The endgame?

JOHN CHERIAN

Free Syrian Army fighters eating in the cave where they
live on the outskirts of the northern town of Jisr
al-Shughur, west of the city of Idlib, on September 9.
As the decisive battle for Idlib province looms, a motley
crew of opposition fighters are holed up in this last
rebel stronghold. 

The Syrian government claims that the conflict in the country is nearing an end as its troops prepare for an offensive against the last rebel stronghold, in Idlib province, and Israel, despite its aggressive posturing, seems to be lying low following the downing of a Russian military plane.

September was an eventful month in Syria. Even as the Western powers led by the United States were predicting a humanitarian catastrophe in the rebel-held areas of Idlib province in western Syria, Russia and Turkey sprang a surprise by announcing in the third week of September that a deal had been reached whereby the Syrian government would temporarily put on hold its plans for launching a military offensive. Russia and Turkey agreed to establish “a demilitarised zone” that would separate the rebels and the Syrian army, which is determined to purge the last remnants of terrorism from the country. The agreement was announced after a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian resort town of Sochi. President Putin said that the two sides had agreed to the creation of a 20-24-kilometre-wide buffer zone separating the rebel forces from the Syrian army by the middle of October. The rebel fighters, along with their heavy weaponry, will have to exit from the demilitarised zone by October 10.

Turkey now fears that the imminent defeat of the rebels and their jehadist compatriots will trigger a new refugee flow into its territory. Many of the extremists currently holed up in Idlib will also eventually find their way into Turkey, which is among the main backers of the principal rebel groups in Idlib. This motley group of rebels has hard-core jehadists, including those owing allegiance to Al Qaeda outfits such as the Tahrir al Sham. Idlib is the last pocket of resistance following the fall of rebel strongholds in Aleppo, Daraa and Damascus in the last couple of years.

The government in Damascus has been trying to get the rebels there to surrender or defeat them militarily. It was evident, despite forecasts by the West of an imminent attack by government forces, that Damascus was ready to exercise patience. Senior officials in the Donald Trump administration such as Nikki Haley had gone to the ridiculous extent of predicting that the Syrian government was preparing to use poison gas on its people. The Trump administration was evidently waiting for an excuse to bomb Syria again. The Russian government had issued a series of warnings that the rebel groups were preparing to stage a fake chemical attack, like they had done in the past, in order to precipitate a Western military attack on Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, issued a strong warning to the terrorist groups and their patrons. “We warn the terrorists and their sponsors that new provocations involving chemical weapons are unacceptable,” he declared. He said that reconstruction of the war-torn country should be the priority for the international community and that it should be implemented without any “double standards”. He told the media in New York that the American military presence in Syria was illegal and went against U.N. Security Council resolutions. He also said that the United States was protecting terrorist groups in the al-Tanf area.

Reports from the ground in Syria, including from reputed Western correspondents like Robert Fisk, had belied stories of an imminent large-scale aerial and ground attack against the populated parts of Idlib province, which has an estimated three million people, along with 30,000 rebel fighters. The rebels have been evidently told by their patrons such as Turkey to give up fighting. The Syrian government has promised them amnesty or safe passage out of Idlib. The die-hard jehadi fighters, especially those belonging to the al Nusra, are still insisting that they would rather die fighting than surrender.

Displaced Syrian children at a refugee camp in Atimah
village of Idlib province on September 11. 

‘Occupying forces should withdraw’

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is the Special Representative of the Russian President, said in late September that the goal of liberating the whole of Idlib from terrorists remained unchanged and that setting up “de-escalation zones” was only a “temporary measure”. Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Walid al Moualem, who is also Foreign Minister, said in his speech at the General Assembly that the U.S., French and Turkish troops operating in Syrian territory, which he described as “occupying forces”, should withdraw immediately and “without conditions”. He assured the General Assembly that the battle against terrorism was nearing its end and that the need of the hour was to ensure the quick return of millions of Syrians displaced during seven years of bloodshed. Blaming the “illegal coalition” led by the U.S. for the widespread destruction in his country, he said it had “fought everything but terrorism…. Instead it has proved that its goals are almost the same as the terrorist groups, mainly fostering chaos, death and destruction.”

Israel, a de facto member of the coalition, has been trying to undo the substantive gains made by Syria, Russia, Iran and allies such as Hizbollah in the war against terrorism. Israel has the dubious distinction of having carried out more than 200 air strikes on Syrian government targets in the last two years in its increasingly desperate efforts to stop the decimation of the terror groups by the Syrian army. In recent years, it has been justifying its attacks by saying that the real targets are Iranian military advisers who have played a crucial role in the defeat of the jehadi forces. Before that, the Israelis said that they were targeting Iranian missiles and armaments meant for the Hizbollah militia in Lebanon that were transiting through Syria. The Russians, for reasons of their own, had decided to look the other way as Israel was allowed a free run over Syrian airspace. Moscow is playing a careful balancing game as it manages friendly relations with both Tel Aviv and Tehran.

But predictably, the Israelis overplayed their hand. In the second week of September, a Russian military surveillance plane inside Syrian airspace was shot down. Israeli fighter jets on a bombing mission over Latakia had taken shelter behind the Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane as they came under attack from Syrian ground defences. The Russian plane came down in the crossfire. The Israelis had not bothered to inform the Russian ground control either about the presence of the plane or about the mission it was conducting. All 15 crew members on board were killed.

The Kremlin was livid. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who thinks he has “a special relationship” with Putin, tried to blame the Syrian army. The Russian Defence Ministry angrily accused the Israelis of positioning their F-16 jets behind the Russian transport plane. Israel was also accused of not adhering to the one-minute warning system agreed between the two militaries, whereby notice is given to the Russian military before the Israelis decide to strike a military target inside Syria. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the Israelis had deliberately used the Russian surveillance plane as a cover for their own war planes “on the assumption that Syrian air defences would not be operating in the area”. Shoigu pledged that Russia would not leave “such provocations unanswered”.

The Kremlin seems to have at last decided to end the free run Israel enjoyed over the skies of Syria. Within days of the downing of the Russian plane, the Kremlin announced that it was bringing in the lethal S-300 missile batteries to Syria. Netanyahu had wanted to send a high-level delegation to Moscow to persuade the authorities there about Israel’s non-culpability in the downing of the Russian plane. Moscow politely refused to receive it. The Kremlin said there was enough evidence to prove Israel’s guilt. The S-300s, which have been compared to the U.S.’ Patriot systems, have a range of more than 250 km. The Russians have also installed an electronic system in Syria that is able to distinguish between friendly and enemy aircraft. According to reports, Russia will shortly dispatch two to four S-300 systems to guard Syria’s coastline and its borders. More S-300 units will be sent in later.

The Russians have already sent sophisticated electronic equipment to Syria that is able to interrupt the radar and navigation equipment of hostile aircraft. Military experts agree that the deployment of the new missiles will significantly curb Israel’s ability to hit targets in Syria at will. If deployed in Damascus, the missile system will be able to monitor the entire Israeli airspace. According to Russian officials, the S-300s will help Syria regain full sovereignty over its airspace as it will now have the capability to close its airspace “where necessary”. The “defensive weapons”, according to defence analysts, will lead “to the stabilisation of the region”.

John Bolton, National Security Adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, has termed the stationing of the S-300 missiles as “a significant escalation”. But Netanyahu has said that it will not stop Israel from continuing with its raids. He told the media that he had got assurances from the Trump administration that it would continue backing Israel’s bombing campaign in Syria. “We will continue to act to prevent Iranian build-up in Syria,” he said. There are only a handful of Iranian military advisers in Syria. Iran does not need military bases in the region to spread its political influence. Israeli Defence Minister Avignor Lieberman has talked of destroying all missile systems in Syria if Israeli planes are targeted on their bombing missions. This prompted Russia to issue a warning that any such act would result in a dramatic escalation of the conflict.

There have not been any serious Israeli acts of aggression against Syria since the downing of the Russian plane despite the threats issued by Netanyahu and his Defence Minister. The recent events could in fact hasten the end of the insurrection supported by the West and its allies in Syria. More than 50,000 Syrian refugees have returned home in the last couple of months. Once Idlib is liberated and U.S troops leave the eastern part of Syria, comprehensive peace could once again return to the country.

Courtesy- Frontline.

PALESTINIANS ARE BEING OPPRESSED: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

BY MAHDI GARBA

Whether you are keen on foreign news or not, one can never run away from the despicable stories of the oppressed people of Palestine or argue that the news has never crossed their news bars, newspaper headlines, or now the emerging conventional social media timelines. The news ranges from detention, torture, cold-blooded murder, to unprovoked attacks by the Israeli security operatives on unarmed civilians, majorly the vulnerable — women and children.

On March 30th, the Palestinians launched a protest tagged ‘March of Return’, which was a move among series of efforts to press for the demand of their usurped land to end the inhumane treatment by the Israeli regime against them. The protests which culminated on May 15th that coincided with America’s Donald Trump ill-informed decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. A decision that, pundits maintain, would be rejected even in a world gone mad.

Out of sheer and vicious cruelty, Israeli snipers shot about 110 Palestinians including children, journalists, and medical personnel. The number of injured persons skyrocketed from 2,771 to about 12,000 between March 30th to May 15th.

While American diplomats, evangelists, and cronies were celebrating the embassy shift, the oppressed people of Palestine were burying their dead ones and attending to the injured ones. Surgeries were even carried on without anesthesia, courtesy of dwindling medical supplies. Just imagine a bullet being removed from one’s body without any anesthesia!

This has been the norm in occupied Palestine because, in May, the Palestinians still commemorated the 70th Nakbah anniversary – which means the day of catastrophe. The Nakbah was set aside to remember the ethnic cleansing perpetrated against the Palestinians exactly seven decades ago.

This remains the lone reason why the pioneer of the Iranian Islamic revolution, late Ayatollah Khomeini in 1980, a year after the 1979 revolution, set aside the last Friday of every Ramadan to mark the International Quds day to denounce Israel’s barbarism and show solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians. The late revolutionary said,

“The issue of Quds is not a private or personal issue. It is neither the exclusive problem of one country nor a present-day problem of all Muslims. Rather, it is a phenomenon concerning the monotheists and faithful people of all ages — past, present, and future.”

In 1988, the Organization of Islamic Countries endorsed the idea of Ayatollah Khomeini. Since then, the International Quds day has been recording massive turnouts with people of conscience devoid of their religious and ethnic affiliation participating annually. Turnouts in countries like Malaysia, Austria, Nigeria, South Africa, Pakistan, Britain, Canada, and the US have been captivating. In 2014 alone, the International Quds day was marked in 22 Nigerian cities, which is increasing yearly.

Another indication that myriad is heeding Imam Khomeini’s call to liberate the first Muslim qiblah, Masjid al-Aqsa (one of the three revered Mosques in Islam) and the locus of Prophet Muhammad’s ascension to the heavens in the Night Journey, popularly known as al-Isra wa al-Mi’iraj among Muslims.

This call has echoed on the ears of Muslims, Christians, and Jews who understand that Israel is ostensibly a Zionist state with no religious underpinnings. This is the reason why even Jewish Rabbis join the pro-Palestinian rallies around the world and have gone the extra mile to launch a campaign tagged “Not In My Name”, although, this is being drowned by the propaganda of Israel. Just last month, Jewish Rabbi Dovid Weiss delivered a paper on the illegal occupation of al-Quds at the New Horizon Conference in Mashhad, Iran.

Present at the conference were Russian Philosopher Alexander Dugin, Allison Weir of IfAmericansKnew.org, ex-CIA officer Phillip Giraldi, Israeli-born anti-Zionist Miko Peled, French researcher and writer Maria Poumier, and British Journalist, sister-in-law to Tony Blair, Lauren Booth who converted to Islam in 2010 after visiting the Holy city of Qom.

It is important to deconstruct the idea of complacency. There is no room for neutrality. One must be supporting the oppressed or their oppressors. Moreover, nobody should be fooled by mainstream media headlines using words like crisis or conflict or speaking about a ‘Two-State Solution’. It’s offensive against the downtrodden people of Palestine, and should leave every person with a conscience agitated.

Sequel to Imam Khomeini’s declaration, it is pertinent to understand that protesting for the people of Palestine doubles as an avenue to stand in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians and all the oppressed people around the globe. The plight of the people of Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, Bahrain, Kashmir, etc. should be identified with. It is also important to demand the release of the champion of the Palestinian cause in Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky who has been under illegal detention since December 2015 and every person illegally detained.

Israel: A monster beyond control?

By Alan Hart

On the first anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip – in my view it was a demonstration of Israeli state terrorism at its most naked – it’s not enough to say that the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in Israel’s on-going collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians, 53% of whom are children.

What is actually happening in the blockaded Gaza Strip, and less obviously on the occupied West Bank, is the continuation by stealth of Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine. My friend Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s leading “revisionist” (meaning honest) historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, would and has put it another way. What we are witnessing is, in his words, “genocide in slow motion.” And that, really, is what the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in.

The question that provokes in my mind is: Why, really, are the major powers (and others) allowing it to happen?

The only answer that makes some sense to me is this. They have concluded, but cannot say, that nuclear-armed Israel, with the assistance of the Zionist lobby in all of its manifestations, is a monster beyond control.

In my analysis it’s possible to identify the moment in history when the major powers abandoned any hope they might have had of containing Zionism’s colonial ambitions.

It came, the moment, in the immediate aftermarth of the 1967 war.

Contrary to Zionism’s version of the story, it was a war of Israeli aggression not self-defense. As I document in some detail in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Israel’s military and political leaders knew the Arabs were not intending to attack.

That being so, what the major powers ought to have said to Israel (in the diplomatic language of a Security Council Resolution and more explicitly behind closed doors) is something like: “Aggression cannot be rewarded. Aggressors cannot keep territory conquered in war. You are now required to get the hell out of it without laying down conditions for your withdrawal.”

To drive home the point, they could and should have reminded Israel of what President Eisenhower said to the people of America when he demanded Israel’s unconditional withdrawal from Egyptian territory after its collusion with Britain and France in 1956. Eisenhower, the first and the last American president to contain Zionism, said this:

“If we agree that armed attack can properly achieve the purposes of the assailant, then I fear we will have turned back the clock of international order. We will have countenanced the use of force as a means of settling international differences and gaining national advantage… If the UN once admits that international disputes can be settled using force, then we will have destroyed the very foundation of the organisation and our best hope for establishing a real world order.”

As it happened, the major powers could not say that to Israel in 1967 because the Johnson administration had colluded with Israel to the extent of giving it the greenlight to smash Eygpt’s armed forces, in the hope that a humiliating defeat for them would lead to the overthrow of President Nasser.

But also true is that President Johnson sought and obtained an assurance that Israel would not take advantage of the war situation to grab Jordanian and Syrian territory. It was because some in the Johnson administration (probably Defense Secretary McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff) didn’t trust Israel to keep its word that the U.S. spy ship, the Liberty, was stationed off the Israel/Gaza coast to listen to IDF movement orders. And it was because Israeli Defense Minister Dayan didn’t want Johnson to know that he intended to take the West Bank and the Golan Heights that he, Dayan, ordered the attack on the Liberty. (The full story of that attack and Johnson’s cover-up of it is also in my book, in a chapter headed The Liberty Affair – “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day”).

Despite that, the major powers, including and led by America, could still have acted firmly to contain Zionism’s colonial ambitions. They could have said to Israel something like: “We can just about live with the fact that you will retain the newly occupied Arab territories as a bargaining chip, to be exchanged for peace with your Arab neighbours, but we will not allow you to settle those territories. Not one building. If you defy us on this matter, the Security Council will authorize enforcement action as necessary to oblige you to comply with international law.”

In what became Security Council Resolution 242, it was the failure of the major powers to read the riot act to Israel on the matter of not settling the newly occupied territories that marks the moment when they, the major powers, became resigned to the fact that the Zionist state, assisted by its awesomely powerful global lobby, was a monster they could not control. (They could slap it on the wrist from time to time but not control it).

The lesson of the cold-blooded attack on the Liberty was that there is nothing the Zionist state might not do, to its friends as well as its enemies, in order to get its own way. (In my book I explain, on the basis of a conversation with Dayan, the real reason for Israel’s decision to acquire a nuclear arsenal. It was to have the deterrent threat capability of saying to its friends, “Don’t push us further than we are prepared to go or we’ll use these things.”)

So in the full light of the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, it’s not surprising that the major powers (and others) are today complicit, more by default than design I say, in Zionism’s crimes.