As the Ottoman Empire vanished after World War I, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created a new Turkey in the mold of Europe. Controlling all levers of power, including the military, Ataturk implemented his vision by mandating a separation between religion, public policy and government, and by telling his compatriots to consider themselves intuitively Western.
It took a century and a democratic revolution invoked by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) — a coalition of conservatives, reformed Islamists and Islamists that came to power in 2002 — for Turkey’s “Kemalist Occident,” or dalliance with the West, to end. With the mass resignation of Turkey’s military leadership last month, the last standing Kemalist institution, the army, has succumbed to the AKP’s decade-long political tsunami.
This political bookend for Kemalism suggests that AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is Turkey’s “new” Ataturk. He doesn’t have the cachet of being Turkey’s liberator, but he enjoys as much power as Ataturk once had.
Simply put, the Kemalists had it coming. When Turkey became a multi-party democracy in 1950, various parties sought for decades to maintain Ataturk’s legacy, while the military guarded the system.
Eventually, however, lethargy took hold. Far from remaining the progressive, forward-looking movement of the early 20th century, Kemalism stagnated and then shifted into an ideology for protecting the past. To those of us growing up in Turkey in recent decades, the most visible sign of this process was the emergence of mass-produced Ataturk statues, on almost every town square, after the 1980 coup that ended anarchy on the streets but also gave the country its highly restrictive and military-written constitution.
By turning Ataturk into a cult, the generals also ensured Kemalism’s demise.
Even after Turkey became a democracy in 1982, this process would not be reversed: The governing parties, mostly from the center-right, failed to produce ideas for change. The nascent Islamist parties sensed an opportunity and began building grass-roots networks and incubating a forward-looking vision for Turkey, one that cultivated permeable walls between religion, public policy and government, and that embraced the country’s Islamic identity in foreign policy.
When the dominant center-right parties collapsed after a debilitating economic crisis in 2000 and 2001, the Islamists used a platform of moderation to attract voters. Once in power, the AKP garnered popular support for change, succeeding in part because of the decade of stable economic growth the party has provided. A buoyant AKP established itself as Turkey’s new elite, gradually replacing Kemalist power centers in the media, business, academia, civil society, unions and, after amendments to the constitution last year, the high courts.
The military was the final institution of Kemalism. Since 2007, a court case known as Ergenekon, which alleged that the army was plotting a coup against the government, has crippled the military’s power. The army has been criticized for allegedly planning a vicious takeover bid and accused of planning to bomb Istanbul’s historic mosques to precipitate a political crisis. Although the assertions remain unproven, the effects are clear: The military’s status as the country’s most trusted institution is plummeting. In 1996, 94 percent of Turkish respondents to the World Values Survey said they trusted their military, while in 2011 the same poll found that barely 75 percent do.
Recognizing this and the AKP’s dominance, the military leadership threw in the towel on July 28.
Now, the AKP, as the dominant elite, can repeat the cycle of a powerful force shaping the country.
Just as Ataturk molded Turkey in his rigidly secular and Western image because he could, Erdogan will remake Turkey to match his image of rigid social conservatism and Islamic identity.
Domestically, this means a blend of government-imposed social conservatism and popular will. An example of this occurred days after the AKP’s victory in the June national assembly elections; officials of the AKP-run Istanbul city government raided downtown drinking establishments and banned outdoor tables (and, hence, publicly serving alcohol). The change prevents potential “sins” in the public eye.
Overnight, drinking disappeared from parts of downtown Istanbul.
In Erdoganist Turkey, the line between public morality and religious values will blur, and the government’s popular power will make opposition impossible.
In foreign policy, a Turkey satisfied with its Islamic identity would stop considering itself intuitively Western, especially given the resonance of the notion of a politically defined “Muslim world” since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This means an increasingly tense relationship between Turkey and NATO, the symbol of all Western institutions. It also means that Turkey will be open to all sorts of non-Western dalliances. An AKP decision to buy Russian weapons, say, or invite the Chinese to a joint naval exercise in the Mediterranean would be applauded by Turks, including the military.
For a century, the Turks emulated Ataturk because his political descendants controlled all power. Now, it is Erdogan’s turn. He has a vision and controls all levers of power. Time will tell how far he is able to shape Turkey in his conservative design.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
via From Ataturk to Erdogan, reshaping Turkey – The Washington Post.
According to the Turkish newspaper “Sabah”, the government of Erdogan decided to vote a new presidential decree, in order to return all the real estates of minorities’ institutions which were declared in 1936. This means that many Greeks will take back their properties and can demand compensation. This is also a great victory for the Ecumenical Patriarch.
In 1936, the Turkish government had asked of the parishes and minorities’ institutions to possess declared real estates. However, decades later they took back the real estates which had not been declared or were acquired as inheritance, a donation, or after purchase.
The Turkish Prime Minister will make the announcement on Sunday night during a dinner where the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew along with 162 representatives of minorities’ institutions will attend.
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.
Special Report: Erdogan: The strongest man in Turkey
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1 of 8. Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan poses for Reuters at his office at the AK Party headquarters in Ankara June 13, 2011.
Credit: REUTERS/Umit Bektas/Files
By Simon Cameron-Moore and Daren Butler
ISTANBUL | Mon Aug 8, 2011 12:30pm EDT
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has an unspoken pact with the Turkish electorate: he delivers rapid economic growth, jobs and money, and voters let him shape what kind of democracy this Muslim nation of 74 million people becomes.
So far, the deal has served him well.
Erdogan has overseen a near tripling of per capita income in the last decade. That has helped blunt misgivings over the way he deals with dissent, and allowed him to subordinate Turkey’s powerful military, which has long seen itself as guardian of the country’s secular soul. Last year he used a plebiscite on constitutional reform to break the cliques in the judiciary, another bastion of Turkey’s secular old guard.
The prime minister’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), socially conservative and successor to a banned Islamist party, won a third term with 50 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections in June thanks largely to the success of its pro-growth free-market policies.
“Erdogan realizes he will be in power as long as the country prospers,” Umit Ozlale, an economics professor at TOBB University in Ankara said. “When the economy is on track he handles other challenges from the military, judiciary or from the bureaucracy more easily.”
At the same time, many Turks have a sneaking feeling that the prime minister’s road to democracy will always lead to his own party. With the economic boom now wobbling and the resignation on July 29 of the country’s four most senior generals, tensions at the heart of Erdogan’s Turkey are becoming harder to ignore.
“The fear amongst many of the (AKP’s) critics in Turkey is that the party is now overly dominant with fewer checks and balances given its controls all the main levers of the state,” said Timothy Ash, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland.
BEATING THE GENERALS
When Chief of General Staff Isik Kosaner stepped down late last month along with the heads of the army, military and navy, he said he could no longer stand by while 250 fellow officers languished in jail, victims of charges he described as flawed and unjust.
The capitulation of the top brass confirmed what most Turks have known for years: the generals are a spent force in Turkish politics.
In many ways, that’s progress. Generals overthrew three civilian governments between 1960 and 1980 and forced an Islamist-led coalition of which Erdogan was part from power in 1997. Turks respect their military, but most want to keep the uniform out of politics.
Erdogan has managed to do just that. In 2007, the military failed to stop the AKP government installing Abdullah Gul as president. That same year, Erdogan won a second term as prime minister in a parliamentary poll that let the military know they should stop messing with democracy.
That’s created a new dynamic between soldiers and politicians. The new generals Erdogan selected last week may not love the AK Party, but they’re unlikely to ignore fellow officers plotting against the government. When Erdogan chaired a meeting of the Supreme Military Council a few days after the resignations there was no doubting who was in charge. Flanked by grim-faced four-stars, Erdogan sat alone at the top of the table, where he would normally be joined by the chief of general staff.
MAN OF THE PEOPLE
Erdogan’s followers like his forceful personality and the fact he grew up in Istanbul’s rough Kasimpasa neighborhood, where boys learn to carry themselves with a swagger and have the last word in any argument.
More than that, they appreciate his piety and sense of justice that some ascribe to his studies of Islam. Many see him as uncorruptible.
He connects with ordinary people, using everyday language in his speeches and addressing members of the audience with comments like: “Isn’t that the case, sister?,” “Don’t you think so, dear mother?”
They also like that he’s engineered a shift in power away from the old Istanbul-based business houses to the so-called Anatolian tigers in the more conservative heartland of Turkey.
And his appeal goes well beyond Turkey.
The tongue-lashing he gave Israeli president Shimon Peres at Davos in 2009 over the Gaza offensive, cemented his reputation in the Islamic world.
Last December, just before the uprising in Tunisia started the Arab Spring, a taxi driver in Tunis pointed to a photograph of Erdogan in a newspaper. “Nice man,” the cabbie told a Reuters journalist. “The best leader in the Islamic world right now.”
THREE TIMES A WINNER
Turkey’s prime minister has long understood that the key to success is economic growth.
Over the past decade he’s transformed Turkey from a basket case dependent on IMF loans to the 16th largest economy in the world. He wants Turkey to be in the top 10 by 2023.
Flush with money and with their own economy faring far better than the euro zone, Turks have grown less enamored of the prospect of joining the European Union.
Last year Turkey notched up 9 percent growth. An Istanbul banker tells a story about a customer who wanted a loan. When asked how many siblings he had in his family the young man said: “We are four, but God has given us Tayyip, so now we’re five.”
There is a sense that as long as Erdogan keeps Turks in jobs and the money rolling in, people won’t mind if the AKP government loses some of the democratic zeal that marked its early years. Erdogan has been very open about his plans for a new constitution that could open the way for him to become president.
Chances of the opposition unseating him are remote, and he has no real rivals within the AKP.
Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), an Istanbul- and Brussels-based think tank, reckons the greatest risk to Erdogan’s dominance is an economic crisis brought on by an external shock.
“Until then the AKP has a blank check,” he said, speaking just before the latest market turmoil. “This situation can continue as long as international markets remain benign, as long as interest rates globally remain low, as long as risk aversion remains low.”
“THE FINAL WORD”
That is a dismal prospect for members of the old elites, who fear Erdogan’s AKP aims to roll back the secular state envisioned by soldier-statesman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk when he founded the republic after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Erdogan has already been in office longer than any other leader since Ataturk. Critics refer to the possibility he will rule on as president as the “Putinisation” of Turkey, though the term is seldom seen in the press.
When foreign diplomats in Ankara are asked what action Turkey might take on an issue, the answer is often along the lines of: “In the end Erdogan will have the final word.”
Normally it would fall to the judiciary and press to provide a check on the government. But Turkey’s judges and journalists have also had their wings clipped.
Only last year, Erdogan won backing in a referendum on constitutional reforms that included changes to the way judges are selected. There’s little doubt that the judiciary needed reforming, but critics say that the changes also reduced judges’ independence.
Turkey has fallen to 138th out of 178 countries in the World Press Freedom Index produced by media freedom pressure group Reporters without Borders, from 101st in 2007. Washington and Brussels have both aired concerns.
Early this year, with the election looming, police detained around a dozen journalists said to be linked to an alleged anti-government network dubbed Ergenekon, the fabled valley of Turkish legend from where a tribe of Turks escaped their enemies by following a lone wolf.
Opposition politicians and military leaders allege some prosecutors are taking revenge for past state repression of Islamist movements. Armed with leaks from either prosecutors or the police, government-friendly media report the detentions in ways that suggest the suspects are guilty before their cases are heard.
“Many people worry that the arrests of these officers and journalists may be the product of a witch-hunt mentality by those who feel they have the power now and are using the judiciary to settle old scores,” said Hurriyet Daily News columnist Semih Idiz.
POLITICAL MAKEOVER
Since coming to power, Erdogan has gone out of his way to be seen as a model of pragmatism. Alcohol may cost more, but little in the way of legislation offers evidence of a religious agenda.
An attempt to lift a ban on women wearing the Muslim headscarf entering universities or working in the public sector has not been revived since it was pushed back in 2004.
In the past year, however, there was barely a murmur when universities began taking a permissive stance toward students in headscarves.
Scaremongering over the spread of Islamism proved a vote- loser for the secular opposition, so they stopped campaigning on it, opting instead to pick holes in Erdogan’s image as a champion of democracy.
The pillar of his political program is a proposal for a new constitution to replace the one drafted after a 1980 military coup. Parliament is expected to begin work on the new charter in October, and it is likely to dominate the political agenda until next summer.
“It will be a constitution emphasizing pluralism rather than a single voice. It will take the individual and their rights as its basis, protecting national unity and our shared values and accepting the wealth of social diversity,” Erdogan said late last month.
Critics are unconvinced. When Erdogan has said in the past “democracy is not an objective, it is a vehicle,” his foes have pounced, pointing to the words as proof of his autocratic tendencies.
“The new constitutional order will bring not liberty and democracy, as the government is trying to persuade Westerners, but a harsher new order,” former Constitutional Court chief judge Yekta Gungor Ozden told Reuters.
WHAT KIND OF PRESIDENT?
But the shape of a new constitution is far from clear. Burhan Kuzu, the head of the parliamentary commission looking at it, is a staunch advocate of the presidential system and argues that Turkey prospers from single-party rule and slips back when led by weak coalitions.
Not everyone in the AKP likes the idea of a presidential system: to win the parliamentary votes he needs to alter the constitution, Erdogan will have to reach out to rival parties.
Former justice minister Hikmet Sami Turk told Reuters that many opposition groups will not “accept a presidential system. It could lead to a dictatorial system.”
If Erdogan fails to win his changes, he will likely still run for — and win — the presidency in 2014 even if the position remains a figurehead role.
His greatest threat is an economic crisis.
Against conventional wisdom, the central bank cut its policy interest rate to an all-time low on August 4, despite growing concerns about inflation and pressure on the lira currency.
In the last few months, Erdogan said that ideally he’d like to see real interest rates at zero, a notion that makes some worry that populist priorities could hurt the economy.
If inflation rises or the flow of foreign investment dries up, Turkey could easily find itself with a current account deficit climbing beyond 10 percent of GDP, leaving it vulnerable to an economic shock that could persuade voters to desert Erdogan just as they did his predecessors.
Until then, there’s no doubting who’s boss.
(Reported and written by Simon Cameron-Moore and Daren Butler; Additional reporting by Asli Kandemir, Tulay Karadeniz, Orhan Coskun, Ozge Ozbilgin and Pinar Aydinli; Editing by Simon Robinson and Sara Ledwith)
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (European Commission photo).
BY YIGAL SCHLEIFER | BRIEFING
Friday’s mass resignation by Turkey’s top general, Isik Kosaner, and the commanders of the country’s army, navy and air force was a clear sign that the long-running battle between the military and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been decisively won by the government and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But the neutralization of the Turkish military as a political force will also bring with it greater pressure on the increasingly powerful AKP, which must now demonstrate that it can continue Turkey’s democratization process — particularly the drafting of a new, civilian-minded constitution — in an inclusive manner.
Kosaner and his colleagues resigned just before today’s start of the twice-yearly meeting of the High Military Council (YAS), where military promotions are determined. The move, in which they technically submitted their early retirements, was a protest against a number of ongoing court cases that have led to the arrest of some 250 military personnel, among them several generals and admirals.
In a country where previously the pattern had been for the generals to force the politicians out of office by making their life unbearably miserable, the commanders’ walkout certainly represented a dramatic turn of events, though not a surprising one. Since coming into office in late 2002, Erdogan and the AKP had slowly whittled away the military’s power, while increasing the amount of civilian oversight over the previously unaccountable Turkish armed forces.
Among the most significant changes was a law passed by the AKP in June of 2009 that allowed for serving military officials to be tried in civilian courts if they were deemed to be threatening national security or to be part of an organized crime network. Previously they could only be tried in military courts. Since then, several large-scale court cases have been initiated, all alleging that various members of the Turkish military were engaged in conspiracies to overthrow or undermine the government.
Only days before Kosaner’s resignation, an Istanbul court accepted an indictment in yet another case against the military, one that alleges that several generals and other officers were involved in a clandestine project to launch anti-government websites.
In a statement released after his resignation, Kosaner sounded like a man who realizes he is powerless in countering the forces arrayed against him.
“One purpose of interrogation and long detentions has been to keep the TSK (Turkish Military Forces) on the agenda all the time and so give the impression that [the military] is a criminal organization. And it has not gone unnoticed that the [pro-government] media, which sees this as an opportunity, has published all kinds of false news, smears and accusations to turn our honored nation against the military forces,” he said in his statement.
“Because this situation has not been prevented and addresses to the relevant institutions have been ignored, and because it is an obstacle to my protecting the legal rights of my personnel, it has become impossible for me to continue serving in the noble position I occupy.”
With its victory over the military, the AKP government is now turning its attention to the drafting of a new constitution, something it had said would be a priority prior to June’s parliamentary election, which it won with close to 50 percent of the vote.
“In such a period where Turkey is undergoing a transformative process from politics to the economy, from justice to freedoms and from a social-state understanding to cultural initiatives, the major need is a civilian constitution reflecting the spirit of these changes and the will of our nation,” Erdogan said in a televised address Saturday.
Erdogan also promised a constitution that “will meet the demands of the whole society,” but achieving that could prove to be extremely challenging. Tensions on the Kurdish front are mounting, with the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) — which won 36 seats in the June election — currently boycotting parliament because several of its members were denied their seats on legal grounds. Meanwhile, the secularist and nationalist opposition parties could use the crisis with the military and the generals’ resignation as a rallying cry against the AKP.
This could embolden Erdogan, with his big win at the polls, to act on his own in terms of pushing through a new constitution, perhaps one that establishes a powerful executive presidency that he would eventually fill. Erdogan’s desire to create such an office is well known.
“You have a completely different . . . atmosphere in just two months,” Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Istanbul, told the New York Times. “It’s extraordinary. One assumes that the prime minister feels very strong and very powerful.”
The question now is, Just how emboldened does Erdogan feel? Having vanquished the once-mighty generals, the answer may be, Very much so.
Yigal Schleifer is a Washington-based journalist and analyst covering Turkey and the surrounding region. He is also the author of “Istanbul Calling,” a blog covering Turkish foreign and domestic affairs.
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
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. 
