For the full collection click HERE
From the start of the Syrian revolution, the Assad regime’s media have portrayed the overwhelmingly peaceful grassroots protest movement as a foreign-backed military assault. Its preferred catchall term to describe the tens of thousands of patriots it has kidnapped and tortured, as well as the thousands it has murdered, is “armed gangs.” Despite a series of televised “confessions,” the regime has not provided any serious proof of the supposed American-French-Qaeda-Israeli-Saudi-Qatari plot against the homeland. Nor has it explained the evident contradictions between its narrative and the thousands of YouTube videos and eyewitness accounts of security forces shooting rifles and artillery straight into unarmed crowds.
Of course it hasn’t. Yet its propaganda is taken seriously by Russian and Chinese state media, certain infantile leftists, and a vaguely prominent American academic.
Those Sunni Syrians who are (understandably) enraged by the minorities’ siding with the dictatorship should remember first that many Alawis and Christians, as well as many more Druze and Ismailis, have joined the revolution and that many have paid the price. Second, Sunnis should remember that Alawis and Christians have good reason to fear change, if not to believe the propaganda.
Alawis have a complex, esoteric religion that throughout history has been savagely denounced, and its adherents savagely oppressed. Ultimately it’s a matter of political interpretation whether or not Alawis are to be considered Muslims. The Ottoman Empire didn’t even consider them “People of the Book,” which meant that unlike Christians, Jews, and mainstream Shiites, Alawis didn’t enjoy any legal rights. The ravings of the influential medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyya (who thought Alawis were “greater disbelievers than the Jews, Christians, and Indian idol-worshipping Brahmans”) contributed to their oppression and justified the theft of their lands around Aleppo and their forced retreat into the mountains. Until the 1920s, the Alawis were stuck in those mountains. Antakya (Antioch) was the only city where Alawis lived with Sunnis, and Antakya was gifted by France to Turkey before the independence of the modern Syrian state.
Most Alawis today are not particularly religious. Far from pushing Alawi tenets on the general populace, the Assads discouraged the study of the faith and repressed the traditional Alawi clerics. As a result, if individual Alawis do turn to religion, most tend to practice Sunni or mainstream Shiite rituals.
Of course, as far as the business of state is concerned, it should be entirely irrelevant whether or not Alawis are Muslims or even People of the Book. As Syrian citizens they should be guaranteed the same rights and the same access to political office as anyone else. It would help a great deal if revolutionary leaders and Sunni clerics were to state this as clearly and as often as possible. The blatant anti-Alawi sectarianism of Sheikh Adnan al-Arour (given prominence by Saudi Arabia) and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (given prominence by Al Jazeera), both supposed friends of the revolution, does not help at all. Speaking to “those [Alawis] who stood against us,” Arour recently promised, “I swear by God we will mince them in grinders and feed their flesh to the dogs.”
The one thing the regime has done intelligently in the last six months is to play on minorities’ fears. I know that prominent Alawis have been receiving threatening phone calls from unknown numbers, ostensibly from “Sunnis” but almost certainly from the mukhabarat. (How would street-level Sunnis get hold of the phone numbers, and why would they want to make such threats when the committees coordinating the protests are stressing the importance of avoiding sectarianism?)
Israeli activist and author Miko Peled, currently touring Australia, is convinced that the Israel-Palestine conflict can be solved.
But, he told public meetings in Sydney and Newcastle, he doesn’t believe that it will happen while the government of Israel remains committed to Zionism (the maintenance of Israel as an exclusively “Jewish” state) and continues its ethnic cleansing operation by moving Palestinians off their land.
“It is not some inexorable process of nature,” Peled said. “It is a conflict between people, and it is therefore something over which people can have control.”
Peled was raised in a prominent Zionist family in Jerusalem. His grandfather, Dr Avraham Katsnelson, was a Zionist leader and signatory to the May 14, 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Katsnelson was also a member of Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party of Palestine that, in 1946, was the sole Zionist political organisation in Palestine at the time that recognised the national rights of the Palestinian Arabs.
Peled’s father, Matti Peled, was a young officer in the war of 1948 that led to Israel’s establishment. He was a general in the war of 1967 when Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and the Sinai from Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
When he retired, Matti Peled became part of a group of retired army officers who met secretly with the Palestine Liberation Organisation to work on finding a two-state solution.
Peled recounted several life changing episodes — including the death of his niece from a suicide bombing attack in 1997 and the deaths of children of several Palestinian friends — that pushed him to discover and understand the true nature of Israel’s ongoing war on Palestinians that was having such a devastating impact on his family and friends.
He is now a fearless campaigner for one secular state for Palestinians and Israelis in which all live in equality.
He also supports the non-violent boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. He said the boycott of Max Brenner cafes was not anti-Semitic, explaining how the Stauss Group openly support the Israeli government’s apartheid politics and an Israeli army unit responsible for war crimes.
He added: “All businesses based in Israeli are a legitimate target, since all of Israel is based on Palestinian land.”
Peled was asked to brief the ALP’s foreign affairs committee in Canberra. He said he was asked some strange questions in response to his argument for one democratic secular state. Someone asked, “But wouldn’t the Arabs outnumber Jews if there was a single state?” Peled answered, “Yes. And?”
Responding to foreign minister Kevin Rudd’s accusations that BDS was “anti-Semitic”, Peled said there is no comparison. “Then, the Jews were victims. Today, it is the Israeli Defence Force [IDF] that is a terrorist organisation. Mr Rudd should be proud that Australians are standing up for the cause of justice and supporting the BDS.”
It takes enormous courage to stand up against the Zionist mind-set Israelis are raised with. Peled recounted a moving story about his first journey to the West Bank. It was a pivotal moment.
Driving past the Israeli checkpoints into the West Bank, in an Israeli-plated car, he suddenly felt very unsafe. His unfounded fears worsened when became lost and felt he couldn’t ask for directions as he only spoke Hebrew.
He finally managed to arrive at his destination in Bil’in — unscathed.
Peled now laughs while narrating this story. But he expresses concern that Israelis are taught from a young age to be racist by the racism embedded in their text books. For example, school maps of Israel do not include any Palestinian towns.
Children grow into adults only knowing that Israel is surrounded by it Arab neighbours and have little or no idea of the reality of the Occupied Territories.
Peled references tragic personal events alongside Israel’s 2008-09 attack on Gaza as examples of terrorism. He describes the 2008-2009 Israeli attack on Gaza — Operation Cast Lead — a deliberate act of terrorism committed against children.
“Gaza is a children’s land: there are 800,000 children there. The aerial bombing was timed to start precisely when the first shift of Palestinian school children were leaving school to go home. The second shift were leaving home to go to school.
“The Israel pilots who carried out the bombing went home every night to their wives and families, and go up the next morning to do it again and again.”
His conclusion is that Israel is a terrorist state, that Israel’s conquest of Palestine has been made “irreversible” and that a Palestinian state based on the territories Israel occupied in 1967 (the West Bank and Gaza) “can never emerge”.
Referring to the Palestinian Authority’s current push for a Palestinian state in the United Nations, he reminded people that the UN had already voted that way — in 1947. When Israel was created, in 1947, an overwhelming majority of countries voted in favour of the Partition Plan: 33 in favor, 13 against with 10 abstentions.
“However Israel immediately set out to conquer some 80% of the remaining Palestinian territory, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing some 800,000 people to flee. Its aim was to make sure the conquest of Palestine was irreversible, to prevent any possibility of a Palestinian state emerging.”
Peled exposed the myth that Israel launched the Six-day war in 1967 because it faced an external threat from neighbouring Arab states. Rather, his father, General Peled, urged the Israel cabinet to attack its neighbours arguing that an opportunistic attack would succeed as the Arab states were “unprepared”.
Peled said that documents from cabinet meetings prior to the war confirm that there was never any mention of any existential threats.
Immediately after the war, his father argued for a Palestinian state to be set up in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “to avoid Israel becoming an occupying power”. This was advice the Israeli Cabinet did not take.
“The two-state solution may have been possible 50 years ago”, Peled argued, “but not now.”
“Both sides have much the same population but Israel takes 80% of the resources. Palestinians are given about 1/20th the amount of water allocated to the Israeli settlers, for instance, and Israel refuses to negotiate this.”
But Peled believes that there is hope. “There is growing discussion that Israel has to change from being an occupier to a democracy”, Peled said. Citing the uprisings across the Arab world, Peled commented that mid way through last year it was inconceivable to imagine Egypt without Mubarak. “Change doesn’t happen from a single cause or reason. Apartheid in South Africa fell because of pressure from the outside, as well as within.
“Zionism is incompatible with peace because it offers no compromise. The only solution is to dismantle the Zionist framework and apply the rule of law equally to both people. It is not impossible, because the people of Egypt remind us that nothing is impossible.”
[Miko Peled’s book, The General’s Son will be available in February 2012. To find out more click here.]
Ahead of the publication of my “The Wandering Who” the entire Zionist network is in a total panic. Veterans Today’s senior Editor Gordon Duff commented yesterday that just a ‘few books have been opposed as this one has’. He may as well be right.
It started last Friday, with the Hasbara mouthpiece “Jewish Chronicle” of London attacking Professor Mearsheimer for endorsing a book ‘by an antisemite’.
I don’t know how many times do I have to mention that I am not an antisemite for I really hate everyone equally. For some reason, my detractors refuse to take this simple message on board.
Then, the Islamophobic agent-provocateur “Harry’s place” — who never miss a chance to muddy the water — joined in, intimidating and harassing a London academic just because she tweeted that she likes Atzmon’s book
That’s right: fake cities, built in Qatar by Al Jazeera, occupied by hordes of actors, under the direction of filmmakers to create a false impression of what’s happening on the ground in Syria. Or at least that’s the spin.
Or perhaps more accurately, propaganda. As this post from The New York Times mentions, the station that ran the allegations on September 9 is closely tied to the ruling regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
“Addounia TV is owned by Mohamed Hamsho, who is the brother-in-law of Maher al Assad, the commander of Syria’s Republican Guard and the brother of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.”
The post also links to this video of the broadcast, subtitled in English by a YouTube channel called the Syrian Interpreter and aptly titled “Addounia TV hitting the crack pipe, 9 Sept.”
[youtube http://youtu.be/0xQ-qhB1uzg?]The segment claims that movie-set versions of Syrian cities and public squares have been constructed with the help of American and French directors to dupe the global audience. It’s also suggested that a similar illusion was created in Libya.
“The world and the Libyans were deceived by those replicas that Tripoli fell. With those replicas, Al Jazeera will continue media fabrication and cinematic tricks by shooting scenes of big defections from the Arab Syrian Army and shooting scenes of clashes between some elements who claim being defectors and elements from the regime.”
The report also claims that Al Jazeera has had replicas built of Al Asi Square in the city of Hama, the Clock Square in Homs, and some of the neighborhoods in Idlib. Unconvincing zoom-ins of satellite images purport to back up these allegations.
The construction of a fake city—let alone multiple fake cities—would be a major undertaking. The sheer scale of it makes even the suggestion almost laughable. It calls to mind the climax of the 1974 Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles, in which a fake version of a town is created to fool a band of thugs intent on terrorizing the locals into leaving. Or the fake war created for TV in Wag the Dog. Or even the theory that the moon landing was filmed on a soundstage.
But if such a monumental building project were to take place, a pretty surreal alternate reality could be created. Maybe the Syrian government could even follow its own line of reasoning and build some fake cities to counter the fake cities they claim Al Jazeera has built. Instead of “staged” conflict, they could film a smoothly-functioning government that respects the will of its people. In Syria right now, a film set in a fake city might be the only place to find such a thing.
Nate Berg is staff writer at The Atlantic Cities. He lives in Los Angeles. All posts »Last week, I listened to Barack Obama, an African American and my President, speak at the United Nations. I became sad beyond words. I wonder where his sense of history went.
I am a Jew. President Obama spoke of Jewish history – the years of exile and persecution, the Holocaust, the return to our ancient homeland. We deserve the respect of our Arab neighbors and the world.
I wonder if he speaks of American history in the same way.
Peoples and nations have their travails. History is bleak. We search for the good.
Is it possible to remain silent about slavery? Slavery is the defining moment of American history.
Can Jews be silent about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine? The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is among the defining moments of contemporary Jewish history.
Yes, persecution, exile, Holocaust and return. Now the violence of the Israeli state. The occupation of the Palestinian people.
Israel will not stop itself. Palestinians cannot stop Israel. Many Jews and Palestinians want a way beyond this endless violence. When the powerful deny the history we Jews are creating we become stuck in a quagmire. We sink deeper.
Some Jews worry about those who deny that the Holocaust occurred. Denying that 6 million Jews were murdered in Europe during the Nazi period is horrendous. Beyond words.
Yet in the President Obama’s address there is no mention of what happened to the Palestinians in 1948. What is still happening to the Palestinians. Don’t Palestinians have a history that needs acknowledgement?
Palestinians refer to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine as the Nakba, in Arabic, the Catastrophe.
Mr. President, are you a Nakba denier?
1948 may be inconsequential to you and indeed for many Jews. But just as the Holocaust needs to be remembered, the Nakba needs to be remembered.
Without remembering, how will we get to the root of the Catastrophe that has befallen the Palestinian people?
Or to the root of the catastrophe that has also befallen the Jewish people?
There are catastrophes that happen to you. There are catastrophes you create for others.
That Jews brought catastrophe to another people is a stain on Jewish history.
Our history of exile, persecution, Holocaust and the return to our ancient homeland now includes the Nakba.
No presentation of Jewish history makes sense without including what Jews have done and are doing to the Palestinians. Not in books on Jewish history. Not in presentations by Jewish academics. Not in policy statements from Jewish organizations. Not in press releases from Israel’s Prime Minister. Not from the peace process Quartet. Not from the President of the United States.
I won’t attempt a rendition of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address at the United Nations. It was worse than President Obama’s. Much worse. Shameful.
The Jewish High Holidays are upon us. Time to celebrate the New Year. Time to hone our repentance.
Time to mourn.
The Jewish High Holidays come and go. We recite our history of exile and persecution, Holocaust and the return to our ancient homeland. We are silent about the Nakba.
Endless the end. That has no ending.
Only mourning can save us now, Jews and Palestinians together. For what has been lost. For could have been. For what could be.
Denying the Nakba only delays the reckoning.
And the mourning.
Marc H. Ellis is University Professor of Jewish Studies, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University. He is the author of many books, most recently Encountering the Jewish Future: with Wiesel, Buber, Heschel, Arendt, Levinas.
source