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By Antonio C. S. Rosa

22 May, 2013

@ Global Research

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On the Road to Damascus: An Eyewitness Report

I participated, May 1-11, 2013 in the Mussalaha International Peace Delegation to Lebanon-Syria alongside fellow TRANSCEND member Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, from Ireland, and 15 others from eight countries. Keenly aware of my responsibility, especially to my newly made Syrian and Lebanese friends left behind, I shall try to report, describe, make sense of what I saw, heard and experienced; also offer views and insights based on interviews. However, this report will take more than one article.

First impressions first: the people, the civil society, women, men, the youth, elderly, children, workers, the Arab street, as it is called. It was disconcerting coming into the country for the first time knowing what I thought I knew and seeing a calm, positive demeanor in people, which could well be misconstrued as apathy, yet exhibiting expectant, concerned, awaiting eyes and facial expressions. After some time I noticed a striking absence of anger or negative excitement in the air; people going about their daily business as if nothing was happening, as if life were normal. No cries for revenge against their many external aggressors, no fists in the air, no demonstrations against a dictator, no pleading or denouncing slips of paper passed to me surreptitiously by nervous, fearful hands. Eye contacts revealed seriousness, curiosity, kindness, hope, hospitality, happiness in seeing strangers. No public laughs or smiles though. Heavy hearts do not allow for such frivolities. Syrian people are suffering, they are sad, stuck, against the wall, being victimized for which they bear no responsibility. They just don’t know why they are being threatened, attacked, killed, tortured, and humiliated so viciously from so many fronts. The concept of proxy war is alien to them even though they are at its core. Fear of violence can be more psychologically and emotionally damaging than the real thing. Understandably, they are afraid of talking in public and being later identified and targeted by jihadists.

But then again, that is always the case, isn’t? Who cares about unimportant people when so many more pressing factors are in play? Like the obscene profits made by the oil multinationals, the 7 sisters cartel, and the preservation of wasteful lifestyles of peoples from richer, more powerful nations that need –and will take by any means necessary– the oil that Syrians at this juncture unfortunately have underneath their feet?

Disconcerting as well was to find a country bursting with activity and life, children in playgrounds or walking to school in their uniforms, open air markets filled with people, heavy traffic, buses running, life happening in and around Damascus. Disconcerting because I had psyched myself to find a country in ruins, people fleeing for their lives from bombs, tanks on the streets, a police state massacring its own citizens, large scale suffering, buildings demolished, people resisting the government by force, and so on. Yet, I saw none of the above; quite the opposite. But you will forgive my ignorance, for I am a Westerner and that is what we hear, watch and read in our corporate media, which without a pinch of shame, honesty or humanity tell us half truths, innuendoes, straight lies, and party-line talking-points uttered by talking heads about what is happening on this part of the world. And I stand guilty of believing them like a fool. Nonetheless, the country has been as if divided by checkpoints in every strategic entrance and exit. To give an idea, our Damascus hotel was surrounded by six different checkpoints strategically located around it. Armed personnel and soldiers on the streets is a common sight that adds to a sense of security.

Mairead and Mother Agnès-Maryam Soeur (our leaders) met privately with Syrian armed fighters and we were introduced to some persons victimized by their atrocities. Audiences included: Syrian Prime Minister Mr. Wael Al Halki, Deputy PM and Minister of Economic Affairs Mr. Qadri Jameel (opposition), Minister of Health Dr. Saed Anayef, Minister of Social Affairs Ms. Kinda Al-Shammat (a pleasant and intelligent young lady), Minister of Justice Dr. Najem Hamad Al-Ahmad, Minister of Information Mr. Omran Ahed Al-Zouabi, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Walid Muallem, the Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Mr. Ali Abd Karim Ali, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, and General Michael Aoun, an influential Lebanese party leader (who is rumored to discriminate against Palestinian refugees).

We visited the People’s Council of Syria (parliament), hospitals, refugee camps, were briefed by senior field coordinator Maeve Murphy at the UNHCR intake center in Zahleh-Lebanon, and met with a representative of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and with ambulance drivers and health workers. We were also welcomed by some ten leaders from various religions, sects and faiths, were greeted in churches and mosques, and I talked with common folks every time an opportunity presented in shops and in the streets. I talked with an active member of the political opposition to the present regime. He was in prison for 24 years, released 11 years ago, and wants changes—but without outside interference as he told to me textually. The 71 year-old kind and intelligent gentleman who declined to give his name also told me he did not marry and have children because he was in prison, and he was ashamed of that.

ACTORS AND PARTIES TO THE CONFLICT

A deeper contextual assessment and analysis within a peace studies/conflict resolution paradigm would require more time and research into the complexities of the conflicts (in the plural) vis-à-vis the newest perceptions, facts and evidences acquired herein; the majority of actors are not evident whereas the main, deadliest ones are shielded by ‘deniability.’ However, they are all known—and very active. Of one thing you may rest assured: Bashar al-Assad is not the sole culprit, THE bad guy in this saga. He is a well liked leader all over, which is evident in different cities, in talks with differing kinds of persons, and by their attitudes and actions. Body languages, eye contacts, non-verbal messages work wonders in bringing hidden messages to the surface. Billboards with his picture are spread throughout the land and they are clean, well preserved. One does not see graffiti over them, obscenities or anything like that. Syrians in general show pride in having a handsome leader, an eye doctor who is not a sanguinary dictator like Saddam Hussein was. I would assume that in the present context even those who oppose him are on his side to defend Syria’s integrity as a functioning society.

Quoting Johan Galtung [i]: “An image of the goals of some outside parties:

Israel: wants Syria divided in smaller parts, detached from Iran, status quo for Golan Heights, and a new map for the Middle East;

USA: wants what Israel wants and control over oil, gas, pipelines;

UK: wants what USA wants;

France: co-responsible with the UK for post-Ottoman colonization in the area, wants confirmed friendship France-Syria;

Russia: wants a naval base in the Mediterranean, and an “ally”;

China: wants what Russia wants;

EU: wants both what Israel-USA want and what France wants;

Iran: wants Shia power;

Iraq: majority Shia, wants what Iran wants;

Lebanon: wants to know what it wants;

Saudi-Arabia: wants Sunni power;

Egypt: wants to emerge as the conflict-manager;

Qatar: wants the same as Saudi Arabia and Egypt;

Gulf States: want what USA-UK want;

The Arab League: wants no repetition of Libya, tries human rights;

Turkey: wants to assert itself relative to the (Israel-USA) successors to the (France-UK-Italy) successors to the Ottoman Empire, and a buffer zone in Syria.

UN: wants to emerge as the conflict manager.

Every single statement here can be challenged and challenged again.  But let us for the sake of the mental experiment assume that this image, with 16 outside and five inside parties, is more right than wrong.”

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Affairs, Mr. Kadri Jameel, is a Communist Kurd elected on the opposition party platform. He came to talk to the delegation at the 5-star hotel where we stayed in Damascus. He affirmed that his electoral victory represented a foot on the door for further changes, which envisioned a multiparty political system. I talked with four members of his security detail. One of them, 26, showed me his wound: a bullet entered through his backside and exited through his neck, which had been broken as he was attacked by foreign fighters coming from Turkey at a Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia on Aug, 2011 when he was still in the army. Although army officers, they guard the leader of the opposition. I was told by them that these armed gangs of trouble makers target especially the minorities (Druze, Christians, Shia) in hopes that they turn against the government.

“As the government moves to a multi-party system, a non-territorial federation with two chambers, one for provinces and the other for nations, with vetoes in matters of vital concern might be useful.” [ii]

In addition, as much as I tried, no one leader could or would answer my two basic questions: What is the source of this conflict? What are the solutions? Perhaps it was so because all our audiences, meetings, visits, and so forth were made in groups: our delegation, composed of 16 invitees from seven countries, our hosts, the press (which at times stole the whole show all for themselves), plus the heavily armed security around us everywhere around the clock, sometimes annoyingly so. Thus no conversations or even follow-up questions were ever entertained. But I got a generalized reply based and around a single theme: “The violence must stop!” Moreover, few of the leaders spoke English. Thus a lot of our ‘conversations’ was lost or truncated in the interpreting process. What stands out is that almost all of the various leaders and people in general seem to agree that the major, perhaps only problem facing the country is the (contained) violence and threat thereof. Not could be farther from the truth, though. So I will stay more at the surface in this overview of our visit.

Galtung’s bird’s eye view of the situation (in Syria, TMS 29 Apr 2013): “Over this looms a dark cloud: Syria is in the zone between Israel-USA-NATO and Shanghai Cooperation Organization-SCO [Russia-China], both expanding.

“Then, an image of the goals of some inside parties:

Alawis (15%): want to remain in power, “for the best of all” (Assad’s power base);

Shias in general: want the same;

Sunnis: want majority rule, their rule, democracy;

Jews, Christians, minorities: want security, fearing Sunni rule;

Kurds: want high level autonomy, some community with other Kurds.”

However, Susan Dirgham, a delegate from Australia, offers a qualification:

“Much of the propaganda in Australia that leads to young Sunni Lebanese Australians to go to Syria for jihad relies on claims that in Syria you have an Alawi minority suppressing a Sunni majority. My understanding is that most of the ministers are in fact Sunni and the business elite with the economic power in Syria is also mostly Sunni. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Ministers_(Syria):

“The Information Minister, Dr Al-Zouabi, is Sunni (not Alawi, as claimed).

“The Foreign Minister, Walid Muallem, is Sunni (not Greek Orthodox, as claimed).

“The Deputy PM and Minister for Economic Affairs Qadri Jamil is Kurdish, as stated, and Communist (not Alawi as claimed).

“It is interesting that the religion of the Minister for Social Affairs Ms. Kinda Al-Shammat is not listed though one would assume she is Sunni because of her white hijab and the way she wears it.”

REFUGEES

The Syrian state and its population are being indirectly attacked by US/EU/NATO/UN; and directly by Israel,  HERE and also HERE, by the autocratic dictatorships of the GCC-Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, UAE (mostly Sunni Muslims) in partnership with Turkey (secular), and by Al Qaeda plus a diversity of mercenary jihadists (by definition terrorist groups), each with its own agenda, recruited from 29 countries and paid by GCC/CIA. Syrians are also assailed by UN sanctions and an embargo, and by a foreign press bent on demonizing, lying, destabilizing the country (not merely the regime). The mercenaries fight among themselves to grab the moneys channeled from the CIA and other American institutions via GCC and/or Turkey. Weapons enter Syria hidden in Turkish ambulances posing as such. US cash provides weapons and logistics, fund mercenaries, pay for jihadists. Bands of jihadists armed to the teeth invade Syria through Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon (Tripoli). Turkey opened its Syrian borders to them and, through terror, they displace the populations forcing them to take refuge back in Turkey in an effort to destabilize Syria. Turkey, in fact, invites Syrian refugees into the country. It is documented that Syrian refugees in Turkey are mistreated, have their organs removed (stolen), children sold for forced marriage or else. There are an estimated 50,000 foreign jihadist fighters terrorizing Syria’s countryside: snipers, bombers, agitators. They torture and kill men who refuse to join them. In their religious fundamentalism they believe that any Muslim they kill will automatically and immediately achieve paradise; they are actually doing them a favor (!). There is a score of young Europeans on their ranks as well (Germans, Dutch, British, Australians).

We visited and talked with a chief of family, refugee in Lebanon and saw twenty people living in a space roughly 6×6 without ventilation, a room inside a warehouse, for which they pay the equivalent of 400 dollar/month. One filthy kitchen, one bathroom. And that is that. They are on their own to find work and everything else. Some resort to stealing and committing petty crimes to survive.  This is typical, not an exception. And he explained that in his native Homs jihadists take over their houses, rape their women, and kill young males who refuse to join their ranks. Chechens, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Turkish, Europeans compose these gangs armed, fed and maintained by the above mentioned foreign governments. He said they attach suicide vests around peoples’ bodies and threaten to explode them if they don’t do what they are told. Underneath a rather dignified posture, he was scared, terrorized. Yet we kept hearing the same mantra over and over: “I want to go back home, I don’t belong here.” It was truly heartbreaking, and I felt helpless in the face of it. Bearing witness we were.

In one of the refugee camps we visited in Lebanon (more aptly called a concentration camp) we talked with a couple from Homs–he being a pharmacist and engineer–who had their house and business blown up due to terrorist activities. Now they live by charity in the Bekaa Valley-Lebanon, under a tent and with nothing but the clothes over their bodies. They are not allowed to work, own property, have a dignified life. There is no sanitation and there are check points with armed soldiers at the gates. Multiply this by about 1.5 million and you will have an approximate dimension of the human tragedy. We visited the Sabra Palestinian refugee camp as well, of the infamous Sabra-Shatila massacre by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in September 1982, on the outskirts of Beirut. In addition we toured the UN High Commission for Refugees intake center in Zahleh, Lebanon, next to Bekaa valley and were briefed by Maeve Murphy, UNHCR senior field coordinator. She said that there is a staff of 50 workers to deal with an influx of 1,500 refugees a day.

This is how it works, according to Prime Minister Wael Al Halki himself, with whom we spent 2.5 hours and with him doing most of the talk to explain in detail and with statistics and evidences what is really happening for the last two years. Jihadists take a village by assault, kill public officials, take over private houses in which to hide, burn plantations, spread terror and devastation. Their aim is simple: to render the country as ungovernable as they possibly can, disrupt normal life, destroy institutions, livestock, people. They occupy hospitals forcing medical personnel to look only after foreign fighters, not allowing wounded locals or government soldiers to be treated. This has created a wave of refugees from a total population of 21.9 million. Internal displacement is calculated at 1.5 million people. And 600,000 external refugees according to the Minister of Social Affairs, Ms Kinda Al-Shammat (estimate). But the UNHCR provides an official estimate of 1.5 million refugees spread over the different neighboring countries as follows:

– Jordan: 471.677;

– Lebanon: 469.217;

– Turkey: 347.157;

– Iraq: 146.951;

– Egypt: 66.922.

GOVERNMENT RETALIATION

Syrian authorities on the other hand reacted to the rampant and aggressive terrorism through a policy they call ‘iron hand.’ Tanks, artillery and infantry descend in force on the places that foreign fighters keep under siege and blow up the buildings where they hide, keep armaments and snipers. However, before striking the buildings fliers are thrown from helicopters advising residents to leave the area, what is not always possible because the terrorists use them as human shields, keeping them under captivity inside their own residences. Collateral damage is high, it is a policy many consider unacceptable. But given the odds he said it is the best alternative. And this method, as brutal as it is, is bearing fruits as the terrorists are being decimated or otherwise driven farther and farther from populated areas. The minister of justice said textually: “Those who invade us to kill and destroy our country will not leave Syria alive.” But the jihadists still occupy and keep under siege many localities. If compared to the US retaliation to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center, killing millions, invading other countries, and lingering still 12 years later through drone attacks and selective assassinations, such ‘iron hand’ policies are mild (without condoning the violence, that is). Those are, therefore, the demolished buildings shown ad nauseam and out of context, over and over on CNN, BBC, FOX and the rest of them.

According to Paul Larudee, a delegate from the USA:

“Most of the men and some of the women do not want to be photographed, but the children don’t mind.  Several people from Qusayr, a town on the Lebanese border said that when the demonstrations first began two years ago, they were nonviolent and the local officials would even clear the roads for them.  However, as they became more violent, the central government failed to act and the town was eventually overrun by armed local elements and foreign fighters from Chechnya, Azerbaijan and other places.  It was only after the population fled that Syrian troops finally came to quell the rebellion, which has apparently not yet been fully accomplished. I have no way to assess the accuracy of these stories, nor to generalize them, but at least my modest Arabic skills allow me to strike up conversations with whomever I want, and there are no government minders in Lebanon.  Nevertheless, we all want to meet with groups that have a very different story to tell, and Mother Agnès-Maryam has included such opportunities in our schedule, even Jabhat al-Nusrah, the al-Qaeda affiliate, with whom none of us expected to be able to speak.”

There is also the case of a boy shot by snipers in a street and whose body was whisked away by photographers who then made a video of his death; of his dying actually, fleeing afterwards and leaving the corpse behind. Medical personnel said afterwards that he could have been saved if taken to a hospital instead of to the killing fields’ improvised TV studio. The result of such filth is sold to TV networks for your and my robotized consumption. Yet as the PM asserted, the workers are being paid on time, schools, universities, public offices continue operating, and the government is able to maintain a somewhat normal life under such extenuating circumstances. As we toured the city or participated in meetings, we would hear loud booms at a distance, sometimes seeing clouds of black smoke rising from the bombed sites, or else, sounds of gun fights. We taped some of these with our cell phones. ‘Necessary evil,’ I was told, as I asked a gentleman in a restaurant, what he thought about such retaliatory bombings. People in fact don’t pay much attention to them. The UN says nearly 70,000 people have been killed since the foreign fighters entered the country and started the armed conflict in March 2011.

Another important point made by delegate Susan Dirgham:

“I don’t remember anyone we met supporting an arms embargo against the state.  We were reminded by the Melkite Patriarch that the selling of arms to the state is legal.  If it were stopped, the enemies of Syria would surely win.  I think what united everyone I met in Damascus was support for the state + dialogue.  This view was shared by people from different backgrounds and by those who supported the president and the current government and those who didn’t, such as the members of the “Third Current” I spoke with.  They may not have supported some of the tactics of the army or security etc, but they supported the right for Syria to defend itself from outside aggression and to remain in a position where it can defend its people and territory.  It seems as though we are being balanced and peace-loving when we support an arms embargo on both sides, but actually to support an embargo against Syria without also supporting the same for all countries in the region, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc. would not be helpful. Syria would collapse and be destroyed by its enemies if its army didn’t have the military hardware to defend the people and country, firstly against the 50,000 foreign jihadists/mercenaries, etc. and then against the states that work to destroy and dismember it.”

On one occasion an IED-Improvised Explosive Device exploded about 10 minutes after our delegation had left the Patriarchate of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church (our hosts throughout), where we had attended an ecumenical prayer for peace. I was shown photos immediately after, sent by cell phone, of blood on the floor from people killed and injured from the attack. Such is life in Damascus to which, after a short 10-day visit, we were getting somewhat used to. Understanding drives away outrage and harsh judgmental assumptions and conclusions. Mairead Maguire, who talked in private with four Syrian armed combatants, said they told her they took up arms against the government because they were unemployed; one of them with five children. Al Qaida offered them money. They took the offer and started killing fellow Syrians. Moreover, three shots were fired against the car of the leader/organizer of the peace mission, Mother Agnès-Mariam Soeur, a Melkite nun, on Sat. May 11, 2013 as she traveled to her native Homs, the hotspot city where her monastery was destroyed by terrorist activities.

Delegate Paul Larudee reports:

“There was the celebrated case of a nine-year-old Christian boy named Sari Saoud, killed by rebels in Homs.  His body was taken by the rebels, but his mother, Georgina al-Jammal caught up with them, and her embrace of her dead son was captured on video by the rebels, who then falsified the account to make it appear that the boy had been killed by government forces.

I talked with Georgina, who supports the government, but blames it for leaving the area without protection. She told me that she recognized some of the rebels from the neighborhood, but that others were strangers.”

CONCLUSION

A positive note: we were gifted with a VIP visit to the famous Umayyad Mosque in the old city of Damascus, fourth-holiest place after Mecca, where is located the tomb and shrine of St John the Baptist right at the center of the huge 4,000 year-old construction that had previously been a temple of Jupiter in Roman times and the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist. This mosque is at the end of the famous Road to Damascus, of St Paul’s conversion, which we walked by foot seeing the exact spot of the event. Upon exiting the mosque complex one could see another building erected by Saladin (1174–1193), also buried in Umayyad. This was just one of many fascinating experiences afforded us by our hosts being demonized and targeted for invasion and occupation by the West. They are understandably worried that invading marines wouldn’t have what it takes to appreciate such a wealth of history, art, religious traditions, faiths, civilization, and would most probably raze it to the ground as they have done elsewhere in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. Right they are. We were hosted by the head of Umayyad, the Grand Mufti of the Syrian Arab republic, Dr. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and by the Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham, who organized and hosted our whole trip along with Mussalaha.

We arrived in Lebanon during the holy week of the Eastern Orthodox Churches and spent their Easter Sunday (5 May) as guests of one of the many Christianities of the Middle East, where it all began. An added treat.

The Mussalaha International Peace Delegation to Syria issued a Concluding Declaration. Being from varying backgrounds, delegates did not agree on everything and one of them did not sign it. Therefore: no groupthink and no possibility of collective brainwashing of our group by Syrian authorities. And Mairead Maguire’s messages to the media, as the Nobel Peace laureate head of the delegation, remained impeccable and on point. She started all interviews with affirmations to the effect that,

“It is for the Syrian people to decide about their own problems, their own destiny, their own politics, their own leadership and form of government. No one has de right to interfere in their internal affairs and all foreign forces must withdraw and stay away. The flow of arms and armed fighters must be stopped, sanctions must be lifted, and if the arms embargo should remain in place, it ought to all parties involved, not just to the Syrian government that has a right to defend itself from foreign aggression. Are the foreign bands of invaders that are killing and terrorizing the population. All parties must follow the rules of international law.”

I find it disgraceful that our Western governments, led by US-EU-Israel and their client states, be full and willing partners in such atrocities perpetrated in name of ‘human rights,” “democracy,” “rule of law,” “freedom,” “liberty,” and other such meaningless, trivialized euphemisms. The present political and economic structures, embedded in the machinery of predatory militarism and capitalism, present us with only one choice, the lesser evil; but that is an artificial construct. Gandhi, Mandela, Luther King, Lula and many others are proof that changes and transformation are envisioned, given form and arise from below, from the ranks of the oppressed and minorities, from a non co-opted periphery, and not from within the belly of an empire of banks and bases seeking unlimited profits and hegemonic powers—for their own sake. Policies must again be made to endeavor the wellbeing of human beings, of life, not the perpetuation of structures and cultures that by necessity have to go. At other times in history piracy, slavery and absolute monarchy, for instance, also represented the status quo, the law; but they are no more. Nonviolent resistance and actions throughout the cultural-structural apparatus are the means to turn this tide, which is taking our planet and all its life to the abyss. We must choose life and peace by peaceful means, resist we must; and we will!

The formula is given by Galtung: Equity, Harmony, Trauma Reconciliation, Conflict Resolution:

+ Positive Peace              Equity X Harmony

Peace  =   ________________  =  _________________

– Negative Peace              Trauma X Conflict

 

“For Syria, what comes to mind is a Swiss solution.  One Syria, federal, with local autonomy, even down to the village level, with Sunnis, Shias and Kurds having relations to their own across the borders.  International peacekeeping, also for the protection of minorities.  And non-aligned, which rules out foreign bases and flows of arms, but does not rule out compulsory arbitration for the Golan Heights (and June 1967 in general), with Israeli UN membership at stake. The search could be for solutions, not for the solution.  Let 1,000 dialogues blossom, in each quarter, each village, enriching the gross national idea product, GNIP.  UN-supported facilitators, with knowledge of mediation, rather than with guns and binoculars.” [iii]

Like Paul meeting the angel Ananias on his way to Damascus experienced a change of heart and became St Paul, so have I met many angels on my own Road to Damascus and, although not gone into sainthood, I have reinterpreted and upgraded my own vision of reality—which I now share with you.

[i] Johan Galtung, Syria, TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 April, 2013.

[ii] Galtung, Turkey-Cyprus-Kurds-Armenia-SYRIA, 15 Oct, 2012, TRANSCEND Media Service.

[iii] Galtung, Syria, TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 April, 2013.

____________________________

Antonio Carlos Silva Rosa is the editor of the Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service, and the Eurolatina Convener for the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. He has a Masters (Ph.D. incomplete) in Political Science-Peace Studies from the University of Hawaii, is originally from Brazil, and presently lives in Porto, Portugal. He was educated in the USA, where he lived for 20 years, and lives in Europe for the last 20.

By Husain Abdulla

22 May, 2013

@ Foreign Policy In Focus

More than two years after peaceful demonstrators took to the streets to demand reforms, Bahrain’s uprising has not abated. Activists and opposition groups continue to demand the basic human rights and political reforms promised to them by their government. Rather than meet the opposition’s calls for reform, the government of Bahrain has responded by subjecting citizens to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and abuse.

Human rights activists such as Naji Fateel, board member of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, and Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, are frequently subjected to arbitrary arrest and ill treatment. Similarly, medical professionals who have been interrogated, detained, tortured, and convicted for providing medical care to injured protesters remain in prison or have not been allowed to return to work. Educators who have endured similar ill-treatment continue to be fired from their positions or languish in prison, while soccer players who were banned from their clubs for participating in protests remain blacklisted or live in self-imposed exile to continue playing the sport they love.

The demands of the opposition movement are hardly unreasonable, which makes the government’s recalcitrance all the more suspect. The people of Bahrain want a representative government and an elected prime minister. They want a representative of the king to participate in the national dialogue. They want an end to human rights abuses and accountability for those who committed them. They want the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), a body commissioned by the Bahraini government following the 2011 protests, to be fully implemented. They want prisoners of conscience, jailed for exercising their rights to free speech and expression, to be released. They want to be able to associate freely in political groups, civil society organizations, unions, and associations. In the grand scheme of things, the financial, moral, and political cost to the Bahraini government for granting these requests would be negligible.

Unfortunately, reform — the key to Bahrain’s stability and security — is what the Bahraini government seems determined to prevent. As the U.S. State Department noted in its 2012 Human Rights Country Report on Bahrain, although the government of Bahrain has made “some” progress in implementing reforms since 2011, that progress has not been significant. The report found that the Bahraini government frequently did not respect its own laws regarding human rights, let alone the standards set by international human rights treaties. Additionally, the report highlighted cases of arbitrary arrest and detention; restrictions placed on freedom of speech, press, and assembly; and the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, among other rights abuses.

 

Bahrain’s response to the 2012 country report has been predictably shrill, a sure sign the U.S. State Department struck a nerve with a regime that has become increasingly sensitive about its image. Unfortunately, the Bahraini government seems unable or unwilling to recognize that the best way to improve its image is to undertake the reforms that the king promised in 2011.

Instead, the government continues to dispense the same argument it has been making since 2011: that the opposition is to blame for ongoing strife and sectarian divisions in the country — a rift that the government itself is largely responsible for. As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted in its 2013 annual report, the government of Bahrain must overcome sectarian divisions by addressing the “ongoing lack of accountability for abuses against the Shi’a community since 2011.”

This conclusion was also reflected in a report issued by the U.S. Department of Labor in December 2012, in which the agency noted the ongoing “deterioration in the labor rights environment in Bahrain” and “political and sectarian-based discrimination against Shia workers.” The agency recently requested formal consultations with the Bahraini government to address allegations of ongoing labor rights violations following the 2011 crackdown.

The U.S. government’s increasing interest in Bahrain may seem unusual given its size (its population and area are about the same as Rhode Island’s), but the presence of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain gives this small island nation outsized importance when it comes to U.S. foreign policy in the Gulf region. As Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said in a speech at Princeton University this May, the United States does not “have the luxury of pivoting away from the Middle East, which sometimes has a nasty way of reminding us of its relevance.”

Several analysts have echoed this sentiment, including former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who recently raised concerns regarding the increasing instability in Bahrain. If the situation continues to deteriorate, they argue, Bahrain may no longer be a viable location to host the Fifth Fleet. Although the Defense Department has yet to create a “Plan B” to relocate the fleet, it appears at least to recognize the threat such instability could pose. In March, then-head of U.S. Central Command General James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that dialogue and reform in Bahrain are “key to ensuring the country’s stability and security,” which are needed in light of simmering tensions between Iran and the West.

The relationship between the United States and Bahrain grows more complicated by the day. These tensions—and the Bahraini government’s unfaltering intransigence toward reform—will put American diplomacy to the test in the coming weeks and months. It is a test we cannot afford to fail. As President Barack Obama said in his 2013 State of the Union Address, “[i]n the Middle East, we will stand with citizens as they demand their universal rights, and support stable transitions to democracy. The process will be messy, … but we can—and will—insist on respect for the fundamental rights of all people.”

The U.S. government can begin to demonstrate its commitment to democracy and human rights in the Middle East by making foreign aid and military assistance contingent upon the government of Bahrain’s full and satisfactory implementation of the BICI recommendations. In the meantime, the Defense Department should begin developing a contingency plan to relocate the Fifth Fleet in the event that the security situation in Bahrain makes the fleet’s presence there untenable. Finally, the U.S. Department of Labor should insist that Bahrain adequately address legitimate concerns regarding its ongoing violations of international labor laws. Although the path to reform in Bahrain may be messy, the consequences of failure are worse, for Bahrain and for America.

Husain Abdulla, originally from Bahrain, is the founder and Director of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain. As Director, Husain leads the organization’s efforts to ensure that U.S. policies support the democracy and human rights movement in Bahrain. Husain also works closely with members of the Bahraini-American community to ensure that their voices are heard by US government officials and the broader American public. Husain graduated from the University of South Alabama with a Master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations and a BA in Political Science and Mathematics.

By Robert Reich

@Readersupportednews.org

As global capital becomes ever more powerful, giant corporations are holding governments and citizens up for ransom – eliciting subsidies and tax breaks from countries concerned about their nation’s “competitiveness” – while sheltering their profits in the lowest-tax jurisdictions they can find. Major advanced countries – and their citizens – need a comprehensive tax agreement that won’t allow global corporations to get away with this.

Google, Amazon, Starbucks, every other major corporation, and every big Wall Street bank, are sheltering as much of their U.S. profits abroad as they can, while telling Washington that lower corporate taxes are necessary in order to keep the U.S. “competitive.”

Baloney. The fact is, global corporations have no allegiance to any country; their only objective is to make as much money as possible – and play off one country against another to keep their taxes down and subsidies up, thereby shifting more of the tax burden to ordinary people whose wages are already shrinking because companies are playing workers off against each other.

I’m in London for a few days, and all the talk here is about how Goldman Sachs just negotiated a sweetheart deal to settle a tax dispute with the British government; Google is manipulating its British sales to pay almost no taxes here by using its low-tax Ireland subsidiary (the chair of the Parliamentary committee investigating this has just called the do-no-evil firm “devious, calculating, and unethical”); Amazon has been found to route its British sales through a subsidiary in low-tax Luxembourg, and now receives more in subsidies from the British government than it pays here in taxes; Starbucks’ tax-avoidance strategy was so blatant British consumers began boycotting the firm until it reversed course.

Meanwhile, At a time when you’d expect nations to band together to gain bargaining power against global capital, the opposite is occurring: Xenophobia is breaking out all over.

Here in Britain, the UK Independence Party – which wants to get out of the European Union – is rapidly gaining ground, becoming the third most popular party in the country, according to a new poll for The Independent on Sunday. Almost one in five people plan to vote for it in the next general election. Ukip’s overall ratings have risen four points to 19 per cent in the past month, despite Prime Minister David Cameron’s efforts to wrest back control of the crucial debate over Britain’s relationship with the European Union.

Right-wing nationalist parties are gaining ground elsewhere in Europe as well. In the U.S., not only are Republicans sounding more nationalistic of late (anti-immigrant, anti-trade), but they continue to push “states rights” – as states increasingly battle against one another to give global companies ever larger tax breaks and subsidies.

Nothing could strengthen the hand of global capital more than such breakups.

 

Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His latest is an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

By Johannes Stern

20 May, 2013

@ WSWS.org

According to a report yesterday in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the European Union (EU) is directly funding US-backed Sunni Islamist terrorist groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. These groups are looting oil in parts of eastern Syria that they control and then re-selling it to EU countries at rock-bottom prices.

The Guardian writes: “The EU decision to lift Syrian oil sanctions to aid the opposition has accelerated a scramble for control over wells and pipelines in rebel-held areas and helped consolidate the grip of jihadist groups over the country’s key resources.”

According to the Guardian, the main beneficiaries of the EU’s lifting of sanctions are the Al Nusra Front and similar Islamist terrorist groups. “Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with Al Qaeda and other extreme Islamist groups, control the majority of the oil wells in Deir Ezzor province, displacing local Sunni tribes, sometimes by force. They have also seized control of other fields from Kurdish groups further to the north-east, in al-Hasakah governorate.”

The EU’s decision to resume trade with oil fields held by Al Nusra explodes the lie that the imperialist powers are waging war in Syria to change the repressive character of the Syrian regime. In fact, they are building up and backing deeply reactionary and oppressive forces.

These events also expose the so-called “war on terror”—the claim that Washington and the EU are fighting Al Qaeda, which served as the justification for US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as a lie. Imperialism is arming and financing Al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups that commit terrible crimes against the Syrian population, handing over its wealth to the EU and Washington.

Germany’s Spiegel Online magazine recently reported how the Islamists dump Syrian oil on world markets at ultra-low prices: “Since February the Islamist rebel group Liwa al-Islam has controlled the al-Thaura oil-field in the ar-Raqqah governorate… The rebels in al-Thaura sell ten fuel truck cargos each day. They make good money and charge around $13 US for a barrel. On the world market, however, a barrel is traded for $100 US, but this is not of particular interest here.”

Abu Saif, an Islamist fighter of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Ahrar Brigade, gives another account of how Islamists militias loot Syria: “Jabhat al-Nusra is investing in the Syrian economy to reinforce its position in Syria and Iraq. Al-Nusra fighters are selling everything that falls into their hands from wheat, archaeological relics, factory eq uipment, oil drilling and imaging machines, cars, spare parts and crude oil.”

To secure the oil, the terrorists murder everyone who gets in their way. In one widely reported case, Al Nusra fighters levelled the village of al-Musareb near Deir Ezzor, murdering 50 of its residents after a conflict with local tribesmen over an oil tanker. The mass killings through which terrorist groups control the territory needed to supply oil to European imperialism are documented in videos posted on YouTube.

The imperialist powers rely on terrorist groups as part of their strategy to control the vast energy resources of the Middle East and Central Asia. This fundamental interest underlies the wars against Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and on-going war preparations against Shiite Iran—to which the Alawite-dominated Assad regime has close ties. Like Syria, Iran has long been on imperialism’s hit list,” since Washington and its European and Middle Eastern allies see it as one of the main obstacles to controlling the oil trade of the Persian Gulf, and thus of the entire world.

This rape of Syria exposes the cynical decision by middle class pseudo-left organizations—such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO), the German Left Party, the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in France, and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain—to package the Syrian war as a “revolution.” Their class position emerges clearly in this point: they hail the looting of Syrian oil to boost the oil corporations’ profit margins as a “revolution,” and the looters as “revolutionaries.”

Increasing foreign support for the Sunni Islamist forces is accompanied by new threats by US imperialism and its allies to oust Assad, and increasing preparations for direct military intervention.

At a press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Reccep Tayyip Erdogan last Thursday in Washington, US President Barack Obama promised “to keep increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and working with the Syrian opposition. We both agree that Assad needs to go.”

On Friday, CIA chief John Brennan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, and Mossad head Tamir Pardo to discuss Syria. In a cabinet meeting the next day, Netanyahu threatened more Israeli air strikes against Syria, saying Israel would act “with determination… to ensure the supreme interest of the State of Israel [and] prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah and to [other] terrorist elements”.

Israel has already bombed Damascus two weeks ago, ostensibly to prevent arms being transferred from Syria to Hezbollah. The Lebanese Shia militia is a close ally of Syria and Iran and regarded as a main obstacle to Israeli military dominance in the Near East.

On Saturday Syrian president Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to the Argentine newspaper Clarin and the Argentine state news agency Telam, from his palace in the Syrian capital, Damascus. He vowed to keep power, accusing Israel and other “foreign powers” of supporting the Islamist opposition. “Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways, firstly it gives them logistical support, and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them,” he said.

He denied that his government had used chemical weapons, saying that “the West” might orchestrate an intervention based on false accusations: “The West lies and falsifies evidence to engineer wars; it is a habit of theirs.”

He called intervention “a clear probability, especially after we’ve managed to beat back armed groups in many areas of Syria.” However, he added that “we are willing to talk to anyone who wants to talk, without exception.”

Assad made clear that he hopes to keep power by convincing Washington that he is a stronger and more reliable custodian of US interests in the region than Al Qaeda: “America is pragmatic. If they found out they were defeated and the regime is the winner, the Americans will deal with the facts.”

This subservience to Washington exposes the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism. In fact, as the Guardian report makes clear, Washington and its European imperialist allies are funding and backing the Islamist opposition to break up the Syrian regime.

The Obama administration is also increasing its efforts to reach an agreement with Moscow, Syria’s main ally. Last weekend, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed with his American counterpart John Kerry to set up a so-called “peace conference” in June, supposedly to negotiate an end to the Syrian war. During such a conference, Washington would press for a “negotiated” ouster of Assad and his replacement with a more pliable stooge regime approved by Moscow.

Lavrov is also trying to calm US and Israeli concerns about potential Russian missile sales to Syria. He stressed that these weapons would “not in any way alter the balance of forces in this region or give any advantage in the fight against the opposition.”

Russia is reportedly only supplying SS-N-26 coastal defense but not SA-21 air defense missiles, as part of a weapons deal already concluded in 2011. Lavrov also pledged that Russia would not sign any new deals with Syria.

By Franklin Lamb

18 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

Homs, Syria: It’s not hard to find critics of the Assad government in the Governorate (Muhafazat) of Homs or for that matter, to varying degrees in Syria’s other thirteen Governorates according to Syrian analysts interviewed by this observer and reports from human rights groups including lawyers representing dissidents in Syria. However, after nearly 27 months of turmoil, the public opinion pendulum is markedly shifting back in support of the current regime.

One international political result was registered at the United Nations this past week when a US-Qatari-Saudi drafted General Assembly Resolution that was designed to increase pressure on the Assad government stumbled badly and fell far short of what the Saudi Ambassador to the UN and other US allies predicted would be an overwhelming vote in favor.

Effect of shift in popular opinion in Syria

Over the past four or five months it has become increasingly clear that public opinion in Syria is shifting for reasons that include, but are not limited to the following:

While inflation at the grocery stores in probably the most common complaint heard from a cross-section of society here, the population is adapting somewhat to higher prices and it appears to credit the government for efforts, some successful, to soften the impact of the illegal US-led sanctions that target this same Syrian population for purely political reasons to achieve regime change.

While Syrians demand dignity and freedom from oppressive security forces and an end to corruption, as all people do in this region and beyond, they are witnessing a return to near normalcy with respect to supplies of electricity, benzene, mazout fuel oil, bus schedules, schools, and a host of public services such as garbage collection, street sweeping, park maintenance, and sympathetic traffic cops who are rather understanding of short-cuts taken by drivers and pedestrians due to “the situation”.

In addition, public service announcement and even text messages demonstrate that the government is aware of the degree of suffering among the population, accept partial blame, and are focusing on remedial measure and crucially, ending the crisis with its horrific bloodshed. One observes here a definite trend of the pulling together of a high percentage of Syrians who share a very unique history and culture and who are deeply connected to their country and who are increasingly repelled by the continuing killing from all sides including the recent barbarisms of body mutilations and summary executions videotaped and broadcast on Utube by jihadist elements. The latter who these days come from nearly three dozen countries, paid for and indoctrinated by enemies of Syria’s Arab nationalism and deep rooted pillar of resistance to the occupation of Palestine.

In addition, many among Syria’s 23 million citizens, who initially supported the uprising following government reaction to event in Deraa in March 2011, now have serious second thoughts about who exactly would replace the current government. Events in Syria are also making plain that the army is still loyal to the Assad government, and according to Jane’s Defense Weekly, is actually gaining experience and strength as well as the well-known fact that as western diplomats are admitting, the “opposition militias” are hopelessly fractured, turning one another, many essential mafia outfits, and beginning to resemble their fellow jihadists from Libya, Chechnya and in between.

Opinion in Damascus and surrounding areas visited this past week, confirms this observers experience the past five months of a sharp and fairly rapid shift in opinion that now strongly favors letting the Syrian people themselves decide, without outside interference, whether the Assad regime will stay, and indeed, whether, the Baathist party will continue to represent majority opinion, not through wanton violence but rather via next June’s election. Many express confidence in the run up to this critical vote, noting that the election will be closely monitored by the international community to assure fairness.

Perhaps aided by the current glorious May weather, a certain optimism, that was more scarce in the past, pervades many neighborhoods.

For different reasons, foreign powers, including the USA, Turkey, European Union, the UK Jordan and even the majority population of the six Gulf Cooperation Council family run countries, according to Pew Research, are shifting their earlier positions which were based in part of the US administration, NATO, and Israeli assurances that the Assad government would surely fall quickly, “A matter of days, not weeks” US President Obama promised. That was two years ago.

As noted above, this trend has accelerated since the UN General Assembly vote with last weeks which did not go as planned on the biased and politicized non-binding draft resolution on Syria.

The public reaction in Syria and across the Middle East is substantially that the “Friends of Syria” non-binding GA resolution contradicts the reality on the ground, backs terrorism in Syria and hinders the international efforts to help achieve a political solution to the crisis in this country. Only 107 states voted in favor of the resolution, 12 against while 59 countries, mostly from Africa and Latin America, abstained from voting.

One reason the vote fell short of the 130 favorable votes that the basically same resolution garnered the past two times is that it is widely viewed as ignoring the crimes and atrocities committed by the armed jihadist groups in Syria and the flow of thousands of international terrorists backed by the West, the Gulf states and Turkey who provide them with weapons and money. According to the Russian delegate, backed by several other speakers, “the resolutions ignores all the terrorists’ heinous crimes and denounces what it called the escalation of the attacks by the Syrian government”. Afterward one Latin American Permanent Representative told Inner City Press that the count would have been below 100 if not for some “last minute arm-twisting.” As it turned out, 15 countries didn’t vote at all, opting to “get coffee,” as one African Permanent Representative put it before the vote.

Syria’s Ambassador al-Jaafari exposes a hoax in the Gulf

Syria’s permanent Envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said his country regretted the adoption of a biased and unbalanced UN resolution, thanking the countries that rejected the resolution “for their responsible positions which support the UN principles and the international law articles”. He noted that the decrease in the number of countries that voted in favor and the increase of numbers of those who abstained from voting indicates the growing international understanding of the reality of what is happening in Syria due to the foreign interference, support of terrorism, the spread of extremism and incitement besides the refusal of dialogue.

“We rely on the UN and its member states to support Syria and its people against the culture of extremism and terrorism, and to encourage the comprehensive national dialogue to peacefully resolve the Syrian crisis.” he said. In a statement released after the vote on the UN draft resolution on Syria, al-Jaafari He said that the French delegation had foiled the issuance of a number of UN press releases to condemn the terrorist acts committed by al-Qaeda-linked armed groups in Syria which claimed the lives of thousands of Syrians as it foiled a UN release to condemn the attempt of assassination of the Syrian Premier.

After Qatar’s ambassador spoke in favor of the resolution his country drafted (and re-drafted several time), Ja’afari revealed that there existed an e-mail, from the representative of the Syrian opposition given to Syria’s embassy in Qatar, showing Qatar’s involvement in the kidnapping of UN peacekeepers by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade. He read out a phone number from the e-mail as several Gulf diplomats grimaced or scowled, and three left the Chamber.

Visibly stunned, the UK Permanent Representative Lyall Grant called the whole matter “deeply confusing”. Another Permanent Representative, from a militia contributing country, said that if true, it’s “very problematic.” The reasons include the fact that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had just thanked Qatar for its roles in the release of the UN Peacekeepers the earlier kidnapping of whom the Qatari government may have planned, paid for and executed.

Meanwhile, Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson Martin Nesirky said he would not disclose any more about the “negotiations to free the peacekeepers or who was behind the crime.”

Score a major diplomatic victory for Syria’s UN Ambassador al-Jaafari as public opinion shifts in favor of the Assad government and both pressure as well as optimism build in the run-up to the Geneva II conference being organized by the White House and the Kremlin.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and Lebanon and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com

18 May 2013

@ BBC News Middle East

A Saudi woman has made history by reaching the summit of the world’s highest mountain.

Raha Moharrak, 25, not only became the first Saudi woman to attempt the climb but also the youngest Arab to make it to the top of Everest.

She is part of a four-person expedition that also includes the first Qatari man and the first Palestinian man attempting to reach the summit.

They are trying to raise $1m (£660,000) for education projects in Nepal.

Originally from Jeddah, Ms Moharrak is a university graduate currently based in Dubai.

Coming from Saudi Arabia – a conservative Muslim country where women’s rights are very restricted – she had to break a lot of barriers to achieve her goal, her climb team said.

A biography on the expedition website said convincing Ms Moharrak’s family to agree to her climb “was as great a challenge as the mountain itself”, though they fully support her now.

“I really don’t care about being the first,” she is quoted as saying. “So long as it inspires someone else to be second.”

By Mazin Al Nahawi

18 May, 2013

@ Countercurrents.org

It is a shame that John Baird and his boss Stephen Harper haven’t learned yet from Canada’s colonial past.

For over a century, the Palestine question has been described as the most complex political issue of our modern time. A very “complicated” equation that after a half of a century of Zionist colonization to set up and establish a colonial “Jewish state” in Palestine, a mathematician, none other than Einstein himself, had something to say about the crimes committed in his name as a Jew, and in the name of Judaism.

In a letter by Einstein to the Zionist, Shepard Rifkin, executive director for “American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”, dated April 10, 1948 (the date is very important, it’s only a month before the illegal creation of the Zionist state in Palestine.)

Mr. Shepard Rifkin

    Dear Sir:

    When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations build up from our own ranks.

    I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.

    Sincerely yours,

    (Signed, ‘A. Einstein’)

It didn’t require more than three lines to solve this “complex” matter, and it seems that Einstein was very confident in naming the culprits for the “catastrophe in Palestine”, as he precisely described it.

One month after that letter, the Palestinian Arabs began to call the day of the creation of the Israeli occupation state, which consisted of the robbery of their homeland and existence as AL NAKBA (Cataclysm or Catastrophe). That was 65 years ago.

The fact that someone like Einstein could figure out such a complicated issue can not eliminate the complexity of the matter. Indeed, Palestinians are still waiting, because 65 years was not enough for most of the “civilized world” to understand the Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice and acknowledge its root causes.

Unlike the Zionist sympathizers, apologists and propagandists nowadays, the Zionist leadership who committed genocide against the indigenous Arabs of Palestine in order to establish a “Jewish state” in a land originally had less than 3.5 % Jewish population by 1880s 1 , were more frank about the colonial nature of their Zionist project, and from its beginning and early formation stages.

Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian, journalist and the father of the political Zionist movement, wrote in his diary:

“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” 2

More sickening, and in order to accomplish his fantasy plan and “buy” Palestine from the Turks; Herzl was ready to exploit the Turkish crimes against the Armenians and “to influence the European press (in London, Paris, Berlin and Vienna) to handle the Armenian question in a spirit more friendly to the Turks.” 3 In his admission, he used his profession and betrayed his integrity as a journalist. A journalist must have principles, morals, integrity and honesty, and Herzl, at his best was an excellent professional propagandist.

Russian colonialist Chaim Weizmann, the first president of the Zionist state, in an address to the English Zionist Federation on September 19, 1919:

“By a Jewish National Home I mean the creation of such conditions that as the country is developed we can pour in a considerable number of immigrants, and finally establish such a society in Palestine that Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English or America American.” 4

Concerning the issue of Palestine’s native population, Weizmann in his remarks about the 1917 Balfour declaration, on record with the Jewish Agency Executive, stated:

“With regard to the Arab question – the British told me that there are several hundred thousand Negroes there but that this matter has no significance.” 5

The British colonialists were not less racist toward the Arab Palestinians, they had already sponsored and incorporated the Zionist colonization in their own imperial project to dominate the East Mediterranean strategic position and secure the on-going theft of its resources.

Balfour, the author of the shameful Balfour Declaration, explained the British position toward the natives of Palestine:

“For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country… The four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion that is right.” 6

Of course the natives who suddenly inhabited Balfour’s “ancient land“ and their whole existence are only a matter of “desire and prejudices” and for the sake of humanity they needed to be expelled to open the door for Britain’s new 20th Century Crusade and expand its imperial needs.

Another Russian colonialist, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the icon of the Zionist right wing, explained the Zionist aims in Palestine in his article “The Iron Wall”. He wrote:

“We cannot give any compensation for Palestine, neither to the Palestinians nor to other Arabs. Therefore, a voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in total, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy. Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be deterred from interfering with our efforts.” 7

For Jabotinsky it was just another European settler colonization, like the United States, Canada or Australia. He was aware of Zionism as a colonial adventure with direct brutal assault against the indigenous natives. He stated:

“My readers have a general idea of the history of colonization in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonization being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent.” He added later: “Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of “Palestine” into the “Land of Israel”.” 8

Moshe Dayan, a Zionist war criminal who helped form the Haganah gangs, and participated in organizing the terror and massacres against the Palestinians to expel them from their ancestors’ land, in a rare confession said:

“Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before [the Palestinians’] very eyes we are possessing the land and villages where they, and their ancestors, have lived … We are the generation of colonizers, and without the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a home.” 9

Finally, David Ben Gurion, the main director of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, in a letter to his son in 1937, stated:

 

“We must expel the Arabs and take their places and if we have to use force, to guarantee our own right to settle in those places ­ then we have force at our disposal.” 10

The conscience of that Polish colonist surprisingly developed later when he told Nahum Goldman president of the World Jewish Congress:

“I don’t understand your optimism,” Ben-Gurion declared. “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? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism 11 : the Nazis 12 , Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it’s simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out.” 13

Ben Gurion was an atheist. Still, while admitting to the Zionist theft of Palestine, he managed to talk about an imaginary friend in the sky, God and his “promised land”! And based on a book Ben Gurion published in 1918 in New York, he believed that the Arab natives of Palestine were the “flesh and the blood of old Judeans” 14 , yet later when the same natives rejected his “Jewish state” in their land, he did not object to expelling them and stealing their land. Actually, with regard to the Arabs expulsion, he told a meeting of the Jewish Agency:

“I don’t see anything immoral in it.” 15

Now if I should put all these damning statements and confessions in one sentence to explain why the Palestinians are resisting it would be:

It is the occupation, stupid!

In spite of all of the Zionist leadership literature, writings, documented minutes of cabinet meetings regarding colonization and the plans to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous Arabs ( See Plan Dalet ), still Canada has sustained all manner of support for the Zionist project and its racist establishment, including military, while promoting itself as a “fair and peace-loving state”.

Before the Zionists decided on Palestine as a homeland for Jews, in their first conference in Basel 1897, Canadian Evangelicals were already sending their religious colonial settlers and crusades to “prepare” the land for the “return” of the Jews to quicken the Apocalypse. Even before Herzl initiated his efforts to approach the Ottomans, who were themselves occupiers in Palestine, a Canadian Christian Zionist, Henry Wentworth Monk, was working to accomplish that exact goal, to “buy” Palestine from the Turks.

On the state level, Lester Pearson summarized Canadian foreign policy regarding Palestine. He was a devoted Christian Zionist whose memoirs refer to the Zionist state as “the land of my Sunday school lessons” 16 . The same Sunday religious “lessons” taught him the geography of his imaginary biblical holy land so he knew it “more than the geography of Ontario” 17 . If someone with these qualifications chaired the pivotal United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, there can be no surprise when later the Zionist state was carved out of historical Palestine. Pearson stated:

“I have never waivered in my view that a solution to the problem was impossible without the recognition of a Jewish state in Palestine. To me this was always the core of the matter.” 18

As if Palestine was a part of Pearson’s family property and the Arab “tenants” having no say.

Gandhi, who luckily missed Pearson’s type of “school and lessons,” had the simple common sense which easily debunked the racist mentality of Pearson and his Zionist buddies. Gandhi wrote in September 1938:

“The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews, partly or wholly as their national home.” 19

It is important to note that Pearson upheld the racist Mackenzie Law which did not allow European Jews fleeing the Holocaust in Europe to enter Canada. His desire to “protect” Jews was not different from Ben Gurion’s who said:

“If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I opt for the second alternative. For we must take into account not only the lives of these children but also the history of the people of Israel.” 20

Talking of the imaginary history which many Zionists like Ben Gurion and Pearson have used to legitimize their crimes of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Arab Palestinians, Tel Aviv University Professor of Archaeology Ze’ev Herzog summed up the major archaeological findings of 70 years of intensive excavations in Palestine with the following:

“The patriarchs’ acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have been known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it.” 21

The core of the matter for colonialists like Pearson and his overseers in London and Washington is simply to allow greedy corporations, destructive oil and gas companies, to continue their theft of the resources and minerals underneath a “land without people.” “Balfour of Canada” or “Rabbi Pearson”, as many Zionists once called him, said: “Israel may assume an important role in Western defence as the southern pivot of current plans for the defence.” 22 Pearson’s devotion to Zionism did not add much to the nonsensical Zionist colonial narrative. Theodor Herzl already portrayed the prospective “Jewish state” as Europe’s “wall of defense against Asia” and an “outpost of civilisation against barbarism.” 23

Let us remember Pearson’s true legacy: he “refused to call for Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, and had Canada deliver weapons to the French to put down the Algerian and Vietnamese independence movements.” 24 Many other atrocities are detailed in Yves Engler’s book: Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping – The Truth may Hurt.

Actually Noam Chomsky outlined what kind of war criminal Pearson was when he wrote in the foreword of Engler’s book:

“Lester Pearson was a major criminal, really extreme. He didn’t have the power to be like an American president, but if he’d had it, he would have been the same. He tried.” 25

So what John Baird did during his recent visit to Jerusalem, occupied Palestine is nothing but another example of the long bond and co-operation between the Canadian state and the Israeli occupation state.

Another obvious sign of the unconditional support, aid, and cover-up for the racist Israeli apartheid in Palestine, John Baird, still proud of the shameful ties, said:

“Let me state at the outset, and for the record, that Israel has no greater friend in the world than Canada.

I make that point around the world often.” 26

The irony is that Canada refused entry to Jewish refugees who were trying to escape the European Holocaust and helped to block every escape route except Palestine. This same Canada is now claiming to be the greatest friend of the “Jewish state”. Herzl foresaw the help being offered by the anti-Jewish societies who do not accept Jews among themselves, but want them to “return to their ancient homeland”, Palestine. He predicted in his diary that:

“The antisemites will become our most loyal friends, the antisemites nations will become our allies.” 27

The Canadian government has a history of supporting apartheid, along with other destructive policies from mining, to militarism, and backing up big corporations stealing from poor nations. Just ask Haitians about Canada’s part in dismantling and privatizing their country 28 , but the Canadian corporate media does a good job of comforting and baby sitting the Canadian audiences.

In the past the Canadian government gave similar support and aid to the other European racist apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela said clearly:

“But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” 29

Not so in the case of Canada which acts as if it still does not “know” about its continuing complicity with apartheid. Although it was exposed in South Africa, it is still patiently waiting to be exposed in Palestine.

John Baird needs to visit the indigenous “reservations”, the Canadian bantustans style in his “democratic state” and listen to their vocabulary. Words like “Colonization” and “Decolonization” are very common and repeated consistently among the threatened indigenous people inside Canada and outside. Both terms express reality and solution to their struggle. But these words are absent and will never be herd in any of the mainstream corporate media.

A colonialist promoter like Baird should know that he is not welcome in Jerusalem, occupied Palestine, nor in Canada State if it were up to the indigenous people.

But unlike Einstein’s brain, the Zionist brains of Pearson, Harper and Baird are the average abnormal brains in the Canadian government, never evolved from their colonial racist limited mentality.

In 1904 a Canadian Christian Zionist called Reverend Lucas, who had qualifications to be a Sunday school teacher anywhere in Canada, wrote a book called “Canada and Canaan”, and in it he made this amazing note:

“Canada instead of Canaan! Moses would have danced with joy.” 30

Indeed, Canada and the Israeli apartheid in Canaan/Palestine are nothing but twin colonial settler states built on racism, genocide, and dispossession.

Notes

The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and The Mandate (Ch 1, Table 1.4D) by Prof Justin McCarthy (Columbia University Press, 1990.)

The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, vol. 1, p. 88.

The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p.387.

Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948 , by Nur Masalha, p. 41. And The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann: August 1898-July 1931 , by Chaïm Weizmann, p. 257.

Chaim Weizmann quoted by Arthur Ruppin [ The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians , by Noam Chomsky, p481. Source: Yosef Heller, Bama’avak Lamdina (Jerusalem, 1985), p.140]

Crossroads to Israel 1917-1948 , by Christopher Sykes, (1965, reprinted Indiana University Press, Bloomingtron, IN, 1973), p. 5.

The Iron Wall: We and the Arabs. 1923.

Ibid.

The Iron Wall , by Avi Shlaim, p. 101.

See the full English translation of Ben-Gurion’s letter . The original Hebrew (from the Ben-Gurion Archives) – Source: Journal of Palestine Studies.

The word “Semitic” is an adjective derived from “Shem”, one of the three sons of “Noah” in the Biblical mythology (Genesis 5.32, 6.10, 10.21). The term was first coined by a German “historian” theologist August Ludwig von Schlözer in Eichhorn’s “Repertorium”, vol. VIII (Leipzig, 1781), p. 161. Schlözer used the term to refer to the languages related to “Hebrew”, which is nothing but an appropriation of a square Aramaic (See: Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean , by Basem L. Ra’ad. ) The term “antisemitism” was first used by Wilhelm Marr (1819-1904), a German racist nationalist Journalist, who created it in 1879 to describe the anti-Jewish campaigns in Europe. Ironically the Zionists themselves carry on the same term.

See: The Zionist-Nazi Collaboration , by William James Martin.

The Jewish Paradox , by Nahum Goldman, 1978, p. 99.

David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Eretz Israel in the Past and in the Present , 1918.

Righteous Victims , by Benny Morris, p. 144.

Personal Policy Making: Canada’s Role in the Adoption of the Palestine Partition Resolution , by Eliezer Tauber, p. 84.

Ibid.

The Domestic Battleground: Canada and the Arab-Israeli Conflict , by David Taras, p. 129.

The Jews In Palestine . By Mahatma Gandhi. Published in the Harijan 26-11-1938.

The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust , by Tom Segev, Henry Holt and Co., New York, First Owl Books Edition 2000, p. 28.

Ha’aretz Magazine, Friday, October 29, 1999.

Lester Pearson’s 1952 memo to cabinet.

One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate , by Tom Segev, 2001, p. 150.

See Yves Engler’s post: The truth about Lester Pearson .

Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping – The Truth May Hurt , by Yves Engler. Publisher: RED Publishing (Mar 15 2012), p. 9.

Address by Minister Baird to the American Jewish Committee May 3, 2012 – Washington, D.C.

The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl. Vol. 1, p. 84.

See this article: Canada’s ‘Right Arm’ : FOCAL’s Role in the Privatization of Haiti . And this one: A Very Canadian Coup d’état in Haiti : The Top 10 Ways that Canada’s Government Helped the 2004 Coup and its Reign of Terror .

From President Mandela’s speech at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 04 December 1997, Pretoria.

Lucas, D.V. Canaan and Canada . Toronto: William Briggs, 1904, p. 33.

Mazin Al Nahawi is a Palestinian refugee from Safad, occupied Palestine. He finished the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts – Criticism Department, Damascus, Syria in 1996. Now he lives in Victoria, BC, Canada, on land that is the traditional territory of the Lkwungen, Esquimalt, and W_SÁNEC peoples.

By Roula Khalaf and Abigail Fielding Smith

@ Financial Times

16 May 2013

The gas-rich state of Qatar has spent as much as $3bn over the past two years supporting the rebellion in Syria, far exceeding any other government, but is now being nudged aside by Saudi Arabia as the prime source of arms to rebels.

The cost of Qatar’s intervention, its latest push to back an Arab revolt, amounts to a fraction of its international investment portfolio. But its financial support for the revolution that has turned into a vicious civil war dramatically overshadows western backing for the opposition.

In dozens of interviews with the Financial Times conducted in recent weeks, rebel leaders both abroad and within Syria as well as regional and western officials detailed Qatar’s role in the Syrian conflict, a source of mounting controversy.

The small state with a gargantuan appetite is the biggest donor to the political opposition, providing generous refugee packages to defectors (one estimate puts it at $50,000 a year for a defector and his family) and has provided vast amounts of humanitarian support.

In September, many rebels in Syria’s Aleppo province received a one-off payment of $150 courtesy of Qatar. Sources close to the Qatari government say total spending has reached as much as $3bn, while rebel and diplomatic sources put the figure at $1bn at most.

For Qatar, owner of the world’s third-largest gas reserves, its intervention in Syria is part of an aggressive quest for global recognition and is merely the latest chapter in its attempt to establish itself as a major player in the region, following its backing of Libya’s rebels who overthrew Muammer Gaddafi in 2011.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms transfers, Qatar has sent the most weapons deliveries to Syria, with more than 70 military cargo flights into neighbouring Turkey between April 2012 and March this year.

But though its approach is driven more by pragmatism and opportunism, than ideology, Qatar has become entangled in the polarised politics of the region, setting off scathing criticism. “You can’t buy a revolution,” says an opposition businessman.

Qatar’s support for Islamist groups in the Arab world, which puts it at odds with its peers in the Gulf states, has fuelled rivalry with Saudi Arabia. Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Qatar’s ruling emir, “wants to be the Arab world’s Islamist (Gamal) Abdelnasser”, said an Arab politician, referring to Egypt’s fiery late president and devoted pan-Arab leader.

Qatar’s intervention is coming under mounting scrutiny. Regional rivals contend it is using its financial firepower simply to buy future influence and that it has ended up splintering Syria’s opposition. Against this backdrop Saudi Arabia, which until now has been a more deliberate backer of Syria’s rebels, has stepped up its involvement.

Recent tensions over the opposition’s election of an interim prime minister who won the support of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood has also driven Saudi Arabia to tighten its relationship to the political opposition, a job it had largely left in the hands of Qatar.

The relegation of Qatar to second place in providing weapons follows concern in the West and among other Arab states that weapons it supplies could fall into the hands of an al-Qaeda-linked group, Jabhat al-Nusrah.

Diplomats also say the Qataris have had trouble securing a steady supply of arms, something the Saudis have been able to do via their more developed networks.

A supply route across Jordan’s border to southern Syria has opened up in recent months. The Jordanian government, which is terrified of jihadis getting the upper hand in its neighbour, has been reluctantly allowing Saudi deliveries.

The west’s reluctance to intervene more forcefully in Syria has all but left Bashar al-Assad’s opponents reliant for support on Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey though since late last year, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have joined the rebels’ backers as junior partners.

Khalid al-Attiyah, Qatar’s state minister for foreign affairs, who handles its Syrian policy, dismissed talk of rivalry with the Saudis and denied allegations that Qatar’s support for the rebels has splintered Syria’s opposition and weakened nascent institutions.

In an interview with the Financial Times, he said every move Qatar has made has been in conjunction with the Friends of Syria group of Arab and western nations, not alone. “Our problem in Qatar is that we don’t have a hidden agenda so people start fixing you one,” he says.

 

By Nile Bowie

15 May, 2013

For anyone who has been critical of the Western narrative on Syria, the ongoing diplomatic circus begs a very basic question: How can the countries that have bankrolled and armed the insurgency honestly broker a meaningful peace deal? Well, they can’t. The joint effort recently announced by Moscow and Washington to bring the government and insurgents to an international conference in line with the Geneva Communiqué is a welcoming development, but some major issues have already come to the fore. There is an ongoing disagreement over who should represent the opposition in a Syrian peace process; in addition to the blatant Qatari proxies in the Syrian National Coalition, Russia has requested that the National Coordinating Body also be present. In stark contrast to the foreign-based SNC (lined with figures who have spent the past few decades in the West), the NCB is the internal opposition, and it has caught a lot of flak because it opposes the armed uprising and also talks to the Syrian government.

The SNC has maintained it could not accept an invitation to dialogue unless Assad’s removal was guaranteed. Russia will not allow for Assad’s departure to be a precondition of talks, and Kerry looks to have shifted the US position by saying Assad’s exit should be the outcome of negotiations on a transitional government, rather than a starting point. Let’s be clear – before this conflict started in 2011, Assad oversaw a political system that was certainly authoritarian. The economy was stagnate, the state poorly handled overpopulation issues, the agricultural sector was suffering from long periods of drought. When Bashar took over from his father, he granted more political breathing space to dissidents, and then backpedalled on reforms when popular movements fast took shape. In combating the insurgency, Syrian forces killed many of their own citizens in the crossfire. No matter what anybody thinks of Assad, it is not the place of Washington, London, or Doha to deicide his political fate.

Let’s look at the situation on the ground; after more than two years of fighting, the Ba’ath establishment is firmly intact and functioning. The state controls the vast majority of territory, there are no major defections, and the business communities in the major cities support Assad. No one denies that many Syrian civilians want to see the end of Ba’athist rule, but the swathes of Assad supporters and their plight are almost universally obfuscated from the mainstream narrative. Bashar al-Assad, for better or for worse, heads the legitimate government of Syria, and excluding him from any peace talks or transitional government will simply negate the success of peace efforts. If Assad faces an opposition coalition in the scheduled 2014 elections, and international monitors confirm his victory with a fair democratic majority, can anyone expect those sharks and vultures of the NATO-GCC bloc to respect the people’s choice? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

It seems like those attempting to broker peace in Syria subscribe to two separate versions of reality. A group of UN human rights investigators headed by Carla Del Ponte has compiled evidence that Syrian rebels were behind the sarin nerve gas attacks that killed dozens in Aleppo and elsewhere. British PM David Cameron seems to think otherwise, maintaining that the Assad regime held responsibility; Kerry, too, maintains “strong evidence” exists to blame the regime, despite the fact that UN officials and other US officials say there is no evidence. Despite UN findings, Britain and France continue their push to end arms embargoes to Syria, allowing them to openly arm militants who more-than-likely used chemical weapons. The Obama administration is also flirting with providing “direct lethal aid” to the insurgents – as in anti-tank guided missiles and surface-to-air missiles. The idea of flooding more arms into a country where civil war has killed some seventy thousand can only be described as one thing: pathological – not to mention giving weapons to non-state actors that are on record for committing war crimes! It’s batshit crazy. A decade after Iraq, right wing and liberal hawks are again joining forces to call for stronger US military intervention in Syria.

In keeping with US-mafia-minded protocol, all options remain on the table, and there is now talk of imposing a no-fly zone and air strikes against Assad’s forces, and some in the US political establish are behind the use of American and other ground troops to secure Assad’s chemical weapon stockpiles. And all the while, Western mainstream media remains totally complicit and presents an up-side-down version of events to their audiences. As Israel transparently violates international law and kills dozens by striking inside Syrian territory, Russia is the bad guy for honoring contracts already signed to provide defensive weapons to Syria. Western media perpetuates the idea that Syria – the victim of a brutal foreign-backed insurgency campaign, the recipient of numerous Israeli strikes, and a country partially under occupation – having the capabilities to defend itself as totally unacceptable and a threat to regional peace.

It’s difficult to shake the feeling of living in bizarro-world when commentators and analysts on television highlight the egregious violations committed by Iran and Hezbollah in Syria, while completely obfuscating the vicious role of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or the CIA throughout this conflict. Syria tells us important things about the international policy system as it exists; mainly, that some countries can trounce international law while others must forfeit the right to defend themselves, and that the UN is an ineffective body incapable of meting out justice to global hegemons. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. The odds are stacked against the foundation of a fragile peace. The Saudis and Qataris are pushing for the allocation of Syria’s seat at the UN to the Western-supported opposition. Nasrallah claims that transfer of the weapons to Hezbollah would be Syria’s “strategic response” to the airstrikes that hit the outskirts of Damascus. Syria says any new Israeli assault would bring a “harsh and painful” response. No matter how bad Assad is, the Tablianization of Syria is no solution. As this regional conflict deepens and Syria teeters on red lines of all sorts, the world cannot expect ruthless purveyors of violence to become effect purveyors of peace.

Nile Bowie is a Malaysia-based political analyst and a columnist with Russia Today. He also contributes to PressTV, Global Research, and CounterPunch. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

 

 

 

By: Bruno Jäntti [1]

13 May , 2013

@ al-akhbar english

During Israel’s latest onslaught against the Gaza Strip in November 2012, a major conference was held in Tel Aviv: the 2nd Israel HLS International Conference. Among the most prominent sponsors of the homeland security event were two of Israel’s largest weapons companies, Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), both of which cooperate closely with the Israeli military. But the conference also had another grandiosely advertised partner: the European Commission.

As is often the case, this undisguised cooperation between the EU and Israeli military companies went fully unchallenged – let alone noticed – in the European media. Not even the rather conspicuous fact that the EU-sponsored conference occurred simultaneously with Israel’s devastating Gaza assault in which Israel used the equipment of both Elbit and IAI.

The same inability, or unwillingness, by the European media to report such collaboration, let alone deplore it, manifested itself even more prominently in January 2009. A day after Israel’s 22-day long assault on the Gaza Strip, the leaders of six European states, including the UK, France, and Italy, arrived in Israel for a gala dinner [2], voicing their support for Israel. The dinner was hosted by Israel’s then-prime minister Ehud Olmert. The European leaders vowed, of all things, to stop the flow of arms to Hamas. Meanwhile, the Israeli strikes on Gaza would kill 926 civilians.

As a trading and co-sponsoring partner, Elbit is among the most disagreeable of all the Israeli military companies. Being at the very core of Israel’s breaches of international law, Elbit is deeply involved in Israel’s drone programs that have targeted and killed scores of civilians [3], including children. The former president and chief executive of Elbit proclaimed that the company is “the backbone [4]” of Israel’s drone operations. Elbit also provides surveillance equipment [5] to the illegal wall Israel has built in the West Bank. Besides being an instrumental partner of the Israeli air force, it is also sells equipment to the Israeli navy.

The EU also funnels funds to Elbit through allocating [6] EU-taxpayers’ money to the company under the umbrella of scientific research. Indeed, another barely publicized yet lucrative form of EU-Israeli cooperation that directly benefits Israel’s private military sector are scientific research subsidies. David Cronin, who has put together a pioneering compendium [7] on the EU’s complicity in Israel’s illegalities, estimates that by the year 2013, Israel will have received EU research grants [8] for more than €500 million. Israel currently takes part in over 800 schemes with European universities and corporations.

The massive EU-Israel bilateral trade remains one of the least talked about, yet among the most crucial enablers of Israel’s ever-continuing breaches of international law.

 

The EU is Israel’s main trading partner with a total annual trade of approximately €30 billion [9] (€29.7 billion in 2012). The volume of the trade is more than ten times that of the US foreign aid to Israel. While it is reasonable to assume that US-Israeli relations will remain intact in the coming years, the EU has the required economical leverage and legal means to exert unprecedented pressure on Israel, compelling it to abide by international law.

According to a 2003 European Commission poll [10], 60 percent of the EU citizenry sees Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. In this respect, European public opinion is more informed than that in the US. Another factor that makes it feasible for EU to alter its policy towards Israel is that the EU-Israel Association Agreement [11] that governs all trade and cooperation between the EU and Israel states that “[r]elations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.”

Hence, whereas a drastic shift in the US-Israeli relations remains an unlikely scenario, the EU has both the informed public opinion required for, and a no-brainer legal case demanding, relatively swift and highly momentous changes.

As of now, however, the EU is both a major client for Israel’s occupation-powered, export-oriented and multi-billion military manufacturing and homeland security sector as well as a major exporter of military equipment to Israel.

Besides the military and homeland security imports from Israel, the EU also continues to violate its own regulations on arms exports. The EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports [12] states that the EU is “DETERMINED [sic] to prevent the export of equipment which might be used for internal repression or international aggression or contribute to regional instability.”

How determined exactly has the EU been in its adherence to this provision? Based on the criteria set out by the EU in the above regulation, Israel is an illegitimate country for arms exports. After all, in addition to violating a whole list of UN resolutions, Israel has been and remains exceptionally committed to violating international law.

Although Israel is an invalid trading partner according to the EU Code of Conduct regulations, the value of licenses granted by the EU over the past decade for arms exports to Israel amounts to billions of Euros.

Although Israel is an invalid trading partner according to the EU Code of Conduct regulations, the value of licenses granted by the EU over the past decade for arms exports to Israel amounts to billions of Euros.

Whereas 18 of 27 EU member states export military equipment to Israel, the bulk of the total EU exports originate from the major EU states: Italy, France, Germany and the UK, according to Amnesty International’s “Fuelling conflict: Foreign arms supplies to Israel/Gaza.”

In terms of violating EU arms exports regulations, Italy has the most abominable track record [13]. Italy’s biggest defense contractor, Finmeccanica, announced in July 2012, that it had won and signed a $1 billion (€752 million) deal with Israel. Finmeccanica will provide training jets to the Israeli air force, which repeatedly carries out egregious attacks against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and infrastructure.

Out of the total €752 million deal, the most sizable part belongs to Finmeccanica’s subsidiary Alenia Aermacchi which provides [14] 30 M-346 advanced trainer aircraft to the Israeli air force. It is reported [13] that the Italian government played a major role in brokering the contract.

Another EU member state that carries out large-scale military trade with Israel is France. Between 2003 and 2008, France exported more than €521 million [15] worth of weaponry to Israel.

An Amnesty International report [16] from February 2009 revealed that electrical components made in France were found in the rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli military during the 2008-2009 Gaza massacre. The components were installed in Hellfire AGM missiles manufactured by the US company Hellfire Systems, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. France also exported [17] specialized equipment for reconnaissance, such as laser systems, to Israel.

Another major arms exporter to Israel is Germany. Germany sold major conventional weaponry to Israel for more than €580 million [15] between 1996 and 2000, including Dolphin Class Submarines, which are assumed to be capable of launching nuclear warheads. In 2000 alone, German weapons trade with Israel was worth more than €130 million [15]. Germany exported torpedoes, armored cars, and parts for the Israeli Merkava tanks used in occupied Palestine.

The UK also exports considerable amounts of military equipment to Israel. In 2009, after Israel had destroyed the Gaza Strip, the UK authorities granted export licenses for electronic warfare equipment, naval radars, and sniper rifles to Israel. In 2009, the then-Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary David Miliband revealed that the Israeli equipment used in Israel’s murderous and destructive assault against Gaza “almost certainly [18]” contained components that had been delivered by the UK.

In recent years, the UK government has annually licensed arms exports directly to Israel for between €12 million and €36 million. In 2008, UK authorities granted military export licenses for more than €34 million.

Besides these major European powers, one state enjoys exceptional clout as a strict adherent to international law, but has excelled at conducting arms trade with Israel, namely Finland. The total value of the Finnish-Israeli arms trade is €200 million [19].

In addition to the fact the Finland has conducted more military trade with Israel than a number of much bigger EU member states, what sets Finland apart from all the other arms trading partners of Israel is the severity of domestic criticism the trade has elicited.

A petition [20] signed by more than 250 Finnish dignitaries from the arts, academia, and politics is a telling indicator of the wave of criticism arising from the military trade between Israel and Finland. Among those calling for an immediate discontinuation of all forms of military trade with Israel are the foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja and world-renowned expert on international law Martti Koskenniemi.

It merits emphasis that the continuation and, often the mere existence, of the trade has arguably had no support in the Finnish mainstream media.

As the 2003 European Commission poll already revealed, the ever-continuing business-as-usual attitude by the EU to Israel’s actions fully contradicts union public opinion. The freezing of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the seizing of all weapons exports from the EU to Israel – both actions required by EU provisions – could force Israel to finally recognize and respect the rights of the Palestinians.

Bruno Jäntti is an investigative journalist with a focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is the chair of ICAHD Finland (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions).