Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
In June of this year, the story of how Dubai Ports World was helping to squash opposition to the “Israeli” Zim shipping company in a small Canadian town caught the interest of many progressives worldwide. Lest anyone think this was an isolated incident, Canadian media recently highlighted another saga of Canada-UAE-“Israel” partnership.
This time around, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking center stage as the head of the advisory committee to Toronto-based AWZ Ventures. According to a CBC article, “AWZ Ventures finances “Israeli” surveillance technology systems, including facial recognition and crowd detection systems and services that deliver comprehensive information on individuals in real time.”
The media focus now is that AWZ Ventures is facilitating the sale of this “technology to the United Arab Emirates – a country with a troubling human rights record”. [No mention of “Israel’s” “troubling human rights record”, mind you.]
Again, as with the Zim story, the finer details are bizarre. Not only does AWZ Ventures have former Mossad, CIA and MI5 figures on its advisory board, it is also opening a subsidiary in the UAE. And heading up this new subsidiary will be the former Canadian diplomat and representative to the Palestinian Authority, Katherine Verrier-Frechette.
The new company, aptly dubbed AWZ Horizons, will also be helping to promote the sale of this “Israeli” technology “to other countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, and countries in North Africa.” This seamless transition from Canadian diplomatic envoy to high-level cybersecurity merchant speaks volumes about the “neutrality” of Canadian foreign policy.
AWZ Ventures itself is an interesting study. Along with the notable international figures, Richard Fadden, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service works for the company. And former Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day is also reportedly involved.
Fadden, one of the few who was quoted by Canadian media, said: “A lot of this technology is useful in fighting terrorism and that was my main interest,” he said. “Some of the technology that has been developed helps develop a sense of what’s going on, on the one level on social media, so you can accumulate information…”
In July of this year, AWZ Ventures also entered into an official partnership with the “Israeli” War Ministry and its “Directorate of Defense Research and Development” [MAFAT] and launched Awz X-Seed. The goal of this new spin-off will be to invest in “pre-seed” and “inception” stage companies in the “Israeli” entity developing innovative security technologies. According to Stephen Harper at the time: “Together, Awz and MAFAT will uniquely evaluate and develop early-stage technologies, creating a model that is unmatched anywhere.”
It was also noted that the “Portfolio companies will further benefit from Awz Ventures’ business development offices in Canada, the US, and UAE that will support the companies in expanding their global client base.”
So, to sum up, a Canadian-based company with an advisory board headed by a former Canadian PM and full of former spies, is marketing “Israeli” cybersecurity and surveillance technology to dictatorial Arab regimes. And even partnering with the “Israeli” regime to help develop more of the same.
The detrimental use of these technologies has been well-documented in recent years, the most notable case being a possible link in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Journalists and human rights activists, including from Amnesty International, have reportedly been targeted by repressive governments with the aid of these “Israeli” surveillance tools.
However, the media parameters that focus only on the sale of these “Israeli” technologies to despotic regimes are flawed. The “Israeli” government’s “troubling human rights record” is also relevant, and the fact that their security and defense innovations are field-tested on Palestinians and Arabs is well-known. And the “Israeli” entity’s abuse and torture of Palestinian prisoners is also well-known, as was evidenced by the recent treatment of the Gilboa 6 after being re-captured.
As the Dubai 2020 Expo is finally underway, with an “Israel” pavilion spearheaded by the “Israeli” entity’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we must be clear on who is powering and financing this unholy alliance of “Israeli” apartheid and Arab reactionary regimes. Western governments and capital interests are fully complicit in these violations of Palestinian and Arab human rights.
There’s a quiet panic happening in the US economy. Medical labs are running out of supplies like pipettes and petri dishes, summer camps and restaurants are having trouble getting food, and automobile, paint and electronics firms are curtailing production because they can’t get semiconductors. One man told me he couldn’t get a Whopper meal at a Burger King in Florida, as there was a sign saying “Sorry, no French fries with any order. We have no potatoes.”
Imagine that, no French fries in America.
The problem seems to be getting worse, as the shortages pile on top of each other like a snake eating its tail. For instance, the inability to fix trucks means that truck drivers can’t haul boxes of goods, which might actually contain the parts needed to fix the trucks, and so forth.
There are multiple arguments about why the problem is as bad as it is. Everyone agrees that the COVID pandemic and chaotic changes in consumption habits have caused inevitable short-term price hikes and shortages. As people go on vacation less and do outdoor sports more, the price of, say, airline tickets should drop, and the price of bicycles will go up. But some point to government spending and money printing at the Fed as worsening the problem, while others suggest it is temporary and will resolve on its own.
Both arguments have merit. But what we’re experiencing is also the net result of decades of policy choices starting in the 1970s that emphasized consumer sovereignty over citizenship. The consolidation of power into the hands of private equity financiers and monopolists over the last four decades has left us uniquely unprepared to manage a supply shock. Our hyper-efficient globalized supply chain, once romanticized by men like Tom Friedman in The World Is Flat, is the problem. Like the financial system before the 2008 crash, this kind of economic order hides its fragility. It seems to work quite well, until it doesn’t.
The specific policies that led to our supply constrained world are lax antitrust, deregulation of basic infrastructure industries like shipping, railroads and trucking, disinvestment in domestic production, and trade policy emphasizing finance over manufacturing.
Take biopharmaceutical equipment necessary to make vaccines. There’s a shortage of fancy plastic bags that you mix chemicals in to make medicine, which isn’t surprising in a pandemic. But the reason for the shortage isn’t just COVID but a merger wave; over the last 15 years, four firms bought up the biopharmaceutical equipment industry, without any antitrust agency taking meaningful action. These firms now have market power, and dominate their competitors, by ensuring their bags can only interoperate with their specific mixing machines. It’s like not having enough Keurig coffee machine pods; the shortage isn’t the coffee, it’s the artificial bottleneck used to lock in customers.
Another example is railroads. Since deregulation in 1980, Wall Street consolidated 33 firms into just seven. And because the Surface Transportation Board lacks authority, Wall Street-owned railroads cut their workforce by 33% over the last six years, degrading our public shipping capacity. The Union Pacific closed a giant Chicago sorting facility in 2019; it now has so much backed up traffic that it suspended traffic from west coast ports.
Ocean shipping is the same. The 1997 Ocean Shipping Reform Act legalized secret rebates and led to a merger wave. The entire industry has now consolidated globally into three giant alliances that occasionally crash their too-big-to-sail ships into the side of the Suez canal.
Then there’s trucking. Talk to most businesspeople who make or move things and they will complain about the driver shortage. This too is a story of deregulation. In the 1970s, the end of public rate-setting forced trucking firms to compete against each other to offer lower shipping prices. The way they did this was by lowering pay to their drivers. Trucking on a firm-level became unpredictable and financially fragile, so for drivers schedules became unsustainable, even if the pay during boom times could be high. Today, even though pay is going up, the scheduling is crushing drivers. The result is a shortage of truckers.
There are more problems that strike at the heart of our economy. The most obvious is semiconductors. Production of high-end chips has gone offshore to east Asia because of deliberate policy to disinvest in the hard process of making things. In addition, the firm that now controls the industry, Taiwan Semiconductor, holds a near monopoly position with a substantial technological lead and a track record in the 1990s and early 2000s of dumping chips at below cost.
Fortunately, policymakers have noticed. The Federal Reserve’s most recent Beige Book, a report on the economy that is published eight times a year, mentions “shortage” 80 times, and the FTC commissioner, Rohit Chopra, recently pointed out that shortages are slowing the economic recovery. The chair of the Surface Transportation Board, Martin Oberman, noted that railroads stripping down their operations to please Wall Street resulted in container congestions at US ports, a significant chokepoint for imports. And Congress is on the verge of funding tens of billions of dollars to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
Even business leaders are getting it. Chemical firms are asking regulators to act. And at last week’s Intermodal Association of North America’s Intermodal Expo, where representatives from the shipping, rail, ports and drayage industries spoke, one executive said, “Without fear of regulation, I don’t know what will motivate all stakeholders to be at the table.”
It is possible to fix our economy and our supply chains, if we choose to do so. Several times in the 20th century, Congress or the FTC undertook detailed studies of the firms in the economy. We need one of those again. At the same time, Congress should strengthen antitrust law, ban all large mergers, strictly control finance, and re-regulate our transportation industries.
Fundamentally, America has to move away from the goal of seeking cheap stuff made abroad for consumers in a low-wage economy. That means rearranging our hierarchies of power so finance, consulting and capital-light tech leaders became less important than people who know how to make things. The problem we have is shortages, so it’s time to put people in charge who value production.
“Israel” continues its pressure on Lebanon to make it give up the new boundary line and return to the old boundary line in order to resume the “indirect” negotiations, after limiting the maritime “dispute” to its initial area.
After the American company Halliburton announced in mid-September that it had won the bidding of oil and gas excavation in Karish field that is partially located in the area of the new Lebanese boundary line – which was announced before the cessation of the maritime negotiations rounds – “Israel” restarted talks yesterday, through its media, regarding details in the bidding related to the excavation and drilling operations, saying that such operations will begin soon, despite the Lebanese stance.
According to “Israel” Defense website, which, ironically, is specialized in security and military affairs, “Israeli” Prime Minister Naftali Bennet is not waiting for Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati to start gas excavation in Karish field, pointing out that the drilling operations are to start in the northern part of the field, where the Lebanese boundary line is, specifically in block nine [according to the old line].
The website said, in a clear provocative message, that the deal with the American company provides for drilling three to five wells to the north of the field, which is within the exclusive economic zone of Lebanon, according to Lebanese definition.
The website added that according to Intelligence Online, the deal between Halliburton and “Israel” was led by the head of the company’s business in Dubai Ziad Khadra, and another head in the company, Ahmad Kinawi, who lived in Dubai for four years. This poses more than a question about the role played by the Emirates on the side of the enemy against Lebanon.
What is the role of the Emirates in the “Israel”-Halliburton deal?
It’s expected that “Israel” will take advantage of the announced step to the maximum, to build on the Lebanese reaction its subsequent steps, whether by withdrawing or moving forward in moves that won’t be limited unless they are deterred. Nevertheless, “Israel” aims, in the current stage after the Lebanese Cabinet formation, at urging Lebanon to return to the negotiation rounds first, and moving back the Lebanese demands limit to square one, i.e. to the disputed area according to the old maritime borderline [of 860 km2], which is the borderline that had been agreed upon with the American side within a previously planned direction between the two sides to be a point of settlement with Lebanon.
Accordingly, “Israel” accepts that the solution be a compromise, which means that the two sides concede to reach a solution that won’t be imposed on any of them, even if the enemy’s acceptance of the negotiation has been imposed on it because of the deterring balance of power with Lebanon and the inability of “Israel” to take over the disputed region; otherwise it wouldn’t have resorted to negotiations and settlements.
However, “Israel” is unable to accept any settlement that implies concession by both sides, based on what Lebanon has [2290 Km2]. Any solution of settlement will grant Lebanon what it had been asking for, and what it is now asking for, with taking parts of some fields that had been specified by “Israel”. The enemy had distributed the excavation licenses in such fields on its companies along with American and Greek companies, after making sure that these fields contain tremendous deposits of natural gas.
How will Lebanon respond to the provocative “Israeli” action? Will it have a stance different from the previous one, or will it be enough for it to ask the US embassy about the meaning of the new “Israeli” announcement?
تواصل إسرائيل ضغوطها على لبنان لدفعه الى التراجع عن الخط الحدودي الجديد والعودة الى الخط القديم تمهيداً لاستئناف المفاوضات «غير المباشرة»، بعد حصر «التنازع» البحري في مساحته الابتدائية.
فبعدما أعلنت شركة «هاليبرتون» الأميركية، منتصف أيلول الماضي، فوزها بمناقصة التنقيب عن الغاز والنفط في حقل «كاريش» الذي يقع جزء منه في منطقة الخط الحدودي اللبناني الجديد، المعلن عنه قبل وقف جولات التفاوض البحري، عادت إسرائيل أمس، عبر إعلامها، إلى الحديث عن تفاصيل في المناقصة ترتبط بعمليات التنقيب والحفر التي قالت إنها ستبدأ قريباً، بمعزل عن الموقف اللبناني. وذكر موقع «إسرائيل ديفنس»، وهو للمفارقة متخصّص بالشؤون الأمنية والعسكرية، أن رئيس الحكومة الإسرائيلية نفتالي بينت لا ينتظر رئيس الحكومة اللبنانية نجيب ميقاتي ليبدأ التنقيب عن الغاز في حقل «كاريش»، مشيراً إلى أن عمليات الحفر ستبدأ في الجزء الشمالي من الحقل، حيث الحدود البحرية مع لبنان، وتحديداً البلوك ٩ (وفقاً للخط القديم). وأضاف الموقع، في رسالة استفزاز واضحة، إن الاتفاق مع الشركة الأميركية ينصّ على حفر بين ثلاث وخمس آبار شمال الحقل، أي داخل المنطقة الاقتصادية الخالصة للبنان وفقاً للتحديد اللبناني. وأضاف الموقع إنه وفقاً لـ«أنتليجنس أونلاين»، فإن الصفقة بين «إسرائيل» و«هاليبرتون» أدارها رئيس الأعمال الخاص بالشركة في دبي، زيد خضرا، ومسؤول آخر في الشركة هو أحمد كناوي الذي كان مقيماً في دبي في السنوات الأربع الماضية، ما يطرح أكثر من علامة استفهام حول الدور الإماراتي الى جانب العدو ضد لبنان.
ما هو دور الامارات في الاتفاق بين «إسرائيل» و«هاليبرتون»؟
ويتوقع أن تستغل «إسرائيل» الخطوة المعلن عنها الى حدّها الأقصى، لتبني على ردة الفعل اللبنانية خطواتها اللاحقة، سواء بالانكفاء أو التحرك قدماً لمزيد من الخطوات التي لن يحدّ منها إلا ردعها عن المزيد منها. مع ذلك، تهدف الخطوة الإسرائيلية، في هذه المرحلة بعد تشكيل الحكومة في لبنان، إلى الدفع باتجاه العودة إلى جولات التفاوض أولاً، وإلى إعادة سقف المطالب اللبنانية الى المربع الأول، أي الى المساحة المتنازع عليها وفقاً للخط البحري القديم (مساحة 860 كيلومتراً مربعاً)، وهو الخط المتفق عليه مع الجانب الأميركي ضمن توجّه مخطط له مسبقاً بين الجانبين ليكون محلاً للتسوية مع لبنان. وترضى إسرائيل بأن يكون الحل تسووياً، الأمر الذي يعني تنازل الجانبين للتوصل الى حل لا يفرض على أي منهما، وإن كان أصل قبول العدو بالتفاوض فُرض عليه فرضاً عليها تبعاً لميزان القوى الردعي مع لبنان وعدم قدرة «إسرائيل» على الاستئثار بالمنطقة محل التنازع، وإلا ما كانت لجأت الى المفاوضات والتسويات. إلا أنه يتعذّر على إسرائيل قبول أي تسوية، بمعنى تنازل من الجانبين، وفقاً لما يطال به لبنان (مساحة 2290 كيلومتراً مربعاً). إذ إن أي حل تسووي بناءً عليه، سيعطي لبنان ما كان يطالب به سابقاً، وجزءاً مما يطالب به الآن، مع قضم أجزاء من حقول حددتها إسرائيل في السابق ووزعت رخص التنقيب والحفر فيها على شركاتها وشركات أميركية ويونانية، بعدما جرى التيقّن من احتوائها على احتياطيات كبيرة من الغاز الطبيعي. ما هو الرد اللبناني على الخطوة الاستفزازية الإسرائيلية؟ وهل سيكون للبنان موقف مغاير عما سبق، أم يكتفي بالاستفسار من السفارة الأميركية عن معنى الإعلان الإسرائيلي الجديد؟
Esteban CarrilloForeign and Expatriates Minister Faysal Mikdad confirmed a ‘change’ in the international political environment towards Syria in comments to Syrian media on 30 September.
Mikdad’s comments come amidst an opening of reconciliation between West, Gulf states and Syria
In comments to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Mikdad said that “the change has reflected the achievements of the Syrian Arab Army, in cooperation with allies and friends, on the ground in the war against terrorism.”
On 20 September, Mikdad led a Syrian delegation to a UN meeting in New York, where he also met with Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Felix Plasencia Gonzalez, on strengthening bilateral ties between Syria and Venezuela.
Regarding the General Assembly meetings, Mikdad said that while some countries, referring to the United States, continue to practice ‘economic terrorism,’ there was nonetheless a clear ‘retreat’ of the ‘hostile stance’ on Syria.
The Foreign Minister, appointed by Bashar al-Assad in November 2020, added that while Syria welcomes the “openness to the return of normal relations” with the UN and Western nations, he made clear that Syria “will not submit to pressures nor accept any political conditions.”
He also expressed optimism and the prospect of improved relations and cooperation with Syria and its Arab neighbors, following talks held between Syria and Egypt at the New York General Assembly.
In recent years, a number of Arab states, many of whom stood against Syria during the US and Gulf backed war, have sought rapproachment with Damascus.
With the UAE currently leading reconciliation efforts between Gulf Arab states and their allies, even Saudi Arabia reopened secret lines of communication between itself and Damascus, hoping to rectify ties.
Meanwhile, a number of developments between Jordan and Syria have advanced the increased diplomacy and economic cooperation between the two.
Jordan announced on 27 September that the Jaber–Nassib border crossing between itself and Syria will be reopened two days from the date for both freight and travelers.
On 29 September, this main border crossing was opened as planned, and direct flights to Damascus resumed.
Lebanon’s General Security Chief Abbas Ibrahim toldThe Cradle last week that he ‘totally’ is in favor of ‘open borders with Syria.
In a severe blow to the destabilizing and terrorism sponsored by the CIA and its affiliates, the Iraqi security forces captured 25 terrorists all from the US-sponsored ISIS terrorist organization in several provinces.
Iraqi National Security Service forces managed to arrest 25 terrorists in a security operation that lasted several days in the so-called states of Nineveh, Dajleh (Tigris), Jazira, and Salah al-Din of ISIS. The terrorist organization calls itself (Islamist State in Iraq and Sham – Levant), and calls the sectors in which it operates as states following the lead of the ‘state of Israel’.
The Iraqi official media reporting the news said that the detainees confessed to being members of the terrorist organization and that they have committed a number of crimes against the civilians and Iraqi forces, adding that ‘all the terrorists were referred to the competent legal authorities to take fair measures against them.’
As the US and Turkey are recycling their terrorists from Iraq and Syria to other new fronts like the newly opened in Afghanistan, the Iraqi security in coordination with the Iraqi PMU have intensified their counter-terrorism operations. A joint force of the Popular Mobilization Units and the Iraqi security forces carried out a pre-emptive security operation to pursue the remnants of the ISIS organization on the island of Salah al-Din, where several dens and tunnels that were used by the organization’s members to hide and move on the island were destroyed.
This comes three days after a security operation carried out by the Iraqi PMU in coordination with the Iraqi National Security Service forces led to the eliminating of two ISIS terrorists in the Tarmiyah town in the Salah al-Din governorate north of the capital Baghdad, one of the eliminated ISIS terrorists was a suicide bomber.
It’s no secret anymore that the USA created these terrorist groups starting with the ‘Mujahideen’ in Afghanistan from who Al Qaeda emerged in the 80s of last century and it created the ISIS terrorist group where it trained them in special camps in Jordan and Turkey, and smuggled them into Syria and Iraq loaded with state of the art weapons, satellite communication devices, hundreds of machine-gun mounted brand new 4 x 4 Toyota pickup trucks, and provided them with top intelligence information to effect regime change in Syria and to return to Iraq after the withdrawal of the US troops from it.
Former US Secretary of State, the dinosaur politician traveling in his private jet preaching about the dangers of climate change John Kerry put it during a meeting with the so-called Syrian opposition leaders this way: ‘We saw ISIS growing, we saw them heading to Damascus, we thought Assad will be pressured to give (us) concessions, and instead, he (Assad) brought Russia in and now it’s a different situation.
We saw ISIS growing and threatening Assad, he called in Russia and it’s a different situation now.’ ~John Kerry, he’s not in prison!
Now you know why Trump killed Iranian Revered General Qassim Soleimani and Deputy Commander of the Iraqi PMU Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis?
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Tel Aviv is not satisfied with this role and its effective military, intelligence, media, and economic presence in Azerbaijan, but it seeks to expand the scope of this influence in the Caucasus region through its presence in Georgia, which is also close to Iran.
The following is the English translation from Arabic of the latest article by Turkish career journalistHusni Mahali he published in the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen news site Al-Mayadeen Net:
Relations between Iran and Azerbaijan are experiencing coolness and sometimes noticeable tension, due to mutual accusations by officials of the two countries, led by President Ilham Aliyev, who spoke of “the incursion of Iranian military vehicles into Azerbaijani territory, during Iranian military maneuvers near the common border,” which was denied by the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry Saeed Khatibzadeh.
Apathy and tension appeared during the Azerbaijani-Armenian war last year, when information spoke of extensive and intensive Israeli support for the Azerbaijani army, along with Turkish support, which contributed to the victory achieved by the Azerbaijani army.
This victory, to which Tel Aviv contributed by selling Baku drones and spy technology operating via Israeli satellites, was a sufficient reason for further coordination and cooperation between the two ‘countries,’ where the press information talked about Israel establishing bases and radar stations near the border with Iran to monitor Iranian military movements and to monitor Iranian missiles if they are launched towards “Israel”, meanwhile, Israeli companies are working on establishing agricultural and industrial projects similar to the system of Jewish settlements in southern Azerbaijan, 50 km from the border with Iran.
This disturbs Tehran, which sees this Israeli presence, in its various military and intelligence forms, as a threat to its national security, especially with the information that talks about the role of the Mossad in provoking the nationalist sentiments of the Azerbaijani citizens of Iran, who live near the borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan, who number about thirty million, compared to eight million, the population of Azerbaijan.
This Israeli provocation is accompanied by some Turkish nationalist circles inciting the Azeris of Iran, given that they are of Turkish origin, noting that at least 90% of them are Shiites, and their loyalty is to the Iranian state, while the citizens of Azerbaijan are 80% of them Shiites, and they do not hide their discomfort, rather, they are concerned about provocative statements in the Azerbaijani media and talk about Israeli conspiracy from their lands against Iran.
Some Turkish nationalist circles had launched a media campaign against Iran during the Karabakh war, and talked about Iranian military support for Armenia during this war, in an attempt to provoke the nationalist feeling of the Azeris, while the Turkish-backed Azerbaijani authorities continue to obstruct the passage of Iranian trains and trucks transporting Azerbaijani and Russian goods arriving in Iran through the Caspian Sea on their way to Armenia, without that bothering President Ilham Aliyev, who is proud of his close relations with Tel Aviv, some influential Jewish businessmen in Baku, including Leonid Tayrov, Leonid Goldstein, Talman Ismailov and Aras Aglararv, who have Azerbaijani, Israeli and Russian citizenship, and some of them are American, and they all have close relations with influential Russian Jews in Moscow.
They play an influential role in developing relations between Azerbaijan and “Israel” in all fields, the most important of which are military and intelligence, as Tel Aviv sells one billion dollars annually in arms and military equipment to Azerbaijan. They also mediate between Tel Aviv and Ankara, as is the case with Ukrainian President Zalensky, who is also a Jew, and has a close relationship with “Israel” and the Jewish lobby organizations in America. In one of his leaked speeches, President Aliyev admitted the depth of the relationship with Tel Aviv, and said, “Eighty percent of the relations between the two ‘countries’ are underground,” meaning that they are hidden.
Azerbaijan covers 60% of Israel’s need for oil, which reaches the Turkish port of Ceyhan by pipelines and is transported to the Haifa port by oil tankers, whose owners are said to be the son of (Turkish) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the son of former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
Tel Aviv is not satisfied with this role and its effective military, intelligence, media, and economic presence in Azerbaijan, but it seeks to expand the scope of this influence in the Caucasus region through its presence in Georgia, which is also close to Iran, the biggest concern of Tel Aviv, which was benefiting from its extensive intelligence presence in Afghanistan During the American occupation there. The information talks about Tel Aviv’s efforts to establish Israeli espionage stations in Georgia, whose goal is to monitor Iranian military movements and eavesdrop on Iranian communications, which is the task carried out by the American Koracik base in southeastern Turkey, and its main task is to inform Tel Aviv as soon as any Iranian missile is launched towards “Israel” so that the Iron Dome can confront it before it enters Palestinian airspace.
The information also speaks of Israeli and Turkish efforts to achieve reconciliation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, to contribute to the formation of a new bloc in the Caucasus region that might target Iran, and even Russia, which together seek to confront such a move.
It seems clear that this bothers Moscow, especially after the establishment of Turkish military bases in Azerbaijan, and Ankara’s efforts to develop its relations with Georgia, and its continued refusal to the Crimean annexation to Russia, and its continued development of military relations with Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania, which are the countries bordering the Black Sea, this disturbs Moscow, which is watching the movements of Tel Aviv and Ankara, separately, in the Islamic republics of Central Asia, Russia’s backyard, and the neighbors of Iran and Afghanistan together!
And the last bet remains on the developments of the next stage, and the prospects for Turkish policy in the future after the last Sochi summit and all its details are directly or indirectly related to the calculations of “Israel” in the region, and its main target is undoubtedly Iran, which has obstructed and impeded its projects in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, the Gulf, and other places in the world!
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Tension between Iran and Azerbaijan. Look for Israel.
Jordan is re-opening its border crossing with Syria and resuming flights to Damascus. In Syria, more armed groups lay down their weapons but while these positive developments occur, the US hunkers down to inflict more pain.
On September 29, Jordan’s Nassib border crossing to Syria re-opened, meaning a resumption not only of travel but of trade between the two nations. In early October, Royal Jordanian will start flying again to Syria’s capital.
In Syria’s south, after years of the government and allied attempts to restore full peace, the last armed groups have finally laid down their weapons in Dara’a, which journalist Vanessa Beeley wrote about after her recent return there.
And while the Biden administration recently changed talking heads for a Syria related diplomatic position, little else has altered regarding America’s position on Syria.
Sanctions against the Syrian people have continued under Biden, and the at least 900 US troops illegally occupying Syria remain.
In their September 13 meeting in Moscow, Presidents Assad and Putin made clear that while Syria continues to work towards restoring stability, doing so has been hampered by the presence of foreign troops not invited by the Syrian government and not under a mandate of the UN.
While speaking diplomatically, it is clear they meant the US and Turkish troops occupying areas of Syria, which—along with the proxy forces they support—bring the opposite of peace to Syrians.
Yet, type “Syria” into your search engine of choice and you will still come across screaming headlines of inexplicable “violence” in Syria, and that Syria is “not safe” for the return of refugees. Many of these recent claims emanate from a recent update from the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria.
But this is not true. In fact since September 2015, nearly 1 million Syrians have returned to Syria, with another nearly 1.4 million internally displaced refugees re-settling, according to the September 27, 2021 bulletin of the Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides and Control of the Movement of Refugees.
What the delusional articles, omit are the real factors that make life in Syria difficult, and dangerous: the continued presence of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Idlib, terrorizing the population and firing on civilian areas in surrounding Hama and Aleppo provinces; and the deadly Western sanctions against Syrians, among still other preventable factors.
Starving and thieving Syria
The latest from the UN commission refers to the fuel shortages and food insecurity without a mention of the many brutal Western sanctions against Syrians, once again showing the supposed impartiality of the UN is non-existent.
I have written repeatedly about the deadly impact of sanctions, noting that they impact Syria’s ability to import medicines or the raw materials needed to manufacture them, medical equipment, machines and materials needed to for prosthetics, among other things.
The food insecurity mentioned by the UN commission comes as a direct result of sanctions which, “cripple a state’s economy; disrupt the availability of food, medicines, drinking water, and sanitation supplies; interfere with the functioning of health and education systems; and undermine people’s ability to work.”
Deliberating causing the devaluing of the Syrian pound (as US envoy James Jeffrey boasted about) is not targeting the Syrian government, it is targeting the Syrian people. Western leadership have blatantly said sanctions will continue until Assad is deposed.
More recently, journalist Dan Kovalik was in Syria. He noted that, “10 years ago, abject poverty in Syria affected less than one percent of the population. By 2015, this had risen to 35 percent of the population. The rise in food prices – up 209 percent in the last year – is also noted.”
Indeed, the comparison of pre-war Syria and lack of abject poverty then rings true to what Syrians have told me over and over again in my visits to their country since 2014: that they were living well, in safety, and in harmony.
As for the increasingly debilitating effects of the sanctions, I saw life get increasingly more expensive. Syrians got more desperate during the 6 months I spent there last year, and again even more so this May and June, with skyrocketing prices meaning Syrians, in spite of working multiple jobs, can’t afford to put food on the table.
Under the Biden administration, the illegal US forces continue to pillage Syrian oil. Last year, I wrote about this theft of around $30 million a month. In March 2021, Syria’s petroleum minister compared the illegal US forces to “pirates” for plundering Syria’s oil, saying the US occupation inflicted over $92 billion in damage on Syria’s petroleum sector.
Turkish-backed terrorists imprison, torture and kill civilians (including children) in northeastern Syria, with Turkish forces themselves routinely shelling Syrian villages. Meanwhile, before his meeting with President Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan sent still thousands more troops into Syria.
These are all factors contributing further to Syrians’ hellish circumstances and poverty, as well as factors omitted by most media and UN reports on Syria.
Peace-bringing reconciliation initiatives ignored
When armed groups reconcile with the state, laying down their weapons, they’re largely ignored by Western leaders, media and the UN.
Indeed, the same UN report mentioned earlier claimed that under Assad’s leadership there seems to be, “no moves to unite the country or seek reconciliation.”
Reconciliations have been ongoing since the Reconciliation ministry was established in 2012. Although the process is not perfect—the state cannot guarantee that armed groups who promise to cease violence against the state and population will adhere to their word—it is still the most peaceful option of enabling armed Syrian men to reintegrate into society, if they so choose.
How would America deal with such men on US soil? Kill them without blinking, most likely.
I interviewed the Minister of Reconciliation in 2014 and 2017, after the successes of returning peace to Homs, Aleppo, Madaya, al-Waer, among others.
The objectives of Reconciliation are the obvious restoration of security and enabling Syrians to return to their lives. But also, according to Minister Haidar, helping Syrians resolve their suffering in all respects: “Their security and safety, the economy, social services, education, the large number of martyrs and injured, the kidnapped, the missing, the internally-displaced… We are trying to find a solution to each one of these cases. That is the deepest meaning of ‘reconciliation’: to return people to their normal lives.”
In our 2017 conversation, I asked the Minister whether Syria had any outside support for Reconciliation. Only, he said, from countries who are friends of Syria.
He said even the UN wasn’t interested.
“The UN during this period was siding with the Western policies, and not mentioning the achievement that the Syrian government has reached from these efforts. Western governments were against this project because it considered it a victory for the Syrian government and a major pillar for the unity of the Syrian people and the Syrian territories.”
At the end of our conversation, he made one particularly poignant point: “Most of the people that support the reconciliation process are the martyred’s families. For example, I was in a Latakia suburb and there I met a mother of four martyrs. She said, ‘I lost 4 children and I don’t want other mothers to suffer what I suffered.’”
Incidentally, the minister is also father of a martyr: His son was gunned down by terrorists in 2012, in what Haidar described as an attempt to assassinate himself.
Dara’a, a long-awaited reconciliation
The UN commission called the restoration of peace to Dara’a al-Balad an unfolding tragedy. That’s right, it is utterly tragic that armed extremists who have shelled, killed and maimed civilians for years are finally laying down their weapons.
As Vanessa Beeley wrote, “The armed groups that had committed multiple war crimes and atrocities against Syrian civilians and anti-terrorism armed forces had no intention of relinquishing their campaign of retaliatory crimes against anyone they considered to be loyal to the Syrian government and state. A vicious offensive was unleashed by these extremist gangs formerly associated with terrorist Al Qaeda and ISIS factions in the southern region.”
Further, it is truly tragic (sarcasm) that those terrorists can no longer shell and snipe the state hospital, preventing civilians from getting medical care, as they have done for years.
As I wrote, in May 2018 before Daraa was fully liberated, in a hired taxi I went to areas which were under fire from terrorists, and took a perilous high speed ride to the state hospital, down a road exposed to terrorist sniping from less than 100 metres away.
The hospital was battered and partially destroyed from terrorists’ mortars, and mostly empty of patients. The director showed me destroyed wards and off-limits areas due to high risk of snipers.
In that article I noted that upon my return months later, I was able to see just how close the near terrorist headquarters had been to the hospital: 50 metres away, hence the extreme risk of being shot while inside the hospital.
So yes, UN and Western media, shed your tears that another reign of terror has come to an end.
And keep ignoring the brutal Western sanctions as you churn out more war propaganda against the Syrian people and ignore positive developments on the ground. Because you care so much for the Syrian people…
