Piggybacking on my last post regarding the conflicting reports out of Syria, Turkish Newspaper Today’s Zaman, reported today that the recent downing of a Turkish fighter jet was not caused by Syria. Officials in Turkey are disregarding the militaries investigation. They are still holding onto the notion that the jet was shot down by Syria in international waters. All despite the fact that no missiles were detected by the radar system on board the Turkish jet or Turkish land radar systems. It’s worth noting that American officials did not completely believe the Turkish explanation for what happened to the jet. Yet America is willing to believe any Syrian activist who says something negative about the Assad regime.
Before everyone jumps on the band wagon of intervention, it’s important to objectively look at the massacre in Treimseh. Anytime something like this occurs in Syria the West is very quick to blame Assad and his forces. They receive information from activists, whose political agenda is never questioned. Well according to AFP, Syrian activists from the Sham News Network told them that most of the dead were rebels. The activist quoted in the article goes by the name Jaafar. He told AFP that:
At this stage, though we do not yet have the final count, the number of civilians killed by shelling is not more than seven.The rest were members of the Free Syrian Army.
Even the shadowy Syrian Observatory for Human Rights/em> has been careful about reporting this recent massacre. Again from the AFP article:
The Observatory was more cautious, saying “several dozen rebel fighters were among those killed,” adding that only around 40 of the dead had been identified, while 30 were burned and 18 were “summarily executed.”
Is it so hard to imagine the the FSA would use a civilian town as cover for launching attacks? This is what Hezbollah did in Lebanon. Indeed this is a tactic used by all rebel groups. The conflict in Syria is a civil war. Contrary to what Secretary Clinton would have you believe, in war their are no good guys and bad guys. Rebel groups don’t preserve human rights. They don’t fight with a copy of the Geneva Conventions in their hand. War is about killing as many people as you can. The FSA is not a chivalrous group.
Of course there is no real way to confirm any of these conflicting reports. It is anyone’s guess as to what really happened in Treimseh. And that is the crux of the problem. We should stop jumping to conclusions. The truth is always the first casualty of war. Those who are pushing is into a war we will never win, and will never end, need to step back and look at the reality of the situation. And the American public needs to question what we read and watch in the media.
Dr. Eyad Jamil al-Jawhari was arrested by the Shin Bet on June 29. Dr. al-Jawhari an Israeli citizen who lives in the occupied Golan Heights. He was currently finishing up a degree in Syria, and has for some time been going back and fourth between Syria and Golan. This story has not been reported in the Israeli media due to a gag order by the Shin Bet. Israel frequently uses these gag orders to prevent the media from reporting on story’s that might make Israel look bad. The gag also ensures that the Shin Bet don’t have to explain anything about why Dr. al-Jawhari was arrested.
As a result of the gag order we are only left with to speculate as to why the Shin Bet picked up al-Jawhari. The most plausible reason is that the Shin Bet wants to get anything and everything it can on the civil war in Syria. Shin Bet either wants to interrogate him about anything he may know, or wants to try and use him as an intelligence source inside Syria.
The fact remains though that al-Jawhari hold an Israeli ID, which in theory allows him the same rights as any citizen in Israel. It will be a cold day in hell before you see the Shin Bet arrest an Israeli citizen and hold them incommunicado. While the Israeli public may be able to justify these sorts of actions, the fact remains that this is not how a democratic state operates. The Shin Bet have a long history of torturing prisoners while in custody. There is no telling what al-Jawhari faces while in the control of the Shin Bet. Due to the heinous laws in Israel dealing with imprisonment of enemies of the state, Dr. al-Jawhari could face a life time in prison. These sorts of incidents must be reported on in Israel. If they are not, then a cycle of human rights violations and impunity for those committing them will never come to an end.
To keep up to date on this story please check out Richard Silverstein’s website Tikun Olam.
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