Turkey’s tough talk on Syria is unlikely to be matched by action
Aug 20th 2011
Erdogan and Assad in happier days
IN A small café outside Istanbul’s Fatih mosque, a slight bearded man lifts his shirt to reveal two deep bullet wounds. “Assad’s soldiers did this to me,” says Motee Albatee, who served as an imam at a Sunni mosque in the besieged Syrian town of Deraa until he fled the country several weeks ago. Mr Albatee is among a growing number of Syrian dissidents who have found sanctuary in Turkey, many of them in refugee camps near the border. Some are angry over the reluctance of Turkey’s government to get tougher with Bashar Assad, Syria’s president. “Turkey must set up a buffer zone [inside Syria]” to protect more refugees from the fighting, insists Yayha Bedir, a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Like many seated around the table, he believes only drastic action will force the Syrian army to defect en masse, bringing down Mr Assad’s brutal regime.
Such talk is particularly loud online, where Syrian tweeters have voiced disdain for Turkey’s attempts to get Mr Assad to end the bloodshed. Their fury grew earlier this month when Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, flew to Damascus to deliver what Turkish officials tautologically called a final ultimatum. “We are at the end of our tether,” roared Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister.
Mr Assad’s response was to intensify his assaults against unarmed civilians, notably in the Mediterranean port of Latakia (see article). This prompted Mr Davutoglu to issue yet another warning: Turkey would not, he said, “remain indifferent” to continuing massacres. Yet he also ruled out intervening to create a buffer zone. So what leverage does Turkey actually have over its erstwhile Ottoman dominion?
None whatsoever, say critics of Mr Davutoglu’s much-vaunted “zero problems with the neighbours” policy. That is unfair. But as Soli Ozel, a political scientist, puts it, the Syrian crisis has revealed that “Turkey isn’t as influential as it thought.”
The last time Turkey got tough with its southern neighbour was in 1998, when it threatened to invade unless Syria booted out Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Turkey’s outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Syrians caved in, and relations between the two countries have flourished since. Trade has more than tripled in the eight years of Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) government, visas have been abolished and ministerial meetings have been held amid much fanfare. (Mr Davutoglu says he has made over 60 visits to Syria.) Crucially, Syria has ended its patronage of the PKK.
Rapprochement with Syria has also allowed Turkey to play a bigger regional role. The government came close to brokering a peace deal between Syria and Israel before the plan was scuppered by Israel’s attack on Gaza. Some Turks hoped that engagement with Syria would eventually yank Mr Assad out of the orbit of Iran, his biggest patron, and set him on a path towards reform. (His alleged involvement in the 2005 car-bomb assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese president, was quietly ignored.) All the more reason for Turkey’s feelings of betrayal.
Turkey’s Western allies are not about to mount an invasion of Syria. But they are turning the diplomatic screws, and are eager for AK to sever political and trade links with Mr Assad. But a bigger prize would be to drive a wedge between Turkey and Iran. Turkey’s mollycoddling of the mullahs has angered America, most recently when Mr Erdogan’s government voted against imposing further sanctions on Iran at the United Nations last year. Turkey has since sought to make amends. It has agreed to NATO plans for a nuclear-defence missile shield that is clearly aimed at Iran. And after some dithering, it is co-operating with the alliance’s military operations in Libya.
Yet Turkey is understandably wary of openly confronting Iran, one of its main sources of natural gas and the primary transit route for Turkish exports to Central Asia. Iran has also helped Turkey in its battle against the PKK—though it continues to flirt with hardliners who oppose any deal with the Turkish government. Lately the PKK has been stepping up the fight—some 30 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the past month. On August 17th, in a bid to quell mounting public anger, Mr Erdogan authorised the bombing of hundreds of PKK targets inside Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. But such actions have failed in the past and the last thing Turkey needs is a hostile Iran.
Besides, many of AK’s pious constituents see the unrest in Syria as yet another America-backed Zionist plot to pit Turkey against Iran. The ultimate goal, their thinking goes, is to cut Turkey down to size. Disappointingly, the same line is parroted by the main opposition Republican People’s Party, for all its claims of change under its new leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
So what are Turkey’s options? It can withdraw its ambassador from Damascus, continue to intercept the flow of weapons to Syria and impose economic sanctions. Other than that, as Mr Ozel suggests, it should desist from promising any more than it can deliver.
Turkey finds its “zero-problems-with-neighbors” foreign policy severely compromised by upheavals in the Arab world. Relations with some of its closest friends, such as Syria, appear to be irrevocably damaged.
Last Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held marathon talks in Damascus. He called on President Bashar Assad and his socialist-nationalist, Alawi-minority regime to stop the bloodshed. Yet still the blood flows.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Davutoglu face a complex regional and international environment. Their nine-year investment in friendship with the Assad regime is backfiring. In 2009, Turkey and Syria signed a strategic partnership agreement, conducted joint military maneuvers and were so close that their cabinets held joint meetings. Expanding influence in what used to be the Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean province of Shams, Turkey introduced visa-free travel with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan while inundating Syria with its goods, from foodstuffs to appliances.
What a difference an Arab Spring makes. Now Turkey is flooded with over 12,000 Syrian refugees. Hundreds of thousands may flee if the Assad crackdown escalates to a civil war.
Ankara is attempting to synchronize its foreign policy with Sunni Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, which pulled their ambassadors from Damascus. Turkey is hosting Syrian opposition conferences, while Davutoglu and Erdogan are demanding that Damascus stop the killing of civilians. Syria, they say, should implement the reforms “in 10-14 days.”
Fat chance. President Assad responded to Davutoglu’s mission by saying that Syria will continue “relentlessly fighting armed groups,” the regime’s term for protesters. Assad also offended Davutoglu by sending tanks to crush protesters near the Turkish border on the day of Davutoglu’s mision, while sending “only” a deputy foreign minister, not the Turkish Minister’s counterpart, to greet him at the airport.
Much of this entanglement is Turkey’s own handiwork. It attempted to position itself as a new regional superpower, supported Hamas and abandoned a strategic relationship with Israel. Erdogan played to the Arab “street,” enthusiastically calling for Egyptian president’s Housni Mubarak’s resignation. However, today, the Sunni “street”—which is 80 percent of Syria’s population—wants the secular and minority-Alawi Assad gone, and so do the members of the Arab League.
Yet if Turkey abandons the pro-Iranian Assad, which it is in the process of doing, it will face another strategic headache: a confrontation with Tehran. Until now Turkey played a sophisticated game of rapprochement with Syria’s Shi’a patron, increasing trade and lobbying for Iran in the international arena. However, the demise of the Assad clan may open a new avenue for the Sunni Turkish Islamic AK Party, which is also close to the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition force in Syria and in Egypt.
And herein lies the rub. The Middle East historically has five power centers: three Arab (Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad) and two non-Arab: Iran and Turkey. As one of these (Damascus) undergoes a meltdown, and two others (Cairo and Baghdad) are very weak, the remaining two non-Arab centers are doomed by history and geography to compete.
Recently Turkey stopped two shipments of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah of Lebanon, which were illegal under the UN sanctions. The Iranian media are now badmouthing Ankara as a “Western agent.”
Past hugs and kisses between Erdogan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad notwithstanding, competition between Ankara and Tehran over Damascus and Beirut is on the rise.
Ankara’s “zero-problems-with-neighbors” policy is crumbling, fast—with Syria, Cyprus, Armenia, Israel and with the Kurds.
Fasten your seatbelts, Middle East observers. It’s going to be a rocky ride.
MADRID — Whether the Arab Spring will usher in credible democracies across the Arab world or not remains uncertain. But while the dust has not yet settled after months of turmoil in Tunis, Cairo and elsewhere, the Arab revolts have already had a massive impact on the strategic structure of the Middle East.
Until recently, the region was divided into two camps: an incoherent and weakened moderate Arab alignment, and an “axis of resistance,” formed by Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah against American and Israeli designs for the region.
Driven by a strategy of “zero problems” with its neighbors,” Turkey’s quest for a leading role in Middle East politics brought it closer to Syria and Iran.
The Arab Spring exposed the fragile foundations upon which the entire axis of resistance was built, and has pushed it to the brink of collapse.
The first to opt out was Hamas. Fearful of the consequences of the demise of its patrons in Damascus, Hamas tactically withdrew from the axis and let Egypt lead it toward reconciliation with the pro-Western Palestinian Authority on terms that it had refused under former Egyptian Hosni Mubarak.
Turkey is genuinely interested in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in a regional system of peace and security, whereas Iran and Hezbollah are bent on derailing both in order to deny Israel the kind of peace with the Arab world that would end up isolating Iran.
Notwithstanding its bitter conflict with Israel, Turkey, unlike Iran, is not an unconditional enemy of the Jewish state, and would not discard an accommodation with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Indeed, talks are now under way between the parties to restore more normal relations.
Nor do Iran and Turkey share a common vision with regard to the strategically sensitive Persian Gulf region. Turkey, whose 2008 treaty with the Gulf Cooperation Council made it a strategic partner of the region’s monarchies, was unequivocally assertive during the Bahrain crisis in warning Iran to cease its subversive intrusion into the region’s affairs. The stability and territorial integrity of the Persian Gulf States is a strategic priority for Turkey; that is clearly not the case for Iran.
Similarly, when it comes to Lebanon, Turkey certainly does not share Iran’s concern about the possible interruption of Hezbollah’s lifeline should the Syrian regime collapse. And Iran and Syria, for their part, have never been too happy with Prime Minister’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s aspirations to act as a broker in Lebanon, which they consider to be their strategic backyard.
This explains Hezbollah’s rejection of a Turkish-Qatari initiative to act as mediators after the fall of Saad Hariri’s Lebanese government in January.
Turkey’s commitment to peaceful democratic transitions in the Arab world has alienated it from its Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad — with whose repressive practices both Iran and Hezbollah are fully complicit — and is now driving Iran and Turkey even further apart.
Iran is working to ensure that free elections open the way to truly Islamic regimes in the Arab world, while Turkey assumes that its own political brand, a synthesis of Islam and democracy with secular values, should ultimately prevail.
The rift reflects not only ideological differences, but also disagreement about the objective of regime change. Iran expects the new regimes to rally behind it in radically changing the region’s strategic equation through a policy of confrontation with the U.S. and Israel, while Turkey expects the new regimes to follow constructive policies of peace and security.
Instability and confusion in the Arab world serve the agenda of a radically nonstatus quo power such as Iran. Instability has the potential to keep oil prices high, benefiting the Iranian economy. Moreover, with the West focused on the formidable challenges posed by the Arab revolts, Iran finds it easier to divert the world’s attention from its nuclear program, and to circumvent the international sanctions regime designed to curtail its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
Turkey’s foreign policy, unlike Iran’s, needs a stable environment to prosper. Instability undermines its entire regional vision; it certainly challenges its idealistic strategy of “zero problems.” It also puts at risk Turkey’s robust economic penetration into Arab markets. And with the Kurdish problem as alive as ever, the Turks also know only too well that upheavals in neighboring countries can spill over into Turkey itself.
It is on the Syrian question that the differences between Turkey and Iran are especially apparent. Turkey has practically resigned itself to the inevitable demise of Syria’s repressive Baath regime.
For Iran and its Hezbollah clients, the fall of Assad would be nothing short of a calamity — one with far-reaching consequences.
Devoid of its Syrian alliance and estranged from Turkey, Iran would become an isolated revolutionary power whose fanatical brand of Islam is repellent to most Arab societies.
Turkey was wrong to try to gain wider influence in the Middle East by working with the region’s revolutionary forces. It is far wiser for Turkey to make common cause with the region’s responsible forces.
A democratic Egypt would certainly be a more reliable partner. Egypt has already managed to draw Hamas away from Syria into an inter-Palestinian reconciliation.
Instead of competing for the role of regional power broker, as Mubarak did, Egypt can join forces with Turkey — whose officials the Egyptians wisely invited to the ceremony that sealed the Palestinian reconciliation — to promote an Israeli-Arab peace and a civilized security system in the Middle East.
Iran, Egypt, Turkey should form an Islamic triangle: Al-Azhar imam
Tehran Times Political Desk
TEHRAN – Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyib, the imam of Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, has called on Iran, Egypt, and Turkey to establish an Islamic triangle, Iranian MP Nasser Soudani has said.
Soudani made the remarks in an interview with the IRNA correspondent in Beirut published on Saturday in reference to a meeting of an Iranian delegation with al-Tayyib, which was held in Cairo on July 26.
Soudani quoted al-Tayyib as saying that the Iran-Turkey-Egypt triangle would serve the interests of the Islamic world.
According to IRNA, the imam of the Al-Azhar Mosque also called for the expansion of relations between Arab countries and Iran.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Soudani said that al-Tayyib hailed the fatwa (religious edict) that Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued on October 2, 2010 that prohibits insulting the companions of Prophet Muhammad (S) and his wives.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa was issued after Kuwaiti Shia cleric Yasser al-Habib insulted Aisha, a wife of Prophet Muhammad (S).
via tehran times : Iran, Egypt, Turkey should form an Islamic triangle: Al-Azhar imam.
There is much more to Al-Jazeera than meets the eye. Behind the curtain lies a shady Zionist past.
by Jonathan Azaziah
In the the first part of the series, prior plots against Syria were brought to light and the modern alliance between Zionism and the House of Saud was exposed, as were the directors of the Zionist-Saudi axis’ ‘Syrian Revolution.’ Here in the conclusion of ‘Kiss of ‘Democratic’ Death,’ the more clandestine hands attempting to deliver Syria into ruin will be revealed and all doubts to what this revolution actually is will be put to rest… Media Manipulation: Zionism and Al-Jazeera Unite
No attack on sovereign nations, whether overt like in Libya or covert like in Syria, comes without a steady flow of propaganda against the ‘hostile environment’ being targeted. And the psychological warfare being waged against Syria is exceedingly heavy. The Zionist-run, Zionist-owned Western mainstream press was not alone in this sustained campaign of skullduggery though. This time around, it partnered up with the Qatari state media giant Al-Jazeera to boost the hasbara festivities and give them an ‘Arab’ feel, therefore granting ‘legitimacy’ to the aforesaid hasbara.
Al-Jazeera has operated with a pro-Israel, anti-Resistance stance from its inception, employing many Zionist hardliners to shape programming and reporting (73). The reason for this, unbeknownst to most, is that the US-backed Qatari dictator, Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, did not create Al-Jazeera, although he is its predominant fiancier. Al-Jazeera was created by the French-Israeli billionaire Zionist brothers, David and Jean Frydman, who set up the network to infiltrate media in the Islamic World and to control Middle East discourse on the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Both of them served as senior advisors to the Zionist war criminal prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak (74). Jean Frydman was also the personal financier of the father of Israel’s illegal nuclear program, war criminal Shimon Peres, and he poured millions of dollars into the ‘Oslo process (75),’ which tightened the Zionist entity’s stranglehold over Palestine.
For those who were unaware of Al-Jazeera’s hidden Zionist history and blind to its Zionist bias due to its ‘credible’ reporting on US war crimes in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, the shroud of credibility began to vanish during the ‘Jan25 Revolution’ in Egypt, the hub being Tahrir Square in Cairo. Egypt’s revolution was/is a blend of Zionist infiltration through Western NGOs and globalist meddling at the highest level to counteract real frustration, real anger, real revolutionaries and their solidarity-anti-war-based activism.
The driving force behind the legitimate aspects of the revolution was Mubarak’s indentured servitude to Zionism and the pro-Israel administration in Washington D.C.; Tahrir Square’s protesters wanted an end to American military aid, an end to IMF domination, an end to Zionism and the liberation of Palestine. Activists repeatedly made these demands and continue to do so to this very moment. Al-Jazeera reported on none of it and continues to report on none of it, deliberately ignoring it and forging a watered-down false narrative to sell subscriptions to Western masses. Al-Jazeera’s analysis of the events in Egypt was completely dominated by Westerners from Zionist think tanks and NGOs, the same NGOs directing and funding the infiltration of the revolution (76).
Al-Jazeera has served Zionism from its inception and continues to serve it today in Libya and Syria.
Al-Jazeera further shot itself in the foot when it began covering the CIA’s coup attempt in Libya, peddling rumors, outright fabrications, unverified statistics and anti-Qaddafi propaganda as legitimate journalism to justify NATO’s invasion. Al-Jazeera’s work on Libya has been nothing short of warmongering (77). This is to be expected though, and not only because of the undeniable Zionism of Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera’s patron, the despot of Qatar, is entrenched in the criminal war being waged against Libya. The CIA-backed, Israeli-advised rebels are receiving anti-tank weapons from Qatar (78), they have already signed an oil-marketing deal with Qatar (79), and together, the Qatar Emir and the Libyan rebels have begged America like dogs to amp up its destruction of Libya (80). With Libya under NATO siege and Egypt’s revolution hijacked and crushed, Al-Jazeera turned its attention to Syria.
The Western media’s alliance with Al-Jazeera reared its ugly head from the onset of the ‘Syrian Revolution.’ As the last section completely exposed, the ‘peaceful demonstrators’ were actually armed rebels, with their weapons coming from Zionist ally Jordan and their orders coming from Tel Aviv, Washington D.C. and Riyadh. After months of lies and propaganda, the United States government has finally admitted that there are indeed armed rebels carrying out violence in Syria, stating ‘there are a lot of them (81).’ Mainstream media has deliberately ignored the provocations of and attacks on Syrian security forces that have occurred from the opening week of the revolt, in which the Saudi-Israeli-directed armed gangs fired on and killed policemen and torched courthouses, hospitals, communications centers and Bashar al-Assad’s party headquarters (82). Hundreds of soldiers have been killed by this Zionist-designed insurrection and at least three mass graves filled with Syrian security forces have been found already (83).
Armed MB fighters that Al-Jazeera and the mainstream Zionist media refuse to report on.
Instead of reporting these facts, Al-Jazeera has fabricated multiple eyewitness reports, bloated the death toll, broadcasted incitement against Bashar al-Assad, put forth the foreign policy objectives of the GCC dictatorships to bring down the Syrian government and ignored the vital fact that the Zionist-run National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is active on the ground in Syria (84). Instead of reporting these facts, the mainstream media and Al-Jazeera peddle the (admittedly) unverifiable, false casualty claims of London-based Syrian opposition groups, which boast about their membership with Zionism’s NED (85). Instead of reporting these facts, Al-Jazeera is manipulating imagery to fit with its anti-Syria agenda and paying actors to make false statements against Bashar al-Assad (86).
Mainstream media has consistently reported on snipers shooting at ‘pro-democracy’ protesters and has published recorded ‘eyewitness’ testimony from a member of Syrian security forces who ‘admitted’ that the snipers are Syrian military. The problem with this ‘eyewitness,’ like every other ‘eyewitness’ presented by the Al-Jazeera-Zionist media axis, is that his name isn’t real, his voice has been modified, and the person who supposedly produced the recording isn’t using his real name either (87).
None of it is real and everything is muddled because it’s another Zionist media fabrication. What is not being reported in the mainstream, is that the Syrian government has fully disclosed that there are indeed snipers firing not only on ‘protesters,’ but security forces as well (88). Mainstream media would never reveal that the snipers are agents of the Zionist-Saudi plan to destabilize Syria put together by Saudi National Security Advisor ‘Prince’ Bandar bin Sultan and the slippery Zionist criminal, Jeffrey Feltman (discussed earlier). The Feltman-Sultan plan, financed by $2 billion in Saudi funds, trained agents within Syria in sniper fire, arson and ‘sectarian attacks,’ all for the cause of fracturing Syria and terminating its support for Hezbollah and Iran (89). Hence, why the Zionist media is also spreading vile hasbara about Iranian forces and Hezbollah fighters assisting Bashar al-Assad ‘crush dissent,’ obvious lies originating from Mossad and its closest ally in Syria, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (90).
Former Al-Jazeera Beirut Bureau Chief, Ghassan Bin Jeddo.
The nail in Al-Jazeera’s coffin in regards to its war on the Syrian nation is the resignation of its Beirut Bureau Chief, Ghassan Bin Jeddo, one of the most respected and objective journalists in the entire Arab world. Bin Jeddo, a fervent Arab nationalist and passionate supporter of Resistance to Zionism, resigned over Al-Jazeera’s shameless adherence to the foreign policy initiatives of the Zionist-Saudi alliance (91). He was furious that Al-Jazeera had launched a ‘smear campaign’ against Syria and labeled the network a ‘propaganda outlet (92).’ Going even further, Bin Jeddo declared “Al-Jazeera has resorted to gutter journalism. It is now an operations room for incitement and mobilization (93).” Ben Jeddo also confirmed that Al-Jazeera was fabricating information for its propaganda assault on Syria and expressed his disgust at the channel’s reporting on events in Bahrain (94). Ben Jeddo now plans to launch a new Arab channel from Beirut (95), presumably to counteract Al-Jazeera and its campaign against regional Resistance, Syria in particular.
Lastly, the demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad, despite their Zionist-Saudi financing and training have been minuscule considering Syria’s population consists of more than 20 million people. In contrast, the solidarity with the Resistance government has been tremendous and of course, not covered at all or mentioned in passing in typical ‘downplaying’ fashion by the Zionist media (Al-Jazeera included).
Massive pro-Assad rally in Damascus. Not covered by the Zionist media (Al-Jazeera included) at all.
On June 21st, millions of Syrians hit the streets throughout the nation in solidarity with Bashar al-Assad and the Resistance, including the Zionist-Saudi-strongholds of Aleppo and Homs, shattering the illusion that the President had no support in these cities (96). On March 29th, just two weeks after the destabilization plot began, hundreds of thousands marched through Damascus and four other cities in solidarity with Bashar al-Assad, eclipsing the smaller demos held by Zionism’s agents, displaying pictures of the President and flags of Syria together with occupied Palestine (97).
The June 15th rally for Bashar al-Assad was equally impressive, with hundreds of thousands of supporters unveiling a 2.3 kilometer flag that stretched through the streets of Damascus and chanting, “the people want Bashar al-Assad! (98)” The Chaldean Bishop of Aleppo attended the massive rally and confirmed that not only do Syria’s Christians wholeheartedly support Bashar al-Assad but 80% of Syria does (99). Abroad, Bashar al-Assad is receiving the same support in global arenas like Bulgaria (100), Lebanon (101) and even Dearborn, Michigan (102). With global support and the overwhelming solidarity of the populace on Bashar al-Assad’s side, it is evident that what the Syrian people want is not the overthrow of the person defending their nation from Zionist colonization but his continued reign with the necessary reforms implemented to better Syria as a whole. It is also evident that the ‘Syrian Revolution’ is a carefully concocted media farce serving as a cover for a destablization plot that is being executed by Zionism and its allies.
Scott Creighton, a journalist and activist who operates the American Everyman/Willy Loman blog at WordPress.com, perfectly (and brilliantly) pegged the strategy of the mainstream media’s reporting on Syria as “activists’ said journalism.” Any person claiming to be an activist can call into the control rooms and operations boards of any media outlet and ‘report’ something, and because the person on the other end of the phone is claiming to be an activist, the said media outlet can print it without any investigation or discretion and present it as accurate, fact-based news. Unfortunately for the powers that be, this pathetic excuse for journalism crumbles under scrutiny as the ‘activists’ are all linked to Zionism’s NGOs which continue to hover at the center of the destabilization effort against Syria (103). And unfortunately for the powers that be, what their fake ‘activists say,’ is trumped by what the real activists say: ‘Resistance and Bashar are here to stay.’
Turkey claims it represents Resistance while bowing to the Zionist regime behind closed doors.
Turkey: The Beast of Two Faces Emerges
May 31st, 2010. Early in the morning, in international waters, Zionist naval commandos illegally stormed an aid ship known as the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship part of the Freedom Flotilla mission to break Israel’s criminal siege against the Gaza Strip, and in stunningly savage fashion, murdered 9 unarmed Turkish peace activists with the youngest being 19-year old Furkan Dogan, a dual Turkish-American citizen. The motive for this savagery, was to kill a historic nuclear agreement between Brazil, Turkey and Iran; which Israel did (104). Beyond that however, more so than another statistic on the Zionist entity’s century-old rap sheet, the attack on the Mavi Marmara was an act of war.
Turkish-Israeli relations had been going south since the Second Intifada. And each subsequent Zionist-initiated disaster/massacre, including Israel’s orchestration of Iraq’s destruction and its bloodthirsty, genocidal bombing of Lebanon in Summer 2006, soured ‘diplomacy’ even further. But it was at the 2009 World Economic Forum where, at least in appearance, civility between Turkey and the Zionist entity had hit a stonewall. Prime Minister Erdogan and the war criminal Shimon Peres shared a furious exchange in which Erdogan bashed the Zionist regime for its crimes against humanity in Gaza. In the aftermath, Turkey cancelled military exercises with IOF (105). Tension was at its peak, and analysts, activists and observers alike agreed that the Mavi Marmara murders were the proverbial straw that would break the camel’s back. It was believed that Turkey would cut its ties with the Zionist entity once and for all.
Everybody was wrong. Instead of withdrawing recognition of the usurping, occupying entity, the Turkish government bizarrely asked (over and over and over again) for it to apologize for its crimes and compensate the victims’ families with Zionist blood money. What is even more bizarre, is that after the Zionist entity humiliated Turkey to an even greater degree by stating publicly it would not apologize under any circumstances (106), Turkey still asked for the apology, as if it was a dog pleading with its master for a treat.
The incessant begging exposed Turkey’s real agenda and its attempt at portraying itself as a nation of Resistance slowly disintegrated. Turkey wanted entry into the European Union, a stronger role in NATO and desperately wanted the title of ‘regional power,’ serving as a power broker and go-between for East and West. How does a nation achieve such lofty ambitions? By bowing down to the Zionist entity of course. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s incumbent Prime Minister, accepted the ‘Courage to Care’ award from the ADL (107), a rotten, racist Zionist organization that has been linked to spying and other subversive activities for years. What kind of Resistance figure accepts an award from any Zionist institution, let alone one as vilely treacherous as the ADL?
Erdogan The Hypocrite: Seen here shaking hands with the murderer of murderers, the butcher of butchers, Ariel Sharon.
Additionally, Erdogan, a defender of Zionism’s Armenian Genocide and denier of it even being a genocide, came under fire from the Mossad-CIA psyop known as Wikileaks and in the aftermath of the ‘Cablegate’ scandal, sent helicopters to the Zionist entity during recent forest fires on ethnically cleansed land in Palestine (108). Erdogan and his government did not send helicopters to Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia after Zionist stooge Obama’s drone bombings. Nor did he send helicopters to illegally besieged Gaza or Lebanon after the Zionist entity’s murderous bombings in 2006 and 2008-09. No, he sent helicopters to ‘Israel’ to show solidarity with Benjamin Netanyahu and mend ‘broken’ relations.
All of the bluster aside, Turkish-Israeli relations were never strained. It was mere theater; surface hostility. More important than Erdogan’s pathetic, cringe-worthy Zionist solidarity, is what everything boils down to in geopolitics: money, and like the sorely-missed Malcolm X once said, “Zionists have mastered the science of dollarism.” Thousands of Zionist companies operate in Turkey with the gleeful blessing of the Turkish government (109). Turkish-Israeli bilateral trade amounts to at least $3 billion annually and leaders from both entities gloat that it is most likely much more than that. Within weeks of the Freedom Flotilla massacre, the Zionist entity and Turkey signed a military deal for $190 million worth of drone technology. Israel’s products (all of which are produced on stolen land from stolen Palestinian natural resources) are deeply entrenched in Turkish society, with nearly all of Turkey’s software, from cell phones to medical equipment, being produced by Zionism (110). Turkey and ‘Israel’ were never going to end such profitable dealings.
The continuing trade and business dealings between Tel Aviv and Ankara in the wake of the Mavi Marmara murders has brought all public animosity to a screeching halt. The Zionist regime and Erdogan’s government are now collaborating in order to doctor a UN report regarding last year’s Freedom Flotilla massacre, with Turkey asking Israel to minimize the damage that Turkey’s image may incur (111). In return, with heavy pressure from the Zionist regime (112), Turkey stopped the Mavi Marmara from sailing with the new Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human mission to Gaza by refusing to let it sail from Turkish ports (113). And with Turkish-Israeli reconciliation now near imminent completion as Turkish and Zionist officials are working to put together an official ‘reconciliation’ document (114), Ankara and Tel Aviv are now focusing their energies on a most intricate (and regionally rewarding) project: executing the ‘Clean Break’ plan to ‘roll back’ Syria.
Ankara is actively collaborating with Tel Aviv to 'roll back' Syria.
This is affirmed by the February comments of, Dr. Oded Eran, who served as the Zionist ambassador to the European Union, ambassador to Jordan and is currently the director of the treacherous Israeli Institute For National Security studies (115). He spoke in a most ominous manner about the Arab revolutions and the affect that they would have on Turkish-Israeli ties. Disturbingly, he stated, “Given the seriousness of the situation created by the political upheaval in the Arab world, this may accelerate the process of restoring Turkish-Israeli ties.” Eran also stated that it would be in the best interest of the Zionist regime and Turkey to cooperate in delivering stability to the Middle East (116). How better for Israel and Turkey to bring ‘stability,’ i.e. propping up dictatorships that support the hegemonic Zionist agenda and toppling those who don’t, than invoking the Israeli-Turkish joint intelligence agreement.
This 1993 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) facilitated far-reaching, dastardly cooperation between Turkey and Zionism. The Zionist entity armed and trained the Turkish army in ‘anti-terror’ warfare along the borders of Iraq, Iran and Syria and Turkey allowed the Zionist entity to gather intelligence on Iran and Syria from within Turkey. The militaries of each entity meet frequently to discuss the prospects attained and assess it in the context of usefulness in future military and intelligence operations against ‘hostile environments.’ Under this agreement, Turkey is supporting the Israeli-Saudi operation against Syria in its entirety and it is assisting the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s incursions into the border town of Jisr al-Shughour militarily and with intelligence. All the while Turkey is exerting pressure on Bashar al-Assad to accept the Tel Aviv-Riyadh-Washington plans of regime change and step down (117). Erdogan has publicly declared that Bashar al-Assad’s response to the uprising is nothing short of “savagery (118),” knowing full-well that his country is supporting an armed insurrection.
Turkey’s involvement goes deeper. Turkish military and political leaders are heavily discussing the idea of setting up a buffer-zone within northern Syria, a deliberate violation of Syrian sovereignty. This will provide armed MB fighters easier entry into Syria to carry out the orders of Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Turkey has given safe haven to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders and recently hosted a high-level meeting between Syrian opposition figures and US officials (119). Ankara also hosted former CIA head and current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta for five days in late April. The topic? Regime change in Syria (120). The Zionist-run US government has formed operational headquarters in southern Turkey near the Syrian border and has upped its aid to the Turkish army to assist Syrian dissidents in any way possible, including armed MB members (121). On the media front, the Turkish NTV channel has been churning out the same lies that the Zionist media has, including the lunacy about Iranian soldiers and Hezbollah ‘suppressing protesters (122).’
Is a Turkish-led NATO invasion of Syria at the behest of Israel an imminent reality?
The most frightening development of all, is that Turkey has given the green light to NATO to transform the Izmir Air Station in western Turkey into a base for ground forces (123). Former Turkish diplomat Ozdemn Sanberk, who is well-known and is still frequently called upon by government circles (124) and is currently sitting on the High Advisory Board of the Global Political Trends Center, a think tank that openly collaborates with the Soros-funded London School of Economics (125), has stated in a recent interview that Bashar al-Assad is ‘doomed’ and has admitted that Turkey is pursuing a policy that will ensure the ‘demise of the (Syrian) regime while protecting Turkish security (126).’ Is Sanberk referring to a NATO invasion of Syria? With Ankara already militarily involved in Syria as per its MOU with Israel and the events that led up to the NATO invasion of Libya paralleling the events in Syria, such an action is not out of the question.
What makes Turkey’s involvement so dangerous to Syria and detrimental to Resistance throughout the region is that it is clearly a beast with two faces. It disgustingly wears a mask of Islam and Resistance to fool and manipulate the naive and the hopeful while its true face remains submerged in a mound of intrigue and subversion, all for its Zionist masters. And what exactly is the true goal of this Tel Aviv-Ankara-Riyadh axis, excluding the aforementioned ‘regional stability?’ It isn’t just regime change. This axis wants to take down al-Assad and replace it with a racist, Saudi-like regime that will cripple ties with Iran and recognize the Zionist regime as a legitimate country (127). It will be up to the Syrian people, not just Bashar al-Assad and his army, to fight this plot and save their country.
'A Gay Girl In Damascus' stinks of Israeli intelligence.
A Gay Girl In Damascus: Mere Hoax Or Israeli Intelligence Operation?
Hands down, without question, the most bizarre case that has come out of the Zionist plot to take down Syria is the blog known as ‘A Gay Girl In Damascus.’ This odd blog has been hailed and excessively promoted by the Zionist media over the last several months as a means to severely persecute Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian state as a whole. Supposedly, a half-Syrian, half-American lesbian blogger-activist named Amina Abdallah Araf al-Omari, who had been operating the blog for five years to raise awareness on Syria’s ‘poor human rights record,’ was abducted by Syrian security forces for her anti-regime activities. Apart from the obvious Zionist undertone beneath this persona and the story surrounding the ‘abduction,’ there was something else drastically wrong with all of it: nobody had ever met this ‘Amina Abdallah Araf al-Omari’ in person; not a single soul (128).
Nobody had ever met her before because, Amina Abdallah Araf al-Omari didn’t exist. She was the creation of 40-year old Thomas J. Macmaster from Stone Mountain, Georgia who now lives in Edinburgh, Scotland (129). But the trip through the realm of the bizarre doesn’t end there. It was uncovered that Macmaster once wrote about ‘Amina’s dream’ to learn Hebrew, live in the Zionist entity and represent Syria in the ethnically cleansed land now known as ‘Israel (130).’ Despite Macmaster then attempting to portray ‘Amina’ as pro-Palestinian (131), this single post revealed the very unsettling presence of Zionism.
And it gets more bizarre still. The ‘Amina’ profile was then linked to an Israeli website where Macmaster kept a log completely in Hebrew, something Macmaster has attempted to downplay as mere ‘web phishing (132).’ Phishing? Doubtful. Fishy? Absolutely. Once Macmaster was outed as the mastermind behind the Amina hoax, he issued an apology on the ‘Gay Girl In Damascus’ blog. Macmaster delivered the apology to the world from Istanbul, Turkey (133). Yes, of all of the places in the world to be while Zionism and Saudi Arabia direct armed insurrectionists against Syria, an American who is seemingly fluent in Hebrew is spreading hasbara about Bashar al-Assad and distributing fake reports about ‘human rights violations’ from Turkey, a central player in the ‘kiss of democratic death.’
Thomas J. Macmaster: the American behind 'A Gay Girl In Damascus.'
Mask of Zion’s sources have confirmed that Macmaster had also befriended several prominent solidarity activists, scholars and (real) pro-Palestine bloggers on Facebook, the social networking giant owned by Zionist Mark Zuckerberg. It is necessary to document that Facebook was started with capital provided by men who were board members of CIA’s business wing, In-Q-Tel and is now being used by the agency to recruit personnel for its ‘National Clandestine Service (134).’ Zuckerberg met with Zionist war criminal Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in February 2009 to discuss ‘fighting anti-Semitism’ with Facebook (135), an Orwellian premise if there ever was one. And when the Zionist entity called on Zuckerberg to remove the ‘Third Intifada’ fan page from his website, he heeded the call and did just that, in violation of free speech everywhere (136). Facebook is a data-mining festival being monitored by the CIA that is literally run by Zionist thought police.
Why aren’t the important questions being asked? This was deception on a massive scale, and the links between Macmaster, the Zionist entity, Syria and Turkey at this particular moment in history are undeniable. They are not coincidental and they stick out like a peacock in a white room.
Why was Tom Macmaster allowed to operate a fraudulent profile on Zionist-owned Facebook, essentially keeping tabs on top personalities in the solidarity movement? Is Tom Macmaster an intelligence officer employed by the Zionist entity, the United States or is he an informant/asset of either/both? Indirectly of course, Macmaster is an asset of the Zionist-globalist agenda against Syria simply because of the hasbara he disseminated, but if in fact Macmaster was/is a paid intelligence agent, it raises a much more sinister question: how many more like Macmaster are out there? The answer could be tens, hundreds or even thousands, especially considering Israel operates a vast and hyperactive cyber warfare unit that employs thousands of agents (137). Lastly, if Macmaster was/is an intelligence asset, how much did the now-exposed two-faced Turkish government know about his activities? Was it assisting him? Protecting him? Are there others like Macmaster in Turkey?
Though these questions will most likely never be answered, what is clear is that the Zionist media will latch on to anything and everything that it can get its grimy tentacles on in its efforts to make Syria out to be a monster and justify a NATO invasion. What is also clear, is that activists must be careful, as Zionism’s agents lurk at every dark corner of the internet, which has become a battleground in the war of oppressed vs. oppressor.
Bashar al-Assad represents 1/3 of the 'Resistance Axis,' all that stands between Israel and all-out domination of the Middle East.
Conclusion: Long Live The Resistance
The Zionist entity and its coalition of devilish allies are just as relentless to topple Syria now as they were when the ‘Syrian Revolution’ first began in mid-March. And the ‘international community’ of warmongers and kleptocrats are raising the stakes. The International Criminal Court has issued an indictment for Bashar al-Assad for ‘murdering anti-government protesters (138).’ Was an investigation conducted? Of course not. Is there any evidence of such outrageous claims? No, not even a smidgen.
The US has imposed sanctions on Bashar al-Assad and six top officials in the Syrian government, a move that was condemned by Syria as ‘serving Israeli interests’ in the region (139). The EU, led by Zionist-dominated France, has imposed much more punishing sanctions, which have already taken effect on the everyday lives of Syria’s citizenry. The Assad government has lashed out at Europe and slammed its move as ‘economic warfare (140).’ France has openly pursued regime change in Syria with Saudi Arabia and the US since 2006 (141).
In addition to facing a Zionist-manipulated armed revolt on the homefront and sanctions hammering its economy from abroad, the Syrian government is being ripped to shreds in the Zionist media, which is now accusing Bashar al-Assad of being behind the Naksa Day protests in al-Jaulan on June 5th. He is being accused of paying poor farmers in the village of Majdal Shams $1,000.00 apiece to rush the ‘border’ with the Zionist entity in hopes of taking international attention off of his brutality against ‘pro-democracy’ protesters.
The origin of this pathetic information blows its smokescreen away however and reveals it as sheer falsehood. It was produced by none other than the Reform Party of Syria, headed by Farid al-Ghadry, AIPAC member and Zionist agent who as aforementioned, has been at the core of fueling the unrest in Syria (142). When this information failed to materialize as believable, the Zionist media then magically produced a ‘Syrian government’ document that ‘confirmed’ another one of its lies from a month earlier, that Syria organized the protests on May 15th, Nakba Day. Under scrutiny, this crashes and burns too.
Thousands of Syrians and Palestinians gathered in Quneitra, Syria to honor the martyrs of Naksa Day.
The ‘Syrian government’ document was ‘obtained’ by Michael Weiss (143), the head of Just Journalism, a widely-known Zionist propaganda outlet that is rabidly anti-Islam, anti-Arab, anti-Resistance and openly dedicated to ‘defending’ Israel in the media and whitewashing Israeli crimes (144). Weiss and the rest of the propagandists in the Zionist media failed to mention that the Nakba Day protests were organized by solidarity activists and Palestinian refugee rights groups from Lebanon and occupied Palestine with no connection to any government. These same activists
Zionism longs to take control of the Levantine natural gas fields in Syria and Lebanon.
were involved in the June 5th Naksa Day events (145), which will now forever be remembered as the Naksa Day Massacre, as barbaric Israeli forces shot dead 23 Syrians and Palestinians, including a woman and a child, and wounded more than 350 other civilians for simply demanding Right of Return (146). Do not ever expect these truths to flow from the mouths of the likes of Farid al-Ghadry, Ammar Abdulhamid or Michael Weiss.
The Zionist regime and its allies are not in business to play checkers. Chess is the name of the game and the ‘rollback’ of Syria would only be step one in the greater scheme of things; greater as in Greater Israel. Behind the ‘kiss of democratic death’ to remove Bashar al-Assad and his Resistance government are two key Zionist goals: control of energy and domination of territory. Syria lies smack dab in the middle of two natural gas corridors that the hegemonic powers have had their eyes on for decades. The first unites Turkey and the Caspian Sea with Palestine and the Red Sea and the second unites (occupied) Iraq with the Mediterranean. Sitting within these corridors are massive natural gas fields off of the Levantine coastlines of Damascus and Beirut which Iran has offered Syria assistance in exploring and cultivating. If Bashar al-Assad is taken down, the Zionist entity and its Euro-American allies will step in and take over the Levantine energy project (147).
It is no secret that the Zionist entity’s goal has always been to extend its borders from the Egyptian Nile to the Iraqi Euphrates, ethnically cleansing everything in its path to make way for Greater Israel. Included in this sadistic project would be the confiscation of all of Syria and all of Lebanon (148). There are two obstacles standing in the way of the ultimate Zionist colonization project: Bashar al-Assad and the Lebanese Islamic Resistance movement, Hezbollah. If Bashar al-Assad and his government are defeated by the Zionist-Saudi-engineered uprising, the Lebanese Resistance will lose its only nation-state ally in the Arab world. Reports are already surfacing that Hezbollah is taking precautions against the fall of their ally by transferring missiles that are stored in secure caches in Syria across the border through camouflage to defend their weaponry from possible Israeli bombardment (149). Israeli-created, Qatari-funded Al-Jazeera has launched a full-scale propaganda campaign against hero, revolutionary and Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, labeling him a ‘hypocrite’ for standing in solidarity with Bashar al-Assad (150).
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: the righteous, dignified, courageous leader of Hezbollah who is hated and feared by the Zionist entity and Saudi Arabia.
This insidious slander against one of, if not the only righteous leader in the Arab world is designed to drive a wedge between human rights factions and solidarity groups, splinter social justice movements and fracture Resistance blocs so Zionism’s tentacles can pick up the pieces and put them back together in the warped fashion of its choice. Hezbollah is the only reason why there are not criminal Zionist extremists living in US-subsidized settlements on the Litani River. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the only voice that thunders loud enough to strike fear into the hearts of the Zionist entity’s leaders, who know that the Sayyed does not lie and does not exaggerate. Hezbollah is the only group in the entire region to deliver a conclusive military defeat to the Israeli occupation army, and the Zionist regime has long sought revenge for its humiliation at the hands of the Lebanese Resistance. Bashar al-Assad has supported Hezbollah’s steadfastness in the face of every act of Zionist intransigence. He will not abandon Hezbollah and Hezbollah will not abandon Bashar al-Assad, and this infuriates Zionism to no avail.
Beyond Lebanon and Syria lies the grand prize that the Zionist entity longs to conquer, demolish and rebuild as a Zionist colony: the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Zionist-run mega-think tank known as the Brookings Institution has already laid out every possibility in ‘defeating’ Iran in a menacing policy study called ‘Which Path To Persia?’ This paper was written by a slew of influential Zionist policy makers including former ambassador to Israel and chief Zionist lobbyist Martin Indyk and former CIA analyst, Obama advisor and Zionist war criminal Bruce Riedel (151). Riedel frequently speaks at Israel’s Institute For National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and was the Zionist regime’s chief asset in the White House for Afghanistan policy (152). The Zionist-composed ‘Path to Persia’ paper speaks in-depth about Iranian influence over Syria and Hezbollah and discusses several options in eliminating this influence. The Brookings Institution has also published a recent paper that demands Bashar al-Assad step down and accept US-Israeli-mandated regime change immediately (153).
Greater Israel: the ultimate Zionist dream that would see Syria and Lebanon absorbed into an 'Israeli empire.'
These are indeed grand plans, grand designs and grand plots for the Zionist entity to finally bring to fruition its supremacist fantasy of Greater Israel and what one-eyed war criminal and Zionist mass murderer Moshe Dayan called, ‘an Israeli empire (154).’ But what stands in the way of this hegemonic nightmare is the sincere, righteous Resistance that has kept the usurping Israeli entity from conquering Palestine despite 63 years of ethnic cleansing, massacres, mass murder, land theft, usurpation, assassinations, intimidation and demolitions. It has stopped Israel from turning Syria and Lebanon into Zionist colonies. It has stopped Israel from re-conquering the Sinai and it is firmly standing its ground in occupied Somalia and occupied Kashmir against the allies of Zionism.
The Zionist regime’s plans to take down Syria, Hezbollah and Iran will fail not only because the combined military might of these three powers are more awesome than Tel Aviv, London, Paris and Washington D.C. care to admit, but because these three powers have the backing of the people; the backing of the oppressed who would give their lives before bowing down to Western neo-colonial interests. Al-Jazeera’s vicious, degrading propaganda against Sayyed Nasrallah has been spat upon by the people of the region. Bashar al-Assad, as documented earlier, is receiving overwhelming support from the Syrian populace despite the ongoing Zionist-Saudi operation against his government. And Iran, despite thirty years of Zionist-British-American subversion against the Islamic Revolution, continues to flourish in defiance thanks to the backing of its people.
Israel’s ‘kiss of democratic death’ succeeded in bringing horrific chaos to Syria but it has failed in all other aspects. Al-Jumhuriyyah al-Arabiyyah as-Suriyyah will prevail today as it did yesterday under Bashar al-Assad’s late father, Hafez, in the face of the same Zionist tactics. Long live the Resistance, the almost ethereal force that has always served as a humbling reminder to oppressive powers. And in that spirit, may they be reminded again now: your reign, your games and your plots are as temporary as the night is dark.
~ The End ~
Kiss Of ‘Democratic’ Death: Israel’s Plot To Take Down Syria I
Sources:
(73) Al-Jazeera – Pro-Israel Arab Network by Rehmat’s World
(74) Sowing The Seeds Of Violence And Instability by Ghali Hassan, Counter Currents
(75) The Confessions Of Jean Frydman by Barry Chamish
(76) Al-Jazeera: An Island Of Pro-Empire Intrigue by Sukant Chandan, Monthly Review
(77) Al Jazeera Continues To Flog Mythical Libya Narrative by Martin Iqbal, Empire Strikes Black
(78) Libyan Rebels Receiving Anti-Tank Weapons From Qatar by Ian Black, The Guardian
(79) Libya Rebels Pen Oil Deal With Qatar by Marc Burleigh, Agence Presse France
(80) Libya Rebels, Qatar Urge Bigger US Military Role by The Arkansas Democrat Gazette
(81) Syrian Unrest Stirs New Fear Of Deeper Sectarian Divide by Anthony Shadid, The New York Times
(82) Media Disinformation: The Protest Movement In Syria by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research
(83) Third Mass Grave Found In Syria by Press TV
(84) Al Jazeera’s War On Syria by Stephen Lendman
(85) The Siege Of Syria by Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report
(86) The Middle East Counter-Revolution by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network
(87) ‘Snipers Ordered To Aim For The Head’ by France 24
(88) Syria: Who Is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating A Pretext For A US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention’ by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research
(89) Why Did Website Linked To Syria Regime Publish U.S.-Saudi Plan To Oust Assad? by Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz
(90) Hizbullah And Iranian Fighters In Syria by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
(91) Ghassan Bin Jiddu: Resigns From Aljazeera by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
(92) Al-Jazeera Beirut Bureau Chief Resigns by Press TV
(93) Al Jazeera’s Beirut Bureau Chief, Ghassan Ben Jeddo, Resigns by Yoshie Furuhashi, Monthly Review
(94) Ghassan Ben Jeddo: Resignation Reason Is al-Jazeera’s Method In Covering The ME Events by Syrian Arab News Agency
(95) Ghassan Ben Jeddo To Launch A New Channel by Anayou English
(96) 21 June: Massive Demonstrations In Syria by Voltaire Network
(97) Damascus – Hundreds Of Thousands In Syria March In Pro-Assad Demonstration by Vos Iz Neias?
(98) Syrians Rally In Support Of The President by Press TV
(99) Giant Pro-Assad Rally In Damascus, Bishop Says 80 Per Cent Of The People Behind Him by Asia News
(100) Syrians In Bulgaria To Stage Pro-Assad Rally by Sofia News Agency
(101) Beirut Pro-Assad Rally Swamps Vigil For Syria Dead by Agence France Presse
(102) Rally In Support Of Syria President Packs Dearborn Hall by Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press
(103) More “Activists Said” Journalism On Syria, This Time At Raw Story by Scott Creighton, American Everyman
(104) The Reality Of Zionism by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion
(105) Turkish – Israeli Relations by Stephen Lendman
(106) Israel: We Will Not Apologize To Turkey Over Flotilla Deaths by Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury, Haaretz
(107) Prime Minister Erdogan Tells ADL That “Anti-Semitism Has No Place in Turkey” by The Anti-Defamation League
(108) Wikileaks Is Zionist Poison II: Deconstruction Of The Myth by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion
(109) New Crisis Simmering Between Turkey And Israel by Habib Toumi, Gulf News
(110) Turkey And Israel Do A Brisk Business by Dan Bilefsky, The New York Times
(111) Israeli Official: Turkey Wants UN To Tone Down Report On Gaza Flotilla Raid by Barak Ravid, Haaretz
(112) Gaza Flotilla Ship Mavi Marmara Will Not Join New Aid Mission by The Telegraph
(113) Turkish Ship Involved In Gaza Flotilla Raid Pulls Out Of Next Convoy by Barak Ravid, Haaretz
(114) Is Turkish-Israeli Reconciliation Imminent? by Alon Ben-Meir, The Jerusalem Post
(115) Experts: Dr. Oded Eran by The Institute For National Security Studies
(116) Arab Unrest Could Help Turk-Israeli Ties, Says Former Israeli Diplomat by Fulya Ozerkan, Hurriyet Daily News
(117) The Destabilization Of Syria And The Broader Middle East War by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research
(118) Turkish PM Criticizes Syrian President, Calls Crackdown On Protesters Savagery by The Associated Press
(119) Analysis: Turkey Loses Patience Over Syria by Ibon Villelabeitia, Reuters Canada; Muslim Brotherhood And US Representatives At Syrian Opposition Conference In Antalya, Turkey by As’ad Abu Khalil, Monthly Review
(120) Report: CIA Chief Held Secret Talks On Syria In Turkey by Ynet
(121) ‘Turkey Executes US Plots In Syria’ by Press TV
(122) Turkey Leads Anti-Syria Smear Campaign by Press TV
(123) Turkey To Host NATO Ground Forces by Press TV
(124) Board: Ambassador (R) Ozdem Sanberk by Global Political Trends Center
(125) About GPOT by Global Political Trends Center; Hunting For Witches In An Ivory Tower by Danna Harman, Haaretz
(126) Assad Bound To Go, Says Former Turkish Diplomat by Hurriyet Daily News
(127) The Strategy Of The Saudi-Zionist Axis To Destabilize Syria by Mohammed Omar, The Islam Times
(128) ‘A Gay Girl In Damascus’ Comes Clean by Melissa Bell and Elizabeth Flock, The Washington Post
(129) New Evidence About Amina, The “Gay Girl In Damascus” Hoax by Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty, The Electronic Intifada
(130) Tom Macmaster And His Zionist Agenda by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
(131) On The “Gay Girl In Damascus” by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
(132) My Interview With Tom Macmaster by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
(133) “Gay Girl In Damascus” Comes Out As Tom Macmaster, Istanbul by Dimi Reider, 972 Magazine
(134) Facebook – The CIA Conspiracy by Matt Greenop, Global Research
(135) Israeli Prez: Use Facebook To Fight Hate by CBS News
(136) Facebook Drops ‘Intifada’ Page For Promoting Violence by BBC News
(137) Israel’s Unit 8200: Cyber Warfare by Damien McElroy, The Telegraph
(138) Syria: President Bashar al-Assad Faces Indictment By The International Criminal Court by Adrian Blomfield, The Telegraph
(139) Syria Condemns U.S. Sanctions On Assad by The New York Times
(140) Syria Warns Against Outside Interference, Fingers France by Ma’an News Agency
(141) Assad Has Run Out Of Friends, And Run Out Of Time by Rime Allaf, The Telegraph
(142) Syria Opposition: Anti-Israel Rioters Paid $1,000 by Ynet
(143) Report: Document Reveals Nakba Day Clashes Planned By Syria Government by Haaretz
(144) About: Mission Statement by Just Journalism
(145) Interview: Planning The Nakba Day Movement In Lebanon by Max Blumenthal, The Electronic Intifada
(146) 23 Martyrs Including A Child, A Woman And A Journalist, Over 350 Injured In Israeli Attack Against Syrian And Palestinian Citizens Near Occupied Golan by Syrian Arab News Agency
(147) America’s Next War Theater: Syria And Lebanon? by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research
(148) Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3,000 Years by Israel Shahak (rip)
(149) Report: Hezbollah Moves Missiles From Syria To Lebanon, Fearing Fall Of Assad Regime by Barak Ravid, Haaretz
(150) Al-Jazeera’s War On Sheikh Nasrallah by Rehmat’s World
(151)Which Path To Persia? Options For A New American Strategy Against Iran by Kenneth M. Pollack, Daniel L. Byman, Martin S. Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael E. O’Hanlon and Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution Press
(152) Afghanistan – Obama’s War For Israel by Christopher Bollyn
(153) Syria: Intervention Inevitable by Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report
(154) Israel’s Grand Design: Leaders Crave Area From Egypt To Iraq by John Mitchell Henshaw, Media Monitors
http://www.maskofzion.com/2011/07/kiss-of-democratic-death-israels-plot_06.html, 6 July 2011
The Zionist entity and its criminal network of allies have initiated operations to destroy Syria.
by Jonathan Azaziah
This is the first of a 2-part series that exposes the ‘Syrian Revolution’ as a destabilization operation commanded by the usurping regime of Israel and assisted by its allies in Washington D.C., Paris, London, Riyadh and other faces hiding behind masks of friendship and neutrality. This selection deals with the 40+ years of history that led to the unprecedented events unfolding now and how Tel Aviv and Riyadh have once again joined hands in modern day to eliminate Syrian Resistance once and for all…
Al-Jumhuriyyah al-Arabiyyah as-Suriyyah, the Syrian Arab Republic, or simply, Syria, is being systematically assaulted by the world’s arrogant powers. No, Syria isn’t being bombarded with bombs and missiles from helicopter gunships or F-16s (at least… not yet). It is being bombarded by something else; something more sinister, more cunning and deadlier. It is being bombarded by an entity that is almost full of life in its undying intransigence: Zionist-designed, Zionist-enforced ‘democracy.’
Like the poison dart frogs of the Amazon rain forest, the Angel’s Trumpet flowers scattered along the Andes Mountains from Colombia to Chile and the blue-ringed octopuses swimming through the tide pools of the Pacific from Japan to Australia, this ‘democracy’ is associated with the idea of an almost magnificent beauty. It is described as something of uniqueness, a creation indigenous to the higher-learning-infested institutes of the West; something alien to the other peoples of the world; the easterners, those of Arab and African descent. Fallacious however, are these assumptions.
Also like the poison dart frogs, the Angel’s Trumpets and the blue-ringed octopuses, the beauty of ‘democracy’ is merely a front for the venom that lies beneath an eye-pleasing exterior. A venom that can kill. A venom that has killed. In the millions. Democracy is the kiss of death, bringing ruin, pillage and desecration while cloaked in the garments of freedom, equality and higher-learning. If democracy was an entity of female origin, it would be the succubus of mythological lore. If it were of male origin, it would be the incubus. And the easterners, Arabs and Africans, can speak for millennia about what this demonic ‘democracy’ actually represents. Syrians beware, ‘democracy’ is targeting you now; heed the lessons of the past, taught in blood by your oppressed brothers and sisters.
The people of Iraq, irradiated by an eternity of depleted uranium, can tell you in graphic detail of the wonders democracy has brought them: 6 million Iraqis are now refugees, 2 million of which are displaced internally, 2 million Iraqi women are now widows, 5 million Iraqi children are now orphans and 80% of Iraqis have witnessed shootings, kidnappings, rapes, killings and other atrocities (1). The people of Afghanistan, reeling from more than 4 decades of American military-intelligence adventurism, can tell you in equally graphic detail of democracy’s glorious benefits: 7.4 million Afghan men, women and children are now living in hunger on the brink of death from occupation-induced starvation (2).
The Zionist 'democracy' demon, seen here feasting on Gaza; it now hungers for Syria.
Palestine, a holy and historic land that has been called home by prophets and saints, heroes and revolutionaries, has been occupied by a usurping entity for 63 years. This entity that calls itself ‘Israel’ also calls itself the ‘only democracy in the Middle East.’
Palestinians scream at the world, day and night, at the top of their lungs, that this democracy is farcical. In the ethnically cleansed Palestinian land now known as ‘Israel,’ at least 30 laws exist that discriminate viciously against non-Jews (3). Weekly protests for freedom from occupation and respect of universal human rights are savagely suppressed by IOF with tear gas, ‘skunk’ water, live ammunition and sound bombs (4), and last month, a 16-year old Palestinian boy named Milad Ayyash was shot to death by an illegal settler (5).
In the besieged Gaza Strip, 95% of the factories are closed and 93% of the water is contaminated due to Zionist pollution and the Zionist entity’s criminal siege (6). In the occupied Jordan Valley, Palestinians are denied education, health care, transportation, electricity and water (7). In occupied al-Quds, land still internationally recognized as Palestinian is ‘zionized’ daily, with the latest announcement being 7,900 new illegal settlements (8). These represent a fraction of the principles embedded in the ‘democracy’ of Zionism; occupation and apartheid, land theft and slow drip genocide.
Kashmir is a place of such angelic gorgeousness it is commonly referred to as ‘heaven on earth.’ This heaven though, could not be any more miserable. It, like Palestine, is also occupied by a usurping entity and has been so for 64 years. This entity is known as Hindutva, a sister of Zionism, and it refers to itself as ‘India, the world’s largest democracy.’ Rape, torture, brutalization, murder, suppression of protests, epidemic-like influx of narcotics flooding the streets at the hands of Indian and Israeli intelligence, beatings, kidnappings, demolitions of homes, desecration of mosques and shootings are just a smidgen of what Kashmiris experience on a daily basis under the criminal Indian occupation (9). And for the record, Hindutvadi occupation forces carry out their heinousness with Israeli weaponry (10).
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: Zionism's next target.
Taking this, never-ending fountain of ‘democracy’ into account, one word can describe what is taking place in Syria: woe; woe that mutates a little further into chaos and disaster with each passing moment.
The late George Orwell, author of the masterpieces ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm,’ once eloquently wrote, “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” This scenario is being played out to the letter in Libya. Under the guise of saving ‘peaceful, pro-democracy’ Libyan protesters from the guns and air raids of ‘Mad Dog’ Muammar Qaddafi, a ‘humanitarian intervention’ was initiated at the behest of some of the greatest ‘humanitarians’ of modern times: Paul Wolfowitz, Dan Senor, Eric Edelman, Elliot Abrams, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, (a good portion of) the Zionist monsters responsible for orchestrating the mutilations of Iraq and Afghanistan (11).
It became evident shortly after the Zionists’ intervention call that the protesters weren’t really protesters at all. They were armed insurrectionists being directed by the CIA to take down Qaddafi in a blatant regime change operation (12). These ‘rebels’ are now not only ready to recognize the usurping Zionist entity, something Muammar Qaddafi never did and never would (13), they are receiving on-ground orders and training from Israeli military advisors (14) and they have signed multiple agreements with Zionism, including one which would provide the occupier of Palestine with a military base in Libya (15). All the while, US-led NATO pounds Tripoli on a nightly basis with depleted uranium and white phosphorus (16). The latest attack murdered at least 9 Libyan civilians, including 2 toddlers (17). Democracy’s ‘awe’ is being painfully felt in Libya; the ‘shock and awe’ of NATO’s criminal bombardment.
The Zionist media-concocted scenarios that were used as justification to take down ‘homicidal maniac’ Qaddafi are now being recycled to take down ‘homicidal maniac’ Bashar al-Assad, vastly popular President of Syria and stalwart of the Resistance Axis that includes the Islamic Resistance of Lebanon, Hezbollah, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is a plot that involves major players, both regional and global. And at the very core of this sadistic agenda, which will only leave the Syrian people trapped in a bloodbath to pick up the shards of their lives, is the Zionist entity’s most ludicrous, nightmarish fantasy: Greater Israel. Syria is being destabilized by a ‘democratic’ demon intent on giving the Resistance government the kiss of death, sending it to the gallows forever and subsequently enslaving the Syrian people to the Zionist machine of neoliberalism and colonization.
The late Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father. Hafez faced the same Zionist plot over 30 years ago that his son is fighting now.
History On The Fly I: The 1976-1982 ‘Uprising’
From the moment Israel launched its criminal, preemptive war in June 1967, Syria was officially at war with Zionism. The usurping entity took over al-Jaulan (the Golan Heights, an ancient mountainous region in southern Syria) during that war and the illegal occupation has existed ever since. And in 1981, the Zionist entity engaged in yet another illegality: it ‘annexed’ al-Jaulan and imposed Israeli laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Syrian citizenry (18).
The President during the time of the illegal annexation was none other than Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father. Hafez had come to power on November 13,1970 in the Syrian Corrective Revolution, overthrowing Salah Jadid whose popularity sharply declined due to his poor domestic policies, political repression and loss to the Zionist entity in the 6 Day War. Hafez, like his son that would succeed him, was widely viewed with respect for his foreign policy and implementation of social justice-based policies at home. His 1973 constitution guaranteed equal rights and status for women throughout Syria, and also in ‘73, he gained back a portion of al-Jaulan after the Yom Kippur War. He invested Syria’s wealth in the sectors of education, medicine, the middle class and the rehabilitation of the urban areas throughout the nation. Under Hafez al-Assad, literacy and economic growth skyrocketed.
But yet, despite Hafez al-Assad’s popularity and his commitment to providing for the Syrian people, there was a disconnect with a marginal, but powerful party within Syrian society: the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). From 1976-1982, the MB waged armed warfare against Hafez al-Assad’s government, though the Zionist media would like the globe to believe the protests were ‘peaceful.’ This ‘uprising’ was fully backed by the Zionist-occupied government residing in Washington DC, the dictatorial regime of the US-Israeli puppet Saddam Hussein and of course, Tel Aviv itself (19).
The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow Hafez al-Assad from 1976-1982.
This was no peaceful uprising but an attempt at a coup d’etat, fully incited by the puppet regimes of the Western-client states of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan (20). The reasons? To strike back at Hafez al-Assad for supporting Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, an act of aggression supported and funded by the GCC, the US and Israel (21), and to weaken his government to prevent it from properly intervening in the Lebanese Civil War, 15 years of massacres and bloodshed manipulated by the Zionist entity and America to fractionalize Lebanon into smaller, subservient-to-Zionism satellite states (22).
The MB, armed by the Saddam Hussein regime and the powerful Saudi Arabian monarchy, was ruthless in its campaign of terror against the Assad government. It conducted assassinations of high-level government officials and murdered thousands of civilians, including dentists, teachers and doctors, and off-duty soldiers and policemen. In June of 1980, the MB went after Hafez al-Assad himself in Damascus, adding yet another unequivocal proof that the ‘uprising’ was anything but peaceful (23).
The Saudi-financed, Zionist-supported Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s insurrection against Hafez al-Assad’s government came to an end in the city of Hama in February 1982. Media reports and ‘documentation’ from ‘human rights groups’ stretching far and wide, coast to coast, have labeled what took place in Hama as a massacre. Typically, nothing could be further from the truth.
Hama, Syria: the site where Hafez al-Assad where defeated the Tel Aviv-Riyadh plot and ended the MB uprising.
In the realm of the real, Hama was a war zone. In the realm of the real, there were heavy casualties on both sides. It began when the MB opened fire on mosques frequented by government officials and their families, as well as their homes, murdering men, women and children without mercy. The MB then mutilated the bodies in the streets. Syrian security forces responded by raiding a massive weapons cache that was central to the MB’s anti-government activities to subdue the uprising. But when the MB’s killings continued, two full brigades of soldiers, a new special operations militia and special security units were deployed into Hama to defeat the conspiracy, which Hafez al-Assad accurately described as ‘the US interfering in Syrian affairs,’ once and for all. After brutal fighting continued for several weeks, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s insurrection was beaten and its leaders were sent into exile, with thousands dead in a full-scale civil war-like bloodbath, and relative calm had returned to Hama (24).
The aforementioned human rights groups and the propaganda that they disseminated (and are still disseminating) in regards to the battle of Hama are the same human rights groups disseminating vile, warmongering propaganda against Bashar al-Assad now. These organizations are always at the forefront of any Zionist-instigated war/invasion, posing as the defenders and upholders of the oppressed while delivering them to the democracy demon.
Amnesty International is always there with a false story when Zionism needs cover to destroy a nation.
Leading the pack, is Amnesty International, the internationally-renowned organization that is self-described as politically independent. Indeed, independent of all ideologies excluding those that bring ruin to enemy nations of the hegemonic powers. Amnesty stated that somewhere between 10,000-25,000 were killed by Syrian security forces in the ‘Hama massacre,’ with most casualties being civilians (25). ‘Government sympathizes,’ i.e. those who are interesting in acquiring the truth of the matter, put the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s casualties between 3,000-5,000 fighters (26).
Amnesty International is no stranger to falsehood. It is intimately linked to the internationalist-Zionist war criminal billionaire George Soros and was an integral part of Soros’ color revolutions in Eastern Europe, spreading propaganda against the now-overthrown regimes and it serves this exact purpose to this very day (27). Amnesty is also a ‘Standard Corporate Member’ of the Chatham House, Britain’s version of the Council on Foreign Relations, the parasitic ‘mother of all think tanks’ in America. The Chatham House, like the CFR, is funded by a who’s who of globalist mega-corporations and media outlets including the Rothschild-owned Economist, Zionist-run BBC and Zionist-dominated Goldman Sachs. Its most recent criminal activity involved generating malicious propaganda to give credence to a color revolution in Thailand (28).
But the lie that Amnesty International is most famous for propagating, is what led to the 20-year annihilation of Iraq: 312 Kuwaiti babies being murdered in their incubators by Iraqi forces (who invaded Kuwait on the green light from the Zionist-occupied US government), based on the testimony of the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US posing as a witness to the murders. Not only did the story turn out to be completely, totally and utterly false, it was revealed to be a high-level Zionist operation with British intelligence assets within Amnesty working closely with ultra-Zionist war criminal Tom Lantos and his Congressional Caucus for Human Rights to pave the groundwork for the invasion (29). What followed, as it is said, is history… bloody, genocidal history. These three instances of Amnesty’s subversive activities alone, along with its shady Zionist backers, funders and collaborators, expose it for what it truly is.
Another organization that has targeted Syria for the Hama massacre and other alleged abuses at Syria’s Tadmor Prison, is the notorious Human Rights Watch (HRW). Although HRW admits within the report that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood engaged in open, brutal warfare against the Hafez al-Assad government, and although HRW admits within the report that it cannot verify a single account of abuse at Tadmor prison before, during or after the battle for Hama, it still pleads its case to the international community of warmongers, kleptocrats and hypocrites that Syrian officials must be brought to justice for their crimes (30).
HRW: the best friend of Mossad, CIA and the Zionist lobby.
HRW is another tentacle of Zionist billionaire-criminal George Soros’ octopus-like empire, one that he vehemently and publicly supports and funds to the tune of $100 million (31). HRW worked hand in hand with the CIA, Mossad and Zionist Lobby organizations like JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) and AIPAC itself to perpetrate the ‘Kurdish Genocide’ myth, a story that the Zionist cabal in the White House would cling to and wield as its last weapon to justify the criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 (32). There is not a drop of evidence that Saddam Hussein carried out any such atrocity against the Iraqi Kurds, nor is there a drop of evidence that Saddam Hussein carried out the Halabja massacre, another HRW fabrication (33). Saddam was a loyal puppet to the Zionist power axis and a criminal, but a mass murderer he was not. Thanks to the money poured into HRW by Soros, HRW is deeply embedded in the global media sphere and can transform anyone it pleases into mass murderers. Rivers of blood stain its corrupt hands.
The SHRC is a London-based promoter of several Soros-funded and Mossad-affiliated groups.
The Syrian Human Rights Committee (SHRC) is the least well-known of the ‘human rights’ militias that assaulted Hafez al-Assad’s government for what took place in Hama, accusing the Assad government of murdering 30,000-40,000 civilians with ‘all kinds of artillery’ and demanding Assad and other party officials be brought before the International Criminal Court for war crimes (34). Of course, no evidence is provided for this outlandishness. Though the SHRC doesn’t have the notoriety of the previously mentioned organizations, it is just as dangerous for it represents ‘indigenous’ activism and criticism of Hafez al-Assad and therefore, its perceived indigenousness grants legitimacy to its claims, no matter how bizarre of farfetched. Don’t let the name hoodwink you however; the Syrian Human Rights Committee is anything but indigenous. It is self-admittedly based in London (35).
A closer look at SHRC’s affiliations reveals what its real agenda is, and it is by no means one based on human rights, dignity and prosperity for the Syrian people. Not only does SHRC avidly promote the Soros-funded, propaganda-manufacturing institutions of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, it is an affiliate of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan {PUK} (36), headed by Kurdish-Iraqi war criminal and current Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by Massoud Barzani, are willingly overseeing the Zionist entity expand into occupied Iraq, take over multiple religious shrines and through a Mossad campaign of false flag terror, ethnically cleanse northern Iraq of indigenous Christians (37). These parties have been proxies of the illegitimate Israeli regime since the 1950s (38) and the militias of PUK and KDP are both Israeli-trained (39). What kind of organization proclaims to be representative of the Syrian people and the Syrian nation, a people and nation at war with the Zionist entity, while promoting groups subsidized by Zionists and Israeli intelligence? Rhetorically, an organization serving a Zionist purpose.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Syrian Human Rights Committee with resurface shortly and even Hama will be revisited, as all are integral to the current Zionist plot being orchestrated against Hafez al-Assad’s son, Bashar.
Prior to the current uprising, Israel tried on multiple occasions to draw Syria into war.
History On The Fly II: Oded Yinon, A Clean Break and Direct Israeli Aggression
It is nowhere near a coincidence that the same month (February of 1982) Hafez al-Assad’s government weathered the storm of chaos inflicted upon Syria by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a disturbing essay appeared in the Kivunim Journal For Judaism and Zionism, a magazine published by the World Zionist Organization’s Department of Publicity, entitled ‘A Strategy For Israel In The Nineteen Eighties.’ The essayist was Oded Yinon, a senior Israeli foreign policy advisor. Yinon laid out a twisted plan of ethnic cleansing and partitioning on sectarian lines to break up Arab nations into smaller states that would effectively (and perpetually) serve as Zionist clients. One of the Arab nations discussed was Syria.
Yinon put forth not just a string of theories, but foreign policy objectives that he considered essential to the survival of the usurping entity. He viewed Syria’s dissolution a primary long term goal and the dismantlement of its army the short term goal for Zionism. He wrote that Syria will fall apart if his plan is followed; an Alawi state on the Syrian coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus that would be hostile to the government in Aleppo and lastly, a Druze state to be set up in southern Syria, preferably in occupied al-Jaulan, to be governed by the Israeli military (40). This plan is not only disturbing but bone-chilling, considering these very areas are the areas rocked with unrest today. The Saudi-Israeli-American axis failed in Syria in 1976-1982. Oded Yinon’s strategy was put forth to regroup, rearm and re-engage.
Fast forward 14 years later to 1996, and another work of Zionist treachery placed the Syrian nation in the crosshairs. Known as ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing The Realm,’ or simply, the ‘Clean Break Papers,’ the Zionist warmongers responsible for ravaging Iraq into oblivion, led by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser, penned this essay as the main governing policy for the butcher of Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Zionist war criminal Richard Perle: the leader of the pro-Israel team that produced the 'Clean Break' papers.
The ‘Clean Break’ authors wrote that Netanyahu’s government should bomb targets of Syrian interest in Lebanon in hopes of provoking Syria, as well as the Lebanese Islamic Resistance movement, Hezbollah, into a greater war. If this didn’t work, the deranged authors opined, then Zionism should just bomb Syria outright. The ‘Clean Break Papers’ also reinforced the lies about the battle for Hama and suggested that the Syrian government participates in obscene levels of drug trafficking. Taking it a step further, Perle and company wrote that the Zionist entity should reject peace with Syria, reject the return of al-Jaulan and move to ‘contain, weaken and roll back’ the Syrian state for its own hegemonic interests (41). This document, like Yinon’s, transcends the realm of disturbing and breaches the realm of bone-chilling, as it reflects several events involving Zionism’s assault on Syria in recent years. Most notably, it states that Zionism should ‘diplomatically, militarily and operationally’ support Jordan and Turkey in destabilization efforts against Syria. Exactly what is taking place today.
On February 14th 2005, the car bomb heard ‘round the world detonated at the St. George Hotel in Beirut, Lebanon. The target of the assassination was former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The Zionist media and puppet governments across the Western world immediately blamed Syria and Hezbollah for the hit. Evidence? Telecommunications data obtained by the Israeli-British-US-financed United Nations’ Special Tribunal For Lebanon (STL). There was one problem with this data however. It came from an Israeli spy line, planted by the Zionist entity’s assets in its all-out penetration of the Lebanese telecommunications sector (42).
Apart from the obviousness of the benefits that the usurping entity would acquire with the assassination, i.e. a revamp of civil war in Lebanon and the further isolation of Syria and Hezbollah, this piece of evidence by itself cast light on possible Zionist involvement. But then his eminence, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, took it a step further in August 2010, over 5 years after the assassination. The Sayyed stepped forward because the STL was wreaking more and more havoc in Lebanon, and to a lesser extent, in Syria. He had to clear Hezbollah’s (and Syria’s) name(s) before Israel obtained its desired result: another war. In a live conference via video feed from his bunker, Sayyed Nasrallah presented video evidence and sworn testimony from apprehended Zionist agents that debunked the Zionist media’s lies and exposed Rafiq Hariri’s assassination as an Israeli intelligence operation (43).
The Zionist entity bombed Syria in 2007 as per the objectives laid out in the 'Clean Break' papers.
Following the Hariri assassination, the Zionist entity upped the ante with a new round of aggression against Syria. And this time, it wasn’t by proxy. It was direct. In late 2006, Mossad hacked the laptop of a senior Syrian government official while he was staying in London and after planting a Trojan horse, the Zionist intelligence service obtained information about a Syrian facility known as al-Kabir. The information illegally obtained would lead to Israel’s ‘Operation Orchard,’ the criminal, unilateral September 6th, 2007 bombing of al-Kabir by Zionist warplanes. Israel and the United States accused Syria of building a nuclear facility, and the powers then cited the IAEI finding uranium on the scene as proof. Bashar al-Assad vociferously rejected the allegations and maintained that it was nothing more than a conventional military facility and that Israel committed an act of war. He further said that the uranium found at al-Kabir was planted by Zionism (44).
Despite the Zionist media’s best attempts at whitewashing the act of Israeli aggression against Syria as ‘justifiable’ because a nuclear facility belonging to an ‘enemy state’ was bombed, its narrative repeatedly crashed and burned. Intelligence experts, citing precision satellite imaging (45), several investigative journalists (46) and the director of nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress (47) all confirmed that al-Kabir was nothing more than a military warehouse that stored various armaments, including rockets and missiles. There was absolutely nothing nuclear about it.
Surprise, Surprise: Mossad was behind the killing of top Syrian General, Mohammad Suleiman.
This flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty wasn’t enough for the Zionist entity however, as it never is. No, the usurping Israeli state needed blood. And it needed blood that would send a message to not only Syria, but the Resistance Axis as a whole. On August 1st, 2008, Syrian General and Special Presidential Advisor for Arms Procurement and Strategic Weapons Mohammed Suleiman was assassinated by sniper fire in the port city of Tartus. Suleiman was extremely close to Bashar al-Assad, he was in charge of financing and arming the Syrian military and most importantly, he was also the Syrian government’s liaison to Hezbollah. The most likely suspect in the killing was obviously the Zionist entity. Typically, the Israeli regime denied any involvement, but its denial was utterly bizarre. An Israeli defense source told Zionist-owned, Zionist-run Sky News, “To the best of my knowledge, we didn’t do it (48).” It seems, that on this day, the hasbara was sloppy.
Disregarding Tel Aviv’s pathetic attempts at covering its tracks, the assassination of General Suleiman was indeed revealed to be part of a three-prong Israeli intelligence operation, attached to its bombing of al-Kabir and its criminal extrajudicial killing of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh (49). Long-time Israeli spy (since 1982) Ali Jarrah confessed to providing essential logistics for the killing of General Suleiman, as he scouted various points in Tartus that would later be used in the Zionist operation (50). Additionally, Syrian sources later confirmed that Mossad was behind the high-profile murder and act of war, and that the sniper was an Israeli agent (51).
Despite multiple attempts at provoking Syria into war by violating its sovereignty and waging nonstop war on its ally, the Lebanese Islamic Resistance of Hezbollah, the Zionist entity failed. And as events unfold in Syria today, with innocent blood flowing from moment to moment, it is clear that Israel has reverted back to its original plan, what nearly achieved success decades ago in ousting Assad’s father and crushing the Resistance Axis, and what was laid out by Oded Yinon and the ‘Clean Break’ study group: an armed, insurrectionist coup d’etat, manipulated by Israel and its regional allies under the guise of a ‘democratic’ revolution. ‘Kiss of Death’ 2.0 initiated.
Israel and Saudi Arabia: United against Syria.
The Syrian Revolution: 100% Manufactured by Israel and Saudi Arabia
When events that reflect a greater geopolitical shift begin to unfold, there are two questions that must be asked regarding the game-changers to accurately assess why the said shift is occurring: Who is behind the events? And, who benefits from them? In the case of what is being referred to by the international Zionist media as the ‘Syrian Revolution,’ the organizers and benefactors of the unrest beleaguering Syria are the Zionist entity and the House of Saud, controllers of ‘Saudi’ Arabia.
Since 2004, Mossad had not only been funding Syrian opposition groups with millions of US dollars, but directing them. The funding continued until the end of 2009. Mossad was running a unit of cyber dissidents, training them to spread hasbara against Bashar al-Assad and the Resistance Axis and even offering them sanctuary in Israeli logistics facilities. Mossad worked hand in hand with the Zionist-run, Zionist-founded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in recruiting these dissidents to incite violence within Syria. NED of course, has been at the heart of the ‘Arab Spring’ from the very beginning. NED’s involvement with Mossad in organizing Syrian opposition groups explains the $6 million given to such groups by the Likudnik Bush administration in 2006 (52). What is most telling however, is that several of the meetings held between Mossad and the Syrian opposition were hosted by former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam and the Comptroller General of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (53).
Despite repeated (and ongoing) Zionist media reports of ‘pro-democracy’ opposition, there was something very wrong, violently wrong, with the Syrian Revolution from the beginning. Protesters chanted, “No Iran, no Hezbollah, we want a president who fears Allah!” as they burned the flags of the Lebanese Resistance and the Islamic Republic (54). The vile, vicious, racist chants continued, “Alawiyya in coffins and move all the Christians to Beirut (55)!” These chants were heard throughout the protest strongholds, including Aleppo and Damascus. But the worst of all, was heard in Daraa, where eyewitnesses stated, “Let Obama come and take Syria. Let Israel come and take Syria. Anything is better than Bashar al-Assad (56).” This is not the behavior of the righteous Syrian people, who support the Resistance wholeheartedly, who have rejected sectarianism completely, living together harmoniously for centuries and who would rather die with dignity than ever grant recognition to the Zionist regime.
'Pro-Democracy' Syrian protesters chanted for Obama and the Zionist regime to 'come take Syria.'
It is essential to note, that Bashar al-Assad publicly acknowledges that there is an opposition movement in Syria, “We make a distinction between those with legitimate grievances and the saboteurs who represent a small group which has tried to exploit the goodwill of the Syrian people for its own ends (57).” Equally essential, is that the Syrian opposition publicly states that it isn’t trying to topple the Assad government, instead stating, “Bashar Al-Assad is our president and we are trying to achieve a solution to escape the current crisis. The opposition here is not trying to topple the regime like the opposition in Libya, but it demands real reform which is possible in the current system (58).” The opposition in Libya, as previously discussed in the opening, is an armed group of Israeli-advised CIA rebels who are seeking the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi. Syria’s opposition is the exact opposite.
Who then, are these saboteurs, these infiltrators, these insurrectionists? They are split into two camps, one led by assets of the Zionist regime, who will be addressed in a moment, and the other led by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia’s Syrian Muslim Brotherhood sits at the head of the opposition to pass off the idea that the uprising is indigenous (59). It was the MB that openly led a massive ‘Day of Rage’ demonstration at the end of April (60). The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s involvement is explicitly indicative of why such vile rhetoric was being chanted by protesters: the House of Saud despises Hezbollah and Iran with a passion.
Jeffrey Feltman: US State Dept official and major player in the Zionist operation to topple Bashar al-Assad.
A crown prince of the UAE, staunch ally of Saudi Arabia and GCC member, provided opposition groups with cell phones to coordinate their anti-government activities. The cell phones were loaded with special satellite-linked SIM cards from not only the UAE, but Jordan as well. As the opposition began preparing for its ‘democratic’ assault on the ground, the Future Movement of Saad Hariri, former Lebanese Prime Minister and well-known Western-Saudi puppet, began coordinating the press campaign with none other than ubiquitous Zionist war criminal US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffery Feltman and US Ambassador to Israel, Zionist Dan Shapiro (61).
The cell phones provided by the Zionist-Saudi ‘pro-democracy’ army are important to bringing down the Syrian Revolution’s house of cards. March 15th was the day that the Syrian Revolution began, and it was on this day, that many residents in Damascus were filing complaints with telecommunications firms, reporting unwanted text messages sent to them that called for all Syrians to join the protests. A Syrian investigation revealed that the text messages were sent from an Israeli military base in Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv. The Syrian official went on record, “The Israeli enemy could not have done this without help from one of the satellite communications companies (62),” i.e. the satellite-linked cell phones provided by Saudi Arabia’s UAE ally. Once again, the Zionist-Saudi nexus is exposed.
Farid al-Ghadry: House Arab, Syrian opposition leader and avid Zionist.
The assets of the Zionist regime in Syria were being led by the notorious Syrian exile Farid al-Ghadry, who had been disseminating information to the Western press through his Reform Party of Syria from the very beginning of the Syrian Revolution (63). The ‘unofficial spokesperson’ for the protesters in Syria was another infamous Syrian exile, Ammar Abdulhamid (64). Al-Ghadry and Abdulhamid are funding, guiding and organizing the protests of the tech-savvy insurrectionists who are mobilizing on the ground via the satellite phones that Israel’s miliary has direct access to. Al-Ghadry is staunchly pro-Zionism and is a proud member of AIPAC. Al-Ghadry also holds the putrid distinction of being the only Syrian to give a speech in front of the racist Israeli institution known as the Knesset. Abdulhamid is a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, one of the most powerful Zionist think tanks in America (65).
Former Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam, who facilitated contacts between Mossad and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, has also surfaced as a leader during the Syrian Revolution, calling for the West to intervene in Syria and take down Bashar al-Assad (66). Khaddam’s call echoes that of the same neoconservative mass murderers behind the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and the drone bombings in Yemen and Pakistan; leading the way on Syria is Zionist war criminal Elliot Abrams (67).
Ex-Syrian VP Abdel-Halim Khaddam is very close to Saudi Arabia and integral to Zionist destabilization in Syria.
Khaddam is extremely intimate with Saudi Arabia. He accepted $30 million from the House of Saud in 2005 to step down from Bashar al-Assad’s government and the Saudi rulers later secured his safe passage from Damascus to Paris following his resignation. Subsequently, he initiated an alliance with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and outwardly plotted the removal of Bashar al-Assad. Over the years, Khaddam has been at Saudi Arabia’s beckoned call, his entire family enjoys Saudi citizenship and is directly related to fellow Saudi-stooge Saad Hariri and House of Saud ruler Abdullah due to their wives being sisters. Khaddam’s leadership role in Syria’s Revolution was mapped out at the Saudi embassy in Brussels, where he was transferred via Saudi transport just prior to the beginning of the Syrian Revolution. He became a director of the revolt, alongside al-Ghadry and Abdulhamid in the US. The Saudi Embassy in Brussels became a joint operational headquarters for the Israel-America-Jordan-Saudi nexus to plunge Syria into total chaos. Jordan’s role was vital, as it was in charge of providing weapons to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s soldiers in its ‘capital’ cities of Daraa and Homs (68).
Jordan’s role was reaffirmed when Muthanna al-Dhari, son of Iraqi Resistance leader Sheikh Harith Suleiman al-Dhari, was apprehended by Syrian security forces for terrorist activities within Syria. Al-Dhari was expelled from occupied Iraq by his father at the beginnings of the occupation for being involved with the Mossad false flag bombings that have ravaged Iraq and for repeatedly meeting with Zionist military establishment leaders in Tel Aviv. Syrian officials uncovered that al-Dhari had set up a base of operations in Jordan and held a meeting at the base with a representative of Abdel-Halim Khaddam. It was also uncovered that al-Dhari was working with Israeli intelligence to coordinate Iraq-like terror attacks in Syria (69). This should not be surprising; Jordan has kowtowed to the occupying Zionist regime’s every whim for decades.
With the Saudi-Israeli-directed protesters continuing to pour into the streets and insult Iran, Hezbollah, slander Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Khomeini and despicably burn photographs of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (70), former Mossad chief Meir Dagan declaring that it is in Israel’s best interest to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and install a ‘Sunni’ regime to weaken Hezbollah (71) and the Zionist-occupied United States government routinely contacting the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (72), the whole picture should be illuminated now: the Syrian Revolution is 100% manufactured by the Zionist entity and the House of Saud.
~ End Of Part I ~
Next: Al-Jazeera’s shadowy role in the ‘kiss of democratic death’ placed on Syria, Turkey’s two-faced involvement and Israel’s ‘greater’ agenda…
Sources:
(1) Iraq Today: 5 Million Orphans by Zaineb Alani, Socialist Action
(2) UN: 7.4 Million Afghans Are Living With Hunger And Fear Of Starvation by Michelle Nichols, RAWA News
(3) Haneen Zoabi: A Palestinian Woman Fighting For Equality In Israel by Khaled Khalefa, Xinhua
(4) 10 Injured In Non-Violent Weekly Protests Friday by IMEMC and PNN; The Weight Of Nationalism In Nabi Saleh by Joseph Dana, 972 Magazine
(5) Interview With Milad Ayyash’s Sister by Palestine Monitor
(6) B’TSelem: Gaza, 95% Factories Are Closed, 93% Of Water Is Polluted by Haitham Sabbah, Sabbah Report
(7) Life In Jordan Valley Strangled By Israeli Military Control by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, The Electronic Intifada
(8) Jerusalem’s Israeli Municipality Discusses Plans To Build 7600 Units by WAFA
(9) Israel And India: Brothers In Occupation Of Kashmir by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion
(10) CRPF Troopers In IHK Get New Israeli Assault Rifles by Kashmir Media Service
(11) US Neo-Cons Urge Libya Intervention by Jim Lobe, Al-Jazeera English
(12) Mounting Evidence Of CIA Ties To Libyan Rebels by Patrick Martin, Global Research
(13) Libyan Rebels Will Recognize Israel, Bernard-Henri Levy Tells Netanyahu by Radio France Internationale
(14) Libya War Is About Theft Of State Assets And Total Restructuring Of A Nation by Martin Iqbal, Empire Strikes Black
(15) NATO Operation In Libya Is Collective Punishment – Ex-Congresswoman by Russia Today
(16) Libya Under NATO Attack by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Dissident Voice
(17) Libyan Gov’t Claims ‘Barbaric’ NATO Raid Killed Civilians, Children by The Raw Story
(18) UNSC Resolution 497 Invalidating Israel’s Annexation Of The Golan Heights by The Institute For Middle East Understanding
(19) Special Commentary: Iranian Reaction To The Great Syrian Revolt by Babak Rahimi, The Jamestown Foundation
(20) Saudi Arabia, Jordan Behind Syria’s Unrest by Hassan Hanizadeh, Press TV
(21) Ofergate: The Latest Zionist Propaganda Blitz Against Iran by Jonathan Azaziah, Mask of Zion
(22) Lebanon Marks 36th Anniv. Of Civil War by Serena Shim, Press TV
(23) Asad: The Struggle For The Middle East by Patrick Seale
(24) February 24, 1982: Syria Offers Picture Of Hama Revolt by John Kifner, The New York Times
(25) Dreams And Shadows: The Future Of The Middle East by Robin Wright
(26) Destruction Of Hama and Hums In Syria by The UN Refugee Agency
(27) George Soros’ International School Of Youth Corruption by Marek Glogoczowski, Free Speech Project
(28) Naming Names: Your Real Government by Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report
(29) Incubator Babies, “Stonings” And Amnesty International’s Dirty Propaganda War by Aion Essence, Alter Net
(30) Syria’s Tadmor Prison: Dissent Still Hostage To A Legacy Of Terror by Human Rights Watch
(31) George Soros Gives $100 Million To Human Rights Watch by Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
(32) What Happened In Kurdish Halabja? by Professor Mohammed al-Obaidi, Global Research
(33) Flashback: What Do Fallujah And Halabja Have In Common? by Ghali Hassan, Uruk Net
(34) The Massacre Of Hama (1982): Law Application Requires Accountability by The Syrian Human Rights Committee
(35) About Us by The Syrian Human Rights Committee
(36) Links: Government And Politics by The Syrian Human Rights Committee
(37) Israel Hopes To Colonize Parts Of Iraq As ‘Greater Israel’ by Wayne Madsen, Online Journal
(38) The Israeli-Kurdish Relations by Sergey Minasian, 21st Century, Number 1, April, 2007
(39) Israelis ‘Train Kurdish Forces’ by Magdi Abdelhadi, BBC News
(40) A Strategy For Israel In The Nineteen Eighties by Oded Yinon, Kivunim
(41) A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing The Realm by The Institute For Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
(42) The Hariri Assassination: The Role of Israel? by Rannie Amiri, Global Research
(43) Sayyed Nasrallah: “Israel” Behind PM Hariri’s Assassination by Nour Rida, Moqawama English
(44) Mossad Hacked Syrian Official’s Computer Before Bombing Mysterious Facility by Kim Zetter, Wired
(45) Syria Rebuilds On Site Destroyed By Israeli Bombs by William J. Broad, The New York Times
(46) Sy Hersh Confirms: Syrian Facility Bombed By Israel Was Not Nuclear by David Edwards and Muriel Kane, The Raw Story
(47) What Did Israel Bomb In Syria? by Pepe Escobar, The Real News
(48) Israel Denies Involvement In Syrian General’s Assassination by Yoav Stern, Haaretz
(49) Defence Chiefs Urge Hawk Netanyahu To Strike Deal With Syria by Uzi Mahnaimi, The Sunday Times
(50) Spy For Israel ‘Admits’ Scouting Mughniyeh Hit Site by The Daily Star
(51) Israel Implicated In Suleiman Shooting by The Tehran Times
(52) US ‘Secretly Funded Syrian Opposition’ by Li Ying, Global Times
(53) British Report: Mossad Unprecedentedly Penetrates The Syrian Opposition Financially And Politically by Jouhina Portal News
(54) “A President Of Afraid Of Allah” by Michael J. Totten, Pajamas Media
(55) From Syria With Doubt by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
(58) We Are Not Seeking To Topple Assad: Syrian Opposition Member
(59) In Syria, The Regime Lies And So Does Elements Of The Opposition–US Government Confirms The Presence Of Religious Armed Groups by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
(60) AP: Muslim Brotherhood Behind Syria’s New ‘Day Of Rage’ by Jonathon M. Seidl, The Blaze
(61) Syria, In The Eye Of The Storm – Part II by Nidal Hmedeh and translated by Eslam al-Rihani, Al-Manar
(62) Syria: Israel Behind Anti-Government Rallies by Roee Nahmias, Ynet
(63) Syria, In The Eye Of The Storm – Part I by Nidal Hmedeh and translated by Eslam al-Rihani, Al-Manar
(64) Syrian Rebels Don’t U.S. Aid, At Least For Now by Eli Lake, The Washington Times
(65) Uprisings In Syria Appear To Be The Work Of Foreign Agitators by Keith Johnson, American Free Press
(66) Syria, In The Eye Of The Storm – Part III by Nidal Hmedeh and translated by Eslam al-Rihani, Al-Manar
(67) Neocons Target Assad Regime by Jim Lobe, Antiwar.com
(68) Saudi Arabia, Jordan Behind Syria’s Unrest by Hassan Hanizadeh, Press TV
(69) Syria Nabs Israeli-Backed Terrorist by Press TV
(70) Syrian Protesters Turn On Iran And Hezbollah by France 24
(71) Dagan Doubts ‘Arab Spring’ by Yoav Zitun, Ynet
(72) US And Syrian Muslim Brotherhood by As’ad Abu Khalil, The Angry Arab News Service
http://www.maskofzion.com/2011/07/kiss-of-democratic-death-israels-plot.html, 6 July 2011
Rapprochement with Syria has also allowed Turkey to play a bigger regional role. The government came close to brokering a peace deal between Syria and Israel before the plan was scuppered by Israel’s attack on Gaza. Some Turks hoped that engagement with Syria would eventually yank Mr Assad out of the orbit of Iran, his biggest patron, and set him on a path towards reform. (His alleged involvement in the 2005 car-bomb assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese president, was quietly ignored.) All the more reason for Turkey’s feelings of betrayal.
Turkey finds its “zero-problems-with-neighbors” foreign policy severely compromised by upheavals in the Arab world. Relations with some of its closest friends, such as Syria, appear to be irrevocably damaged. 
