Thursday, 3 January 2019

سورية في العام 2019: تنتصر على آفتين وتستعيدُ ميزتين



ديسمبر 31, 2018

د. وفيق إبراهيم

هذا ليس تبصيراً لمشعوذ يتلاعب بالضعف البشري أمام الغيب، فالتحليل السياسي المنطقي يستند عادة الى معطيات تنأى عن الدعاية السياسية التي تشبه هواء يتبدّدُ في الفضاء البعيد، ولا يُخلفُ أثراً، فعندما يقال إن الدولة السورية أجهضت آفتين وبيلَتين وهما الإرهاب المدعوم داخلياً وعربياً وإقليمياً ودولياً وأرغمت الدور الأميركي الضخم للعودة الى اسلوب «القيادة من الخلف».

فهذه مسائل واضحة لا تحتاج لكبير جهد للاقتناع بها.

لجهة الإرهاب، تكفي العودة الى تطوره في الساحة السورية، من حالة التمظهر بمطالب سياسية خلف متظاهرين تأثروا بمواعظ لأئمة مساجد مرتبطين بالوهابية فكراً وتمويلاً الى مرحلة «إجرامية» إرهابية لم تُفرِق في القتل بين طفل وراشد ولم تميّز في الاغتصاب بين حدثة ومراهقة وعجوز واستجلبت من اقصى الأرض في الصين وروسيا وجنوب شرق آسيا وأميركا واوروبا والشرق الأوسط العربي والاقليمي وشمال أفريقيا وأنحائها المختلفة المتطرفين المنتمين الى تنظيمات اسلامية وبمئات الآلاف، فهذه ليست اعمال تطوّع. إنها نتيجة لمشروع صادر عن جهة أميركية متمكنة جمعت بين القدرة العالمية والدراسات الأكاديمية وتورّط دول الإقليم التابعة لها بأدوار مختلفة كانت تبدو متباينة، أو هكذا أراد الأميركيون لها أن تكون مع عقيدة وهابية ترفض الآخر المختلف عنها وتدعو الى قتله، وبإشراف عسكري أميركي مباشر فتح لجحافل هذا الإرهاب الحدود السياسية مع تركيا وقطر والعراق، ولبنان لمدة قصيرة.

وإلا كيف دخل أكثر من مئة ألف إرهابي الى سورية؟ دخلوها بإشراف أميركي جدي وبرعاية كاملة من المخابرات التركية والأردنية والسعودية والقطرية والاماراتية وبما يتلاءم مع قدرات كل منها.

استمر ضغط هذه القوى في الميدان السوري منذ 2012 وحتى الآن، من دون توقف وبمشروع واحد كان يتبدّل حسب موازين القوى، لكنه ابتدأ بمحاولات إسقاط الدولة ونظامها السياسي. وعندما اصطدم بقوة الجيش العربي السوري، عرف أن الاستيلاء على الدولة مستحيل، فذهب نحو سياسة التفتيت باستيلاد دويلات للإرهاب في شرق الفرات ومناطق درعا وصولاً الى الحدود الأردنية آملين من الأتراك رعاية دويلات سورية في الشمال والشمال الغربي ودافعين الأكراد نحو دولة مستقلة شرق الفرات.

ماذا كانت النتيجة؟

أطاح الجيش العربي السوري بكل الاحلام الأميركية في وسط البلاد وجنوبها وبعض أنحاء الشمال فدمّر مواقع الإرهاب وخطوط حركته العسكرية والاقتصادية خانقاً مشروعه السياسي بالخلافة الإسلامية المزعومة الذي كان يتصدر المشاهد الكبرى في الإعلام العالمي والبرهان موجود في تحرير 75 من مساحة سورية، وهذه المعلومات التي لا لبس فيها إنما جرى إنجازها على الرغم من الدعم الذي يتلقاه هذا الإرهاب من تواطؤ أميركي مكشوف كان يبيح له نقل النفط الى تركيا وبعض أنحاء العراق حين كان بيد الإرهابيين والأردن ولبنان سامحاً له بجلب السلاح والإرهابيين علناً، وكان يساعده حتى بقصف مواقع للجيش السوري زاعماً أن القصف سببه خطأ تقني.

ونتيجة لتراجع دور الإرهاب مع تعذر الاستمرار بالمراهنة الكاملة على الكرد، وذلك لاعادة جذب تركيا الى المحور الأميركي، اعلن الرئيس الأميركي ترامب عن سحب قوات بلاده من سورية في غضون مدة أقصاها ثلاثة اشهر، وكي يعاود تفجير الازمة السورية بآليات جديدة دعا تركيا للدخول الى شرق الفرات لتطهيره من الإرهاب موافقاً في الوقت نفسه على اهداء السلاح الأميركي في هذه المنطقة للأكراد، وذلك في حركة أميركية مكشوفة لتوفير وقود للمعارك المقبلة بين أكراد وأتراك وداعش والدولة السورية وتحالفاتها.

يبدو أن سورية نجحت ببراعة في تدمير الإرهاب على مستويي المشروع والبنية العسكرية.

وفرضت على الأميركيين مواكبة تدمير هذا الإرهاب بتراجعٍ مماثلٍ مع الاتجاه الى تطبيق نظرية «القيادة من الخلف» والتعاون بالقصف الجوي مع وسائلها الجديدة وهي تركيا.

ما فعلته سورية لا تستطيع أي دولة في الشرق الأوسط أن تفعل مثيلاً له، خصوصاً على مستوى وحدة شعبها وصلابة مؤسساتها السياسية وبسالة جيشها وحسن تدبّرها للتحالفات الوازنة والآمنة.

وهذا ما يضعها في خانة الدول المرشحة بقوة لتحقيق سيادتها الكاملة في 2019 استناداً إلى ما أنجزته في مرحلة 2011 2018 بالإضافة الى قدرتها المرتقبة على اداء دور عربي وبالتالي إقليمي.

فهناك اليوم في المنطقة مشهدان في المشرق العربي: انتصار سورية وهزيمة السعودية والإمارات وانكفاء مصر الى أسوأ المراحل في تاريخها، الى جانب قطر المحاصرة واليمن الجريح والعراق الباحث بجهد عن وحدته الداخلية.

ألا تفسر هذه المشاهد عودة الأعراب الى دمشق يستظلون بها من الأخطار الإقليمية والدولية، فآل سعود يعانون من انهيار أدوارهم مرعوبين من المخاطر الداخلية، وكذلك آل زايد، أما آل خليفة في البحرين فيعرفون ان مساحة جزيرتهم التي لا تتعدّى 500 كيلومتر مربع تحتاج الى ست قواعد عسكرية أجنبية لحمايتها، وهي قواعد أميركية فرنسية وبريطانية وسعودية وقوات مجلس التعاون ومصر، وهناك قاعدة إسرائيلية سرية لم يُكشف أمرها بعد.

ولأن هذه المعطيات هي معلومات يعرفها الجميع وليست مجرد اتهامات، فإن استرجاع سورية لكامل سيادتها إنما يتواكب مع استعادتها دورها العربي وتالياً الإقليمي، فالانسحاب الأميركي في سورية وأفغانستان وإصرارها على وقف حرب اليمن ليست إلا مؤشرات تضع بلدان الشرق العربي أمام حقيقة الدور السوري الإقليمي المطلوب بقوة في ميدان ساقط وفارغ سياسياً وعسكرياً ومتآمر إسرائيلياً.

وهكذا تنحو سورية الى استرداد محوريتها على وقع صراع جديد مع البديل الأميركي للإرهاب وهو مشروع أردوغان لإعادة انتاج الدولة العثمانية ولن يكون أقوى من المشروع الإرهابي الذي كان يضم في حلقاته المتنوّعة أردوغان وشركاه والمعلم الأميركي على السواء.

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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Fired School Employee Sues Over Israel Loyalty Oath



A Texas school employee has sued her school district because it fired her after she refused to sign a loyalty oath to Israel, as Marjorie Cohn reports.
By Marjorie Cohn
Truthout
In a return to the bad old days of McCarthyism, Bahia Amawi, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, lost her Texas elementary school job after refusing to pledge in writing that she would not participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Earlier this month, Amawi sued the school district that fired her.
The BDS movement against Israel has become a hot button issue in the closing month of 2018. A bipartisan group of senators tried to attach the Israel Anti-Boycott Act to the unanimous spending bill that Trump almost signed to avoid the current government shutdown. Meanwhile, Donorbox, a US software company, blocked the BDS fundraising account at the behest of a pro-Israel group.
“The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian – or McCarthyite – self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading,” Glenn Greenwald wrote at The Intercept.
Amwai: Knows firsthand oppression. (DemocracyNow/YouTube)
On Dec. 12, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit on Amawi’s behalf in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas against Pflugerville Independent School District, alleging that Texas’ law requiring the oath violates the First Amendment. Amawi’s complaint says the law constitutes an impermissible attempt “to impose an ideological litmus test or compel speech related to government contractors’ political beliefs, associations, and expressions.”
Amawi had contracted with the school district for nine years to work with students with autism and developmental disabilities in Austin. This fall, for the first time, Amawi was required to sign an oath that she would not boycott Israel. When she refused to sign it, she was fired.
“The point of boycotting any product that supports Israel is to put pressure on the Israeli government to change its treatment, the inhumane treatment, of the Palestinian people,” Amawi explained. “Having grown up as a Palestinian, I know firsthand the oppression and the struggle that Palestinians face on a daily basis.”

BDS

The BDS movement was launched by representatives of Palestinian civil society in 2005, calling upon “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era … [including] embargoes and sanctions against Israel.”
This call specified that “these non-violent punitive measures” should last until Israel fully complies with international law by (1) ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the barrier wall; (2) recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3) respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.
Even though it is a nonviolent movement, Israel sees BDS as a threat to its hegemony over the Palestinians. Israel illegally occupies Palestinian territories, maintaining effective control over Gaza’s land, airspace, seaport, electricity, water, telecommunications and population registry. Israel deprives Gazans of food, medicine, fuel and basic services, and continues to build illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Vikomerson: No progress without pressure on Israel. (Twitter)
“There will not be progress toward a just peace without pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian rights,” said Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace. “Bringing about that pressure, through a global grassroots mobilization, is exactly what BDS is about.”
After Amawi’s firing, The New York Timeseditorial board wrote,
“It’s not just Israel’s adversaries who find the [BDS] movement appealing. Many devoted supporters of Israel, including many American Jews, oppose the occupation of the West Bank and refuse to buy products of the settlements in occupied territories. Their right to protest in this way must be vigorously defended.”
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of BDS, said in an email to The New York Times, “Having lost many battles for hearts and minds at the grass-roots level, Israel has adopted since 2014 a new strategy to criminalize support for BDS from the top” in order to “shield Israel from accountability.”
Barghouti called Shurat HaDin, the group behind the Donorbox action blocking the BDS account, a “repressive organization with clear connections to the far-right Israeli government” that is “engaging in McCarthyite … tactics … in a desperate attempt to undermine our ability to challenge Israel’s regime of apartheid and oppression.”
Twenty-six U.S. states have anti-BDS laws and 13 others are pending. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would have to be reintroduced when the new Congress convenes in January, was supported by Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California) opposed the bill.

Boycotts’ 1st Amendment Protection

The law that triggered Amawi’s firing prohibits the State of Texas from entering into government contracts with companies, including sole proprietorships, that boycott Israel. It defines “boycott Israel” to include “refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict harm on, or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory.”
Boycotts are a constitutionally protected form of speech, assembly and association. They have long been used to oppose injustice and urge political change. The Supreme Court has held that “speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection.” The high court ruled that advocating and supporting boycotts “to bring about political, social, and economic change” – like boycotts of Israel – are indisputably protected by the First Amendment.
The National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote in a legal memorandum challenging anti-BDS legislation in New York that such laws “harken back to the McCarthy era when the state sought to deny the right to earn a livelihood to those who express controversial political views.” The memo says, “The courts long ago found such McCarthy-era legislation to be at war with the First Amendment,” as they “unconstitutionally target core political speech activities and infringe on the freedom to express political beliefs.”
Barghouti: McCarthyite tactics.  (YouTube/BBC)
Even staff members at the right-wing Anti-Defamation League (ADL) opposed anti-BDS laws and admitted they are unconstitutional. Although the leadership officially favors outlawing BDS, ADL staff wrote in an internal 2016 memo that anti-BDS laws divert “community resources to an ineffective, unworkable, and unconstitutional endeavor.”
Greenwald cited the grave danger anti-BDS laws pose to freedom of speech, tweeting, “The proliferation of these laws – where US citizens are barred from work or contracts unless they vow not to boycott Israel – is the single greatest free speech threat in the US.”
Demonstrating the incongruity of allowing Amawi to boycott any entity but Israel, Greenwald noted, “In order to continue to work, Amawi would be perfectly free to engage in any political activism against her own country, participate in an economic boycott of any state or city within the US, or work against the policies of any other government in the world — except Israel.”
The US government remains Israel’s lap dog on the world stage. On December 5 the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. The United States opposed the resolution.
Meanwhile, the BDS movement continues to achieve victories. After more than 24,000 people complained to HSBC, the banking giant pulled out its investments in Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. Elbit sells military equipment, including drones, aircraft, artillery and weapon control systems to the Israeli army, US Air Force and British Royal Air Force. It also provides surveillance equipment to the US Customs and Border Protection agency.
On the legal front, the ACLU has mounted successful court challenges to anti-BDS laws in Kansas and Arizona and has filed litigation in Arkansas and Texas.
Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and an advisory board member of Veterans for Peace. Her latest book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, was recently published in an updated second edition.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Israel Is Bad for America

By Philip Giraldi
Source
Bret-Stephens2-600x375_dfb79
American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and out-and-out lies. The public, though poorly informed on most issues as a result, has generally figured out that it is being hoodwinked and trust in the Fourth Estate has plummeted over the past twenty years. The skepticism about what is being reported has enabled President Donald Trump and other politicians to evade serious questions about policy by claiming that what is being reported is little more than “fake news.”
No news is more fake than the reporting in the U.S. media that relates to the state of Israel. Former Illinois congressman Paul Findley in his seminal book They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby observed that nearly all the foreign press correspondents working out of Israel are Jewish while most of the editors that they report to at news desks are also Jews, guaranteeing that the articles that eventually surface in the newspapers will be carefully constructed to minimize any criticism of the Jewish state. The same goes for television news, particularly on cable news stations like CNN.
A particularly galling aspect of the sanitization of news reports regarding Israel is the underlying assumption that Israelis share American values and interests, to include freedom and democracy. This leads to the perception that Israelis are just like Americans with Israel’s enemies being America’s enemies. Given that, it is natural to believe that the United States and Israel are permanent allies and friends and that it is in the U.S. interest to do whatever is necessary to support Israel, including providing billions of dollars in aid to a country that is already wealthy as well as unlimited political cover in international bodies like the United Nations.
That bogus but nevertheless seemingly eternal bond is essentially the point from which a December 26th op-ed in The New York Times departs. The piece is by one of the Times’ resident opinion writers Bret Stephens and is entitled Donald Trump is Bad for Israel.
Stephens gets to the point rather quickly, claiming that “The president has abruptly undermined Israel’s security following a phone call with an Islamist strongman in Turkey. So much for the idea, common on the right, that this is the most pro-Israel administration ever. I write this as someone who supported Trump moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who praised his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as courageous and correct. I also would have opposed the president’s decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria under nearly any circumstances. Contrary to the invidious myth that neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds, maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on the Levant.”
The beauty of Stephens overwrought prose is that the careful reader might realize from the git-go that the argument being promoted makes no sense. Bret has a big heart for the Kurds but the Palestinians are invisible in his piece while his knowledge of other developments in the Middle East is superficial. First of all, the phone call with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had nothing to do with “undermining Israel’s security.” It concerned the northern border of Syria, which Turkey shares, and arrangements for working with the Kurds, which is a vital interest for both Ankara and Washington. And it might be added that from a U.S. national security point of view Turkey is an essential partner for the United States in the region while Israel is not, no matter what it pretends to be.
Stephens then goes on to demonstrate what he claims to be a libel, that for him and other neocons Israel always comes first, an odd assertion given the fact that he spends 80% of his article discussing what is or isn’t good for Israel. He supports the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem, the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which were applauded in Israel but which are extremely damaging to American interests. He attacks the planned withdrawal from Syria because it is a “core interest” for the U.S., which is complete nonsense.
Contrary to Stephens’ no evidence assertion, Russia and Iran have neither the resources nor the desire to “consolidate[e] their grip on the Levant” while it is the United States has no right and no real interest to “maintain leverage” on Syria by invading and occupying the country. But, of course, invading and occupying are practices that Israel is good at, so Stephens’ brain fart on the issue can perhaps be attributed to confusion over whose bad policies he was defending. Stephens also demonstrate confusion over his insistence that the U.S. must “resist foreign aggressors…the Russians and Iranians in Syria in this decade,” suggesting that he is unaware that both nations are providing assistance at the request of the legitimate government in Damascus. It is the U.S. and Israel that are the aggressors in Syria.
Stephens then looks at the situation from the “Israeli standpoint,” which is presumably is easy for him to do as that is how he looks at everything given the fact that he is far more concerned about Israel’s interests than those of the United States. Indeed, all of his opinions are based on the assumption that U.S. policy should be supportive of a rightwing Israeli government, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has recently been indicted for corruption and has called for an early election to subvert the process.
Bret finally comes to the point, writing that “What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a president.”
Stephens then expands on what it means to be liberal-international: “It means we should oppose militant religious fundamentalism, whether it is Wahhabis in Riyadh or Khomeinists in Tehran or Muslim Brothers in Cairo and Ankara. It means we should advocate human rights, civil liberties, and democratic institutions, in that order.”
Bret also throws America’s two most recent presidents under the bus in his jeremiad, saying “During the eight years of the Obama presidency, I thought U.S. policy toward Israel — the hectoring, the incompetent diplomatic interventions, the moral equivocations, the Iran deal, the backstabbing at the U.N. — couldn’t get worse. As with so much else, Donald Trump succeeds in making his predecessors look good.” He then asks “Is any of this good for Israel?” and he answers “no.”
Bret Stephens in his complaining reveals himself to be undeniably all about Israel, but consider what he is actually saying. He claims to be against “militant religious fundamentalism,” but isn’t that what Israeli Zionism is all about, with more than a dash of racism and fanaticism thrown in for good measure? One Israeli Chief Rabbi has called black people “monkeys” while another has declared that gentiles cannot live in Israel. Right-wing religious fundamentalist parties currently are in power with Netanyahu and are policy making for the Israeli Government: Shas, Jewish Home, and United Torah Judaism. None of them could be regarded as a moderating influence on their thuggish serial financial lawbreaker Prime Minister.
And isn’t Israel’s record on human rights and civil liberties among the worst in the world? Here is the Human Rights Watch’s assessment of Israel:
“Israel maintains entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally. Its 50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza involves systematic rights abuses, including collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force, and prolonged administrative detention without charge or trial for hundreds. It builds and supports illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, expropriating Palestinian land and imposing burdens on Palestinians but not on settlers, restricting their access to basic services and making it nearly impossible for them to build in much of the West Bank without risking demolition. Israel’s decade-long closure of Gaza, supported by Egypt, severely restricts the movement of people and goods, with devastating humanitarian impact.”
Israel, if one is considering the entire population under its rule, is among the most undemocratic states that chooses to call itself democratic. Much of the population living in lands that Israel claims cannot vote, they have no freedom of movement in their homeland, and they have no right of return to homes that they were forced to abandon. Israeli army snipers blithely shoot unarmed demonstrators while Netanyahu’s government kills, beats and imprisons children. And the Jewish state does not even operate very democratically even inside Israel itself, with special rights for Jewish citizens and areas and whole towns where Muslims or Christians are not allowed to buy property or reside.
It is time for American Jews like Bret Stephens to come to the realization that not everything that is good for Israel is good for the U.S. The strategic interests of the two countries, if they were openly discussed in either the media or in congress, would be seen to be often in direct conflict. Somehow in Stephens’ twisted mind the 1948 theft of Palestinian lands and the imposition of an apartheid system to control the people is in some way representative of a liberal world order.
If one were to suggest that Stephens should move to Israel since his primary loyalty clearly lies there, there would be accusations of anti-Semitism, but in a sense, it is far better to have him stick around blathering from the pulpit of The New York Times. When he writes so ineptly about how Donald Trump Is Bad for Israel the real message that comes through loud and clear is how bad Israel is for America.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

فخامة الرئيس… المطلوب تغيير اتجاه دفة الدولة… منعاً للانهيار والانتحار



ديسمبر 31, 2018

ناصر قنديل

– أتوجّه إليك فخامة الرئيس بهذه الرسالة التي تعبر عما يختلج نفوس الكثيرين من الذين آمنوا بصدق مسعاك لبناء دولة مدنية والسير بخطى حثيثة لإصلاح نظامنا الفاسد، ووثقوا بأنك فرصة ربما لن تتكرر بسهولة لتكون لنا دولة قوية قادرة، ودولة مؤسسات وقانون يتساوى فيهما الناس في الحقوق الواجبات، ومجتمع يتعافى من العصبيات ويتماسك في ظل هوية وطنية تتعاظم مكانتها في نفوس أبنائه، وتتعزّز وحدته الوطنية، ورسموا في ذهنهم صورة عما سيكون مع رئاستكم للدولة من إخراج لاتفاق الطائف من كونه إطاراً للمحاصصات الطائفية ليتحوّل خريطة طريق نحو بناء الدولة، وفقاً لما نصّ عليه من سعي لإلغاء الطائفية، وإعادة صياغة دور لبنان في المنطقة انطلاقاً من علاقة لبنانية سورية تتخطى كل الأمراض والعقد والتلاعب السياسي والمصلحي، لكون هذه العلاقة وفقاً لاتفاق الوفاق الوطني في الطائف الركن الأساس في هوية لبنان العربية، ولكون المصالح الاقتصادية اللبنانية تبدأ وتنتهي عند الإجابة عن سؤال ماهية العلاقة بالعمق الجغرافي الذي تمثله سورية، وحجم وعود إعادة الإعمار فيها، وموقعها المفصلي جغرافيا كرئة يتنفس عبرها الاقتصاد اللبناني، عدا عن الحاجة الملحّة في حلول شاملة ونوعية لملف النازحين لا تفي به إلا بعلاقة متعافية بين لبنان وسورية.

– ها نحن فخامة الرئيس، أمام استحقاقين يتجمّعان معاً يطال كل واحد منهما كشف حساب حول عنوان من عنوانَيْ بناء الدولة والعلاقة اللبنانية السورية. وفي كليهما نشعر أن بلدنا يسير بالاتجاه العكسي لما كانت عليه آمالنا وتطلعاتنا ووعد وصولكم إلى رئاسة الجمهورية، وليس سواكم من يستطيع تصويب المسار، بعدما اختبرتم الفرضيات التي ظننتم أنها تصون لبنان، وتحقق استقراره وتقدمه نحو مشروع الدولة، وتضع العلاقة بين لبنان وسورية حيث يجب أن تكون، والقضية بالتأكيد ليست شأناً تقنياً في العنوانين، بل فعل ثقافة وسياسة وتوجهات ورسم خريطة أولويات، فخلال سنتين من عهدكم كان الجهد على إنتاج قانون للانتخابات النيابية أعقبته الانتخابات ومساعي تشكيل الحكومة، وكانت إدارة للعلاقة مع سورية تتظلّل ما سُمّي بخيار النأي بالنفس، وخير طريقة للحكم على صواب الخيار من عدمه هو ما حصدناه. وها هو المشهد الذي نراه مع مسار ولادة الحكومة يكفي للحكم على ما حصدناه في مسار بناء الدولة، بالفشل والخيبة والتراجع، حيث العصبيات أشدّ حضوراً من الوطنية بأضعاف، والمحاصصات أكثر فجوراً وفكرة الدولة يُصيبها الضعف والإضعاف، والناس من يأس إلى مرارة فوق مرارة تضاف. وفي الاستحقاق الثاني، نحن على أبواب القمة الاقتصادية العربية في بيروت، والعرب يتسابقون إلى دمشق، ودمشق غائبة عن بيروت، وبيروت غائبة عن دمشق، وفي الغياب يسقط النأي بالنفس لينضم لبنان إلى عرب بلا سورية، ويكون آخر وأسوأ لحظات التعبير عن القطيعة العربية لسورية، التي التزم لبنان بالنأي عنها، وها هو يستعدّ ليصير عنوانها، والعرب يستعدّون لإنهائها، ولبنان الاقتصاد غائب في القمة الاقتصادية، فماذا عساه يشتري وماذا عساه يبيع بدون علاقته بسورية، فالعناوين المقرّرة عن فتح الأسواق والربط الكهربائي والانفتاح على الفرص المقبلة، كلها تترجم بالنسبة للبنان بكلمة واحدة هي سورية.

– فخامة الرئيس، إن الكلام الصادق وحده ما يحتاجه نجاح العهد وما تحتاجه قيامة الوطن، ومن قلب صادق وعقل حريص، لا يبدو للحظة أن خيار قانون الانتخابات المبني على معادلة الاستنخاب الطائفي بفرضية الجمع بين تحسين التمثيل الوطني والتمثيل الطائفي كان خياراً موفقاً، فقد نهش القانون نفوس الناس وأضعف حسها الوطني وأيقظ العصبيات النائمة وشحذ اليقظة منها بمصادر القوة، وشقّ الطريق الواضح نحو فدرالية تنتظر الفرصة لتطل برأسها، فتحوّلت الطوائف إلى إقطاعيات يتقاسم تمثيلها قادة يفرح الطائفيون منهم بما حازوه، ويتأقلم الوطنيون منهم مع الطائفيات التي لا بقاء لهم دون الخضوع لمقتضياتها، وغاب كل حساب للهوية الوطنية والمصلحة الوطنية والحسابات الوطنية، وتهمش كل مؤمن بالوطن العابر للطوائف وازداد إحساسه بالغربة، وكأننا اليوم عشية النقاش حول اتفاق الطائف، نرتضي الفدرالية التي بني الطائف كله على السعي لدفنها، ونهض على روح عنوانها إسقاط خطر التقسيم وكل أنواع الفدرالية والتمسك ببديل واضح هو السير نحو إلغاء الطائفية، هذا بدلاً من أن نكون ونحن نتنافس ونتبارى بالحديث عن الطائف نضع روحه سقفاً ممنوع تخطيها أو تجاوزها، فكيف بنا نطعنها في الصميم.

– فخامة الرئيس، كيف يستقيم السعي لتنقية العلاقات اللبنانية السورية وإعادة صياغتها على أسس تحقق المصالح المشتركة ويسودها الاحترام المتبادل، وتجسّد مفهوم الأخوة والتعاون والتنسيق الذي شكل ركناً رئيسياً في اتفاق الطائف، وكل يوم يخرج مسؤول في الدولة يتبجّح بالعداء لسورية والتطاول على رموزها ورئيسها، وتربط الدولة كلها توقيت علاقاتها الطبيعية بسورية، بساعة الذين ناصبوها العداء، ونحن ندرك أن رهان الآخرين يسقط ورهانكم على قيامة سورية ينتصر، فكيف يستقيم أن يحكم لبنان رهان المهزومين، وأن يتحكّم هذا الرهان الخاسر بمصالح اللبنانيين الحيوية المتعلقة باستثمار لبنان لعلاقة مميزة مع سورية، في تطوير حياته الاقتصادية وحل قضية النازحين، وإرساء قواعد تبادل الفرص والمنافع، وكيف يستقيم أن ينعقد في لبنان آخر مؤتمر قمة عربية تغيب عنه سورية، مراعاة لداخل مريض أو خارج بغيض، أو حساباً لمصالح الآخرين على حساب مصلحة لبنان.

– اضرب بيدك على الطاولة يا فخامة الرئيس منعاً للانهيار ووقفاً للانتحار، فها نحن نخسر آخر ما تبقى لنا من رصيد هوية وطنية في الداخل، وهوية عربية في الخارج، وليس للهوية العربية من تجسيد وفقاً لاتفاق الطائف إلا العلاقة المميزة بسورية، وليس للهوية الوطنية من مقياس إلا التقدم نحو إلغاء الطائفية، والطريق واضح ويشبه الصلابة التي تجسّدونها، وفيه مفهوم الرئيس القوي، القوي بالموقف، والقوي بتلبية طموحات شعبه، ولك بين اللبنانيين الكثيرين الذين سيقفون خلفك عندما تقدّم، والمطلوب موقف وللموقف عنوان، إن لبنان سيوجّه الدعوة للرئيس السوري لحضور القمة وليرضَ مَن يرضى ويغضب من يغضب، ويشارك مَن يشارك ويقاطع مَن يقاطع، وعلى ضفة موازية تماماً، موقف لا يقل صلابة، أن الدولة اللبنانية لن تسير نحو الفدرالية، وقانون الانتخاب المريض يجب أن يسقط ومعه تسقط كل ثقافة المحاصصة، وها نحن ذاهبون إلى قانون انتخاب نصّت على مضمونه المادة 22 من الدستور بمجلس نيابي خارج القيد الطائفي معه يمكن تطبيق التمثيل النسبي واللوائح الحزبية في لبنان دائرة واحدة، ومجلس للشيوخ تتمثل فيه الطوائف ويقدّم الضمانات لطمأنة الهواجس الطائفية المشروعة فقط.

– فخامة الرئيس، أنتم الأعلم أن الموقف سلاح، وأن رسالة تحمل توقيعكم كرئيس للقمة الاقتصادية العربية تتوجّه للملوك والأمراء والرؤساء العرب تعلن عزمكم على دعوة رئيس الجمهورية العربية السورية لكل الأسباب العربية واللبنانية، إلى القمة العربية الاقتصادية في بيروت، ستنقل لبنان من موقع الملعب المفتوح للاعبين الآخرين إلى اللاعب الذي يدير قواعد المرحلة العربية الجديدة ويصون مصالح لبنان، وأن رسالة موازية للقادة اللبنانيين المشاركين في هيئة الحوار الوطني برئاستكم، تقول إن مسار التآكل والإنهيار يجب أن يتوقف وأن المطلوب تطبيق بنود اتفاق الطائف الإصلاحية والسير قدما بقانون انتخاب يستوحيها ويلتزم معاييرها، وبناء عليه تتم الدعوة لانعقاد هيئة الحوار لمناقشة الانسداد السياسي، كنتيجة للخراب الوطني الناتج عما جلبناه من تعاظم الحال الطائفية، وجعل البحث في المسار الحكومي ترجمة لهذا التوجّه وتلبية لاحتياجاته ومقتضياته، هذه خريطة طريق وحيدة نحتاجها، وتعيد رسم الأمل في السواد المقيم، ووحدها ستشكل الباب لوقف حال الإحباط والخيبة التي يعيشها اللبنانيون وتخيم على النخب الحاضرة للوقوف وراءكم كرمز لمشروع بناء الدولة عندما تقدمون وأنتم أهل العزم، وعلى قدر أهل العزم تأتي العزائم.

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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

2018 – The Year of Lying Dangerously

By David Macilwain
Source
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Amongst the many things that may be said about 2018 in the echo-chambers of Western media, you can be sure that an admission of the lies that were told will not be one of them. Yet of all the things that characterize this year of fracture and dissonance, the litany of lies told by Western leaders and media stands out – a veritable juggernaut of mendacity about almost every aspect of the political and strategic battles fought against internal and external enemies over the last year.
These lies, from casual half-truths to carefully constructed false narratives, have been mostly told to and used against Western states’ own populations, to create popular support or submission to policies and actions chosen by those wielding power. But they have also been told extensively to deceive and manipulate foreign antagonists in current conflict zones – Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Most disturbingly perhaps, lies have also been told to militaries and security forces by their own government leaders and intelligence agencies, and to a degree that is only now becoming apparent. The possibility that the most recent revelations on disinformation networks in Europe and the US could crack open the West’s “bodyguard of lies” makes 2018 what we might call the “Year of Lying Dangerously”.
Perhaps it’s a little personal tunnel vision that makes me focus on two of the most notable “lies” of 2018 – the Salisbury poisoning and the “Chemical attack” on Douma in Syria. But in one way or another, both of these –intimately connected – events have been central to so much else that has happened this year.
Whether it’s the “Iranian connection” – between the Iranian nuclear deal, Iran’s support for Syria against foreign-backed terrorists, joint Saudi-US-Israeli propaganda warfare over Yemen and Hezbollah – or the “Russian connection” – conflict over oil and gas markets, pipelines to Turkey and Germany, political and military support for Syria, information warfare with the US over Trump and the UK over “Novichok” – or simply the Tweets of Trump, – the Chemical Weapon disinformation war has been central to 2018.
It’s hard for those of us not seduced by the West’s Orwellian news machine to understand just how pervasively effective its mind-bending disinformation operations have become. The individuals and organizations leading these campaigns have evidently also been seduced by their own power to mislead millions, effected with a few mouse clicks or a single video clip.
And in their absolute disdain for their audience, they may be caught out pushing too far. Such was the case with the memorable “Mannequin Challenge” performed live on set by a couple of White Helmet actors. They got away with that crass self-promotion amongst social media followers, but for their opponents and victims seeing these NATO “heroes” playing at rescue-selfies was the last straw.
In fact, this over-honest self-revelation to their supporters became the start of efforts to expose the White Helmets as a criminal enterprise of the UK and US governments, whose members we now know to have been closely involved in some of the worst atrocities carried out by the foreign-backed terrorist groups with whom they worked.
The dreadful truth about the “Oscar-nominated” White Helmets began to emerge seriously in December 2016 following the liberation of East Aleppo, when independent journalists – Pierre le Corf, Vanessa Beeley and RT’s Lizzie Phelan and Murad Gazdiev amongst others – were able to see just where these “civil defense volunteers” had been operating; cheek by jowl with the chief terrorist groups holding the east of the city under siege.
Those researches have clearly continued in the two years since, establishing more solid incriminating evidence against the group, but this effort has evidently intensified in recent months following the joint UN-Israeli rescue operation of White Helmets and terrorist leaders from the Golan Heights in July, and their effective disbanding in most areas of Syria.
The results of these researches were presented by the director of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, Maxim Grigoriev, at a special meeting at the UN HQ in New York just before Christmas. Grigoriev presented videos of interviews he himself conducted with former White Helmets members in Aleppo and Ghouta, along with the extensive findings on the true nature of the White Helmets’ activities, as revealed by Syrian citizens from “rebel-occupied” areas.
The UN meeting, made to a collection of journalists, included personal testimony from Vanessa Beeley, as well as direct and demanding presentations from Syria’s UN rep Bashar al Jaafari, and Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia. Independent journalist Eva Bartlett, who has also played a lead role in researching and exposing the White Helmets operation, has written already on the meeting, and particularly noting the complete failure of the Western corporate media to report it or attempt to answer the criticisms and claims made against the group.
Despite the presence of a CBS reporter, who asked a question about the threat from foreign extremists following the “US withdrawal from Syria”, media support for the White Helmets continues without a hiccup, with this horrific contribution from the Guardian’s Kareem Shaheen.
What Grigoriev presented was truly shocking, and categorical evidence that the White Helmets is a criminal organization and should be on the UN’s list of designated terrorist organizations – as stated clearly by Vassily Nebenzia. The video presentation lasts over an hour, but is really essential viewing; the atrocities carried out by the many members of the White Helmets, with the full knowledge and support of the UK and US governments, make their continued feting and lionizing by Western governments and media a crime against humanity.
Quite simply, these men are guilty of the most brutal and barbaric crimes against innocent people – women and children in particular – that we can possibly imagine. Unlike so many dreadful atrocities committed in the past – the Crusaders’ slaughter of Jerusalem’s population might spring to mind – these modern-day barbarians acted in cold blood, calculated and sadistic; even in their fake rescue operations –
A former White Helmet interviewed in Aleppo by Grigoriev describes how, in the filming of one such “rescue” following an alleged Syrian airstrike, bodies were brought from the morgue and wounded people brought from a nearby hospital just for the propaganda video. Children were also often used in these stunt-videos, as well as dummies, confirming the long-held suspicions of impartial analysts.
As has been observed before, including by myself, the treatment of children by White Helmets members in their propaganda videos actually constitutes serious child abuse or even torture – their filming of “treatment for gas exposure” in Douma hospital, or simple brutalisation – as with the use of Omran Daqneesh, turns instantly from humanitarian act to inhuman one when seen in its true light.
Omran Daqneesh, and Hassan Diab – the White Helmets’ Douma victim who went to the Hague to testify, were however reunited with their parents physically intact; they were the lucky ones. As Omar al Mustafa testified when interviewed by Maxim Grigoriev –
 “People evacuated by the White Helmets often did not come back alive. For example, a person receives a minor injury, is rescued, evacuated, and then brought back with their stomach cut open and with their internal organs missing. I heard that a little girl was injured. They took her to Turkey and brought her back in three days, dead and with no internal organs.”
Grigoriev heard similar stories from a great many people including White Helmets members, leading him to state that:
A large body of evidence allows for a clear conclusion that the White Helmets centres were a key element in the system of forced removal of human organs.
We need to just let that sink in a bit. The forced removal of human organs; from children “rescued” by our own countries’ mercenaries. And even if the likes of the Guardian and the NYT and CBS prefer to put this reality in the too hard basket, have no doubt that the White Helmets’ backup teams will be taking Russia’s evidence very seriously.
Seriously enough to consider cutting and running even? As Nebenzia says – “the sponsors share responsibility for their crimes.” And their liars’ luck might be about to run out; we can only hope!

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Report: Israel Tried to Trick Syria Into Shooting Down Civilian Airliners In Christmas Day Attack

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Israel may have tried to trick Syria into shooting down two civilian airplanes with their latest airstrike carried out on Christmas Day, according to report released Wednesday.
From South Front:
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out its recent airstrikes in Syria when two civilians planes were landing in Beirut and Damascus, putting passengers at risk, Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Russia told reporters on December 26.
“Provocative acts by the Israeli Air Force endangered two passenger jets when six of their F-16s carried out airstrikes on Syria from Lebanese airspace,” RT quoted the spokesman as saying.
According to Konashenkov, the Syrian Arab Air Defense Forces (SyAADF) delayed the deployment of surface-to-air missiles and electronic jamming “to prevent a tragedy.” Meanwhile, the Damascus air traffic control diverted one of the passenger jets to a reserve airport in Khmeimim in southern Lattakia.
Konashenkov said that 6 Israeli F-16 warplanes used 16 US-made GPS-guided GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) in the attack, which occurred at the late hours of December 25. Only 2 SDBs managed to hit their targets, while the rest were intercepted by the SyAADF.
Israeli media claimed that Israeli warplanes struck a shipment of Iranian-made Fajir-5 rockets, which was on its way to Hezbollah. However, the Ministry of Defense of Syria said that the “aggression” targeted an ammo depot of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) injuring three service members.
Last September, a Russian Il-20 plane was downed by Syrian air defense firewhen Israeli warplanes used it as a cover to strike targets on the Syrian coast. The recent airstrikes show that Israel is now using the same tactic with civilian planes, which endangers the flights not only over Syria, but also over Lebanon and Jordan.
If Syria had shot down two civilian planes on Christmas Day right after Trump announced he was pulling out of the country, the pressure to reverse his decision would have been tremendous.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!