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ميشيل كيلو
لم يبق مؤمن بروسيا إلا وحاول أن يسوّق أكذوبة ساذجة تقول إن روسيا غزت سورية لتضعف إيران، وتبعد الأسد عن السلطة. ولكن، بعد توطيد قدميها في سماء وأرض الشام، وإنها لا تريد، غير الفوز بامتنان السوريين وشكرهم، ولا تتطلع إلى نيل الحصة الكبرى من الغنيمة السورية، مع أنها هي التي ستفرض الحل المنشود الذي طال انتظاره.
وقد روّجت آلة دعائية قوية لهذه الأسطورة، بعد الزيارة التي أوصلت فشار الأسد إلى موسكو، واستبق محللون كثيرون (لا يحللون ولا يحرّمون) الأحداث، ليؤكدوا أن ورقة الأسد قد سقطت روسياً، والدليل المعاملة الفظة التي خصّه بوتين بها، والكلام التقريعي الذي خصّه به، وأفهمه أن عليه إعداد نفسه لترك السلطة، وأن رحيله صار وشيكاً... إلى آخر ما يبدو أن هؤلاء سمعوه بأنفسهم، وكأنهم شاركوا في الجلسة التي جمعت محب السوريين بوتين وفشار المسكين، الممسوك من رقبته الطويلة.
وقد أكد هؤلاء صحة "تحليله" ببرهان قاطع، هو اتصال بوتين مباشرة بعد اللقاء بقادة السعودية وتركيا ومصر وأميركا، ليزف لهم النبأ السعيد، وإلا لماذا يتصل بهم، إذا كان لا يريد أن ينقل لهم بشرى طال انتظارهم لها (!). وزاد من اقتناع المروجين بصحة أضاليلهم دعوة وزراء أميركا وتركيا والسعودية إلى لقاء مع لافروف في فيينا، حيث سيبلغهم بحدوث الاختراق المنشود للحل السياسي، أعني رحيل الأسد، وتاليا بالاستجابة "للاتفاق" مع واشنطن الذي أدخل الروس عسكرياً إلى سورية، بإذن أميركي، كي يطبقوه، وينص على إضعاف إيران وترحيل الأسد.
ومع أن بوتين صرح، بعد لقائه فشار، أن بحث وضعه غير ممكن، قبل تحقيق انتصار على الإرهاب، أي على الجيش الحر، وأضاف إلى تعقيدات الموقف الروسي من الحل السياسي قوىً زعم أن نجاح هذا الحل يرتبط بموافقتها هي "القوميات والأقليات السورية"، وبدد جميع أوهام الذين يعلقون آمالهم على تبدلٍ يصيب موقف الكرملين من الأسد ونظامه، فقد اعتبر بعض من حضر مؤتمري الحوار السوري/السوري في موسكو كلامه ضرباً من تغطية مقصودة، من غير الجائز التوقف عندها على حقيقةٍ لا يرقى إليها شك، هي قراره ترحيل فشار، وتلبية مطلب السوريين في الحرية والأمان.
واليوم، وبعد أن أكد لقاء وزراء الخارجية في فيينا عكس ما يروجه المضللون بشأن موقف روسيا، وبعد أن ظهر جليا تمسك موسكو بفشار ونظامه، وإصرارها على إنقاذه بأي ثمن روسي، لا يبقى من خيار أمام المدافعين عن وطنهم من السوريات والسوريين غير التمسك بأولويتهم الوطنية، المتمثلة في صد وردع الاحتلال والعدوان الروسي، وتدمير مقوماتهما وركائزهما في بلادهم، بالنظر إلى أن صدهما وردعهما شرط الوصول إلى حل سياسي، يتفق مع وثيقة جنيف ومطالب الشعب السوري المشروعة في التخلص من الاستبداد ونيل الحرية. وبالتالي، شرط أي تغيير في موقف بوتين وحاشيته السياسية من التدخل العسكري في سورية، ومن الحل السياسي الذي دأبت موسكو على رؤيته من ثقب ضيق جداً، ربط القضية السورية بتشعباتها وتعقيداتها بمصير الأسد، أولويتها المطلقة التي تعلو على أية أولوية أخرى، وضمانتها التي لا ضمانة لديها غيرها التي تكفل مصالحها، وتفسر إقدامها على غزو سورية، وانتهاكها القوانين والأعراف الدولية، وضربها عرض الحائط بمعارضتها الشرسة في مجلس الأمن أي تدخل خارجي في سورية.
تمسك بوتين بأولويته: إنقاذ الأسد ونظامه. ولم يترك لنا غير التمسك بأولويتنا: صد عدوانه وإخراجه والأسد من بلادنا.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
المركز العربي يناقش التدخل الروسي بسوريا
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عقد المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات في الدوحة، اليوم السبت، ندوة حول التدخل العسكري الروسي في سوريا، شارك فيها أكاديميون عرب وروس، وقد خلص معظم المشاركين إلى أن التدخل الروسي يهدف بالأساس لإعادة الاعتبار إلى دور موسكو على الساحة الدولية.
وتناولت الندوة أهم دوافع هذا التدخل وتداعياته المتوقعة إقليميا ودوليا، وتأثيراته على الموقف السياسي والميداني لـ فصائل المعارضة السورية، كما أفاد معظم المشاركين في الندوة بأن روسيا تسعى إلى تعزيز مكانتها الدولية بالتدخل في سوريا.
وأوضح بعض المشاركين أن روسيا تريد أن تقوم بمهمة عسكرية ميدانية واضحة تسعى لقطع الطريق إلى دمشق أمام فصائل الثورة، كما أنها تحاول تكوين واقع جغرافي جديد، يتمثل بالسيطرة على ما بات يعرف بـ "سوريا المفيدة " أي حماة وحمص والساحل.
وقال مدير المركز عزمي بشارة، في كلمة افتتح بها الندوة، إن روسيا تتحرك بدافع قوي من مصالحها الجيوإستراتيجية، وهي مصالح تتقدم في أهميتها بالنسبة لموسكو على فكرة المحافظة على نظام الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد، موضحا أن روسيا تريد إثبات نفسها كدولة قوية وتريد من أميركا احترام ما تعتبره "مناطق نفوذ لها".
وأضاف بشارة أن التدخل الروسي سيجعل من أي تدخل خارجي آخر أمرا صعبا، وهو رسالة موجهة للغرب وتركيا، كما أنه سيسمح لموسكو بتعزيز وضعها الدبلوماسي بحيث يصبح من المستحيل اتخاذ قرار بشأن سوريا بدون موافقتها.
ورأى أن التدخل الروسي لن يكون في مقدوره إنهاء الحرب التي أشعلها النظام السوري بالأساس، وإنما سيكون تمهيدا لمفاوضات أخرى، مما يفسح المجال للعمل في الطرف الآخر على دعم المعارضة ومحاولة كبح جماح روسيا.
مدير المركز العربي بشارة: التدخل الروسي سيجعل من أي تدخل خارجي آخر أمرا صعبا (الجزيرة) |
من جهته، قال المدير التنفيذي للمركز السوري للدراسات السياسية والإستراتيجية فيواشنطن، رضوان زيادة، للجزيرة نت، إنه لا يعتقد أن أميركا ستتدخل عسكريا مقابل التدخل الروسي، لأن هناك تاريخا من التدخلات العسكرية الأميركية في أماكن أخرى لا يشجعها على ذلك في سوريا.
وأضاف زيادة أن الرئيس الأميركي باراك أوباما عبّر بشكل واضح عن عدم رغبته بتدخل بلاده عسكريا في أي مكان خارج الأراضي الأميركية، مبينا أن النقاش المطروح الآن في الولايات المتحدة هو حول إمكانية زيادة المساعدات العسكرية الأميركية للمعارضة السورية، وزيادة التنسيق الاقليمي.
وتوقع أن يتطور التدخل الروسي إلى تدخل بري، موضحا أن هناك حديثا عن وجود عسكري روسي على الأرض في حماة على سبيل المثال، وبالتالي لن يقتصر الأمر على الضربات الجوية التي تركز حتى الآن على استهداف فصائل المعارضة.
وفي السياق ذاته، ركز أستاذ علم الاجتماع السياسي والرئيس السابق للمجلس الوطني السوري المعارض، برهان غليون في كلمته، على ما أحياه هذا التدخل من آمال لدى الكثيرين من إمكانية الوصول إلى تسوية حقيقية ونهائية على اعتبار أن موسكو لديها اتصالات مع جميع الأطراف المتنازعة.
وأشار غليون إلى أن موسكو قادرة على إخراج الحرب الراهنة من منطقها الطائفي إلى الحيز السياسي، موضحا أن ثمة عقبات أمام هذا السيناريو، أهمها أن روسيا لديها عداء شديد لروح وفكرة الثورة، وبالتالي هي لا ترى أمامها حركة شعبية معارضة للاستبداد إنما "مجموعات إرهابية".
وأكد أن تشتت المعارضة السورية وانقسامها عقبة أخرى أمام الوصول إلى تسوية، مشددا في النهاية على أن أي تسوية لا تحقق إرادة الشعب السوري لن تصمد، وستعني استمرار الحرب.
مقتل قيادي في لواء "فاطميون" الإيراني في حلب
THE MORE, THE BETTER
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نقلت وكالة أنباء فارس الإيرانية أن القيادي في لواء "فاطميون" مصطفى صدر زاده قد قتل في سورية خلال معارك مع قوات المعارضة المسلحة في مدينة حلب شمالي البلاد.
وذكرت فارس أن صدر زاده هو قائد كتائب "عمار" التي "تقاتل الإرهابيين التكفيريين شمال سورية" بحسب وصف الوكالة، والجدير بالذكر أن لواء "فاطميون" يضم مقاتلين من الأفغان الشيعة المقيمين في إيران.
كذلك ذكرت مواقع إعلامية إيرانية أخرى أن المقاتل الإيراني في صفوف قوات التعبئة أو "البسيج" محمد ميلاد مصطفوي قد قتل هو الآخر خلال مواجهات مع المعارضة المسلحة قرب حلب كذلك، ولم توضح المصادر تفاصيل ومكان مقتله.
وقال مسؤول العلاقات العامة في الحرس الثوري الإيراني، العميد رمضان شريف، أمس الجمعة، إن اثنين من ضباط الحرس التابعين لقوات "الأنصار" المتخصصة في حماية الشخصيات المهمة قد قُتلا في سورية، مضيفاً أن الضابط علي كريمي وزميله عبد الله باقري نياركي، والذي كان المرافق الشخصي للرئيس السابق محمود أحمدي نجاد، قُتلا خلال معارك مع المعارضة السورية المسلحة في مدينة حلب شمالي سورية مؤخراً.
وقال مسؤول العلاقات العامة في الحرس الثوري الإيراني، العميد رمضان شريف، أمس الجمعة، إن اثنين من ضباط الحرس التابعين لقوات "الأنصار" المتخصصة في حماية الشخصيات المهمة قد قُتلا في سورية، مضيفاً أن الضابط علي كريمي وزميله عبد الله باقري نياركي، والذي كان المرافق الشخصي للرئيس السابق محمود أحمدي نجاد، قُتلا خلال معارك مع المعارضة السورية المسلحة في مدينة حلب شمالي سورية مؤخراً.
ونقلت وكالة أنباء "فارس" الإيرانية عن شريف قوله إن عدد القتلى من العسكريين الإيرانيين في سورية وصل إلى ثمانية أفراد خلال الأيام القليلة الماضية، مشيراً إلى أن الحرس قد زاد من عدد المستشارين العسكريين في هذا البلد، بسبب المستجدات على الأرض وتطورات الأوضاع الميدانية.
Israel is ‘hopeful’ over Russian involvement in Syria
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A report published by Reuters on Thursday said that Israel is hopeful regarding the Russian airstrikes on Syria. Moscow’s alliance with Israel’s enemies in the region could provide a “moderate influence,” claimed one official.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin is not looking to mess with Israel,” the anonymous official from the prime minister’s office said, “and it is unlikely he would look kindly on Iran or Hezbollah messing with Israel now, either." The connection between Russia and the two Shia powers involved in Syria would normally be a cause of concern for the government in Tel Aviv, but this looks less likely under the current circumstances.
"The new order in the Middle East is loose coalitions for specific purposes,” explained the Israeli official, “so a Russian partnership with Iran and Hezbollah to save Assad is not necessarily bad for us."
Russia's Ambassador to Israel, Alexander Shein, told Reuters that his country is carrying out airstrikes against “terrorist groups” and nothing more. He dismissed talk of alliances with Iran and Hezbollah over events in Syria.
According to Shein, Russia is aware of Israel’s “strategic importance” in the region, and knows the reasons for its airstrikes against Syria in the past. However, he “suggested” to Reuters that an Assad victory might “best serve” Israel and regional security concerns. When the conflict in Syria broke out in 2011, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government called for the ouster of President Bashar Al-Assad. It is not so open about the issue now, with officials believing that Assad’s chances of staying in power have been “improved” by Russia’s intervention.
Praising Israel’s “prudence” over its stance on Syria, Shein also noted Tel Aviv’s “wisdom” with regards to Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014. "I hope it reflects concern for the development of Russian-Israeli relations in a true, friendly and cooperative manner," the ambassador said.
Friday, October 23, 2015
ثمانية قتلى من الحرس الثوري الإيراني بسورية
THE MORE, THE BETTER!
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ونقلت وكالة أنباء "فارس" الإيرانية عن شريف قوله إن عدد القتلى من العسكريين الإيرانيين في سورية وصل إلى ثمانية أفراد خلال الأيام القليلة الماضية، مشيراً إلى أن الحرس قد زاد من عدد المستشارين العسكريين في هذا البلد بسبب المستجدات على الأرض وتطورات الأوضاع الميدانية.
هذا وكانت وسائل إعلام إيرانية قد نقلت اليوم الجمعة، أن المقاتل في صفوف اللواء 33 التابع لقوات الحرس الثوري محمد إستحكامي قد قُتل في سورية يوم أمس الخميس خلال مواجهات مع من وصفتهم بالإرهابيين التكفيريين، ولكن المواقع لم توضح مكان وظروف مقتله.
كما ذكرت أن المقاتل في صفوف قوات التعبئة أو الباسيج هادي شجاع قد قُتل هو الآخر هناك، موضحة أنه لقي مصرعه خلال اشتباكات مع المعارضة السورية المسلحة دون أي ذكر لتفاصيل أخرى.
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قال مسؤول العلاقات العامة في الحرس الثوري الإيراني، العميد رمضان شريف، اليوم الجمعة، إن اثنين من ضباط الحرس التابعين لقوات "الأنصار" المتخصصة في حماية الشخصيات المهمة قد قُتلا في سورية، مضيفاً أن الضابط علي كريمي وزميله عبد الله باقري نياركي، الذي كان المرافق الشخصي للرئيس السابق محمود أحمدي نجاد، قُتلا خلال معارك مع المعارضة السورية المسلحة في مدينة حلب شمالي سورية مؤخراً.
ونقلت وكالة أنباء "فارس" الإيرانية عن شريف قوله إن عدد القتلى من العسكريين الإيرانيين في سورية وصل إلى ثمانية أفراد خلال الأيام القليلة الماضية، مشيراً إلى أن الحرس قد زاد من عدد المستشارين العسكريين في هذا البلد بسبب المستجدات على الأرض وتطورات الأوضاع الميدانية.
هذا وكانت وسائل إعلام إيرانية قد نقلت اليوم الجمعة، أن المقاتل في صفوف اللواء 33 التابع لقوات الحرس الثوري محمد إستحكامي قد قُتل في سورية يوم أمس الخميس خلال مواجهات مع من وصفتهم بالإرهابيين التكفيريين، ولكن المواقع لم توضح مكان وظروف مقتله.
كما ذكرت أن المقاتل في صفوف قوات التعبئة أو الباسيج هادي شجاع قد قُتل هو الآخر هناك، موضحة أنه لقي مصرعه خلال اشتباكات مع المعارضة السورية المسلحة دون أي ذكر لتفاصيل أخرى.
Iraq: Protesters Beaten, Abducted
Prosecutors Fail to Investigate
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On September 18, three groups of men in civilian clothes grabbed, beat, and carried off three activists after they left a demonstration in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, all three activists told Human Rights Watch. The incidents, at about 7:30 p.m., took place between Saadoun and Abu Nuwwas Streets and in plain sight of uniformed Iraqi soldiers operating two nearby checkpoints.
Once there, they were searched and taken to separate rooms. Hashim said that a man who did not identify himself interrogated him while he was blindfolded and bound him, demanding to know whether he and his fellow protesters were members of the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and about an alleged plot to infiltrate Baghdad’s International Zone.
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(Beirut) – Iraqi security forces have repeatedly beaten and violently dispersed protesters during anti-corruption demonstrations since August 2015 without any apparent justification. In some instances, unidentified men in civilian clothes abducted and beat demonstrators. Prosecutors have failed to respond to judicial complaints lodged by victims of these attacks.
“Men claiming to be intelligence officers are attacking and abducting peaceful demonstrators and prosecutors don’t investigate,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “Prime Minister Abadi’s endorsement of the protesters’ anti-corruption demands seems not to have reached the security forces.”
On September 18, three groups of men in civilian clothes grabbed, beat, and carried off three activists after they left a demonstration in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, all three activists told Human Rights Watch. The incidents, at about 7:30 p.m., took place between Saadoun and Abu Nuwwas Streets and in plain sight of uniformed Iraqi soldiers operating two nearby checkpoints.
The men first abducted Ali Hashim, a 37-year-old local activist. A second group beat and then dragged away Imad Taha, 50, who ran toward Hashim’s cries for help. And the third stopped and seized Dhirgham Muhsin, 28, as he went toward where he heard Taha being beaten. All three were forced into a Ford pick-up, blindfolded, and handcuffed from behind, then driven to a building a few minutes away, all three told Human Rights Watch.
Once there, they were searched and taken to separate rooms. Hashim said that a man who did not identify himself interrogated him while he was blindfolded and bound him, demanding to know whether he and his fellow protesters were members of the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and about an alleged plot to infiltrate Baghdad’s International Zone.
The interrogator and two accomplices then repeatedly kicked Hashim and beat him on the back with plastic cables, he said, as they ordered him to tell them who was financing the demonstrations. The interrogator separately questioned Taha and Muhsin on the same topics while kicking and beating them.
After about an hour, the interrogator made all three sign a pledge not to demonstrate again and threatened to abduct, torture, and kill them if they spoke to the media. On September 19, Hashim obtained a medical report from Sheikh Zayed Emergency Hospital, documenting bruises on his back and face.
Hashim told Human Rights Watch that two days later he filed a complaint against three security officials, including Abadi as commander-in-chief, at the Saadoun police station and with the local prosecutor. He and Taha testified before Judge Anwar al-Bayati in Karada Court on October 11, who sent them back to the police station to bring witnesses. The prosecutor, who under Iraqi criminal procedure law should investigate and pursue criminal complaints, had not intervened in the matter, Taha told Human Rights Watch, and that he was not aware of any outcome of the prosecutor’s intervention.
On September 21, in Nasiriyya, the capital of the southern province of Dhi Qar, a journalist named Haqqi Karim Hadi told Human Rights Watch he was reporting in a public square for a television show about the impending Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha when two men in civilian clothes told him to stop filming. He asked them who they were and they answered, “Intelligence,” but refused to show their badges.
Then they grabbed him and his 23-year-old son Ahmad, who was the cameraman, and tried to take them away, but a police officer intervened. The police took both Haqqi and Ahmad Hadi and the two unidentified men to the police station, where the alleged intelligence officers attempted to get Haqqi and Ahmed transferred to their custody. Hadi told Human Rights Watch that after the alleged intelligence officers threatened that he and his son would remain in detention until after the holiday – almost a week – he agreed to drop a complaint against them. The police officers then told him to affix his fingerprints to a note stating that he would not sue the intelligence officers, then released them.
Sajjad Sadiq, an activist and journalist in his 20s, told Human Rights Watch that police violently dispersed a protest on September 11, in Hilla, capital of the Babylon province, demanding an end to government corruption and the resignation of Babylon’s governor, Sadiq Madlul al-Sultani. The police violently dispersed the protesters, saying, “You have no legitimate demands,” Sadiq told Human Rights Watch. The police detained two of his friends, but calls from supporters led to their release the same day. Sadiq said that he went to the hospital to get a medical report for his injuries, but the hospital administration refused to issue a report without police permission.
On September 12, Sadiq and 25 others filed a complaint against the police with the public prosecutor, but nothing has happened, Sadiq said. He said he believed the prosecutor needed more time to decide whether to start proceedings. According to Sadiq, both the governor and the police chief denied during meetings with the protesters that they gave orders to use force to disperse the protest.
In an incident in Hilla at 4 a.m. on August 23, Ahmad al-Khaiqani, a protester, told Human Rights Watch that anti-riot police stormed the square in front of the governor’s office where protesters were demanding better services and an end to corruption. The anti-riot police were accompanied by masked assailants wearing military uniforms, who beat the demonstrators, al-Khaiqani said. Throughout the previous day, the demonstrators had shared food and water with the police, calling them “our brothers,” al-Khaiqani said.
Husain Karim Abd al-Kazhim, a young lawyer who was also there, said that a large number of security forces stormed the square without warning and blocked two roads, encircling the fleeing protesters. The security forces beat the protesters with truncheons and shocked them with electric tasers, said al-Kazhim, who received an electric shock himself.
The following day, 60 injured demonstrators filed a complaint with the public prosecutor against the governor and the heads of the security force branches, which included the anti-riot forces, the local police, and the national security forces, al-Kazhim said. Judge Abbas al-Dulaimi of the Hilla Investigative Court issued an arrest warrant for the provincial governor, Sadiq Madlul al-Sultani, but then released al-Sultani on a bail of several thousand United States dollars, al-Kazhim said. Those who filed the complaint understand that the prosecutor has taken no further action to investigate further or file any charges against those named in the complaint.
Instead, the prosecutor then opened a criminal investigation against the protesters for resisting arrest and destroying public property and vehicles valued at over $1 million, al-Kazhim said. According to al-Kazhim and al-Khaiqani, the protesters did not damage property and only defended themselves once attacked. Al-Kazhim said that a judicial source informed him that the protesters’ lawsuit against the governor and security heads had not resulted in any criminal investigation due to “political pressure.”
“Upholding the law and pursuing those who break it are the essential duties of a prosecutor,” Stork said. “Yet Iraq’s prosecutors have not responded to repeated complaints about security forces, or those acting as such, violently dispersing protests or abducting protesters without any apparent justification.”
Real News Video: Netanyahu's Record on Inciting Violence Against Palestinians
Max Blumenthal, author of The 51-Day War: Resistance and Ruin in Gaza, says Netanyahu absolved Hitler of the final solution by placing the blame for the Holocaust on the Palestinians
BREAKING NEWS......
RUSSIA, SENEGAL AND FIJI HAVE ANNOUNCED THAT THEY ARE COORDINATING THEIR MILITARY OPERATIONS IN SYRIA......
STAY TUNED FOR MORE COUNTRIES THAT WILL RESPECT SYRIAN SOVEREIGNTY.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE COUNTRIES THAT WILL RESPECT SYRIAN SOVEREIGNTY.
مقتل مرافق الرئيس الإيراني السابق في سورية
THE MORE, THE BETTER!
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قُتل أحد المرافقين الشخصيين للرئيس السابق لإيران محمود أحمدي نجاد، في سورية خلال مواجهات مع المعارضة المسلّحة هناك، بحسب ما نقلت وكالة أنباء "فارس" الإيرانية، اليوم الجمعة. وذكرت "فارس" أنّ "عبد الله باقري نياركي قد قتل خلال مواجهات مسلّحة وقعت في مدينة حلب، شمالي سورية، مضيفةً أيضاً أن مراسم لتشييع جثمانه ستجرى غداً السبت، في العاصمة طهران. وكانت مواقع إيرانية قد ذكرت الأحد الماضي أن العقيد في الحرس الثوري، مسلم خيزاب، قتل في شمال غربي سورية (لم تحدد المكان) إثر اشتباكات مع عناصر مسلحة. وذكرت هذه المواقع أن خيزاب كان أحد المستشارين العسكريين التابعين للحرس الثوري الإيراني، فقد كان يقدم الاستشارات للجيش النظامي في سورية، كما كان تابعاً لكتيبة "يا زهراء" العسكرية. وتزداد أعداد القتلى من قياديي الحرس الثوري في سورية، إذ سبق هذا الإعلان عن مقتل خيزاب، مقتل القائد السابق لـ"لواء الصابرين"، التابع للحرس الثوري، الجنرال فرشاد حسوني، والضابط في الحرس، حميد مختار بند، واللذين قتلا في سورية، خلال معارك يوم الثلاثاء الماضي، وذلك بعد أيام على مقتل القائد في الحرس الثوري، الجنرال حسين همداني، في سورية أيضاً، الخميس الفائت، ليصبح عدد القادة الذين سقطوا في سورية من الحرس الثوري في أسبوع اثنين يحملان رتبة جنرال.
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قُتل أحد المرافقين الشخصيين للرئيس السابق لإيران محمود أحمدي نجاد، في سورية خلال مواجهات مع المعارضة المسلّحة هناك، بحسب ما نقلت وكالة أنباء "فارس" الإيرانية، اليوم الجمعة. وذكرت "فارس" أنّ "عبد الله باقري نياركي قد قتل خلال مواجهات مسلّحة وقعت في مدينة حلب، شمالي سورية، مضيفةً أيضاً أن مراسم لتشييع جثمانه ستجرى غداً السبت، في العاصمة طهران. وكانت مواقع إيرانية قد ذكرت الأحد الماضي أن العقيد في الحرس الثوري، مسلم خيزاب، قتل في شمال غربي سورية (لم تحدد المكان) إثر اشتباكات مع عناصر مسلحة. وذكرت هذه المواقع أن خيزاب كان أحد المستشارين العسكريين التابعين للحرس الثوري الإيراني، فقد كان يقدم الاستشارات للجيش النظامي في سورية، كما كان تابعاً لكتيبة "يا زهراء" العسكرية. وتزداد أعداد القتلى من قياديي الحرس الثوري في سورية، إذ سبق هذا الإعلان عن مقتل خيزاب، مقتل القائد السابق لـ"لواء الصابرين"، التابع للحرس الثوري، الجنرال فرشاد حسوني، والضابط في الحرس، حميد مختار بند، واللذين قتلا في سورية، خلال معارك يوم الثلاثاء الماضي، وذلك بعد أيام على مقتل القائد في الحرس الثوري، الجنرال حسين همداني، في سورية أيضاً، الخميس الفائت، ليصبح عدد القادة الذين سقطوا في سورية من الحرس الثوري في أسبوع اثنين يحملان رتبة جنرال.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Not in my name
By David Hearst
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If Jews want to preserve their ghastly collective memory from being desecrated they should tell Netanyahu he does not represent them
For people who injected a fair amount of drama into the business of raising two children in post-war suburban North London (“it’s not as if I am buying a submarine” my mother would complain when kept waiting in a shop) my parents’ accounts of their childhood in Nazi Vienna were sparse and factual. There was little sense of drama in what was, by definition, a dramatic story.
The day, for instance when anti-Nazi graffiti appeared on the wall outside my grandfather’s dental practice in the fashionable centre of the city, and the Nazis forced the Jewish dentist to erase the paint daubed on the wall - with a toothbrush.
My grandmother told me how she was handed a bucket and mop by her concierge and forced to wash several flights of steps up to her flat. I remember my mother’s intriguingly sympathetic description of her primary school teacher, a woman torn between her maternalism and her Nazism. She told her Jewish pupils, “And you are also my children.” My mother remembers the inflexion in the word “also”.
I soon realised that vital ingredients were missing from their account: trauma and anger. My father, whose name was on a list of Jewish and Communist activists, narrowly escaped death as a 17-year-old.
But he was not angry about it. Many years later, he recalls meeting Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s inspired filmmaker and photographer, who directed Triumph of the Will and Olympia. He told her: “If your boyfriend had had his way, I would have been a lampshade.”
If anger and trauma exist anywhere, it lives on in Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel. This is now the incubator of Jewish Israeli rage. And what is more interesting, the anger is growing and mutating. As each generation becomes more distant from the Holocaust, over whose memory Israel claims a state monopoly, the trauma and the fear it generates grows.
For a psychotherapist this process would be familiar. It is called transfer trauma, whereby the trauma experienced by one generation grows as it is transferred onto another. The inheritors of trauma are angrier than those who originally experienced it. Transfer or transgenerational trauma pops up in many forms.
It is present, for instance, in the emotion generated by the words “never again”. It starts as, “Never again will Jews undress and walk passively into the gas ovens.”
But “never again” today has a different target. It is not the people who actually took part in the industrial-scale killing - Germans, Poles, Latvians or Western Ukrainians. Israel’s wrath does not fall on Latvian nationalists, who until recently celebrated their involvement with the SS in an annual parade.
No-one, except the Russians, noticed a torchlit ceremony in the city of Lviv held by 15,000 members of Svoboda in honour of Stepan Bandera, who led the fascist Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. Bandera’s forces killed 90,000 Poles and many Jews between 1943 and 1944. Israel’s ties to Ukraine are closer than ever before.
The transferred or inherited wrath falls now onto Palestinians.
To establish the narrative of Arab complicity in Jewish suffering, Israel has lent heavily on the experience of the Mizrahi Jews, who are from Iraq, Egypt and North Africa. The Jews of Egypt were subject to waves of repression from 1948 till 1967, which were related to the wars Egypt fought with Israel. In 1948 there were between 75,000 and 80,000 of them in Egypt. Today there are only eight Egyptian-born Jews living in Cairo. Roughly one million Jews were forced to flee North Africa and the Middle East after the creation of Israel.
But that is not enough for this all-consuming rage. On Tuesday Benjamin Netanyahu went further, by claiming a Palestinian - the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini - planted the idea of the extermination of European Jewry in Hitler’s mind.
Netanyahu told the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem: "Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jew. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here (to Palestine).' According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: "What should I do with them?" and the mufti replied: "Burn them."
This is an historical nonsense. Al-Husseini met Hitler in November 1941. Heinrich Himmler instructed the Einsatzgruppen to kill all Jews and card-carrying Communists in the lands Germany had captured from the Soviet Union on 13 March that year. Hermann Goering first talked of the “complete solution to the Jewish Question” on 31 July. 33,771 Jews were murdered in Babi Yar in September and Operation Reinhard, to construct the camps in Poland, began in October.
Prof Dina Porat, chief historian at Yad Vashem, the World Center for Holocaust Research, strongly implied that Netanyahu had made the conversation up. She told Haaretz that the meeting between Hitler and Al-Husseini was minuted only in general terms and there was no record of the alleged exchange Netanyahu quoted.
“The mufti did not speak to Hitler in terms of ‘you should do this,’ or ‘what do you think of a final solution?’ Nor is it recorded that the mufti told Hitler to ‘burn them.’ Hitler never asked anyone what to do with the Jews,” Porat said. Hitler told the mufti that he would “’continue his plans,’ meaning that he had already begun, and certainly not because the mufti asked him to.”
Netanyahu was widely condemned for playing into the hands of holocaust deniers. Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog wrote on his Facebook page: "This is a dangerous historical distortion and I demand Netanyahu correct it immediately as it minimises the Holocaust, Nazism and…Hitler's part in our people's terrible disaster."
Meretz leader Zehava Galon said, "This is not a Jorg Haider speech. It's not a part of [Mahmoud] Abbas' doctorate. It's a real quote from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," she said. "Maybe the 33,771 Jews murdered in Babi Yar in September 1941 – two months before the Mufti and Hitler met - should be exhumed and updated that the Nazis didn't mean to destroy them."
Arab Joint List leader Ayman Odeh accused Netanyahu of rewriting history in order to incite against the Palestinian people. “The victims of the Nazi monster, among them millions of Jews, have become cheap propaganda in the service of peace rejectionism. Netanyahu proves every day how dangerous he is for both peoples, and how far he's willing to go to cement his rule and justify his disastrous policies."
Netanyahu has played fast and loose with the facts before. He used his own name to claim the following: "The attempt by many to describe the Jews as foreign colonialists in their own homeland is one of the great lies of modern times. In my office, I have a signet ring that was loaned to me by Israel's Department of Antiquities. The ring was found next to the Western Wall, but it dates back some 2,800 years ago, 200 years after King David turned Jerusalem into our capital city. The ring is a seal of a Jewish official, and inscribed on it in Hebrew is his name: Netanyahu. Netanyahu Ben-Yoash. That’s my last name.”
No it is not. Benjamin’s father, the historian Benzion, was born in Warsaw under the name of Mileikowsky. Netanyahu is the family’s adopted name. Nor for that matter is Hearst the original family name. My father had to change it very quickly as his unit was about to take part in the landing at Salerno. The British Army could not have an officer in combat called Hirshtritt.
Netanyahu does not lie carelessly. It is to establish an unbreakable and exclusive connection between Zionist settlers and the land of Israel. By the same token, his purpose is to sever any connection between the Palestinians and their land. In comparison to 3,000 years of history, they are mere interlopers. He said in the same speech: “The connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem cannot be denied. The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 year ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital."
Everything, even the memory of six million dead, is subservient and subordinate to this task. He is indeed a very dangerous man. He is toxic to any possible resolution of this conflict. If Jews around the world had any thought for preserving their ghastly collective memory from this desecration, they should tell him - and all Israelis who vote for these people - “Not in our name.”
- David Hearst is editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.
Three Syrian hospitals bombed since Russian airstrikes began, doctors say
Latest attack on Idlib hospital left at least 12 people dead and comes less than two weeks after a US attack on Kunduz hospital, Afghanistan
Martin Chulov
and Shiv Malik
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Martin Chulov
and Shiv Malik
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At least three hospitals have been bombed by fighter jets in north-western Syria since Russia’s intervention in the war began in late September, doctors and international observers claim.
The latest attack, on Tuesday, killed at least 12 people at Sarmin hospital in Idlib province. At least three of the victims were believed to be medical staff. Survivors and witnesses said the hospital was hit by two airstrikes at about 1pm.
Dr Mohamed Tennari, director of Sarmin hospital, said the facility appeared to have been directly targeted and could no longer serve patients on one of the fiercest frontlines in the war.
He said the hospital had been the target of at least 10 other airstrikes earlier in the conflict. Throughout the war, international medical organisations have repeatedly claimed that medical facilities in opposition areas have been systematically targeted.
Physicians for Human Rights said it had documented 307 attacks on medical facilities and the deaths of 670 medical personnel in Syria since protests against the regime of Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011 until the end of August 2015. “Syrian government forces have been responsible for more than 90% of these attacks,” the organisation said. “Each of which constitutes a war crime.”
The latest attack comes less than two weeks after a US attack on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed at least 22 people – 12 of them medical professionals and the rest patients. That attack was widely condemned and has forced an apology from senior US officials, as well as several international investigations.
Khaled Almilaji, the country director of Medical Relief in Syria, said: “The whole world has to be just as angry as they were with what happened in Afghanistan. Their anger must not just be directed at Bashar, who has been inhuman with us, but also at the Russians, who are just as bad, but more accurate in their targeting.”
Since early October, Russia has closed the airspace over north-western Syria as its air force has embarked on an extensive campaign to target the armed opposition to the Syrian leader. Airstrikes have been especially intense around Hama and Idlib, where some US- and Gulf-backed groups had been making gains against Syrian forces in recent months.
Russia’s claims that its attacks have targeted Isis have been at odds with evidence on the ground in areas that have have been heavily bombed but have no Isis presence.
Video shot during the attack shows massive explosions, then dust clouds and screams. “Until now, 12 people have been killed,” said Dr Tennari, adding that another 20 had been injured. Among the dead were two hospital staff, who he named as physiotherapist Hassan Taj al Deen and a security guard Khaldoun Abu Din, both in their 20s.
In mid-March Sarmin hospital was the lead treatment centre in the aftermath of a massive chlorine attack. At the time Syrian regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs filled with chlorine, which left six dead and 50 injured and prompted further claims that Damascus had continued to use banned chemicals as instruments of war. Last month the hospital treated between 5,000-7,000 patients and undertook 100 surgeries, Tennari said.
“I think it was Russian,” he said. “When we were targeted by the Syrian regime airstrikes, it was different from this time.”
The head of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organisations, Zedoun al-Zoubi, said Sarmin was one of three medical facilities targeted in the past week. The other two allegedly hit al-Harb and al-Eis clinics in Aleppo province. This month, a field clinic in Kfar Zeita in Idlib and another in Latamneh were also reportedly hit.
“In the last three four weeks the airstrikes have become very accurate, very precise and very intense,” he said. “(In the past) four weeks we know the situation has become really horrible and the number of displaced people are far more than before and we are talking about people who are used to war.”
The director of programmes at Physicians for Human Rights, Widney Brown, said Russia was following in the footsteps of the Assad regime. “These attacks are inexcusable. Claiming that the fight is against terrorists does not give any government the right to tear up the laws of war, which specifically protect health workers and facilities. With these actions, Russia is damaging hospitals, putting patients and medical staff at risk, and depriving civilians of life-saving access to healthcare.”
Guardian Video: 'Russian airstrike' targets relief workers
Video posted to Twitter from the Syria White Helmets purports to show alleged Russian airstrikes targeting civilian rescue workers in Sarmin in the north-western province of Idlib in Syria on Tuesday. The footage shows the moment a rocket explodes and the immediate aftermath
Israel Calls a Man Its Soldiers Killed a “Terrorist”: Until They Realized He Was an Israeli Jew
By Glenn Greenwald
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The Jerusalem Post today describes the killing of a man by two IDF soldiers after, the soldiers claim, he was acting erratically and tried to grab one of their guns. When he was fatally shot by the IDF, says the paper, he was “believed to be an Arab terrorist.” As it turns out, he was not an Arab Palestinian but rather an Israeli Jew. Upon learning this, the “terrorist” designation was officially and “immediately” rescinded:
Only after the man was neutralized was it made clear that he was a Jew from Jerusalem, police concluded. . . .ZAKA rescue and recovery chairman Yehuda Meshi Zahav, who was at the scene, said he also initially thought the suspect was an Arab terrorist.“When I arrived with the ZAKA team at the site of the supposed terrorist attack, it seemed to be a ‘standard’ current terrorist attack, a stabbing attempt, and the terrorist was apprehended,” he said.“I wanted to cover the body in a black bag [reserved for terrorists]. After I was asked to take care of the body I saw that he was a Jew, and that it was mistake to speak of a terrorist. I immediately notified the police and we switched to a white ZAKA body bag.”
This story was flagged by Remi Brulin, the NYU scholar whose work has been devoted to the “discourse of terrorism” and who has amply documented that the term is a meaningless concept that, from the start, has been used for propagandistic purposes. It’s hard to imagine an incident that more compellingly proves the point than this: “I wanted to cover the body in a black bag [reserved for terrorists]. After I was asked to take care of the body I saw that he was a Jew, and that it was mistake to speak of a terrorist. I immediately notified the police and we switched to a white ZAKA body bag.”
When they thought he was a Palestinian Arab, he was labelled a “terrorist,” and then soon as they realized he was an Israeli Jew, the label was instantly withdrawn for that reason alone, even though the conduct was the same. That’s the manipulative, malleable concept of “terrorism” in a nutshell. As Rudy Giuliani put it in 2007 when asked whether waterboarding was torture: “It depends on who does it.”
Caption: Israeli police officers and Zaka rescue and recovery volunteers remove bodies at the scene of a double bus bombing in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, Tuesday Aug. 31, 2004.
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