to draw the sweeping conclusions that Netanyahu did.

- Middle East is under substantial threat, but not from Islamic Democrats. The threat rises from the lingering impulses of authoritarian rulers in power.

- In Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Now in power for a decade) speaks in blunt ways and is a populist. But he has done nothing – no changes in law or practices – to warrant the charge that he is dismantling secularism. In fact, Erdogan's Government has passed more economic and political reforms than any other government in history. It has made unprecedented concessions to Turkey's Kurdish Minority. Erdogan's AK Party (re-elected three consecutive times in landslide victories in Turkey's past three national elections) has passed hundreds of pieces of legislation - … far more than over the past several decades to make Turkey's political system conform to guidelines set out by the EU.

Many of my dear Arab friends of the Christian faith, many of whom are like me born by accident of birth to parents of the faith they identified with while they are secularists at heart, are, most surprisingly over-simplifying the issues, even fear mongering by inexplicable deep sense of insecurity in lieu of probing the issues on their substantive merits and on rational analysis devoid of stereotypes and inherent cultural biases.

I was surprised how a number of my Christian Arab friends of different political schools of thought and political tendencies took issue with “Hijab” overlooking the fact that wearing Hijab stems from the individual’s personal preference as the inalienable right of the individual’s freedom of choice and freedom of expression without infringing on the others’ freedom and liberty. Ironically, I would have thought that many of my Arab Christian friends would instead take issue with the excesses of public display of sexual permissiveness and the attendant prevalent adolescent delinquent behaviors that are offensive to public taste, family values, socially disruptive and are corruptive to the formation of the character of fledgling children and the Arab youth in general.

Reducing Islamists to certain symbols of Stereotypes, “the wearing of Hijab,” is skipping over far more meaningful relevant substantive issues of significance. As late middle aged fellows, my dear Arab Christian friends and myself still vividly recall how our grandmothers, mothers, aunts and elder sisters, all at one point in the past wore the Hijab as part of their normal daily lives and an intimate part of a long enduring tradition without causing offense to the others. Wearing of the Hijab then and now did not represent a threat, in any way to the sensibilities and harmonious coexistence between Christians and Muslims of the same community. Wearing Hijab was never a cause for the disruption of the social peace that we all, Christian and Muslim Arabs have always enjoyed (Lebanon’s complex political and tribal system, an anomalous contrived dysfunctional make-up, is being the exception and the source of enduring social tensions. It is never related to Christian or Islamic values but rather the ploy and manipulation of Lebanon’s archaic feudalistic tribal political chieftains).

As I recently took leave from my business meetings and strolled in the streets of the Grand Bazar, in the city of Istanbul, a most fascinating experience, the beauty and harmony of the place was never deflected by the presence of a great many Turkish ladies wearing “Hijab” as a great many other Turkish ladies and foreign tourist ladies wandered the area without the head scarfs none Muslims generally prefer to label as the “Hijab.” The ladies wearing the Hijab and all the other ladies appeared as one natural continuum of the beauty of the setup; a beautiful multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-faith tapestry of multi-colors in the most inspiring harmony. The variation only added to the beauty of the place and the moment as people exercised their legitimate right of the freedom of personal choice and freedom of expression. None of the people swarming the Grand Bazar was infringing on the civil liberties or offending the sensibilities of the others.

As representatives of the Islamic parties were elected in sweeping numbers in the recent free national elections in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, the example of the Turkish experience appeared present in the programs and the political philosophy potentially readily applicable. None – absolutely none - of the Islamic parties in these countries is seeking to monopolize the political scene, infringe on civil liberties or deny the citizens, groups and individuals; Muslims and Christians, their inherent rights to free expression, freedom of choice and equal opportunity. All of these parties that gained sweeping victories at the polls are showing enlightened awareness and higher sensitivities to the concerns and inherent fears of the secularists and adherents of the other faiths of their compatriots of the other faiths vowing in a none ambiguous way that the equal rights of every citizen would be enshrined in meticulously developed new constitutions that would be inclusive, transparent and that would draw their precepts from the active involvement and contributions of representatives of all constituencies comprising the mosaic of a multi-ethnic; multi-faith and multi-cultural nation. At the end, that is what in actuality truly matters.

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A Wake Up Call to Syrian Alawites

2012-01-22T05:05:00.000-08:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

Throughout history, Syrian Alawites were an integral part of Syrian society. Just like all other ethnic, religious and sectarian groups, the Alawites contributed their share of sacrifice and dedication to promote Syrian national interests. No one doubts the patriotism and nationalism of the vast majority of Alawites in Syria. But the present conflict between the Assad regime and the opposition has cast a long shadow on the motives and trustworthiness of top Alawite officials in the Syrian government.

In a recent article [1], Israel’s military chief Lt. General Benny Gantz informed the Israeli Parliament’s Foreign Defense Committee that upon the anticipated collapse of the Assad regime he expects an influx of Alawite ruling government elites as refugees. Even though Israel has very stringent laws that punish illegal immigrants with prison sentences of 15 years, the Israeli government is now considering taking measures to accept these Syrian Alawite official “refugees”. The obvious choice for the Israelis is to settle them in the Golan heights. However the current Druze inhabitants of the Golan, who have insisted on retaining their Syrian citizenship, would be hostile to the Alawite transplants since they would view them as having blood on their hands. The other option being considered by the Israeli government is to settle these Alawite elites in the village of Ghajar on the Lebanese border. This village already has nearly 2000 Alawites in the part of the village that is administered by Israel.

It is astounding that Israel with its fiercely exclusive and closed society that doesn’t even respect the rights of the Palestinian inhabitants would be willing to accept members of the ruling Syrian Alawite regime. However, Israel is known in the past to make exceptions to its policies. For instance, during the Lebanese civil war, the Maronite part of the Lebanese army that was deployed in southern Lebanon established working relations with Israel and some of its officers and their families actually moved to Israel. Therefore the exodus of the Syrian Alawite rulers to Israel predicted by General Gantz and their acceptance by the Israeli government is consistent with previous Israeli policy that has been in existence for many years and is meant to further Israeli strategic interests.

But the most troubling question raised by all this is the true allegiance of top officials in the Assad government. If the predictions of General Gantz are correct then it implies that the Alawite elite in Syria are so estranged from their mother country that they would rather migrate and settle in a country that has been an arch enemy of Syria for decades. And apparently Israel would open its doors and accept them. Could it be that this is the reward for past and present secret collaboration?

Some real soul searching is in order here. I cannot speak for all Syrians but to me personally the Alawites are valued members of Syrian society, as all other sects and religious groups. And I hope and pray that most Syrians feel the same way. Conversely, the question must be put to the general Alawite population about their opinion of their elite brethren fleeing Syria and taking refuge in Israel. Is this conduct consistent with their loyalty to their mother country and their professed patriotism and nationalism? How would it reflect on the Alawites in general when their deposed leaders are legitimately branded as traitors? How does the conduct of this small minority of Alawites reflect on their present legitimacy as the entrenched power in Syria?

These questions need to be asked and answered.

[1] Isabel Kirshner, “Israel Will Accept Fleeing Alawite Elite”, New York Times Jan. 11, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/world/middleeast/israel-braces-for-refugees-in-event-of-syria-collapse.html?ref=world
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What Ron Paul Can’t Say

2012-01-15T05:15:00.000-08:00

By Ayman Hakki.
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All, but one, Republican candidates are avoiding foreign policy issues while beating the drums of war on Iran, defending Wall Street Bankers, and calling criticism of the rich; “class warfare.” They all seem to want to undermine our teachers, civil workers, unions, immigrants, Muslims, etc., and they’re doing so not because they are conservative, they are doing so in order to keep campaign money pouring into their coffers, and in order to assure that major liberal and conservative US media outlets stay off their backs.

I'm a Republican, I have been a Republican since I came to these shores in 1978, and I plan to vote for Ron Paul. Even though I am a Muslim, I believe-like most secular Americans in the separation of Church and state. If Shariaa Law were to be considered in America I would march in the streets protesting against it. So why are the Republicans trying to make us look bad while they fawn over an equally small American minority. You know the answer to that one; campaign contributions. It’s always about money.

I'm appalled by what I see in my party’s campaign, it is running on an anti-Sharia anti-Muslim platform. I feel dejected: an "us vs. them" attitude is what has gotten the US in trouble the world over. But ask any candidate (under 70) how he feels about Hassidic-Law in the US, and he/she will trip all over him/herself in assuring
Jewish right to religious freedom and declaring his/her enduring and eternal love of Israel,… really!

An American Jewish friend of mine who lived in Israel told me an interesting story. He said that the Jews there have a tactic for feeling good about their situation - by reading the Arab press. In Arab papers, he said, the Jews and Israel are wealthy, control Wall Street, American foreign policy, all elections and their sworn enemies aren’t even a threat. At the risk of being added to the fold of the Arab press, I think there may be something to all that. There is a link between our political system's corruption and its bias towards Israel. In our foreign policy we are an “Israel First” nation. By being an Israel first nation we're acting as Israel's
enablers vis-a-vis the Palestinians and allowing the Israeli right to remain intransigent. This has started to cause our own American Jews a problem that no amount of spin can solve, and only young Jews get it.

Our bias has cost America dearly, according to top US military brass: It has given our global Islamist enemy a great recruitment tool. Islamists are just as much my enemies as they are America’s and Israel's enemy. To Islamists I am an apostate and deserve to be put to death. A few years ago, overseas, most Arabs were exposed to blow by blow Al-Jazeera coverage of Israel's bombing of Gaza. Today the US is being exposed to melt-down after melt-down of people blaming Jews for everything. The list of grievances is growing. For instance, why should a Jew from Russia be able to legally purchase an apartment in Haifa when a Palestinian can't? More importantly how can American Jews-who are universal champions of liberal causes and sensitive to economic prohibition-allow Israel to systematically disenfranchise a native population? How can they stand aside as Israel disallows land ownership for people who live within its sovereign borders? I may not be the one who should be advising American Jews on PR matters, but it seems to me that they have an image problem. Globally fixing the problem must begin by asking Israel to deal fairly with the Palestinians, and locally Wall Street executives must give up their tax exempt contributions to Israel. Organizations like AIPAC that game our system have got to be persuaded by our traditionally liberal Jewish community, to reflect their community’s values and not the values of Israel's right wing. Unlike other candidates Ron Paul is saying let’s stop aid to Israel and others, and let’s quit going to war after war to protect Israel. No one else dares to say it.

What Ron Paul wants us to believe is a Libertarian issue is not the real issue, but despite his attempt at straight talk, he can’t tell us what he’s really thinking; Republicans get campaign contributions from Wall Street while Democrats get it from the unions. Both bankers and pensioners were involved in this fiscal mess, not one or the other. Both are equally at fault. Financiers acted like bookies selling "sure bet" gamble, and pension executives were lured into it. Both were greedy. Only afterwards did they realize that they had gambled the workers' pension plans away. The problem is that only one group got away with it, and the other did not. The Occupy Wall Street movement is not about Tea Party activists being fiscally responsible and Liberal activists being irresponsible. The Occupy Wall Street protesters know that we are going in the wrong direction, and they know who should fix this problem; Wall Street-not just Main Street-should pay.

Meanwhile in the Middle East people are protesting and dictatorships are falling. In Libya the rebellion was of Colonel Ghaddafi's making, but we American share the blame. Ghaddafi was a thug, but when he gave up on his "support for terrorists" and his "WMDs program," thus turning his wrath away from Israel, he became the US’s buddy. Saddam Hussain was also a sworn enemy of Israel—and a thug—but we took him
out. We committed ourselves to ridding the world from Husain because Israel and her neocon supporters wanted him out at any cost*. The costs of that war in Iraq contributed to our national debt, and helped make our financial crisis more severe. Where did all the funds go that were available at the end of the Clinton era? Our government has squandered our resources on protecting Israel. I'm not claiming that we went to war solely to protect Israel from Saddam but we cannot pretend anymore that it wasn’t a factor in the Bush neocon Whitehouse. That war didn't create this crisis but it surely limited our ability to solve it.

Now let's move on to Egypt. For 30 years, billions of our taxpayer dollars have gone to Israel and an almost equal amount has gone to Egypt. The aftermath of the recent revolution in Egypt has exposed the fact that our taxpayer dollars have gone only to Egypt's military projects— projects designed to make Israel safe. All the money we sent to Egypt was quid pro quo. We expected Sadat to sign a peace agreement. When the people of Egypt finally revolted against our man in Cairo, the corrupt dictator Hosni Mubarak, they found a poor country with a well equipped and well funded military. Why did all that money go to the military? The answer is easy: it is because our politicians were being asked to reward Israel's friends. He who gives politicians the most gets the most from them**.

Meanwhile young people of Syria and the whole Arab world have gotten sick and tired of their corrupt leaders, leaders who are without exception our allies in the war on terror. Linked by social media, like Facebook and Twitter, and exposed to Al Jazeera's live television coverage of the events in Tunisia energized copycat youth, who took to the streets. This weariness is especially true in countries that were our friends. This isn't a coincidence and no amount of obfuscation or spin can hide this fact. Israel and Israel's American supporters didn't cause our present mess here or abroad, but they played a part in its making. It is importantthat Jews here begin putting their interests ahead of the wishes of Israel's right. They must see comments like Newt Gingrich’s regarding the Palestinian people being an invented people for what it is, pandering. All the republican candidates are doing it, but support for Israel's long term interests cannot mean support for every Israeli government's policy. By engaging Israel and its political action arm here in the U.S. in a frank- behind the scene dialogue-America's Jews will do Israel a favor. This much needed advice will eventually pay off for all of them and for all of us over here.

George Washington warned us that our republic should not form alliances with foreign countries. He believed it would inhibit our ability to act in our nation's interests. That's what's happening in the case of our alliance with Israel. Israel was portrayed as the only democracy in the Middle East and that may no longer be the case. The U.S. has had an unproductive one-way relationship with the Jewish State. A relationship that is driven by many factors, the most important of which are campaign contributions and wars waged in direct and indirect support of Israel. The effect of this support is bad for us and bad for the long-term interests of Israel itself, since it reinforces Israel's intransigence. The people who are about to pay for this co-dependency are our teachers and civil workers. Jews in America were once a persecuted religious minority; this is no longer the case. We must stop being Israel’s enabler. Paul can’t say it. So there, I did it for him.
………………………………………………………………………
*Here's a quote from "A clean break" a published old and honest depiction of the Bush administrations
combined Neocon/Likud strategy for the region: “Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation
with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on
removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq ― an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right
― as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” The Iraq war was in part planned in order to foil Syria's
regional ambitions. Punishing Israel's foes and rewarding its enemies is US policy.

**Pat Buchanan, the conservative columnist and presidential candidate called Congress; Israeli Occupied
Territory.

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Other Articles:

Israel Will Accept Fleeing Alawite Elite
By Isabel Kirshner
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/world/middleeast/israel-braces-for-refugees-in-event-of-syria-collapse.html?ref=world

Assad Says Outsiders Feed Unrest
By Neil MacFarquhar
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/world/middleeast/bashar-al-assad-says-outsiders-feed-unrest-in-syria.html?ref=world

Assad Addresses Rally
By Nada Bakri
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/world/middleeast/president-assad-makes-rare-public-speech-in-syria.html?hp

EU Abandons Hope for Viable Palestinian State
By Donald MacIntyre
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/eu-on-verge-of-abandoning-hope-for-a-viable-palestinian-state-6288336.html#

Qatar’s Emir Suggests Sending Troops to Syria
al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/20121146422954697.html

The Defining Moment for Syrians

2012-01-08T04:48:00.000-08:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

The political stalemate and the increasing violence that presages civil war in Syria have brought all Syrians to a defining moment. Every party to the conflict must think hard and decide on its true identity. The Alawites in power must decide whether they view themselves as Alawites or Syrians. Conversely, the Sunnis in turn must decide whether they are Sunnis or Syrians. These difficult and emotionally charged determinations will provide the intellectual clarity that will set the course of events in Syria. It is not an exaggeration to state that the only viable outcome for the present conflict will depend critically on whether each and every person in Syria views himself or herself as first and foremost as Syrian. All other religious and/or sectarian affiliations should be unimportant.

The Assad regime has demonstrated in words and deeds that it will neither share nor relinquish power. Statements by Rami Makhlouf, and other responsible Alawite leaders, made clear that they see this conflict as posing an existential threat to themselves and are willing to fight to death to stay in power. In actions, both by Hafez al Assad in Hama in 1982 and Bashar al Assad more recently, the regime provided tragic evidence that no amount of Syrian blood spilled and lives lost will deter them from staying in power. This puts the conflict in clear and unambiguous context.

Furthermore, those who claim that a resolution can be achieved through negotiations are wrong. These so-called “compromisers” fear that continued conflict will tear the fabric of Syrian society along sectarian lines. They are willing to paper-over the existing problems and try to achieve a return to “stability” even if it means that the underlying causes of the conflict remain unresolved. History shows that this approach of appeasement and acquiescence to tyranny is a failed approach. Negotiations and appeasement of the Assad brutal regime will fail because the regime has no intention of ceding power and will not negotiate in good faith. It is unconscionable that this Assad regime, that claims to be Syrian, has launched a military campaign that killed thousands of Syrians in order to remain in power. The Assad regime is evil and must be combated by all means possible and at all cost. There should be neither compromise nor appeasement of evil. Therefore, there is only one option available. This is an internal armed insurgency and severe external economic sanctions that will cripple the Assad rule.

The Sunni majority must also decide whether they are committed to provide all Syrians with an alternative form of governance that reflects the hopes and aspirations of all Syrians. The alternative government must be just, representative, inclusive and committed to safeguarding the rights of all minorities and especially the Alawites who should be treated as valued members of Syrian society. This is an essential condition to marshal the support of the majority of Syrians behind the opposition. After nine months of struggle most of Syria has demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice lives in the thousands to be rid of the oppressive and evil Assad regime. And as the violence grows more intense and more Syrians are killed by the Syrian government the resolve of the opposition will strengthen and more fence sitters will join in the fight against the oppressive Assad rule. It is now quite likely that a full-scale civil war will engulf Syria. The regime relies almost entirely on the Alawite-led army. But, with the exception of the Republican Guard, the majority of Syrian soldiers and mid-ranked officers are Sunnis. Therefore, the effectiveness of the Syrian army to put down a widespread insurgency is questionable. Defections in the armed forces are increasing at an accelerated pace. Therefore, the Assad regime is mistaken if it thinks that it can impose its will on the Syrian population with guns and bullets. The lesson of 1982 when Hafez al Assad prevailed on the Muslim Brotherhood by slaughtering 38, 000 of their followers in Hama is not applicable. Now the insurgency is country wide and encompasses the majority of Syrians throughout the country with the exception of those in Damascus and Aleppo where residents have decided to stay uncommitted.

In addition, Syria is an important regional country that is being influenced by powerful neighbors. In a recent article Ali Allawi [1] described the situation in Iraq as the battleground for political influence of neighboring Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and now to a lesser extent the United States. Syria is in a similar situation where regional powers are attempting to fashion events in Syria to suit their own interests. But Syrians must understand that in the final analysis it is Syrians and only Syrians who should determine the outcome and the shape of the emerging rule. If people in Syria view themselves first and foremost as Syrian nationalists, then a stable, robust and free Syria will emerge from this conflict.

Syria, the proud and ecumenical country that hosted multitudes of religions, sects and cultures cannot be turned into a hostage of power hungry, brutal and evil dynastic rulers. No cost should be spared in expunging this evil and corrupt Assad dynasty. The conditions for a bloody civil war are ripe. And the cost to all sides will be very high. But this is the inevitable price of freedom. Out of the agony of this war there will emerge a new and free Syria that is dedicated to justice, equality, inclusiveness and freedom. The high price paid in lives and blood will strengthen the resolve of future Syrians to defend their hard won freedom from the covetous designs of fringe groups.

[1] Ali A. Allawi, “How Iraq Can Define Its Destiny”, New York Times editorial, Jan. 2, 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/how-iraq-can-define-its-destiny.html?_r=1

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Other Articles:

Santorum Claims That “no Palestinian” Lives on the West Bank
By Glenn Kessler

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rick-santorums-claim-that-no-palestinian-lives-on-the-west-bank/2012/01/04/gIQAcxsIbP_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Activists Accuse Syria of Misleading Monitors
al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/201215101052888818.html

Bomb Kills Dozens in Damascus

By Anthony Shadid
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/world/middleeast/bomb-attack-in-syrian-capital-kills-25.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world

Hundreds Tortured in Syria
By Kareem Fahim

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/world/middleeast/hundreds-tortured-in-syria-human-rights-group-says.html?scp=1&sq=kareem%20Fahim%20hundreds%20tortured&st=cse

Higgs vs. Hitchens

2012-01-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

God, Atheism and the “Science” of Theism
By Ayman Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

No man had been a stronger advocate for atheism than Christopher Eric Hitchens (4/13/49 – 12/15/11). At a time when the world was-and still is-trending towards being more religious, he made being anti-religious a lucrative cottage industry. I’m a secular humanist first and a Muslim second, so Mr. Hitchens’ disdain for us theists didn’t bother me. What bothers me is that a self-proclaimed atheist seemed to be proud of being half Christian, half Jewish and completely-almost messianically-disdainful of Muslims and Islam. Had he not been “converted” to neo-conservatism* I would have shared his pique at our vocal regressive Islamist theosophists. My Muslim friends-who knew him socially-liked his warm courteousness but he left me cold by his support for neo-con theorist.

In contrast to Christopher Hitchens Michael Gerson-the celebrated Washington Post writer-wrote an op-ed I loved. It set the standard for a new evidenced based theism. Let’s look at both men and review what they seem to champion:

1- In a recent recorded NPR interview the late Mr. Hitchens said something to the effect of: “I’m accused of being both a Marxist, and a neoconservative…which I don’t find ‘unappealing’.” (David Folkenflik, 12/16/11) Being a neo-con means different things for different people. For many non-Muslim Americans it means being a believer in a militaristic policy that establishes US world dominion, to them it’s a foreign policy theory that strives to keep America-unapologetically- the leader of the world, not just it’s only super power. For us Muslim Americans the word itself-neoconservatism-means using America’s military might as a tool for Israeli design. Some argue that this is an anti-Semitic remark but I and others believe that being anti-Israeli right is not the same as being anti-Semitic. So allow me to be clear: At first blush neoconservatism seems to be an “America first” political stance, but in actuality it is an “Israel first” US foreign policy theory. Israel is our ally so being Israel-first would not be so bad if it were not for the fact that Israel is being governed by a right wing government that seems to confuse valid criticism with anti-Semitism. What came first the chicken or the egg is an old argument, but the fact that anti-Muslims are the main proponents of neo- conservatism today is not arguable; neo-cons are predominantly right-wing Jews with a sprinkling of non-Jewish lackeys of all kinds. For a man who started off as a socialist there is nothing odd about being ‘against’ Mother Teresa (she’s a religious figure), but to be ‘for’ Richard Perl is odd. Also troubling is that his well- crafted rhetorical argument against God seems as non-evidence based as the argument made by his obtuse religious enemies. I share his disdain for all religious extremists, but I don’t share his anti-God certainty, nor do I condone his anti- Islam and anti-Muslim polemics. Titling a Book; “God Is Not Great” is a swipe at all Muslims who believe otherwise. Cunningly clever, the title is intentionally hurtful.

Hearing him speak, via an old recording on NPR that mid-December morning, made me wonder: How can one prove the existence or nonexistence-beyond rhetoric-of an intelligent all-encompassing power?

2- The morning of the interview with Mr. Hitchens I read an op-ed Washington Post by Michael Gerson (The search for the God particle goes beyond mere physics, 12/16/11) it seemed to suggest just that; a scientific search for God. He wrote of the Higgs boson (or so called God particle). Nothing exemplifies the uncertainty of belief vs. disbelief like the Higgs boson. It may yet throw a monkey wrench in the rhetorical construct of atheists everywhere (more on that later.) Hitchens spent his life arguing against theism and attacking people like Mother Teresa for her suspension of disbelief. For Hitchens she exemplifies our cultures delusional anointment of religious figures and the utter glorification of the Godly. Hitchens celebrated his atheism and employed rhetoric to convince us of the non- existence of an All Mighty. Personally I despise absolute certainty. I’ve always argued that saying “God doesn’t exist” is as asinine as saying “He does!” So how can we settle this matter once and for all; we try to settle it through science, not rhetoric.

Gerson wrote that CERN scientists are trying to ascertain whether a God like particle exists. Using the largest machine ever built, a massive particle accelerator, they-he claimed-are looking for matter that explains things, and doing so by trying to find the aforementioned Higgs boson. In his op-ed Michael Gerson argues persuasively that mathematicians have always been amazed at math’s ability not only to predict physical phenomena, but in an odd way it seems to cause them to happen! But if the universe is Godless, it must be random. Conversely, if it isn’t random and it is controlled by any form of intelligence, the argument for a God becomes easier to make. That’s why finding a Higgs “God” particle will-in my mind-settle this thorny issue. If there is a force that allows for matter to drawn back onto itself, after the Big Bang scattered it all over the place, one may conclude that there is a gravitational pull that keeps matter together that’s beyond explanation. The one explanation that seems to baffle the most ardent of skeptics is that there is intelligence out there, at work. How this plays into the argument for and against the existence of a supreme being is obvious. Hitchens’ enthusiasts may draw different conclusions, but I would like to say this; let’s wait and see.

Hitchens’ pro-Iraq war stance is supposedly explained by his anti-religious thinking, but Saddam was more secular than his enemies! So, the possibility of his being pro-war because he was pro-Israel is greater than the possibility of it being a product of his anti-al-Qaida anti-religious philosophy. I despise this kind of mindless pro-Israeli right wing neo-conservatism, because-like religion-it’s a belief system shared by people who act as if God favors some over others, whether they believe in Him or not. If this seems very anti-Semitic I’m sorry, but for a champion of secular anti-theism his conversion at the hands of the Bush Cheney crowd is disquieting at best. I find fault in Christopher Hitchens’ pithy swipes at all religions and Islam and Muslims in particular. Most of all I loathe his secular humanist pretense, a pretense that was undermined by his neocon leanings.

In conclusion; as silly as it is to make the argument that without belief-in-God no good is ever done…it’s equally silly to argue the opposite holds true. Hitchens implies that; Islam is bad, God doesn’t exist and atheists-like him-are good…while Muslims-like me-are bad. Though I agree with Mr. Gerson and I disagree with Mr. Hitchens, I don’t love Gerson because he implies that “God exists” nor do I hate Hitchens just because he said “God doesn’t exist.” I dislike Hitchens for his hatred of my fellow Muslims in general and of Islam in particular, and especially for the scorn he reserved for us while giving our neocon enemies a pass.

*a dinner conversation at the home of the Yemeni ambassador in Washington D.C., after the Iraq invasion in which Hitchens claimed he had been “converted to neo-conservatism” during an Iraq fly-over in a helicopter with then president George W. Bush and his neo-con entourage.
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Other Articles:

Syrian Tanks Leave Homs As Observers Arrive
By Kareem Fahim

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world/middleeast/syrian-tanks-leave-besieged-city-as-observers-arrive.html?_r=1&ref=world

Syria Suspends Attacks on Homs As Monitors Arrive
Associated Press

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204296804577124203401768694.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLTopStories

Challenges Emerge as Arab League Observers Begin Work in Homs
By Kareem Fahim
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world/middleeast/syrian-tanks-leave-besieged-city-as-observers-arrive.html?_r=1&ref=world

Violence in Syria After League Visit
By Kareem Fahim and Hwaida Saad

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/world/middleeast/syria-observers-face-more-criticism.html?_r=1&ref=world

Year 2011 Table of Content

2012-01-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

Table of Content
Year 2011

Date Title Author

1/9/2011 Resigned to the Status Quo, Rajai Masri
1/16/2011 Joint Israeli Palestinian Poll Survey
1/23/2011 Targeting Arab Christians, Rajai Masri
1/30/2011 How Does It Fell to be a Problem, Rajai Hakki
2/6/2011 Arab Christians: Citizens Not Minorities, Nasser Rabat
2/13/2011 Why an Uprising Won’t Happen in Syria, Ayman Hakki
2/20/2011 Palestine is the Key to Arab Democracy, Sam Bahour
2/27/2011 The Arab Leaders’ Dilemma, Basil Hakki
3/13/2011 Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation, Simon Kipersztok
3/20/2011 The Smoke and the Fire, Ayman Hakki
3/27/2011 What Price Freedom?, Basil Hakki
4/3/2011 Syria: The Race Between Sedition and Reform, Ayman Hakki
4/10/2011 Time For Nasrallah and Obama to Talk? Franklin Lamb
4/17,2011 Lebanon-Wiki-Vables Tell of Treason US Interference, Franklin Lamb
4/24/2011 Post Assad Syria, Basil Hakki
5/1/2011 (Essay Removed)
5/8/2011 Fatal Embrace Sam Bahour
5/15/2011 Syria’s Say/Do Gap, Ayman Hakki
5/22/2011 Whereto Syria? Anonymous
5/29/2011 Israel Lost in Denial, Sam Bahour
6/5/2011 Is Arab Spring Spreading to US Congressional Staff? Franklin Lamb
6/12/2011 The Ramification of Syria’s Public Sector, Ayman Hakki
6/19/2011 Damascus: The Secret of its Survival, Basil Hakki
6/26/2011 The Obama Doctrine: AWOL in Bahrain, Franklin Lamb
7/2/2011 Why Syria’s Christians Should not Support the Assad Regime, Elie Elhadj
7/10/2011 The Syrian Uprising, Ayman Hakki
7/17/2011 A Doctor’s Odyssey, Basil Hakki
7/24/2011 Islam and the West: After Abbottabad, Chas W. Freeman
7/31/2011 From Fort Hood to Utoya Island, Ayman Hakki
8/7/2011 Inside Syria, Basil Hakki
8/14/2011 Palestinians Will Soon Come Full Circle, Sam Bahour
8/21/2011 Syria’s New Leaders: The Activists, Basil Hakki
9/4/2011 Syria, is it Too Late? Ayman Hakki
9/10/2011 The Alternate Universe of Syrian Pro-Regime Loyalists, Basil Hakki
9/18/2011 Controversial Quranic Verses, Basil Hakki
9/25/2011 Throw the Palestinians Under the Bus, Basil Hakki
10/2/2011 The Fear Factor in Syria, Basil Hakki
10/9/2011 Would the Wealthy Sheiks Answer the Call? Rajai Masri
10/16/2011 Hanan Porat: our Foe or our Friend, Ayman Hakki
10/23/2011 Dignified Resolution of the Syrian Conflict, Basil Hakki
10/30/2011 Get Out of the Closet Syrian Americans, Ayman Hakki
11/6/2011 Democracy in Syria? Basil Hakki
11/13/2011 Syrian, Lebanese, Arab? What’s in a Name? Raff Ellis
11/19/2011 Shariah vs. Secular Laws in a Democracy, Basil Hakki
11/27/2011 The Plan, Ayman Hakki
12/4/2011 Three Cheers for Syria, Ayman Hakki
12/11/2011 Assadism Replaces Nationalism, Basil Hakki
12/18/2011 Where is My Friend? Sam Bahour
12/25/2011 Newt Gingrich, Rajai Masri

Newt Gingrich:The Bigoted Potential American President

2011-12-25T05:41:00.000-08:00

Palestinian Woman Circa 1900

By Rajai Masri

www.middleastforum.com

Had it been the year 1911, same Newt Gingrich, touted in the American media as fairing well in the Republican Party’s race for nomination for President of the USA, the slur that the American presidential hopeful made against the Palestinians to garner Jewish vote, would have well been uttered against American blacks and the American indians.

However, quite sadly, the man, once the speaker of the US Congress, felt quite immune, rather emboldened to utter his slur against the far away “Palestinians,” counting on the relative indifference of less informed American audience and going very far to outbid the other hopeful American presidential candidates in endeavoring to appease the American Jews.

During a public debate carried live last week in the news media of Republican party contestants for nomination for US President, Newt Gingrich took aim on the beleaguered “Palestinians” labeling them in utter ignorance of historical facts and geography as “invented people.” To add insult to injury, rather to highlight his WASP’s condescendence, Gingrich went as far as condemning a whole people, the “Palestinians” as “terrorists,” adding that “They teach terrorism in their schools.”

Appealing to grossly misinformed American audience what Gingrich called “terrorists”, are to great number of the people of the world “freedom fighters” struggling for their legitimate human rights; for their rightful self-determination as oppressed people under illegal occupation who are being systematically ethnically cleansed by the Israeli apartheid machine.

A judicious and a savvy orator commenting last night on Gingrich’s slur against the “Palestinians” remarked that before America was ever discovered in 1492, the Palestinians, the forefathers of the living Palestinians, existed in the very same place where they always lived for millennia. Change of administrative rule, whatever the color and nomenclature of the reigning political power and political system - short of massive ethnic cleansing as systematically practiced by the Israelis against the Palestinians - does not change the dominant cultural and ethnic identities of the ruled.

In a recent article in the Arab News, a Middle Eastern daily, Linda Heard wrote reprimanding Newt Gingrich for his racist ranting: “In fact Palestine was referred to by Herodotus in the 5th Century BCE as “Palestina,” a land stretching from Phoenicia to Egypt.” Myself, as a born Palestinian, I can easily trace my ancestry to at least seven centuries back, to people who always lived and thrived in the geographic locality and the place where I was born that Newt Gingrich in utter ignorance wishes to obliterate from the books of history, the well embedded heritage and the collective memory of the place’s inhabitants.

While Newt Gingrich’s racist remarks freely condemning a whole people to his prejudicial bigoted contrived ignorance would go unmarked had he been a simple Mr. Joe at the side of the street, the real frightening fact is that in lieu of being hissed, thrown out of his party even taken to court on accusation of defamation and racial incitement, this powerful political figure instead received a very warm applause short of a standing ovation from his American audience.

Linda Heard, in the end result of any rhetoric, sums up the irony, very ominous repercussions of Newt Gingrich racist remarks with the following commentary: “Ignorance is one of humankind’s greatest evils, but that kind of evil takes on a greater power when wielded by a person with the world’s most sophisticated nuclear-armed military at his disposal.”

Yet Newt Gingrich is not doing any service in his racist slur to the Israelis or to the American Jews. Long after the great American statesman George Ball coined his famous phrase “Saving Israel from itself,” The New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Thomas Friedman wrote two days ago: “I have a simple motto when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I love both the Israelis and Palestinians, but God save me from some of their American friends – those who want to love them to death, literally.”

And so, while attempting to curry favor with the American Jewish voters, Newt Gingrich loves the Israelis to death, literally.

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Other Articles:

With Friends Like These
By Uri Avnery
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1324034222?ver=Fri%2C+16+Dec+2011+13%3A17%3A07+%2B0530&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gush-shalom-english+%28Gush-Shalom%29

Syria Signs Arab League Peace Deal
al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/2011121911942857586.html

500 Year Old Syrian Melting Pot
By John Noble Wilford
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/science/dura-europos-a-melting-pot-at-the-intersection-of-empires.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=john%20noble%20wilford%20melting%20pot&st=cse

Syria Agrees to Allow Outside Observers
By Kareem Fahim and Hwaida Saad
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/world/middleeast/syria-agrees-to-allow-arab-league-observers.html?ref=world

Syrians Find Spark of Creativity in Protests
By Neil MacFarquhar
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/world/middleeast/in-uprising-syrians-find-spark-of-creativity.html?scp=1&sq=macfarquhar%20syrians%20find%20creativity&st=cse

Syria Allows Monitors as Fight Grows
By Nour Malas and Margaret Coker
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577108073328172622.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews

Surge in Syrian Killing is Reported
By Kareem Fahim
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/middleeast/large-scale-killings-reported-in-syria-on-eve-of-arab-league-observer-visit.html?_r=1&ref=world

Bomb Blasts Hit 2 Security Facilities in Damascus
By Kareem Fahim
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Get Tougher on Assad
New York Times Editorial
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Where's My Friend?

2011-12-18T06:12:00.000-08:00

By Sam Bahour*

www.middleastforum.com

My friend is Walid Abu Rass. He is the Finance and Administration Manager for the Health Work Committees (HWC, at www.hwc-pal.org), one of the largest community health service providers in the occupied Palestinian territory. HWC serves over 500,000 patients/beneficiaries per year! More on HWC in a second.
I had not seen Walid for a while. We are both knee deep in Palestine’s daily rat race. About two months ago, Walid and his HWC colleagues called for a meeting of their circle of friends. They sought assistance. HWC was going through some financial hard times, especially with the financial crisis in Europe, where many of their donors are based.

Given it was close to the end of year, a season when I usually donate some time to assist a community based organization to fundraise, I offered to volunteer. Walid was my counterpart. During the past weeks, we were in daily phone and email contact, and every few days we met up to visit a potential local donor. Progress was being made. We then started to plan, with a few others, an end-of-year fundraising raffle. Plans were coming together, and there was excitement among the team and staff that we were taking our fundraising needs to our local community to compensate for the loss in European institutional funding. This is even more significant since HWC does not accept funding with strings attached (“conditional donor funds”), so they have to struggle just to keep the doors open in this tainted donor-driven market.

For nearly a week I was emailing Walid with no reply. This was not like him. He and I nearly live behind our keyboards. The deadline for the raffle details was rapidly approaching and if we did not get started, we would miss the end of year opportunity for fundraising. I started to think Walid was mad at me for some reason. I rethought our last few weeks of working together. There was absolutely nothing there to cause him to just ignore my calls; after all, I was his volunteer counterpart.

Then, last night I learned why Walid stopped replying to me. On November 22nd, Israeli occupation soldiers arrived at his home at 1:30 a.m. Walid lives in Ramallah with his wife, Bayan, and two daughters, Mais, 13 years old, and Malak, 4 years old, who were all frighteningly awakened during his arrest. Walid was taken into custody and transported in the bone chilling cold of the night to Israel’s Ofer Military Detention Center where hundreds of Palestinians are detained, the vast majority with absolutely no knowledge of why.

The Israelis have been arresting Palestinians nightly for years now. Israel releases a few hundred prisoners in a media frenzy and then, the same night, starts to refill its prisons, a few Palestinians at a time. Although, as per the Oslo Agreements, the Palestinian side is responsible for security inside the Palestinian cities, Israeli armed forces routinely—read nightly, every night—enter the cities in their armored vehicles in the middle of the night and arrest a dozen or so Palestinians from their homes. Walid was merely the latest victim of this kidnap-by-night strategy.

The routine then goes something like this. Within eight days he will be brought before an Israeli military “judge” for the sake of processing only, not deliberating. The entire kangaroo court then, without sharing the reason why the Palestinian detainee is being held, flashes the security card to justify not sharing information on why they have acted against a specific individual. Then the court slaps a six month Administrative Detention Order on the detainee. That means you sit in prison for six months for no reason at all. Walid has already been given just such an order.

Your wife, your children, your work, your end-of-year fundraising campaign, your 500,000 patients/beneficiaries, your life, all abruptly stop. Then, usually, that six month order gets extended a few times before you are released. Walid is not unacquainted with this Orwellian mess. He previously spent nearly five years in and out of detention, never once being charged with anything!

The Health Work Committees association is registered as a not-for profit organization with the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior and also has a Jerusalem registration since they work in Jerusalem as well. HWC employees over 300 persons and operates 14 clinics throughout the West Bank, providing primary health services via these health clinics, mostly in areas not fully covered by the Ministry of Health. HWC also has a community development aspect of their work and operate the following: Jadal Center for Culture and Social Development, Nidal Center (providing health education to East Jerusalem schools), Community Development Plan, Oasis Rehab Center, Community Based Rehabilitation, and the Elderly Care Nursery and Kindergarten. One of the success stories of HWC is its partnership with the Dunya Women's Cancer Clinic.

All of these activities need health care administrators, of which Walid is one. At a time when the Israeli closure system is making life hell for Palestinians, especially those living in marginalized areas or areas directly affected by the Separation Wall, HWC is needed more than ever. Likewise, at a time when international organizations, like USAID, have dramatically cut funding and laid off staff from their heath care programs (such as Flagship) as punishment to the Palestinians for pursuing membership in UNESCO, HWC’s services are needed more than ever.

The era of silence is over. Also, over for me are the slogans that can’t be operationalized. Yes, we want all 5,000 or so Palestinian detainees released. Yes, the policy of administrative detention is inhumane and must end. However, these slogans, although needed at times, must be matched with action items. Each life being destroyed by the Israeli revolving door policy of detainment is a person with a name and a family and a job. And when the person is my friend or colleague, I refuse to swallow the fact that Israel has carte blanche to act above the law.

Help me get Walid back to his family and his desk so we can get back to the work of improving the Palestinian health care system. Consider contacting your local Israeli Embassy and any or all of the following and demanding his immediate release. Reference his name, Walid Abu Rass, and his ID # 9-9702819-6.

Judea and Samaria Region
Office of the Legal Advisor
P.O. Box
5 Beit El, 90631
via Israel
Tel: +972-2-997-7071
Fax: +972-2-997-7326

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Street
PO Box 187
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91919
Fax: +972-2-651-2631 or +972-2-670-5475
E-mail: rohm@pmo.gov.il or pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

Deputy Prime Minister & Minister of Defense Ehud Barak
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan Street
Hakirya, Tel Aviv 61909 Israel
Fax: +972.3.691.6940
Email: minister@mod.gov.il

For more information on Administrative Detention see ADDAMEER (Arabic for conscience) Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association at www.addameer.org.

* Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business consultant from Youngstown living in the Palestinian city of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of “Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians” (1994) and may be reached via www.ePalestine.ps.
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Syria Holds Local Polls as Violence Continues
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Waging a One-Man War on American Muslims
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Assadism Replaces Nationalism in Syria

2011-12-11T06:06:00.000-08:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

The opposition movement in Syria was initially built on the premise of peaceful and nonviolent protests that demanded political reforms. The Assad regime responded with tanks, guns, torture and the killing of over four thousand civilians. This is known in the Syrian political culture as the “Hama rules”, i.e. when the regime is threatened it responds with an iron fist. Not surprisingly, violence begets violence. Recent reports from Syria point to an armed insurgency that is growing in strength. As civilian casualties mounted many civilians and Sunni members of the Syrian army decided that it was morally unacceptable to stand by and watch the Alawite army kill civilians with abandon. An armed insurgency developed and now the Assad regime is facing both civilian protests and a growing armed resistance to the abusive rule of the Assad clan.

How did Syria get to this point? Is civil war inevitable? Can anything be done to prevent national calamity?

In order to answer the above questions it is helpful to understand the political developments in Syria over the last four decades. The Assad dynasty was founded by Hafez al Assad, an Alawite army officer, who got his political indoctrination by joining the Baath party. Hafez al Assad formally took over the reins of power in Syria when he launched a coup against the democratically elected government of Nurildine Atassi. President Atassi was thrown in prison where he stayed until he died of cancer. In the meantime, Hafez demonstrated unusual skill in projecting himself as a nationalist leader and surrounded himself with loyal Syrians of all faiths and denominations. In 1973, Hafez strengthened his nationalist credentials by launching the 1973 war against Israel. After the first flush of success, the battle turned against the Syrian army, and Israeli forces reached the outskirts of Damascus. Ironically, it was Hafez’s old nemesis Saddam Hussein of Iraq who came to the rescue. The Iraqi forces helped blunt the Israeli attack and stabilized the Syrian front.

By all evidence and accounts, Hafez al Assad was one of the most cunning and shrewd leaders of the Middle East. When the Moslem Brotherhood challenged his authority in 1982 he sent his brother Rifaat to Hama where the army leveled whole neighborhoods and killed an estimated 38,000 civilians, by Rifaat’s account [1]. This established the “Hama rules” of the Assad regime, where any challenge to authority is met with brute force. Surprisingly, the brutality of the crackdown in Hama did not elicit much chagrin in Syrian society, probably because Hafez was still enjoying the reputation of a nationalist leader.

This was followed by another important event. Rifaat al Assad began to aspire for leadership and challenged his brother Hafez. Folklore has it that the dispute between the two brothers was settled by the mother who suggested that Hafez payoff his brother and send him to exile in France. Allegedly, Rifaat left for France after carting away an enormous fortune from the Syrian Central Bank .

The period between 1982 and until 2000, when Hafez died, was a time of retrenchment of the Assad regime. It was also a time of important change in the political thinking of Hafez al Assad in which his professed Syrian nationalism was supplanted with Assadism. It is now clear in hindsight that Hafez al Assad was determined to keep power in the hands of the Assad clan. His first choice for succession was his oldest son Basil, but this son died in a car crash. The replacement was the second son Bashar, an ophthalmologist with practically no political or leadership experience. In order to reinforce Bashar’s position, the third son Maher was given command of the powerful Republican Guard division which is the bulwark of the regime.

Why did Hafez abandon all pretenses of democracy and pluralism and opt for an autocratic hereditary dynasty? What was the motive for replacing Syrian nationalism with Assadism? The answer is known only to one person Hafez who, as far as anyone knows, never confided his reasons with anyone. What is factually known is that Hafez’s closest Alawite supporters were shocked when he appointed Bashar as his successor, and when some expressed misgivings Hafez had them thrown in jail. Obviously, he had given the matter very serious thought and was determined to keep power in the hands of the Assad clan.

Why?

It makes no sense for the presumed standard bearer of Syrian nationalism to subvert national institutions and establish a hereditary dynasty. Unless he feared that the next government, which may not hold allegiance to the Assad clan, will uncover crimes and misdeeds that would not only bring shame to the Assad name but even result in legal and/or extra-legal retribution. During Hafez’s reign there were persistent rumors of opposition figures getting assassinated under mysterious circumstances. Among others, this included the assassination in Paris of the founder of the Baath party Salah Bitar. Also, the money to pay off his brother Rifaat came from the Syrian treasury. Recent reports claim that Rifaat now is trying to liquidate his assets in Spain with the intent of making it impossible for Western powers to confiscate or put a freeze on it. These assets are estimated to be in the neighborhood of $700 million. How does a retired Syrian general amass such a fortune? The suspicion is that it is the money that he took from the Syrian Central Bank when he left for exile in Paris.

Now it is 2011 and the Assad regime is reeling from an insurgency that threatens to end its four decades of rule. The Arab League recently suggested that the Syrian government and the opposition meet in Cairo and try to reach an agreement to resolve the crisis. The Syrian government promptly rejected the proposal as unacceptable interference in Syria’s internal affairs. The Arab League responded by stripping Syria of its membership in the Arab League and imposing economic sanctions. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the crux of the problem underlying the impasse between the Assad regime and the opposition. It is simple. The opposition wants an end of the Assad regime. The Assad regime does not want to relinquish power.

The political thinking within the current Assad regime is revealed by the recent interview that Barbara Walters had with Bashar al Assad and aired on ABC Nightline on Dec. 7, 2011. Here are some of the relevant highlights of the interview:

Walters: Much of the West regards you as a dictator and a tyrant. What do you say to that?
Assad: What is important is how the Syrian people look at you. Anyone can have their opinion outside the border.
Walters: Do you feel that the majority of the people in your country support you?
Assad: I think that the majority are in the middle.
Walters: The crackdown in the beginning, the brutality, do you think that it went too far?
Assad: I cannot tell you this without the evidence, you ask me to tell you this according to rumor?
Walters: Did you give the order for the crackdown?
Assad: No, we gave orders to implement the constitution and we don’t have a policy to kill people. And what happened is by individual mistakes.
Walters: Done by the military or by whom?
Assad: We don’t know by whom. In some cases by civilians
Walters: Done by your command?
Assad: No. We don’t give command to kill or be brutal.
Walters: We brought pictures of brutality.
Assad: How do you verify these pictures? That is why we say that these are false accusations.
Walters: Last month an independent UN commission interviewed 220 Syrians and said that the Syrian government committed crimes against humanity, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence against protesters including children.
Assad: Send the document and concrete evidence and we will see for ourselves. We don’t have this report. We don’t view the UN as a credible institution. It never was credible.

Analysts and pundits were aghast at Bashar al Assad’s answers, labeling them as a mixture of disconnect, delusions and lies. However, a careful study of his answers conveys an entirely different picture of intelligence and cunning. What Assad is saying in the interview is that he doesn’t care what outside powers think of him and his regime, since they are unlikely to take military action against him, because Russia and China have ruled that out. In addition, he understands very clearly that the Assad regime represents rule of the minority Alawite sect over the majority Sunnis of Syria. Therefore, his reliable support base is small as he readily admits. Also, he understands that the majority of Syrians in the big cities of Damascus and Aleppo are sitting on the sidelines. Therefore, his answers to Barbara Walters are intended to shore up his standing with this critically important majority who are in “the middle” as he correctly describes them. He mollifies this silent majority by denying that any undue violence such as deaths, brutality, rapes or torture have taken place. In fact, what little violence he is willing to admit to, he attributes to “individual” acts in isolated incidents. Furthermore, he claims that he is not personally responsible for whatever violence took place, since it was carried out by elements not associated with the government. He also promotes the theory that all the news in the West are false accusations that have no basis in reality.

This brings us to the next important point. The Assad regime knows that it cannot survive without the active or at least passive support of the silent majorities in Damascus and Aleppo. These irresolute and obsequious people think that as long as they can earn their livelihoods, have adequate access to food and other daily essentials, and a modicum of stability that avoids chaos, they are willing to accept the Assad regime with all its flaws [2]. In order to force the Assads to relinquish power, this silent majority in Damascus and Aleppo should be the target of a concerted effort to make it excruciatingly painful for them to continue to be uncommitted. Therefore, severe sanctions that disrupt the wellbeing of this materialistic segment of Syrian society are now essential. The Arab League and Turkey have both started to take such steps. Western powers are devising new and more punishing economic measures to apply on Syria.

Finally, one could ask if punishing uninvolved Syrians is a morally justifiable price to pay in order to be rid of the Assad regime. This is a controversial issue about which there will be disagreement. But the fact remains that this silent majority, or fence-sitters as they are sometimes called, have become the enablers of a corrupt and brutal regime. In that sense, they are neither innocent nor can they absolve themselves of responsibility for the crimes of the Assad regime.
[1] Eugene Rogan, “The Arabs, A History”, Basic Books, New York, 2009.
[2] Basil Hakki “Damascus, The Secret of its Survival”, June, 19, 2001, www.middleastforum.com
http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2011/06/damascus-secret-of-its-survival.html#!/2011/06/damascus-secret-of-its-survival.html

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Three Cheers for Syria

2011-12-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

By Ayman Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

As a Syrian American I believe in a secular Syria. I’m a Muslim Sunni, I believe in Allah (God) but I don’t believe in religious coercion: “Lakum Deenakom wa li Deeni” is my guiding Surah (s109:6). Here in the US exercising our basic freedoms is a right we take for granted, but this right is being threatened by Islamist factions in the Arab world.

I believe secular governments are constitutionally obligated to protect all citizens regardless of their sect, religion, background, sexual orientation, lifestyle, opinion and race. Some secular governments are an exception, in that they oppress and murder their own citizens: as is happening in Syria. I can’t see this happening in Norway or Canada, for instance. Practicing Syrian Moslems-given a choice-prefer to live here in the USA, or in France or Germany. Had they been offended by drinking or seeing women who were not covered in the streets they wouldn’t want to be living in these western secular states. I think that a decent job, sufficient income, having a car and a house, and having a credible representative government is more important to most of us. When basic needs are satisfied, there develops a collective tolerance that makes it possible for different people to live side by side in a state that protects the freedom of all religions, without enforcing the rules of one religion or the other.

I support Syria’s revolution but I’m loath to see my beloved Syria turn into a religious Wahhabi State. Mindful that my fellow Syrian Muslim Brothers are light years ahead of those heinous troglodytes, I want to share my concern over the eventual usurpation of Syria’s electorate by these moneyed religious extremists. My concern is not exclusive to Sunni states. Shiaa states-like Iran and Iraq-are becoming as bad as Salafi Sunni states. Remember the Iraqi kid who was asked in April of 2004 near Basra; why are you so happy, and why are you cheering the U.S. invasion? He said; “whiskey, sexy, democracy”. What happened to him! Today in Iraq there is no whiskey, no sexy, and no Democracy; secular Iyad Alawi won the election, and still isn’t in power. Iraqi Sunnis secularists remain in Damascus, despite Syria’s precarious state; they prefer our brutal regime to Iraq’s! Syria is on its way towards democracy, but all its citizens’ rights must be guaranteed, or we’ll substitute an intrusive illiberal regime for our oppressive and “cynically” secular regime. Syria must remain Syria, and any form of repressive rule is unacceptable.

Pluralism is fine when minority protection is enforced. I've asked everyone I know-and respect-the following question; what are the benefits-other than the requisite pluralism-of this revolt for all Syrians? “Enough is enough...” is the answer I’m offered. This is true; enough is enough; we must end the 40 year rule of the Assad clan. Yet it troubles me when my fellow Syrian Americans ignore the historic fact that revolutions don’t always turn out to be the best solution in the Arab World. They stress how Tunisia is headed in the right direction, but want to gloss over the fact that other Arab spring countries aren’t. Our valiant Tahrir square liberals may soon be marginalized by the radicals in Egypt. “It has to get worse before it gets better..." is another valid point being made amongst us, but it can’t be what we wish for. As a vision statement: make a needed change then brace yourself for the worst, is lacking. Shouldn't it be something; like prepare for the best? I know this irks my fellow Syrians who are in the throes of a bloody upheaval. “You’re either with us or against us” is what I hear. When did Syrians’ thinking become so black and white? We are not George W. Bush; we have always been the Arab World’s most nuanced pragmatists. The present regime has unleashed its military might on us, its own people, in the guise of fighting armed gangs and their foreign supporters, and this must stop. Otherwise anyone sitting on the fence, who may-or may not-have suspicions about the Syrian opposition movement, becomes indirectly complicit in the crimes of the regime. When a bully is beating a child, being “neutral” puts you on the bully’s side. United behind the revolution we still need an inclusive vision.

We Syrian-Americans are accused of being brain washed, and it may be true. Ironically both sides accuse us of the same thing but for the absolute opposite reason. Groups who can’t agree on anything and want to fight each other to death seem to agree on one thing only: people with opinions that are neither pro nor anti should not interfere and should not try to demand a clear vision for our inevitable and worthwhile revolution. “First things first” is a true statement, but “what next” must also be proactively addressed.

Let’s look at both extreme sides of this drama and see how they are portrayed in the media. Watch TV, YouTube, or surf the web and you will see men chanting in the streets of Syria, then you will see them dodging bullets. Gruesome and sensational images are shown over and over. It is heartbreaking, but the revolution’s narrative seems simple: On one side there are peaceful marchers and on the other there are armed goons. We also see bad guys stomping on good guys and demanding they declare Bashar is God. The context is clear; a regime that “deifies” its President. It is sacrilege: the regime is God’s enemy and a promoter of “Ishrak” (the worship of fake Gods and their elevation to partnership status). Chants of “Allahu Akbar” are heard in counterbalance. The revolution’s spiritual narrative has everything: God- fearing demonstrators vs. Godless heretical infidels. I’m sure we are not seeing the whole story.

Moderate anti-regime protesters and pro-regime reformers are marginalized. Moderates are pushed to the back of a revolutionary stage that is mainly dominated by two symbolically extreme actors. This Syrian drama is tantalizing, full of visions of an unknown future and a livid past, and it reminds some of the 1970 Libyan uprising chants against King Idriss Al Sanousi: “Ibliss (the devil) is better than Idriss!” What Libyans didn’t know then is that their wishes came true, and the rest is recent history. Gadhafi died a shameful death, while King Idris faded away. Which path will Bashar Al Assad choose is anyone’s guess! The Syrian people are suffering for freedom and dying in order to rid us of his clan’s corrupt regime. The revolution is a genuine uprising for justice and against a government that is tyrannical. So please allow me to be very clear; the whole revolution is not a trumped up fictitious soap opera-- there are plenty of facts that support what we are seeing and hearing within the drama of God vs. Mammon. To deny that the security apparatchiks of the regime are ruthless killers is asinine, but to ignore the regional geo-political struggles, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the constant external interferences in Syrian affairs is also immature. Brand Syria* is the rejection of Israeli inspired US world hegemony, and today the assault on Syria maybe an assault on its Brand. The Assads have deftly used this as a pretext to stay in power they never were altruistic Brand Syria’s defenders. Nevertheless I’m convinced that our Brand is being targeted. Every time I mention Brand Syria both sides cringe, but it must be said.

Furthermore ambivalence towards the side effects of revolutions is not prudent. Beneficial revolutions should not be about vengeance alone they should be about addressing a people’s grievance; they should not be about the past they should be about the future. Getting even will never put Syria ahead. While one dangerous and murderous regime is subsiding, another disturbing regime may rise. We must safeguard against such an eventuality and the safeguards must be acceptable to most-if not all-Syrians. The current impasse is dangerous and deadly. Both sides are using the innocents as their proxies in this zero-sum battle where the ultimate loser is every Syrian who is trying to compete in a heavily competitive world to put food on the table. When and if this war is over, Syrians must then go back and rebuild and then start moving forward – a daunting task that’ll be even harder if Syria is attacked like Afghanistan or Iraq and bombed back into the Stone Age. Our Tanzeemat must be inclusive and not strictly Islamist.

So where do we go from here? The ultimate solution cannot be generated by the same minds that gave us this sad national tragedy. We need a third party that will do something very un-Syrian; think with its head and not its heart. I haven’t met or heard of a single Syrian who is capable of doing such an unimaginable act, but I am sure they are out there. I often wonder if we can ever take some clues from our Jewish cousins as to “what to do when faced with calamity”**. First and foremost we must begin to compromise and bring the tension and hostility level down before an even bloodier civil war begins. Then we must all sit down and rationally draw up plans for the present and the future. The long-term plan must be to try to: (1) re-engineer our educational system and liberate us from established dogmas while teaching critical thinking at all ages, especially the young: Because a democracy of dunces is not a functional democracy. Nothing should be set in stone, question everything and challenge the status quo with civility and rationality. We should then (2) preach community cohesiveness to all our citizens by stressing that “there's only one Syria” in addition to “there’s only one God”. And lastly, and possibly most importantly, we must forcefully employ the rule of law and ensure that the constitution is well guarded and preserves our basic human rights in religion, free speech, ownership, assembly, and protection against government abuses. (3) I’m for a preset and prefunded policing mechanism that’ll help us stand up to those of us who are neither constitutionally secular nor spiritually ecumenical. This’ll be our major sticking point.

I know and embrace what we are against, but making what we are for clearer, inclusive and enforceable… would get many of us off the fence. I offer three cheers to Syria’s people and I know that united we are capable of greatness.

*In 2004 I wrote an essay I called Brand Syria. In it I said that the powers-that-be are not interested in regime change, they’re out to destroy our Brand. Today their efforts seem to be nearing fruition. The only thing keeping the regime in power is the very Brand Syrian mentality of “YES, BUT…” Yes we all want regime change, but at what cost? That is why I am joined on the fence by a majority in Damascus and Aleppo. Many feel that we are just obsequious merchants, but 10,000 years of survival justify our careful poster. We are simply prudent and we hope to prevail.
**I often wondered what they (Jews) would do, if they were in our place. Living here I’ve been around them long enough to be able to form a somewhat educated guess. Jews first and foremost would compromise then sit down and level headedly draw up a long term working plan: 1- they’d start with their young and educated them in critical thinking; nothing is set in stone, question everything. 2-they’d fostered community cohesiveness by substituting; there's only one Jewish people for “there’s only One God”. Maybe I’m brainwashed, but if they did it…so can we.

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The Arab Awakening and Israel
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/opinion/israel-and-the-arab-awakening.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=thoma%20friedman%20arab%20awakening&st=cse

United Nations Says Unrest in Syria Amounts to Civil WarBy Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/middleeast/united-nations-says-syrian-unrest-amounts-to-civil-war.html?hp

Syrians Feel The Grip of Sanctions
By Neil MacFarquhar
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/middleeast/syrians-say-they-are-feeling-grip-of-economic-sanctions.html?_r=1&hpw

Syrian Deaths Reach 4600
By REUTERS

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/12/03/world/middleeast/international-us-syria.html?hp

The Plan

2011-11-27T07:45:00.000-08:00

How to Take Pride in Being Syrian American and Benefit All Parties Concerned

By Ayman Hakki.

www.middleastforum.com

Within a single lifespan Jews went from the most aggrieved and persecuted ethnic group on earth to a place of great prominence in the United States and worldwide. How they did so should be an inspiration to all other U.S. minorities. We Syrian Americans must put aside our political differences with our fellow Jewish Americans and emulate them. We should come up with a similar plan of our own to help us reach the socioeconomic and political heights they have achieved. Some would question this premise, but I feel that the parallels between Syrian Americans today, and Jewish Americans in the early twenties and thirties, are crystal clear. Both communities are industrious and well off (especially for an immigrant community). They are both chuck full of professionals, and both got their start in the textile industry*. Merchants by nature, both communities emphasized education of their off-springs and stress hard work.

While the Jewish community is close knit, Syrian communities are dispersed, with the exception of the Syrian Jewish community which is the most close-knit group in both camps. Visit them in Brooklyn-they just celebrated their centennial in America-and you’ll see my point. It took them a hundred years to get there. We can do it in 20…if we energize our youth. We must start now, and we must think long term. So, what can we do for other Syrian Americans, Syria’s Diaspora in general and Syria itself? We start with a phone tree, establish a social network, a spiritual meeting center, hold Syrian events, institute a child support system, and cap it all off with a for-profit institute that’s designed to promote Syrian commerce.

It all starts by identifying the women and men who link us Syrian Americans: Mavens or SY-Ms, then:

1-Start a Syrian web based social network site linking Young Energetic Syrian Americans or SY-YESs.

2-Out Syrian Americans closet dwellers (SACDs), encourage them by giving them a celebrity platform**.

3-Begin ecumenical spiritual dialogue amongst Syrian Christians, Muslims and Jews: SY-CMJs must talk.

4- Assign Syrian Aarrabs (Godfathers) to our newborns and encourage seeking our SY-AARRABs*** advice.

5-Build a multi religious Syrian temple SY-TEMP and architecturally make it inclusive of all our religions.

6-Hold Syrian “hafla” party events SY-HAFLAS and allow for a free flowing celebration of all things Syrian.

7-Identify those who can encourage Syria’s political revival while preserving sectarian mosaic (SY-Pols).

8-Form steering committees SY-COMs and designate committee chairs to meet the goal of being active.

9-Fund a creative for-profit arm to this plan, make money, and then share a portion with Syria; SY-Prof.

10- Recruit our mavens to link our young social networkers with our designated Aarrabs and look out.

*Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.
** See post.
*** Kvater Sandek is the Yiddish term used for Godfather.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Other Articles:

Turkish Premier Urges Syrian Leader to Step Down
By The Associated Press

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/11/22/world/middleeast/AP-ML-Syria.html?_r=1&hp

Turkey Urges Syrian President Bashar al Assad to Step Down

By Alice Fordham

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-urges-assad-to-step-down/2011/11/22/gIQAlnTmlN_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Turkish Premier Urges Assad to Quit in Syria

By Sebnem Arsu

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/world/middleeast/turkish-leader-says-syrian-president-should-quit.html?_r=1&ref=world

Arab League Agrees to Syria Sanctions
Al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/20111126182516483551.html

Shariah vs. Secular Laws in Democracy

2011-11-19T18:59:00.000-08:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

Once again the question was raised whether the emerging democracies in the Middle East should adopt secular laws, as in Western democracies, or opt for Shariah laws, as in Islamic states. This is in part a consequence of the rising power of political Islam and a general disaffection with Western materialism and secularism. However, it is also a question that has been asked and debated many times before, and traces its origin to the period that followed the end of the Ottoman Empire.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Kamal Ataturk took it upon himself to overhaul both the Turkish government and Turkish society. He instituted a secular democracy as a form of government and purged society of all vestiges of Islam including the Arabic script. This was a shock to the deeply religious Moslems of the Middle East. Hassan al Banna, and other devout Muslims, were deeply offended by Ataturk’s rejection of Islam. They tried to achieve a compromise between the decadent Ottoman Islamic State and the secular democracy of the West by accepting pluralistic democracy as a form of governance but insisting that laws be based on Shariah. This was, and remains, the basic ideological core belief of the Moslem Brotherhood.

This conflation of democracy with Shariah law became the intellectual trap into which even some bright Western scholars fell. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the American government sent constitutional experts to help those countries draft new constitutions. One of those legal experts was Noah Feldman*, who attempted to reconcile democratic principles with the unique social and religious cultures of those countries. Later, Prof. Feldman published a book entitled “The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State” [1]. In the book, he states that every viable government must satisfy two basic metrics: first it must provide political justice and second, there must be decentralization of functions that prevents any branch of government from acquiring dominant power. By using these two metrics, Feldman concludes that an Islamic State of the political form proposed by Hassan al Banna, is a viable construct. In this configuration, legislative authority rests in a democratically elected assembly that passes laws that are consistent with Shariah. However, these laws are subject to review by an “Islamic Judicial Review” court comprised of Ulama who provide oversight and retain the right to overturn those laws that are deemed to be “repugnant” to Islam. In the meantime, the executive branch will be in charge of running daily matters of the State. Professor Feldman believed that such a state would satisfy his two necessary metrics of providing political justice and decentralized power.

In a previous essay I pointed out the flaws in this proposed “Islamic democracy” [2]. The first flaw resides in the ambiguity of whether sovereignty resides in the revelation or in the people (ummah). In this proposed Islamic state there is a minor concession to the populist demand by allowing for a democratically elected legislative body. However the laws are subject to review and possible repeal by an Islamic judicial review court on the grounds of being “repugnant to Islam”. This establishes a thinly disguised form of sovereignty in revelation in which populist democracy is a subverted. This form of governance can best be called a democratic theocracy, which is an oxymoron. In a democracy, sovereignty resides in the collective will of the people. In a theocracy, sovereignty resides in divine revelation. A democratic theocracy is a contradiction in terms. In addition, at the practical level, it may lead to legislative gridlock. At worst it turns back the clock to the nineteenth century when the Ottoman Empire was staggering under the weight of religious baggage accumulated over many centuries. One must be reminded of the severe problems in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century that are described by the Garbcilar movement in Turkey [3]. The widespread decay in the Ottoman Islamic State generated demands for reforms that included but were not limited to:

(1). Emancipation of women: Women must be accorded equal status with men in divorce courts and treated equally with men under the law. There should be no restriction on women’s attire nor should they be subservient to men.
(2). The state must cease its support of religious schools and instead support schools of science. Religious authorities should not interfere with school curricula whereby they eliminate subjects that they consider to be “un-Islamic” or may be at variance with the holy scripture.
(3). Private enterprise should be free and encouraged. The state should not interfere neither in the economy nor the industry.
(4). The judicial system must be capable of reform that meets the evolving needs of the people.
(5). The press and the media must be free and not subject to censorship on the grounds of “religiously correct” content.

The Turkish National Assembly that abolished the Sultanate in 1924 adopted the critically needed reforms and went further by stating in unambiguous terms in their findings in “Caliphate and Sovereignty of the Nation” that “…the Islamic people as a whole possess sovereignty” [4]. This is the constitutional clarity that served the Turkish people well over the last eighty years. By contrast, it is singularly lacking in the new Islamic state that both Feldman and al Banna propose.
In addition to the lessons taught by the failure of the Ottoman Empire mentioned above it is also possible to say that an Islamic state in the twenty first century will not be viable in the long term for two additional reasons. First, a state that is ideologically grounded in divine revelation lacks the flexibility to evolve in order to meet the rapidly changing needs of its people with time. Second, such a state is inherently discriminatory against non-Muslims and therefore is exclusive, unjust and violates basic precepts of Islam. This is because the use of Shariah law as a state law that is enforceable on everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim, is a clear violation of explicit Quranic injunctions (s 2:256) “There can be no coercion in religion” and (s 109:6) “To you your religion, to me mine”.

However in conclusion, it is also important to emphasize that a democracy with secular laws must have a moral compass. The lesson of the Turkish democratic experiment is well worth studying. After nearly nine decades of militant secularism, the Turks have once again turned to religion for spiritual sustenance. The Arabs of the Middle East, whether Muslims, Christians or Jews are deeply religious and need their private legal space to worship and practice their religions in their daily lives but on a voluntary basis. For those who call for strict secularism and for those who call for Shariah law, both should look at present day Turkey and learn useful lessons on how to compromise and achieve the best of both worlds.

*Noah Feldman graduated from Harvard College in 1992 and got a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he earned a D. Phil in Islamic Thought in 1994. Upon his return from Oxford, he received his J.D. in 1997, from Yale Law School. In 2001, he joined the faculty of NYU Law School, leaving for Harvard in 2007. He worked as an advisor in the early days of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq following the 2003 invasion of the country. While his initial work under Jay Gardner was general, he was authorized under Paul Bremmer’s transitional team to help formulate the country's new constitution.

[1] Noah Feldman, “The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State” by Noah Feldman, Princeton University Press, 2008.

[2] Basil Hakki, “Noah Feldman: The Islamic State”, this web site April 20, 2008.

http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2008/04/noah-feldman-islamic-state.html#!/2008/04/noah-feldman-islamic-state.html

[3] Sukru Hanioglu “Garbcilar: Their Attitudes Towards Reliogion and Their Impact on the Official Ideology of the Turkish Republic” Studia Islamica, pp. 133-159, 1997.

[4] Albert Hourani “Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1930” Oxford University Press, 1967.

------------------------------------------------------

Other Articles:

Mobs Strike Embassies After Group Bans Syria

By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/world/middleeast/mobs-in-syria-attack-embassies-after-arab-league-decision.html?_r=1&ref=world

King of Jordan Calls For Syria’s Leader to Step Down

By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/world/middleeast/syria-calls-suspension-from-arab-league-a-dangerous-move.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Syria Hits Back at Arab League Suspension
al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011111492236108262.html

Turkish Prime Minister Says Syria on “Knife Edge”

Al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011111519930296211.html

As Arab League Suspension Looms, Syria Faces New Assault

By Nada Bakri, Rick Gladstone and Alan Cowell

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/world/middleeast/syria-defectors-attack-base-arab-league-suspension.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Army Defectors Attack Air Force Base
By al Jazeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/201111163538991291.html

Syria Game Change
The Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204323904577038193266089440.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

Raids in Syria as Pressure Mounts on Assad
al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011111710264175831.html

The Killing in Syria Goes on
New York Times Editorial

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/opinion/the-killing-in-syria-goes-on.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Defectors in Syria Strike Pro-Regime Office

By Joe Sterling, CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/17/world/meast/syria-unrest/?hpt=wo_c1
------------------------------

Of General Interest:

Congratulations, Ayman Hakki for the coverage of your practice in the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/first-person-singular-dr-ayman-hakki-58-plastic-surgeon-ceo-luxxery/2011/10/28/gIQABKLMYN_story.html

Syrian, Lebanese, Arab? What's in a name?

2011-11-13T05:18:00.000-08:00

By Raff Ellis

www.middleastforum.com

In a post a couple of weeks ago, Ayman Hakki made a good point with his example of Americans selectively attributing a father's lineage to his son as with Barack Obama (must be a Kenyan Muslim like his father) and Steve Jobs (not considered a Syrian Muslim like his birth father). Other examples he presented sought to demonstrate that various celebrities of "Syrian" descent do not openly celebrate their heritage. I would like to posit that the issue of denying one's ethnic roots is not peculiar to Syrians, and is usually done because of racist, economic, social, and personal safety factors.

When immigrants to America are faced with bringing up their children in the US multicultural environment (the so-called melting pot), kids soon discover which ethnicities are "acceptable" and which are not. If skin pigmentation doesn't totally give them away, and there's nothing but institutionalized grief in a particular identification, people will tend to deny theirs. And who can blame them? What benefits do they derive from being associated with a nation that made life so untenable for them so they had to forsake it?

I must take issue with Ayman's crediting several Americans with having "Syrian" lineage, even though many of those he named self-identify as Lebanese Americans. As a point of fact, Lebanon was created as a vilayet with its own governor reporting to the sultan of Turkey, on the same bureaucratic level as the governor of Syria in 1864. Writers of the period wrote of "crossing the border into Lebanon." Not Mt. Lebanon--The Lebanon (which was about half the size of the current state). Those who emigrated from within the confines of that defined Lebanon cannot be faulted for calling themselves Lebanese. Unfortunately, claiming "Lebanese" heritage became for a time a code word for "non-Muslim," but that's a whole 'nother story.

Many Syrian Americans say to those who identify themselves as Lebanese Americans, "You're really a Syrian, you know." To the best of my knowledge, Syria (its name given to it by a Roman cartographer 2,000 years ago) was never an independent state throughout recorded history, until 1946. Lebanon, whose current borders were defined by the Great Powers in 1920, became a recognized national entity three years prior, in 1943. Those who migrated before 1918 could be (and were for a time) called Turks (in South America they are still called Turkos) as well as Syrians, even after the 1920 French Mandate began. The question I have to ask is: How can a person have a specific nationality when there was no nation?

The subject of ethnic identification is an interesting one, especially the use of "Arab" to describe people of various Middle Eastern national origins. This classification at times means racial or blood lineage, and at others it is a cultural or linguistic denotation. But this designation seems only to apply to Muslims and Christians who are not born and bred into an identifiable sect. Residing as a citizen in an "Arab" country, speaking the language, eating the food, and dancing the dance are not sufficient to classify you as an "Arab." If you are born of Jewish, Armenian, or Kurdish parents, you cannot be classified as "Arab." Thus this designation has become so muddled with religious, racial, cultural, national, and ethnic rationalizations that it defies any logical foundation.

I remember as a ten-year-old kid in a small Northern New York town being called a "black Syrian," even though my father always told me we were Lebanese. I certainly didn't want to be a Syrian or even a Lebanese for that matter. And who could blame me? That only gave the bullies one more reason to single me out in the schoolyard. Who in their right mind wants that?

---------------------------------------------------------

The Arab League Reconciliation Plan for Syria Must Work

By Rajai Masri

www.middleastforum.com

I learned since so many decades to completely distrust the US Administrations, the US Congress and the US Media. When, by sheer coincidence. I find myself somehow agreeing with public political statements with a spokesperson of either the White House or the US State Department, I automatically pinch myself that somehow something is seriously wrong.

My near complete distrust of the US Administrations, rather, nearly the whole American polity reached its Zenith during the 1967 Israeli war on Egypt, Syria and Jordan resulting in the full occupation of Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. I lived those very emotionally wrenching moments, as a devout Arab Nationalist, a Nasserite aspiring for the deliverance of the Arab masses, during my first year in the US as a student at the University of Chicago. The demonstration of flagrant bias by the Americans: official, public and the media; the demonstrative joy and glorification in the American street for the savage and superiority of the Israelis and the Israeli mind greatly added to my deep sense of humiliation and isolation which only compounded and magnified with time as the US Government and US media became the malleable instruments, rather subservient puppet in the hands of the Zionists and their schemes.

When the spokeswoman of the State Department, a few of days ago, gave straight instructions to the Syrian opposition not to obey demands made by the Assad regime to surrender their arms, I paused and ridiculed the irony that I could be sharing the side of the poodles of AIPAC and the Israelis.

The US and Israel are for no good coming in the open provoking and instigating disobedience and chaos in any Arab state including Syria. Granted that the Syrian situation is extremely complex, and that the Syrian people are unconditionally entitled to freedom of opinion, freedom of expression and truly democratically elected representatives, yet, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the continuing stalemate in the Syrian situation serves no useful purpose neither to the Syrian demonstrators shouting their rightful demands and sacrificing beautiful innocent souls, nor to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad that thinks geopolitically and the checking of the Israeli designs.

The recent stern warning by Mr. Nabil El-Arabi, Secretary General of the Arab League, a devout Arab nationalist, that failure of the latest Arab League's initiative for reconciliation in Syria will carry very dire consequences for all: the Syrian regime; the Syrian opposition and the whole region of the Middle East. To that, I second Mr. El-Arabi prediction with a loud "Amen."

Not for a moment had I ever suspected the true patriotism and strong Arab nationalist feelings of President Bashar al-Assad. As Syria was never given a respite in the midst of Western and Israeli intrigues to seriously contemplate true political reforms that would introduce democratic institutions, involve the public in decision making, the control of their destiny and engage in a serious effort at stemming rising corruption, including among the close entourage, even kin of the President, Bashar El-Assad waited too long to implement the necessary change that would ensure a smooth transition to true democracy.

The Arab League's latest initiative is the true and ultimate chance for a peaceful resolution of the Syrian debacle. There is no constructive alternative out of the debacle.

Yet, the US, Israel and France, as well as Al-Jazeera Satellite TV Network, as belatedly the convenient mouthpiece (booq) of NATO, are continuing to pour oil on the fire in their most obvious campaigns of provocation and instigation to topple the Syrian regime to no obvious guaranteed peaceful outcome (Puzzling, yet understandable as Qatar, the domicile and financier of Al-Jazeera, simultaneously houses the largest Air Field for the US Air force outside the US, including the headquartering of the Control center for US Military operations).

I strongly add my voice to that of Mr. Nabil El-Arabi, that failed reconciliation in Syria will only carry very dire consequences for the Syrians, the Arabs and the whole region of the Middle East. Best that Al-Jazeera TV Network of tiny Qatar playing superpower to regain its objective and constructive reporting that gave it, to start with, the Arab world wide respectability that could very well be fast losing it through its inexplicable increasing provocation and one-sided reporting.
-----------------------------------------------------

Other Articles:

Arab League Plans Emergency Talks on Syria
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/11/201111616044484841.html

Syrian Opposition: Homs a Disaster Area
al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011117112020901783.html

Syrian Troops Escalate Bloody Crackdown in Homs
By Anthony Shadid
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/world/africa/syrian-city-of-homs-suffers-bloody-assault.html?_r=1&hp

As Syria Hits City, U.N. Puts Toll at 3500
By Nada Bakri
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/world/middleeast/syria-lays-siege-to-a-city-homs-that-puts-up-a-fight.html?_r=1&ref=world

Arab League Votes to Suspend Syria Over Crackdown
The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/world/middleeast/arab-league-votes-to-suspend-syria-over-its-crackdown-on-protesters.html?_r=1&hp

Democracy in Syria?

2011-11-06T04:58:00.000-08:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleasforum.com

The Arab Spring and the turmoil that enveloped several Middle Eastern countries naturally sharpened the debate about whether Arab countries are ready for democracy. It is a legitimate question to ask since the future of millions will be determined by the outcome of this wrenching struggle between the normative authoritarian regimes and the opposition that demands democratic reforms.

In this debate, it is important to have a clear understanding of what democracy entails. Democracy should be viewed first and foremost as an insurance policy against the tyranny of authoritarian rule. This is accomplished by establishing a form of governance in which sovereignty resides in the collective will of the people. Democracy is not, and never was meant to be, a political system that magically solves all of our societal problems. And by its very nature, it has both strengths and weaknesses. It is by no means perfect, but it is inherently mutable.

The ambivalence of some towards democracy is expressed by a short note that I received recently from a Syrian friend. This friend says, in part “…The more fundamental question is: are we democratic? Are we bred to be democratic? From home to school to college to work to our wives and family etc… No we are not. Democracy to us is artificial to our foundations”. The note continues “Is there real democracy where you are? Perhaps for those not in power who are content with what they get. Look at Obama what he promised and what he did. Is the Jewish lobby real? Yes it is, is it democratic? How can it be when its nature and raison d’être includes the stepping over bodies to reach its aim. Democracy is for the naïve.”

Maybe.

But let us start by discussing the weaknesses of democracy. Since democracy depends critically on the active support of the people, it is prone to fall victim to its mortal enemy, apathy. There are many sad examples of how duly elected governments in Syria were overthrown by military coups, and the people never raised a finger in protest, much to my dismay. The same happened in Turkey, when the government of Adnan Menderes was overthrown by the army and he was hanged. But times are changing, and changing fast. People everywhere are more politically engaged and assertive. A recent article describes the hitherto quiescent working class in India rising and demanding reforms [1]. The population in Turkey is certainly much more politically aware and a military coup is unlikely to be met with the usual indifference. The same can be said of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. When people talk about the “Arab Spring”, to me it means that there is a new generation of Arabs who are politically engaged and demand to be heard. This is the real hope and the antidote to the killer apathy. In Syria, the only remaining centers of apathy are in Damascus and Aleppo. The rest of the country is demanding change in no uncertain terms.

The other potential flaw in democracy is political lobbying which can be toxic to the general welfare. My friend raises the issue of the Israeli lobby. This is a legitimate issue. But the Israeli lobby is only one of a multitude of well financed lobbies that represent interest groups that exert influence in Washington. The list of these interest groups is too long to cover here but it includes, in addition to the Israeli lobby, agriculture, oil, pharmaceutical, defense industry etc. etc.etc. However, this is in the very nature of democracy. Each segment of society wants to be heard and tries to promote its interest in the legislative agenda. For years, I have been lamenting the fact that Arab-Americans do not have a lobby similar to AIPAC that can make its case to legislators. The situation as it presently stands, the Israeli lobby has a politically uncontested field in Washington, with the exception of the newly formed J-Street organization that is trying to gain political traction.

In other words, democracy is messy and in some instances does very stupid things. But on the positive side, no politician has lifetime tenure. The only people in the U.S. government who have lifetime tenure are members of the U.S. Supreme Court and, I think, some federal judges. Therefore, a cleansing process takes place periodically when each politician has to run for election and garner approval from voters. In this cathartic process, voters go to polling places and cast their votes and elect whomever they think serves their interests best. To put it in another way, government officials serve at the pleasure of the people in a democracy. By contrast, in an authoritarian system the people serve those who wield power.

The other important distinction is that in most democracies there is a robust and independent legal system that provides social justice and protects individuals from abuse by government officials. The protection of civil rights is either weak or absent in authoritarian systems. This is because the judiciary is emasculated by the authorities who view the judicial system as an impediment to their unfettered powers and therefore a potential threat. In addition, the consequence of a weak judicial system in an authoritarian regime is lack of accountability and rampant corruption.

In 2007 I posted an article “Democracy as an Afterthought” [2] in which I raised doubts about the viability of democracy in the Middle East, similar to the doubts that are expressed above by my friend. The article concluded by saying: “So what about democracy? It is both obvious and noteworthy from the above that out of the plethora of socio-political movements that appeared after independence not a single leader nor a single political movement promoted democracy as a governing imperative. Democracy was an afterthought that was paid lip service. And at critical junctures democracy was the victim of other over-riding priorities. It will probably take several generations and considerable education to convince the people in the Middle East that there is a viable alternative to acquiescence and obsequiousness to totalitarian rulers. In order for a government of the people, by the people and for the people to survive the countries in the Middle East must first have a period of relative tranquility, prosperity and improved education to allow the roots of democracy to take hold within the population.”

I am happy to admit that I was wrong. Apparently, the time for democracy in the Middle East is now. The slow evolutionary process that I contemplated has been pre-empted by a revolutionary movement that is impatient for reform. There is a new generation of young people yearning for freedom from oppression, and are politically engaged, assertive and most importantly well informed by virtue of the powerful communication methods that are now available to them. These young people, who have been infected by the contagious appeal of freedom, will be the vanguard of change.

Therefore, my response to my Syrian friend is: if you are happy and content in living in an abusive authoritarian state in which basic human rights are trampled, then democracy is not for you. But if you value your dignity and that of your loved ones, you may want to reconsider democracy.
[1] Jim Yardley, “Protests Awaken a Goliath in India”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/world/asia/indias-middle-class-appears-to-shed-political-apathy.html?_r=1&hp

[2] Basil Hakki, “Democracy as an Afterthought” This site, Dec. 9, 2007.

http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2007/12/democracy-as-afterthought.html

----------------------------------------------------

Other Articles:

Arab League Hands Syria Plan to End Unrest
al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/20111030231723111780.html

Lebanese Police Accuse Syria in Kidnapping of Dissidents
By Nada Bakri
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/middleeast/lebanese-police-accuse-syria-in-kidnapping-of-dissidents.html?pagewanted=1&hpw

Inside Syria: Dissedents Tell Stories of “Unbelievable Abuse” Against Protesters
By Richard Engel

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/31/8562167-inside-syria-dissidents-tell-stories-of-unbelievable-abuse-against-protesters

Moshe Dayan’s Widow Ruth: Zionist Dream Has Run its Course
By Rula Jebreal
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/moshe-dayan-s-widow-ruth-zionist-dream-has-run-its-course.html

Syria Agrees to Arab League Plan
al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011112163044247764.html

Arab League Says Syria Accepts Its Plan for Talks: Protesters are Skeptical
By Niel MacFarquhar and Nada Bakri
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/world/middleeast/arab-league-says-syria-accepts-plan-for-talks.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=neil%20macfarquhar&st=cse

12 Killed in Syria Despite Deal to Halt Violence
By Anthony Shadid
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/world/middleeast/7-killed-in-syria-despite-deal-to-halt-violence.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=anthony%20shadid%20syria%20killed&st=cse

Arab League Warns of Syria Peace Deal Failure
al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/11/2011115142218851925.html

Get Out of the Closet, Syrian Americans!

2011-10-30T05:55:00.000-07:00

By Ayman Hakki.

www.middleastforum

Right wing extremists get blue in the face screaming that President Obama is not a Christian or an American. They say he’s a Muslim and a Kenyan because his biological father was both. The bigots make this claim in spite of the fact that he was raised by his white grandparents as a Christian and never identified with his Kenyan or Muslim roots. The accusation is silly, but I’ve never heard anyone argue that Steve Jobs* was a Muslim and a Syrian, even though his biological father is both. No one in the media attacked Jobs for being a biological Syrian. But the problem is not just in the media not outing us, it’s in the fact that we remain closeted.
Why does our American Syrian community shy away from celebrating its ethnicity? A few decades ago no one wanted to be different, but it’s cool to be diverse in today’s America. Have you ever heard of a Syrian Festival? I’ve been to many Greek American, Hispanic American and even Jamaican American events. They are going on all over the United States, but you seldom hear of Syrian American festivals, except in towns like Allentown, Pennsylvania, where Syrians have lived and prospered for four generations. But there is no Syrian pride parade. Another unfavorable juxtaposition involves Jewish Americans. They seem proud of being Jewish and are supportive of Israel. Why aren’t we the same? Why don’t we support Syria at a time when Syria needs our support? During times of upheaval in Syria, it is our duty to stop disavowing our roots, and get out of the closet.
In looking for an answer to my question I asked some of my friends: why do we Syrians yearn to assimilate to the point of ethnic obliteration? It’s as if we seem to have an aversion to being “the other”. What has Syria done to its emigrants that make us want to blend into the fabric of any society that takes us in, never to look back! One theory** is that ours is a form of ethnic re-engineering. When Syrians emigrate out of Syria and immigrate to the United States they do so for a variety of reasons but with two main objectives: a better opportunity and a revolt against a system for its political, social, religious, or a combination of all three aspects. We come to the US with the determination of "I must succeed because I am never going back”. This is different from the notion of "I am coming to the US for an education, training or specialty and a better future is waiting for me in Syria." Many immigrate to the US on a “temporary” basis while other immigrants come with the determination to integrate and settle in. My friend says he believes that “temporary” immigrants are restless and have a hard time fully integrating. So, he says, it might be easier to separate the immigrant groups into two or more distinct sets: a group that is fully involved in its ethnic re-engineering and a group that is ethnically-resilient. We cannot be totally detached from our ethnicity, he adds. We refer to our selves always with a hyphen: Syrian-Americans or Arab-Americans. It is that hyphen that causes our identity crises.

Ray Lahood, Ralph Nader, Marlow Thomas, Katie Couric and Diane Rheem are also all Syrians by descent***. These and many other Americans’ parents came from the Levant and at that time the whole Levant was called Syria. Today they all love being American, but they seem to want to avoid being called Syrian Americans. Danny Thomas established Saint Jude’s Children’s’ Hospital; does anyone know he’s Syrian? I’ve never seen Irish or Italian Americans wanting to be anything but that Italian and Irish Americans. It’ so insidious; my daughter went to Field School, and few schools in the District of Columbia are as wonderful as Field. When the founder of Field School, Elizabeth Ely, passed away I attended her commemoration at the National Press Club. People from every part of the world remembered her brilliance, her caring, her struggle and not a single one of them (including her own daughter) once mentioned that Elizabeth's parents were Syrian, not once! Elizabeth was a first generation Syrian American. She often –privately- mentioned how proud she was of her Syrian born Mom and dad. They came to America, sold merchandise on the streets and made sure she got a college degree. Can you imagine rising to the heights of Ms. Ely, and not having a single mention in the booklet or in the three hours of speeches given in her honor of Syria! Every ethnic group from Samoa to Madagascar takes pride in their origin so why is being Jamaican American cooler than being Syrian American?

As a group we are not open about our origins, but we are proud of our socioeconomic success. We seem successful as individuals but unsuccessful as a minority. To prove this point let me share with you the following: the US 2000 Census included a few hundred thousand citizens who crossed out “other” on the race questionnaire and wrote in; “Syrian”. Not one of them was on Welfare! This, according to a Syrian Math PHD from UCLA who was a consultant for the Census Bureau (she didn’t want to be identified for this essay) was a “red flag” statistical anomaly. How can one reconcile this individual sign of industry and prosperity with our apparent non-existence on the American scene as an ethnic group? We can’t, especially in a country that celebrates diversity. We are rightfully proud of whom we are, but we seem not as proud of what we are. Our overt pride in our accomplished individualism is coupled with our collective wish to be entirely ethnically absorbed by America. Others have assimilated into the American melting pot, but my contention is that no group has assimilated in America to the point of extinction. There are families in North Eastern Pennsylvania called Brown (Bunni) and Joseph (Yousef) who seem more American than Mayflower descendants! What has caused this ethnic obliteration is a question that is better left to sociologists, but my guess is that it is related to the fact that many of us came from Christian Syrian villages, in a Middle East that has a now become distinctly Muslim. Also possible is a mercantile avoidance of being sucked into the Middle East conflict and an ingrained fear of being targeted by Jewish and Christian Americans because of this hot potato issue****. After 9/11 one may understand why we would be leery of celebrating our Middle Eastern heritage yet our assimilation to the point of extinction was going on before 9/11.

Syria has a storied past and is presently in a chaotic state of political renewal that’ll lead to a revival. The journey will be bloody and it will be long but it will bear fruit. It will take a long time for Syria to catch up with the rest of the world, and we Syrians in our Diaspora must play a part in this renaissance. Only by celebrating who we are (successful Americans) and what we are (Syrians) can we do so. We are a multi-religious link between two countries with a common enemy. Syria’s enemies are militant religious fundamentalists of all kinds: Muslim, Jewish and Christian. Extremists in Syria, and over here, block us from taking pride in our contributions to America. We as a group are economically culturally and religiously diverse and this may explain why we’re loath to celebrate our Syrian heritage but other issues beyond our control may contribute to our status as a covert ethnic minority.

Muslim, Christian and Jewish Syrian Americans aren’t proud of where they come from, it may be the case in other ethnic communities but I suspect it's more prevalent amongst us, and it’s high time we Syrian American Levantines get out of the closet and openly celebrate our ancestral land. In conclusion I say; love the Levant.
* Steve Jobs is the son of a Muslim Professor (Abdul Sattar al-Jandali) who lives in Homes Syria; he was raised by an Armenian couple and never spoke to his biological father.
** Munif Attasi; also from Homs Syria, and related to the al-Jandalis.
***Shannon Elizabeth, Mitchell Daniels Gov. Indiana, Wentworth Miller, Paula Abdul & Mary Rose Okar; all Syrians.
****Jerry Seinfeld’s mother is a Syrian Jew and that’s a whole other story right there.
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Other Articles:

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Leaves Damascus Amid Threats to Safety
By Anthony Shadid
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Syrian Opposition Seeks Crackdown Protection as Arab Leaders Push Talks
By Nada Bakri
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/world/middleeast/syria.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=nada%20bakri%20syrian%20opposition&st=cse

Jordan’s King Abdullah on Egypt, Syria and Israel
By Lally Weymouth
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Slapping at Syria, Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Fighters
By Liam Stack
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Syrian Forces Kill Dozens in Homs and Hama
al Jazeera
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Syrian Security Forces Fire on Rallies, Killing 30
By The Associated Press
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40 Killed Across Syria in Deadliest Friday Since May
By Nada Bakri
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/world/middleeast/40-killed-in-syria-in-deadliest-friday-protests-since-may.html?_r=1&ref=world

Syrian Army Operations Continue in Homs
al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011102910583554132.html

Dignified Resolution of the Syrian Conflict

2011-10-23T05:06:00.000-07:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

Sometimes we need a reality check to jolt us back to our senses. The recent images of the last minutes of Mouammar Gaddafi were revolting. This was the acclaimed King of Kings, the all powerful supreme leader who promised to go after the opposition in Benghazi and hunt them down like rats. Instead, in his final hours, he was cornered in a culvert on the road outside Sirt, and when he emerged from his hole a mob vented its anger and cut him down. Like a rat. The people of Libya rejoiced at his death and that of his son Moutassem who was shown lying dead among a throng of gloating and leering Libyans snapping pictures with their cell phones.

As I said, it is revolting. As much as I disagree with Arab autocratic rulers and happy for the Libyans for ridding themselves of the tyrant, there must be a more dignified way for power transfer and succession. My fear is that Syria is embarked on the same path as that of Libya. Both countries had family dynasties that monopolized power and refused to listen to reason, thinking that the enormous arsenals at their disposals would protect them from the anger and frustration of their oppressed people. Every authoritarian regime has its share of deluded hot-heads willing to fight to the last bullet and the last breath. Unfortunately, the consequences of such blind intransigence are almost always disastrous. And it is almost always ugly, as evidenced by events in Libya.

I believe that the Syrian people are better than that. I believe that the Syrian people can and will conduct themselves with more civility and dignity. I believe that the Syrian people will shun the base instincts of the vicious mob. I believe that somewhere in the Syrian community there are wise people who will prevail over the hot-heads who are driving the country into an abyss.

The Syrian opposition, nominally represented by the Syrian National Council, has expressed willingness to negotiate means to settle the conflict. The Arab League extended an offer to mediate. Other parties have also offered their offices to mediate including the Turkish government. The only impediment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict seems to be the intransigence of the Assad clan and its refusal to negotiate in good faith. Therefore, what is desperately needed now is to have someone close to the Assad regime who can council them to adopt a more reasonable and sensible attitude that will avoid disaster for themselves and the country. It may well be someone from within the Alawite community.
Hopefully, the negotiations between the Assad government and the opposition will take place soon with the assistance of a trusted mediator. The negotiations will be over the following general benchmarks:

First, the Assad clan must relinquish its monopoly on power. This is a non-negotiable condition. However, this does not mean that the Assads will be frozen out of the political process. On the contrary, the Assads in particular and the Alawites in general can exercise their right to run for office, be elected in free and fair elections and derive their political power from ballots not bullets, just like all other Syrian citizens.

Second, a transition government is formed that will oversee free and fair elections and the drafting of a new constitution.

Third, the transition government will commit itself to guarantee the safety and well being of all Syrians regardless of their faith, ethnicity or sect. All minority groups will be protected. There will be no reprisals or retribution against people because of sect or religion.

Fourth, all claims against officials will be held in abeyance until a fully functional legal system can decide on such matters in a just and fair way.

Fifth, the rights of all Syrian citizens to participate in the political process is guaranteed.

Sixth, there will be freedom of expression, assembly and association for all Syrians.

This the time for all Syrians to turn a page in their history. But it requires mature and wise leadership to steer the country away from the abyss. Syria has neither oil nor natural resources. The only resource in Syria is its industrious people. And that is why it is critically important for all Syrians to set aside their differences and come together to build the political and economic institutions that will allow everyone to enjoy freedom and prosperity.

As much as I am against the Assad regime, I don’t want to see happen in Syria what happened in Libya. The political change that will take place should be done in a dignified and civilized manner. This should be the important legacy that will pass on to future Syrian generations.
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Deaths Reported in Violence in Syria
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More Than 40 Dead in Surge of Violence in Syria
By Liz Sly
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/over-40-dead-in-surge-of-violence-in-syria/2011/10/17/gIQAGpulsL_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

17 Dead in Latest Syrian Violence
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/20111019131615796608.html

More Deaths in Syria Following Fresh Protests
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/20111021124751466784.html

Death of Gaddafi Revives Opposition in Syria
By Anthony Shadid
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world/middleeast/qaddafis-death-stirs-new-protests-and-hope-in-syria.html?_r=1&hp

Hanan Porat, our Foe or our Friend?

2011-10-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

By Ayman Hakki.

www.middleastforum.com

In early October the Washington Post had an obituary for Hanan Porat, 67, the leader of Gush Emunim; the Israeli block of the faithful. (The Washington post, Wednesday, October, 5, 2011, B5) Mr. Porat championed settlements, and was appalled at the dismantling of settlements from Gaza. As an Arab American I read his obituary with a mixed sense of horror and sympathy. On the one hand settlers have been a thorn in our side for decades, but on the other hand settlements are a divine commandment to the people of Israel. Israel is based on a Biblical myth: The Promised Land. Many dismiss religious arguments as silly superstitions, but the world seems to be getting more religious not less religious. This makes the myth a powerful weapon, especially when juxtaposed with centuries of unimaginable Jewish suffering at the hands of anti-Semites everywhere. Here in the US the Jewish Homeland is thus championed by both the Christian right (on a religious basis) and the secular left (on a humanitarian basis). Let us first deal with religion, and then move on to the issue of the civil rights of the Palestinian people.

A quick perusal of both Biblical and Koranic texts proves my point; Israel is God's will, period. Let's not dwell on the Bible, because it is full of edicts for Jews to settle the land, let's just look at the Koran. The Koran is Islam's Holy Book, and it is universally regarded by Muslims as the literal Word of God. Surat al Isra' has in it the story of Moses and Pharaoh. The exodus is depicted in a fashion that's strikingly similar to the Biblical version. Here's what one verse (17,104) says; And We said to the sons of Israel (Bani Israeel) after him, settle the land (uskoonu al ard) until the Day of promise (yaom al mee'ad) and we will return you from your scattering (laffeefa). How can the Koran be clearer about all settlements, I don't know! Skeptics who don’t believe in divinity may tune out talk of "divine decrees", but the above construct is what made people like Mr. Porat relevant, so the mythology of Promise must be dealt with adroitly.

The sticky issue is how to reconcile this "divine" injunction with the rights of the aboriginal inhabitants of this land. I say, it is easy…reparations. Bruce Feller in his book "Abraham", points towards the biblical basis of paying for this disputed land even though it is "Promised", by showing how Abraham offered to pay for a burial plot for his wife Sarah. The Hittite, who owned the land, demurred and said: You're a great leader, and the prophet of your people, and I will not take money from you! (I'm paraphrasing). Abraham (the man whose descendants were first promised the land) insisted, because he was a Godly man who would not accept to take land from anyone without compensation. Consequently, I say let Jews settle anywhere and allow non Jews to receive compensation. Then they can all live together in a land that's exclusively no one's and inclusively everyone's. We live in the twenty first century so let’s seek equal protection under Israeli law. Anyone who can afford to live anywhere should be able to live everywhere in Israel, and all over the Arab world. Our sixty year old futile bloody struggle for land must be transformed into a non-violent push for human rights for all our Palestinian brothers and sisters; including the right to reparation and civic land ownership rights in Israel.

The two state solution is becoming less and less feasible, and no one did more to make this happen than Hanan Porat. It's time we Arabs begin to get over our loss and envision a One State that celebrates diversity-not exclusivity-and where peace and prosperity live side by side.

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Sanctions Pose Threat to Syria’s Assad

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/world/middleeast/sanctions-pose-growing-threat-to-syrias-president-assad.html?_r=1&hp

Syria Demands That Nations Reject Opposition Council

By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/world/middleeast/syria-warns-countries-not-to-recognize-opposition.html?ref=syria

Clashes in Syria Leave at Least 14 Dead

By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/10/13/world/middleeast/AP-ML-Syria.html?_r=1&hp

U.N. Official Urges World to Stand Up for Syrians

By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/middleeast/navi-pillay-of-the-un-calls-for-action-on-syria.html?_r=1&hpw

Syrian Forces Kill Mourners in Damascus

Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011101512532772162.html

Would the Wealthy Sheikhs Answer the Call?

2011-10-09T05:59:00.000-07:00

By Rajai Masri

www.middleastforum.com

I am informed that the US Congress, the poodle of American Israeli Public Affair Committee (“AIPAC”), voted unanimously last Friday to deny the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) valuable direly needed aid in the amount of $200 million as a sanction to Mahmoud Abbas' bid to the UN for admission of the Occupied Territories (18% of 1948 historic Palestine) as an independent Palestinian state. Abbas' desperate move came after the US and the Quartet's failure for so many years to stop Israel's continuing systematic colonization of the Occupied Palestinian Territories; unabated confiscation of Palestinian private and public land and properties; the accelerated construction of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories; the systematic Judaization of Arab East Jerusalem and the continuous eviction of Palestinian Arab Jerusalemite families; etc., etc., etc. Yet, the American government (all branches: executive and legislative), AIPAC’s poodle had hypocritically and unjustly elected to penalize the Palestinians for their legitimate bid after half a century of a most brutal foreign occupation for a measure of self-determination as exemplified in the PA's initiative for a recognized UN Mini-Statehood.
Abbas figured, after many, many years of futile rounds of negotiation with the Israelis concurrent with Israel's unabated construction of Jewish settlements and the oppression of the Palestinians, that once Palestine is admitted and recognized as a member of the UN, then, as governed by the UN Charter, it would be eligible to invoke the rules of that Charter to finally put limits to Israel's free hand at incessant colonization of the Occupied Territories and the daily systematic and methodical destruction of Palestinian lives and properties.
In response, the Israel Poodle American Government (in all its branches) decided to sanction and penalize the Palestinians for daring to step out of line by not solely conforming to Israeli dictate, the Occupying Colonizing power, and the US and the Quartet’s directives that are open ended with a Quartet lacking the neutrality and the political will to call a spade a spade.
The U.S. and most, if not all the Western Powers, are biased and lacking the credentials to act as objective intermediaries and honest brokers. That’s a long foregone conclusion.
However, the blame for the current financial strait that the PA and the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories find themselves in and subject to the black mail of the donor Western powers, falls squarely on the rich Arab states, foremost Saudi Arabia and the other rich members of the GCC Countries. This, most ironically, rather very sadly, when these same rich countries do not feel any qualms in supporting a sagging US economy and a depreciating ill-managed American currency.
Short-sighted, myopic and indifferent, the rich Arab states are conveniently, or rather obliviously overlooking the proven indelible fact, again, and again and again of that Israel, Zionism and the US hegemonic thrust are not a solely Palestinian problem but a global problem.
At the end of the day, financial assistance to the Palestinians remains wishful thinking as the rich Sheikhs will not answer the call.

---------------------------------------------

The following obituary notice was sent by Dr. Nicolas A. Chahine, MD, FRCS, FACS:

My parents told me about Mr. Common Sense early in my life and told me I would do well to call on him when making decisions. It seems he was always around in my early years but less and less as time passed by until today I read his obituary. Please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance. For Common Sense had served us all so well for so many generations.

Obituary

Common Sense

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a class mate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Aspirin, sun lotion or a sticky plaster to a student; but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot.She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust ; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility ; and his son, Reason .
He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I'm a Victim.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Author unknown

-------------------------

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Is Israel its Own Worst Enemy?
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Syria Forces Kill Kurdish Dissenter
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/world/middleeast/leading-syrian-opposition-figure-killed-another-publicly-beaten.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=nada%20bakri%20Syria%20Forces&st=cse

Syrian Security Forces Fire on Mourners
Al Jazzera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011108102053580831.html

The Fear Factor in Syria

2011-10-02T06:14:00.000-07:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

The fear factor has been effectively used by the Assad regime to maintain power in Syria. This fear factor has two parts, overt and a covert. The overt fear factor derives from the brutal actions taken by the security forces and the army against activists and protesters. These harsh measures succeeded to some extent but have not entirely quelled the hard core opposition who have put their lives on the line in their attempt to end the dictatorship of the Assad regime. On the other hand, the covert fear factor stokes the fears and inhibitions of a significant fraction of Syrian society about the nature of the socio/political climate in post Assad Syria. This fear is not restricted to Christian minorities that was recently described by the New York Times [1]. It is also present in other groups such as secularists, elitists and those who have benefited materially from the Assad regime. And it is very hard to dispel this apprehension because to a large extent it is a subjective and irrational concern for what may happen after the fall of the current regime. It is reinforced by inertia, timidity and fear-mongering by the Syrian government controlled news media.

In order to allay this covert, almost subliminal, fear it is useful to understand its causes and premises. For instance, in the case of the Christian minority, this segment of Syrian society has established a life style that is predictable and minimalist in its aspirations. They earn a livelihood , freely practice their religion, have a close knit social network and generally keep a low political profile. They have a very clear understanding, as most Syrians, of what is and is not permissible. They accept the following: A. They do not have much say in shaping policy. B. They generally do not speak up against the government because of fear of retribution. And C. Their lives and personal safety are entirely at the mercy of the authorities since there is no legal recourse to remedy government injustice. This minority is essentially a minimalist that understands constraints and adheres to them.

The minimalists have an aversion to risk taking and prefer an imperfect situation over an uncertain future in post Assad Syria. They look at the turmoil in Iraq and the deep fissures that opened in Iraqi society after the fall of the Hussein regime and the minimalists conclude that anything is better than to go through what Iraq went through. And this in fact has been the potent weapon used by the Assad regime that has trumpeted its claim that the Syrians have to choose between the Assad status quo and the Iraqi-like mayhem that would follow if it were to be removed from power. But a comparison of the Syrian and the Hussein era situations shows both similarities and differences. Both countries are similar in the sense that they are ruled by dictatorships of minority sects ruling over a different majority sect. However, the Hussein government had a long and well known record of brutalizing the majority Shia. On the other hand, and until recently, this was not the case in Syria, even though recent events show clear signs of the Assad regime following in the same footsteps of Hussein in sending the army to crack down on Sunni towns like Hama and detaining tens of thousands of protesters. But in spite of all recent turmoil in Syria, the Sunni/Alawi schism is not as bitter as that in Iraq. In fact, the New York Times article [1] mentions Alawites who openly supported the protesters. This is not surprising given the ecumenical nature of Syrian society that cherishes its diversity. For many centuries various religious and ethnic groups have coexisted in relative harmony, being united in their common opposition to externally imposed rule. These groups include Christians, who have been in Syria for two thousand years, Sunnis, Alawites, Druze and Kurds among others. Even Jews were an integral part of Syrian society, having lived there many centuries before Christianity. Therefore, inter-faith and inter-ethnic harmony has deep roots in Syria. Unless the present Assad regime succeeds in its attempt to inflame sectarian tensions, past history shows a collaborative and reasonably amicable relationship between the various groups.

The above positive view can be undermined by two disruptive elements, radical Islamists and die-hard Assad supporters. Both these groups can bring disaster to the country by pursuing militant, violent and divisive actions. In addition, the next several months will be crucial in determining the future course of events in post Assad Syria. It is therefore critically important that the Syrian opposition achieve two important objectives. First, make it amply clear that it is first and foremost a freedom movement that will replace four decades of dictatorship and that it is devoid of any sectarian motives. Second, the opposition must follow a disciplined, tolerant and inclusive platform that will set the political agenda in future Syria. This will counteract the disruptive acts of the extremists and reassure the minorities and the uncommitted that the post Assad Syria will be the traditionally ecumenical and harmonious Syria that was the norm before the Assads took over.

Finally, it must be emphasized that there are no guarantees in life, least of all political events in the Middle East. For the uncommitted minimalists, their fears of the unknown, their timidity, and their built in inertia are factors that prevent them from actively supporting the freedom movement. Notwithstanding the legitimate concerns that they have about future Syria, ultimately they will have to act on the basis of faith in the goodness of their fellow countrymen and in the hope for a free and democratic country. Most of the present generation of Syrians were not around when Syria gained independence, so they don’t have firsthand knowledge of how some of the minority Christians were in the vanguard of the movement that struggled for independence. No one gave those Christian leaders a written guarantee of what will happen in Syria after independence. They were Syrian nationalists who acted on faith and conviction. After independence many became major political leaders when some were elected to parliament and others were given ministerial posts. Their faith was confirmed. Every Syrian then and now must believe that there is room in the country for everyone including secularists, Islamists, Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druze, Kurds and Jews. But the key to such collaborative coexistence is trust, tolerance and the firm belief that in the final analysis everyone is equal and has a stake in a free Syria.

[1] Christians Fear Future in Syria Beyond AssadNew York Times , Sept. 28, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/middleeast/fearing-change-syria-christians-back-bashar-al-assad.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=christians%20fear%20future%20syria%20beyond%20assad&st=cse
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Other Articles:

Homs Takes on Tone of a Civil War
New York Times, Oct.2, 2011

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44747003/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/

Fatalities Reported in Latest Round of Syrian Protests
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/world/middleeast/syrias-day-of-protest-and-violence.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=nada%20bakri%20fatalities%20Syrian%20protests&st=cse

Dozens Killed in Syria Protests
Al Jazzera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/20119301527522457.html

Why Israel Can’t be a “Jewish State”
By Sari Nusseibeh

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192614417586774.html

Throw the Palestinians Under the Bus

2011-09-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

Clamor American Politicians

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

When Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel addressed the Congress of the U.S. last May, 2011, he must have set a record for the number of standing ovations he received [1]. Someone counted thirty six applauses, and I am under the impression that he got a standing ovation when he cleared his throat. And, as if that did not set a low point for the U.S. Congressional groveling to Israel and its Jewish voters, there comes news in the New York Times [2] that the State Department pleaded with Prime Minister Netanyahu to urge visiting members of Congress to vote for an appropriation bill. Mr. Netanyahu was quite accommodating and during a meeting in Jerusalem urged members of Congress to vote for the bill. “One of the members of Congress who attended the meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in August, Representative Michael G. Grimm of New York, a Republican, said that it was carefully explained to the delegation that the money would be used for training Palestinian police officers who work closely with the Israeli government. Mr. Grimm said he felt more comfortable receiving the explanation from the prime minister than from Obama administration officials”. [2]

The Republican Presidential candidates are trampling over each other in their stampede to curry favor with Israel and its Jewish supporters. Rick Perry accuses the Obama administration of “appeasing” the Palestinians while Mitt Romney accuses the Obama administration of “throwing Israel under the bus” [3]. Given the well known record of the Obama administration in supporting Israel, Romney’s charge is patently preposterous. But what Romney is actually promising by his statement is that if elected president he will throw the Palestinians under the bus. He has correctly sensed the political winds on the campaign trail shifting towards overt hostility towards the Palestinians. But realistically, besides the inflammatory rhetoric, what more punishment does Romney think he can inflict on the hapless Palestinians? In addition to the confiscation of their lands by the Israeli government and its Jewish settlers, the constant raids and detentions that Palestinians suffer at the hands of Israeli authorities, the daily indignities of searches, what further punishment does Mr. Romney think that Palestinians deserve? Mahmoud Abbas was recently quoted as having said “I’m alone, betrayed by the United States, betrayed by Israel and by everyone else” [3]. This heartfelt but belated admission is surprising. We have been saying for years that the Palestinians should not put their trust in the good intentions of the U.S. acting as an honest broker. Why Abbas pursued his fool’s errand with the U.S./Israeli charade for the last several years is a total mystery. He certainly is not naïve. But if it was a political calculation on his part he should ask himself the critical question of whether the financial support he got from the U.S. during the last several years is worth the Palestinian land that was lost to Jewish settlements and by confiscation by the Israeli authorities.

Besides the hostile political atmosphere in the U.S. towards the Palestinians there is little doubt that U.S. Middle East policy is shaped in Jerusalem and not Washington D.C. In the latest foreign policy decision about admitting Palestine as a state to the U.N. , the U.S. has threatened to veto the measure. This places the U.S. at odds with the rest of the world. The death grip that Israel exercises over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has isolated the U.S. on the world stage as never before. This isolation has undermined the traditional role of the U.S. as a world power. Policy makers in Washington err if they believe that genuine world power emanates strictly from the number of American bases and aircraft carriers around the globe. This military might must be coupled with moral authority. And this is precisely what is missing in the present morally bankrupt alliance between the U.S. and Israel that denies Palestinians justice and dignity. Many erstwhile allies are coming to the conclusion that the unbalanced U.S. policy in the Middle East has rendered it irrelevant. Even America’s trusted allies in Europe are giving up on America’s ability to provide moral leadership. France’s Alain Juppe told reporters that the United States “cannot do it alone in negotiations for the Middle East peace and that a collective approach was needed” [4].

Unfortunately, for the U.S. to be perceived as irrelevant should not be taken lightly. It has serious consequences and a very high cost. In a recent article, Prince Turki al Faisal warned the U.S. about casting a veto to block the admission of Palestine to the U.N. [5]. The U.S. has strategic and economic interests in the Middle East that will be compromised if the U.S. is perceived to be irrelevant. These interests cover the whole gamut of military bases, nuclear proliferation, oil production, regional matters between Gulf States and Iran, trade balances, financial support of the dollar, etc. etc. Therefore irrelevance will inevitably lead to serious harm to U.S. interests.

In conclusion, when American politicians engage in demagoguery and promise to “throw the Palestinians under the bus” they are in effect undermining America’s national interests. American voters are well advised to keep a watchful eye on such toxic rhetoric. And when the phone rings around dinner time and the caller solicits political contribution to this or that candidate running for office, do a quick check before committing your hard earned money. Does the candidate have your best interests in mind or does the candidate get his/her voting instructions from Jerusalem or its AIPAC lobby in Washington D.C.?

[1] “Is Arab Spring Spreading to U.S. Congressional Staffs?”

By Franklin Lamb
http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2011/06/is-arab-spring-spreading-to-us.html
[2] “House G.O.P. Tightens Its Bond With Netanyahu”

By Jennifer Steinhauer and Steven Myers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/world/middleeast/house-gop-finds-a-growing-bond-with-netanyahu.html?scp=2&sq=republicans%20support%20israel&st=cse
[3] Taking a Stand, and Shedding Arafat’s Shadow
By Neil MacFarquhar and Ethan Bronner
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/at-un-a-moment-for-abbas-to-shed-arafats-shadow.html?scp=1&sq=Neil%20MacFarquhar%20Ethan%20Bronner%20Arafat's%20Shadow&st=cse

[4] “Obama Rebuffed as Palestinians Pursue U.N. Seat”

By Helen Cooper and Steven Lee Myers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/obama-rebuffed-as-palestinians-pursue-un-seat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=helen%20cooper%20steven%20lee%20myers%20obvama%20rebuffed&st=cse
[5] “Veto a State, Lose an Ally”
Turki al Faisal

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/opinion/veto-a-state-lose-an-ally.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=faisal%20turki&st=cse

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The Case for the Syrian Regime

By Ban al Keilani

www.middleastforum.com

لاول مرة يطلب مني ان اكتب عن شخص معين وبصراحة تامة, بدأت حركة الاصلاح في سورية من اللحظة الاولى التي استلم الرئيس بشار الاسد القيادة في سورية. لم يكن خطاب القسم تقليديا بل كان خطة متميزة بدأت ترى النور وبدأنا نرى بصماتها في كل نواحي حياتنا. اتصدقان انه قال يومها < الاخطاء كثيرة وعليكم مساعدتي باصلاحها فأنا لا املك عصا سحرية يمكنني بها تقويم الاوضاع بين ليلة وضحاها > وبدأ الجميع يأكلون الحبز المدعم ويتعلمون في المدارس بالمجان وكذلك يتعالجون في المستشفيات. لكن من يسمون انفسهم بالمعارضة رفضت الصبر ودفعت بمجموعة من المغرر بهم الى الشارع باسم المطالبات السليمة وبدأ الابرياء يتسافطون ليتهم بقتلهم حماة الديار الذين كانوا دائما وسيبقون ابدا درع الوطن الحصين. واصر سيادة الرئيس على الاجتماع بكافة فئات الشعب ومعرفة مطالبهم, والبحث عن المسوؤلين عن جرائم القتل ومحاكمتهم..ومع الوقت تكشف لنا ان هناك مجموعات مسلحة تقتل وتنسب ذلك الى حماة الديار لتأجيج المواقف وكان ذلك يتم بأسلحة اتتنا من الخارج. في كل جمعة كنا نعاني من مظاهرات اكثرها مفبركة ا ما الغير مفبركة فمدفوع لاصحابها من ذوي النفوس الضعيفة اما المخيمات على الحدود التركية فقد قام الاتراك بنصبها على الحدود قبل شهرين من الاحداث واكثر من لجأ اليها هم المهربون وقدعاد الجميع الى بيوتهم بعد هدوء الحال في المنطقة
اما الهجمة الاعلامية فحدث ولا حرج فقد كرست لها وسائل الاعلام الاوربية والامريكية والعربية وعندما احس الناس بما يجري وخفت وطأة التظاهر وخاصة بعد الجمعة التي سميت ( بجمعة التدخل الاجنبي) فقد صاروا يخطفون ويقتلون باسم ان حركة الاحتجاج ما زالت مستمرة. الرئيس بشار الاسد عندما غير الحكومة في اثناء الاحداث طلب من الجميع النزول الى مستوى الناس وسماع شكواهم فصار هناك طاقم من كل وزارة يستمع لشكاوي الناس ومحاولة حلها اسبوعيا. انه الشهر السادس من عمر الازمة وزوايا المؤامرة على سوريا تتهاوى امام تماسك حماة الديار مع الشعب الواعي والرئيس الشاب ذو النفس الطويل حبيب الملايين الذين نزلوا الى الشوارع لاثبات حبهم له. . انا مع الرئيس بشار الاسد في هذه الازمة واعتبره رجل الفترة وكل فترة فهو اثبت نجاحه في هذه الفترة من حياة بلاد تحتضن اقدم عاصمة مأهولة في العالم عمرها (9000 ) سنة الرئيس بشار الاسد رجل لهذا الزمن ,. ولكل زمان دولة ورجال.. يا ناس.. يا عالم.. خلصت.. خلصت.. وفشلت .. فشلت.. وسوريا ستخرج اقوى برئيسها وجيشها وشعبها ولله الحمد دائما وابدا..بان الكيلاني..مواطنة سورية تعشق سورية وشعبها وجيشها ورئيسها .

Controversial Quranic Verses

2011-09-18T04:50:00.000-07:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

Western detractors of Islam site several Quranic verses as evidence of alleged hostility of Islam towards Jews and Christians. The most commonly sited verse is Surah 5 verse 51 (s 5:51). However, a careful study of history and a thorough understanding of the Quran prove that such claims of hostility are wrong.

It is well known that (s 5:51) is a Medina verse, delivered well after the Prophet’s hijrah from Mecca to Medina (Yathrib at that time). This hijrah, which is a milestone in Islam, took place after careful negotiations between the Muslims and the inhabitants of Medina, and the signing of an agreement that became known as the Medina Constitution. In this joint compact, the parties to the alliance that included the Muslims, the Arab and the Jewish tribes of Medinah, agreed to protect and defend each other, and resolve their disputes by arbitration.

After the Prophet moved to Medina, the Muslims fell into hard economic times, and they tried to alleviate their material want by launching raids on the Meccan trade routes with Syria. In the first armed encounter between the Meccans and the Muslims, the Meccan army was defeated in the battle of Badr. The Meccans decided to seek revenge and put an end to the threat of the Muslims by assembling a large army that was sent to destroy the Muslims in their new sanctuary in Medina. The size of the Meccan army was much larger than that of the Muslims’, and prospects of defeat of the Muslims looked real. In addition, the Meccans were the recognized wealthy traders of the Arabia as opposed to the destitute Muslims of Medina at that time. The Jewish tribe of Nadir sensed an impending defeat of their Muslim allies and made secret contact with the Meccans thus violating their agreement and betraying the Prophet.

In the resulting battle of Uhud the Meccan army triumphed and could have finished off the Muslims had they not broken off the engagement prematurely thinking that the Prophet had been killed (when in fact he was wounded). After the battle and when it became known to the Prophet that the Nadir tribe had betrayed him he expelled them from Medina. The Quran says

Q (s 5:51) “ O ye who believe, take not the Jews or the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust”.

The second attempt by the Meccans to destroy the Muslims was in the battle of the trenches. Leading up to the encounter, the Meccans solicited the assistance of the Jewish tribe of Qurayzah by promising them material rewards if they abandoned the Prophet. At that juncture, the Muslims were in an extremely precarious position. The Meccan army not only outnumbered the Muslim army but it also flaunted its wealth to make it clear to everyone the benefit of switching sides. The ploy worked, and the Jewish Qurayzah tribe figured that the Muslims, who were almost annihilated in the previous battle, will surely lose in the second encounter. In addition, the Meccans were promising all those who switch to their side material rewards for their cooperation. So the Qurayzah tribe switched sides, conspired to have the Prophet assassinated and withheld badly needed arms from the Muslim army before and during battle.

Q (s 5:52) “Those in whose hearts is a disease thou seest how eagerly they run about amongst them saying ‘We fear lest a change of fortune bring us disaster’. Ah! Perhaps God will give (Thee) victory or a decision according to His will, then will they repent of the thoughts which they secretly harbored in their hearts”

The Meccan assault failed in the battle of the trenches. In spite of several attempts to breach the defenses around Medina, the attack failed and the Meccan army withdrew. When fighting was over the Muslims urged the Prophet to take punitive action against the Qurayzah tribe for their treachery.

Q (s5:53) “ And those who believe will say: Are these the men who swore their strongest oaths by God, that they were with you?’ All that they do will be in vain, and they will fall into ruin”

But the Prophet, being an aggrieved party, recused himself from judging the action of the treacherous tribe. Instead, he turned over the matter to be arbitrated by an elderly Jewish tribal chief, Sa’d ibn Mu’adh. Sa’d heard the case and decided it according to Deuteronomy

(Deuteronomy 20:12) “When the Lord thy God hath delivered it unto thy hands, thou shalt smite every male therin with the sword: but the women and the little ones and the cattle and all that is in the city even all the spoils thereof shalt thou take unto thyself.”

Thus, the sentence on the Qurayzah tribe was in accordance with Jewish law. [1,2]

When these Quranic verses are properly interpreted according to their historical context, the meaning becomes clear. The Quran is here giving Muslims cautionary advice to be self reliant and not to entrust their safety and well being to non-Muslims. There is no hostility, neither explicit nor implicit, intended towards monotheistic co-religionists. In fact, the Quran is very clear that the three monotheistic religions share the same roots. The operative Quranic verse is

Q (s 3:84) “say, we believe in God and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob and the tribes, and in the Book given to Moses, Jesus, and the Prophet from the Lord: We make no distinction between one and another among them, and to God do we bow our will”.

The above historical clarification is important to point out both to Western detractors of Islam as well as to radical Muslims who have lately targeted Christians. The Prophet and the original Islam not only tolerated Christians and Jews but viewed them as respected members of the Abrahamic religion. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Prophet coddled members of these two faiths and happily accepted them into his ranks. In fact he married two Jewish women.

[1] The best source of detailed history of the early days of Islam is available in the book “Muhammad” by Martin Lings, Inner Traditions, Rochester Vermont, 1983. He uses the earliest available references of Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa’d, Waqidi and others who wrote their accounts decades after the death of the Prophet.
[2] In the book “Muhammad and the Believers” (Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass, 2010), the author Fred M. Donner sites historical evidence that suggests that the number of men of Qurayzah who were killed may have been highly exaggerated.
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Other Articles:

Veto a State, Lose an Ally
Turki al Faisal

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/opinion/veto-a-state-lose-an-ally.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=faisal%20turki&st=cse

Envoys to Syria Attend Activist’s Vigil
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/20119148312213404.html

Syrian Opposition Unites in New Council
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/2011915141543350254.html

In Syrian Town, Uprising Turns Into Grim Standoff
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/world/middleeast/in-syrian-town-uprising-turns-into-grim-standoff.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=nada%20bakri%20syria%20memo&st=cse

Dozens Reported Dead in Syrian Crackdown

Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/201191741151675961.html

Syria’s Protesters Starting to Resort to Violence

By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/middleeast/at-least-six-protesters-killed-in-syria.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=anthony%20shadid%20Syria%20protests%20resort%20to%20violence&st=cse

The Alternate Universe of Syrian Pro-Regime Loyalists

2011-09-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

There are two widows into the alternate universe of the Syrian pro-regime loyalists. The first is the interview with Rami Makhlouf that Anthony Shadid reported in the New York Times [1].The other is the comment made by anonymous and posted on this blog on Sept. 4, 2011 [2]. Both regime loyalists argue that the uprising
“… isn’t a struggle between an unarmed population rising to demand liberty and justice, and armed regime thugs backed by republican guards. That’s what the new networks and anti-regime bloggers want you to think is the case.”
Rather, regime loyalists claim that
“ [It] is a war waged against the regime, a regime that has ruled the country for 40 years. …Today Syria is under siege. Media savvy western parties, financed by peninsular Arabs, are creatively doing the bidding of the U. S. and Israel. Frustrated underemployed Islamist youths have been expertly manipulated into rioting looting and killing by these outside parties who wish to return all Arab countries to the Stone Age. They want to do as they did first in Iraq, and now in Libya.”
There is a curious lack of mention of Tunis, Egypt and Bahrain. The people in Tunis reached the breaking point in their frustration with their oppressive and corrupt rulers. The Tunisian uprising was triggered by a street vendor whose cart was confiscated because of lack of permit, and was slapped by an official, and in a state of despair set himself on fire. The people of Tunis rioted and toppled the regime. Similarly, the youths of Egypt went to Tahrir square and staged peaceful demonstrations against the Mubarak regime and its feared security forces. They persisted until they prevailed. The Shiite protesters in Bahrain staged similar protests against the minority Sunni rulers, demanding equal access to jobs, education and opportunities. Teenage kids in Dara’a voiced their disapproval of the Assad regime by painting graffiti and were arrested and tortured. The body of a young protester was returned to his family bearing clear signs of torture. When the people of Dara’a rose in protest against the brutality of the Syrian security forces they were shot and killed by the dozens. When the Syrian army attacked Hama security forces arrested dozens of protesters. The Attorney General Mohammed Adnan al-Bakkour resigned in protest against the torture and killing of detainees and had to go into hiding after security forces went hunting for him [3]. Few if any of the above protesters and activists are Islamist extremists. None of the above (as far as I know) are agents of foreign powers spreading dissention in Arab countries. They are ordinary citizens demanding freedom from oppression and the accord of basic human dignity. The Arab people are finally waking up and demanding a voice in their destiny through democratic reforms. The media did not agitate for the uprisings in Tunis, Egypt, Bahrain and Syria. In fact foreign media are prohibited from covering the Syrian uprising. If Syria is indeed the victim of pernicious media coverage, then the solution is trivially simple. Open the doors for journalists to enter Syria and allow them unhindered access to the Syrian people and a view of the internal conflict. Remove the iron curtain of secrecy that shields the Syrian people from the truth and keeps them in the dark with access only to one news agency, the government controlled SANA.
“Corruption and a lack of political liberties are common and safeguarding of majority rights is nonexistent. This condition is not unique in the region; it is an average Middle East state that offers Syrians stability and national pride (by supporting the Palestinian cause).”

So the logic of the Syrian pro-regime loyalists is that corruption and oppression are the norm in the Arab world, and the Syrians might as well get used to it and should have no reason to complain since they were afforded stability. This is like the man who was criticized for beating his wife, and he justified his action by claiming that all the men in his village beat their wives. Besides, he gives her food and shelter.
“All things being equal, as far as the culture of Arab rulers, the stance of the Syrian regime Vis a Vis Israel (and the rejection of Israeli inspired Western hegemony) is the major outlier distinguishing Syria’s regime from other Middle East states. Therefore, it stands to reason that this issue is the determining factor in the campaign against Syria.”
Therefore, the thinking goes, since Syria is the bulwark against Israel, there is a foreign conspiracy by Israel and its western supporters (usually the U.S.) to destabilize the Syrian regime. But the problem with this argument is that it flies in the face of known facts. The Assad regime has failed to recover the Golan heights in its forty year tenure over the Syrian state. In addition, in the early stages of the Syrian uprising news agencies were quizzing Israeli officials about their position relative to the unrest in Syria. The unanimous official Israeli opinion was that they would rather see the Assad government stay in power because they “prefer the devil they know over the devil they don’t know”. The same Israeli policy applied to the Mubarak regime. Just before Mubarak resigned he called an Israeli official and complained that his position was becoming increasingly precarious. The Israeli government advised the U.S. State Department to either support Mubarak or at least stay neutral. As a result the State Department remained circumspect until President Obama took the unusual step of asking for Mubarak to step down. As for Syria, the interview with Rami Makhlouf is amply revealing when he says
“If there is no stability here [Syria], there’s no way there will be stability in Israel,”
which clearly and unequivocally asserts that the survival of the Assad regime is in the best interests of Israel.
And for Saudi Arabia, the pro-government loyalists say
“ To have Saudi Arabia call for reform is laughable”.
Indeed. But Saudi Arabia is not calling for reform. Saudi Arabia is calling for the Alawite Syrian army to stop slaughtering Sunni civilians. As the titular head of Sunni Muslims, Saudi Arabia feels duty bound to come to their assistance during times when the Sunnis are subjected to maltreatment. Democracy and freedom are not the highest priority of the Saudi government. But sectarian bloodshed is, if it involves Sunnis.
In conclusion, Syrian pro-regime loyalists must see facts as they really are and stop living in a make-belief alternate universe of conspiracies and fantasies. The Assad government is sectarian to the core, deriving its strength from a small circle of powerful Alawites in the army, intelligence service and security apparatus. The crackdown on protesters is shaping up as a sectarian struggle between the minority Alawites, who do not want to relinquish power, and the majority Sunnis who are chafing under an oppressive regime that has not served well the vast majority of Syrians. The only people who have a distinct advantage in present day Syria are the Alawites who are favored in important positions and in business dealings.
This untenable situation must change.
“By setting milestones and resigning only to jump back into the political arena you [President Assad] would be implementing reforms you have been advocating for 10 years. If you foresee a bright future for Syria, then the risk you personally, and Syria, would be taking by doing so will immunize the nation from future disasters like the one being cooked up for us today. “

Amen. Except replace “disaster like the one being cooked up for us today” with “disaster that is of our own making”.

[1] Anthony Shadid, “Syrian Elite to Fight to the End” New York Times, May, 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/world/middleeast/11makhlouf.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=shadid%20Syrian%20elite&st=cse
[2] Ayman Hakki, “Syria, Is it Too Late?”

http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2011/09/syria-is-it-too-late.html
[3] Nada Bakri “Syrian Official in Hama Resigns to Protest Bloodshed “ New York Times, Sept. 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/world/middleeast/02syria.html?_r=1&hp

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Other Articles:
Syrians Report Killings as Troops Hunt for Defectors
By Nada Bakri
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/middleeast/08syria.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=nada%20bakri%20syrians%20defectors&st=cse

Deaths Reported on Fresh Syrian Assault
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/20119785531287269.html
In Shift, Iran’s President Calls for End to Syria’s Crackdown
By Neil MacFarquhar

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/world/middleeast/09iran.html?_r=1&hpw
Protesters Call for Foreign Observersal Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/2011992053232148.html
Syrian Protesters Call for Protection From President Assad’s Crackdown
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/world/middleeast/10syria.html?_r=1&hpw

Syria, is it too late?

2011-09-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

By Ayman Hakki MD

www.middleastforum.com

Syrians of all stripes have seemingly come to the conclusion that civil war is inevitable. Those who oppose the regime (group A) are full of righteous indignation and have resigned ourselves to massive loss in life and wealth.
They have concluded that the carnage will be a down payment we must pay in order to get rid of the regime. Conversely, those who support the regime ( group B) have concluded that this is a fight to the death between the Islamist and Zionist enemies of Syria and Syria’s minorities, especially the Allawite minority. Then, there's our group C the mercantile silent majority who inhabit our two major cities; and me. Yes, me. I'm a Brand Syrian so I never say yes or no. I say yes…but [1]. If anything explains why the Assad regime still controls Syria it is us, our group C.

If groups A and B are right then we are looking at tens of thousands of deaths to come, and an economic disaster that will require decades, not years, to recover. I say it does not have to be so, and I stress that there’s a non violent way to affect change. I may be the only one outside Syria who belongs to group C. My wife calls us Mouzabzabeen, or flip-floppers. We, in group C, have felt the pain inflicted on our fellow Syrians and we are loath to talk to the regime, but we feel it is a must. We understand that it’s hard to be objective when you feel victimized and angry… but it has to be done. A compromise must be reached, even if it is not the optimal solution for any side of the conflict. If all Allawis and their supporters feel mortally threatened nothing will make them give up their stranglehold on Syria. The collapse of Qaddafy, the indignation heaped on us by the Arab league, and the voiced worries of Iran and Russia, have wetted the appetites of the opposition. The regime is now convinced that it is cornered and must fight to the end. Some insiders have made the determination that they can weather the storm by using brute force. Another impediment to solving the conflict is the reluctance of the Assad ruling clan to relinquish power. The scenario they're spinning to their kinsmen and our minorities is "if we go down…you all go down". They may not be altogether wrong.

Our first priority is to find a figure (like the head of the mayoral council of Banyas, Muhammad Adnan Al-Shoufari) and enroll him in playing the Martin Luther King role. MLK made white Americans feel safe in giving black Americans their civil rights. Mandela later on inspired by MLK and Gandhi made Afrikaner whites feel safe in giving black South Africans their full rights. And a Syrian Mandela must be found: An opposition leader who's reputable and can make it easy for the Allawites and their associates to cede political power to the disenfranchised Syrian majority. Making the Allawite sect feel safe is our greatest challenge and it can be done. Some argue that the regime will fall eventually, and then we'll deal with these issues. They postulate that it's futile to talk to this bloody regime and it must fall before we even begin to consider rapprochement. This is vengeful procrastination. We need to be proactive and magnanimous in order to save Syria, all of Syria, from the calamity that we are facing. Here’s how we can do it:

One; talk to the regime. As distasteful as it is to talk to people who have ordered their followers to shell minarets, invade mosques, kill and torture thousands, and even assault celebrated cartoonists…it must be done.

Two; assure our minorities that their safety is guaranteed by the opposition if they disassociate themselves from the regime, and that future prosecutions will target only those responsible for crimes but not their associates or sect.

Three; assign a third party of some weight to oversee, and if needed enforce, the terms agreed upon by the negotiators on both sides…Turkey, or the Arab Union, or even the European Union can play that role. Someone, anyone, should do it.

Four; President Assad must accept responsibility for mistakes and hand control over to a military council that's empowered to schedule free elections, elections in which no one is barred from running. Let’s see how Bashar does in genuinely free elections.

Five; release political prisoners and pay the “diya” (blood money) to the families of martyrs on both sides. Allow freedom of assembly and expression, and carry out the 13 reforms posted months ago by Ibrahim al Amine [2] .

In conclusion, the middle way is the best way. After all we are Syrians, and to inflict injustice on any of our sects because a few of that sect's members have inflicted injustice on all of us...is not a solution. It is a prescription for
a disaster of immense magnitude. My colleague Dr. Assad said that our job as physicians is to strengthen our patient's immunity to "germs." I must respectfully disagree. Our oath as doctors is, first and foremost, do no harm.

[1] Ayman Hakki, “Brand Syria”

http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2007/07/brand-syria.html

[2] Ayman Hakki, “Syria, the Race Between Sedition and Reform”,

http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2011/04/syria-race-between-sedition-and-reform.html

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Other Articles:

Syrian Official Resigns Over Torture and Executions
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/08/2011831212956927978.html

Syria Hunts for Leaders of Protests in Hama
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/world/middleeast/01hama.html?_r=1&hpw

Syrian Official in Hama Resigns to Protest Bloodshed
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/world/middleeast/02syria.html?_r=1&hp

Isolating Assad
New York Times Editorial

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/opinion/isolating-assad.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=assad&st=cse

Many Killed in Protests Across Syria
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/09/201192132336758932.html

Don’t Fear Islamic Law in America
By Eliyahu Stern

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/opinion/dont-fear-islamic-law-in-america.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=eliyahu%20stern&st=cse

Syria’s New Leaders:

2011-08-21T04:36:00.000-07:00

The Activists

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

With the end of the Assad rule of Syria within sight, it is worthwhile to take stock of its legacy. The last four decades can best be described as stability imposed by a Stalinist type political repression. Both Hafez al Assad and his son Bashar relied on an ubiquitous and fearsome security apparatus that kept close watch on everyone who is anyone. Even minor dissent or questioning of authority was met with imprisonment if not torture and disappearance. The result was an oppressive political system that maintained itself through a reign of terror. The only permissible political agenda was that imposed by the Assad clan.

The four decades of political repression and intimidation stifled political thought and deprived an entire generation of Syrians of genuine political leaders who can offer an alternative agenda to the Assad dynastic rule. In the major cities of Damascus and Aleppo, the traditional power centers, it was a period of sterile politics and a dearth of genuine discourse and debate. It was the political dark age for Syria. Therefore, by default, the post Assad Syrian leadership will emerge from young activists and protesters who have carried the torch of freedom in the streets of Dara’a, Homs, Hama and Deir al Zore among others. Their strength and general appeal derive from the humanity and universality of their aspirations, namely freedom and dignity. While the wealthy fat cats of Damascus and Aleppo, who have been neutered by the Assad regime, fret about protecting their fortunes, the young activists are braving bullets and risking their lives in their strive for freedom. And despite the fact that the new social contract has not been articulated in detail, its basic premise is to regain basic human rights and freedom for Syrians. The gist of the new social contract for Syria is the following:

I. Protection of Personal Freedom and Dignity: The future Syria will have laws and institutions that safeguard the right of its citizens to free speech, assembly and religion. Syrians will be free to engage in political discourse, form parties and weigh in on measures and laws of the State without fear of reprisals. This might lead to what some cynics will describe as cacophonous political atmosphere. But the robust political debate that is the hallmark of a free and diverse society will surely be an improvement over the sullen acquiescence imposed by the Assad police state.

II. Robust and Independent Judicial System: The courts should be the only institution that adjudicate on personal activity. The courts should be independent of the executive and the legislative branches in order to insure fair application of the law. This will put an end to state sponsored thuggery and illegal arrests and detentions.

III. A Just Syrian Constitution: The future Syrian constitution will outline the general legal framework of the State. It guarantees freedom of speech, religion and assembly. It further protects minority rights and codifies the legal framework that insures that all Syrians will be treated equally irrespective of their gender, religion or ethnicity.

Finally, political pundits will debate how the struggle for political power will play out in the post Assad Syria between the Baathists, the Islamic fundamentalists, the secularists, etc. etc. All such prognostications are to a large extent beside the point. The emerging free Syria will be a populist country that will chart its own course based on the consensus of its own citizens. And the most important attribute of the future Syria is that it will be a country based on freedom, justice, inclusiveness and respect for human rights. And it will be led by young nationalists who will bring much needed fresh political thinking. Future Syrian leaders will come from the young generation who fought tyranny and paid the price of freedom with their blood. They will be the vanguard of a new Syrian awakening.
---------------------------------------------
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A Poem
By Ahmad Hassan Almaqdissi
( A friend sent this poem to me. It is impossible to translate it into English without losing its eloquence and beauty. So it is reproduced here in its original Arabic form for the benefit of those fortunate to appreciate it. BWH)

قصيدة للشاعر والاكاديمي
العربي الكبير
د. أحمد حسن المقدسي
مدينة القدس الشريف
elmaqdisi@hotmail.com

***

لا بوشُُ أنصَـفـَنا ولا أوبـــــــــاما ومَــضى الجميــعُُ يبيعـُـنا أوهــــاما
لا جـاءَ وَعـْـــدُُ الخـَـيـِّرينََ بـِدولةٍٍ كـــلا، ولا أمـَـــلٌ هُـــناكََ تـَـــرامى
والشعبُُ صامََ على الوعود ِ حياتـَهُُلكــنَّه وجـَــدََ الفـُــطورََ سـُـــخاما

قــرْنٌ تـَــدَحْرجَ مُـثـْقـَلاً بـِــدمائِنا
كـَــقطارِ مَــوتٍ يـَــزرعُ الآلامـــا

كـُلُّ الممالـِكِ لمْ تكنْ مِـنْ حولِنا
إلا كـِــلاباً تحْــرُسُ الحــاخـامـا

هــذي بــلادٌ لا بــلادَ بـِــها، فقد
أضـْحتْ حـُـطاماً يـَسْـتـَجـِرُّ حـُـطاما

طالَ الضـياعُ بأمـةٍ ذلـَّـتْ، ومـِـنْ
جـَوْفِ المـَـزابـِلِ تـُـخـْرجُ الحُـكـَّاما
***
خــازوقُ أوبــاما يـَــسُدُّ حُـلوقـَكم بـِتـُّـم علـى صـَـحْنِ اللــئيمِ يتـــامى
هــل غــيرُكمْ أحــدٌ يـُـقدِّسُ سـِــرَّه حـتى غــدا للمـُــسلمينَ إمــــــاما؟؟
فـتفاوَضــوا، وتـَـذللــوا، وتوسـَّـــلوالِـيُـؤخِّــروا اسـْــتيطانـَنا أيــــــاما

فـي ذاتِ قـَـرْنٍ قادِمٍ سَـتـُفاوضون
حـَــفيد َ بـِـنيامين َ أو أوبــــاما

في حيـْـنِها سـَـتـُفاوضونَ لـِـيُرْجـِـعوا
قـبْرَ الرســولِ... ويَتـْركــوا الأهــراما

فمتى ســيقتنِـعُ المُـفاوضُ أنَّ آلـِهة َ
المـَجازرِ لا تـُـقدِّمُ للكـلابِ عـِـظاما؟؟

وبأنَّ دُكـَّــانَ التـفاوضِ والتـَّــذلـَّل ِ
لا يَبــيع ُ إلـى الضـَّـعيفِ سـَـلاما؟؟

وبأنَّ رقـْــصَ المـُفـْـلـِـسينَ مـَـذلـَّةٌ
مـِـثلَ النـِّـعاجِ تـُـغـازلُ الضـِّـرغاما ؟؟
***
أسْتـَـلُّ مـِـن ْ دِفءِ الفـِراشِ قريحتـيومـِـن الوســائدِ أُوقِـــظُ الإلـــهاما
يـَتـَرنـَّحُ القِــرطاسُ طــوْعَ أنامـِــلي والياسـَــمينُ يُهـامِـــسُ الأنـْـــساما
فإذا المـُـصيبةُ ما تــزال ُ مـُــــصيبة ً واللـــيلُ يسكبُ في الــظلامِ ظـــــلاما
وإذا الـــعُروبة ُ فـي الـــزوايا جـُــثـَّة ٌأضــحتْ لِكـُــلِّ الآكـِلــينَ طـَـــعاما

في مَـوْقـدِ الكلماتِ يـَـذوي حـُـلـْـمُنا
والشعْبُ يـَطبُخُ في القـُــدورِ كـَــلاما

أخــتاه ُ صـَـبْراً، فالأئمــة ُ قــرَّروا
أن ْ ينصـُــروكِ تـَـهَدُّجَـاً وصِـــياما

صـبراً، فحـُـكـَّامُ العــروبةِ قــرروا
أنْ يُـرسِــلوا للمـَـيِّتين َ خِـــــياما

ومـُـهرِّجُ الأعـْـرابِ مـِـنْ دكـَّـانه
ما زال يــبعثُ للـــعُراةِ سـَـــلاما

والناسُ تـُــذبحُ مِنْ زعـــيمٍ جــائِرٍ
وأئمــــةٍ تـَتـَمَـلَّـقُ الأقـــزاما

ومِـنَ الأئمـةِ مَــنْ تصـيحُ لِـعُـهرهِ:
سـُـبحانَ َمـنْ جـعلَ الحـِـمارََ إمــاما
***
إبكـي كما شــاءَ البـُـكاء ُ صَـغيرتي، إبكـي، ولا تتعلـَّـــقي الأوهـــــاما
لا تبحـثي عـن كـِـبرياءٍ مـَـيِّتٍمـِنْ ألـفِ عـامٍٍ في اللـُّحودِ أقـــاما
لـنْ تـُصْلِـحي هــذا الــدمارَ بدمعةٍ لـنْ تـُوقِـظي بِـصدى الدموع ِ نيـــاما

سـَـكنَ الـــدَّمارُ عقولـَهم وقلـوبَهم
وبَـنى علـى قـبْرِ الـضـَّمير ِ مَــقاما

لا تحـلـُمي بالنـَّـصرِ يا أخـتاه، إنـكِ في بـِلاد ٍ تـذبح ُ الأحـــلاما
***
إبكـي، فإسـرائيلُ قــد وضـَـعتْ على فـَـمِ كـُـلِّ كلـبٍ في القـطيعِ لـِـجاما
قـِيئي على هـذي العروشِ وأهلـِـها وعلـى بـَـغِي ٍّ يَدَّعــي الإســــلاما
فالحاكـم العـربي ُّ وجـَّــهَ جـُــندَهُكي يَضـْـمَنوا أمْـنَ القـُـصورِ ونـَــاما -----------------------------------------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, August 18, 2011
STATEMENT BY SENATORS McCAIN, LIEBERMAN, GRAHAM ON SYRIA
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following statement applauding President Obama for calling on Bashar al Assad to leave power in Syria, and urging other nations to also call for and take action to end the Assad regime:

“We applaud President Obama for calling on Bashar al Assad to leave power, a position we have long argued should be the policy of the United States.

“Assad has been given every last chance to respond to the peaceful demands of the Syrian people for change, and he has squandered them all. Instead he has shown that he is wedded to the path of violence, trying to remain in power by slaughtering civilian protesters. It is critical that Assad not be allowed to prevail.

“We urge other nations to join the United States in demanding an end to the Assad regime, whose legitimacy is clearly exhausted. We also hope that other tangible actions will be taken as soon as possible, in coordination with our friends and partners around the world, to support the democratic transition that the Syrian people are risking and losing their lives to achieve.

“In particular, we hope the EU will join the U.S. in banning petroleum imports from Syria and imposing sanctions on the Syrian energy sector, which could have a crippling effect on the Assad regime. We also hope that the Turkish government will use its considerable economic and diplomatic leverage to support the people of Syria against the Assad regime at this critical moment. Lastly, we believe that a binding UN Security Council resolution imposing meaningful sanctions is more necessary and urgent than ever.”
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Other Articles:
Turkey Warns Syria to Stop Crackdown
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/world/europe/16turkey.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=anthony%20shadid%20turkey%20warns%20syria&st=cse

Gunfire in Latakia: 35 Dead in 4 Days
Associated Press

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/08/16/world/middleeast/AP-ML-Syria.html?hp

Clinton Defends U.S. Response to Crackdown in Syria
By Joby Warrick

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-defends-us-response-to-crackdown-in-syria/2011/08/16/gIQA3jl0JJ_story.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

Obama Calls for Syrian President to Step Down
By Steven Myers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/world/middleeast/19diplo.html?_r=1&hp

Syria Said to Fire on Protests in Defiance of Global Rebuke
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/world/middleeast/20syria.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Forces Fire Heavy Machineguns in Homs

By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/08/20/world/middleeast/international-us-syria.html?_r=1&hp

Palestinians Will Soon Come Full Circle

2011-08-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Years have been wasted making concessions to their colonizers. Palestinians were right to call for a secular state at the outset

By Sam Bahour

www.middleastforum.com

The Palestinian national liberation movement has reached its end. As the Palestinian leadership – if there is such a legitimate body today – prepares to bring the issue of statehood to the UN this September, the weeks and months ahead will witness the last desperate attempt to get the international community to assume their responsibilities and ensure that a Palestinian state becomes a reality in the occupied territories.
The reasons for the failure of the Palestinian national liberation movement are many. First and foremost, the shellshock that the creation of Israel caused among Palestinians in 1948 has never really gone away. Half of the Palestinian population at the time were displaced from their homes. Those that refused to flee are today citizens of Israel – a citizenship that was not requested, but rather imposed upon them – and comprise more than 1.2 million people, Muslims and Christians.
As if the forced dispossession from 78% of their homeland was not enough, the Israeli military occupied the remaining parts of Palestine in 1967. Israel had planned for that occupation long before the war. Military occupation is, by definition, regarded as a temporary state of affairs – and one would be stretching the definition to the point of fantasy to consider Israel's presence in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as still temporary after 44 years. Reality is much more accurately described as the crime of apartheid than that of military occupation.
Beginning in the early 1970s, the Palestinians became, as former Palestinian diplomat Afif Safieh put it, "unreasonably reasonable". Year after year the Palestinian leadership offered concession after concession, trying to reach an equitable resolution to their dispossession and military occupation. This seemingly never-ending chain of concessions culminated in what is known as the 1993 Oslo peace accords. These accords were a seriously lopsided bilateral agreement between the PLO and Israel, which attempted to bring the parties to a "final status agreement" within five years.
The Oslo accords kept the system of military occupation in place and simply codified the unsustainable imbalance between an occupying power (Israel) and an occupied people (the Palestinians). The accords failed, miserably and multiple times. Not only did a final agreement never happen, but today we are further from a two-state solution than ever before. No amount of 11th-hour wordsmithing by Barack Obama or Binyamin Netanyahu around reviving negotiations by setting a starting point for discussing borders is acceptable. Past procrastination has only created irreparable damage on the ground invoking a dire need for an end game, not yet another starting point.

After struggling to revive the peace process for two decades, the Palestinians have lost faith in the process as well as in those tasked with overseeing it, namely the Quartet – United States, Russia, the EU and the UN. For the entire period of the peace process, Israel ploughed forward with more land confiscations, more settlement building, more death and more destruction. Any honest observer would reach a clear conclusion that Israel has no intention of allowing the Palestinians to create a new reality on the ground towards a feasible, workable resolution of the crisis. Nor are the powers that be, namely the US and EU, serious about ending the conflict on the basis of international law.
Diplomacy has utterly failed the Palestinians, leaving them with less land and less water, more fragmented, poorer, in disunity, and with fading hopes.
The drama unfolding as we head towards September revolves around a simple equation. Those who claim to be the Palestinian leadership have no more tricks up their sleeves to justify remaining in negotiations with their occupier. Thus, they are taking what is being portrayed as a strategic move to apply for membership of the state of Palestine in the UN.
The underlying political fact they are trying to re-establish is that the resolution to this seemingly insoluble conflict is two states, Israel and Palestine, based on UN general assembly resolution 181, which in 1947 partitioned Palestine (illegally, I might add).
This move gets an "A" for effort but is doomed to fail even if Palestine is admitted into the UN this year, next year, in five years or not at all. The realities on the ground have changed drastically since 1947. Israel, with blind US support, has succeeded in removing a two-state solution from the feasible options.
The new Palestinian leaders, those whom the Israeli negotiators have not yet met, see the larger picture and refuse to believe that Israel desires to live in peace when every indication for 64 years has shown the opposite. The emerging Palestinian leaders see Israel for what it is: a settler, colonial, apartheid movement clinging to a racist, exclusivist ideology that neither wishes nor intends to allow another state to emerge between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river, let alone allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and be compensated for their hardships, as was stipulated as a condition when the UN accepted Israel as a member state on 11 May 1949.
Once this foredoomed move toward Palestinian membership in the UN runs its course, a new paradigm will take root, one that Israel dreads because it implicitly views Palestinians and Israelis as equals, as co-citizens, as partners. This new shift will see Palestinians dropping their desire for independent statehood in a fraction of their historic homeland and instead will find them, within a genuinely representative political structure, articulating their desire for self-determination within their historic homeland, even if that homeland today is called Israel.
The Palestinians are about to come full circle. They were correct, painfully so, to call for a secular democratic state at the outset of this conflict. Sadly, they wasted precious time and lost too many lives trying to accept unjust modalities of a resolution.
Now, the sooner Palestinians and Israelis realize that our destiny is to live together as equals, the sooner we can begin to rehabilitate our communities and build a single society whose citizens are all equal under law and equal as human beings.
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business development consultant from Youngstown, Ohio living in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com. This article was originally published in the Guardian.
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Other Articles:

Syrian Army Enters Latakia
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/08/2011813103322136544.html

Syrian Leader Rejects Turkey’s Plea to End Violence
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/world/middleeast/10syria.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=nada%20bakri%20syrian%20leader%20turkeys&st=cse

Support for Assad Government Shows Signs of Weakening
By Anthony Shadid and Steven Lee

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/world/middleeast/11syria.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Forces Open Fierce Assault on Deir al Zour
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/world/middleeast/08syria.html?_r=1&hp

Eight Reported Killed in New Syria Protests
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/middleeast/13syria.html?_r=1&hp

Why the Arab Spring Still Needs America’s Help
By Jim Hoagland

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-arab-spring-still-needs-americas-help/2011/08/07/
gIQABZuE1I_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

Three Arab Countries Recall Ambassadors to Syria
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/world/middleeast/09syria.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Security Forces Fire at Protesters
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/08/201181123387973741.html

Syrian Warships Shell Port City of Tatakia
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/08/201181475734965763.html

Inside Syria

2011-08-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

Nowadays, it is seldom if ever that we get an inside view of the present situation in Syria. That is why the report by Anthony Shadid from Homs, Syria, is particularly revealing and important [1]. Due to copyright constraints, it is not possible to reproduce here the article in its entirety and instead will provide excerpts (in italics) with some elaboration. Readers are urged to read the full article that is available on the New York Times web page.

Shadid starts his article by saying [1]:
“On the birth of his daughter this month, a young activist in this central city bestowed on her a name that had little resonance until not so long ago. Dara’a, he called her, the namesake of the southern Syrian town where the antigovernment uprising began. Syria is awash in such stories of solidarity these days, bridging traditional divides that have colored the country’s politics for generations.”

But from my experience and perspective this is the Syria that I used to know. It is the Syria where people of various religions and ethnicities get together to form lasting bonds of friendship. It is a Syria where its citizens view themselves first and foremost as Syrians. It is an ecumenical Syria where Sunnis marry Shiites, Christians marry Sunnis, and Druze marry any of the above. This is not hearsay, but actual intermarriages that I know of. In fact, Bashar al Assad married a Sunni.

“But far from disappearing, the old divisions of geography, class and, in particular, religious sect are deepening. Syrians offer different explanations. Protesters blame the cynical manipulation of a government bent on divide and rule, and the government points to Islamist zealots seeking to impose a tyranny of the majority. “

Again this is consistent with my claim, and that of others, that this ugly sectarianism is a tactic used by the Assad regime to consolidate its power and control over the country. There is little doubt that Islamic fundamentalists are present in Syria, to some degree. As a diverse society Syria has its own share of very devout Muslims, some belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. But, the Syrian government is wrong on two counts. First, these Islamic fundamentalists do not constitute a majority, at least not yet. And second, even if some were elected to parliament in a free election, they are smart enough not to impose their narrow religious agenda on a reluctant society that thrives on diversity. Evidence of this caution and political maturity is already apparent in Egypt. Notwithstanding the Salafis’ recent show of political muscle in Cairo, the Brotherhood is attempting to mediate between the Islamists and the secularists [2]. In addition, Syria has a more heterogeneous society than Egypt. Therefore, the so-called tyranny of the majority is pure scare-mongering by the Assad regime.

“Colliding along the front lines of the uprising, and especially here in Homs, these forces suggest a grim reality of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad: the longer his government remains in power, the less chance Syria has to avoid civil strife, sectarian cleansing and the kind of communal violence that killed at least two dozen people in Homs last week. ‘If the government keeps playing the sectarian card, they’re going to get what they want,’ said Iyad, 27, the activist who named his daughter after the cradle of the uprising. ‘If this regime lasts, there’s absolutely going to be a civil war, absolutely.’ “

In the final analysis, this is the real danger of the Assad regime. As the Syrian activist Iyad said above “If the government keeps playing the sectarian card, they’re going to get what they want”. In their desperate attempt to cling to power the Assads have inflamed sectarian tensions that may not easily subside. They grossly miscalculate if they think that they have the power and ability to crush the opposition by force. The longer that their brutal crackdown continues the more likely that Syria will become the magnet for fanatic Sunnis from all over the Middle East who will descend on Syria en mass. It is also possible that the Saudi government, feeling duty bound, will covertly support such interference if for no reason other than to come to the aid of the embattled Sunnis. This becomes more likely if Iran shores up the tattered Syrian economy with infusion of funds, as has been rumored. With a Sunni majority in Syria seething against the Assad government the outcome of the sectarian conflict will be bloody and ugly for all sides. And here is the cautionary note for the Alawites who have so far stood behind the Assad clan. If they continue their participation in the slaughter of the Sunnis, the Alawites cannot realistically avoid retribution after the fall of this rogue regime. Equally important, at the ethical and moral level, the Alawites must search their hearts and souls and decide if they want to participate in a campaign that transforms a wonderfully ecumenical Syria into a rabidly sectarian country. It is not too late for the Alawites to step aside and avoid being irrevocably complicit in this bloodletting.

“At the Khalid bin Walid mosque, a center of dissent in Homs, protesters chant, ‘With our souls and blood, we sacrifice for you, Dara’a.’ Solidarity with Homs, the scene of a persistent crackdown, is heard in Hama, where activists say they have sometimes traveled back and forth in an effort to build what one activist called a culture of protest."

This kind of maturity and unity is what gives me hope that the uprising will succeed and Syria will ultimately emerge from this turmoil with a stronger and more just form of governance. The activists seem to be imbued with a sense of commitment, nationalism and solidarity that will be the essential bedrock of free Syria.

Finally, it must be emphasized that time is running out on the Assad regime. The present Syrian government will inevitably fall since it has become for all practical purposes a rogue state. The only question is whether Bashar will take drastic steps to change course that leads to a free and democratic government, or he will continue the charade of promising cosmetic changes while brutalizing the Syrian population. If the former, then the following action is needed urgently:

A.Relinquish control by his family members of the army and security forces, and replace them with military professionals who are demonstrably nonsectarian. It is time for the Syrian army to concentrate on its main mission which is the protection of the State from outside aggression and the recovery of the Golan Heights. The army should stay out of politics.
B.Release the thousands of political prisoners now in custody. Stop immediately all arrests and intimidation of protesters.
C.Allow free speech and assembly.
D.Engage in good faith negotiations with the opposition on the mechanics of transition to a free and genuinely representative democratic system of government.

The alternative is a long drawn out conflict whose outcome is a foregone conclusion. The minority Alawites cannot kill enough of the majority Sunnis to impose their hegemony by force. Bashar and his ilk will ultimately fall and face the same fate as that of Mubarak or, worse, that of Saddam Hussein.

[1] “New Loyalties and Old Feuds Collide is Syria,”
By ANTHONY SHADID, New York Times, July 24, 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/world/middleeast/25syria.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=shadid loyaties in syria&st=cse&scp=1

[2] “Islamists Dominate Tahrir Square”

By Anthony Shadid, New York Times, July 30,2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/world/middleeast/30egypt.html?_r=1&hp

----------------------------------------------------------------

STATEMENT BY SENATORS McCAIN, LIEBERMAN, GRAHAM ON SYRIA

August 1, 2011Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following statement regarding the situation in Syria:
"We are alarmed and outraged by the pre-Ramadan assault on the Syrian cities of Hama, Deir Al Zour, and Dera'a by Bashar al Assad's forces. The use of military units, including tanks, against peaceful civilian protesters again demonstrates the barbarity of the Assad regime and its determination not to cede any meaningful power to the Syrian people. It has been more than two months since President Obama said that Assad had a choice – either lead a transition to democracy or get out of the way. It is beyond any shred of doubt that Assad and his regime are unwilling to reform and intend to use violence to beat the Syrian people into submission. We urge the Obama Administration, together with the European Union, Turkey, and other international partners, to demand Assad leave power and to mobilize the full diplomatic and economic weight of the community of nations to support the Syrian people in establishing the real transition to democracy that they seek in their country. Nineteen years ago, Hama was the scene of one of the worst massacres in modern Middle Eastern history, perpetrated by Bashar al Assad's father. The United States and our allies cannot allow this history to repeat itself in Syria today."
Rick Stilgenbauer
Outreach Coordinator for
Senator John McCain
---------------------------------------------------------------
Other Articles:

Casting Aside World Criticism Syrian Forces Invade Hama
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/world/middleeast/04syria.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Forces Renew Strike on Hama
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/world/middleeast/02syria.html?scp=1&sq=nada%20bakri%20syrian%20security%20forces%20renuw%20assault&st=cse

Syrians Take to the Streets as Shelling Continues in Hama
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/world/middleeast/06syria.html?_r=1&hp

Dozens Reported Dead During Syria Protests
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/08/20118513171562502.html

Outside Pressure Builds on Syria
By Neil MacFarquhar and Rick Gladstone

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/world/middleeast/03syria.html?_r=1&ref=world

Syrian Tanks Shell Hama
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/08/20118392942601931.html

Who Will Help the Syrians?

New York Times Editorial

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/opinion/who-will-help-the-syrians.html?_r=1&hp

UN Council Condemns Use of Force by Syria
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/08/201183175446100290.html

Seeking Balance on the Middle EastBy Nicholas D. Kristof

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/opinion/seeking-balance-on-the-mideast.html?_r=1&hp

From Fort Hood to Utoya Island

2011-07-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

The risk of home grown terror in the West.

By Ayman Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

The recent tragic events in Norway demonstrate that our Western preoccupation with the war on terror should not blind us from a clear appraisal of the dangers of home grown fanaticism. With Al-Qaida on the wane, the exorbitant expenditure of lives and resources in fighting Islamic Jihadists must be reevaluated. To begin this process we must understand the origins of the West's Islamophobia, and then consider how we must deal with a new reality, which is insecurity as a domestic phenomenon. Andrew Breivik and Hassan Nidal are examples; the former is in Norway, and the latter is in Fort Hood, Texas.

A Myth is Born:

For thirty years the West has been sold an Israeli right-wing inspired myth: Islamic fundamentalism is the only global threat out there. The legitimate quest for Palestinian rights was deliberately subverted by those who wish to portray the movement as an Islamist movement whose purpose is to destroy the Middle East's only democracy and go on to spread Sharia law world-wide. Events that followed seemed to reinforce this worldview and what was just a myth became a self fulfilling prophecy as a result of labeling.

The chief salesman of this right-wing myth was a man appointed by the Likud when it first came into power in Israel. Bibi Netanyahu was Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., a position he held from 1982 until 1984. He cultivated ties with right-wing Christian extremist groups in the U.S. These groups were fervent believers in the End of Days prophecy and he helped them develop the notion that Islam is the enemy of all Christians. This scenario abrogates the responsibility of the U.S. to help Palestinians. The danger of the Israeli-right's incitement of Christian hatred of Muslims is clear. The Israeli-left, and Jewish American liberals, argued against this alliance, and today they are doing so openly. Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation, League wrote a recent op-ed in the Washington Post saying; "one bizarre twist to Breivik's warped worldview was his pro-Zionism" [1]. He went on to say “It is a reminder that we must always be wary of those whose love for the Jewish people is born out of hatred of Muslims or Arabs” .
Liberal Jews know well the slippery slope of right wing anti-Islamism, while Muslims extremists react to this construct by claiming that Islam is the solution, and the West is the enemy. As if to give credence to this myth Palestinians voted in 2006 to elect Hamas, a radical Islamist group whose charter doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist. These radicals, once supported by Likud as an alternative to the secular PLO, ruled Gaza under Sharia law and expelled the PLO. Today on the blogosphere and in certain American circles "Sharia" law has replaced the Communist Manifesto as the ultimate evil, and all American Muslims are called terrorists. Every single one of us! This is not only stereotyping, it is mass delusion. If everyone thinks you are a bully you become a bully, and if everyone insists on a lie it may become a reality. Labeling is insidious but nothing is more powerful than mass delusion.
To suggest that we Muslims are all terrorists is as absurd as it is for us to claim we're all freedom fighters. The fact that we have fanatic Muslims amongst us is inarguable, but the question I often hear is this; why don't you so called "moderate" Muslims speak out against these radicals? This loaded question has become the rallying cry of men and woman who want to paint us all with the same brush. The fact that no one in the West listens to us seems to have escaped everyone’s attention.

In Saudi Arabia Wahabi warriors, cultivated by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, took up the banner of anti-Americanism. Responding to this "labeling," coupled with the repressive conditions of almost all Arab countries back then, many headed the call for a Holy War. A Jihad against America was spearheaded by an obscure contractor from the Bin Laden family who had helped us get the Soviets out of Afghanistan. These Muslim radicals plotted, practiced and then succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. A small group of men, armed with box cutters, brought down two of the financial pillars of Western civilization and killed three thousand Americans on 9/11. This indiscriminate and murderous act fed into the West's paranoia, and a real, not trumped up, mortal enemy was born; Al Qaida. Using Al Qaida as a pretext the U.S. went to war first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. The war in Iraq was a moral and financial disaster. That debacle resulted in the beginning of our economic down turn.

With trillions squandered in inhospitable lands, the war on terror proved to be a success for the terrorists themselves, even as al Qaida breathes it final breath. As America spends its wealth on foreign wars…someone here must ask a question: where is this spending leading us and would it not be better spent here in America? If the answer is no, then one must ask if the West can win this war by killing more radicals with lots of collateral damage. It’s a sure way to get the rest of us incensed. Logic dictates that if you can't kill us all of us Muslims maybe you may want to talk to us, otherwise a billion Muslims may truly become terrorists.
For every soul lost on 9/11 nearly 200 Iraqis died. Also lost were about six thousand of our own service men and women, well in excess of the casualties of 9/11. These service men and women were sold on fighting the "evil doers". One such young man, who barely escaped death in 2004 and was awarded a combat ribbon, was my son lance corporal Rajai Hakki, USMC. It's easy to forget that we're everywhere and that some of us are service men.

Home Grown Terror:

While Usama Bin Laden swims with the fish, the new face of terror is a right wing Christian by the name Anders Behring Breivik. Unlike Bin Laden, Breivik Anders will get 22 years in prison and will walk out at age 50. The media has announced that he acted alone, while back in 2009 a similarly deranged man at Fort hood was linked to an Al Qaida theorist in Yemen. The link between Breivik and radical Christian Zionists and Muslim haters in the US was mentioned briefly in a New York Times article, but on the whole, the west doesn't want to see the connection between him and these right wing zealots. Conversely the Media highlighted the connection between Major Hassan Nidal and the Islamist movement. Both Breivik and Nidal were individually influenced by extremist blogs and shared their thoughts with us all before they went on their murderous sprees. Read Breivik's manifesto and the influence of right wing American Islamo-phobes like Robert Spenser will become clear.

Muslims may argue that there is no moral equivalence between the grievances of the Norwegian killer and Major Nidal. The Norwegian was acting on xenophobia, a bigotry and prejudice against a different culture that did not harm him in the least. The American born Major on the other hand (a Palestinian American) acted against the U.S. which is the enabler, supporter and ally of Israel that dispossessed and oppressed his family and several millions of his fellow Palestinians. The ranting of Anwar Al Awlaki (his e-mail mentor from Yemen) simply added fuel to the fire in his belly. What had Muslims ever done to Breivik?

Islam is as innocent of the evils the right wing fanatics in the West ascribe to it as is Christianity or Judaism, but it's harder for me to prove this in a world that doesn't want to acknowledge I exist; a secular Muslim. I can swear on a stack of Bibles/Korans that I don't want Sharia Law and no one will believe me just because I'm Muslim and the fact that I'm secular and the proud father of a US Marine means nothing.

This century will be decisive in the battle between us moderates of all creeds and the extremists amongst us. I have a bad feeling that they will win, but I will go down kicking and screaming: "I'm here, talk to me, and I'll tell you how to deal with our bad guys". It is simple; "first deal with yours!" Monitor both the toxic Islamist and anti-Islamists bloggers and most importantly reign in our so called ally Israel. Give President Obama's call for negotiations based on the 1976 borders a chance. And next time Netanyahu comes to town don't lionize him as he insults our president. How can a foreigner addressing our joint session of congress get more applause than an American president? I just don't get it! My viewpoint may be confusing to many because every advisor on the issue of Islam seems to be either a xenophobic anti- Islamist or an Israeli right-wing shill. The next time you hear a supposed Islamist expert tell you what to think, Google him, and trace where his funding comes from. If it is from a pro-Israeli right wing source, listen to the man's opinion, but you may want to take his advice with a grain of salt.

Conclusion:

For the United States of America to make good decisions all of our voices must be heard, pro-Israeli liberals like Abraham Foxman, as well as others. Excluding American Muslims from the discussion, because we seem fixated on the Israeli Arab conflict, makes no sense. Muslims world-wide have a long way to go before they can begin to clean up their house, but who is the more responsible party in this increasingly expensive conflict…the enlightened West, or the ragged and undereducated East? We owe it to the innocent kids who died in Norway, just as we owe it to our service men and women who perished in Fort Hood, to get all our facts straight before we pick a never ending fight with a fifth of the earth's population.

[1] “Norwegian Attacks Stem from a New Ideological Hate”, By Abraham Foxman, Washington Post, July29, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/norwegian-attacks-stem-from-a-new-ideological-hate/2011/07/28/gIQAhxy8hI_story.html
---------------------------------------------------------
Other Articles:

Dozens Reportedly Killed in Hama by Syrian Forces
By the Associated Press

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/07/31/world/middleeast/AP-ML-Syria.html?_r=1&hp

To Topple Assad, It Takes a MinorityBy Bassma Kodmani

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/to-topple-assad-it-takes-a-minority.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Deaths in Syria Mass Protests
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/201173003822243302.html

Protests Continue, Bomb Hits Oil Pipeline
By Nada Bakri

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/world/middleeast/30syria.html?ref=world

U.S. to Oppose Palestinian UN Bid
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/07/201172704517323649.html

Israel Plays Role in U.S. Congressional Election
By Ashley Parker

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/nyregion/race-to-replace-weiner-in-house-may-turn-on-israel-policy.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Troops in Deadly Crackdown
By al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/2011727125157311914.html

Syria Erupts in Fresh Friday Violence
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/201172982627819183.html

Islam and the West: After Abbottabad

2011-07-24T05:14:00.000-07:00

By Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)

Remarks at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, Conference on Civilized Dialogue, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 16 May 2011

www.middleastforum.com

It’s an honor to open this conference on dialogue between Islam and the West. It is entirely fitting that such a discussion take place in Abu Dhabi. This emirate and the federal state of which it is part have long exemplified the coexistence of Muslim piety with tolerance for other faiths and ways of life. The United Arab Emirates preserves a precious heritage from the Islam of bygone days that facilitates the dialogue of civilizations. The spirit of tolerance exhibited here is all too rare today. As a non-Muslim I admire it.

I once heard a story about the late ruler of Abu Dhabi and father of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed Al-Nahyan (may he rest in peace), that seemed to me to encapsulate this spirit. If it isn’t true, it ought to be.

Apparently, Sheikh Zayed took an intense personal interest in the landscaping of Abu Dhabi’s lovely waterfront promenade. The Corniche was shaped by his hands and watered with his sweat as well as that of other notables of this city. It got so that his friends were afraid to drive by the construction site for fear that he would pop out of a hole he was digging and hand them a shovel. Shortly after the Corniche was finished, the story goes, Sheikh Zayed received a visit from a group of religious elders. They said to him, “Your Highness, we hardly know how to tell you this, but at the hotels on your Corniche, they are serving alcohol.” Abu Dhabi’s ruler thought for a moment, and replied, “Well, then. I guess you better not go there.”

The Emirates remain a place in which, out of respect for their Muslim friends, non-Muslims do not drink while they dine with them, but in which, out of respect for their non-Muslim friends, Muslims would be silently forgiving if they did. Piety – even the piety of a faith one does not share – is truly admirable when it is married to respect for the moral autonomy of others and the rules they obey.

By contrast with the Torah and many Christian texts, which reject the standing of other faiths, the notion of tolerance and respectful interfaith dialogue is completely integral to the message of Islam. The 67th and 68th ayat of the Surat al Hajj (Sura 22:67-68) in the Holy Qur’an advise:

“To every people have We appointed ceremonial rites (of prayer) which they observe; therefore, let them not wrangle over this matter with you, but bid them to turn to your Lord (since that is the main objective of religion). You indeed are rightly guided. But if they still dispute you in this matter, (then say,) `God best knows (the value of) what you do."

And the 41st verse of the Surat al Zumar (39:41) says:

“Whoever guides himself by [the message of Islam] does so to his own advantage, and whoever turns away from it does so at his own loss. You [Muslims] certainly are not their keepers.”

Thanks mainly to the late Osama Binladin and his co-conspirators, the detractors of Islam in the West are now legion. They have spilled a lot of ink and vitriol to demonstrate the obvious: that Muslims and Muslim societies often belie these messages of tolerance as well as the sacred instruction to avoid “compulsion in religion.” In places in America where no Muslim has ever trod, good folk fear the imposition of Shar`iah law – the Islamic Talmud. Their fear is all the greater since they have absolutely no idea what either the Shar`iah or the Talmud is. Western Islamophobia is one of Osama’s most loathsome legacies, if far from his only one.

By any standard of righteousness, Osama Binladin deserved to die. His life dishonored Islam. His death in Abbottabad dishonored no one but himself. He was condemned by his own actions, which violated the moral principles of every religion. He personally incarnated the exception to the rule against the killing of human beings that is recounted in the Holy Qur’an. It recalls (5:32) that God:

“decreed for the Children of Israel that to kill any person who has not committed murder or horrendous crimes is like murdering all of humankind.”

Osama was that very murderer who directed the commission of horrendous crimes. He leaves behind him many monuments to the evil in his heart. He does not deserve them, but these monuments are both numerous and large. It will take a long time to pull them down, but this must now be done.

Osama expected to die by violence, as he did. Sadly, he probably died a satisfied man. In addition to alienating Muslims and the West from each other, as was his aim, he achieved so many other transformations of the order he sought to overthrow. Everyone who walks shoeless through a metal detector in an airport pays grudging tribute to him. His legacies include hatred and suspicion that have erected barriers to travel to and within the West and that impede the sort of dialogue you in this gathering are about to begin. He catalyzed two wars. He bears responsibility for the death of thousands in the West and hundreds of thousands in this region. The unfunded financial burden of the conflicts he ignited has come close to bankrupting the United States. Indirectly, it is upending the international monetary system. It has produced recession in the West. Osama will have been pleased.

The mass murders Osama contrived inflamed passions that spurred American political leaders to set aside the constraints of the United States constitution and laws. There has been serious erosion in American civil liberties amidst popular disdain for the rule of law both at home and abroad. This is what paved the way for the horrors of Abu Ghraib, “extraordinary rendition,” and “enhanced interrogation techniques” – otherwise known as “cruel and unusual punishment,” “kidnaping,” and “torture.”

Ironically, the manner of Osama’s death confirmed his success at having swept away much of the traditional American deference to due process of law. He was subjected to an extrajudicial execution carried out in violation of the sovereignty of another nation. This was as lawless as it was emotionally fulfilling. Few objected. For most, the end fully justified the means. Not many have taken the time to ponder the implications of the precedent his ruthless slaying may have established for the targeted killing of American and other leaders by their foreign enemies.
In short, Osama left the world a far worse place than it had been when he entered it. It is up to those of us who have outlived him to carry out the patient work of undoing as much as possible of the harm he and others of his kind have done. This will take time and much effort. The dialogue you begin here today is an invaluable part of this task. But you must know that you at the Emirates Center and the University of Maine are far from alone in your efforts to help craft a basis for enlightened coexistence between Islam and the West.

I think of the initiative of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia to convoke a conversation among the many schools of Islam at Mecca. In June 2008 that gathering prepared the way for an historic meeting of leading figures from all the world’s religions a month later at Madrid. The Madrid conference reconvened under United Nations sponsorship in November 2008 in New York. King Abdullah is now engaged with others in establishing a permanent center for continuing interfaith dialogue in Vienna.

I think also of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, who has encouraged a week-long seminar among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars who specialize in conflict resolution. This is to convene at the Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut four weeks from today. I could cite other examples. Extremists on all sides have sought to prevent respectful discourse between the world’s Muslims and those of other faiths. They have done much damage, but they have not prevailed. Despite zealous apostles of bigotry on all sides, a hopeful process of mutual discovery is underway.

This is vitally important. The West (of which Israel counts itself part) and Islam have much to learn from each other and much to unlearn. The core values of all three Abrahamic faiths are the same. All are rooted in the ancient Jewish experience and consciousness. In many ways, Judaism and Islam are closer to each other both doctrinally and in their approach to dispute resolution than either is to Christianity. The invention of irreconcilable conflicts between Jews and Muslims since time immemorial is a willful distortion of history. Zionist propagandists have imposed this false narrative of age-old religious victimization on Israel’s battle with Palestinian nationalism. That is as prejudicial to peace as it is sinful.

No relationship between differing religious communities is without its tensions and its bad moments. In retrospect, however, societies like Muslim Spain and the Ottoman Empire were remarkable exemplars of tolerance. Their experience offers hope for the peaceful coexistence of moral communities in our times, not evidence of its impossibility.

The Ottoman Empire was brought down by contagion from European nationalism, followed by vivisection by European imperialists. Its violent disintegration amidst genocide and ethnic cleansing was a function of newly aroused passions for ethnic self-determination, not religious schism. Still, religion was an ideological weapon to which all sides in that mayhem resorted. One ironic result was that the religious tolerance that had distinguished Ottoman Turkey was succeeded by an extreme form of secularism, hostile to expressions of religious identity.
The gradual reemergence in today’s Turkey of a tolerant secularism that respects liberty of religious conscience is a reminder that the best elements of the past can sometimes be reborn. The evolution of Turkey offers hope for the coexistence of Islam with other religious heritages. It is an example not just to Arab countries reawakening from the darkness of Islam’s eclipse by Western imperialism but also to Europe. In Europe’s treatment of its Muslim and other minorities, Europeans are once again demonstrating a dismaying inability to coexist with religious and cultural traditions other than those of Christianity. Islamophobia is the ugly successor to anti-Semitism.

Centuries of anti-Semitism are a despicable feature of European history. This tradition of religious persecution and racism culminated in the attempted annihilation of Europe’s Jews. The lesson of that Holocaust is that religious hatred is never innocent; it is the precursor and progenitor of unspeakable crimes, and it must not be tolerated.

Neither America nor the Muslim world were complicit in Europe’s horrors, but distance from events cannot excuse denial of them. If it is wrong to distort history to justify hatred and suspicion of other communities, it is equally wrong to withhold compassion from those who have suffered. Without empathy, there is no possibility of reconciliation. Anti-Semitism was evil when it was Western; it is evil when it infects Arabs and Muslims.

Too many of today’s conflicts have taken on the characteristics of “holy war,” in which revenge and viciousness are seen as vindications of faith, and acts of kindness are despised as heresy. The degeneration of the struggle between competing nationalisms in Palestine into one between gangster Zionism and terrorist Islamism is but one example. The inhumanity of each side to the other has brought discredit on both Judaism and Islam. In the eyes of the world’s Muslims, Christianity is also disgraced by its followers’ abetment of Israeli misdeeds. The New Testament teaches that “love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). Not much love or law are in evidence in the West’s treatment of the Israel-Palestine issue.

In America’s and NATO’s several wars in the region, many Muslims see a rebirth of the Crusades – violent incursions and lethal interventions in Muslim societies by Christian warriors. They call in response for jihad against the West. Some Americans join them in the view that U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are sacred wars of religion.

The antidotes to such ignorant enmity and cruelty are to be found in the core beliefs of all three Abrahamic faiths, which are in accord: the prerequisite for peace is respect and compassion for others. Mutual understanding and empathy can only be found through considerate dialogue between minds ready to abandon prejudice, to change behavior, and to work toward policies that promote harmony rather than confrontation.

As Father Hans Kung once famously remarked, "There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions." He was right. Many Muslims are now working to promote such peace through dialogue. So too are many Christians, not a few Jews, and the sizable Muslim community in the United States. This gives me hope.

But, in the end, hope is only vindicated by the results of the efforts it inspires. Arabs and Americans face challenges that cannot be met without mutual trust and confidence that only intimate re-acquaintance can establish. So, too, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim peoples of the Middle East. How, otherwise, shall we deal with the bleeding ulcer that is now the Holy Land? What shall we do about fitting a post-occupation Iraq back into its region? How shall we manage an assertive but internally divided Iran? What can we do to help Pakistan step onto a more promising path? What roles shall we play in a future, free Afghanistan? How may we benefit from the diplomatic invigoration of Egypt? How should we help the Arab Spring of North Africa not become an Arab winter elsewhere?

So many questions. So many common interests. And so little common understanding on which to base effective responses. Asked, on his arrival in London, what he thought of Western civilization, Mahatma Gandhi replied that he thought “it would be a good ides.” Civilized dialogue among peoples with mutually misunderstood heritages is an even better idea.

-------------------------------------------------------

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Syrians Shot at Funeral of Protesters in Homs
By Nada Bakri

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In Scarred Syria City, a Vision of Life Free From Dictators
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A western Photographer in Hama, Syria
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Impromptu Words, Actions Drive U.S. Stance on Syria
By Jon Warrick and Mary Beth Sheridan

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Death Squads on Streets of Homs
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Syria’s Struggle
New York Times Editorial

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Stand Up to Herman Cain’s Bigotry
By Eugene Robinson

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Protests’ Size Shows Gain in Momentum Across Syria
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A Doctor’s Odyssey

2011-07-17T04:35:00.000-07:00

Resistance to tyranny and oppression has deep roots in Syria
By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

The young doctor opened an office in Sarouja, which was the old quarters of Damascus, Syria. His bride of one year was caring for the newborn infant, which kept both of them busy. It was 1924 and the French colonial authorities were combating an armed uprising throughout the country. There were daily clashes between Syrian resistance fighters and the forces of the French occupation. Casualties were mounting on both sides but the injured resistance fighters did not have access to the usual medical facilities since the authorities were monitoring incoming wounded and arresting those suspected of being involved in the uprising.
Few knew that the young doctor was leading a double life. During the day he tended to his usual patients in his office, but at night he was being called upon to tend to the wounded members of the resistance in the Ghouta farms in the suburbs of Damascus. This went on for a while until one day a patient tipped off the young doctor that the French authorities had issued a warrant for his arrest. That night the doctor packed a suite case, bid farewell to his young wife and boarded a Nairn Company bus to Iraq. When the gendarmes showed up next morning to arrest him he was well on his way to a new life in exile.
The young doctor landed his first job in Basra caring for prison inmates. That helped establish him within the community and he built a thriving medical practice. But life in Basra was very harsh. Besides the suffocating summer heat and the usual dust storms that lasted for fifty days, sanitary conditions were primitive at best. As a result there were recurrent outbreaks of cholera that killed thousands and lasted for months at a time. During those epidemics the only water that could safely be used for cooking or drinking was that which was boiled vigorously.
The doctor’s family was shuttling between Damascus and Basra. And the family grew and the doctor prospered. But he remained involved in politics in Syria, albeit from a distance. The Syrians were chafing under colonial rule, demanding freedom, forming political parties and building their political institutions. The doctor was one of the early members of the National Party if not a founding father. But his physical absence prevented him from direct participation, and the burden of political heavy lifting fell on one of the doctor’s childhood friends, Shukri al Quwatly, from the old quarter of Sarouja, .
Then in 1939 the French authorities removed this doctor’s name from the wanted list and rescinded the arrest warrant. The doctor returned to Syria in 1940 where he settled down in the Sanjakdar district of Damascus to practice medicine and resume his effort to build the democratic institutions of a free and independent Syria. As a member of the National Party he ran for election to the Syrian parliament but was not successful. But his friend Shukri al Quwatly had established himself as a strong political leader and was elected as the first president of the free and independent Syria.
Although this doctor was a skilled medical diagnostician his real love was his country and most of his time was spent performing his patriotic duties. He was elected president of the Syrian Association of Doctors and used his position to extend medical services to the widest segment of the population. But his real avocation was that of a patriot who firmly believed in freedom and democracy.
Until his last days he had the usual routine of getting up in the morning, standing in front of the washbasin, lathering his face with shaving cream and shaving while humming or singing the song of the resistance [1]

يا ظلام السجن خيم
اننا نهوى الظلامة
ليس بعد الليل إلا
مجد فجر
يا سلامة

It is an allegorical rendition that is intended to reinforce the confidence of those who are oppressed that things will surely get better. A rough translation says

Let the prison darkness descend
For we love the darkness
Knowing that night will surely be followed
By a glorious morn
Just behold.

This doctor was my father, Wahid Hakki (198?-1962).

-----------------------
P.S. decades later, the eldest son, Rajai, was at a gathering that included his next door neighbor who was also his best friend. Rajai was relating the story of our father’s escape to Iraq as a result of an anonymous tip about an arrest warrant. This friend listened and nodded his head knowingly. He added that his own father was the head of the secret service who issued the arrest warrant based on orders from the French authorities. But before executing the arrest order he sent one of his trusted aides to tip off my father.

[1] With spelling errors.

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The Syrian Uprising

2011-07-10T04:32:00.000-07:00

Opposing Syria's regime without offering an inclusive vision for Syria is wrong.

By Ayman Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

It may be counterintuitive but it is an undeniable fact that when a sect, or a tribe, rules any Arab country for decades, one can't ask them to give up all their ill begotten wealth and oppressive power until one offers them safe haven, as a sect and as individuals. This caveat applies to non Arab countries as well; a loyal opposition that wants to replace you, not annihilate you, is a prerequisite to a peaceful transition of power, anywhere.

The Obama administration and Syrian Americans all seem confused regarding the events in Syria. Most oppose the actions of the regime but are conflicted as to the best way to affect long overdue beneficial change. It is a historic fact that change is not always for the best in that part of the world, and a malevolent uprising is worse, not better, for Syria than its present corrupt authoritarian system. Stability vs. freedom and dignity is the title of the bloody melodrama playing out on Syrian soil and being broadcast on the web and airways. As polarizing and real as things seem, I've concluded that both sides are fabricating misinformation. I fully realize that there's no smoke without fire, but I see the fire being stoked by many malevolent hands. Adding to the confusion are attempts by some Syrian Americans to affect a U.S. support for regime change, at any cost.

Officials in the U.S. have reacted cautiously to the bloody events in Syria, and some suspect that Israel is behind this wait-and-see attitude. Syrian Americans, a conspiracy prone group, blame Israel for everything. Israel isn't the sole reason for American hesitancy. Other reasons include the divergent wishes of our Arab allies and concerns over the viability of Syria's opposition movement. Detractors of the regime claim that Israel is telling the US to cool it, given the stable border with Syria for 40 years and the election of a Hamas like government is worse . Supporters of Syria's regime claim that an alignment of Israeli, Saudi Arabian and neocon interests are behind this sedition. How can two diametrically opposed concepts be embraced by Syrian Americans? It's easy, because to some degree both are plausible constructs. Cynics claim that the U.S. has no clear vision for a post Assad Syria because Israel lacks a consensus policy: ideologues in Israel and their American sycophantic supporters want Syria and its brand destroyed, while pragmatists both in Israel and the U.S. are willing to see Syria's regime stay in power at the expense of liberty. This offers us, Syrian Americans, an opportunity to engage our government in affecting positive change in Syria, and not just affecting change that suits Israeli interests. Our voices have rarely been heard, and now may be the time to change this paradigm.

One of many ways for us to engage is to call for the U.S. to solicit the assistance of Turkey in bringing about a peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis. Turkey is already involved, and may be the one country that both sides trust. Turkey is the host of nearly ten thousand Syrian refugees who fled their country to escape from real or perceived brutality. Therefore, Turkey has a vested interest to see that the conflict in Syria does not spiral out of control and create further problems for its population. Turkey, with its long tradition of democracy and complex dealings with her own minorities, brings to the table a wealth of experience. Direct involvement by Turkey in mediating a peaceful resolution might bring about positive minority friendly reforms that include: A. Guaranteeing basic freedoms for all Syrians, which include freedom of speech and assembly without fear of reprisal. B. Simultaneously protecting all Syrian minorities by curbing the tyranny of the majority as is happening now in Iraq. C. Helping Syria establishes a robust political and economic institutional system that serves the long term interests of both countries. D. A referendum on the results of this mediation must be held in Syria. I am not blind to the fact that Turkey may harbor designs on much of Northern Syria, but we must now pick our poisons and the most deadly poison is Iraqi-style reprisal sectarianism.

Today Syrian Americans are well positioned to urge a rudderless administration to employ a carrot and stick approach to Syria, because we know that the stick alone won't work. We must all resist asking for pressure and stopping at that. We must work diligently to secure Syria's minorities' interests before we even consider a plan to help empower Syria's Sunni majority. Turkey and the West may be well suited to play this role. There may be better solutions for this thorny problem, but I can't think of them. We're all waiting for someone to articulate a vision that represents hope for change, a change free of reprisals and hatred. Then we'll get behind that plan. Until such time we must resist the urge to reflexively and vengefully oppose the regime.

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Hundreds Flee Syrian City of Hama
Al Jazeera

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By Isabel Kershner

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By Nadia Bakri

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Why Syria’s Christians Should Not Support the Assad Regime

2011-07-02T03:58:00.000-07:00

By Elie Elhadj

www.middleastforum.com

At the Dormition of Our Lady Greek Catholic cathedral in Old Damascus, Father Elias Debii raises his hands to heaven and prays for divine protection for embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.[i] Bishop Philoxenos Mattias, a spokesman for the Syriac Orthodox Church said: “We are with the government and against these movements that oppose it”.[ii]
Those among Syria's Christian clerics and civic leaders who publicly support the Assad regime are short sighted. They are courting long-term disaster for themselves and their congregations. Why? Because, the Assad regime will not remain in power forever; it is immoral to support non-representative unjust rule; the Assad clan’s exploitation of Sunni Islam has emboldened Islamism and thwarted the development of secularism in Syria; and because scaremongering for blackmail legitimacy will not work forever. The following explains each reason.

The Asad regime will not remain in power forever

Since the March 8, 1963 military coup d’état against the democratically elected parliament and government of President Nazim al-Qudsi, an unelected minority of the Alawite Assad clan has been ruling Syria with an iron fist; notwithstanding, those seven uncontested referendums for the two Assad presidents.

In addition to impoverishing Syria; despite billion of dollars in oil revenues[iii], the regime has committed horrific atrocities—extra-judicial killings of hundreds of Muslim Brothers detainees in the Palmyra prison in 1980, mass murder in 1982 of between 3,000 citizens, according to the regime’s apologists, and 38,000 [iv] in the city of Hama, let alone the torture of residents at the slightest suspicion and the disappearance of opponents. The killing of more than 1,000 demonstrators during the seven weeks since the March 26, 2011 popular uprising adds to the regime's grim catalogue of human rights violations.[v]

Such a system of governance is unsustainable. It cannot last forever. When the day of reckoning will come, the support that certain priests and civic leaders had given to the regime will place all Christians in danger.

It cannot be predicted when the Assad regime might fall. However, should the demonstrations become larger and spread to downtown Damascus and Aleppo, the demonstrators could overwhelm the security forces; rendering a Hama or a Palmyra type atrocity impossible. If the demonstrations get bigger, more Sunni clerics would join the uprising. Ultimately, even the Sunni palace ulama could turn against their benefactor president.

There is no love lost between Sunnis and Alawites on a religious level.

Accommodation between the Assad regime and Sunni palace ulama is a matter of convenience. Orthodox Sunnis regard Alawites as heretics. Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), condemned the Alawites as being more dangerous than the Christians, and encouraged Muslims to conduct jihad against them.[vi] Likewise, Alawites despise Sunnis. To Alawites, the howls of jackals that can be heard at night are the souls of Sunni Muslims calling their misguided co-religionists to prayer. [vii]

If parts of the army, which is a conscripted institution, would refuse killing demonstrators or if the army would stand up to the republican guards and the intelligence brigades, then the regime might very well collapse.

It is immoral to support non-representative unjust rule

That leading priests of certain Syrian churches publicly support the Assad dictatorship does not reflect well on the sense of justice, morality, or benevolence of the priests. It is not very Christian for priests to abandon their duty to stand up to oppression, corruption, and injustice.

There might be an argument in favour of tolerating an illegitimate dictatorship if the dictator were benevolent. But, Mr. Assad’s dictatorship is neither legitimate nor benevolent.

For some priests and civic leaders to publicly embrace short-term convenience and abandon long-term security and defense of justice and human rights can be very expensive for the Christian community as a whole. Syria’s Sunni majority will forever remember Christians’ support of Mr. Assad’s misrule. A thousand years later, the memories of Christian and Alawite support of the Crusades are still vivid in the collective consciousness of Sunnis.

The Assad clan’s exploitation of Sunni Islam emboldened Islamism and impeded the development of secularism in Syria

Islamism has been gaining strength over the recent decades, thanks to the Assad clan’s strategy of exploiting Sunni Islam to prolong their hold on power.

That the regime and its apologists and propagandists describe Mr. Assad’s rule as ”secular” is an exaggeration, if not false. The Assad regime is neither secular nor sincere in its promotion of the Sunni creed. Since their seizure of absolute power more than four decades ago, the Assad government did not secularize Syria in the slightest. Syria of 2011 is no less Islamic than Syria of 1963.

Exploiting Sunni Islam, together with the excesses of the ruling elite, corruption, abuse of human rights, poverty, and unemployment have been driving increasing numbers of young men and women to extremism. The longer this situation continues, the more fertile the ground will become for Islamism to grow.

Here is how the Assad dynasty has been impeding the development of secularism in Syria and exploiting Sunni Islam.

Article 3.1 of the Syria constitution makes Islam the necessary religion of the president. Christians are barred from the country’s highest political office. Article 3.2 makes Islam as “a main source” of legislation.

Seventh century Shari’a laws and courts are in force in personal status, family, and inheritance affairs (Christians follow their own archaic religious courts). Shari’a law is the antithesis of the liberal laws of the modern age. It denies women legal rights compared with Muslim men. It impinges on women’s human rights. Shari’a law reduces the status of women to that of chattel—a Muslim man can marry four wives, divorce any one of them without giving reason (with limited child custody rights, housing, or alimony), a Muslim woman is prohibited from marrying a non-Muslim man while the Muslim man is allowed to marry non-Muslim women, a woman cannot pass her nationality on to her foreign husband and children while the man can, “honour killing” of a woman by a male relative results in a light sentence for murder, and two women equal one man in legal testimony, witness, and inheritance. Such maltreatment of one half of Syria’s society is in spite of the regime’s energetic attempts to project an image of secularism, modernity, and equality between the genders.

The Islamic curriculum in Syria’s elementary, middle, and high schools teaches Muslim Sunni Islam regardless of the Islamic sect to which they belong. The textbooks are discriminatory, divisive, and intolerant of non-Muslims.[viii]

More mosques, bigger congregations, and more veiled women than ever before have become the order of the day in Syrian cities. To flaunt his Islamic credentials, President Bashar Assad even ordered a special rain prayer throughout Syria's mosques performed on December 10, 2010 in order for God to send rain.

Following the March 2011 violent demonstrations, Mr. Assad acted to gain support from the Sunni palace ulama and mollify the Sunni street. The popular Sunni cleric Muhammad Saiid al-Bouti praised Mr. Assad’s response to many of the requests submitted by a number of Sunni clerics. In his weekly religious program on April 5, 2011 on Syrian government television, Sheikh al-Bouti applauded Mr. Assad’s permission to allow niqab-wearing (black face cover) female teachers; transferred in July 2010 to desk duties[ix], to return to classrooms. Sheikh al-Bouti had attributed the drought in December 2010 to the transfer from classrooms of the niqab-wearing female teachers. Sheikh al-Bouti also praised Mr. Asad for the formation of the Sham Institute for Advanced Shari’a Studies and Research, and for the establishment of an Islamic satellite television station dedicated to proclaiming the message of true Islam.[x] Also, the first and only casino, which had enraged orthodox clerics when it opened on New Year’s Eve, was closed as well.[xi]

Why exploit Islam and fight secularism?

To rule Sunni dominated Syria, it would be helpful to the Assad clan to uphold the influence of Sunni Islam instead of wading in the muddy waters of Shari’a reform and secularization, even if that meant throwing the Baath Party’s constitution away.

Islam is helpful to Muslim rulers. Not only in Syria, other Arab regimes (except Lebanon and Tunisia) exploit Islam to stay in power.[xii] Islam demands obedience of Muslims to the Muslim ruler.

The Quran, the Prophetic Sunna, and opinions of famous jurists enjoin Muslims to obey the Muslim ruler blindly. In 4:59, the Quran orders: “Obey God and obey God’s messenger and obey those of authority among you.” Answering how a Muslim should react to a ruler who does not follow the true guidance, the Prophet reportedly said, according to Sahih Muslim: “He who obeys me obeys God; he who disobeys me, disobeys God. He who obeys the ruler, obeys me; he who disobeys the ruler, disobeys me.”[xiii] Abi Da’ud (d. 888) and Ibn Maja (d. 886) quote the Prophet as imploring Muslims to hear and obey the ruler, even if he were an Ethiopian slave.[xiv] Al-Bukhari (d. 870) quotes similar traditions.[xv] The palace ulama invoke one thousand year old opinions of famous jurists such as Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), Ibn Jama’a (1241-1333), and Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328). These men taught that the Muslim ruler must be obeyed blindly because even an unjust ruler is better than societal unrest.

Syria’s palace ulama threaten the Muslim faithful with eternal damnation if they fail to obey Mr. Assad (waliy al-amr). In the hands of the Assad clan, Islam has become a psychological weapon supplementing a brutal security machine.

Scaremongering for Blackmail legitimacy will not work forever

That certain priests and civic leaders subscribe to unsubstantiated scaremongering regarding future Islamist/salafi persecution of Christians is unwise. Those in the Christian community who warn of the slaughter awaiting Christians if the Assad regime collapses fall for the regime’s Machiavellian practice of blackmail legitimacy. Neither historical precedence nor credible evidence today supports such scare tactics. Blackmail legitimacy, like the crying-wolf syndrome, does not work forever.

Islamists/salafis who might harbor violent intentions against Christians are a tiny minority of Syria’s 23-million population. There are no accurate statistics or opinion polls to suggest otherwise. Syria’s Islamists/salafis are not representative of Syria’s Sunnis. The great majority of Syria’s Sunnis, around 75% of the population, are moderate Muslims who have lived rather harmoniously with their fellow Christians for centuries.

During the first 15 years of independence and until the advent of the Assad clan, Syria’s Christians enjoyed peace and shared whatever prosperity was available at that time with the Sunni majority. The suggestion that Syria’s Sunnis would kill Syria’s Christians is malicious misinformation to divide and rule. The regime’s media, apologists, and propagandists who circulate such stories are wicked. Those who believe such tales are naive. Syria’s Christian minority’s best interest could not be separate from the interest of the Sunni majority.

That the options to Syrians today are reduced to either accepting the current poor state of affairs or contend with an Islamist/salafi rule; even civil war, is blackmail used by the regime to perpetuate its monopoly on power and avoid genuine reform. That genuine reform is not an option does not bode well for the country. That President Assad insisted in his address to the parliament on March 30, 2011 that Syria’s protesters had been “duped” into damaging the nation on behalf of its enemies[xvi], and his infamous billionaire cousin, Rami Makhlouf, stated in an interview with The New York Times that, “Syria will fight protests till ‘the end’” spell danger to all Syrians.[xvii] Like a pressure cooker, the longer a dictatorship stays in power the more violent the end will be.

Sunnis, like Christians, are threatened by Islamist/salafi ideology, violence, and seventh century way of life. While systematic long-term persecution of Christians by Sunnis will not happen in Syria, acts of revenge by extremist groups might occur during the chaotic days of a popular revolt against; not only Alawites and Christians, but also against non-Christian supporters of the Assad clan altogether.

To spare Syria a potential catastrophe, Mr. Assad should institute a comprehensive and genuine political reforms, in particular; multi-party parliament and contested presidential elections. Scaremongering priests can help. They must desist from misinformation and hypocrisy. They ought to become honest to the teaching of their churches. They should defend legitimacy, justice, and the rule of law.

Wise men and women; Alawites, Christians, and Sunnis must council the president and his immediate family that genuine reform; not cosmetic retouches, not the use of the tank, is the only way forward.

Hafiz Assad and his son, Bashar, have saddled the Alawite community plus the regime’s supporting groups with a terrible burden, a potential disaster. The Assad family must understand that four decades of misrule are enough, kifaya.

Bashar Assad has a rare opportunity today to become the leader who saved Syria from a frightening future. Would he? Or, indeed, can he?

________________________________________
[i] Middle East Online, Syria's Christian against fall of Assad regime, May 4, 2011,
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=45958
[ii] The Telegraph, Syria: President Bashar al-Assad has a staunch friend in the Church, April 21, 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8466759/Syria-President-Bashir-al-Assad-has-a-staunch-friend-in-the-Church.html
[iii] Elie Elhadj, A Question of Oil Accounting, October 2010,
http://daringopinion.com/------A-Question-of-Oil-Accounting.php
[iv] Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, (Harpers Collins Publishers, 1998, London) Chapter 4: "Hama Rules".
[v] Reuters reported Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan stating that “more than 1,000 civilians had died in Syria's upheaval”, Reuters, Syrian tanks shell towns with at least 19 killed, May 11, 2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/11/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110511
[vi] Patrick Seale, Assad, the Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1995), 10.
[vii] The New York Review of Books, Storm Over Syria, by Malisa Ruthven, June 9, 2011,
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/09/storm-over-syria/?pagination=false
[viii] Elie Elhadj, Syria’s Islamic Textbooks: Politics, Intolerance, and Dogma, May 2011,
http://daringopinion.com/------Syria%27s-Islamic-Textbooks.php
[ix] Syria Today, No Place for the Niqab, August 2010,
http://www.syria-today.com/index.php/politics/11359-no-place-for-the-niqab
[x] Syria Steps, The Leadership responded positively to the demands of the men of religion, April 6, 2011,
http://www.syriasteps.com/index.php?d=110&id=65907&in_main_page=1
[xi] The New York Times, Syria Tries to Placate Sunnis and Kurds, April 6, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/world/middleeast/07syria.html?_r=1&hpw
[xii] Elhadj, To Prolong their Dictatorships, Arab Rulers Resort to the Islamic Creed, February 2010,
http://daringopinion.com/------Arab-Rulers-Exploitation-of-Islam.php
[xiii] The Six Books Sahih Muslim, traditions 4746 to 4763, pp. 1007-1008 and traditions 4782 to 4793, pp. 1009-1010.
[xiv] Ibid., Sunan Abi Da’ud, tradition 4607, p. 1561; and Sunan Ibn Maja, tradition 42, p. 2479.
[xv] Ibid., Sahih al-Bukhari, traditions 7137 and 7142, p. 595.
[xvi] The New York Times, Syria Offers Changes Before Renewed Protests, March 31, 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/world/middleeast/01syria.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
[xvii] The New York Times, Ally of Assad Says Syria Will Fight Protests Till ‘the End’, May 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/world/middleeast/11makhlouf.html?_r=2&ref=global-home
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My Syria, Awake Again After 40 YearsBy Mohammad Ali Atassi

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/opinion/27Atassi.html?_r=1&hpw

Deaths Reported as Huge Protests Grip SyriaAl Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/20117112504223572.html

Saving Syria from Assad
By Ausama Monajed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-syria-an-opening-for-the-west-to-bring-about-assads-downfall/2011/06/24/AGz4hcmH_story.html

Syria Allows Opposition to Meet in Damascus
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/world/middleeast/28syria.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Syrian Army Kills Four in Idlib Province
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201162916103730548.html

Syria Pulls Its Armed Forces From Some Contested Cities
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/world/middleeast/30syria.html?_r=1&hpw

Street Factions Fuel Syrian Opposition
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/world/middleeast/01syria.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=anthony%20shadid%20syrian%20opposition&st=cse

Tens of Thousands Protest in Hama
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/world/middleeast/02syria.html?hp

The Obama Doctrine: AWOL in Bahrain

2011-06-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

By Franklin Lamb

Beirut

www.middleastforum.com

Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi passed through Beirut a couple of weeks ago and gave a terrific lecture at AUB entitled “Preliminary Historical Observations on the Arab Revolutions of 2011.”

In response to a student’s question, Khalidi disputed that there was any “Obama Doctrine” worthy of that label and he predicted the White House would be much more tolerant of human rights abuses in Bahrain than say, in Libya and some other countries whose despotism indexes are no worse than the 200-year ossified Al Khalifa dynasty’s war against its majority Shia population.

After his talk I reminded Rashid in our brief encounter that we had not crossed paths since that fateful summer of 1982 in West Beirut where we and our mutual friend, American journalist Janet Stevens, who had introduced us, all shared a similar experience of trying to do research amidst the Israeli bombing and intermittent electricity and water cuts and for that period when Israeli forces, on orders of Ariel Sharon, cut all the power and water to the trapped civilians in West Beirut. In those, now sometimes romanticized “summer of ‘82 days” Khalidi was an intense, hard-working young man and his 1982 research was published in his 1983 volume, Under Siege: P.L.O. Decisionmaking During the 1982 War.

It was during this period that Janet (Rashid was in no way involved!) and I committed at least four felonies (I was just following orders!) and broke into the abandoned AUB cafeteria & AUB storage rooms and liberated maybe 500 cases of AUB bottled water and perhaps 50 large cartons filled with that nasty orange powdered drink stuff called Tang.

Janet put me in charge of about 100 Fatah fighters who, wisely assuming the Israelis would think twice before bombing AUB had set up a base under the Banyan trees on campus and we all used to share the AUB beach and swim together. The PLO fighters were under orders from their Commander Abu al-Walid, who was one of those in charge of the defense of West Beirut, not to damage the AUB campus or enter AUB buildings. So the fighters demurred to the breaking and entering part of our operation and waited outside.

Janet and I were under no such orders.

Our guys quickly distributed the liberated humanitarian supplies and for days afterwards there were plenty of tykes running around West Beirut with orange mouths and cheeks carrying plastic bottles of fresh spring water.

It was only after the 20 year Statute of Limitations ran and I was living in Kerr Hall on campus that my conscience got the better of me and I finally blurted out my crimes to the AUB President. He laughed with delight and on behalf of AUB excused our egregious war time sociopathy. That being said, I heard not long ago that the US Embassy is looking into trying to open a case against me since USAID paid for the AUB water and the nasty Tang and the Embassy is still insisting on accountability.

On the issue of Ariel Sharon’s cutting off of water and electricity during the hot summer to West Beirut in order to punish the trapped civilian population for their presumed support for the PLO in defending an Arab capitol, the US government was furious. President Reagan and his secretary of State George Shultz, and Middle East envoy Morris Draper claimed they yelled at and threatened Israeli PM Menachem Begin to immediately restore water and power to West Beirut. Begin kept promising Reagan that the utilities would be quickly restored and Draper told Begin that Beirut was becoming like the Warsaw Ghetto. Begin replied that Draper’s comparison was a “blood libel against every Jew everywhere.” Begin used that turn of phrase more than once during 1982, once to Reagan’s face. Philip Habib later reported that he called Begin every day and Begin always claimed there were ‘technical problems’ but that Sharon promised him that the utilities would be restored by the next day at the latest.

It did not happen.

Not until Janet Stevens, working with Palestinian colleagues discovered the truth behind what Begin told Reagan were “technical problems” and she informed journalists in the bar of the Commodore Hotel, where many journalists spent their time (thinking the Israelis would not bomb the western journalists “shelter”—they actually did shell it twice during the summer) waiting for others to bring in the news of the day so they could get on the PLO-maintained telexes to their editors and “report from the Front.” We noticed that some of them actually started dressing like Robert Fisk, a real war correspondent.

What Janet explained to the rapt reporters was that Israeli commanders and their right wing Phalangist collaborators, with Sharon’s, if not Begin’s approval, were making plenty of fast cash selling truckloads of water to trapped West Beirutis and the business soon expanded to Bekaa hashish. By late July some of the Israeli checkpoints along the green line between East and West Beirut were manned by stoned Israelis such that the PLO was able to bring in truckloads of needed relief supplies including ammunition and weapons even after the power and water were eventually restored. The late Lebanese Patriot, George Hawri, head of the Lebanese Communist Party, worked to maintain this lifeline with the help of friends from the Bekaa and years later relished each retelling of the story. The Israeli troop’s blurry condition may have contributed to several routs they experienced by PLO forces and the loss of more than 25 tanks and APC’s near the Beirut racecourse just east of the green line. 1982 was not the last time Israeli troops eagerly traded weapons and intelligence for drugs in Lebanon.

What Khalidi remains critical of, like many observers, is what he sees as the Obama administration’s claimed “American values imperative” being made a mockery of whenever American “interests” are brought up to justify cherry picking which brutal despots get the ‘moderate’ or ‘reformer’ label while others are no-fly zoned and targeted for elimination for being “genocidal.”

The Obama administration’s hypocrisy toward the unarmed civilians being killed in Bahrain is flagrant. Speaking on 4/13/11 at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, a gathering sponsored by Qatar and the Brookings Institution, Secretary of State Clinton assured the World that “America's core interests and values have not changed, including our commitment to promote human rights equally in every country.”

Clinton’s remarks prompted some groans from the audience and one Georgetown University student impolitely blurted out “Tell that to the people of Bahrain and prove it, lady!”

What the exasperated student, and others in the audience apparently found outrageous was Clinton’s comment that, “We know that a one-size-fits-all approach to American values doesn’t make sense in such a diverse region at such a fluid time” as she hailed Bahrain for what she called a “decades-long friendship which we expect to continue long into the future.” Referring to the government crackdown, she added that “violence is not and cannot be the answer.”

Clinton explained that the Obama administration will neither recall its ambassador to Manama nor threaten sanctions — a striking disparity that is fueling anti-U.S. sentiment among Bahraini opposition groups. The Obama Doctrine words are all about freedom and democracy and change, but in Bahrain, the reality is that the Obama Doctrine amounts to a protection for the dictatorship.

By contrast, Obama has repeatedly justified military attacks in Libya, saying: "Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested. These acts are against core American values."

But while the same human rights abuses noted by Obama are happening in Bahrain, but the Obama Doctrine is not on the Presidents teleprompter. It appears that core American values aren’t so important when the regime being reformed houses the Fifth Fleet and has Saudi neighbors, themselves afraid of potential protests, according to the Wall Street Journal.

What the rude Georgetown student at Clinton’s speech this week understood, is that as Joe Stork, Deputy Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch noted a couple of days ago concerning yet another brutal Khalifa government killing of unarmed civilians, “Four detainee deaths in nine days is a crime, not a coincidence. The government tells families of detainees nothing about their whereabouts or well-being while they are alive or about the circumstances of their deaths. "Emergency laws should not be used as a cover for brutality," Stork reminded the Obama administration that torture and killing of the peaceful protesters in Bahrain at the hands of both the Bahrani armed forces and the additional forces provided by Saudi Arabia are not supported by the American public.

Obama administration officials, like most of the US media, have been playing a game of criminal silence about the situation in Bahrain. Political institutions have been trying to stoke the fire of Shi’a-Sunni sectarianism instead of trying to resolve the real issues – the barbaric actions and unfair political and economic policies of the ruling family in Bahrain, a state of forceful repression.

More than 70 per cent of native Bahrainis are Shi’ites, while the ruling family and most elites are Sunnis. This state of affairs has led to an apartheid mentality among the ruling family. Shi’ites are not allowed to work in the army, the intelligence service, or the police force, nor are they fairly represented in top-level governmental positions. In addition to jailing activists and banning Shiite-led opposition parties, Bahraini authorities fired civil servants and even professional athletes who participated in demonstrations. The country’s only independent newspaper was taken over last week and its editor forced to resign. On 4/14/11 the Sunni government moved to ban Bahrain’s largest political party, the Shiite-dominated al-Wefaq, along with a smaller Shiite party.

When they apply for jobs the Shia in Bahrain experience in some ways what the Palestinian refugees suffer in Lebanon. They may be offered a job but it is quickly withdrawn when the prospective employer learns that the applicant is Shia. As Nicholas Kristof wrote of the Khalifa’s attitude toward Shi’ites in his New York Times Blog: “the language of the ruling party sounds a lot to me like the language of white South Africans — or even like the language of white southerners in Jim Crow America, or the language of militant Israeli settlers in the West Bank. There’s a fear of the rabble, a distrust of full democracy, a sense of entitlement.”

The “American humanitarian values”-based “Obama Doctrine” offers no protection for the majority Shia population of Bahrain. They’re vulnerable. They are expendable. The Fifth fleet is not. Nor are Saudi interests for they represent for Washington’s neocons a strategically important bulwark against Iranian power in the region.

The “Obama Doctrine” offers no police, security or judicial system to protect them. In the past few days the Khalifa regime has intensified their attacks on this community – harassment on the streets, housing and job discrimination, and systematic attacks in the media.

The Obama administration appears to be trying to use the Iran issue in a way similar to how the Arab regimes use Israel in order to deny justice to their people and prevent them from participating in the government.

At the same time the “Obama Doctrine” ignores recent polls showing that nearly 60 per cent of Americans support the uprising in Bahrain and the region even if the uprisings lead to regimes more likely to oppose US policies in the region including US support for Israel. These polls of American public opinion reflect true American values.

The “Obama Doctrine” as selectively applied, does not.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

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Other Articles:

War Crimes Considered Against Bashar al Assad
By Thom Shanker

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/world/middleeast/20diplo.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=thom%20shanker%20syria&st=cse

Assad Proposes National Talks to Change Syria

By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/world/middleeast/21syria.html?_r=1&hpw

Syria’s Economy Poses a Threat to Assad
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/world/middleeast/24damascus.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Troops Storm Town on Turkish Border
By Liam Stack

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/world/middleeast/24syria.html?scp=1&sq=liam%20stack%20syrian%20troops&st=cse

Protesters Return to Streets and Reject Dialogue
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/world/middleeast/25syria.html?_r=1&hpw

Exodus from Syria Continues After Government Kills 20 People
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201162593534638336.html

Forces Make Arrests Across Syria: 5 Dead
By Liam Stack

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/world/middleeast/26syrians.html?hpw

Damascus: The Secret of its Survival

2011-06-19T04:48:00.000-07:00

By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

WARNING: this article contains direct quotes from Herodotus that use coarse language. Those with tender sensibilities should not read further.

Damascus, the eternal city, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Many have marveled at its ability to survive, even flourish, over millennia. While other cities rose and fell, Damascus is unique in its historical longevity. Mark Twain eloquently described the ability of Damascus to defy the vagaries of time in his travelogue: “She measures time, not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise, and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality. She saw the foundations of Baalbec, and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; she saw these villages grow into mighty cities, and amaze the world with their grandeur--and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given over to the owls and the bats. She saw the Israelite empire exalted, and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise, and flourish two thousand years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome built; she saw it overshadow the world with its power; she saw it perish. The few hundreds of years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering. Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies. Though another claims the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City”.

Recently, while practically every other city and village in Syria witnessed protests against the Assad regime, “old Damascus the eternal city” remained strangely quiet. It even launched a pro-Assad demonstration [1]. To the casual observer there seems to be a disconnect between the whole of Syria and Damascus, the former chafing under the oppressive rule of the regime and the latter applauding the rulers. But for those who care to understand history, this dichotomy is not startling. In fact, it points to the very reason why Damascus has survived for thousands of years while other cities vanished. It is the unique ability of the Damascenes to be non-confrontational to the point of being outright obsequiousness to authority and power, regardless of the nature or origin of this authority, that allowed Damascus to gain the distinction of being an “eternal city”.

Throughout history many examples of the Damascenes’ visceral aversion to confrontation can be sited. The most egregious example happened right after World War I. King Faisal had led the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire with the help of the British and with the explicit understanding that the liberated land will be granted independence as agreed upon in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence. But King Faisal was not aware of the secret British-French Sykes-Picot agreement in which the Middle East was to be divided between the two European powers. King Faisal rejected the terms of this duplicitous plan and insisted on retaining control over the liberated lands of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. The French were adamant in enforcing their mandate over Lebanon and Syria and assembled an army in Lebanon under the command of General Gouraud.

A confrontation was inevitable. A French army of 9000 soldiers with tanks and artillery marched towards Damascus in July 1920. The Syrian Defense Minister Yusuf al-Azmeh set out with 3000 poorly trained and ill-equipped soldiers to do battle. On July 23, 1920, the two armies fought at the Maysaloon Pass, west of Damascus. The French army easily defeated the Syrian army and Yusuf al-Azmeh was killed in battle.

When news of the battle reached Damascus a delegation was sent to meet with the French general. The Damascenes declared that Damascus will be an “open city” and assuaged the anger of the French General by pleading “forgive the actions of our miscreants (souffaha’)” [2]. This, when the blood of the Syrian martyrs had not yet dried on the battle field.

But accounts of people and cities unwilling to defend their freedom date back several thousand years. Herodotus [3] in the fifth century B.C. described the military campaigns of the Egyptian king Sesostris (assumed to be Ramses II) who extended his empire into the eastern part of the Mediterranean. According to Herodotus (2.102) “…he [Sesostris] gathered a great army and drove right through the mainland, conquering every people that lay in his way. Now, whether he encountered men of bravery who strove for their freedom, among such folk he set up pillars in their land that declared his own name and country and how he had conquered them by his own power. But when he had taken cities without a fight and easily, for them he also made records on pillars, in just such terms as used for the men who were brave, but you see he also had a cunt drawn thereon, because he would make clear that they were cowards”. Herodotus continues (2.106) “Of the pillars that King Sesostris set up throughout the land, most are no longer there to be seen, but I saw some of them myself in Palestinian Syria with the inscription I speak of on them and the cunts”.

Whether Damascus falls in the region of Palestinian Syria where Herodotus had seen those pillars is unclear. But it raises the intriguing possibility of conducting archeological explorations around Damascus and determining if pillars with inscriptions of female genitals that Herodotus claimed to have seen can be uncovered.

Now we have two different perspectives of Damascus. According to Mark Twain it is the eternal city that has not only withstood the ravages of time but even managed to flourish. The other perspective, derived from a cold eyed study of history, is of a city that made a Faustian deal with the devil to purchase survival at the cost of its own soul. So is the glass half full or is it half empty? Is the city to be commended or condemned? That is a judgment call that is entirely subjective. But what is not subjective is to understand the cause and effect relationship of both attributes in which one derives directly from the other. The revelatory, but not original, conclusion from the merging of the Twain and Herodotus narratives is that “the cunts shall inherit the earth”.

[1] Sebnem Arsu and Liam Stack, “Civilians Flee Another Syria Town, Fearing Military Assault”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/world/middleeast/16syria.html?_r=1&hpw
[2] Reported by a person whose father had direct knowledge of the encounter.
[3] Herodotus, “The History”, translated by David Grene, University of Chicago Press, 1987.

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Other Articles:

The Fall of the House of Assad

By Robin Yassin-Kassab

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/10/the_fall_of_the_house_of_assad?page=0,0

Failed Favoritism Towards Israel

By Turki al-Faisal

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/palestinian-rights-wont-be-denied-by-the-united-states-and-israel/2011/06/07/AGmnK2OH_story.html

Clinton Says Regime Crackdown Will not Stop Momentum for Change in Syria

By Sara Ghasemilee

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/06/18/153761.html

Thousands Flee As Syria Retakes Rebellious Town

By Liam Stack

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/world/middleeast/13syria.html?_r=1&hp

Syrian Unrest Stirs Fear of Deeper Sectarian Divide
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/world/middleeast/14syria.html?_r=1&hp

Fleeing Their Own Military, Syrians Take Refuge Along Turkish Border
By Sebnem Arsu and Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/world/middleeast/15syria.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=arsu%20shadid%20syrians%20refuge&st=cse

Saudi Arabia Fed Up With U.S. Favoritism Towards Israel

By Richard Cohen

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/from-a-saudi-prince-tough-talk-on-americas-favoritism-toward-israel/2011/06/13/AGAkPhTH_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

For Syrian Refugees, Shelter of a Precarious Sort
By Liam Stack

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/world/middleeast/18border.html?_r=1&ref=world

Reviled Tycoon, Assad’s Cousin Resign in Syria
By Anthony Shadid

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/world/middleeast/17syria.html?ref=world

Syria’s Nightmare
It is past time for President Assad to “get out of the way.”

New York Times Editorial
June 18, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/opinion/18sat2.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Syria: Cracks in the Armor
By Rania Abouzeid

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2078022,00.html

The "Rami"fication of Syria's Public Sector

2011-06-12T04:29:00.000-07:00

and the Withdrawal of Brand Syria's Support

By Ayman Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

Observers, leery of Syria's regime but sympathetic to Syria's young president, were hopeful that he would respond positively to his people's call for freedom from coercion and corruption. They were severely disappointed. In both style and substance President Assad’s speech to the Parliament took a dismissive stance towards his people and appeared to stand by his men and his family. And, as if to add insult to injury, he seemed to be saying if you want a fight, we'll stand and fight you.

Subsequently his cousin, Rami Makhlouf, gave that disaster of a New York Times interview. Despite a retraction, and the government's assertion that he was speaking for himself, he had hinted that Israel's security was best served by the regime's survival! Now Bashar Al Assad is in danger of losing the broad support he enjoyed from day one. The support I'm speaking of is the support of Brand Syria, which I define as the rejection of Israeli inspired US world hegemony. The cheers his every pronouncement used to elicit from Syrians, and other Arab nationalists,were a testimony to the popularity of his position Vis a Vis Israel. He was our brand's standard-bearer.

In my previous post I had pleaded with the President to symbolically banish a few men and women in order to allow the majority of Syrians to rally around the flag. He did the opposite. He seems to have concluded that without Rami Makhlouf and his ilk, the regime cannot survive. He may also have been convinced by others that his sect was in danger. The fact that Syria was not historically violent seems to have escaped him. A majority of Syrians were willing to forgive all transgressions had they been accorded personal dignity. They would like to clearly distinguish his entourage from his sect. Syrians of all ages and denominations have long harbored the hope that Syria is capable of reform, and I continue to tell myself that Syria's young president is worth keeping. In my mind he shares my belief that Brand Syria is more important than the family brand. Had he given a more thoughtful speech he may have bought himself more time to reform. But, by declaring that if people want to fight he will stand and fight them he sent the wrong message. It was I'm on Rami's side even though everyone is fed up with him, and in spite of the fact that Rami had later intimated a direct link between Israel's security interests and the regime.

Many scoff at my insistence that Bashar Al Assad's is innocent and that Rami Makhlouf is guilty, but I remain convinced that the young president would have made changes had he felt secure enough to do so. Some also claim it is too late to right this wrong but I disagree. Years not months will pass before this uprising is suppressed or resolved. The key to my construct is simple: though President Assad couldn't give in to the mob, he could have at least "looked" like he was saddened by the bloodshed on both sides. He did the opposite of what I hoped he would do and claimed that reforms were coming, but at their own pace! Swept away by the cheers emanating from the peanut gallery, he put his written notes away, and belligerently declared: bring'em on. How a physician of his intellect and temperament didn't see what was coming after he made such a provocative statement is baffling to me! Did he think all of Syria was cheering him on because his appointed bunny rabbits were applauding! He had correctly concluded that his enemies must not see weakness, but he miscalculated if he thought his people don't deserve empathy. Read the speech and the empathy I'm speaking of is in it, but see him deliver it and the empathy is lacking.

Now, nothing short of an internal coup by him, or by others, will save Syria from the ethnic quagmire ahead. I hope for an Alawite coup for two reasons; they are better armed, and I've had a lifelong love for Syria's mosaic sects. This includes my great affection for its Alawites. I admire their rags to riches success story and feel that this minority is our crown jewel. The fact that a few of them have exploited restrictive privatization measures should not tarnish the reputation of the majority of Alawites in Syria. Someone from within that community must step in, and I hope it is Bashar.

In Syria privatization is synonymous with Rami'fication (al-takhsees fi Sooria yuda'a al-ramrameh). Rami Makhlouf is an Alawite who has used and abused his sect without helping them in the least. His sect is innocent of his machinations, even though some have benefited indirectly from them. Equally innocent are our secular (anti- Islamist) Sunni, Christian and Druze brothers and sisters who found no way around dealing with this rigged and targeted privatization. They're now being portrayed as regime collaborators, even though their diversity makes Syria rich in human resources. Within the ranks of these Sunni loyalists I know of a few, some within Bashar’s immediate circle, who are undoubtedly urging President Assad to reconsider his recent decisions. Add up all these diverse Syrian groups (secular Sunnis and others) and you've got half of Syria. If they are all labeled collaborators by the opposition and were to be all shunned…then Syria's dead. Not all of these non-fundamentalist Sunni groups have a common agenda. For example; Syrian Kurds have bickered with the regime for a nationalist agenda that is diametrically opposed to that of our Syrian Christians, who want to be Syrian first. But even our loyal Christians are split; Catholics are sitting on the fence, while the Orthodox Christians sentiments seem to have turned against the regime. A third of Daraa's old families are Orthodox Christians, a fact rarely noted by the regime or its enemies. The split between Sunni opposition and all the other Syrians I mentioned above is an even split. So, if President Assad stays the course…all of Syria will go down.

The Sunni opposition have recently met and put out a very comforting statement assuring non Sunni Syrians of the secular nature of a future Syria, but reportedly the Brother Muslims delayed their entrance into that meeting then barged in shouting God is great…in unison. Here again the atmospherics were more telling than the text. Why am I leery of the protesters? The answer is one word: Iraq. Iraq is a testament on how a disenfranchised majority (Iraq's Shiaa in this case) marginalize minorities when allowed to rule; and that marginalization did not target the old ruling minority alone. Where are Iraq's Christians today? They are in exile in Syria, and elsewhere, as are large percentages of Iraq's secular Sunnis. I surmise from the Iraqi experience that majority rule without minority protection is unacceptable. Democracy cannot be a beneficial tool for empowering the many, unless the majority is prevented from abusing the minority. Syria is split along so many fault lines that a tiny crack in the dam of minority protection will bring on bloodshed that Syria may never recover from. What use is democracy if it strips Syria of its diverse mosaic, a mosaic that defines Syria and is its main source of global riches?

Readers of this blog may remember an earlier blog where I stated that Syria is not "next" for an uprising [1]. At the time I offered three reasons; Our Brand, our minorities and our armed forces. So why have I changed my mind? Why do I now say that Syria is going down…unless President Assad exiles Rami Makhlouf and ends Ramification! The reason for my reversal has a little to do with tribal pride but it has more to do with money; the source of all evil. When all the money in Syria is clutched in Rami Makhlouf's hands, eventually most Syrians will riot. A testimony to this fact is the targeting of his offices in Daraa, on the first day of the uprising. Brand abandonment, and rumblings within the armed forces are further signs that things are not going well. Let's take them one by one and see where they are today…versus where they were the day before President Assad made his speech:

1- Most Syrians accept their government, warts and all, as long as it remains true to its brand. Rami Makhlouf demolished this caveat when he made his comment on Israel's security. And, by not censoring his cousin President Assad chose his family member over his brand.

2- Syria's Christian and other minorities are fiercely nationalistic, play a decisive role in Syria's economy, and are engaged in stabilizing Syria's minority friendly regime. Sentiments in the orthodox community have turned against the regime, though some still pay it lip service.

3- Syria's armed forces remain mostly on the side of the regime. This has not yet changed, but the signs of a major disconnect are everywhere. One Republican guard unit could not stop unidentified security personnel from entering a curfew area (under that guard unit's control) to take prisoners from Douma. Just saying it happened is a sign of discord in the ranks. Once this leg of the tripod of support buckles the regime will totter and it will fall.

The question is will the President stick to Rami Makhlouf? Or will he exile him and implement real de-privatization? I believe in the sagacity of all Syrians including its president. A nation's leader must seek the least bloody solution even if he feels it's not the best solution. In any case Syria will eventually rise to take its place amongst nations.

[1] Ayman Hakki, “Why an Uprising Won’t Happen in Syria”

http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-uprising-wont-happen-in-syria.html

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The Last Chapter of the Assad Saga
By Basil Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

All indications from Syria point to the end of the four decade old Assad dynastic rule over the country. Even the usual European supporters of the Syrian regime have given up on Bashar al Assad. France is now calling for a Security Council resolution that condemns brutal suppression by the Syrian regime of peaceful protests. French Foreign Minister Alain Jupe stated that “…the process of reform is dead and we think that Bashar has lost his legitimacy to rule the country”.

The dismantling of the Assad power structure can take place in either of two ways: the graceful way and the violent way. In the graceful exit strategy, President Bashar al Assad can declare that he is stepping down, and a transitional government is formed that oversees free elections under the supervision of U.N. monitors. After free elections a new Parliament and President will draft and sign new laws that establish genuine democratic institutions, basic freedoms and protection of minorities.

The alternative violent option will be for Bashar al Assad to close ranks with his clan and rely on his family controlled security services to suppress by brute force the open revolt against his rule. The consequence of this second alternative is a bloody civil war that will shred the fabric of Syrian society and plunge the country into the abyss of sectarian mayhem similar to that of Iraq’s. Nevertheless, the outcome of this second option is a foregone conclusion in that the Assad clan will ultimately be stripped of power but at an enormous cost in lives and blood.

This violent option must be avoided at all cost, even though recent reports from Syria indicate that it may already be too late. But in order to prevent total disintegration of Syria, Bashar al Assad must understand the simple fact that he cannot impose his illegitimate rule on Syrians by placing a tank at every street corner of every city in the country. Nor can he sustain his regime by killing thousands of protesters, imprisoning tens of thousands of political activists and torturing children. The Syrian people are patient and resilient, but they have had enough of oppression and corruption by the Assad clan. The Assad clan must relinquish power.

And now is the defining moment for Bashar al Assad: will he choose to be the rogue tyrant who plunges his country into the inferno of civil war or will he demonstrate patriotism and statesmanship by gracefully stepping aside? I do not personally know the young President but I call on him in the name of humanity and common decency to please take his leave. Do not allow Syria to disintegrate into sectarian and tribal warfare. That would be a shameful final chapter of four decades of Assad rule.

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Syrians Flee to Turkey, Telling of Gunmen Attacking Protesters

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Is Arab Spring Spreading to US Congressional Staffs?

2011-06-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

By Franklin Lamb

www.middleastforum.com

Some Congressional scholars, historians, and longtime observers of Congress are expressing dismay over what seems to have dramatically diminished the claimed, “World’s greatest deliberative body”

With 41 applause interruptions and 29 standing ovations, even with some appearing half-hearted and somewhat forced, Congress sent a message that the Legislative branch, increasingly* *under the control of a foreign power, and not the Executive branch, will continue to determine American policy toward Israel and the Middle

Millions of American voters were offended this week by the vulgar display on Capitol Hill which witnessed the annual rite of nearly 2/3′s of Members on Congress stumbling over one another at the annual AIPAC Conference in order to ingratiate themselves with their hosts and to protect their sinecures.
Equally nauseating to many was what some on Capitol Hill are calling “Congressional Black Tuesday” when they assert Congress cheapened its status in American and foreign eyes and fouled itself by taking the role of undignified cheerleaders for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu during his appearance before a joint session of Congress, an invitation normally reserved for august occasions and accomplished personages.

FLOOR LEADERS!

With 41 applause interruptions and 29 standing ovations, even with some appearing half-hearted and somewhat forced, Congress sent a message that the Legislative branch, increasingly under the control of a foreign power, and not the Executive branch, will continue to determine American policy toward Israel and the Middle East.
Some Congressional scholars, historians, and longtime observers of Congress are expressing dismay over what seems to have dramatically diminished the claimed, “World’s greatest deliberative body”.

Among those objecting to what they see as the corruption of Congress are an increasing number of the more than 18,000 Congressional staffers, many of whom work as many as 70 hours per week in their sometimes highly competitive jobs. Most Congressional staffers understand and respect the institution of Congress, know their Members politics, are aware of American interests in the Middle East and are fairly well informed on the Question of Palestine.

However, many are not happy and are beginning to rise up against what they are witnessing in their offices which is the increasing smothering of their erstwhile legislative aid roles by agents of Israel such as AIPAC. The latter are seen as increasingly preempting their roles and taking over some of their work by flooding their offices with position papers and then lobbying incessantly to see their ‘recommendations” implemented.

It is not always easy being a Congressional staffer and many have been and continue to be abused in various ways, some of which become public in an institution that values discretion and averting attention from their Members foibles. Yet working in Congress can be interesting and often rewarding work for those wanting to serve their constituents and help solve myriad problems on the local and federal level.

There is no shortage of access these days to friends and acquaintance who work on the Hill and whose work assignments include US Middle East policy.* *This longtime observer of Congress and former staffer has been somewhat pleasantly surprised by the strong reaction of some Congressional aides to last week’s events on the Hill and the rapid changes happening across the Middle East.

Congressional staff reactions to the Obama and Netanyahu AIPAC speeches and particularly the Israeli PM’s speech to Congress is strong and leads to the tentative conclusion that the effects the Arab Spring are being felt in both Houses of Congress as well as numerous support agencies such as the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.

Many House and Senate staffers identify with those of similar age who have taken to the streets across the Middle East who are thought of as courageous, smart and reasonable. They also understand that the Arab Awakening of 2011 is an historic game changer and they are often deeply sympathetic and supportive. Perhaps because of their knowledge of the issues, they express abhorrence to the Zionist falsehoods and disinformation that comes from AIPAC offices at the bottom of Capitol Hill and some of which were repeated by Netanyahu in their workplace.
Virtually all Congressional staffers who objected to Netanyahu’s appearance before Congress expressed rejection of his following assertions as ludicrously false:“Of 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.”

“Throughout the millennial history of the Jewish capital, the only time that Jews, Christians and Muslims could worship freely, could have unfettered access to their holy sites, has been during Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.”
“In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.”
“In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli prime ministers to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six-Day War.”
“We have helped the Palestinian economic growth by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable.”
“The Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel.”
“They (Palestinians) continue to educate their children to hate.”
“A nuclear armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”

How Netanyahu received his “speech of a lifetime” ovations*

Two staffers who work with the House Foreign Affairs Committee and who know the issue of Palestine very well and also how AIPAC operates on the Hill explained to this observer how Netanyahu’s “speech of a lifetime” was organized by AIPAC.

Firstly, orders were issued that nothing was to be left to chance and they essentially succeeded, but for the protesting slogans shouted by Rae Abileah before AIPAC undercover security tackled her and she ended up in the hospital, groped, injured and under arrest.

“Here is how Bibi got his “spontaneous” applause”, one and then the other explained. “AIPAC, as usual with visiting Israeli officials, edited his speech for most favorable local consumption. Marks were made at the end of intended applause lines for Bibi to highlight them verbally. Key Members such as Eric Cantor (R-VA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) were designated as floor leaders and were seated in strategic locations in the Chamber. Once Bibi began his speech the floor leaders would leap up at the indicated cue phrases and begin to applaud enthusiastically. Quite naturally, others would follow either not wanting to appear impolite or to stand out and be noticed as not showing proper support for Israel and its Prime Minister. “In addition, AIPAC staffers who prowl congressional offices daily, let it be known that videos of the Members listening to Bibi would be kept on file and insinuated that how the Member’s performed during his speech to Congress would be taken into consideration when planning this summer’s Jewish fundraising events.

One aide, who supports his boss’s “moderately pro-Palestinian positions”, defended his applause for Netanyahu with these words: “Look, my guy could not just sit there and be conspicuous. Of course he resents being forced to fake support for Israel’s insane policies that he believes harms our country. Believe me, many Members feel like him and many Hill staffers are disgusted by what we see. But the guy needs to keep his job to work on other issues like protecting Medicare and stopping home foreclosures. Plus not many of our constituents probably even watched him grovel on TV so it was kind of a freebie for us. What would you have done?”

A surprising number of Congressional staffers explain that they feel they are stigmatized abroad and particularly in the Middle East as being part of the Israel lobby when they are not. One staffer explained: “This sounds arrogant but we who work in Congress know this subject much better than the general American public and when you understand the history of Palestine and its takeover by Europeans and the continuing ethnic cleansing of the rightful owners of the land, how do you think we feel? We feel the same as the Palestinians refugees spread all around the World feel. We are human beings too. Arab and foreign media often lump us with the Members of Congress, whereas in reality many of us are working for change.”

One lady, whose job it is to summarize and update Arab-Israeli conflict developments for her boss who is a Senator from the Midwest explained that “sometimes AIPAC sees what I write and will contact and challenge me on my work that should be between me and my boss. Everyone knows that Members of Congress are regularly pressured and targeted by AIPAC. You should know that dozens of staffers have been fired from their jobs on the Hill during the 15 years I have been here. I may be next.” And then she added, “But until that day comes I will continue to support the Palestinian cause and work to change our foreign policy and see that it’s made in the USA and not in Tel Aviv.”

Franklin Lamb, a regular contributor to Rebel News, is doing research in Lebanon and can be contacted c/o fplamb@gmail.com.

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Mourning a Boy, Crowds in Syria Defy Crackdown
By Liam Stack and Katherine Zoepf

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Syrian Protesters Mass Again Despite Harsh Crackdown

By Liam Stack and Katherine Zoepf

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Syria Continues Attacks on Protesters on Protesters While Calling for Dialogue
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Video of Tortured Boy’s Corpse Deepens Anger in Syria
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Syria’s Opposition Dismisses Amnesty Gesture
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Syrian Leader Offers Amnesty But Protesters Are Skeptical
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Israel Lost in Denial

2011-05-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

By Sam Bahour*

www.middleastforum.com

The Israeli government’s sigh of relief was surely heard around the globe. When the rift between Palestinian factions existed, Israel simply brushed off any possibility for resolution of the conflict, claiming that the Palestinian president was simply too weak to implement any agreement as along as Hamas was in control of Gaza. Then, taking all by surprise, the two largest Palestinian factions declared an end to their five-year disunity and signed a reconciliation agreement brokered by the post-Mubarak Egyptian government. The agreement itself reads more like a power-sharing agreement, something every living democracy knows very well. However, before the ink on the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement was dry, Israel opened its worn out play script and started reading from past chapters; this time the Israeli kneejerk reaction–within hours–was that there is no way to make peace with Palestinians as long as Hamas is involved. This would be comic if lives, both Palestinian and Israeli, were not at stake.
Let’s take a step back and look at the facts, possibly inconvenient facts for many. Why did Israel, from the outset of the Oslo process nearly two decades ago, enter into an agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization, better known as the PLO? There is no secret here. The first step that kicked off the entire infamous Oslo Accords was an exchange of letters, one of which the PLO, via its late Chairman Yasser Arafat, provided to Israel. The full text of the document is public knowledge and states unequivocally, in its entirety:
“The signing of the Declaration of Principles marks a new era...I would like to confirm the following PLO commitments: The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The PLO commits itself...to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations...the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators...the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant.”
On the very same day, September 9, 1993, Yitzhak Rabin, then Prime Minister of Israel, issued his own letter which stated the following, in its entirety:
“In response to your letter of September 9, 1993, I wish to confirm to you that, in light of the PLO commitments included in your letter, the Government of Israel has decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and commence negotiations with the PLO within the Middle East peace process.”
Note two very important issues here, 1) the entity Israel recognized is the PLO (an organization composed of many different factions representing the full political and ideological spectrum), not Fatah, not Hamas and not the Palestinian Authority, which, by the way, is a product of the Oslo agreement itself and has no negotiating mandate, and 2) the PLO not only recognized Israel as other states did, as simply a member state of the United Nations, but went even further to state its “right…to exist in peace and security.” No country on earth has formally recognized Israel in such a comprehensive manner.
So all the rumpus about Fatah and Hamas reconciling their internal differences and all the immediate punishing of Palestinians by Israel for this reconciliation raises some key concerns. First and foremost, what does Israel want? Does it want a Palestinian partner who can actually reflect a representative political system with the potential to reach and then implement a peace agreement?
Likewise, what are all the old-new demands that Hamas must recognize Israel? Hamas does not recognize Israel anymore than Israel’s current foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party represents the State of Israel. What difference is there between the far right coalition in Israel and the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas?
The fact of the matter is that anyone observing the agonizing details of this conflict over the past six decades can only deduce one main thing: Israel has no intention to reach a lasting peace with Palestinians. Furthermore, in order to maintain the international community’s commitment to underwriting Israel’s continuing military occupation, Israel has perfected the sadistic game of maintaining a never-ending peace process, one that only gives it more time to create additional facts on the ground (such as settlements) which may be jeopardizing the entire two-state framework as a solution.
Ordinary Israelis are afraid to put down their guns and make peace because the scenarios seem too vulnerable and uncertain. Instead of calming these fears by forging good, new, functional partnerships with Palestinians as equals, the current Israeli government intensifies these fears with the same tired old angry rhetoric about terrorism and the culture, religion, and aspirations of their neighbors.
The missing voices in the debate are many, but a key voice that has yet to be heard is that of the world Jewry. After all, Israel is acting, or so it believes, in the best interest of Jews worldwide. It is hard for me to believe that continued settlement building, continued economic strangulation, continued collective punishment, continued denying of Palestinians from reaching their holy sites, including the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and other forms of repression of another people are in the interest of the world Jewry. However, until we hear loud and clear from Jewish communities around the globe that these acts of Israel are not being done in their name, we can only assume that Israel is drunk on its own arrogance and narcissism because of the unfettered support that it receives from the world Jewry, and this realization, if true, would be sadder than the lack of a peace agreement.
*Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business development consultant from Youngstown, Ohio living in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com. http://www.jewishpostandnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=240:bahour&catid=51:latest-features
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Netanyahu Fails Israel
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Israel and Congress Not in Sync?

By Al Kamen

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Whereto Syria?

2011-05-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

By Anonymous*

www.middleastforum.com

Let us first establish some facts on the ground

1-There is widespread corruption, nepotism and monopolies.
2-The masses are dissatisfied with the status quo, economically, politically and socially.
3-Foreign bodies are manipulating the demonstrations to some extent.
4-The so called security forces are too brutal.
5-Parliament is a puppet show, indeed a circus.
6-The possibility of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover is unacceptable to the silent majority.
7-The continuation of the present set up is also unacceptable to the silent majority.
8-The regime has strong bilateral ties with the mercantile families of Damascus and Aleppo.

So where does all this leave us?

If both sides are unwilling to budge and the international powers do not have much real leverage with the regime, then surely the regime can outlast the demonstrators. True it has been going on for months in Yemen with no signs of abating, but Syrians are no Yemenis. They have more to lose and are dependant on the mercantile families for work.

The regime may not be executing Hama II in one go, but it is doing it in stages and just as Hama I cowed Syria for decades, the end result of brute force in doses will eventually quell the rebellion. But at what cost?

The regime is creating fertile ground for round 2 of the demonstrations. Syrians who have had family and friends killed, wounded, tortured or jailed will not forgive the regime and will eventually erupt again, but only after better preparation and with real foreign help. Ground fertility will be even greater if the regime fails to act on its promises of reform.

So what can break the impasse?

Bashar can be remembered as a statesman and a visionary or simply as a footnote in Syrian history. It is up to him to choose.
If he chooses to live up to the stature of his father as a notable and well respected statesman, but one with more love from his people than fear, then he must take the inevitable step. He must put country above family and clan. He must reach out to the silent majority and ask for its support against both sides. He must rise to the occasion and address the above 8 facts as follows

1-There is widespread corruption, nepotism and monopolies. Start with his own family and breakdown the monopolies and introduce transparency.
2-The masses are dissatisfied with the status quo, economically, politically and socially. Initiate public discourse and free the media from big brother and ensure the judiciary has autonomy.
3-Foreign bodies are manipulating the demonstrations to some extent. Put perpetrators on real public hearings after granting them renowned defense lawyers
4-The so called security forces are too brutal. This must stop, period, and all prisoners of thought must be freed and their slates cleared and all militia disbanded and their sources of income shut off.
5-Parliament is a puppet show, indeed a circus. Call for free elections for a Constituent Assembly after abolishing article 8 of the constitution to put together a new constitution
6-The possibility of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover is unacceptable to the silent majority. Outlaw religious parties by law and constitution just like Turkey
7-The continuation of the present set up is also unacceptable to the silent majority. Announce a detailed schedule of reforms and start by taking a chapter from Hafez's book. After all he exiled his powerful brother Refaat.
8-The regime has strong bilateral ties with the mercantile families of Damascus and Aleppo. Put them on notice that any past or future impropriety will be made public and accountable and establish a Central Tenders Committee to oversee all major government works. Strengthen the taxation authority and set up a new tax code aimed at a more equitable tax system.

*The author prefers to remain anonymous for reasons of personal safety

-----------------------------------------------------------------
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“The State of Palestine intends to be a peace-loving nation, committed to human rights, democracy, the rule of law and the principles of the United Nations Charter. Once admitted to the United Nations, our state stands ready to negotiate all core issues of the conflict with Israel. A key focus of negotiations will be reaching a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on Resolution 194, which the General Assembly passed in 1948.
We call on all friendly, peace-loving nations to join us in realizing our national aspirations by recognizing the State of Palestine on the 1967 border and by supporting its admission to the United Nations. Only if the international community keeps the promise it made to us six decades ago, and ensures that a just resolution for Palestinian refugees is put into effect, can there be a future of hope and dignity for our people.”

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Israeli Army Ponders Tactics After Clashes During Palestinian Protests
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What Would Netanyahu Do For Peace?

By David Makovsky

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Will Syria Be Held Accountable for Bloodshed on Its Border With Israel?

Washington Post Editorial

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Inside Syria’s Secret Prisons
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Syria's Say/Do Gap

2011-05-15T05:11:00.000-07:00

By Ayman Hakki

www.middleastforum.com

For a regime to be legitimate it must have moral credibility. Syria's regime is now facing the abyss of illegitimacy. The path its young president chooses to take will determine its future for decades to come.

Many, including the men closest to Syria's president, seem resigned to this abyss. They want to cling on to a situation that has now become insupportable, and are threatening not to go down alone. Yet- like his father before him- Bashar Al Assad, the man nominally in charge of Brand Syria, may still right the wrongs that have occurred. It seems that the regime (like everything else in that part of the world) has two faces; one benevolent and beloved, the other malicious and despicable. No two people exemplified this dichotomy more than Hafez and Rifaat Assad. Long ago Rifaat was in charge of the defense brigades and his actions became intolerable. Somehow as if by magic he was exiled and Hafez took back the reigns of power. Today Bashar must do the same and exile a few in order to save his regime and Syria. For this to be possible it may require magic of the kind Hafez seemed to conjure up.

It would bridge of the Say/Do gap: It's time that Syria's president does what he's been saying he has wanted to do, or just leave. I say this at the risk of being called a traitor by the regime, and an apologist by everyone else. I understand the contention that corruption and institutional decay are resistant to cosmetic remedies, but I must disagree with the nay sayers. Image is everything; were Syria's President to distance himself from his brother, his cousin and his entourage, he may regain the trust of his people. Bashar Al Assad is in this unique situation because the majority of his people (in the two major cities) blame others for the regime's missteps. Those men and women have got to accept exile and move out. Some foreign funded agitators will persist in their efforts to spread sedition, but most Syrians will stand behind Bashar Al Assad, as evidenced by recent facebook polls that show that the people who want him to stay outnumber those who want him gone. At the end of the day Hosni Mubarak was not deposed, he was "de-friended".

I'm a Sunni Muslim and I believe in God, but I don't believe in blind tradition. I feel it's a Wahabi Sunni idolatry and I am sure that the Wahabis are behind this sedition. I am proud to be secular and cherish all Syria's minorities equally and I'm convinced that President Assad does too. Syria is a mosaic where everyone belongs, and I fear that a bunch of guys with long beards and no mustaches will soon be running Syria. The rioters pouring out of Friday prayers all over the provinces are not fit to lead Syria. I do mourn their death at the hand of the regime's thugs but I realize that they're my enemies as much as they are the regime's enemies. They are also the enemies of Christians, Ismaiilis, Alawis and Druze Syrians. They are the enemy of anyone who isn’t a Sunni, and it would be a shame for Syria to lose its diversity and become exclusively Sunni. Some say it's too late, blood has been spilt, but I feel many are sitting on the fence. Syria is a country that has survived many a sectarian sedition, and it will survive this one. To begin the process of reclaiming the heart and mind of Syrian's a speech very unlike the speech he recently gave must be given. Mind you that just giving a speech isn’t enough it must be followed by sending a few into exile, and requiring the fence sitters to intervene and do so with conviction.

I'm offering this speech for President Assad's consideration, a speech that'll work if it is followed by strategic forced exile. I do so, because I don’t want Syria to fall into the "Shabab's" hands.

The Speech.

My fellow Syrians…I stand before you at the People's Parliament and I ask you to pray with me for our fallen brothers. I mourn the passing away of both protesters and security officers alike. I also ask you to refrain from cheering and clapping, because the moment is a somber one: 'Al-Fatiha' (he silently prays).

We are Syrians first and we have a duty towards each other and towards a cause greater than all of us. These are our most challenging times and we must pass this most crucial of tests…and we will do so. Many of you have seen footage of security officials disobeying my orders to refrain from the use of deadly force against my people; you've also seen footage of mosques being used as launching pads for sectarian sedition…both sides are wrong. I stand with the majority of Syrians, between these two parties, and strongly oppose both. I will take all measures needed to reign in all destructive impulses.

I understand why protesters riot; opportunism has become a way of life, and its taking us towards an uncertain tomorrow. I also understand the security official's impulse to strike at extremists because they are calling us towards an unacceptable yesterday. I call on the men and women leading behind both groups to leave Syria, in order to allow us to move forward. Each side has created small fiefdoms, and have benefited from the status quo, at the expense of all Syrians. These old economic and social leaders must clear the stage for young Syrians to guide us towards the future, and away from all bygone pasts.

If both sides refuse to go, Syria may become another Iraq or Libya. Therefore; I must act firmly in the best interests of my people. My people are the great people of Syria and they have been at the heart of Arabism, we've also been at the front line of the opposition to Israeli and western designs. Nothing would make our enemies happier than our fracturing along sectarian lines. I know mistakes were made and I promise you timely and orderly change, but I ask you now to help me stop this calamity from happening. I call on you to ask each other to remain Syrian first and show the world that restraint defines us. We' not just a country, or just a people, we're a historical idea; there is room for all in Syria.

Syria today is at a cross roads. The paths in front of us are multiple; a pseudo left turn towards state sponsored opportunism, a right turn towards sectarian extremism and a middle road towards secular moderation and financial responsibility. Let's make sure that what has happened to almost every Arab state doesn't happen here. Together we'll navigate these uncertain terrains. I call on our historic survival instincts to get us safely to a future that's neither corrupt nor extreme; a future that remains resolutely Arab, tolerantly and inclusively Muslim, and respects people's rights, while assuring our people's safety.

God bless Syria.

Exile list; the head of the Qubaisi movement, Daraa's high Sheikh, Maher Assad, and Rami Makhlouf etc.

And, Syria's first Lady, rumored to be in Britain, must come back and finish the programs she started

Conclusion.

By doing the things he's always wanted to do, then sending a few away including his closest family members away, Bashar al Assad will bridge the say/do gap. It is in everyone's interest to avoid the abyss.

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"Fatal Embrace"

2011-05-08T04:58:00.000-07:00

Review of the book “Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land”, By Mark Braverman [1]

By Sam Bahour

www.middleastforum.com

“Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land” by Mark Braverman is a courageous book, filled with urgency and hope. In the expanding library of literature that seeks to shine a rational light on the ever-deteriorating situation in Palestine and Israel, Braverman’s contribution has a very particular and useful focus. It speaks personally and intimately to Jews and Christians about the interconnectedness of the roles of their respective faith communities (the “fatal embrace”) in the evolution of the ghastly mess in the Holy Land and in what needs to be done to repair it. Along the way, the author demolishes the claim that facing up to the devastation wrought by the Zionist enterprise is somehow anti-Semitic.

The book is remarkable for its deft interweaving of the personal and the political in Braverman’s account of his journey of understanding, an account which moves forward or backward in time as required but remains coherent and clear. The author does not lecture at us; he recounts, and describes, and discloses, and considers-and gradually disarms us. He shares vivid accounts of the people he has met in Palestine and Israel as well as key insights from books he has read and conferences he has attended. We meet theologians and activists and farmers and historians and politicians and journalists he has talked and prayed and wept with. We see and hear how these encounters cumulatively functioned to change his understanding of the issues. He gently but inexorably deconstructs, along with his own developing insights, many common misconceptions about Israel and Palestine, Zionism versus Judaism, post-war Christian theology and the still-developing Jewish-Christian dialogue, the dynamic of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and the grim realities on the ground. He covers topics that have been addressed before in various ways, yet this is an unusually moving book. I attribute its powerful impact to Braverman’s compassionate yet rigorous mode of analysis and his refusal to be cowed into glossing over the realities he observes with his own eyes in order to appease or comfort any of the usual stakeholders in the discourse on this subject.
Practicing Christians and observant Jews will find Fatal Embrace extremely helpful thanks to its in-depth treatment of the nuances as well as the broad landscape of Christian-Jewish relations since World War II and the implications for the Holy Land, then and now. The book’s analysis of the interplay of religion and politics in the context of policy formulation and decision-making about Israel and Palestine, in the USA and elsewhere, will also interest secular readers and those who are neither Christian nor Jewish.

Braverman is unequivocal in his judgment that Israel’s ongoing destruction of Palestine, which he portrays throughout with brutal honesty, is also destroying Israel itself. His urgent call for more effective interfaith and diplomatic intervention from outsiders is clearly aimed at rescuing Israelis as well as Palestinians. Just one example, quoting from something he wrote in 2008: “Israel’s policy, remarkably consistent and relentless…, to obtain complete political and economic control of all of Palestine, is killing Israel-its young people, its economy, its soul, its very future.” In the book’s final chapter, “A Call to Action,” he recounts a brief story about a Palestinian colleague’s eight-year-old daughter who, gazing at the towering concrete separation wall by the side of the road she was driving along with her mother between Jerusalem and Ramallah, turned to her mom “and asked, ‘Mommy, why do they make the Jews live behind that wall?’”
The other remarkable quality of this book is the extent to which Braverman, while never stepping out of his Jewish selfhood, is able to enfold and integrate Christian scripture and the works of Christian thinkers and synthesize from all those thoughts and texts one moving insight after another, which he then shares with us in his own, personal and Jewish way:

“If Israel is to survive, it must change… [and we] outside of Israel who are locked in this embrace with the Holy Land must change also. The path to that change is articulated in the Gospel of Mark: ‘Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister.’ This powerful principle is echoed by Israeli peace activist Nurit Peled-Elhanan: ‘My people are those who seek peace.’ If Israel is to survive-if, indeed, the Jewish people itself is to survive-we must decide to join the community of humankind” and cease clinging to our chosenness as God’s elect, he concludes.
His bottom line: “There is no viable future for the Jewish people unless and until we can acknowledge the suffering that we have caused and open ourselves to sharing the land with the Palestinians. It is the path that beckons us if we are to escape from the prison of our separateness and self-absorption… [The] Palestinian people represent the other that we must join with in order to join humanity” and come out from behind our wall.

In his recap of the book’s main thrust, Braverman itemizes as follows: “solving this conflict and [achieving] a stable, lasting peace” is “a just, moral, and urgent cause”; “peace will not come without justice”; “politics have failed to bring about such a resolution”; and “it is time to reframe the interfaith dialogue” because inaction is not an option. The book offers a thoughtful selection of useful resources and links in the appendices, plus a list of references and an index.

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business development consultant from Youngstown, Ohio living in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
You may leave comments at the original posting link at:
http://www.jewishpostandnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=197:fatal-embrace&catid=47:fp-roknewsflash&Itemid

[1] Mark Braverman, “Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land” , Synergy Books, Austin, Texas; $16.95, 416 pages
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An eyewitness account …gunfire raining into crowd

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Al-Jazeera, April 24th, 2011.

This essay was withdrawn. Subsequent reports raised serious concerns about the journalistic integrity of the article.

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Post Assad Syria

2011-04-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

By Basil Hakki

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The uprising in Syria, in which security forces killed several hundred protestors, must be clearly understood in terms of its cause and objective. The uprising is an unequivocal rejection of the repressive Assad dynastic rule. It is amply clear that the political system in Syria over the last forty years has been corrupted into a hereditary rule that is both oppressive and harsh by any standard. The Assad dynasty has secured its monopoly on power through a plethora of laws and a fearsome security apparatus that can imprison, torture and “terminate” anyone at will. This regime has also established a power base comprised of a small segment of the population, of various religions, which benefits from their support of the regime. The rest of the Syrians outside this elite circle are suffering economically, politically and deprived of basic human dignity. The uprising will ultimately remove the Assads from power and redress their widespread abuses.

It is also clear that the uprising is not sectarian in nature. The Alawites do not constitute a cohesive group since many of them do not support the Assad regime. By the same token, the Assad power base includes many Sunnis and Christians. Therefore, it is important to dispel the notion that this uprising has sectarian undertones. The uprising must be viewed within the limited context of removing the Assad family from power.

There will also be a critical transition period between the fall of the Assad government and the establishment of a new and duly elected government. This transition period is fraught with danger. The most important task that must be undertaken during the transition period is to establish a legal mechanism to address the grievances of those who have suffered loss during the uprising. A general prosecutor must investigate acts of violence committed against peaceful demonstrators and bring responsible officials to justice. The suffering of the protestors must be dealt with in a fair and transparent legal manner in order to avoid acts of retribution.

The next obvious question is what would free Syria look like after the Assads. In a recent essay Ibrahim al Amin detailed thirteen basic reforms that must be carried out [1]. These reforms cover the whole gamut of political, economic and judicial institutions in Syria. Here, it is also important to emphasize that in the new free Syria the rights of all Syrians will be protected by law regardless of their sectarian, ethnic or political affiliation. To be blunt, there should not be retaliation against anyone because of sect, ethnicity or past politics. In the ensuing political environment, every citizen is eligible to participate as long as the person has not been convicted of crime or treason. The only requirements that the person must satisfy are three. First, the person must be Syrian. Second, the person must be Syrian. Third, the person must be Syrian. All other personal attributes are irrelevant.

In the emerging free Syria, all Syrians must come together to build the proud and prosperous country that they inhabit. Whether rich or poor, Christian, Muslim or Druze, Kurd or Arab, the citizens of Syria must view themselves first and foremost as Syrians.

Finally, a word to the people of Damascus. The Damascenes take pride in the fact that their city is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. The Damascenes are fully justified in taking such pride. But the down side of this survival ability is that the people of Damascus have acquired the not so noble quality of obsequiousness. And now is the time for the Damascenes to develop some backbone. The freedom train is moving and they will have to decide whether they want to be on it. If they do, then they will have to pay the fee. The price of freedom is measured in blood and lives. The Damascenes cannot forever fiddle while the country burns.
[1] Ibrahim al Amin, “Syria: the Race Between Sedition and Reform”, Middle East Open Forum, April 3, 2011.
http://middleastforum.blogspot.com/2011/04/syria-race-between-sedition-and-reform.html
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