Thursday, February 21, 2013

Syrian Revolution Is A Movement To Kill Christians

Assad is a bad man, but the "rebels" are far worse.
MFBSR

The Syrian Revolution is for the establishing of an Islamic state, and in so doing, Christians are being killed by the Islamist. But I fear the future, knowing that the time is coming in which a full out massacre will be implemented by the Islamist in Syria. The fall of Assad will mean a mass cleansing of anybody who believes in the Bible, since the Assad regime protects the Christian population.

Just in late November, two car bombs went off in a Christian and Druze suburb of Damascus killing forty-five and injuring 120. In a recent report by the UK's Independent, one Syrian said that the rebels "wanted to kill us because we were Christians. They were calling us Kaffirs [infidels], even little children saying these things. Those who were our neighbours turned against us".

Archbishop Issam John Darwish said that there has been "an influx of jihadists in the rebels in the last six, seven months".

On November 8th of this year Agenzia Fides reported that the Catholic Church was trying to rescue ten Christians who were abducted by Islamists as they were traveling from Aleppo to Beirut.

According to an article written by Beatriz Schiava

Christian neighborhoods like Bab Touma, Qatana, the Christian Quarters of Damascus, Hamidiye, and neighborhoods of Aleppo such as Sulaymaniya, AL Jarbiriya, Al Tilal, Villas, and many others have been targeted with bomb attacks and snipers that kill and injure hundreds of innocent bystanders.

On September 25, the Vatican News stated that 150 Greek Catholics, working in their apple fields near the village of Rableh between the Lebanese border and the city of Qusayr, were kidnapped. The next day, another 130 Christians from Rableh were kidnapped by armed thugs. The perpetrators behind this was a Sunni Islamist group from Lebanon called Ahmad Ammoun.

Though Ahmad Ammoun was said to have no known connection with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), it turns out that they do have a relation. As I reported on the event , both Ahmad Ammoun and the FSA are Salafist, and both have waged attacks on Christians and Alawite Muslims.

Attacks on churches, looting, the seizing of private property, and murder, are now common crimes done against Christians.

Christians who are not wealthy enough to leave Syria have stayed behind, becoming an easy target for rebels, who have blocked there homes.

In September, it was reported that 150 Christians took up arms to prevent rebels from entering major areas of Aleppo. In the Christian quarter of Jdeidah, Christian militia, with Syrian military assistance took out Free Syrian Army thugs who were hiding in the Ferhat Square of the area. The reason? FSA members were hiding in buildings killing random Christians. According to one Christian witness named John,

FSA snipers were on the rooftops and they were attacking the Maronite church and Armenian residents there

Manaf Tlass, a very famous rebel in Syria, has a cousin named Abdul Razzak, who commands the notorious al-Farouq brigade of the opposition, which was responsible for the forced exile of 80,000 Christians out of Homs.

In Aleppo, about 100 rebels invaded a Christian area of the city. One report on Syria had this to say:

The violent situation deeply hurts the entire Syrian population, the Christian community as well as other people groups. But about two or three weeks ago we observed an increase of violence that specifically is targeting Christians or Christian neighborhoods. Bombs now are placed in Christian areas where there is no strategic or military target at all.

Also in Aleppo, in November, a bomb went off near a Syriac Orthodox Church leaving between 20 and 80 people dead. An Armenian church was also bombed after being raided and vandalized by rebels.

One Christian named Michel said that the persecution toward Christians began after the first protest against the Assad regime. He continued to say:

Then suddenly arms were being used and there were Arabs from different countries," he said. "They broke into Christian houses and accused them of blasphemy. …

Michel also recounted a horrific event which happened to his family while he was gone from his home:

It was indescribable fear. They burned tyres in front of the house and wanted to burn the house," he said. [My wife] took the children and was jumping over walls from one street to another until they managed to escape.

The St. Gevorg Church in Aleppo's Armenian Nor Kyugh district was put to flames by rebels, being almost put to ashes, while the Mesrobian Armenian school next to the church was also attacked. Moreover, in the Armenian district of Damascus a bomb went off which killed 10 people, and wounded another 50.

Agnes Mariam, the Mother Superior of the Melkite Greek Catholic monastery of St James the Mutilated in Qara, said that while the Assad regime does "not favour Christians", "The social fabric of Syria is very diverse, so Christians live in peace."

Right when Assad's regime topples, the Christians will be amongst the greatest victims.

While Israel has not gotten involved in the revolution, it is not optimistic either. Syrian rebels have taken almost all of the villages near the frontier with the Golan Heights. Ehud Barak said:

Almost all of the villages, from the foot of this ridge to the very top, are already in the hands of the Syrian rebels

One rebel named Mateen said that the rebellion has

a big fight against the Jews ahead of us. We will take that up, God willing.

Pope Benedict XVI has in fact objected to any giving of arms into Syria, where they will be given into the hands of the rebels:

The import of weapons has to finally stop, …Without the import of arms the war cannot continue. Instead of importing weapons, which is a grave sin, we have to import ideas of peace and creativity.

Where are the voices from major contemporary churches? Where is Rick Warren, Joel Olsteen? America and Europe have not offered any help for the Christians, and while mainstream churches stay silent, the U.S. government and Western allies are making matters worse. Within hours of Obama's second victory, Western allies had already designed a development for Syria, expecting a much more aggressive approach to Syria by the president. England and Turkey have been discussing the use of NATO against Bashar al-Assad, expecting more support from Obama.

Lets not forget that Obama last month recognized the official Syrian opposition as a legitimate group, saying

I'm encouraged to see that the Syrian opposition created an umbrella group that may have more cohesion than they've had in the past, …We consider them a legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people. We're not yet prepared to recognize them as some sort of government in exile, but we do think that it is a broad-based representative group.

What will this do? Remember Egypt. What caused the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian revolution to be so confident? They got Obama's approval in his famous "New Beginning" speech of 2009 which he did in Cairo (a speech which, I believe, will be judged by history as one of the most destructive acts of a U.S. president).

While Obama has been vocal on his support for the Syrian revolution and the toppling of Assad, his administration is now considering giving weapons to help the rebels. The New York Times reported in November:

While no decisions have been made, the administration is considering several alternatives, including directly providing arms to some opposition fighters.

Turkey wants NATO to provide them with surface-to-air missiles to supposedly protect the country from the Syrian military, and State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland said that the Patriot missile system would not be "for use beyond the Turkish border."

But I fear that the Obama administration's and NATO's involvement will go beyond just talk, and enter into them working with terrorist groups, just as they did when they worked to oust out Gaddafi, as Walid Shoebat reported:

Appointing Libyan fighters to oust Qaddafi was akin to appointing the same individuals with the same ideology as Al-Qaeda. That ideology was established by the fighting groups that were involved in the Afghan-Russian war. It was these groups that were aided by NATO forces and supported by the Obama administration, which wanted the removal of the Gaddafi regime.

From what I have heard, the reasons why America is in support of toppling Assad is because they see him as a brutal tyrant who needs to be removed. Also, because America sees the Shiites as the major threat, and believe that by removing Assad, Iran will then be weakened significantly. But what America and the rest of the West needs to realize, that that by getting rid of Assad, this will pave the way for Turkey to invade Syria, and begin to arise as a major superpower in the Middle East.

With all of this said, the point is clear. Islam is anti-Christian ideology, and by allowing its fundamentalist followers to take Syria, the Christians living under it will live the lives of slaves and victims of genocide.

Theodore Shoebat is the author of the book, For God or For Tyranny.

http://shoebat.com

Thursday, February 07, 2013

Analysis: Arab daily praises Israel, gets bashed

The popular Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat published two articles recently that presented a relatively positive view of Israel compared to the usual strongly negative image of the country in the Arab media.

Dr. Amal al-Hazzani, an assistant professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, wrote an article about a week ago titled "The Israel we do not know " – and received a flood of hate mail. He went on to write another article, published Thursday, responding to the harsh reaction.

A look at the two articles, as well as the public response, is telling of where the acceptable boundaries in Arab culture lie when it comes to discussion of Israel.

In the first article, Hazzani analyzed the results of the Israeli elections, noting that the focus had been on internal issues and that politicians had acted with devotion and sincerity to promote the interests of the people as a whole.

This has not been the case in Arab countries since the Arab Spring, he said. There, Arab politicians focus on "their affiliation to a certain group" and "heap insults upon Israel from their luxurious hotel rooms. However, they are still unaware as to where, why and how these feelings of hatred towards Israel came about."

He lamented that Israel's neighboring Arab states "are ignorant of the Hebrew language," noting that in Syria and Lebanon, people preferred to study French rather than the language of the country threatening their national security.

Arab youth know nothing about Israel, he said, claiming that a "generation that harbors dreams and expectations different to those cherished by a leader like Netanyahu" had emerged there.

He called attempts by some analysts to compare young Israelis' social protests with the Arab Spring protests "ridiculous." The Arabs struggled against undemocratic "regimes that were light years away from their citizens," he said, whereas Israel is "truly democratic" and the protests there were over living standards, not "starting from scratch as in the Arab Spring states."

He argued that not all Israelis supported the oppression of the Palestinians, and implied that Arabs were not aware of this, partly because their intelligentsia did not talk about it.

By contrast, he said, there are many opportunities to study Arabic in Israel, and Israelis are fully fluent and absorbed in Arab culture, its strengths and weaknesses. This helps explain why Israelis have become so successful and powerful, he stated.

The article was not entirely positive vis-à-vis Israel, as it still spoke of an "oppressive occupying state," among other things. But the aspects of Israel that it did portray in a positive light were apparently too much for some readers.

Hazzani's second article opens by describing the flood of hate mail he received from people who accused him of "calling for a normalization of relations, promoting the Hebrew language, and glorifying Israeli liberalism."

"This response was to be expected because I breached a taboo," he says, but this "outrage will not change the reality. Israel will remain as it is; a small state but stronger than the rest of the Arab world."

He goes on to defend himself by asserting that he was only trying to say Arabs had to understand their enemy.

Hazzani says Arabs fear that learning about Israel will somehow mean they are recognizing its legitimacy, but that is not necessarily so. This attitude permeates Arab media, which is scared to deal with issues relating to culture, economics, and even some political issues when it comes to Israel, for the fear that it "promotes Zionism," he says.

During the latest wars in Gaza and Lebanon, he notes, Arab TV stations generally refused to invite a guest representing the Israeli side. "Only Al-Arabiya dared to buck the trend, and it was not long before some branded it as Zionist for choosing to do so."

The Arabs, he concludes, "have been preoccupied with [rage] and blind hatred since 1967. During this time, Israel has managed to build eight public universities and 200 museums that receive nearly 4 million tourists a year. It has also become a rival to the US in the programming and software industry."

This episode illustrates that Arabic discourse is still bound by a cultural enmity that refuses to let go of the traditional Arab narrative of the conflict, despite some gestures from time to time.

Hazzani, though critical of Israel, was able to present some positive aspects of Israeli society without being completely blinded by hatred.

The fact that even he could not present these facts without being bombarded shows that Arab society is nowhere close to accepting the legitimacy of, or peace with, Israel.

Yet there is some hope in the fact that Asharq al-Awsat had the courage to publish the article – albeit from its safe headquarters in London.

By Ariel Ben Solomon

www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?ID=302574&R=R1

Monday, February 04, 2013

Darrell Issa Outs Our Libyan Friends


Any Kosak knows Darrell Issa is not a good American, now he's proved it for the rest. In a politically inspired move this fool has, in my - grandson of a WWI ultimate sacrifice American - son of a WWII veteran - veteran himself's opinion committed treason.

As reported in Foreign Policy Darrell Issa, acting in his usual assholian manner, for his deranged perceived political ideals, has published publicly the names of Libyans who choose democracy over anti-American theology.

As Foreign Policy states Issa felt:

The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration. Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives

Sounds persuasive, but:

One of the cables released by Issa names a woman human rights activist who was leading a campaign against violence and was detained in Benghazi. She expressed fear for her safety to U.S. officials and criticized the Libyan government.

"This woman is trying to raise an anti-violence campaign on her own and came to the United States for help. She isn't publicly associated with the U.S. in any other way but she's now named in this cable. It's a danger to her life," the administration official said.

Another cable names a Benghazi port manager who is working with the United States on an infrastructure project.

"When you're in a situation where Ansar al-Sharia is a risk to Americans, an individual like this guy, who is an innocent civilian who's trying to reopen the port and is doing so in conjunction with Americans, could be at risk now because he's publicly affiliated with America," the official said, referring to the group thought to have led the Benghazi attack.

One cable names a local militia commander dishing dirt on the inner workings of the Libyan Interior Ministry. Another cable names a militia commander who claims to control a senior official of the Libyan armed forces. Other cables contain details of conversations between third-party governments, such as the British and the Danes, and their private interactions with the U.S., the U.N., and the Libyan governments over security issues.

"It betrays the trust of people we are trying to maintain contact with on a regular basis, including security officials inside militias and civil society people as well," another administration official told The Cable. "It's a serious betrayal of trust for us and it hurts our ability to maintain these contacts going forward. It has the potential to physically endanger these people. They didn't sign up for that. Neither did we."

Darrell Issa has now proven himself treasonous to America.

9:12 PM PT: Let Issa know what you think @ http://issa.house.gov/...

9:39 PM PT: What I told Issa via his house link: (restated from my angry,furious, enraged memory, not verbatim)...

My grandfather died in WWI, father served in WWII, lost an uncle and a cousin because of Nam, I am a Vet, lost a second cousin in Iraq. We renamed a street for the fireman we lost on 9/11, a friend walked over the Brooklyn bridge to get home....

Loose lips sink ships....

You are a traitor....

May Karma visit you....

Peace...

I wish no ill will on anyone....

Enlightenment for all....

9:49 PM PT: Belated thanks to Davidsfr for the link to Issa's house contact site....

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/19/1147335/-Darrell-Issa-Outs-Our-Libyan-Friends

Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel