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Can we still call it “Zionism”?

Posted: 11/26/2023 by editormary in "Israel", Activists and Activism, Hasbara / Zionist Propaganda, Hasbara Deconstruction Site, Human Rights, Nakba and Right of Return, War
Tags: Syria

Is this generalisation in fact harmful to the Palestinian cause?

Israeli soldiers entering Gaza. Photo by Amir Cohen / Reuters

Written by Mary Rizzo. Reading an older article by Yassin al-Haj Saleh, (which is always a good thing to do, because the range of his knowledge and the clarity of his thought and expression are important instruments for people involved in human rights causes), something really hit me.

He writes (about the Syrian opposition to Assad): “From Cockburn, Chomsky borrows the notion of ‘Wahhabization of Sunni Islam’, which is a rash and irresponsible generalization, and that is why it is so useful for those who do not know and want others to think that they know.”

I read that a few times and thought about the incredible amount of times I’ve heard Syrian regime supporters say or write about Wahhabis being the opposition. And, while it is true that the longer the revolution dragged on without major inroads and with an opposition being for the most part without the same firepower to defend themselves, the more brutal the regime became. The increasing brutality of the regime could be the trigger of a more “radicalised” opposition that also found foreign support for its own ends, including fundamentalist religious ones, because there is much more at stake when the regime policy is not to merely “restore law and order” but to “burn the country” if Assad was not recognised as the legitimate leader of the country, as the motto of the regime forces went. The warriors on the other side of Assad also became radicalised because of the very kind of opposition forces that started to develop (pre-Isis) when Assad released “jihadists” from prison. They were never part of the opposition in the long history of political opposition, they were opportunists, and they jumped on an opportunity, chaos in the fog of war is an extreme opportunity…. So, this “Wahhabization of Sunni Islam” (if it is indeed a fact, and not just a quality of some of the jihadist forces) either has some actual reasons behind it, that regime supporters never will mention, all of them having to do with the actions of the regime, or it is merely the description of forces that have existed for a very long time in Syria and the region, at some level existing as a minority, as the Alawis or Druze are a minority in Syria (with the distinction that there is a local tradition with ethnic/cultural characteristics at some level of the latter two, which are not imported religious ideologies).

So, getting back to what Yassin wrote, it makes a lot of sense to me, even in the discourse of Palestine and Israel, to avoid using generalisations that won’t be provided with background, and I am going to go out on a limb here and say, not only in reference to the Israeli (and generally western) “tagging” Hamas as the real enemy of humanity and of Israel, but also with the concept of “Zionism” as the current ideology behind the invasion.

Israel excuses much of its invasion and destruction of Gaza with the insistence that their gripes are with “Hamas”, not with Palestinians. This can really confuse people who don’t know what Hamas is, how it came to power, how it remains in power in Gaza, and who are only aware of the condemnable acts of 7 October. Lots of soundbites came out in recent weeks about the “Hamas Charter” and its goal of “destruction of Israel”, even from commentators who should know better, because they are aware of the context and the historical development of the Charter. As regards the foundational document, Senior Hamas leader stated already in 2010 that the Charter “is a piece of history and no longer relevant, but cannot be changed for internal reasons.” Indeed, Hamas has “agreed to accept a final status arrangement, whether one or two states, so long as it is approved by a majority of the Palestinian population.” (quote from the same article). This important information is practically never stated by anyone on the media, and I doubt that those who have not followed the history and events of the region since the founding of the group in 1987 are even aware of it. However, they all do know that Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organisation by many countries, and practically the entire world condemns the kidnapping of Israeli civilians this past October. And the problem with all of that is the fact that one of the players in this war is either presented with no context at all, or with distorted context, and the other player is only depicted as reacting to a terrorist act, derived of the context as the narration is. In this case, the “rash and irresponsible generalisation” is extremely helpful to one of the players, who are granted carte blanche to carry out a relentless attack against all of Gaza, utilising every kind of weapon and even bombing civilian apartment complexes, hospitals, refugee camps and long-established UN buildings. One player has displaced an entire population under threat of extermination, which it is carrying out. There’s no actual “war against Hamas” as anyone can see, but a genocide against millions of people entrapped in an enclave without shelter, aid or relief. The number of victims is staggering, exceeding 14 thousand, and no less than 67% of them women and children! How is that a war against Hamas? It can only be called that by mislabelling a war and an enemy, repeating that they are the sole entity responsible for this turn of events and that this war is justified, while conducting a brutal war against the real enemy, Palestinians.

I will conclude this brief excursus by stating that I also think that the label of “zionist” may be misplaced and no longer is in the service of the cause of freedom and justice. Zionism is rarely understood by anyone who does not study the history of the region, except when it is applied as a slogan. Many years ago, roughly in 1999, involved in an online debate group on an interfaith forum about the Israel-Palestine conflict, it was one Israeli after another that insisted to anyone using the term, “we are not Zionists. We are Israelis. We don’t refer to ourselves as Zionists, also because we have achieved the goal of the establishment of the Jewish State.” I thought that it was an unsound argument, because, surely, I knew many “non-Zionist” Israelis who were great campaigners for the Palestinian freedom cause. How could I distinguish “them” from the ones who didn’t see any injustice in the displacement of Palestinians, in the settlements, in the separation wall, in the Gaza siege and in the checkpoints? To me, they were two completely different entities, whose beliefs were those that followed an ideology, and I wanted to be able to differentiate. If I believe that people should be addressed in the way they feel is proper, how come I couldn’t accept that these people who I “knew” to be Zionists, where just ordinary Israelis and not followers of an ideology?

The fact is, Zionism accomplished its goals. That was what was different. To keep calling them Zionists (which shouldn’t be an insult to them if they believe that the goal was ethical), was simply me being stuck in a period of history that had been and is gone. Could I call them “post-Zionists”? I asked. I was told that I simply did not, would not and could not understand modern Israel or the modern Israelis, (who, these debaters – at least 100 on that very active forum – admitted, rarely were in contact with Palestinians, unless they were working as domestic or construction workers). The majority of Israelis didn’t speak Arabic, didn’t engage socially with Palestinians and had never shared meals with any Palestinians. They considered them as hostile neighbours, but they were “there to stay”. According to this politically active sample, it was “already” an established fact that Israel was a completed project, a State that had been founded and was now “just like any other country” and the Palestinian lands were “already” established fact, but it was up to the Palestinians to be able to manage their affairs on their own, but so far, “they couldn’t”. These were all “two-State” supporters on that particular forum, and they were “just waiting for it to happen”. Needless to say the settlements “can be solved” was a frequent reassurance, as the debaters, felt that over time, things would simply settle down even as far as that was concerned.

I realised that here I was, someone deeply involved in the cause, (albeit, merely as a blogger, activist, translator, and supporter of the One democratic State option, barely ever on the table, in my mind, due to the power of Zionism, which demands separation and exceptionalism), but there was an impossibility of establishment of terminology that was acceptable, because to talk to “my side” the language was always about “zionists”, as we differentiated them from “Israelis” and “Jews”. The issue then was being able to present the reality to outsiders to open their eyes to the situation of the Palestinians not only in Gaza and the West Bank, but also those in Israel and in diaspora around the world. I wanted it to be understood that one side (the Israelis) had all the rights and wealth and international acceptance and then some, and the other side had suffered endless injustice and had no redress and everywhere were denied what was theirs, rights and freedom, as well as their land and homes. Politically, the Palestinians were only understood as (at best) incompetent and (at worst) terrorists.

Is the fact that most in opposition to the landgrab, arbitrary detention, oppression and war that Israel are continuing to engage in use “niche” terms defining themselves that 1) the public doesn’t understand, 2) most of the Israelis don’t even use, detrimental to communicating the reality of the ongoing horrors meted out to the Palestinian people by Israel with the complicity of most of the world?

Just as a phrase like “War against Hamas”, akin to the “Wahhabization of Sunni Islam” is misleading, without context and effective in shutting down discourse and investigation into the reality, a phrase used by “insiders” and also by the aggressor to keep the masses ignorant and misinformed… couldn’t “Zionism” also be such a phrase, since the internationally recognised and powerful Jewish State is a fait accompli? This is a question I ask myself, and will also attempt to move out of my vocabulary. What’s going on in Palestine now isn’t an action by some Zionists, striving to build a nation of Jewish sovereignty that doesn’t exist, it’s the policy of the entire State of Israel, based on the vital difference in value that they give to Jewish Israeli citizens as opposed to anyone else, at the cost of the total destruction of anyone else, under the banner of “bringing home” some Israeli citizens. Maybe we need to speak as simply as possible if we want to see an end to the suffering of Palestinians.

Reem Banna – in her own words on Assad

Posted: 02/01/2022 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Culture and Heritage, Grassroots Activism, Palestine, Resistance, Syria

In 2012, the beloved and greatly mourned Palestinian singer Reem Banna publicly declared her dedication to a Free Syria and denounced the silence of the world in the face of the “most criminal and backward regime of the Arab world”, the Assad regime. Following is her declaration in Arabic, English and Italian.

“For the first time, I declare my position regarding what is happening in Syria: Bashar Al-Assad is a delinquent, a criminal and a child-killer… The regime of Assad is the most criminal and backward regime of the Arab world. Shame on anyone who continues to remain silent. Every moment that passes without us standing up and doing something, means hundreds of Syrians being killed. We are silent in the face of the killing of over 11,000 Syrian martyrs. At the same time and, unfortunately, there are some who are still defending this regime and delude themselves with the worn out justifications defending a ruler who has lost an entire country and perhaps will lead to no one being left, except for some of his Shabiha (para-military gangs for the regime – translator’s note) and some other cowards, after having gotten rid of the population… The conspiracy… it is the most tremendous cosmic conspiracy against Palestine and Syria… this is my position on it. Even if I will be boycotted, even if I will be stopped and denied entry into any Arab country at all… art without a position and action is an art that differs only in form from cabaret, but with more elegance. All of those who glorify a homicidal ruler, who do not stand up against him, are free to do so…. But I will not accept that someone hinders me on account of my position. Whoever would like to cut me out of their “friends” list… let them do so… they are absolutely free to do what they want.

And to the shabiha who are going to jump on spreading this status far and wide in order to increase the perimeter in which to kill me psychologically, on a human level and technically, I say to you: Palestine taught me to never be silent against injustice. Close your eyes if you want to, but do not dare to close the eyes of others.

Long live the free Syrian people… Long life Syria as a free country, for freedom. I love you Syria.” Reem Banna 30/5/2012

Reem Banna:

“Per la prima volta dichiaro la mia posizione su quanto sta accadendo in Siria: Bashar al-Assad è un delinquente, un criminale e un assassino di bambini.. Il regime di Assad è il regime più criminale e arretrato del mondo arabo.. Vergogna su coloro che continuano a stare in silenzio.. Ogni momento che passa e noi non facciamo nulla… Centinaia di siriani vengono uccisi.. Non rimaniamo in silenzio sull’uccisione di oltre 11.000 martiri arabi siriani.. Allo stesso tempo e purtroppo.. alcuni stanno ancora difendendo e si illudono con le logore giustificazioni su un sovrano che ha perso un intero paese e forse nessun altro rimarrà, alcuni dei suoi shabiha e alcuni codardi dopo essersi sbarazzati del loro popolo.. La cospirazione…è la più grande cospirazione cosmica contro la Palestina e la Siria.. questa è la mia posizione.. anche se verrò boicottata, mi sarà impedito e negato l’ingresso in qualsiasi paese arabo. .l’arte senza posizione e azione.. è un’arte che differisce solo nella forma dell’arte del cabaret.. ma più elegantemente.. tutti coloro che glorificano un sovrano omicida.. non gli faccio causa.. è libero.. ma non accetterò che qualcuno mi faccia causa per la mia posizione .. chi vuole togliermi dalla sua lista di amici.. lascia che lo faccia… è assolutamente libero..

E allo shabiha che ora si affretterà a trasferire questo status per aumentare il perimetro in cui uccidermi psicologicamente, umanamente e tecnicamente.. Dico lui: la Palestina mi ha insegnato a non tacere sull’ingiustizia.. Chiudete gli occhi se volete, ma non chiudere gli occhi agli altri. Lunga vita al popolo siriano libero.. Lunga vita alla Siria come patria libera, per la libertà.. Ti amo Siria.

30/5/2012

ريم بنا

أعلن لأوّل مرّة موقفي مما يحدث في سوريا: بشار الأسد سفّاح ومُجرم وقاتل الأطفال .. النظام الأسدي أكثر نظام مُجرم ومتخلّف في الوطن العربي .. عار على الذين يستمرّون بصمتهم .. في كل لحظة تمّر ولا نتحرّك .. يُقتل فيها مئات السوريين .. لا للصمت على قتل أكثر من 11.000 شهيد سوري عربي .. وفي نفس الوقت وللأسف .. ما زال البعض يُدافع ويوهم نفسه بالتبريرات المُهترئة لحاكم أضاع بلد برمّتها وربما لن يبقى فيها غيره وبعض من شبّيحته وقلّة من الجبناء بعد التخلّص من شعبه .. أما بالنسبة لموضوع “المؤامرة” .. فهو أكبر مؤامرة كونية على فلسطين وعلى سوريا .. هذا موقفي .. حتّى لو سيتم مُقاطعتي ومنعي وحرماني من دخول أي بلد عربي .. الفن من دون موقف وفعل .. هو فن لا يختلف إلا شكلاً عن فنّ الكاباريهات .. لكن بأناقة أكثر .. لكل مَن يُعظّم بحاكم قاتل .. أنا لا أحاكمه .. هو حُرّ .. لكن لن أقبل بأن يُحاكمني أحد على موقفي .. مَن يرغب بحذفي من لائحة أصدقائه .. فليفعل .. له مُطلق الحُريّة ..

وللشبّيحة الذين سيسارعون الآن في نقل هذا الستاتوس لتوسيع رقعة قتلي نفسيّاً وإنسانيّاً وفنيّاً .. أقول لهم: إن فلسطين علّمتني أن لا أسكت عن الظلم .. لن أتجاهل هذا الدم النازف لو على قطع رأسي .. وأن فلسطين .. أيقونة تحميني من قذاراتكم .. أغمضوا أعينكم إن شئتم .. لكن لا تفقأوا عيون الآخرين ..

عاش الشعب السوري الحُرّ .. عاشت سوريا وطناً حُرّا للأحرار .. أحبّك سوريا

30/5/2012 عرض أقل

Italian hostage liberated, and the melodrama against her begins

Posted: 05/11/2020 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Europe, Human Rights, Religion

silvia-romano-625x350-1589121457
Written by Mary Rizzo

Silvia Romano is a young Italian humanitarian volunteer who was kidnapped by criminals in Kenya, passed on to terrorists in Somalia and, thankfully, liberated, through the coordinated work of the Italian, Somalian and Turkish secret services, whose efforts brought an end to eighteen bitter months of captivity. Once again, Italians can be grateful that our government has been successful in such a risky mission and, at least in some cases, the intelligence services work in the shadows so that innocent prisoners are returned to the safety of their homes and the love of their families without recourse to blitzes that do not ensure their safety.

Only Silvia knows what she endured in those long, terrible months of captivity, and only time, distance and a great deal of psychological support will be able to allow her to build her life as a free woman once again. Italians got to know this woman through photographs of her before her abduction, dressed in a tank top or donning a Masai costume, with a wide smile and often surrounded by African orphans, who were the beneficiaries of her humanitarian efforts. The first hours of acritical joy at the liberation of this woman were quickly replaced with the typical Italian population response of scorn and derision that is reserved for the victims of these crimes. As she descended from the plane that brought her to her country after her rescue, her attire was commented on, with the press continually stating it was “Islamic dress”.

Many of us watched that descent, a small, yet energetic woman, who waved at the press with the wide smile we came to know and love, but clothed in a large green integral veil that covered her entire body with the exception of part of her legs, where we saw the Somalian dress that it is claimed she had worn for the past year and a half. We were in tears, awe and very moved by her walk on the tarmac, toward her parents and sister, and we also were “treated” to witnessing the long embrace with her family. Soon, though, if one follows the media reaction, the principle question emerges, “did she convert to Islam?”. The response to this omnipresent question in comment sections under every kind of article was by and large negative, angry and hostile. We see a renewed playing out of that typically Italian drama that happens at the release of every hostage. There is the idea that “we paid while she played”, which is a disgusting script adopted for almost all of the female hostages, because often, they were not protected by a company or were not working for a newspaper or government, but ventured into difficult situations as humanitarian volunteers for NGOs who “could have stayed home and saved us the money”.

Rather than adopt a position that seeks to understand the complicated and fragile position of a person who had been deprived of her freedom for a year and a half, the Italian people are quick to condemn and judge. They refuse to consider that this woman will undergo a new and different kind of prison, that of being a public person against her will and who is subject to constant criticism and vile attacks. Why does the Italian public ignore that reality that this person will have to travel on a road back to freedom and serenity that will be long, difficult and at times full of depression, regret, anger, fear and a dual and contradictory need to resume a normal life, but to seek an escape from the pressures of life as a freed captive in Italy, where her every move, thought and emotion will be scrutinised and condemned. Never mind that every single Italian is reaffirmed that they will be protected to some extent if something terrible should happen to them overseas. They will not be abandoned to their fate. Every Italian enjoys the guarantee that the Italian government will work to free hostages, and this effort will not be denied to anyone, including any of the lions of the keyboard or their loved ones. Criticising the government for upholding a duty to protect its citizens overseas is always counterproductive and small-minded.

SILVIA-ROMANO-1

But, if Silvia had descended from the ramp of that plane dressed in the blue tank top we were used to seeing her in, this criticism toward the government, which immediately morphed into criticism of the victim of the crime and her family, “let THEM pay the ransom!” may never have been so loud. It’s always painful to read the commentary that follows one of these liberations. The petty and resentful nature of the Italians that claim to be speaking for the common man shines brightly through them. Some comments were borderline absurd, “We have been forced for two months to not be able to embrace our relatives and here she is holding her mother tightly! How unfair”. No, that was not ironic, and yes, the commenter used the word “congiunti”, here translated as relatives, which has been the subject of much discussion as it was the mysterious word the Prime Minister used to define which persons could be visited at the first loosening up of the lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. Other comments were vicious and cruel, claiming she was in cahoots with the criminals, and it was all a trick so that she could get the terrorists money so that they could commit horrible acts in Europe and she was returning to Italy only to give birth in our hospitals, as her body under that veil was scrutinised shamelessly. Perhaps that veil was intended to protect her, as it may have done for such a long period of captivity, but here in Italy, it has put her on the defendant’s stand.

Again, Italian public opinion, upon the release of hostages, always tends toward the vicious and nasty when a young woman is concerned and where the crimes committed against her take place in a country where Islam is the dominant or state religion, particularly if there are terrorist organisations in those countries who define themselves as Islamist. In the eyes of these critics, she must be condemned because she committed some cardinal sins: she didn’t “thank the Italian people”, “she went into a dangerous place unprepared and we are paying for her adventure”, and “she did not condemn the criminals”. Not only did she claim that she was throughout her captivity she treated without violence, but she admitted that she had converted to Islam.

The mass media, quick to pick up on the anger and gossip mood of a people that has become even more provincial after three months of navel-gazing during a lockdown where the rest of the world barely existed and our own return to normality is a huge worry and a massive problem for millions who have not seen the governmental support required to ensure not only a future of work in the long-term, but survival in the short-term, as they are undergoing difficulties in paying their bills and purchasing food, jumped on the “Conversion to Islam” angle. From the more detached and objective outlets to the most reactionary or conservative, all the titles of the news focused on that aspect.

That Silvia had decided to answer the question of her conversion is one thing, that it has been rendered public is totally another. In addition to this statement, the papers have disclosed that she said she was always treated well by those who held her captive, that she was not subjected to violence or forced into marriage or forced to convert, but that she had asked for a copy of the Qu’ran, was taught some Arabic and decided without constraint to convert. Was the press violating a pact of confidentiality by revealing these words that were made to investigators, in a place, evidently that was microphoned for the press? Isn’t the investigation to find and subject the criminals to legal procedures ongoing? Shouldn’t any statements made to the investigators be strictly confidential, particularly if they have the capacity of instigating public outrage and anger?

“If she was not subjected to violence, why did she need a ransom paid or a State flight to take her back to Italy?” Yes, this is a legitimate question for someone to ask, but it also reveals a lack of comprehension of what a person who is a victim of this kind of trauma and violence might be able to say or how he or she is able to process such awful events. I know several victims of kidnapping and persons who were taken hostage, but I also know humanitarian volunteers and workers who were abducted by foreign governments and imprisoned and subjected to torture, physical and psychological violence. They are well aware that their freedom was robbed from them, that their families had to undergo periods of terrible anguish and dread. They have experienced situations of such unique and painful separation and fear for their very survival, that they have had to learn a new way of survival in a situation where they may not know if they will see another day. It is not whitewashing criminals to speak of relative good treatment, favours granted or even to never speak at all of the violence or to need years to process the experience and even talk about it at all. They have to learn ways of protecting their own sanity and also protecting those whom they love who do not physically share the prison with them, but are also imprisoned by the criminal acts.

Persons who have undergone these experiences may also decide to not reveal the worst to those who love them the most, to spare them the sorrow and pain. It is a logical and quite natural thing to keep bad things from those you love, to prevent them suffering any more than they have to. To state that her captors used no violence against her may not mean that they were wonderful people with whom she identifies. There may not be any Stockholm Syndrome going on, but a coping approach that either spares the loved ones’ knowledge of the violence beyond that terrible crime of holding a person against their will and denying them their human rights. Silvia was aware of the loss of freedom that millions of persons in Africa and elsewhere are subject to, as her university thesis was on human trafficking. Before her captivity, she must have been familiar with the mechanisms, where the prisoner relinquishes their freedoms and ceases to fight in order to be able to survive until a moment arrives for their release or escape. They have to bear with the situation in order to survive and see a future that will restore their human rights to them. Whatever Silvia had undergone during that lengthy captivity, she had the strength to know and apply the survival mechanisms and to be able to make it through until the joyful moment of her reunification with her family and loved ones.

Was her conversion a free choice? Is anything a free choice under captivity? That is a question will can and will ask ourselves, but she should be neither condemned for it nor praised for it, as I have seen in, for instance, an article in the Naples edition of La Repubblica, where an Imam says that since there is no constriction in Islam, her conversion was entirely her own choice and should be respected. There are certainly many who celebrate this as a wonderful outcome of a horrible situation. Whatever her choices are, for belief, for survival, for conviction, or even to study the only book that she would have been allowed access to under the terrorist group Al Shabaab, these choices should and must be respected and understood as belonging to a person in an extreme situation and in a condition of imprisonment. Since the conversion has been rendered public, that doesn’t mean that it has to be accepted as a wonderful thing or condemned as a terrible thing. All of those kinds of responses are irresponsible and damaging to this person who is fragile and will require time and effort to come back to freedom. Italians should be more understanding of this, as we too have been deprived of our freedoms due an event out of our control, just as the abduction of Silvia was out of her control.

Hopefully, full light will be brought on the perpetrators of this crime and all the crimes committed against the freedom of individuals, and the criminals will be tried and punished to the full extent of the law. That is where energies and efforts are needed, in addition to creating more security for the people in the places where there is suffering, poverty and war, as well as for those humanitarians whose mission it is to bring them comfort, aid and support. Right now, we should feel joy at the liberation of such a decent human being. Life offers so few opportunities to feel pure joy, and this is one of them. Bentornata a casa, Silvia!

When propaganda parades as “common sense”

Posted: 04/06/2020 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Assad, Middle East Issues, Politics, Syria, War

The webinar series called “Commonsense (sic) on Syria” organised by Just World Educational, a “non-profit” educational organisation affiliated to a book publishing enterprise run by Helena Cobban is for the most part, an exercise in cheap propaganda. The latest session was a textbook example of how to produce propaganda for a regime, meant to be consumed by educated and informed people in the west.

This is the recipe: present only one guest that represents your narrative; allow the moderator to frame the discourse to fit that bias and never question the narrative; go so off theme of the actual topic that the talk is supposed to cover (in this case “On Western Media and Syria”); “blind the audience” with an overwhelming assortment of random notions dressed up as facts; use the topic of terrorism as the key theme of the war and play down the humanitarian situation; name drop and accuse without presenting evidence or a right of reply to the accused; filter any discourse and dissent by allowing a question time that is limited to the moderator and guest responding only to questions posed by their friends and admirers; and to top it off, give the audience the idea that what they are hearing is correct, not by presenting any kind of scholarly analysis or evidence, but by framing what is being heard as being “common sense”, a belief so correct, sound and widely held as to be an anathema to doubt it for a moment.

Even the style of the moderator is instrumental in the recipe, as she liberally throws in “air quotes” to emphasise that any view aside from her own or any alternative narrative only deserves to be ridiculed, for this tic of derision is designed to function as a mechanism that seeks to convince the viewer that is it worthless to present any counter-position, and thus excuse her lack of having provided any. In doing so, the moderator pushes to dismiss that a dialectic approach could be worthwhile as a means of the discovery of what is true.

Truth here is not the point. An excess of random information is rattled out in what looks more like a hack job and hatchet job and screed against any and every news source but that of the guest and moderator, particularly the opening screed against the NYT and the internal one against Amnesty International, MSF and HRW, which are not Western Media, but are human rights organisations. But if one actually listens and attempts to sort through the whiny list of grievances, one finds a thoroughly weak grasp of reality. Max Blumenthal pulls the “stop the sanctions” rabbit out of his hat, saying that it does not weaken the “legitimate leader of Syria, who has won the war” (in what a normal human being might see at best as nothing more than a Phyrric victory) but at the same time claims that it is desirable to do so. He claims that sanctions against Iran have caused “hundreds of thousands of deaths from Coronavirus”. Fact checking isn’t even necessary with an absurd number like that, but it if it’s true, you realise that Blumenthal has sources the rest of the world doesn’t have any access to.

Helena Cobban’s screed continues against the think tanks, including the Brookings Institution (for which her husband must have earned quite a pretty penny as a senior fellow). It should be clear to anyone (shall we say it is “common sense”?) that political ideas are associated with money, that people make good money by promoting their formulas in western think tanks and that foreign policy, and to some extent journalism, are influenced by the policies that the think tanks promote. It is yet another thing to associate these western governmental policies as proof of the narrative that the opposition to the Syrian regime stopped being genuine and was merely an instrument to push forward the USA/Israeli policy of regime change. To do so is a denial first of all of the agency of the Syrian people, and secondly, it is a dangerous disconnect from the tangled realities of the war. There is even denial of the presence of western journalists in Syria, no mention whatsoever of the hundreds of citizen journalists who have documented on a daily basis what life in wartime is actually like. There is a black hole where the awareness of this source of verifiable information and archive of documentation of all kinds is beyond the access and comprehension of Blumenthal and Cobban, becoming quite absurd to the casual observer, and a great deal more to the journalists and eyewitnesses who have collected evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity within Syria for nine years.

maxresdefault To conflate, again and again, the White Helmets with a propaganda operation run by a western PR company is to miss the point of the (this time literally) hundreds of thousands of deaths by the air strikes, barrel bombs and missile attacks of the regime against areas where the regime itself has forced millions into internal displacement. Even RT, which Blumenthal mentions, has flown drones over Aleppo, showing the utter devastation of the city that had been “won” by the Russia-backed Syrian government. To claim to have “exposed” the White Helmets and to state that he, the journalist has been “attacked”, is to have a dubious connection to the meaning that flows behind words. A journalist should be criticised if the work produced is shoddy, since he or she is expected to present evidence and then to check that evidence and to even challenge it through due diligence, but in this case, even logic would suffice. Asserting that Syria was being destroyed by not allowing it to promote tourism is such an absurd claim when the reality of the destruction of Syrian homes, infrastructure and any semblance of civil functioning in all the parts the regime has (literally) attacked is before the eyes of everyone. To deny this visibile evidence denotes a detachment from reality that is frightening, but more so in the arrogance and determination with which it is presented.

It is a slap in the face to the oppressed to witness the vehemence with which Blumenthal asserts his position that everything would have been just fine if the protesters stopped in the early days, that the “legitimate government” was merely responding to the violence of the protesters and that they simply had to call Russia, Iran and Hezbollah in because these protesters were armed by the United States, with the assumption that the listener will not actually check that this arming was next to nothing and included orders to not fight against the Syrian regime in any way.

Blumenthal and Cobban constantly trip up on the trope of the proxy war as cause of the uprising in their continual denial of the maxim that correlation is not causation. They fall into the questionable cause logical fallacy in nearly every statement they make, and do not allow space for it to be challenged, because they already accept it as a truth. They put the US involvement before the involvement of any other players, including that of the Syrian intelligence/torture machine and decades of oppression and the absence of free speech within Syria due to the dynasty that refused to do anything but consolidate its power and destroy all opposition. The history of the war is rewritten with some “scare quotes” and lazy journalism.

However, the evidence they sought to produce in this webinar, that Western journalism was not presenting an accurate or a complete picture of the war was never touched upon. Because that was not really the point of the webinar. It was simply yet another exercise in propaganda for the Syrian regime, because evidently, despite their claims to the contrary, it is impossible for the Assad Regime (a name they throw in air quotes, but don’t define what it is instead of being a regime, aside from stating that it is legitimate) to celebrate a victory, when half of the country is in ruins and half of the citizens, only those that opposed the regime in power, are displaced, many of them permanently.

Communication and War: not just Rojava and why we always forget Syria

Posted: 10/17/2019 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Assad, Europe, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Internet and Communication, Middle East Issues, People's Movements / Struggles, Politics, Refugees, Religion, Resistance, Strategy for Liberation, Syria, War

WRITTEN BY Francesco Petronella, translated by Mary Rizzo

Why is the war in Syria and its dead remembered only if Trump and Erdogan intervene, badly? Or when something touches Rojava?

Operation “Spring of Peace”, conducted on Syrian territory by the Turkish army against the Kurdish YPG militias (part of the security forces of the NES, commonly known as Rojava), comes as a thunderstorm that wipes out the fog of hypocrisy. It clearly shows the inherent contradictions in the way the Syrian conflict has been viewed by the Western world, and by Italians in particular.

The first “great discovery” that the Turkish offensive in northeastern Syria (NES) has brought to light is as extraordinary as it is obvious: there is a war in Syria.

9 YEARS OF WAR, ANYONE REMEMBER THAT?

The mainstream media, the in-depth news talk shows and the whole Western media circus connected to it, seem to have remembered the war in Syria only through the US withdrawal and the Turkish offensive. This creates some perplexity in the face of a conflict that has been going on, continuously, for almost 9 years and has resulted in a civilian death toll that is officially (under)estimated to count between 370,000 and 570,000 deaths.

In Syria, in fact, people died even before Trump gave the green light to Erdogan’s Turkey to launch the operation. One only has to look at the last battle ground between the self-styled Islamic State and the SDF and the constant Russian-Syrian government raids against anti-Assad rebels in the Idlib area, under the canton of Afrin.

In that region – regarded by the Assadists as “in the hands of fundamentalists” – people died (and still today die) in a very particular way. Local health officials, in fact, communicate the coordinates of hospitals, clinics and field schools to the Syrian army and to its responsible bodies, so that missiles and Russian-Syrian government air raids avoid these targets by focusing their firepower on the rebel positions.

IDLIB AND GHOUTA HAVE BEEN FORGOTTEN

The outcome, as evidenced by various sources including the UN and the WHO, is exactly the opposite: health and school facilities are systematically targeted by the Russian-Syrian forces using these coordinates supplied to them.

Mohamad Kattoub of the Syrian-American Medical Society (Sams), interviewed by the Italian agency “Dire”, said that of the 38 hospitals hit from April to July 2019 in the Idlib area “14 had shared their coordinates for the first time” with Assad’s forces.

A very serious act and a blatant crime against humanity, but also news that, taken up by almost no one in the Italian media, has not aroused a fragment of the political and social uproar seen in recent days for the Turkish campaign against the YPG. Almost as if there were double standards at play, however, ones that follow an already common pattern.

In February 2018, with operation “Olive Branch”, Turkish forces together with Syrian anti-Assad rebels took control of the Syrian canton of Afrin, which until then was controlled by the Kurdish YPG. The operation sparked protests in many of Italy’s cities, enraged tweets against Turkey and even the call for a No Fly Zone in the area to counter the air raids against Afrin.

A few months earlier, civilians living in Eastern Ghouta, a Damascus suburb controlled by anti-government militias, were subjected to indiscriminate airstrikes by Russian-Syrian government forces, with deaths in the thousands. Yet, also in that case, in the face of the outcry over Afrin, there was only silence for Ghouta.

COMMUNICATION IS EVERYTHING

Why did Afrin matter more than Eastern Ghouta, and today, why does Rojava matter more – for us Westerners – than Idlib?

The reason is because the difference between civilian deaths in Syria and victims of the Turkish invasions is purely political.

Without a doubt, abandoning Rojava to its own – terrible – fate after the SDF and YPG have been praised as having “defeated the Islamic State” is just as counterproductive as it is immoral and wrong, but this isn’t enough to explain why there is so much indignation currently.

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The YPG – talking about “Kurds” is a simplification that can even be misleading – arouse particular sympathy in certain circles of the Italian and international left, from Youth Social Centers to parliamentary forces. Everyone in recent days has spoken in favour of the Kurdish-Syrian cause and against the Turkish offensive and the issue has entered – to the detriment of the Turkish players – also on the football pitch.

The reason for this feeling between the YPG – armed branch of the Syrian wing of the Kurdish PKK – and the Italian left is due to the fact that the former have had, over the years, the incredible ability to propose their cause as a one that is socialist, libertarian, gender-friendly and even gay-friendly. They, as mentioned in a previous article, had the ability – for a just cause – to use the mass media and social media in their favour.

NOT JUST ROJAVA

To understand the phenomenon, just sift through social media or enter any bookstore. If we talk about the YPG or SDF, the images are always those of proud young women armed with machine guns and with the wind blowing through their hair: the perfect nemesis of the male-dominated jihadists and obscurantists of the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. The antithesis of what we as Westerners define as “wrong” in Islamic culture.

Bearded and observant? Terrorist. Woman without a headscarf? Courageous leftist revolutionary. The reality, unfortunately or fortunately, is much more complex than that.

Needless to say, among the Kurdish population, the vast majority of whom are Sunni Muslims, there are also bearded men who pray five times a day and observe Ramadan like any devout follower of Islam. Needless to say, Rojava, the PYD (of which the YPG are the armed branch) are only the forces on the ground, a fragment of a spectrum – the Kurdish cultural one – that is far wider and more diversified.

It would be superfluous, if these purely aesthetic and formal aspects were to become the substance of the discussions on the Middle East, those that make us define – à la Fallaci – in a Manichean way, the “good” and the “bad”, fomenting the enormous misinformation in the West on the subject.

Mideast Syria

THE FORGOTTEN LEFT/S IN SYRIA

It is less superfluous to point out that the application of Democratic Confederalism in Rojava theorised by Ocalan was not the only “left-wing experience” of the Syrian conflict.

In the forgotten Eastern Ghouta, experiments in the organisation of civil society were undertaken by the rebels, involving the provision of the welfare and assistance needs from below through the Local Coordination Committees – tansiqiyat in Arabic – in competition with the top-level structure of the regime, known with the term Nizam (literally ‘system’). All this is following the writings of a Damascus dissident Omar Aziz, for whom the goal of the Syrian revolution – “the time of the revolution” – was to reduce the dependence of Syrian citizens on the regime and its structures – the time of power – for its daily livelihood.

Is there anything more left-wing than that? And Aziz was not the only one. Razan Zaytouneh, Samira Khalil are only some of the names, unknown in the West to almost everyone, of those who dreamed of a secular and democratic Syria, but did not have the press agents necessary for this dream, the original dream of the Syrian revolution, so it was never able to reach the lazy ears of the Westerner.

Let us be clear, this is not a condemnation of the YPG, the SDF or of Rojava, but of the way in which we, here in Italy and the West, perceive and/or think we understand the war in Syria with the terrifying result that when we talk about it, the discriminating factor between general protests and indifference does not seem to be concerned with the loss of life, almost always civilian lives, but it is all about us and our ideological belonging.

This is why the visual narrative offered by the YPG is successful. It gives the left – or presumed such – a subject with which it is easy to empathise. Just as, always on an ideological and communicative level, the images of the Assad military and the “great defender of Christianity” (and beacon of American anti-imperialism) Putin against bearded terrorists fuel the rhetoric of the radical right.

Add to this the possibility that the attack – again from our ideological point of view as Westerners – or the invasion is carried out by the “absolute villain” Erdogan thanks to the betrayal of the “even worse villain” Trump against the “absolute good guys” of the YPG, we have the perfect storm: a scenario where it’s in fact too easy to take sides.

Even at the expense of forgetting now – as happened in the past – the rest of Syria, so it will be easier to forget it again when the Rojava emergency is over.

Original: http://caffeopinione.com/rojava-erdogan-sinistra-ypg/?fbclid=IwAR07lVFI2iZ0RGK-AXUHzCDnhJfpobMHwFcIRMtotaCLZBIAE84mtgGDd9I

The Syrian revolution has come to an end. It’s true! But the Syrian Cause has just begun

Posted: 10/17/2019 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Assad, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Politics, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Syria, War

Written by Yassin Al Haj Saleh, translated by Na Assouad (into Italian) and Mary Rizzo (into English)

13 October 2019

Suppose that we Syrians resigned ourselves and no longer had hope in the revolution, suppose that the revolution has come to an end and we wish, as many actually would, to turn the page and move on. I ask myself if our enemies would even allow us to do that? Would the despicable regime accept it?

No, they would desecrate the revolution, the memory of the martyrs and they would cancel every trace of it, as they have already done in Ghouta. They would falsify everything that happened, as they have been doing, imprisoning those who have returned to the “lap of the motherland”, torturing and killing them.

Would the protectors of the despicable regime accept it? No, never! They first have to paint the page as black as possible, they have to burn it and then scatter its ashes.

It must serve as an example for everyone! Isn’t that what they have always done in the past?

Would the comrades of the despicable regime accept it? No, never! They will continue their war, against even the memory of the revolution, against the term “Syrian revolution”, as long as the despicable regime stays in power.

They will pursue this memory and destroy it to the bitter end, dragging it in the mud with insults and lies until the end of their days.

For these reasons, the despicable regime and its accomplices and protectors can slaughter us, but they will never defeat us, because they do not even know the concept of politics, they are bereft of values, they can do nothing but contemplate their crimes.

The Syrian revolution has come to an end. It’s true! But the Syrian Cause has just begun.

And the enemy of the revolution is the same enemy of the cause, so there is no other choice than to continue, to persist, but with different methods, other rhythms, basing ourselves on the lessons that the martyred and battered revolution has given us.

The crux of the cause is the construction of Syria on the basis of the values of the revolution, of the republic, the takeover of politics and of the country, dignity and justice, to continue the battle after the defeat.

Assessing Ken O’Keefe’s World Citizen Solution as at October 2019

Posted: 10/07/2019 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Ken O'Keefe
Tags: Ken O'Keefe, World Citizen Solutions

Written by Mary Rizzo, long-time Ken-skeptic, and only cheated out of money for the “Ferry to Gaza” that never saw the light of day.

It’s been over three and a half years since Ken O’Keefe announced (and started asking for money) the World Citizen Solution. In the meantime, he’s often announced he’d actually announce what this whole Solution actually was, but all he’s pretty much come up with was that he paid a lawyer a lot of other people’s money to look into the solution, the time of which to properly announce has not yet arrived.

He must have over-estimated his followers’ patience, because he’s been dumped by almost all of his supporters and those involved in the “solution” and even been dumped by many of those who promoted him, allowing him to gain more followers, and most importantly, get a lot of donors, using their “reputations” in the “alternative news”, anarcho-capitalist “investment”, “truther” and conspiracy theorist movements (such as David Icke and those whose income were derived from association with him).

He bitterly fights (or insults or blocks) whoever has actually questioned him, but the one thing they’ll never get from him is ACCOUNTABILITY.

Well, if Ken won’t come up with the goods, somebody better. It’s time for some research, and since his former followers are laying low, I guess that means I’ll do some digging.

I’ve searched for anything I could find about the World Citizen Solution in the past six months. I’ve come up with almost nothing.

Almost.

Then, it hit me, clear as the light of the new day. I suppose people weren’t paying attention. It was there in front of their eye(s) all the time.

Now, before I get ahead of myself, I have to make a premise. In the beginning, Ken was about ecology. He was about burning passports. Then he was about anti-war. Then he was about Palestine. Then he was about Banksters. Then he had some spiritual-ish place in a tropical island decorated by his girlfriend. Then he was about TSA. Then he was about going to Thailand and doing who knows what and being arrested for not updating his visa, which is required by every foreigner who is prolonging their presence in the country. Almost all of these campaigns had him asking people to give him money so that he could do these things and make videos about them. He claimed again and again that he was risking his life, that people were trying to kill him. Wait… he actually said he DID die and that he came back to life, so the Ken we are seeing has also been resurrected from the dead. Usually that brings an epiphany, when people have near death experiences, it makes them want to make peace with the universe and since he is a believer in God, the common response is to live life to the fullest, but also to make amends with those he may have hurt (or cheated). But rather than just answer all of his donors when they asked either if they could have their money back or know EXACTLY how it was spent, he spewed more nastiness at them and did it from a tropical swimming pool (again, those tropical zones!) where he repeatedly said that he was fearing “they” would kill him. (Well, his donors were angry, but he doesn’t mean them. He means the PTB (“Powers That Be”). It seems that currently he’s living a nomadic life of being the guest at the homes of his followers in many different countries. Apparently, he has ZERO interest in revealing either what the money was spent on (other than generic “expenses” and the famous report from the famous lawyer), so people…. It’s no use to keep asking. You are not going to get an answer NOR are you going to get your money back. EVER. End of. You should have listened to our warnings years ago.

But, if you look through the evolution of Ken over the years, you find that there are some strange things, and I’m going to put on my tin hat right now and tell you that he might even be “one of them”! An Operative or an Infiltrate into all of your movements.

Ken joins movements (that already exist), gives them a twist where he assumes a sort of “leadership” role, while at the same time, stressing that it’s a true movement of a HUGE group of people. He doesn’t abide anyone shifting him out of leadership position, though. Once he’s pretty much gotten what he could out of the movement (or some within it have grown wise to him) he shifts to another movement. He completely dominates in the same way whatever it is that the movement is doing/discussing and challenged anyone else in it for the leadership of it. He’s not got his heart in all of it, probably, he wasn’t the Star of a White Nationalism and Guns convention (Free your Minds) in some American backwoods, nor was he the key draw in the Alt Guru event called, with incredibly originality, “Open Minds” and, sad to say, he didn’t outshine turbo-libertarian Jeff Berwick or right-wing Milo Yiannopoulos in the Anarcho-Capitalist conference held in a five-star hotel in Mexico, but he does enjoy the limelight and the special perks of these events and caters whatever his speech is to the feelings of those attending, because all of them have wallets and all of them can recruit other people to following Ken. Following his trajectory, you can see how, in 12 easy steps, he went from the One State Solution to the World Citizen Solution, losing almost all the original followers and requiring him to start a new group of them each and every time. Aloha indeed.

The strange thing, though, is that most of the movements he enjoys the greatest popularity in can be considered along the “conspiracy theory” spectrum. If you look at this video, where he talks about finance, you can see it was picked up because of one of the lines he says as a message to his followers (who discuss whether it’s the Freemasons, Illuminati, Jesuits or Reptilians who control the world, though lately, he’s added Jews, feeling emboldened by the zeitgeist).

KOK is it the illuminati

Clearly, these are the discussions of those who follow him. So, it would stand to reason that he’d KNOW that they were very tuned-in to the related symbolism. He’d HAVE to be, right? He’d have to just KNOW you would not put this picture of yourself up as the symbol of your campaigns on one of the sites you use to ask for money, because it would be a red flag to whoever is donating to you.

KOK illuminati

Then, let’s look at the campaign, the one that probably spelled the definitive downfall of Ken as the (One) World (!!!) Citizen (Final) Solution. Here it is, with the money collected ONLY through the Indiegogo site of that campaign. This site does not include any other way that money was donated to it. So, raised by Ken’s followers and paid exclusively to Ken from this one means of collection was $113, 470. Not a huge amount, but certainly, a lot of money that was going to something people believed in and wanted answers concerning how their donations would specifically stop the perpetual cycle of war.

kok money

Yes, that was what the purpose of WCS was, at least, that was the one in black on white. It might be hard to do much of ANYTHING with a shiny silver coin that has no value as currency, but maybe in time will become some hot little collector’s item.

But wait… the coin was just one of the perks. There were others, including a t-shirt. Let’s see how that got distributed:

KOK sticker

JJ Alexander, a donor (only donors could comment) as recently as three months ago (that is, three years and three months after he donated) said that he felt Ken scammed them. JJ got the sticker, BUT NO SHIRT! Oh, and where are the other actions he promised, while we are at it?

KOK shirt no

I believe it’s reasonable to say that everyone can stop waiting for the solution Ken will give you (with money he asks for to do it) to end the perpetual cycle of war, you can probably also stop waiting for the T-shirt promoting him and “his Solution”.

At this point, I feel it is safe to say that the World Citizen Solution, the source of disappointment to so many believers has revealed itself as being nothing more than a sticker. People who donated (maybe not even all of them, but at least most of them) have something to stick on their luggage, when they go to tropical islands and exotic places, or to five-star hotels and retreats in Bali.

You got a sticker. Hope the glue at least does what you expect it to.

KOK sticker 2

Syrian “tourism”, taking a page from the Hasbara Handbook

Posted: 09/13/2019 by editormary in "Israel", Activists and Activism, Assad, BDS, Europe, Hasbara / Zionist Propaganda, Hasbara Deconstruction Site, Human Rights, Internet and Communication, Palestine, Politics, Refugees, War, Zionism

all that glitters

Any person who has been a campaigner for Palestinian rights is aware of the various techniques that Israel uses to whitewash the occupation of Palestine and the oppression that the Palestinians are subject to. Along with Hasbara, which is a kind of prepared narrative to dominate the talking points and shift the discourse to a place where it makes Israel appear to be the underdog fighting for its legitimate rights instead of its actual reality as a brutal militarily occupying force against Palestinians, there is “whitewashing”. When regimes or countries that are not democratic use whitewashing, they make use of propagandists to determine talking or selling points that make these countries seem more democratic, more progressive and more appealing than they really are. The curtain is never pulled back to show what lay on the other side of all that “great stuff”.

Israel invests heavily in campaigns of tourism. “Two Sunny Cities, One Break” and “Douze Points” are only two of the campaigns in recent years that have sought a new, fashionable kind of tourist, one that was looking for the nightlife and a place to party 24 hours, and mostly a place to continue the promotion with selfies to be shared, encouraging yet more tourism to Israel in a virtuous circle. In the advertisements, the emphasis is on discotheques, pools, chic restaurants and bars. It’s all about fun and hedonism. That doesn’t mean that the “heritage” tourism, to religious sites and kibbutzes has stopped, it’s just that the advertising focus wants the potential tourist to believe that going to Tel Aviv is exactly like going to Milan, Prague or Madrid, only in this case, your holiday will never be spoiled by rain and your fun never stops. It is selling the side of Israel that reaps the benefits from the occupation, and doesn’t actually have to even think about Palestinians existing on the other side of the wall or who are living imprisoned on the outskirts of Jewish Settlements or any of the other situations where Palestinians do not experience full rights, including the right of free movement in their own country.

The BDS movement has a statement on ethical tourism which begins as follows:

Based on the UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) affirmation in its statutes that it fundamentally aims at “the promotion and development of tourism with a view to contributing to […] universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion”

It would follow that tourism to countries where there is a brutal occupation, violations of human rights and enclaves of persons living in grave peril under bombing and siege by their “government” and its allies would be exactly like violating the BDS call to boycott Israeli tourism. To go to places like that would require a particular behaviour set in order to be ethical, and that set has to be consistent. One can’t dance in the Tel Aviv discos and also show solidarity by avoiding all institutional links of any sort with Israel. You can’t pick and choose parts from each; it’s all or nothing.

The Syrian government has learned so much from the Israeli government’s use of hasbara, of throwing the rock and hiding the hand. One can say that it realises that slick propaganda is the other side of military occupation and oppression. They are working hard at whitewashing Syria, pointing out the sun, fun and pride of the “loyalist” Syrians (who never had to experience the bombs and destruction of any of the opposition areas, because the opposition did not have the military power or the conviction to subject the civilian population to sieges and air strikes). But, the regime can’t do it alone. It can’t put up slick advertisements on major Western TV channels. It is really limited in the extent to which it can promote the false narrative. This means that it has to find an alternative.

Facebook main photo of the Syrian Ministry of Tourism

The Syrian Ministry of Tourism has always been the propaganda arm of the regime. In the past, the process of vetting (and interrogating) tourists, with those finally passing through all the hoops specifically having limited or no access to some places and making a person fully aware that the “walls have ears”, made tourism there a sort of adventure tourism and a bit of a Truman Show. You accept that you have certain limits, which you are careful to not overstep. And how could you ever forget, with pictures of Big Brother everywhere, at public transport hubs and markets, but even on archaeological sites and churches. Everyone around you knows you can be called a spy, so you will only hear the most glowing and fervent praise of the government. The element of it being an inauthentic experience for everyone was more than mitigated by: for the tourist, beautiful scenery and a very different kind of experience (something to write home about as weird but exciting), for the Syrians playing along, making some money off of tourists. Everyone played the game, but at least, everyone knew it was a game.

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The regime in the past also had a habit of involving bloggers and journalists – and not just those whose topic was travel, but especially those who were active in blogging for Palestine or Arab Nationalism – in “junket trips” where they not only had the government approved handlers, but were also shown many of the same places, with a similar narrative and the instructions to “take the talking points back home”, with a sort of briefing of what the points were. That allowed them to create a group of people who, given the amount of perks and the hospitality, were either blinded or they felt morally obligated to pay back the courtesy. Letting oneself be wilfully blinded works if someone can ignore reality. That was certainly easier in the past, when Syria was never in the news, when people “disappeared” for having told a joke or their opportunities were determined by how much they were able to prostrate themselves before the dynasty in power and all of its long arms around the country.

Today, it is impossible to ignore what is going on in Syria. That half of the country’s population has become refugees or internally displaced. That enormous areas of the country have been destroyed by constant and relentless air raids by the regime and other occupying forces, with Russia and Iran’s proxy militias playing the leading roles in these destructive raids, expecting their payback now and in the future. That hundreds of thousands of civilians have “disappeared” and many have been documented in photographs smuggled from a Syrian prison where they were tortured to death. That massacres of all kinds have been documented, with loyalists rejoicing and calling the victims terrorists, even the children who were slaughtered by knives, nerve gas or barrel bombs.

To go to Damascus and other regime-held areas, partying in the shisha bars, sunbathing at the beaches, buying souvenirs in the souks and visiting the sites, whether pretending to be “independent”, while employed by RT, or on a fact-finding mission, getting only the facts the regime wants one to get, with the loyalist behaviour doing the self-censorship, would require a certain, pathological kind of disconnect from reality, along with a severe ethical deficit.

To go to Saydnaya and to just look at the beautiful church, denying that the regime’s most brutal torture prison is located in the same village, is just like going to Tel Aviv, and not pulling the curtain back on Hebron’s misery.

Beware of any “journalist” or “tourist” going to Syria being anything but a propaganda tool for the regime and a knife in the heart of the Syrian people whose struggle for freedom was also a struggle to no longer play the game of lies and deceit. To live in their own country, authentically, without the oppression of the dynasty in power.

Call for the Formation of a Transnational Socialist-Humanist Solidarity Network

Posted: 04/04/2019 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Ideas and Projects, Internet and Communication, People's Movements / Struggles, Politics, Resistance

Internatinal-Solidarity April 2, 2019

Dear Friends:

Critical developments around the globe compel the creation of a new type of transnational socialist and anti-authoritarian solidarity network.

Objectively, we are facing the growth of authoritarian capitalist governments, an increasing economic and military competition between the U.S. and China, and the ominous consequences of climate breakdown. In addition, we confront insurgent white-supremacist and other racist ethno-nationalist movements which, similar to ISIS in their extremist views, are willing to employ mass-violence against Muslims, Jews, and other marginalized people.

Subjectively, a new generation of youth is getting interested in socialism because capitalism’s inhumanity and exploitation does not offer it a better future.

The Me Too movement challenging sexual abuse is growing among women around the globe and targeting the abuse of women in government, all fields of work, and the family. The Black Lives Matter movement which emerged in the U.S. in response to state-sanctioned police murder and abuse of Black people has struck a chord internationally. There is no lack of popular protests and strikes around the world, from Sudan, Algeria, Iran and Palestine to Europe, and from China and India to Latin America, Haiti, and the U.S. However, some of these struggles are being crushed by various authoritarian and imperialist forces, and others face the danger of rightwing populism.

In response to these struggles, the international Left has been disappointing. The Syrian revolution was not only crushed by the Assad regime with the help of Russia and Iran. It was also abandoned or rejected by the majority of the international Left. The poor and starving masses in Iran and Venezuela are being told by supposed “socialists” and “peace and justice” advocates that their miseries are only caused by U.S. imperialism and that they have to live with authoritarian regimes like the Islamic Republic or Maduro’s state as the “lesser of the two evils.”

There is no doubt that U.S. imperialism and settler colonialism are the cause of much misery and death in the world both presently in the actions of the Trump administration and historically. Nonetheless, the U.S. is not the only capitalist-imperialist power exploiting and oppressing humanity. We live in a world of various imperialist and sub-imperialist power rivalries. In particular, Chinese and Russian imperialism are competing with U.S. imperialism for global dominance.

In the face of this reality, however, many leftists are rationalizing the actions of authoritarian regimes such as those of Putin in Russia, Assad in Syria, Khamenei in Iran, Ortega in Nicaragua, and Maduro in Venezuela – simply because these governments use the rhetoric of anti-U.S. imperialism. Some socialist observers have named this rationalization or support the “red-brown alliance” which follows the “campist” approach of dividing the world into competing military camps, and negating the role of the working class and oppressed peoples within those “camps.”

Given the evidently sordid and bloody history of U.S. imperialism, many Western leftists justifiably endorse Karl Liebknecht’s declaration, made in 1915 amid the depths of World War I, that “the main enemy is at home.” Liebknecht was expressing what he thought should be the position of socialists in an inter-imperialist war. His statement should not be used as an excuse to abandon working-class struggles around the world. Unfortunately, today, many on the Left have twisted this principle to minimize or deny well-documented chemical-weapons attacks by the Assad regime in Syria; murders of protesters in Russia, Venezuela, and Iran; mass-internment concentration camps such as those holding a million Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region; and other heinous attacks of state violence carried out by regimes that claim to be against U.S. imperialism. Such views greatly violate the core ethical principles of humanism, egalitarianism, and human solidarity with oppressed peoples, and confuse the struggles of workers and the oppressed against capital and the State with inter-imperialist intrigues.

We need a transnational socialist and anti-authoritarian solidarity network that breaks with such careless and undiscerning views of the world and instead sets human emancipation, not inter-imperialist rivalry, as its aim. We need to create a network that offers in-depth analyses, genuine grassroots socialist solidarity, and forums for working out real solutions – such as alternatives to capitalism, tackling climate breakdown, and overcoming patriarchy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia.

We believe that the essence of socialism is humanism, the idea that human beings have the potential to use their reasoning capacity to move forward, establish intercommunication and relations free of domination and servitude.

The signatories of this call include a variety of socialist and Marxist humanists, anarchists, and anti-authoritarians. We reject the systems that existed in the former USSR and the People’s Republic of China as authoritarian. We oppose capitalism both in private and state form as well as racism, sexism, and heterosexism. We seek humanist, intersectional, and sustainable ecological alternatives to oppression and ecocide.

Please join us in an effort to create a transnational and anti-authoritarian socialist-humanist solidarity network with the initial aim of organizing speaking tours and building a speakers’ bureau with a related website aimed at the following:

Concrete expressions of solidarity with ongoing progressive and revolutionary popular struggles on the basis of opposition to capitalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, and xenophobia.

Genuine dialogue and debate on humanist alternatives to capitalism, visions of a free and sustainable society, liberation of women, and LGBT persons, the right to self-determination, and a commitment to truth, reason, and human emancipation.

We propose a speakers’ bureau that would offer a resource list of speakers/ topics and coordinate speaking tours which would bring together local, national, and international issues and struggles.

This is an international effort aimed at concrete solidarity work and dialogue on the burning questions of our day, and hopes to prove that the idea of emancipatory socialist solidarity can be credible in theory and practice.

If you agree with these ideas and would like to be part of this effort to form a Transnational Socialist-Humanist Solidarity Network, please contact us at transnationalsolidarity@protonmail.com

Signatories:

Abou Jaoude, Elias, Sofware Developer, Lebanon

Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists

Afary, Frieda, Producer of Iranian Progressives in Translation, member of Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, U.S.

Afthinos, Pantelis, Internationalist revolutionary socialist website, e la liberta, Greece

Al-Saadi, Yazan, Syrian Canadian Writer

Amina, Syria solidarity activist, U.S.

Ayoub, Joey, Writer, editor and researcher, IFEX, Global Voices, Scotland

Independent journalist and activist, Argentina

Castro, María, Professor of Spanish and French Studies, U.S.

Chelliah, Lalitha, Maternal and Child Health Nurse – Socialist, Australia

Cuffy, Robert, Socialist Workers’ Alliance, Guyana

Dehkordi, Sara, Manjanigh Collective, Germany

Fareid Eltayeb, Amgad, Spokesperson of Sudan Change Now movement & producer of Sudan Seen blog

Fischer, Dan, Graduate worker, U.S.

Galyon, Shiyam, Syrian American feminist and campaigner

Hensman, Rohini, Writer, independent scholar and author of Indefensible, India

Hirsch, Michael, New Politics Editorial Board member, U.S.

Kousinatas, Kostas, Internationalist revolutionary socialist website, e la liberta, Greece

La Botz, Dan, Teacher, writer, co-editor of New Politics, U.S.

Language professor, Seattle, U.S.

Lopez, Rocío, Mexican-American writer, U.S.

LeFage, Shanelle, Climate activist, U.S.

Leonard, Ralph, Writer and student, U.K.

Maria, Eva, Independent Venezuelan Socialist Feminist, U.S.

Masjedi, Fatemeh, Iranian feminist and history scholar, Europe

Melcher, Thorne, transgender activist, writer and coder, U.S.

Munif, Yasser, Syrian Sociology Professor, U.S.

Noor, Yalda, Psychologist, U.S.

Petersen-Smith, Khury, Socialist and geographer, U.S.

Quiquivix, Linda, Community scholar and farmer, U.S.

Ram, Joshua, Writer, U.S.

Ramírez, Krys Méndez, Disability Justice organizer and Ethnic Studies scholar, U.S.

Reid Ross, Alexander, geography professor, and author of Against the Fascist Creep, U.S.

Reimann, John, Former Recording Secretary of Carpenters’ Local 713 and current producer of OaklandSocialist.com blog, U.S.

Rizzo, Mary, Editorial Staff of Le Voci de la Libertà, Italian blog for the Syrian Revolution, Italy

Ruder, Eric, socialist and journalist, U.S.

Saravi, Jose, writer and translator, Argentina

Schulman, Jason, New York City Democratic Socialists of America

Sethness, Javier, Family Nurse Practitioner and author, U.S.

Shurmand, Azadeh, Iranian women’s studies scholar, Europe

Sloughter, Tristan, Denver Democratic Socialists of America, U.S.

Soeller, Peter, Anti-fascist activist and writer, U.S.

Smith, Ashley, Socialist writer and activist, U.S.

Weston, Matt, Social Worker, U.S.

Wind, Ella, Middle East Studies scholar and member of Democratic Socialists of America, U.S.

Zekavat, Sina, Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, Germany

Zuur, Cheryl, former president, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 444, U.S.

Original: https://www.allianceofmesocialists.org/call-for-the-formation-of-a-transnational-socialist-humanist-solidarity-network/

Al-Atareb, death trap for civilians

Posted: 01/12/2019 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Assad, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Middle East Issues, People's Movements / Struggles, Refugees, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Syria, Video, War

airstrikes-aleppo-syria1-gty-mem-180307_16x9_992

(Aleppo Civil Defense/Pool/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

WRITTEN BY ASMAE DACHAN for Avvenire (print edition of 12 January, 2019)

Sixty thousand civilians of the city outside Aleppo are living under siege by the Jihadists of al-Qaeda. Two hundred who oppose are “wanted” by the terrorists. They are also not spared Assad’s bombs

The ordeal of Syrian civilians appears to be endless. The advance of the militias of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), a group affiliated to al-Qaeda, in the citadel of al-Atareb, in the Aleppo province, opens up a new, disturbing scenario. Roughly sixty thousand people live in the area, many of them displaced from other cities. In recent days, the militia bombed al-Atareb, which was under the control of the last pockets of resistance, the opposition forces, as well as being one of the first cities to have declared itself independent of the regime in 2012. In this town, civilians had organised themselves into committees for self-government. The HTS has surrounded the city, succeeding in easily advancing in an area where the forces of the National Liberation Front (NLF), a military opposition group supported by Turkey, are in the minority. According to the agreements signed by Turkey, Russia and Iran last September in Sochi, Ankara would have the task of curbing the terrorist militias of the north-west of Syria, supporting the military actions of the NLF, but the resounding advance of HTS at al-Atareb, just like at Darat Izza, simply reinforces the many perplexities regarding its implementation expressed by many parties. Al-Atareb is seen as an important conquest to many because it is in a highly strategic area, both from the logistic and economic point of view, because here one finds the main route of connection between Aleppo and the Bab Al Hawa pass (the only official border crossing with Turkey).

The terrorists immediately disseminated a list with the names of about two hundred matlubin, a “wanted” list, that included many women, all active in the self-government committees and protagonists of the revolts against both the regime and ISIS. Among them we also find the eighty-year-old Hajja Hamra Akush, known as “the mother of the opponents”, a woman known to everyone and whose home had served as a safe house for military deserters who refused to fight against their fellow countrymen.

Civilian sources report executions, kidnappings and violence, in addition to the closure of all schools. Concerning public health, the situation is dire; there is a lack of medicine and the few remaining medical staff is unable to provide for the needs of the entire population. The particularly harsh winter only aggravates the situation. Al-Atareb is one of the most emblematic examples of the way in which the moderate opposition, made up of civilians, women and men, who only sought a different Syria, without a regime and without extremists, were left entirely to their own devices, abandoned and at the mercy of the countless forces on the field. The fear of civilians in the area now is that the presence of the terrorists in al-Atareb is going to be used as a pretext to justify a new wave of joint Russian-Syrian regime bombing. According to civilian sources, more than seven hundred people have been killed in the city in recent years. No one can tell just how much more blood has to be shed by civilians before their lives become the priority in international negotiations.

A rally in al-Atareb on September 28, 2018 for the Syrian Revolution. Chants include: “The Baathists [the party of Bashar al-Assad] went crazy when we demanded freedom”:

Translated by Mary Rizzo

The Mirage of the Political Solution and the only Option of the Revolution

Posted: 07/18/2018 by editormary in Activists and Activism, People's Movements / Struggles, Politics, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Syria, War

Written by Labib Nahhas: Rather than luxury, ambition or idealism we have to understand undoubtedly that there is no other option left in front of us.

(1) Some believe that the revolution – from early on – had to open proper channels of communication with the Russians and build the right discourse to deal with them and their interests, but the reality is that Russia never thought of a political solution in Syria. If we take a closer look at Russia’s history and its experiences, and if we consider Putin’s czarist character and his own experience in Chechnya and closely follow his speech to the West about the Syrian issue and his focus on combating “Sunni terrorism”, we will reach a definite conclusion that the policy of the Russian regime in Syria would not change, especially in the absence of a clear and appeasing alternative. Just as the Assad regime has resorted to the “Hama model” in dealing with the Syrian revolution as a successful model from his point of view, it is logical that Russia resorts exclusively to the “Grozny model,” which openly boasts of being an ideal example of dealing with “insurgencies.”

Russia has taken all necessary military steps to impose a new political reality in Syria, and has established political tracks alternative to the Geneva process, arriving at the Sochi Conference, which resulted in the idea of the so-called Constitutional Commission, through which the Russians plan to obtain the legitimacy of “the opposition” and its joining in a political process that ensures the continuation of the Syrian regime (and perhaps Bashar himself) and gives the green light to the international community to open the door for the reconstruction in Syria and the flow of funds for this purpose, to be equal to a reward for the regime for its criminality and success of the Russian project in Syria in a conclusive way. Then, if Syria is without big economic and financial support it will remain a ‘failed state” threatened by a new explosion under the influence and corruption of the Assad regime and Iranian intervention and its penetration of the heart of Syrian society. For the knowledge: The cost of the reconstruction in Syria is estimated at between $ 250 billion to about $ 1 trillion; the regime does not possess from it any proportion and Russia is not able to contribute in it. Even those countries that support Russian military action in Syria in secret will only be able to support the reconstruction process with an international green light and existence of a political solution with Syrian and international legitimacy.

(2) The path of the Constitutional Commission will undoubtedly lead to a complete end to the revolution militarily, tame it completely politically, and consolidate Assad’s rule. Therefore, a fundamental question arises: What is the interest of the revolution and the Syrians in the participation of those who claim to represent the revolution in the so-called constitutional committee? The answer is: there is no interest, not partial nor total, neither in the near term nor in the long run, and there is no possibility of achieving any gain (unless there is someone who trusts the Russians as guarantor and the regime as an executor), or if we would consider the installation of some associated with the “opposition” in a future government under the rule of the regime to be a positive thing or would recognize that such “achievement” is the ceiling of the current revolution and the most achievable under the new political “realism.”

There is a fundamental problem in the existence and composition of the political “opposition” and the parties that run the political process and the so-called negotiating process in the name of the revolution: most of these are not revolutionaries at all, but traditional opponents at best under the cover of a fancying reality and they are incapable of acting (or even imagining) outside the frame of regional and international understandings (no matter how fragile). They never understood the true meaning of being a revolutionary for the sake of freedom and dignity against a criminal regime. They were engulfed in the concepts of “realism” and political “experience”, and became part of a system that they supposedly rebelled against one day, because it deprived them and their people of their rights and freedom (we don’t mean the Assad regime).

We have to ask and answer with all frankness and clarity: What is the constitution that will be written under the auspices of the Russian occupier?! What is the reference and legitimacy of the names that are presented as political “opposition”, and how have they been reached (to clarify: the satisfaction of the regional and international parties about persons or their performance does not give legitimacy)? What is the experience of these names in writing constitutions? In the name of whom this “opposition” negotiates? What are the papers of this “opposition” to negotiate in accordance with its current structure and its relationship with the interior (or lack thereof) and its defeatist speech? Do these “politicians” have a clear road map of milestones and results for what they are doing? Do they tell their people what is happening?

The most important question: Do they really think that this path will lead to the writing of a constitution that protects the rights of the Syrians and weakens the powers and authorities of the regime! And provides a safe environment for the return of the displaced and the preservation of their property! But more importantly: who will force the regime to implement this presumed constitution! Is there among these “opponents” (with the exception of the hired ones) whomever will be safe to go to Damascus to work within the future government of Assad and under the supervision of his security services?

(3) The logic of these “politicians” depends on two basic ideas: First, what is happening in Syria is an international and regional agreement, and political “experience” and “realism” require identification with this agreement. The second point is that we have no choice but to follow the path of the Constitutional Commission, and those who do not like this path: “Let him suggest another option!!!” Of course, the previous speech is based on big fallacies and miserable logic and refuted, and lacks the minimum degrees of desire for change and revolutionary spirit.

As for this international and regional agreement that is dealt with as sure, unavoidable destiny; what must be understood is that the international and regional community has not yet reached a final solution or agreement on Syria (although there is – at present – greater acceptance of the continuation of the regime in some form with cosmetic modifications considering the absence of a real, acceptable alternative.) However, the complexity of the Syrian issue has made the countries behave differently with different allies according to each region of Syria, and in general, we are still far from the comprehensive solution. But the Russian political momentum on the ground and in diplomatic corridors began to bear fruit, especially in the absence of any effective and counter political activity by the revolution.

Even if there was an international tendency towards a solution or concept against our interest as revolution and Syrians, the least we can do is to refuse and say “no” and, most importantly, to strive to impose a reality on the ground, militarily and socially (and this is of highest importance) hindering any solution that does not achieve our minimum interests. The “international decision” regarding the speech and mentality of the political upheaval about the revolution has changed into a self-fulfilling prophecy, into a pretext for their failure and inability to perform or deliver anything outside the bureaucratic routine of their work of attending meetings and conferences and then marketing what they are doing and justifying and suppressing those who disagree. However the reality is opposite to what they think, and the new reality that we need as Syrians and revolution is possible despite its extreme difficulty, but it needs hard work and great sacrifices, and breaking into fields outside their “comfort zone” and this is what they do not want to do.

(4) As for the alternative to the “Constitutional Committee”: I did not hear of someone who was offered poison then drank it voluntarily, rather exhausted himself in drinking it and justify that in front of people, rather he calls them to it! The alternative exists and is available but is not ready and requires work by everyone because there is no other option.

The alternative is to cling to the Liberated Land in the Syrian north under a unified civil authority and a revolutionary army, in which the factions will dissolve permanently as the only option to continue, and to strive to build the military, political and popular environment necessary for the success of the project, and develop the patch of this project in the near future to include the east of Syria completely within a regional-international frame that preserves the minimum of our interests as Syrians and takes into account the interests of the countries closest to us.

Our speech must be absolute rejection of any process collaborative with the criminal regime and the occupation forces, because we as Syrians reject the foreign occupation and refuse to be under the rule of a collaborator regime that brought the occupation forces and committed war crimes against our people, because we cannot live under the authority of these criminals preserving our lives and the lives of our people and the next generations. If millions of Syrians inside and outside Syria need a safe haven where they can live in freedom and dignity, enjoying their full rights as citizens and human beings, this will not be achieved under the rule of the Russian-Iranian occupation and their lackey the Assad regime.

Syria is divided – for those who did not realize that yet – and the Russian and Iranian occupation forces created their own spheres of influence and gave the Assad regime a “useful Syria” homogeneous socially and politically according to their perception. Our goal in the near future is to create a safe haven for Syrians in Syria outside the regime and occupation control, and starting from these areas through military, security, political and popular work to build a new model and reunite Syria.

(5) This regional-international framework that we need in the north and east of Syria depends mainly on the return of the Turkish-American relations and the attaining of agreement regarding its minimum borders between the two sides on the Syrian file in general and northern and eastern Syria in particular, which is a crucial semi-decisive matter in dismantling the Astana-Sochi system, that carries the largest part of the calamities we are living today (without ignoring the evil of the dealing and handling of the factions and political “opposition” with it). There is no doubt that the Western policy toward Turkey in recent years has played a major role in the induction of the change – maybe historical – in the context of Turkey’s foreign relations. However, this change is not permanent, and the Turkish side knows well that Russia is not a party to build a long-term alliance with (and there is a long history confirming that) especially since the experience of recent years proved that the commitment of the Russians to the agreements is very low, and Turkey knows that Russia will gradually squeeze it in a narrow corner after stripping it from as much of its papers in Syria as it can to force it to accept a comic solution that does not realize its ambitions.

Turkey has been and remains the most important ally of the revolution, the strategic depth of the Syrians, as Syria is Turkey’s strategic depth, geopolitically, demographically and economically. Now, more than ever before, and despite the difficulty, the revolution must rebuild the relationship with Turkey on the basis of common interests (which are many) and through a long-term perspective. Turkey is living under a great threat, internally and externally, and in fact does not have a true ally to rely on from the regional or international powers (with which a relationship of competition and cold war prevails), and here comes the role of the emergence of a revolutionary political-military leadership with real legitimacy emanating from the real strategic depth of the revolution, the Syrian interior, capable of presenting various bold visions based on real common interests with Turkey and, most importantly, providing the tools capable of implementing these visions and proposals.

(6) The realization of a safe haven (homeland) for free Syrians within Syria including the north and east of the country will have acceptance at regional and international parties (and there are movements on the ground in this direction) if posed in the right context and provided the tools necessary to achieve it, and the most important from that is that it is suggested by a Syrian party possessing credibility and legitimacy. It is a must to stop talking in the language of humanity and international law, and speak in the language of interests and in the name of the real will of the people, and what this people really wants and what realizes their interests. The preservation of the lives and dignity of civilians is not achieved through processes of reconciliation with the criminal regime with Russian guaranty, nor with surrender of heavy weapons, nor keeping civilians at the mercy of a regime that has proved to be closer to animals in its conduct. Saving civilians is with ensuring a safe haven and safe environment for them. And it is a must that it is the goal of the revolution in the next phase. It is a must to impose a new reality within Syria, and building regional and international support in any way possible.

The negotiating bodies that have spearheaded the political revolution do not possess any ability in negotiating and have been made heavy with sticky gelatinous individuals looking for their own role and personal interest. The time has come to overthrow these figures or the entire bodies. The Revolution is in need of categorizing new leaderships and open the way for the real “generation of the revolution”, and collect the military, political and popular capital of the revolution in one project and one front, even if this requires the execution of a revolution within the revolution itself, because most of the current “leadership” individuals are no longer susceptive to reform or development, and the revolutionary bodies need to be re-produced within new frameworks radically different from what preceded.

Some will say that this is an impossible project or that previous attempts to achieve it have not worked, but we have to understand undoubtedly that there is no other option left in front of us, and that achieving this solution is a matter of existential necessity rather than luxury, ambition or idealism. It is impossible to continue with divided factions and straying political leaderships that are unable to carry out the present duty. Owners of personal or factional projects need to realize that even the success of their projects requires the success of the greater project of the revolution. It is a must to freeze the participation of any party representing the revolution (or claiming to do so) in the trajectory of the “Constitutional Committee” and all efforts must be focused on a new speech and vision and real project that will serve the country and its people instead of running behind the mirage in a scene in which Syria is destroyed.

Arabic https://twitter.com/LabibAlNahhas/status/1016726029505875971
THE VOICE OF THE ARAB SPRING #Syria #Idlib #Aleppo
https://twitter.com/TNTranslations

Videos of life in Ghouta, directly from the people of Ghouta

Posted: 02/23/2018 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Children's Corner, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Internet and Communication, Interviews, Middle East Issues, People's Movements / Struggles, Refugees, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Syria, Video, War

UNDERGROUND SHELTERS

underground shelters from Production on Vimeo.

THE SYRIAN HOLOCAUST

The Syrian Holocaust from Production on Vimeo.

ABEER

The Syrian Holocaust from Production on Vimeo.

INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE

IDPs from Production on Vimeo.

Christmas in Aleppo, a year after the tragedy. Interview with Mahmoud al-Basha

Posted: 01/27/2018 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Assad, Children's Corner, Human Rights, Interviews, Middle East Issues, People's Movements / Struggles, Refugees, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Syria

Interview with Mahmoud al-Basha by Francesco Petronella, previously published in the print version of Sedici Pagine Magazine

Q: A year ago, around Christmastime, the city of Aleppo was besieged, bombed and then evacuated. What are your memories of those days?

A: I still perfectly remember everything that happened. The insane bombardment of the Assad regime and the Russians struck the city with weapons, even ones that are internationally prohibited. I still remember when the Russians started to use thermobaric missiles and bunker busters. At that time, I was doing whatever I could to allow the international media to understand what was going on in the city. I worked a great deal with them to show and document how the Russians and the Assad regime were killing innocent civilians. They took aim at all the hospitals and water tanks, without allowing any humanitarian aid to enter into the city under siege. In this desperate situation, the Russian air raids struck my neighbourhood, causing the death of 31 civilians. One of the was my brother Anas.

Anas al-Basha, the “clown” of Aleppo

Anas refused to leave the city before the siege started. I still remember his answer when I begged him to leave as soon as he could: “I’m not going to leave the city, I don’t want the children of Aleppo to feel so sad, I want to do something for them so that they smile and I want to help the poor civilians who are still living here.”

Only three days before he was killed, Anas was recording a voice message for me through WhatsApp to explain to me what the situation was like and how he was helping the people. “Now, I’m going to the bakery – he said – we’re going to distribute bread to the people who haven’t got anything to eat.” Then, all of a sudden, there was the terrible noise of an explosion that was just steps away from him. “Can you hear what an awful life we are living?” he asked me. “The Russian raids are striking everything, every single day.”

When he died, my family and I were unable to even give him our final goodbyes. My friends buried him in Aleppo with other innocent people, killed like he was.

Q: How has life in Aleppo changed a year since then?

Life hasn’t changed since last year. The only difference is that there are no longer the bombing raids, which ceased once the Assad forces controlled the entire city. The majority of the urban fabric is destroyed, simply rubble. The regime was unable to guarantee a better life, or even a normal life, to the people. In Aleppo, before the war, there were around 5 million people. Today, there are only 2 million. The majority of the civilian population has become homeless or has sought refuge in other parts of Syria or abroad. The persons who live in the city today have returned under the control of regime intelligence, without freedom or rights. Most of the young people have fled Syria in order to avoid forced recruitment in the regime army. Today, Aleppo is swarming with militias that come from various countries. Everywhere you look you see Russian, Iranian and Iraqi flags. The Assad regime no longer has any decisional power, Russia and Iran are the ones who hold the reins, especially in the military and political sphere.

Q: After what took place in Aleppo a year ago, how has the relationship between Christians and Muslims changed in the city and in the entire country?

A: The relationship between Christians and Muslims has changed. As I said before, around 3 million people had left the city from the start of the war, among them, many Christians. They weren’t really involved in the war because it was very easy for them to get visas for the EU or the USA. The strategy of the Assad regime, since the start of the Syrian revolution, was that of taking advantage of the minorities and using them as a pawn, where they would pretend for the Western countries that they were the only ones protecting them. There are many Christians against the Assad regime, but they left Syria. Many of them play an active role in the political Syrian opposition.

Q: What do you think life will be like in Aleppo and in Syria a year from now?

A: I think it will be exactly the same as it is right now. Aleppo will remain a ghost town and a place of destruction. There is no water, no electricity. There is no hope and no future in the eyes of the civilians. Very many families of Aleppo have become refugees in different countries. Hundreds of extended families are no longer together because of this war.

The city of Aleppo will return to be full of life only when the war ends. When the regime that has killed hundreds of thousands of persons will answer before the international courts of justice. When 500 thousand detainees are freed from the military prisons. When the international community will finally judge Bashar al-Assad for having used chemical weapons against innocent civilians. Aleppo will once again be a beautiful place only when those who have killed my brother Anas are facing Justice and are no longer able to kill persons, to kill children.

Mahmoud al-Basha is a Syrian journalist, fixer and activist. Hailing from Aleppo, Mahmoud currently lives in Turkey where he continues his work to raise awareness of the suffering and the terrible situation of his country.

Translation by Mary Rizzo
Original: https://levocidellaliberta.com/2018/01/27/natale-ad-aleppo-un-anno-dopo-la-tragedia/

PETITION! Call for the release of detainees in the Uprising in Iran!

Posted: 01/12/2018 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Internet and Communication, Iran, People's Movements / Struggles, Petitions, Resistance

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Release detained protesters in the nationwide uprising in Iran!

to: Honorable Antonio Guterres
UN Secretary-General;

Following the Iranian people’s nationwide protests to secure freedom as the legitimate right of the people of Iran, which began on December 28, 2017, the dictatorship ruling Iran started the massacre of unarmed and defenseless demonstrators and massive arrest and torture of protesters in prisons; acts that are a clear indication of a crime against humanity, and the United Nations is responsible to confront it. According to Iranian regime officials, 90% of the detainees are young people under the age of 25. On January 4, 2018, Amnesty International called for the end of the killing and arrest of demonstrators in Iran. On January 3, 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned the Iranian regime about repressive measures and said that Iranian regime officials should respect the rights of all demonstrators and detainees, including their right to life and security.

We, the undersigned, urge you to take effective action and make binding decisions for the unconditional release of thousands of arrested demonstrators in Iran, and warn the Iranian regime that, if this process continues, more serious actions will be adopted by the United Nations.

Respectfully,

PLEASE SIGN
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iran-Protests

Original message in Farsi.

Ken O’Keefe has another (final) solution, and it’s amazing!

Posted: 12/30/2017 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Internet and Communication, Ken O'Keefe, Politics, Uncategorized

ken hit We are used to Ken O’Keefe addressing his public and followers, and the world itself, in terms of his revelation of a simple fix to solve all the world’s problems. Yes, ALL of them. Ken says that “Just by changing this one thing”, there would be “world class education, infrastructure, everything that a healthy society requires can be had, even in the most corrupt African country”. He is sure that with JUST THIS ONE THING we can “solve every other problem!” and, most importantly, given Ken’s precedents, there will be an “Abundant supply of money for all of us”.

In a video from last year, but which has been making the rounds in recent days with the title “How to Solve all the problems in the world” (you can’t say he sets low goals), he presents his idea in the tried and true format of talking head rant. He puts out some vague concepts, clearly sure that his followers may not really know how banking and finance and currency systems work. First of all, Ken begins with defining who is making the problems in the world exist, and he comes upon a SHOCKING discovery…. He certainly is the first to ever realise that financial systems hold enormous power and control. We await his next video release when he reveals to us that night follows day.

But, don’t be discouraged from watching it by realising that he holds no secret truths and solutions. The actual video is really worth it for the freak moments where he espouses his theories (and we will later learn, he borrows them from a historical figure). He allows debate among reasonable people to discuss “who” literally runs the world… he knows, but he ain’t sayin’ in this video, that information is available elsewhere. This current video has to circulate among the new cultists he’s trying to woo, court, influence and ultimately fleece.

He’s going for a new target after his World Citizen Solution fizzled into absolutely nothing except a spectacular exposure by all of his former cohorts about it being a pyramid scheme and at any rate, without any basis in reality. All of this while Ken has been based out of Dominica, with speaking engagements in white-power summer jambourees to keep the finances liquid. He has pretty much drained the old target, so he can rebrand as an economics expert, particularly to those who are into fiat currency and to those who suddenly are interested in Bitcoin, because it seems to hold some promise of what really matters to Ken, an “abundant supply of money”.

So, he doesn’t say WHO runs the world, but you can still be debate whether it’s the “Jesuits, Reptilians, Illuminati or Freemasons”, all of course the NATURAL subjects in any debate, right? Well, among Icke fans, certainly.

Ken talks about loans, which is basically how banks finance themselves, only having to keep a 10% reserve of the money deposited, the banking system certainly has devised a clever way to make money with other people’s money. But, people who actually have money aren’t forced into putting it in banks, nor in asking for loans. Ken surely doesn’t need to ask for a loan, he asks his followers to finance his lifestyle, which, as noted, includes purchase of land and international travel.

Now, after Ken does this preamble, things get more interesting: “Those of us who cannot be bought because we operate on a level that goes way beyond the material” (so much for his abundant supply of money and constant crowdfunding efforts), “we are not rewarded for such behaviour” (because you need a reward for not being bought and various other ethical behaviour?) “we are punished. We reward the paedophiles, we reward the liars, people with no morals at all.” (pregnant pause).

So, how can those running things (finance, right?) keep control on everything? By sex video tapes of people who have political power! Get ready for it: “Maybe Barack Obama is gay. Maybe we have a videotape of him having sex with another man.” Then he continues, “Maybe we have videos of political leaders having sex with little boys or little girls. If I was (sic) in charge of the world and I was (sic) a psychopath (cough cough) and completely drunk on my own power, you can bet damn sure that’s what I would do.”

Never mind that this really doesn’t have anything to do with the argument at all, unless it makes some sense to those who debate whether it’s the Illuminati or the Jesuits or the Jews who control everything. Attempting to fit it into the KOK world, we do learn that it is ALREADY his modus operandi when he defends himself against those attacking him. After he finishes accusing opponents of being traitors, infiltrates and paid shills to thwart his mission, he accuses them of suffering from jealousy or some other uncontrollable emotional connection to him, and he is required to counter them as was illustrated in his example above. A recent example is someone who was once his fan and who went public with a post against him and was “outed” by him on the basis of “sex tapes” he found of her in some ritual she was high priestess of (bear in mind the world he moves in, folks). So, he’s not a psychopath, he just acts like one. His own rebuttal is here, where he dubs his former follower Jew Nice.

Now, we get to the meat of his proposal, “Let’s take back control on the issuance of money and not just on a national level”. Yeah, let’s. How can we do that? Well, economics expert that is KOK, he instructs that “Every country should be issuing its own currency”. Most of the countries of the world actually do that already, Ken! But there has to be a twist on it, right? “In that way we can free ourselves of the banking debt.” Got it? All clear right?

Not really. So, how can we get more details on how to do Just That One Thing? We go to seek other videos by Ken, such as “Ken O’Keefe explains why Hitler was right”. There are loads of versions of this talk he gave, many of them with newsreel footage of starving Germans and Hitler basking in the glory of the Germans he saved from starvation. Ken doesn’t waste time pandering to the Reptilians Control the World set, he goes straight for the real target, the Jews. More specifically, “Jewish Bankers”. According to Ken, “the major crime of Hilter was to get Germany out of a banking debt. He had the nerve to say ‘Fuck Off’ to the bankers.” According to Ken, Hitler “brought that nation back to a powerhouse within several years just by using their own (sic) money supply.”

Ken-OKeefe-Hitler Now, one doesn’t have to be either an economist or a historian to realise the enormous idiocy of the claims of O’Keefe. First of all, Hitler’s economic policy was not about abundant distribution of money to all for world class everything. His was a war economy based on the idea of the supremacy of a command economy. The wealth was not about fair distribution or creation of wealth, but it was obtained via expropriation and the looting of German Jewish wealth. It was based on forced labour, not only of the conquered people, but also of the domestic population. Ken can call history “Bullshit! Bullshit!” but his ignorance of how that economy actually worked and the immense human exploitation and suffering surrounding it is clear. Just as his idea that the moeny was “their own”. When Hitler occupied the various countries, he robbed them of their gold reserves and also had access to (mainly) private capital. When Hitler commandeered the Reichsbank, his dummy currency expansion was able to fraudulently strengthen the Reichsbank. That this could be in any way praised as a model staggers the imagination.

When Ken says something about interest-free money, well, of course the printing of money or creation of money independent of any reserve or economic situation isn’t weighted down with interest. It will affect only inflation (which is limitless, as Zimbabwe’s 79.6 billion percent inflation in 2008 teaches us), which can be a far greater problem than interest charged on money being loaned. Ken seems to lose stock (if he ever had it) of the theoretical aspect of money as a unit of account, store of value and medium of exchange. The printing of dummy money is yet another pyramid scheme, but with a bigger picture, ill-defined, but all the same, THAT ONE THING! And, for all those countries (most of them) that have their own currency? Why is everything so bad and so unfair?

If we follow Ken’s logic, it seems that the (final) solution to all the world’s problems involves a lot of unethical, inhuman and historically failed scenarios. We’ll pass on this one.

What are CasaPound and the European Front for Syria up to?

Posted: 10/31/2017 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Assad, Europe, Middle East Issues, Politics, Syria, Uncategorized, War

One of the celebratory posters of the Syrian General plastered in various Italian cities. It bears almost all the signs of the Fascist and Neo-fascist propaganda, (use of this stylised alphabet, the declaration of HONOR!) Interestingly enough also the Italian far left celebrates the same “hero”.

WRITTEN BY RICCARDO CRISTIANO, translated by Mary Rizzo

(Translator’s note: CasaPound is an Italian political movement that is proudly “far right”. It is the first “centro sociale” (youth and student movement starting in the 90s that is primarily far left) that considers its inspiration Fascist. Like many far-right movements in Europe, it maintains a very active base, which often makes up for its lack of “official” political recognition, though it currently participates in elections with its own candidates and in coalitions with other right-wing parties. Though the militants of CasaPound are renowned for their frequent episodes of violence and xenophobia, they also are very active in ideological recruitment in campaigns that are nationalistic, at times having a social character, such as proposals for interest-free public housing, and together with groups such as the European Front for Syria, are involved in the dissemination on the street level (literally) of international issues with propaganda for the regime in Syria in particular, because, in their own words: “For Six years Assad has been the best defence of Europe against terrorism”.)

Sunday morning. The British press reported that Sahar Dofdaa, who was only one month old, had died in Damascus. She starved to death. She was born in the village of Hamuriya in al-Ghouta, an area that has been besieged for years by troops loyal to the government of Damascus and controlled by a fundamentalist group, the Jaysh al-Islam, which keeps a tight hold on the town’s inhabitants. It is the same area where Assad’s army, in 2013, used chemical weapons to massacre civilians, even if the UN has been unable to officially declare the culprit, because since 2012, the UN peacekeeping troops have been removed from Syria. The British newspaper The Guardian has published the statements of Dr. Yahya Abu Yahya, who speaks about a great number of cases of severe childhood malnutrition such as that of Sahar, born from a mother who did not have the strength to nourish her child, citing seventy infants who are dying of starvation and four thousand children who suffer from nutritional deficiencies. And the sample from which he refers is limited to just nine thousand children.

If not even this fact can shake us, it is probably because the propaganda machine has convinced us that in al-Ghouta, just as in other areas controlled by fierce jihadists, everyone is a terrorist, even children who have lived just one month of life. Instead, this is in all probability precisely the dramatic outcome pursued with ferocity by the regime since 2001. This is also the case with Idlib.

Tuesday morning. Although in Italy very little media time has been dedicated to it, there is an interesting piece of news from the International press: Russia has vetoed the resolution that would allow prosecution of the investigation in regard to the chemical weapons massacres in Syria, the Joint Investigative Mechanism, whose mandate expires in November. A report was scheduled to appear by the end of October concerning the massacres perpetrated this summer at Khan Shaykhun near Idlib by means of chemical weapons. In this massacre, just as in the Ghouta massacre with chemical weapons, many children were killed. Russia sought to discuss the report on the Khan Shaykhun massacre before renewing its mandate.

Wednesday morning. It should be mentioned that one hundred Italian cities have woken up discovering that Casa Pound and the European Front for Syria have plastered walls and monuments with slogans written to celebrate one of the most notorious Syrian army commanders, Issam Zahreddine, a war criminal responsible for crimes against humanity, recently killed in combat in Syria, supposedly struck by a landmine planted by ISIS. This General of the Syrian Republican Guard, has been placed in the “short list” of individuals that are subject to special and personal sanctions on behalf of the European Union, with the accusation that he was the organiser of the chemical attack on Khan Shaykhoun.

The General had become famous for a photograph that portrays him standing close to hanged bodies that had clearly been tortured prior to their execution, as well as a film that shows him walking in front of a row of corpses so long that he cuts his walk short before even finishing the entire review. According to family members of Marie Colvin, the journalist that was assassinated in Syria, he ordered the artillery attack that killed her when he learned where the famous reporter was staying. Among his last public actions, an interview released just a few weeks ago. Turning to the millions of Syrian refugees who fled abroad after losing everything, Issam Zahreddine said, “If you know what’s good for you, you will never again set foot in Syria.” It’s important to know that in addition to the far right who signed the banners, among the environments that sympathise with him are also groups of the radical left.

Originale: http://formiche.net/2017/10/26/casa-pound-fronte-europeo-siria/

Genesis of a massacre: Al-Bayda and Banyas. INTERVIEW with a witness from the Red Crescent

Posted: 09/04/2017 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Human Rights, Interviews, Lebanon, Maps, Middle East Issues, Refugees, Religion, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Syria, Video, War
Tags: Banyas Massacre

BY SAMANTHA FALCIATORI
The Syrian situation is hell on earth. To understand what is happening is our human duty, as well as being indispensable for the comprehension of those phenomena that cross over the natural confines of that land. For this reason, our Magazine will always follow the Syrian war as closely as we can; a war which is in fact many different and overlapping wars, so as to provide an always up-to-date picture that is as accurate as possible.

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We have interviewed a volunteer of the Red Crescent, witness of the massacre of Al-Bayda and Banyas in May 2013 in which over 400 civilians were slaughtered, house by house, to then be buried in mass graves. His is a testimony that at 4 years from the massacre tells the story of one of the darkest and most bloody pages of the Syrian war.

What you are about to read is a unique testimony of one of the bloodiest pages of the Syrian war, the massacre that began on 2 May 2013 of the civilian population of two towns in the coastal area. The National Defence Force (NDF) and the Shabeeha, pro-government militias comprised of Shi’as and Alawites (the religious group to which the Assad family belongs), attacked the Sunni-majority towns of Al-Bayda and Banyas, nestled in the Alawite-majority zone between Tartous and Latakia, stronghold of the Syrian regime, with summary slaughtering the inhabitants (Sunni), breaking into their homes, setting them on fire, burning alive those who were inside, including infants.

The Banyas Local Council has identified a total of 410 victims, the Syrian Network for Human Rights has counted 459. The UN Investigation Commission on Syria has investigated this massacre, among many similar ones, identifying the perpetrators, ascertaining that there was no presence of armed opposition, nor were there any military clashes in the city during the massacre, and concluded in its report A / HRC / 24/46 (pages 32-33) that there was “reasonable evidence that the perpetrators were governmental forces”.

It is the Syrian regime itself that has confirmed the responsibilities of its militias carrying military operations on Al-Bayda and Banyas, broadcasting images of the carnage (as in this news report from al Manar) on the government-friendly TV channels, but always claiming that only terrorists had been killed. The images of women and children, including newborns, mutilated and burned alive, as well as the testimony of the survivors, tells another story.

We were able to interview an eyewitness of that massacre, already heard by Human Rights Watch investigators for their No One’s Left investigation. The man was in Banyas and was part of the team that the Syrian security forces sent after the massacre to arrange the corpses in the mass graves and clean up the streets. He accepted, asking for anonymity for security reasons, to tell Zeppelin what happened and what he saw, providing a rare and precious testimony also about the planning of the massacre (which had been in the planning for several months) and its political / religious motives. This is the transcript of the interview.

The massacre of Al-Bayda and Banyas can be understood in the wider project of ethnic cleansing of Syria, and it fits within the framework of the efforts of international justice to take the first steps toward punishing those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, thanks also to those eyewitness accounts, like this one, that, though they are brutal, should be listened to.

Testimony of a volunteer of the Red Crescent from Banyas.

He witnessed the 2013 massacre and disposed of the bodies in a mass grave afterwards. He requested anonymity for security reasons. The interview was recorded over Skype on January 5, 2017.

Q: What can you tell me about that day? What happened and what did you see?

[..] The Syrian Red Crescent could enter the city only 3 days after the massacre, because the army prevented all the people from coming in or out of Banyas [..] Banyas is a coastal town between Tartous and Latakia, the two biggest cities in the coastal area; Banyas is a smaller town, of about 50,000 people. It was one of the first which took part in the revolution, when people took to the street for many reasons, regarding what was happening in Deraa, the lack of freedom, but also because there were tensions between the rural areas of Banyas, mainly Alawite, and the city, mainly Sunni, and they felt the injustice because all the employees, all those working in courts, hospitals, in the oil industry of Banyas are all Alawites, and people felt injustice and took to the street. This was a choke for the regime because it thought that a coastal city, where the coastal area was the stronghold of the regime, would not participate in any kind of demonstrations. So Banyas was a surprise for the regime, they hated it, because they saw people demanding the fall of the regime in the heart of its stronghold.

Q: And the demonstrations were in the Sunni part of the city or all over the city?

In the Sunni part. In Banyas you have the Sunni part which is the old city of 50-60 years ago. Then when the Alawites took power, they came from rural areas, so all the officers, State employees settled in Banyas and built new neighbourhoods, so Banyas was getting bigger and now it is in two parts: the southern part, which is Sunni, and the northern part, which is Alawite. Christians are living in between, in the two parts. The Christians who are originally from Banyas are living with the Sunnis because that is the old city, and the new Christians who came to Banyas from other towns are living in the new neighbourhoods, the Alawite ones [..]. The demonstrations were 100% in the Sunni part. Christians, for many reasons, did not take part in them. I did, but secretly, because the regime tried to prevent Christians and Alawites from participating in the demonstrations because it did not want them to look like a national thing whose demands came from everybody^[1], so it tried to emphasize their Sunni trait.

Q: So there was dissent also among the Christian and Alawite community?

Yes, they tried to prevent them from getting in because when Alawites and Christians would come to the demonstrations it looked like it was not religious or radical [as the regime wanted to depict the demonstrations] but it would be a Syrian demonstration. But still, in the first 3 or 4 demonstrations, there were Alawite people coming from the Alawite neighbourhoods secretly who participated in the demonstrations. I have videos of this, many Alawite people came, they had speeches, they were welcome and people were crazy about them because they were Alawites supporting their demands, it was great. But after that, in May 2011 the Syrian army surrounded the city, they cut electricity in the Sunni part, they cut food [deliveries] preventing it from coming in, the siege lasted for 2-3 weeks, and after that they rolled the tanks and got into the city. They took a lot of prisoners, they were tortured in the Banyas stadium, where they took the people, 10,000 maybe, tortured them and humiliated them^[2]. People were taken to the military prison in Tartous, Damascus and Homs, some people were never returned. We think they were killed under torture. After this, when the army came back to the town, patrolling the city, there were a couple of people trying to make very small demonstrations, like putting some homemade bombs where government forces were coming or going, but nothing as serious as it was happening in other parts of Syria^[3], I think just 2 or 3 soldiers died in all these actions. This was still 2011, early part of 2012, then in Banyas everything was back to [normal] [..].

Suddenly, in early 2013 [..] all the Alawites involved in the militias of the regime, some were my friends […] they started to say that the people of Banyas were planning for something big. I said: “What are they planning for? Come on, the demonstrations have stopped, nothing is happening anymore”, so this kind of propaganda became to spread among the Alawites […]. There is a militia, the National Defence Forces (NDF), they are mainly civilians, 100% Alawites, and they are very tough, with a very strict point of view with the regime, they want all opposition dead, they started getting arms from the government and to participate in the battles all around Syria. One of them was called Ali Shaddoud, he is very famous in Banyas, he is a pharmacist. He is the founder of the NDF in Banyas and he told me personally that something big is happening in Banyas. Frankly I did not believe him.

Q: Because the opposition was not strong in Banyas?

Yes, because in 2013 it was defeated. The government was in full control of the city, so “what will happen? Nothing”. But he told me “something very big is happening”. When I tried to understand from some friends of his, some told me that the regime was trying to focus on Damascus and the coastal area and it did not want anything to happen there, so if there are Sunnis remaining in this area they wanted them to have a lesson, so they cannot oppose the regime anymore […] Then there was no intervention by Hezbollah, Iranians or Russians, so the regime was afraid that it could not control all Syria, so it was trying to preserve Damascus and the coastal areas.

Q: They did not target the political or military opposition: they targeted the Sunnis.

Of course. From the Alawite point of view when they say “opposition” they do not mean the political meaning of the word, they cannot say “Sunni” in the street because that would be rude and sectarian, but by “opposition” they mean “the Sunnis”. And when they said “we want them to have a lesson”, they meant the Sunnis. This was clear since the early months of 2013. But it was not before the early days of May 2013 that… it happened very fast, we started to see tanks coming to the town, and it was not 100% weird, Syria was at war […] we thought maybe they are moving troops and vehicles, ok. But then they put tanks and mortars on the hill of Banyas, in the Alawite part of the town, the hill that overlooks the city. We started to see people that were not from the town, they were wearing regime uniforms but they did not sound like they came from Banays. Some people who saw them, including my brother, saw Lebanese people having dinner in a restaurant in the Alawite part of Banyas, this restaurant is famous because the NDF gather there. They were clearly Lebanese, so Hezbollah or close to Hezbollah, I do not know, and they were talking about a big operation that was coming to Banyas. There was this guy, Kayalli, the commander of a militia, he comes from Turkey, from the Alawite minority in Turkey, they are fighting for the regime and this Kayalli lived in Latakia, where he went on TV and said, literally, “Banyas is the only weak point for the government in the coastal area and we will put an end to this, the traitors can come in the coastal areas through Banyas and we need to end it”, he said this 2 or 3 days before the massacre^[4].

The Alawite General Ali al Kayalli, better known as Mihrac Ural (he is of Turkish origin, but has Syrian nationality) is the head of a pro-government militia, composed of Alawites and Shabeeha, called Syrian Resistance, based in al Baseet, North of Latakia. He was among those responsible for the massacre of Banyas. In this photo, he is in the centre, with flowers in his hand, together with his men. Credits to: sbs.com.au.

On the day of the massacre I was in the church because it was the Thursday before Easter^[5] and suddenly […] we heard gunshots, we went out and saw the army and militia telling people to go home, so we went home. In the evening, we started to see… not from my home, but I went to the Alawite part, I saw 200-300 men coming from the highway, they were walking on the bridge that comes down to Banyas, some of them wearing masks on their faces, and also Alawite people, some of them were my friends, started to join them and I asked them “what are you going for with your guns?” They said “there is an operation in Banyas and al Baida”, al Baida is south of Banyas and it was famous in the first months of the revolution because it was actively participating in it […] so they began with al Baida, which is Sunni. Families of Banyas are living in al Baida and vice versa, so they are very close to each other. They started in al Baida and I was on the phone with a friend, and he was shaking, he was very afraid. I was surprised and asked “what is happening?”, because we thought they were going to take some men to prison, or beat and humiliate them as they did every day everywhere, but he told me “no, it is not beating nor humiliating, they are killing people”. And I was like “What? Killing people? Why?” and he said “Yes, they are killing people.” He told me that his mother’s family were burnt alive, some people were killed by gunshots, some were burnt, they gathered people in a shop and burnt them, like 60 or 70 dead bodies there, and people started to flee the city. So this is what they [regime people] wanted. It was May 2^nd.

On May 3^rd[…] they came to Banyas and made a massacre […] in the heart of the Sunni part of the city. My home is very close to this so I went on the roof and I saw clearly the tanks bombing the city, I was able to see clearly the shells coming over my house, I saw them with the naked eye, and dropping down in the middle of the town. Then again these masked men came and did these atrocities. I did not see it, but many people told us, they started to kill people with swords, axes, guns, by burning, and I know families by name. They came and killed whole families…for example the Taha family had 17 people killed, they killed father, mother, sons, the son’s wives and sons and so on.

Q: So was it a deliberate ethnic cleansing of the Sunni population of the city?

Of course, because they targeted [Sunni] families, like the Taha family, the Shighri, even when they see “Shighri” on your ID card the government forces would be upset because they see that you are 100% from Banyas, so 100% opposition, so 100% Sunni. So they did ethnic cleansing of [Sunni] families. People started to flee, to Latakia. Also my family wanted to go there and they were accepted. I did not go there but my sister did and at the entrances of Latakia there were regime checkpoint and they were screening people from Banyas, if they knew they were Sunnis they sent them back, if they were Alawites or Christians they let them in. This lasted until May 4^th, when they moved to another Sunni village […] called al Basateen, where they did not do ethnic cleansing but they took 95-96 men to prison and we have not heard of them since. So we assume they were also killed under torture. After the killing was over, it was a real shock to see even the Alawites who are 100% with the regime, being shocked and upset. A friend of mine, she was working in my same company, told me that her brother, an Alawite who supports the government, was part of these NDF and went to Al-Bayda to participate in what he thought was a regular operation of the regime, and he was shocked by the amount of atrocities done, the amount of killings, burning bodies, killing children, he fainted and they had to take him to hospital. He could not eat for two days, he was in shock, even people who are very radical with pro Assad [positions] were in shock, it was completely unprecedented, unexpected. After that they began to steal, they took a lot of cars, family homes’ furniture, we could see them putting them on army trucks. After 2-3 weeks they let people go back to Banyas, but not to Al-Bayda. Al-Baida is still empty to this day.

Q: But they didn’t let the Sunnis come back, or also the Sunnis?

Also the Sunnis. But of course after this a lot of, and by “a lot” I mean A LOT, of Sunni families in Banyas left. As my Alawite friend said, it was a lesson. So many families went to Turkey, and from there they came as refugees in Europe. […] Now in the Sunni part of the city you can only see old men, children and Sunni people coming from other towns, like Aleppo, these are the pro-regime Sunnis of Aleppo so the regime lets them stay in Banyas.

Q: When could you enter the targeted neighbourhoods as a Red Crescent volunteer?

We entered on May 7^th, 8^th and 9^thfor three consecutive days to bury the bodies, because they were in the street. I didn’t go to al Baida, because other teams were going there. Some members of the Red Crescent managed to smuggle out some photos of the dead bodies and these are the only photos we have of this massacre. They put us in a lot of trouble because they did not expect members of the Red Crescent, which is controlled by the regime, to smuggle photos out. These are the only photos because no media was allowed to go in and I know the people who took the photos and smuggled them out.

Q: There is a lot of disinformation about the photos because they don’t have a source, being smuggled out secretly. So some people say they are Christians killed by Daesh [ISIS] or Palestinians killed by the Israelis, or whatever, so…

Look, the regime is not stupid. It is evilly smart. It tried to confuse us, its supporters put together some photos of Banyas, Palestine, Iraq and said “look, this is not Banyas!” but I can know exactly which photos were taken by us and I can tell you where they were taken, I can pinpoint them on Google Maps, and some of the photos are taken in such known streets that people know it is Banyas. These photos are taken by members of the Red Crescent. [..] I have an Alawite friend, he is the one who took the photos of the children. So let’s see the photos^[6].

The first one with children with a yellow shirt, another one with jeans, this is in Banyas. And this [scene of the] photo, I saw it personally, with the naked eye. I can assure you 100% that I saw this horrific scene. The second one, the two babies, I did not see this personally but it is in Banyas, and also the other one. The fourth one is in Al-Bayda, I know this street, it is not Banyas, it is Al-Bayda. The other one, with the blood, the boy and the men, also this is in Al-Bayda and I know the guy, the family of the guy. The photo with the woman and the children, this is also in Banyas, in a neighbourhood called Ras Al-Nabe’. The last photos, with another woman and children, which is by the way the same as above, this is Banyas, and I know these stairs, everybody in Banyas knows them, this small street is in Banyas, in Ras al-Nabaa. The regime ordered us to open mass graves and put people in them. We were not able to put all the families in the mass grave together, respectfully. I will not forget where it is. We put a lot of bodies in it, I think 40-50 bodies and I heard from my friends that there are also mass graves in al Baida. We managed to bury all the bodies. […] We know from the Local Councils in al Baida and Banyas that there were 300 killed in al Baida and over 100 in Banyas. So totally 410. Half of them, more or less, women and children.

Q: I wonder something: after the massacre the regime blamed terrorists…

Actually no [..] they said the government attacked Banyas because there were terrorists hiding weapons there.

Q: But how can they justify the fact that in al Baida and Banyas many women and children died because of the massacre? How could they all be “terrorists”?

I know what you mean, but if you think that the people who support the regime try to find excuses, maybe you are wrong. From my friends, my colleagues, at work, at university… more than 75% of the people who are pro-regime, like Alawites and some Christians, they do not need excuses. Actually I hear some neo-fascist-nazi things, like “kill them, they are insects, they are animals, let them be taken out”. Of course some of them say “Yeah, killing children is not ok, but this is all their parents’ fault, they want the Islamic State, they want to kill minorities, so they had the right punishment”. You can hear this [being said] without any shame, so people do not need excuses, they know, they knew that the regime killed them, but they try to defend it, they try to convince themselves that they are terrorists, and maybe a couple of mistakes have been done, but they are living well with this. You cannot imagine how much hatred there is. Mainly the minorities feel like this, really, they are like Nazis, I’m sorry to say it but…of course some of the minorities are with the revolution, they stand bravely, but I’m talking about the mainstream.

Q: Many people say that before the revolution the Syrians lived together peacefully…

No, this is a big lie, we lived in a lie. We had a secretive regime that controlled every aspect of life and society […] In my classroom, we were like 20-25 guys, and 10-11 of us did not have the father because they were imprisoned and were never seen again. People tried to forget what happened in the 80’s, the horrible Hama massacre, but the hatred is real. […] The Alawites took all the positions in the coastal areas, all State employees are Alawites and many young Sunni were forced to go abroad to work.

Q: One last question: when I was reading the Human Rights Watch report…

“No one’s left”? I was interviewed for that report^[7].

Q: So maybe you remember that it says that the regime started the operation in al Baida because a man confessed there were deserters. What do you think about it?

No, I think that’s irrelevant. Banyas took part actively in the demonstrations, we hid some deserters, there was an assassination operation against a regime officer, all this happened. But I know it was deliberately planned months before, you cannot make such an operation in a city where there is no violent engagement like in Homs, Aleppo, Damascus or the rural areas. You cannot kill 400 people just to get a few deserters, the amount of forces that came to Banyas but are not from Banyas, all the talking to my Alawite friends about a lesson [to give] to the Sunnis in the coastal areas, I think it was well planned.

[…] The regime didn’t even bother to emphasise this confession as a pretext, it said “it was an operation, maybe some mistakes were done, but the rest is propaganda against us”. Since the early days there was a lot of talking about tanks, Lebanese and militia men coming to town having conversations, it was all obvious. But we were shocked by the size of it, it was huge to kill 400 in two days! […]

I think it was a deliberate ethnic cleansing. It was not part of the daily activities of the war […] We have not seen this elsewhere, in Latakia I saw a shooting on a demonstration that killed 30 people, but still that was “regular activity”. But this and the Ghouta attack are beyond the clashes between regime and opposition. It was ethnic cleansing, also in Ghouta they were 100% Sunnis and in Banyas no Alawite or Christian was injured, not killed, not even injured. [..] My friend, who took the photos of the massacre, is still having nightmares to this day, after more than three years […] Those two days changed everything, I had friends and family who are with the regime, two of my cousins tried to defend the massacre and we are not talking anymore since the massacre. So divisions are also in the families, imagine in the society. They say there were terrorists, but in that area there was not jihadist or ISIS presence, it was a stronghold of the regime […]. I remember one thing, I was talking with a guy whose uncle was a prominent Alawite officer who worked for Hafez al Assad, Ali Douba, he was very famous because he was the head of the Military Intelligence Services, and this guy told me once: “Do you know why they chose Banyas?” and I said “No, why?”. “Because they could not do it in Latakia or Tartous because they are big cities and by doing it there they would risk to paralyse the city, so they decided to punish Banyas because it is small and even if life stopped in Banyas, that would not have affected the economy”. […]

Q: Ok, thanks a lot for your time and testimony [..].

Thank you. I don’t want this story to die, I want people to know. It’s very important what you and others are doing.

Source: http://www.thezeppelin.org/al-baida-e-banyas-massacro/

[1] Regardless of ethnicity or religion, as the demonstrations actually were.

[2]This episode is well documented. See Amnesty International, Syrian student tells of torture ordeal in mass stadium detention, 24/05/2011.

[3]For an overview of the story of Banyas from the early demonstrations to the massacre and the development of local councils and brigades, see S. DARWISH, M. DIBO, Cities in Revolution. Baniyas. Al-Bayda: The White City, 24/05/2011.

[4]Video online: https://youtu.be/y0P4rhRjR9I.

[5]The Orthodox Easter was on May 5^th in 2013, the massacre started on Good Thursday, May 2^nd.

[6]Yallasouriya, The Baniyas Massacre: Why Assad Did It, 6/05/2013. Online: https://goo.gl/km1NY9 In this link videos of the aftermath of the massacre can also be viewed.

[7]“No One’s Left”. Summary Executions by Syrian Forces in al-Bayda and Baniyas, ibid.

Interview by Samantha Falciatori. Introductory text by Samantha Falciatori, translated by Mary Rizzo

Hague Seminar Focuses on Ahwaz in Context of Arab-Iranian Conflict

Posted: 08/29/2017 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Ahwaz, Culture and Heritage, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Iran, Middle East Issues, People's Movements / Struggles, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Strategy for Liberation

big_art__xgj6_xlqm_geje0 Ahwazna

Hamid Mansour: We should address the West to correct the stereotypical image it has of Arabs

Saad al-Din Ibrahim: Iranian regime uses minorities to foment discord among Arabs

Zafer Mohammed al-Ajmi: The best defense is a good offense; move the battle inside Iran

Fatima Abdullah Khalil: Liberating Ahwaz will be a severe blow to Iran

Ayoub Said: The occupation benefited from both internal and external factors

Ismail Khalafullah: We have six solutions to the Ahwazi situation, including a popular revolution

Hassan Radhi: The occupation is trying to obliterate the identity of the people of Ahwaz

————-

The Arab European Foundation for International Relations (EISO) on Saturday held a symposium entitled “The Implications of the Arab-Iranian Conflict on the Ahwazi Issue” on August 26, in light of the Arab-Persian conflict.

The seminar included several sessions that began with a morning session on “the Arab-Iranian conflict in light of the transformations of the Middle East”, followed by the first lecture by Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Dr. Barbara Ibrahim, on “Methods of Conflict Management in the Middle East.”

In the second lecture, Fatima Khalil spoke about the “nature of the Arab-Iranian conflict: the geopolitical axis of the conflict.” The third lecture, in which Dr. Zafer al-Ajmi spoke, broached on “the role of the Ahwazi question in the Arab-Iranian conflict.” In the evening, the symposium was divided into three lectures. The first, entitled “The Right to Self-Determination, was given by Dr. Ismael Khalafallah. And the second lecture by Ayoub Said entitled “Occupying the Ahwaz: Reassessment of the Status quo” and the third lecture Presented by Hassan Radhi and focused on the policies of the center towards the people of Ahwaz over the past two decades.”

—————–

Hamid Mansour, the member of the Executive Committee of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, has given the opening speech of the symposium, where he proclaimed the launch of the Arab-European Foundation for International Relations “AEFIR. It will be of significant role in media, politics, and culture. A host of Ahwazi youth who is interested in the Ahwazi plight witnessed AEFIR’s launch. In his speech, he pointed to the weak Arab influence in the Western society, which has the upper hand in the world today, noting that this allowed the opponents to be alone in the arena of influential work. They managed to create a distorted stereotype in the minds of Western public opinion due to their strong political and media presence, to be the sole basis for interpreting the reality of the political conflict in the Arab region, which in the end results in shaping an unfair Western opinion of the just Arab causes. He stressed the important role played by NGOs and public relations centers in rectifying the way through which civil and official institutions in the West look on just Arab causes, as well as building inter-relations and developing them among peoples to achieve common interests. Mansur pointed out that the AEFIR will pay great attention to filling the vacuum and building relations in order to mobilize for international cooperation on the Ahwazi question and the other just Arab causes. He called for developing and renewing the discourse, especially that the contemporary world does not tackle such issues in terms of values of justice and ideals. Interest is the foremost criterion. For it, armies are mobilized, positions are adopted, and leaders are unseated. He indicated that the most important objective of the institution is to correct the image of Arabs without begging. He pointed out that Arab issues are indivisible, and the Ahwazi plight is an integral part thereof. He stressed that the Arab interest necessitates broadening the scope of the issue’s perspective in order to make it stronger by avoiding partial solutions that only emphasize weakness and powerlessness. He said that the foundation seeks to present the Ahwazi issue as a just Arab and humanitarian cause. It seeks to manifest its national dimension, not only the political and historical aspects. AEFIR yet plans to render clear the strategic importance of the Ahwazi plight for the other Arab questions. Also, the newborn Foundation aims to explain to the whole world how settling the Ahwazi issue will be of significant importance for stability in the region and enhancing global peace and security. According to the lecturers, the foundation shall reiterate that ditching the Ahwazi cause will show the world how Arabs are ready to concede their rights.

Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, in his lecture entitled “Methods of Conflict Management in the Middle East” said that the Iran is a challenge to the Arab region. He indicated that it is not a threat. According to him, a threat is a thing that comes from outside such as Israel. The Iranian threat is part of the region. He noted that Iran acted as the policeman of the Gulf since its last monarch Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, with the blessing of the US. He pointed out Jimmy Carter said from Tehran that Washington welcomes Iran’s role as a policeman to maintain the security of the Gulf.

He considered that justice as a value is one of the main demands of all peoples of the world, stressing that the demands of the people of Ahwaz are an integral part of all the demands and slogans that united the whole world, such as values of freedom and democracy. He explained that Ahwaz had been isolated from its Arab sphere and given to the shah in return for an agreement that would enable Britain to search for oil on the eastern shore of the Gulf. This was part of the Sykes-Picot agreement and others. He said that this ambition could be stopped by awareness, coordination, and solidarity among all local factions to face up to the expansionist Persian hegemony. He argued that this expansionist desire will not be halted by changing the regime there, history tells us so. It is a deep-rooted orientation in the Persian mindset. He noted that the absence of the Egyptian role over the past two decades enabled Iran to spill over its influence into at least five Arab countries. It began to exploit the rampant poverty in some African countries to infiltrate the east coast of Africa in an attempt to besiege the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) and Egypt. He pointed out that the Persians are the inventors of chess, a game through which you can defeat your rival using his papers, and this is what is happening now that the Iran exploits any popular base in the Arab countries as a launch pad for spillover. He pointed out that Iran has started to play on the heartstrings of those who have a love for Ahlul Bait, Prophet Mohammed’s family. This issue attracts many sympathizers in Egypt. For those people, Iran offers money and other forms of aid. It helps them build their institutions. These establishments promote Shiism in its essence. Ibrahim called for the need to cooperate to create rational public awareness without hostility or hatred against anyone, including the Iranians themselves, as the Persians Iranians make up only 40%, of the Iranian people and the rest are groups of different ethnicities, pointing out that the Persians are the strongest group and they managed to prevail over the rest of the people. Yet he called on all those marginalized in Iran to stick to solidarity, stressing that Ahwazis are entitled to spread brotherhood and solidarity with all oppressed groups on the basis of equality and justice for all, and cooperate with all liberal groups in the region, to seek to acquire an observer status at the Arab League and United Nations.

——————–

Dr. Dhafer Mohammed Al Ajmi, Executive Director of Gulf Watch Group, in his lecture entitled “Positions of Gulf States on Ahwaz: Reality and Hope”, pointed out that the international relations are administered by two types of personalities, either a diplomat or a soldier. He sees that ambiguous positions are over in the Gulf. “Saudi Arabia stands firmly in the face of Iran’s expansionism,” said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “Saudi Arabia is well aware of the fact that it is a target of the Iranian regime, and that the Kingdom will not wait until the battle rages on the Saudi soil, but it will work to move the battle inside Iran ” He stressed that the solution to the Iranian meddling in the Gulf countries is to shift the theater of the battle into the Arabian territories of Ahwaz, stressing that working in this spot shall be very painful for Iran. He cited a statement of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, where he said: “Iran lives by Khuzestan.” He concluded by calling for the unification of speech and efforts for the Ahwazis to obtain their right to self-determination.

Fatima Abdullah Khalil, a writer and researcher on the Arabian Gulf’s affairs, in her lecture entitled “Iranian expansion from Ahwaz to Yemen”, concluded GCC states should be the Launchpad for resisting the Iranian schemes since they are more stable, richer and more independent compared to neighboring Arab countries. She pointed out that the GCC countries began recently to try to bring back the Arab Shiites to the Arab and Gulf sphere, through the Saudi-Iraqi rapprochement. She pointed to the need to promote Yemeni containment from within through integrating the Yemeni people into the Gulf, and supporting groups opposed to Iran, particularly Ahwazis. Yet she stressed that retaking Ahwaz is an Arab national necessity, and a geostrategic necessity, which will pave the way for Ahwaz to be independent and join the GCC. The lecturer noted that clawing back Ahwaz will be a deadly blow to Iran.

In a lecture entitled “The occupation of Ahwaz, reassessment of the status quo, Ayoub Said, writer and researcher on Ahwaz, addressed the era relating to the annexation of Al-Ahwaz in 1925 and the subsequent obliterating of its historical sovereignty in light of interlocked regional and international conditions that pushed in this direction.

He also focused on the internal factors that combined with the external factors, which led to losing control over Ahwaz. Foremost of these factors was the lack of incubators for the policies of Prince Khazal, which indifference and somewhat satisfaction at the overthrow of the Prince and the occupation of Ahwaz.

Dr. Ismail Khalafallah, a lawyer and researcher on international law and director of the Association of Rights and Freedoms in France, discussed the Ahwazi issue in a lecture entitled “The right of the Arab people of Ahwaz to determine their own destiny and the legitimacy of their resistance” In several points as follows:

1 – What was taken by force, can only be restored by force which requires a sweeping and comprehensive revolution against the Iranian occupiers.

2 – Unifying and gathering all the political and military forces of Ahwazi in one front inclusive of all the factions, to end the Iranian occupation of Ahwaz.

3 – Raise the awareness of Arab people Ahwaz concerning the need to muster within a unified body organized politically, militarily, socially and culturally, to counter Iranian colonialism.

4 – Intensifying efforts aimed at raising awareness within the Arab and Islamic society and the international community, that this issue is part of the decolonization efforts and asserting that the Arab region of Ahwaz is a pure Arab land that was seized by the Iranian colonizer in complicity with the US.

5 – Promoting the idea of the right of the Arab people of Ahwaz to gain independence from Iran at national, regional and international levels.

6 – Working to remove all political and intellectual differences between all factions of the Arab people Ahwaz both at home and abroad.

In a lecture titled ‘policies of the center towards the Ahwazi people’ over the past two decades, Hassan Radhi, director of the Ahwaz Center for Media and Strategic Studies, focused on woes experienced by the Ahwazis under the occupation in the social, economic and political aspects in light of the repressive policies aimed at wiping out the identity of the Ahwazi people.

http://ahwazna.net/en-540_Hague_Seminar_Focuses_on_Ahwaz_in_Context_of_Arab_Iranian_Conflict_.html

Ken O’Keefe is back and talking BULLSHIT

Posted: 06/29/2017 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Grassroots Activism, Ken O'Keefe, Middle East, Palestine

Ken O’Keefe is back with a band new video of himself ranting (give the sheeple what they want?) and doing his usual Tourettes-inspired performance. He tells us he reckons he might be arrested, and if he is going to get arrested (and whatever for, pray tell?) he will go on a hunger strike. YAWN. Well, it might be interesting if you actually were emotionally stimulated by that psychotic HERO/VICTIM schtick he’s into about himself. Because, as you know by now, 99% of the things he writes about or rants about have himself in the middle of them. What’s a narcissist to do if they can’t stop talking about the Most Fascinating of Subjects?

At any rate, the new video, to spare you having to see all 17 minutes of it yourself, as a public service, we provide a really quick rundown of the salient points.

First, the title, and what a title!

Ken O’Keefe on the “Jewish Supremacist Talmudic Satanic Pedo Bankser Cult”

Yes.
He wrote that.
“Bankser”.

And also the rest of it. Hitler couldn’t have written a better title, could he?
Ken dropped the stuff about Zionism being the problem. For all the years and years Palestinians have been pounding the reality that they oppose those who oppress them, and those who oppress them are Zionists, they have no problem with Jews and have nothing to do with the racist rants going on. No. That is old school, that is too “politically correct” and the Palestinians’ will doesn’t matter any more. For Ken, the problem isn’t Zionism, it’s Jews, no nuance.

Anyway, here are some choice bits: Hitler Ken talks about the MAJOR problems of everyone (else) in the whole damned activist world making videos about current events while he has been laying low, but busy, so busy. Oh, Laying Low is what got him into all the trouble with his Fans in the first place. He put on a big show to get a lot of money ASAP for something no one quite understood and which we wrote about here and here and here and here, warning people it was a scam, but people got scammed. His entire team challenged him and like all his teams in the history of Kendom, LEFT HIM and couldn’t stand to see his ugly face ever again. And like all these events, they are “idiots and agents” (left out clowns this time). He goes on for a while about how all those other people are horrible and [shock, horror] how they want him to prove that he is innocent after all the accusations. Somehow, Ken doesn’t think he has to prove his innocence. People just have to believe him. Oh, he DOES have a mickey mouse “statement” (unsigned and hilarious as all hell) on his site. Claims that is enough to keep the plebes satisfied, so they better STFU if they expect him to prove the accusations against him as false. Uhm. OKAY.

But, the brilliant thing is this: “I control the money!” he says with a wry smile.

Yeah.
That’s the problem Kenny boy.

People would like the money BACK, or that something actually is done with it THAT IS THE PROJECT THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE GETTING.

But Ken doesn’t “Do” projects that are actually going to serve the purposes for their creation, as we will point out very shortly.

Ken says that his purpose is to be a Lure for the Bait.
Uh, yes… try to figure that one out on your own. In “my” dictionary it sounds like “Controlled Opposition”, so in this, he actually does seem to finally say something that makes sense in its own roundabout way.

He’s says he’s going “back to the Jewnited States” soon. The land of Jewish Banksters. He is FORCED to use a USA passport (yeah, sure… first they force you to go to the Jewnited States, then they make sure you use a USA passport to do it, the nerve!) He’s pretty sure he’s going to get arrested, so he preventively told us he will hunger strike, because Ken’s Rights are sacrosanct. He assures us he would not commit suicide.

Then we get to the up closse and personal portion of the video. He brags about his girlfriend who has many talents including telling the World War II story – (the Greatest Story Never Told, all that Hitler lovefest stuff). In the video we get him doing a little less of “come to yer uncle” that we had grown accustomed to, and instead have an “Against All Odds” romp video of them in the sunset, where at a certain point it looks like she is trying to see if there is something in his shorts. It’s pretty tacky, but we have gotten used to tacky from the Ken and GF team. And yes, we can deal with his being overwhelmed with lust/love for her, but when he says that when a woman like her shows interest in a man “You wouldn’t even THINK for a second before you’d be with her, or maybe you’re homosexual”, you have to fight to hold back the vomit.

And, that’s pretty much that! He said the J-word, he coupled it with other triggers including Pedo and Satanists, (oh, never mind that one of the people in the campaign promoting and pimping for his World Citizen Solution had THIS cool picture of what is commonly known as Lucifer as his icon on facebook). Ken’s speaking such “truth to power!” luke brown

At any rate, we know, yes.. we know that this WCS will end up like everything else he does… end up being all spent in the RUNNING of the thing.. the THING never ever happens!! (Trade not Aid, Samouni Project, Ferry to Gaza, Tahrir 4 Gaza… where did all that money (or all that little money in some less successful Go Fund Ken’s Ego campaigns) go? It sure didn’t go to Palestinians in any way other than them being a background for his own showing off of his major ego.

You don’t believe me? Well, let’s have a look at just ONE project, shall we? ALOHA PALESTINE.

It had big name promotors, Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, Lauren Booth, Alexei Sayle (well, little big names, but we aren’t picky right now, it was a European-based project, but he did insert all kinds of inspirational Gandhi and Nelson Mandela quotes in there). He went around promoting it with Lauren Booth and made quite a flashy little video with animation of a cool looking ship.

Got a LOT of money.

This is the ferry… well, not really. This is the ANIMATION of the FERRY, because that is as far as he ever intended to have it go. Here are the returns found at the Companies House. Oh, of course, no taxes paid, it was a CIC, all the money is clean. Because you are doing something for the benefit of society and the community. Ken’s society and community are evidently his own little ring of people who make the money while the project develops…..but then, the project goes kaput and all that money… DONATED MONEY from basically normal people who have to work for a living and scrimp and save, but always try to keep anything extra aside for those who need help and money more than they do. In this case, he used THE PALESTINIANS, and gave them nothing in return.

Look at the accounts filed, available for anyone to peruse on the Companies House site.

£36,690 was spent in ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES out of £36,888
LET THAT SINK IN…. £36,690 spent to have £198 that could be used for the ferry!
And that was just the FIRST YEAR! in the second year, it went in the hole £2091.

£0.00 for the Palestinians. People pimping for Ken, pushing for others to donate, then, lots of money coming in and NOTHING spent on anything but Ken and his cronies. Let that sink in. It makes his rants just seem like some hot bullshit from a snake oil salesman.

About Arab Revolutions

Posted: 04/11/2017 by editormary in Activists and Activism, Assad, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Egypt, Europe, Grassroots Activism, Human Rights, Iraq, Libya, Middle East Issues, People's Movements / Struggles, Politics, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Syria

This text was written by Dyab Abu Jahjah in 2012. This is his site.
Relative to revolutions all around the world, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are historical miracles and a shining example of non-violent, civilized uprisings. The Yemeni revolution, in its insistence on non-violence and its discipline, is truly amazing, as is the revolution in Bahrain. The Syrian revolution, in its enormous sacrifices in the face of a ruthless killing machine, is a historical epic. The revolutions in Libya is an epitome of effectiveness.
We cannot just mention Libya in passing because the Libyan case has become the favorite example for conspiracy theorists and doubters in the revolution. It is true that the intervention by NATO is complicated and is definitely not innocent. But it is also true that the agenda of the Libyan revolutionaries is not identical to NATO’s agenda. This divergence will emerge slowly but surely because the relationship between the Libyan revolution and NATO is not one of submission. European powers wanted to secure the oil contracts that they had signed with Kaddafi and at the same time appear to support the Arab revolution after their shameful support for Ben-Ali and Mubarak to the very end. The Libyan revolutionaries wanted air cover in their confrontation with Kaddafi’s barbaric killing machine. and unfortunately no Arab or Islamic country was able to provide such a cover. Hence, a deal was struck, and we must look at this deal from the point of view of shared interests. In the end, Libya has been liberated and there are no occupation forces and no NATO mandate on Libya. As for the oil contracts, they are a matter of commerce because oil is nothing more than a commodity that is sold by the state based on the people’s interests; it does not represent our dignity or our honor. Isn’t it better for a free Libyan people to trade and cooperate with foreign countries to benefit itself rather than for a dictator like Kaddafi to do the same thing while oppressing his people for the benefit of himself and his sons with their many lovers?

A free people determines its path by itself and no one can claim any longer that a deranged tyrant knows his people’s interests better than the people. The alternative, for those who are always asking about alternatives, as if we were replacing one totalitarian government with another, is always the ballot box. What’s more important, and what is true in any region in the Arab World, is that foreign intervention is a small detail in the midst of the massive historical movement that the Arab revolution represents, which neither the reactionary oil oligarchies nor Western imperialism will be able to co-opt no matter how hard they try. The old regimes and their remnants will fail in their attempt to paint the Arab revolution as a western conspiracy to dethrone them because of their achievements in pursuing the interests of the people. The people know that the historical trend in our region is one of revolution, and they are aware of the West’s attempts to intervene and co-opt the revolution, but they are also capable of thwarting these attempts. In Syria, for example, the revolutionary forces have rejected military intervention and instead called for international protection and observers, and some insist on most being Arab, in spite of the enormous oppression and killing. Those who accuse the Syrian revolutionaries of being traitors are similar to someone who denies a seriously ill patient medicine because that medicine is made in Paris or London and is being distributed by United Nations agencies.

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Can we still call it “Zionism”?

Reem Banna – in her own words on Assad

Italian hostage liberated, and the melodrama against her begins

When propaganda parades as “common sense”

Communication and War: not just Rojava and why we always forget Syria

The Syrian revolution has come to an end. It’s true! But the Syrian Cause has just begun

Assessing Ken O’Keefe’s World Citizen Solution as at October 2019

Syrian “tourism”, taking a page from the Hasbara Handbook

Call for the Formation of a Transnational Socialist-Humanist Solidarity Network

Al-Atareb, death trap for civilians

The Mirage of the Political Solution and the only Option of the Revolution

Videos of life in Ghouta, directly from the people of Ghouta

Christmas in Aleppo, a year after the tragedy. Interview with Mahmoud al-Basha

PETITION! Call for the release of detainees in the Uprising in Iran!

Ken O’Keefe has another (final) solution, and it’s amazing!

What are CasaPound and the European Front for Syria up to?

Genesis of a massacre: Al-Bayda and Banyas. INTERVIEW with a witness from the Red Crescent

Hague Seminar Focuses on Ahwaz in Context of Arab-Iranian Conflict

Ken O’Keefe is back and talking BULLSHIT

Ken O’Keefe on the “Jewish Supremacist Talmudic Satanic Pedo Bankser Cult”

£0.00 for the Palestinians. People pimping for Ken, pushing for others to donate, then, lots of money coming in and NOTHING spent on anything but Ken and his cronies. Let that sink in. It makes his rants just seem like some hot bullshit from a snake oil salesman.

About Arab Revolutions

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Ken O’Keefe on the “Jewish Supremacist Talmudic Satanic Pedo Bankser Cult”

£0.00 for the Palestinians. People pimping for Ken, pushing for others to donate, then, lots of money coming in and NOTHING spent on anything but Ken and his cronies. Let that sink in. It makes his rants just seem like some hot bullshit from a snake oil salesman.

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