Syria: A culture oppressed – the torture and imprisonment of Syrian Kurds

The Syrian government hates everyone who isn't their exact type of religion

http://www.hrinfo.net/en/reports/net2004/syria.shtml

Amnesty International
The Wire - March 2005
Repression of Kurds in Syria is widespread
“We were put in a closed room… sleeping on the floor with lice and mice. Our hair was shaved. They would only open the door to throw in the food then close the door again. [And] during meals they would turn on the water tap and put us under it clothed, then we would be beaten.”
Testimony given to AI by Hassan (not his real name), detained for two months following violence in Qamishli, Syria in March 2004

Security forces reportedly fired live bullets into the Kurdish section of the crowd when tensions rose between rival Arab and Kurdish fans during a football match in March 2004, in the north-eastern town of Qamishli. Several people were killed. The next day, police officers opened fire on a funeral procession for Kurds killed the previous day. This led to two days of protests and riots in largely Kurdish populated towns across northern Syria. At least 30 Kurds were killed.

More than 2,000 people, almost all of them Kurds, are believed to have been detained following these events. Most were held incommunicado and there are widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including children, women and the elderly. Children as young as 12 were reportedly beaten with electric cables and had their heads bashed together.

Testimonies of torture of adults cite electric shocks, having fingernails pulled off and being sexually humiliated. At least five Kurds died allegedly as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody. A further six Kurdish conscripts are reported to have been killed in suspicious circumstances on account of their Kurdish identity.

About 200 Kurds detained during the March 2004 events were still held at the beginning of 2005. Fifteen of them were referred to trial before the Supreme State Security Court (SSSC). Trials before the SSSC, which was created 42 years ago under Syria’s emergency laws, do not meet international standards for fair trials: its decisions are not subject to appeal and “confessions” allegedly extracted under torture are accepted as evidence.

The Kurds are the second largest ethnic group in Syria. However, Kurdish is not recognized as an official language and it is forbidden to publish materials in Kurdish. Kurdish cannot be used in schools and in the workplace. Tens of thousands of “stateless” Kurds are not allowed to own property, work in various professions, or study at university. Kurds who peacefully protest such discrimination face harassment, detention, torture and unfair trials.

The Syrian authorities must investigate all allegations of torture and suspected unlawful killings. Those suspected of having committed torture or having carried out unlawful killings should be brought to justice. The Syrian government should end the prohibitions imposed on Kurdish people living in Syria including the ban on use of the Kurdish language in schools and the workplace.

http://web.amnesty.org/web/wire.nsf/print/March2005Syria

Hey, I was THERE in Syria and met many Kurds while there. We had tea inside Kurdish homes and they were very supportive of their president Assad, whose portrait, along with his father's portrait, hung on the living room wall.

In fact our tour guide, an American who has been to Syria many times, said that if there were to be held a truly democratic vote, President Assad would win by at least 70%.

We visited many Syrians' homes, from all walks of life, and many had portraits of Assad in their home, however, not all. Everyone spoke genuinely warmly and approvingly of their President Bashir Assad.

So this article above is just another Zionist propaganda piece.

And by the way, Amnesty International is very soft on Zionist crimes in Israel. Basically Amnest International is a soft Zionist organization. Just in case you aren't aware of this already. It's fact. Check it out. Do your own research.

Visit Syria yourself! It's a fascinating, friendly and beautiful country.

What the poster above overlooks is that people living under dictatorial regimes would very often extol their country's ruler when speaking to a visitor or tourist and also often have the dictator's portrait mounted on at least one of their homes' walls.

Based on what the poster above discloses -- or more to the point fails to divulge -- one cannot dismiss the possibility that the American tour guide may very well be biased toward the current Syrian regime; . So his/her opinion doesn't necessarily bear much weight on the issue of Assad's prospects of winning a democratic election.

The charges to the effect that Amnesty is soft on Israeli human rights violations and that it's Zionist in to some degree are laughable rubbish. The opposite is true. Anyone can go and research Amnesty's behavior on sites like Honestreporting.com and CAMERA and realize how excessively strict this organization has been toward Israel.

Finally, the conclusion that "the article above is just another Zionist propaganda piece" gets revealed as less than convincing.

Leftists Indifferent to Human Rights Abuses against Kurds
The Left pretends to get all upset because "Palestinians" are "occupied". But they have never heard of the occupation of the Kurds by Syria's fascist regime. Or worse, as part of their pro-Syria manifestations of infantile anti-Americanism, they actually endorse the Syrian oppressors.

Ironically, even Amnesty International has spoken out against the mistreatment by Syria of Kurds. Human rights abuses against Kurds there are common. Other forms of repression are widespread.

Moreover Kurds have claims to the right to self-determination that are at least a hundred times more legitimate than those of "Palestinians". After all, there are already 22 Arab countries, and the PLO areas almost comprise a 23rd. The Kurds do not have ANY state at all. SO why should they not be FAR more entitled to their own state than random groups of Arabs? "Palestinians" have about as legitimate a claim to a right to having their own state as do Detroit Arabs or the Sudeten Germans. And the Kurds have not conducted a century of terrorist atrocities against civilians, unlike the Palestinians.

SO why nary a word from our leftist brethren about the oppression of Kurds and their need for self-determination? Why? Well, maybe it has a little to do with the fact that giving the Kurds their own state would not help achieve the leftist goal of a second Holocaust of Jews....

Cockburn's Counterpunch Runs a Syrian Mouthpiece
Joining the other insects and virtual varmints who turn out anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda for Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch cyber-rag is now one Ramzy Baroud. Baroud's contribution to web thought is to argue that the US is simply being manipulated by dem Joos in Israel into confrontation with Syria. In Baroud's "mind":




"And now that the Lebanese people have had the courage to demand that Syria stop meddling with their affairs, will Americans prove equally courageous to demand and expect an end to Israel's role in shaping American foreign policy? Time will tell."


So who exactly is this intellectual prodigy?

Turns out Baroud runs a PLO-front propaganda outfit called Palestine Chronicle, and also moonlights for Al-Jazeera. But Baroud is also a pro-Syrian propagandist and he has worked for a Syrian propaganda publisher, which published Baroud's tissue of lies concerning the Battle of Jenin.

Baroud is author of "Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion."

To understand it, imagine that someone were to publish a book about how Germans were brutalized and terrorized by American racist GIs who unjustly occupied their country in 1945 for no reason at all besides anti-German bigotry. Imagine that this same book never quite got around to mentioning that the brutal Americans had occupied Germany only after Nazi Germany launched World War II, which produced 55 million deaths. Imagine that this book ignored Auschwitz and Dachau. Well, if you can imagine such a book, then you are only partly on your way to understand Searching Jenin, a vile shallow propaganda screed that makes the PLO's Covenant look like a masterpiece in cool impartial analysis.

The book is published by Cune Press, a small propaganda outfit based in Seattle that produces the sorts of Far Left anti-American and pro-Arab books of which Osama bin Laden would approve, and with a special interest in printing sycophantic volumes about Syria.

These days, even the BBC admits that there was no massacre at all in Jenin and at most a handful of Palestinian civilianz got killed in the crossfire when Israeli troops hunted down terrorists. The Israeli Arab film producer Mohammed Bakri, partly responsible for inventing the lies about a supposed "massacre" in the battle in his film "Jenin Jenin", now admits that his film about the battle is full of lies.

Baroud's propaganda "book" about the same battle contains a foreword by the Khmer Rouge's apologist Noam Chomsky, also a Burncock columnist, and jacket endorsements by professional Arab propagandist James Zogby and other anti-Israel thugs.

As one would expect from this genre of propaganda, one never learns in the book why Israel launched Operation Defensive Wall against Jenin terrorists in the first place. You will never hear how the UNs own investigators proved there was no massacre at all in Jenin. You will never hear about how so many Israeli troops were killed there because they were risking their lives NOT to harm any innocent Palestinians. And you will never learn that Jenin was crawling with mass murdering terrorists and those who had organized suicide bombings against Jewish civilians.

The book begins by telling us the tragic saga of photojournalist Mahfouz Abu Turk, who - Baroud insists - mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the Jenin battle, implying that he was murdered by the rampaging Israelis. Only in the appendix will you discover that Abu Turk is alive and well, was never injured, and I guess disappeared only in the sense that Baroud did not know where he was for a few hours.

THE METHODOLOGY OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES IN LEBANON

"No one dares to say anything. The Syrians feel free to do what they want here, and no one can interfere."

-Palestinian resident of Tripoli, Lebanon, August 1996.

There is a clear pattern to the method of "disappearances" in Lebanon in the cases that Human Rights Watch has documented and examined. First, individuals are seized by Syrian intelligence operatives, usually dressed in plainclothes, sometimes with the participation of their Lebanese counterparts. No written arrest or detention orders are produced at the time of detention. Second, families experience severe suffering following these state-sanctioned abductions because Lebanese and Syrian authorities do not officially provide information about the detention, fate, or whereabouts of the "disappeared." Third, most victims in cases investigated by Human Rights Watch were tortured while in custody in Syrian detention facilities in Lebanon or while in detention in Syria. In some cases documented by Human Rights Watch, the "disappeared" have been pressured by high-ranking Syrian officers to collaborate with Syrian intelligence in Lebanon.

More

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/syria/Syria-04.htm#P177_26238

I don't understand why so many people here are actually agreeing with this article and take things Amnesty International says seriously.

Amnesty has long been an incredible tool of the imperialists. At their international film festival they barred the screening of The Revolution will not be Televised, a film about the coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002. They have also stood by complacently during the destruction of Haiti. Amnesty has a fierce critic of Aristide and constantly extolled all of his ‘human rights violations’ which all turned out to be false. This played in quite well with the Western media myth that Haiti needed to be liberated. Now that a military dictatorship has been installed, all of Aristide’s social programmes have been halted, police forces are being trained by foreign occupiers and regularly go into pro-Aristide villages and kill every single young man, the economy is being completely privatized and things like compulsory voting are being instituted (those who don’t vote will be black listed and denied what little is left of government services, this will also help create an aura of a high voter turn out) Amnesty is being silent. They say nothing.

This is an organisation which has opposed every worker's revolution that has come into existence since it was founded, an organization with racist, sino-phobic, and anti-Slavic tendencies, funded by the CIA and founded in the heat of the Cold War to be used as a weapon in the psychological war against communism.

I have no patience for Amnesty International. They are a hypocritical, self-serving and useless organization.

Maronites Call for End of Occupation

Maronite Christians form one of the largest ethnic peoples in Lebanon. They have called for an end to Syria's occupation citing more than 25 years of terror, torture as well as fuelling a drugs trade in heroin. They have also called upon the world community to enforce UN Resolution 520 which calls for Syria to leave Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization which investigates human rights abuses, best known for its exhaustive 'studies' of Israel, has said Syria has been responsible for the 'disappearance 'of Lebanese citizens.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/04/leb042700.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/nov/syr1109.htm

Lebanese Maronite groups accuse Syria of murdering its citizens and crushing all dissent to its rule.
http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/syriaout/syriaout.html
http://freelebanon.org/articles/a251.htm
http://plaza.powersurfr.com/maronites/Ending_Syria.htm
http://www.generalaoun.org/freedomwriter7.html

In May 2002, Ramzi Airani, a Maronite Christian engineer and an activist of the banned Lebanese Forces militia that opposes Syria's domination of Lebanon, was found tortured, shot dead. He was stuffed in the trunk of his car two weeks after his mysterious kidnapping in broad daylight from a busy Beirut street. His killing has raised concern over the level of repression by Syria with many opponents calling for a wider inquiry.

Maronites Call for End of Occupation

Maronite Christians form one of the largest ethnic peoples in Lebanon. They have called for an end to Syria's occupation citing more than 25 years of terror, torture as well as fuelling a drugs trade in heroin. They have also called upon the world community to enforce UN Resolution 520 which calls for Syria to leave Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization which investigates human rights abuses, best known for its exhaustive 'studies' of Israel, has said Syria has been responsible for the 'disappearance 'of Lebanese citizens.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/04/leb042700.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/nov/syr1109.htm

Lebanese Maronite groups accuse Syria of murdering its citizens and crushing all dissent to its rule.
http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/syriaout/syriaout.html
http://freelebanon.org/articles/a251.htm
http://plaza.powersurfr.com/maronites/Ending_Syria.htm
http://www.generalaoun.org/freedomwriter7.html

In May 2002, Ramzi Airani, a Maronite Christian engineer and an activist of the banned Lebanese Forces militia that opposes Syria's domination of Lebanon, was found tortured, shot dead. He was stuffed in the trunk of his car two weeks after his mysterious kidnapping in broad daylight from a busy Beirut street. His killing has raised concern over the level of repression by Syria with many opponents calling for a wider inquiry.

http://www.freemiddleeast.com/syria.asp

Human rights and basic freedoms situation in Syria have witnessed ongoing serious infractions, violations and other acts of aggression over the past twenty years in light of the Emergency Law, martial rules and ad hoc trials. Such violations showed this regime’s contempt for mankind, lack of understanding for human rights and freedoms, and of compliance with national legislations, and international agreements on human rights signed by Syria. They also indicated this regime’s lack of commitment to the International Declaration on Human Rights and to the principles of right, justice, and freedom.


The Syrian regime’s violations involved basically the human being’s rights to life, freedom, and personal safety. These natural and holy rights have been confirmed, safeguarded and respected jointly by all secular and heavenly laws and legislations. But it has always been the intention and the consistent policy of the ruling regime in Syria to commit acts of aggression against the human being’s right to life, democracy, and personal integrity. It has always been the aim of that regime to violate Man’s economic, democratic, unionist and other rights approved by international treaties and community.


The state conducted regular raids and inspections of cities, quarters, villages and houses which included hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens. Thousands were arbitrarily and illegally arrested without any charges; thousands more were turned into fugitives whose families suffered bitterly as a result of the war waged against them while seeking to earn a living. Furthermore, thousands of Syrian and Arab citizens were kidnapped, murdered, and physically liquidated including the intelligentsia, physicians, lawyers, and engineers. Some of the best people of the homeland became martyrs who lost their lives under or because of torture, or as a result of premeditated murder and assassinations, within Syria or abroad, organized and perpetrated by the regime’s specialized departments assigned to implementing terrorist operations. Yet, massacres and mass murders were committed by regular military forces at Tal Za’ter, the Lebanese city of Tripoli, Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Latakia, Jisr Shaghour, Idlib, Tadmur Jail, and other Syrian cities and villages.


Our Committee has announced this year a list of more than four thousand citizens detained without trial. Nothing has been heard or known about many of these detainees ever since the first day they were arrested. The families of these detainees know nothing about their destiny or where they are detained. Rules governing the missing people apply to those detainees lodging in the prisons for twenty years. This reflected negatively on the social, economic, educational, psychological and legal aspects of their families who became increasingly worried about the spread of executions without trial and death under torture. Hundreds of unarmed detainees were killed at Tadmur Jail. The relatives of the detainees are not aware whether those detainees were alive or dead. And when the ruling authorities in Syria are asked about the missing citizens, they would reply that they have no idea about their whereabouts. However, the political regime in any society is supposed to be responsible for the life and safety of every citizen, and for knowing about the destiny of any missing person. But the regime in Syria relieves itself of this responsibility under the pretext of unawareness, although citizens know that the regime’s departments are behind cases of any missing person.


So many detainees in Syria are now considered as missing people whose destiny is unknown. The authority’s personnel followed strange and illegal methods, especially when they try to arrest a citizen but could not find him for one reason or another; they would arrest a family member such as his wife, sons, or parents. These people would be taken hostages for no offense committed, and would be left in the jail’s darkness until the wanted person handed himself over to the authority. Such personnel would not hesitate to practice various types of psychological and physical torture against the hostages.


In the event that the authorities failed to arrest the wanted person, and that this person did not turn himself in, the authority would continue to hold his relatives as hostages, perhaps for years. There are some citizens; both men and women who have been detained as hostages for twenty years up to this date.


Human rights violations in Syria have assumed a legislative nature, through departments and courts which were originally set up as exceptions inconsistent with the sovereignty of the Law, but were transformed into permanent establishments and bodies in line with the ongoing state of emergency. This repression which takes an institutionalized and methodological form is one of the most serious features of contemporary terrorism, because it has reversed the rules advocated by the international community, and distorted the values of modern civilization. In fact, legislations were tailored to allow for repression contrary to human rights principles formally reinforced within the Constitution, thereby undermining the objective legitimacy of these laws and depriving the ruling regime of its legitimacy.


http://www.shrc.org/books/hr.20year/hr2.htm

new Syrian edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (2005) featured at the Cairo International Book Fair and exhibited with other Syrian-published anti-Semitic books. It combines Christian European and traditional Islamic anti-Semitic myths with political propaganda encouraging Palestinian terrorism and predicting the disappearance of the State of Israel. The Syrian publishing house Dar Al-Awael notes in its foreword that publication was authorized by the Syrian Ministry of Information, providing additional proof that the current Syrian régime is infected with a vicious strain of anti-Semitism also marketed to the Arab-Muslim world.

http://www.embajada-israel.es/

is that Israeli troops occupy Syrian soil.

The Golan Heights had been under Syrian occupation, much prior to which they were Jewish territory, an integral part of the Land of Israel.

The name "Golan" is neither from Arabic nor from Aramaic. Which leaves only Hebrew as its source. The Jews or Israelits coined the name.

there are more languages than that in the region, especially if you go back to the time when that area was named.

Methinks he doth protest to much.

The name is derived from the city Golan (mentioned in the OT) that once existed within that territory. We must keep in mind that in OT times there were various Israelite (and also non-Israelite) Hebrew dialects in addition to the Judaic in which most of the Hebrew Bible was aurhored.

For proof about the name 'Golan", read

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/G/Golan.asp
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0821150.html

what does the etymology of the name "Yassir Dein," imply about who "owns" that particular piece of ground? For that matter, what about the name "Palestine"? Were not the Peleset there before the Israelites? Palestine was not the original homeland of the Jews. Did they not, by their own admission, come there from Egypt, and did not their ancestors come from Ur of the Chaldees?

If we are going to go back in time to find a justification for claiming “ownership,” why only go as far back as the time right after the Israelites ethnically cleansed the Canaanites and Philistines from their homeland? Why not go all the way back to the original inhabitants?

They weren't the only ones to fall victim to the blood thirsty followers of the evil "god" Yahweh, either.

See:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/atrocity.shtml

(snip)

EX 17:13 With the Lord's approval, Joshua mows down Amalek and his people.

(snip)

EX 32:27-29 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay 3000 men.

LE 26:7-8 The Lord promises the Israelites that, if they are obedient, their enemies will "fall before your sword."

(snip)

NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.

(snip)

NU 21:35 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay Og "... and his sons and all his people, until there was not one survivor left ...."

NU 25:4 (KJV) "And the Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun ...."

NU 25:8 "He went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly."

(snip)

NU 31:9 The Israelites capture Midianite women and children.

NU 31:17-18 Moses, following the Lord's command, orders the Israelites to kill all the Midianite male children and "... every woman who has known man ...." (Note: How would it be determined which women had known men? One can only speculate.)

NU 31:31-40 32,000 virgins are taken by the Israelites as booty. Thirty-two are set aside (to be sacrificed?) as a tribute for the Lord.

DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.

DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.

DT 7:2 The Lord commands the Israelites to "utterly destroy" and shown "no mercy" to those whom he gives them for defeat.

DT 20:13-14 "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males .... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves."

DT 20:16 "In the cities of the nations the Lord is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes."

DT 21:10-13 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites are allowed to take "beautiful women" from the enemy camp to be their captive wives. If, after sexual relations, the husband has "no delight" in his wife, he can simply let her go.

(snip)

JS 6:21-27 With the Lord's approval, Joshua destroys the city of

(snip)

JS 8:22-25 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly smites the people of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women, so that there were none who escaped.

JS 10:10-27 With the help of the Lord, Joshua utterly destroys the Gibeonites.

JS 10:28 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Makkedah.

JS 10:30 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Libnahites.

JS 10:32-33 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Lachish.

JS 10:34-35 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Eglonites.

JS 10:36-37 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Hebronites.

JS 10:38-39 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Debirites.

JS 10:40 (A summary statement.) "So Joshua defeated the whole land ...; he left none remaining, but destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."

(snip)

JS 11:8-15 "And the lord gave them into the hand of Israel, ...utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed ...."

JS 11:20 "For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be utterly destroyed, and should receive no mercy but be exterminated, as the Lord commanded Moses."

JS 11:21-23 Joshua utterly destroys the Anakim.

JG 1:4 With the Lord's support, Judah defeats 10,000 Canaanites at Bezek.

JG 1:6 With the Lord's approval, Judah pursues Adoni-bezek, catches him, and cuts off his thumbs and big toes.

JG 1:8 With the Lord's approval, Judah smites Jerusalem.

JG 1:17 With the Lord's approval, Judah and Simeon utterly destroy the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath.

JG 3:29 The Israelites kill about 10,000 Moabites.

JG 3:31 (A restatement.) Shamgar killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad.

(snip)

JG 7:19-25 The Gideons defeat the Midianites, slay their princes, cut off their heads, and bring the heads back to Gideon.

JG 8:15-21 The Gideons slaughter the men of Penuel.

JG 9:5 Abimalech murders his brothers.

JG 9:45 Abimalech and his men kill all the people in the city.

(snip)

JG 11:29-39 Jepthah sacrifices his beloved daughter, his only child, according to a vow he has made with the Lord.

JG 14:19 The Spirit of the Lord comes upon a man and causes him to slay thirty men.

JG 15:15 Samson slays 1000 men with the jawbone of an ass.

(snip)

JG 16:27-30 Samson, with the help of the Lord, pulls down the pillars of the Philistine house and causes his own death and that of 3000 other men and women.

JG 18:27 The Danites slay the quiet and unsuspecting people of Laish.

JG 19:22-29 A group of sexual depraved men beat on the door of an old man's house demanding that he turn over to them a male house guest. Instead, the old man offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine (or wife): "Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing." The man's concubine is ravished and dies. The man then cuts her body into twelve pieces and sends one piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

JG 20:43-48 The Israelites smite 25,000+ "men of valor" from amongst the Benjamites, "men and beasts and all that they found," and set their towns on fire.

JG 21:10-12 "... Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword and; also the women and little ones.... every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall utterly destroy." They do so and find four hundred young virgins whom they bring back for their own use.

(snip)


1SA 7:7-11 Samuel and his men smite the Philistines.

1SA 11:11 With the Lord's blessing, Saul and his men cut down the Ammonites.

1SA 14:31 Jonathan and his men strike down the Philistines.

1SA 14:48 Saul smites the Amalekites.

1SA 15:3, 7-8 "This is what the Lord says: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass ....' And Saul ... utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."

1SA 15:33 "Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord ...."

1SA 18:7 The women sing as they make merry: "Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands."

1SA 18:27 David murders 200 Philistines, then cuts off their foreskins.

1SA 30:17 David smites the Amalekites.

2SA 2:23 Abner kills Asahel.

2SA 3:30 Joab and Abishai kill Abner.

2SA 4:7-8 Rechan and Baanah kill Ish-bosheth, behead him, and take his head to David.

2SA 4:12 David has Rechan and Baanah killed, their hands and feet cut off, and their bodies hanged by the pool at Hebron.

2SA 5:25 "And David did as the Lord commanded him, and smote the Philistines ...."

(snip)

2SA 8:1-18 (A listing of some of David's murderous conquests.)

2SA 8:4 David hamstrung all but a few of the horses.

2SA 8:5 David slew 22,000 Syrians.

2SA 8:6, 14 "The Lord gave victory to David wherever he went."


2SA 8:13 David slew 18,000 Edomites in the valley of salt and made the rest slaves.

2SA 10:18 David slew 47,000+ Syrians.

2SA 11:14-27 David has Uriah killed so that he can marry Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.

2SA 12:1, 19 The Lord strikes David's child dead for the sin that David has committed.

2SA 13:1-15 Amnon loves his sister Tamar, rapes her, then hates her.

2SA 13:28-29 Absalom has Amnon murdered.

2SA 18:6 -7 20,000 men are slaughtered at the battle in the forest of Ephraim.

2SA 18:15 Joab's men murder Absalom.

2SA 20:10-12 Joab's men murder Amasa and leave him "... wallowing in his own blood in the highway. And anyone who came by, seeing him, stopped."

(snip)

1KI 2:24-25 Solomon has Adonijah murdered.

1KI 2:29-34 Solomon has Joab murdered.

1KI 2:46 Solomon has Shime-i murdered.

(snip)

1KI 20:29-30 The Israelites smite 100,000 Syrian soldiers in one day. A wall falls on 27,000 remaining Syrians.

(snip)

2KI 6:29 "So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."

2KI 9:24 Jehu tricks and murders Joram.

2KI 9:27 Ahaziah has Jehu killed.

2KI 9:30-37 Jehu has Jezebel killed. Her body is trampled by horses. Dogs eat her flesh so that only her skull, feet, and the palms of her hands remain.

2KI 10:7 Jehu has Ahab's seventy sons beheaded, then sends the heads to their father.

2KI 10:14 Jehu has forty-two of Ahab's kin killed.

2KI 10:17 "And when he came to Samaria, he slew all that remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord ...."

2KI 10:19-27 Jehu uses trickery to massacre the Baal worshippers.

2KI 11:1 Athaliah destroys all the royal family.

2KI 14:5, 7 Amaziah kills his servants and then 10,000 Edomites.

(snip)

2KI 15:16 Menahem ripped open all the women who were pregnant.

2KI 19:35 An angel of the Lord kills 185,000 men.

1CH 20:3 (KJV) "And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes."

2CH 13:17 500,000 Israelites are slaughtered.

2CH 21:4 Jehoram slays all his brothers.

PS 137:9 Happy will be the man who dashes your little ones against the stones.

PS 144:1 God is praised as the one who trains hands for war and fingers for battle.

IS 13:15 "Everyone who is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their ... wives will be ravished."

IS 13:18 "Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children."

IS 14:21-22 "Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers."

I(snip)

EZ 9:4-6 The Lord commands: "... slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women ...."

EZ 20:26 In order that he might horrify them, the Lord allowed the Israelites to defile themselves through, amongst other things, the sacrifice of their first-born children.

EZ 21:3-4 The Lord says that he will cut off both the righteous and the wicked that his sword shall go against all flesh.

EZ 23:25, 47 God is going to slay the sons and daughters of those who were whores.

EZ 23:34 "You shall ... pluck out your hair, and tear your breasts."

HO 13:16 "They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."

MI 3:2-3 "... who pluck off their skin ..., and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron."

(snip)

* * *

etc.

It's actually "Deir Yassin."

Here's the story of yet another massacre by blood thirsty ethnic cleansers:

http://www.deiryassin.org/index1.html

School children arrested and Students Expelled from Syrian University

Action Alert - Syria

Syria
Date: 14 April 2004
Source: Amnesty International
Source classification: NEAR Member Action Alert
Contact: Natalie Nicora
Amnesty International reported that four Kurdish school children were
arrested by members of the political security department at al-Talane' school, in the city of Qamishli, north-eastern Syria on 6 April 2004 .
They were taken to a detention centre in the town of al-Hasaka, about 80km away. In addition, at least 24 Kurdish students have been expelled from their universities and dormitories in March 2004.

The children were reportedly ill-treated during their arrest and Amnesty International fears they may be at risk of torture or further ill-treatment. The exact location and conditions of their detention are unknown. It is also unknown whether they have been
charged with any offence or granted access to their families or lawyers.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

A wave of arrests, riots and killings swept Syria in March 2004 following a clash between Arab and Kurdish fans at a football match in Qamishli on 12 March. Security forces
reportedly fired into the crowds, killing a number of people. At least 20 people were killed in later disturbances across the north of the country and Amnesty International has the names of more than 100 people who have been injured.

Over 2,000 people, mostly Kurds, are thought to have been arrested. Many of them are held incommunicado at unknown locations, and at least two men have reportedly died in custody. A number of people, including children, have reportedly been tortured.

The predominantly Kurdish areas in the north and north-east of the
country lag behind the rest of the country in terms of social and economic indicators. In 2003 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated its concern at both direct and indirect
discrimination against, amongst others, children belonging to minorities and/or communities in the north and north-east of Syria.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English, Arabic, French or your own language:

-expressing serious concern at the arrest and apparent incommunicado detention of the 12- and 13-year-old Kurdish schoolchildren, Nijirfan Saleh Mahmoud, Ahmad Shikhmous 'Abdallah, Walat Mohammad Sa'id and Serbest Shikhou;

- asking why they were arrested and calling for their immediate and unconditional release unless they are to be charged with a recognisably criminal offence;

- calling for them not to be ill-treated and to granted immediate
access to their families, to lawyers and to any medical care they
may require;

- reminding Syria of its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child including that: "the arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the
shortest appropriate period of time; "every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In
particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child's best interest not to do so and shall have the right to maintain contact with his or her family through correspondence and visits, save in
exceptional circumstances"; and "Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance, as well as the right to challenge the legality of the deprivation of his or her liberty before a
court or other competent, independent and impartial authority, and
to a prompt decision on any such action."

APPEALS TO:
His Excellency Bashar al-Assad
President
Presidential Palace
Abu Rummaneh
al-Rashid Street
Damascus
Syrian Arab Republic
Telegram: President al-Assad, Damascus, Syria
Fax: 00 963 11 332 3410
[Salutation: Your Excellency]

His Excellency Major General 'Ali Hammud
Minister of the Interior
Ministry of Interior
Merjeh Circle
Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic
Telegram: Interior Minister, Damascus, Syria
Fax: 00 963 11 222 3428
Telex: 411016 AFIRS SY
[Salutation: Your Excellency]

PLEASE SEND COPIES OF YOUR APPEALS TO:
His Excellency Mr Mouafak
Nassar, Embassy of Syria, 8 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PH. Fax:
020 7235 4621 Email: syrianembassyuk [at] hotmail.com

Natalie Nicora, NEAR, natalie.nicora [at] nearinternational.org

To ensure that appeals are current and credible, please do not continue to write appeals on this case after 60 days from the date of the posting unless an update has been issued.


-END-

once again pointing out yet another case of nessiesque anti- Zionist hypocrisy and mendacity. It'll happen again, too, the very next time this despicable, racist hypocrite call the kettle black.

Sorry, typo.
by click here Monday, Mar. 14, 2005 at 10:36 AM

It's actually "Deir Yassin."

Here's the story of yet another massacre by blood thirsty ethnic cleansers:

http://www.deiryassin.org/index1.html

Hey anti-israel lunatics,

Yes, we all know about "Deir Yassin"

It's rather pathetic how you have to keep bringing that and your one other anti-Israel event up over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

It's rather pathetic how you have to keep exaggerating its importance.

Deir Yassin happened 80 years ago. And around 100 people died. Far bigger trageides happened in the 1940's. Get over it.

And it's now 2005.

This is a thread about Syrian Muslims refusing to stop harrassing Lebanese Christians.

Why do mods here allow anti-Israel lunatics to hijack all the threads?

Even though nearly a tenth of the Syrian population is Kurdish, they’re not allowed to be taught in their own language.

More than 200,000 Kurdish people in Syria are denied a nationality and passport. These stateless Kurds are denied some basic economic and social rights. They aren’t allowed to own a house, land, or a business. They can’t work as lawyers, journalists, engineers or doctors. Many are not allowed to study in school after the age of 14, and often they’re not allowed treatment in state hospitals.

The violent events of March 2004

Security forces reportedly fired live bullets into the Kurdish section of the crowd when tensions rose between rival Arab and Kurdish fans during a football match in March 2004, in the north-eastern town of Qamishli. Several people were killed. The next day, police officers opened fire on a funeral procession for Kurds killed the previous day. Subsequent protests and riots across the Kurdish-populated areas resulted in the deaths of over 30 Kurdish people and one police officer. Exact numbers of dead and injured are not known, as there has been no government investigation into the events at the stadium, funeral or subsequent protests.

Khayri Berjes Jando, who reportedly died following prolonged beating by at least one army officer while doing military service in March 2004.
© Private

More than 2,000 Kurds were arrested following these events. Most were held incommunicado at unknown locations, and there were widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including children as young as twelve, teenage girls, women and the elderly. The reports of torture are not known to have been investigated.

Neither have there been investigations into the deaths of five Kurds, who reportedly died after being tortured and ill-treated in custody. The body of one of them was delivered to his family with scars of torture, head injuries, and bruises on his neck, feet and back.

Hope for the future

Amnesty International calls on the Syrian government to investigate the events of March 2004 and all allegations of torture and abuse in custody. The Syrian government should lift restrictions on Kurdish culture and end the prohibitions imposed on Kurdish people living in Syria.

Even though nearly a tenth of the Syrian population is Kurdish, they’re not allowed to be taught in their own language.

More than 200,000 Kurdish people in Syria are denied a nationality and passport. These stateless Kurds are denied some basic economic and social rights. They aren’t allowed to own a house, land, or a business. They can’t work as lawyers, journalists, engineers or doctors. Many are not allowed to study in school after the age of 14, and often they’re not allowed treatment in state hospitals.

The violent events of March 2004

Security forces reportedly fired live bullets into the Kurdish section of the crowd when tensions rose between rival Arab and Kurdish fans during a football match in March 2004, in the north-eastern town of Qamishli. Several people were killed. The next day, police officers opened fire on a funeral procession for Kurds killed the previous day. Subsequent protests and riots across the Kurdish-populated areas resulted in the deaths of over 30 Kurdish people and one police officer. Exact numbers of dead and injured are not known, as there has been no government investigation into the events at the stadium, funeral or subsequent protests.

Khayri Berjes Jando, who reportedly died following prolonged beating by at least one army officer while doing military service in March 2004.
© Private

More than 2,000 Kurds were arrested following these events. Most were held incommunicado at unknown locations, and there were widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including children as young as twelve, teenage girls, women and the elderly. The reports of torture are not known to have been investigated.

Neither have there been investigations into the deaths of five Kurds, who reportedly died after being tortured and ill-treated in custody. The body of one of them was delivered to his family with scars of torture, head injuries, and bruises on his neck, feet and back.

Hope for the future

Amnesty International calls on the Syrian government to investigate the events of March 2004 and all allegations of torture and abuse in custody. The Syrian government should lift restrictions on Kurdish culture and end the prohibitions imposed on Kurdish people living in Syria.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak flew to Syria for talks on Lebanon on Tuesday as Beirut's pro-Syrian prime minister struggled to form a unity government to defuse the country's worst political crisis in 15 years.

Mubarak, whose trip was not announced in advance, met President Bashar al-Assad, who is under intense Lebanese, Arab and world pressure to withdraw Syrian troops from Lebanon. The Egyptian leader, visiting Damascus a week before an Arab summit in Algeria, has said he has been raising the issue of Syria's presence in Lebanon with Assad for the past two years.

Syrian intelligence agents were packing up ready to leave an office in Beirut on Tuesday, witnesses said, as Syrian forces pushed on with the first phase of a two-stage withdrawal announced by Assad and his Lebanese counterpart on March 5.

The agents were preparing to vacate an office in the Hamra district, but there was no visible movement at Syrian intelligence headquarters in Beirut's Ramlet al-Baida district.

Lebanese security sources say the Syrians will complete the first stage of the pullout in the next couple of days. More than 4,000 soldiers returned to Syria last week, while 2,000 more were redeploying to Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley.

Syria agreed to the withdrawal after the Feb. 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri sparked fierce anti-Syrian protests in Beirut and global calls for the Syrians to leave.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

Pro-Syrian Prime Minister-designate Omar Karami started talks on forming a government of national unity, a challenging task made even harder by a huge anti-Syrian demonstration that turned central Beirut into a sea of flags and banners on Monday.

Karami, forced to resign on Feb. 28 but reappointed last week, began meeting politicians and parliamentary blocs on the make-up of a new cabinet to lead Lebanon to elections in May.

Opposition hostility makes his task almost impossible. Failure could delay the parliamentary polls because a new government must be in place to ask the assembly to pass an electoral law at least a month before the election begins.

Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving anti-Syrian protesters had flooded central Beirut in Lebanon's biggest rally since Hariri's assassination in a bomb blast a month earlier.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Publicly, Israel is only too glad to see Syrian forces packing up and leaving Lebanon.

But Israeli officials and analysts also suggest the pullout could help strengthen Hizbollah guerrillas rather than weakening them and bring violence to a border that has seen only irregular clashes since Israel quit south Lebanon five years ago.

"The seeming withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon may not turn out to be such a panacea," a senior Israeli official said on Monday.

Under heavy international pressure, Syria has begun pulling troops out of Lebanon to end three decades of tutelage since it first sent in soldiers during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.

One Israeli worry is that the departure of the Syrians could increase the chances of Lebanon slipping back into chaos.

Perhaps even greater are suspicions that Syria could encourage Hizbollah to step up attacks on Israel as a way of demonstrating its own importance for ensuring stability.

"It may be that the Syrians, by leaving Lebanon, will want to show everyone how they were the ones who kept matters quiet and to show that the change is liable to enlarge the terror threat," Israel's army chief Moshe Yaalon said last week.

"We must follow this closely and ensure that our interests are not hurt."

Israel has long demanded a Syrian withdrawal and recently added it to conditions for any talks on returning the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967.

But the Jewish state also wants to avoid anything that risks pulling it back into a battlefield from which it withdrew in 2000 under pressure from Hizbollah attacks to end a 22-year occupation.

"One key danger from Israel's standpoint is if Syrian forces leave and this brings instability to Lebanon ... this is liable to precipitate a new civil war in Lebanon," Israeli strategic analyst Yossi Alpher said.

http://www.deiryassin.org/op0010.html

Zionist Massacres in 1948: New Evidence
Guy Erlich, Ha'ir, 6 May 1992

The following article (3160 words!) was published in the Hebrew daily Ha'ir on 6 May 1992. It contains new revelations about war crimes committed by the Zionist forces in 1948 against Palestinian Arabs.

There are a number of reasons why the publication of this information is important:

1. It shows once more and through the pen of Israeli historians what motivated the Palestinian Arabs to flee in 1948.
2. It shows how the Zionist establishment has attempted and still attempts to hide the truth about the massacres of Palestinians in the 1948 War.
3. It exposes the fallacy according to which it was mainly right-wing Zionists (the terrorist groups IZL and LEHI led by Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir) who committed atrocities against Palestinian Arabs in 1948. In fact, most atrocities and massacres were committed by 'nice Jewish boys and girls', from the Labour movement, many of whom grew up in kibbutzim in a humanist environment.
4. It exposes the myth, entertained in the West, according to which Israel's practices towards Palestinians worsened when the right-wing Likud came to power.
5. It documents the development of a growing awareness among Israeli intellectuals of the need to face the past with honesty. This is a rather recent and salutary phenomenon.

An appendix to the article includes summary descriptions of some other massacres (published along the article in Ha'ir).

Elias Davidsson translated from Hebrew and added some explanatory notes.

Not Only Deir Yassin
By Guy Erlich, Ha'ir, 6 May 1992

After Lydda (1) gave up the fight, a group of stubborn Arab fighters barricaded themselves in the small mosque. The commander of the Palmach's(2) 3d Battalion, Moshe Kalman, gave an order to fire a number of blasts towards the mosque. The soldiers who forced their way into the mosque were surprised to find no resistance. On the walls of the mosque they found the remains of the Arab fighters. A group of between twenty to fifty Arab inhabitants was brought to clean up the mosque and bury the remains. After they finished their work, they were also shot into the graves they dug.

The Jewish American journalist Dan Kurtzman, heard this testimony from Moshe Kalman, who has meanwhile died, while he was writing his book 'In the Beginning 1948 (Bereshit 1948)' about the War of Independence. As Kurtzman did not want to hurt the State of Israel, he did not include this testimony, but told this story to Israeli historian Aryeh Yitzhaki, when they met in the IDF archives, when Kurtzman was there working on his book. Kurtzman, who is now visiting Israel in connection with his new book (incidentally, these days a new edition of his older book is coming out), confirmed — after some hesitation — that he heard this testimony from Moshe Kalman.

Since its establishment, the State of Israel keeps a conspiracy of silence concerning massacres committed in the War of Independence (4). The only massacre acknowledged in official publications is that of Deir Yassin, perhaps because it was perpetrated by the IZL (Irgun). Books and press reports have referred to dozens of cases, but only partially and incompletely. Yitzhaki corroborates this impression: 'I read all the documents in the IDF archives written about the War of Independence. In the course of years I became especially alert to anything concerning the massacres.' Yitzhaki is a lecturer in the Bar Ilan University [Tel Aviv] in the Faculty of Eretz Yisrael Studies (5) and is also senior lecturer in the field of military history in IDF courses for officers. In the sixties he served as director of the IDF archives within the framework of his IDF service in his capacity as historian.

Yitzhaki assembled all the testimonies and documents concerning the subject matter and waited for the right time to publish. "The time has come," he says, "for a generation has passed, and it is now possible to face the ocean of lies (6) in which we were brought up. In almost every conquered village in the War of Independence, acts were committed, which are defined as war crimes, such as indiscriminate killings, massacres and rapes. I believe that such things end by surfacing. The only question is how to face such evidence."

According to Yitzhaki, about ten major massacres were committed in the course of the War of Independence (i.e. more than fifty victims in each massacre) and about hundred smaller massacres (of individuals or small groups). According to him, these massacres had an enormous impact on the Arab population, by inducing their (departure) from the country.

Yitzhaki: "For many Israelis it was easier to find consolation in the lie, that the Arabs left the country under orders from their leaders. This is an absolute fabrication. The fundamental cause of their flight was their fear from Israeli retribution and this fear was not at all imaginary. From almost each report in the IDF archives concerning the conquest of Arab villages between May and July 1948 — when clashes with Arab villagers were the fiercest — a smell of massacre emanates. Sometimes the report tells about blatant massacres which were committed after the battle, sometimes the massacres are committed in the heat of battle and while the villages are "cleansed." Some of my colleagues, such as Me'ir Pa'il, don't consider such acts as massacres. In my opinion there is no other term for such acts than massacres. This was at the time the rule of the game. It was a dirty war on both sides. This phenomenon spread out in the field; there were no explicit orders to exterminate. In the first phase a village was usually subjected to heavy artillery from distance. Then soldiers would assault the village. After giving up resistance, the Arab fighters would withdraw while attempting to snipe at the advancing forces. Some would not flee and would remain in the village, mainly women and old people. In the course of cleansing we used to hit them. One was "tailing the fugitives," as it used to be called ("mezanvim baborchim"). There was no established battle procedure as today, namely that when blowing up a house, one has first to check whether civilians are still inside. In a typical battle report about the conquest of a village we find: "We cleansed a village, shot in any direction where resistance was noticed. After the resistance ended, we also had to shoot people so that they would leave or who looked dangerous."

The historian Uri Milstein, a myth-shatterer, corroborates Yitzhaki's assessment regarding the massacres' extent and goes even further. "If Yitzhaki claims that almost in every village there were murders, then I maintain that even before the establishment of the State, each battle ended with a massacre. In all Israel's wars massacres were committed but I have no doubt that the War of Independence was the dirtiest of them all. All over the world, massacres constitute an integral part of the norm of war and it is in fact the fundamental basis of human conduct in a situation of battle. The idea behind a massacre is to inflict a shock on the enemy, to paralyze the enemy. In the War of Independence everybody massacred everybody, but most of the action happened between Jews and Palestinians."

Milstein adds: "In my opinion, the regular armies of Arab states were less barbaric than the Jews and the Palestinians. Until the entry into the battle of the Arab armies, the concept of taking prisoners was unknown. The regular armies, especially that of Jordan and Egypt, were the first in the region who did not kill prisoners, as a matter of principle. Not that they were exceptional, but they killed the least of all, relatively speaking. The Jordanian Legion even succeeded to stop Palestinians of massacring Jews in Gush Etzion, at least in a part of this area. The education in the Yishuv (7) at that time had it that the Arabs would do anything to kill us and therefore we had to massacre them. A substantial part of the Jewish public was convinced that the most cherished wish of say, a nine-year old Arab child, was to exterminate us. This belief bordered on paranoia."

A careful study reveals that until today over twenty massacres were publicly reported. The testimonies were not published in one collection, a fact which adds to this phenomenon another dimension. At least eight massacres were described by Benny Morris in his book "The Birth of the Palestine Refugee Problem." Two cases were reported in Milstein's books. Two cases are reported in the book of Palestinian historian Arif al-Arif. The rest were reported in novels, memories and the press. But it appears that at least eight more massacres were committed which are reported here for the first time. Two of them were discovered by Yitzhaki, three by Milstein, one case was revealed by Kurtzman and was presented in the introduction to this reportage. One case was brought to our knowledge by a kibbutz member who wishes to remain anonymous and one more case was revealed by Dov Yirmiya.

The testimonies concerning the massacres, revealed here for the first time by Yitzhaki, are kept in the IDF archives. Those who wish to study the documents in question confront a blank refusal. The director, Miki Kaufman: "If you are looking for what I believe you are looking for, then you can forget it. In any case, just keep in mind that we are reading over any documents before you are allowed to see them and we cull out material that you should not see."

A person who already had to face this barrage is Benny Morris. He addressed himself to the State Archivist to get a report by the government-nominated Shapira Committee, on killings in the War of Independence, but his request was denied.

"The Archivist refused to let me see the report and I went then to the Supreme Court. According to the [State] Archives Law (1953), access is open to documents concerning [government] policies and political matters after 30 years and documents related to security matters after 50 years. As the report by the Shapira committee is a political document issued by the Ministry of Justice, it was to be accessible by the public. But after I entered my request to the State Archivist and to the courts, the State Prosecutor and the Archivist made me a trick. It appeared that by convening a special meeting of at least two Cabinet members — in this case Arens and Sharir — it was possible to extend indefinitely the classified status of any archived document by arguing that disclosure might endanger state security. The meeting was duly convened and the document was reclassified . . ."

But Yitzhaki kept the testimonies. The first case he presents happened in Tel Gezer. A soldier of the the Kiryati Brigade . . . testifies that his colleagues got hold of ten Arab men and two Arab women, a young one and an old one. All the men were murdered. The young woman was raped and her destiny was unknown. The old woman was murdered. Yitzhaki tells that he discovered the testimony in a specific folder containing testimonies from Guard Units (Kheil Mishmar) in the IDF archives. Later he also obtained an oral testimony about this event from a person who wished to remain anonymous.

Another case happened in Ashdod. Towards the end of August 1948, the Giv'ati Brigade executed the "Cleansing Campaign" (Mivtza Nikayon) in Ashdod's dunes. This happened after the forced landing of an Israeli plane in the area and the killing of his eight passengers by locals. A company of mounted cavalry, jeeps and Giv'ati fighters went to comb the area. In the course of this action, and according to a conservative estimate, ten farmers ("fellahin") were murdered. Yitzahki says that evidence about that can be found in the campaign chronicle of Giv'ati in the IDF archives and in the second chapter of the book on the Giv'ati Brigade.

"Apart from these cases," says Yitzhaki, "there are more cases described in IDF's archives, but I don't want to disclose them at this stage. I will yet write a book."

The historian Uri Milstein presented in his book series "The History of the War of Independence" a number of massacres. Three more cases came to his knowledge after he finished writing. One case happened in Ayn Zaytoon. According to Milstein two massacres happened there in addition to the case described by Netiva Ben Yehuda in her book "Within the Bounds" (mibe'ad la'avutot). Milstein possesses a testimony from a soldier named Aharon Yo'eli: "Three men from Safad came to Ayn Zaytoon, they took 23 Arabs, told them they were murderers and gangsters, took from them their watches and put them in their pockets, led them over the hills and killed them. This was the revenge of the Jews of Safad. I understood that our commanders were looking for additional killers to execute such jobs. Not everybody in Safad was a hassid [strictly observing Jew]. In my opinion this was not the execution of prisoners but the killing of Arab murderers. The rest were expelled in the direction of the Germak that same evening and to make them go fast, we shot at them." The second case was reported to Milstein by a soldier named Yitzhak Golan, as he referred to thirty prisoners who were brought to interrogation in Har Kna'an: "The men of the Intelligence Unit interrogated them and after the interrogation the question came up what to do with them. We were told to take them down to the Rosh Pina police station. On the way they attempted to escape so we shot at them. There was no alternative. The danger was that they might reach Safad and would tell there how few weapons and manpower we had. It is possible that they were killed chained. Next morning a platoon was sent to bury them."

Another case happened in Caesarea. In February 1948 the Fourth Battalion of the Palmach forces, under the command of Josef Tabenkin (8), conquered Caesarea. According to Milstein, all those who did not escape from the village were killed. Milstein gleaned testimonies about this fact from fighters who participated in the conquest.

A member of Kibbutz Be'eri, who was assigned to the Guard Milices for a short time, reveals another unpublished case about the murder of an Arab soldier: "We were in the strong point in the Wadi Ara area, near Giv'at Ada. Not far away was a post of Palestinians who fired from time to time at us. One night we raided their post and brought back a prisoner for interrogation. One of the soldiers of the Guard Milices took the prisoner after interrogation, beheaded him and with a knife scalped the head. No one present tried to stop him. He then tied the skin to a high pole facing the Palestinian post to inspire a deadly fear among the Palestinians. This soldier was later brought to the battalion commander for trial."

On 20 May 1948 the Karmeli Brigade conquered the village Kabri. Dov Yirmiya, who was a company commander in the 21st battalion, tells: "Kabri was conquered without a fight. Almost all inhabitants fled. One of the soldiers, Yehuda Reshef, who was together with his brother among the few escapees from the Yehi'am convoy, got hold of a few youngsters who did not escape, probably seven, ordered them to fill up some ditches dug as an obstacle and then lined them up and fired at them with a machine gun. A few died but some of the wounded succeeded to escape. The battalion commander did not react. Reshef was a brave fighter and as a rescapee from the Yehi'am convoy, enjoyed special status in the battalion. He advanced later to the grade of Brigadier General. He justified his action as an act of revenge."

"When the action ended, we left, namely the battalion commander Dov Tschitchiss, Education Officer Tzadok Eshel, the driver and myself. We drove over fields to Nahariya. While driving we saw refugees escaping to the North. The battalion commander ordered the driver to stop and went with the driver and the Education Officer to chase an Arab who was escaping with a girl eight or nine years old. I heard shots and had scarcely the time to understand what happened. When they returned, the battalion commander declared: We killed them. I asked: The girl too? And he answered to me: No, no, we did not kill the girl."

The Education Officer, Tzadok Eshel, has already forgotten about the episode. "In our Carmeli Brigade," he said, "we did not commit massacres. I can tell you about the massacre that the IZL people did in Haifa. It was typical for the IZL and the LEHI, not to us. It was totally outside our way of thinking. There was the case of an officer who wanted to loot a village but they did not allow him." After hearing the testimony of Yermiya, Eshel changed his version: "Did I tell you about this case, no? . . . Probably I forgot . . . Yes, there was in fact one case where we drove in a jeep and an officer, I don't remember who, but I don't think it was the battalion commander, wanted to shoot down an Arab with a girl. I told him that if he will fire at them, I will shoot at him. When we returned to the jeep I felt good that I succeeded to stop such a thing." Yirmiya, in his testimony mentions [however] shots, "I don't at all remember that I was in the jeep. I was in the area. I tell you, you better leave these things. There were no such things."

Notes by Elias Davidsson

1. Lydda: An Arabic town between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Most of its inhabitants were expelled in 1948 under written orders by Yitzhak Rabin.
2. Palmach: Shock troops of the Labour-controlled Hagana forces.
3. IDF: Israel Defense Forces.
4. The War of Independence is the name given by Zionists. The Palestinian Arab call this war the Naqba (The Tragedy). Less loaded names might be The First Zionist-Palestinian War, or the War of 1947-1948.
5. Eretz Yisrael: The Hebrew name for the area of Mandatory Palestine (from the Jordan to the Mediterranean sea).
6. One of the most potent lies, disseminated in the whole world, was that the Palestinian Arabs left their homes under explicit orders by Arab leaders outside Palestine. There is no evidence for this claim, but it has served Israel very well for at least 15 years after its establishment, especially in the West.
7. Yishuv: Jewish society in Mandatory Palestine.
8. One of the leaders of the leftist Zionist Ahdut Avoda movement.

Hey israel-obsessed nazi fuck,

Ok, so 60 years ago, 100 palestinians died.

Go cry over it. It was 60 years ago.

It's now 2005 and we're trying to discuss how to get islamic terrorists out of peaceful Lebanon

I wish someone would "ethnically cleanse" the nazis off of indybay

This board is very similar to the board on the nazi stormfront site, except they say "jews" there, while here they say "zionist jews"

I was there in Syria and people live there very harmoniously--- there are many kinds of Islam and many kinds of Christians there, and even some Jews who have shops right next to Muslims.

Joe was obviously talking about Israel when he was talking about Syria, with regards to intolerance for others of other religions. I think he's a bit mixed up.

Most of the Israeli Jews hated Vanunu more because he converted to Christianity than for exposing the fact that Israel has Weapons of Mass Destruction including over 250 nuclear warheads.

How many Lebonese have demonstrated in the streets for a continuation of Syrial's occupation?

How many Palestinians have demonstrated in the streets for a continuation of Israel's occupation?

Notice how gehrig doesn't want you to count demonstraters. Now whay do you suppose that is?

>for every pro-Syrian-occupation protester in the streets of Beirut last Tuesday, there were two anti-Syrian-occupation protesters in the streets of Beirut yesterday.

That's the answer to a question that wasn't asked. Note that he does not answer the actual question: How many Palestinians have demonstrated in the streets for a continuation of Israel's occupation?

> being a bored nessie trying to stir the shit on another board is bad.

Then he tries to change the subject with an ad hominem.

How typical that he doesn't want you to remember that, while Lebanese are split on Syrian occupation, Palestinians *unanimously* reject Israeli occupation. Why is it that not a single Palestinian demonstrates in favor of Israeli occupation, but hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese demonstrate in favor of Syria? Why is that?

Lebanon is not free - part of the people are terrorized by the Syrian military and Syrian secret police; part of them, the Shia, benefit from suppressing the Christians and want the Syrian-Iranian terrorist proxy Hizbollah to safeguard their domination rights. Syria has been bleeding Lebanon dry for over two decades now - ask any Lebanese OUTSIDE the clutches of Syrian oppression in Lebanon (like London, NY, Los Angeles, etc).

Damascus has a long and bloody history of intervention in Lebanon, and has made no secret of its hope to make its weaker neighbor part of Syria. Since the creation of contemporary Lebanon in 1920, "most Syrians have never accepted modern Lebanon as a sovereign and independent state." The outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 gave Damascus the opportunity to act on its belief that Lebanon and Syria are one.

In 1976, Syria intervened in the Lebanese civil war on behalf of Lebanese Christians. By 1978, Damascus had switched sides, and was supporting a leftist coalition of Palestinians, Druze and Muslims against the Christians.

From 1985-88, Amal Shiite militiamen, closely aligned with Syria, killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians in attacks on refugee camps.

In October 1990, with the West's attention focused on Kuwait, Syrian troops stormed the Beirut stronghold of Christian insurgent Gen. Michel Aoun. Besides battle deaths, approximately 700 people were massacred.With that blitzkrieg, Damascus wiped out the only remaining threat to its hegemony in Lebanon.

On May 22, 1991, Lebanese President Elias Hrawi traveled to Damascus to sign a "Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination" with Syrian President Hafez Assad. The agreement states that Syria will ensure Lebanon's "sovereignty and independence," even though Damascus is being allowed to keep its occupation army in that country.

A hint of Syria's real intentions came from Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas several weeks before the treaty's signing. Tlas predicted that unity would be achieved between the two countries "soon, or at least in our generation."

Since signing the treaty, Syria has kept a tight grip on Lebanon and ruthlessly suppressed challenges to its domination.

Israel has no wish to control any Palestinians - if shit for brains could read and remember history, Israel marched back into the West Bank after Oslo in April 2002: After the murderous Palestinians waltzed into a hotel during a Passover celebration and blew up 5 dozen people.

In the case of the term "West Bank," the word "occupation" has been hijacked by those who wish to paint Israel in the harshest possible light. It also gives apologists a way to try to explain away terrorism as "resistance to occupation," as if the women and children killed by suicide bombers in buses, pizzerias, and shopping malls were responsible for the plight of the Arabs. Given the negative connotation of an "occupier," it is not surprising that Arab spokespersons use the word, or some variation, as many times as possible when interviewed by the press. The more accurate description of the territories in Judea and Samaria is "disputed" territories.

In fact, most other disputed territories around the world are not referred to as being occupied by the party that controls them. This is true, for example, of the hotly contested region of Kashmir.

Occupation typically refers to foreign control of an area that was under the previous sovereignty of another state. In the case of the West Bank, there was no legitimate sovereign because the territory had been illegally occupied by Jordan from 1948 to 1967. Only two countries — Britain and Pakistan — recognized Jordan's action. The Palestinians never demanded an end to Jordanian occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.

It is also important to distinguish the acquisition of territory in a war of conquest as opposed to a war of self-defense. A nation that attacks another and then retains the territory it conquers is an occupier. One that gains territory in the course of defending itself is not in the same category. And this is the situation with Israel, which specifically told King Hussein that if Jordan stayed out of the 1967 war, Israel would not fight against him. Hussein ignored the warning and attacked Israel. While fending off the assault and driving out the invading Jordanian troops, Israel came to control the West Bank.

By rejecting Arab demands that Israel be required to withdraw from all the territories won in 1967, the UN Security Council, in Resolution 242, acknowledged that Israel was entitled to claim at least part of these lands for new defensible borders.

Since Oslo, the case for tagging Israel as an occupying power has been further weakened by the fact that Israel transferred virtually all civilian authority to the Palestinian Authority. Israel retained the power to control its own external security and that of its citizens, but 98 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza came under the PA's authority. The extent to which Israel has been forced to maintain a military presence in the territories has been governed by the Palestinians' unwillingness to end violence against Israel. The best way to end the dispute over the territories is for the Palestinians to fulfill their obligations under the Oslo agreements, reform the Palestinian Authority, stop the terror and negotiate a final settlement.

Neither is Palestine.

Marwan Othman: `Syria, stronghold of persecution and oppression`

28/01/2005 KurdishMedia.com - By Marwan Othman
The Kurdish people are continuing to be oppressed by the Syrian regime. Human rights of the Kurdish people are still being abused and they are a daily occurrence.

Declaration to the public

The Kurdish people are currently about 3 million people and represent the second biggest ethnic group in Syria. The only reason they are being mistreated and arrested is that they belong to this ethnic group. Mass arrests and tortures have increased significantly after the events of the 12th of March 2004.

In response to the events of the 12th of March and the murders of 7 Kurds by security agents, the Kurdish people launched mass protests. The mass protest represented the expression of resistance and condemned the systematic and arbitrary politics of oppression.

The persecution and the oppression of the Kurds in Syria have currently reached another level. Political prisoners are being subjected to brutal torture and mistreatment. At least 5 prisoners were killed through torture. Several prisoners have been released from captivity, having sustained physical disabilities.

Syria has become a stronghold of persecution and oppression. However, despite these protests, the Syrian regime is continuing to be able to pursue its arbitrary politics of persecution. Human rights and basic rights are continuing to be ignored. The Syrian regime is violating internationally agreed norms and treaties with its politics, despite having agreed to uphold them. However, the international community are merely spectators in this process. They are not doing anything against this oppression.

This is why I am starting an open hunger strike as a protest against the Syrian regime´s politics which are contemptuous of human rights. I am appealing to the global public, the EU, which is about to ratify an agreement of association with Syria, human rights organisations and all friends of democracy and human rights in the world, to become active for this cause, so that:

- human rights abuses will be investigated in a fair and independent manner

- arrests of the Kurdish people, simply on the grounds of their ethnic background, will end

- all Kurdish political prisoners, who were arrested in the context of the events of the 12th of March 2004 or due to their activities for the rights of the Kurdish people, will be released

- all prisoners, who are in prison, due to having made use of their right to freedom of speech, will be released. This should be done irrespective of their political and ethnic background

- the events of the 12th of March 2004 and the subsequent mass protests by the Kurdish people will be investigated in a fair and independent manner.

Marwan Othman, Kurdish writer, poet and former prisoner of conscience in Syria

Hannover, 18/01/2005


http://www.kurdishmedia.com/news.asp?id=6152

March 11, 2005
Torture and Oppression of Kurds in Syria

by Sanjay Suri
The Syrian government must put an immediate end to human rights abuses against Syrian Kurds, Amnesty International said in a report published Thursday on the eve of the anniversary of the Qamishli clashes.

More than 30 Kurds were killed in clashes that spread from a football match between Kurdish and Arab teams in Qamishli in northeastern Syria in March last year. The clashes brought into focus the plight of Kurds in Syria.

Amnesty says that more than 2,000 people, almost all of them Kurds, were arrested after the riots. "Kurdish detainees, including children as young as 12, women, teenage girls and elderly people, were reportedly tortured and ill-treated," the report says. "Dozens of Kurdish students were expelled from their universities and dormitories, reportedly for participating in peaceful protests."

Kurds remain a people without a nation, spread across Turkey which has the largest population, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Kurds have faced persecution in all these countries. There are an estimated 1.5 to two million Syrian Kurds.

The abuse of Kurd rights has continued after the clashes last year, the Amnesty report says. "The authorities must open investigations into the allegations of unlawful killings, deaths resulting from torture and ill-treatment in custody and torture of Kurds that have come to light since March 2004," Amnesty said in its report.

Since March 2004 there has been a significant increase in the number of reported deaths of Kurds as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody, the Amnesty report says.

"Five of nine such deaths reported to Amnesty International in the seven months after March 2004 were of Syrian Kurds," the report says. "There have also been a number of deaths in suspicious circumstances of Kurdish military conscripts during the same period: at least six died, reportedly due to beatings or shootings by military superiors or colleagues. No investigation is known to have been carried out into any of the deaths in either category."

The report, which Amnesty says followed several months' research, also describes the "systemic identity-based discrimination suffered by the Syrian Kurds." The report highlights cases of Kurdish human rights defenders who have sought to promote rights of the Kurdish population in Syria and suffered arrest, torture and unfair trial.

"The Syrian authorities must set up an investigation into the apparently disproportionate response of the security forces to the March 2004 events," said Amnesty International. "They must investigate the alleged unlawful killings and deaths as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody and the widespread reports of torture, and propose remedies to deal with the systemic discrimination against Kurds as well as other human rights violations that may have contributed to the tension and the outburst of violence."

The Amnesty report also calls on the Syrian authorities to end the prohibitions on the use of the Kurdish language in education, the workplace, official establishments and at private celebrations, and to allow children to be registered with Kurdish names and businesses to carry Kurdish names.

Amnesty says several hundred thousand Syrian Kurds are effectively stateless and, as such, are denied the full provision of education, employment, health and other rights enjoyed by Syrian nationals, as well as being denied the right to have a nationality and passport.

It has asked for legislation under which prisoners of conscience have been imprisoned to be brought in line with Articles 18-22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Syria has been a party since 1969. That guarantees the right to freedom of conscience, expression, assembly and association and the right to exercise these freedoms without undue interference. It has asked for independent investigations into allegations of unlawful killings and an amendment of legislation on nationality to find an expeditious solution to the statelessness of Syrian-born Kurds.

(Inter Press Service)

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/suri.php?articleid=5142

You're the one who has resorted to the ploy of changing this thread's topic from the debate on the Syrian occupation of Lebanon to the Palestinian objection to the Israeli presence in the disputed territories.

Every time you get squarely smacked on your head with the truth concerning the issue at hand, you try to change the subject, only to get whooped yet again -- note especially Dr. D. who rent your crap into shreds.

interesting dissertation, Dr. D

[I'll answer the shithead
by Dr. D Tuesday, Mar. 15, 2005 at 7:08 PM

Lebanon is not free - part of the people are terrorized by the Syrian military and Syrian secret police; part of them, the Shia, benefit from suppressing the Christians and want the Syrian-Iranian terrorist proxy Hizbollah to safeguard their domination rights. Syria has been bleeding Lebanon dry for over two decades now - ask any Lebanese OUTSIDE the clutches of Syrian oppression in Lebanon (like London, NY, Los Angeles, etc). . . . . . . ]

and, as you seem to enjoy answering "shitheads", maybe you respond to the following, something that you, CT, Sefarad and just about everyone other than aaron have avoided since I posted it two or three times yesterday:

[my left response to Lebanon is that the Syrians should depart and that Lebanon should have democratic elections, based upon a one person, one vote principle, implemented according to a current census that accurately measures the populace of the country

sounds only reasonable, after all, isn't this what the Cedar Revolution is about? and, if not, why not?]

inquiring minds want to know


--Richard

these zionist chuckle-heads don't care about the Lebanese.

the events of recent weeks in Lebanon are just a stick they brandish to divert attention away from their favorite settler state's policies.

they polemicize against syria's occupation of Lebanon, shedding crocodile tears for its victims, while referring to West Bank and Gaza as "disputed territories."

personally I hope these sacks of shits get their wish. lebanon without syria as a stabilizing force will cause more difficulties for their favorite little settler state than they are now willing to acknowledge, all puffed up as they are with faux-indignation and excitement at the opportunity to score propaganda points against an old foe.

but what the hell. let's give these clowns one more chance.

What do you zionists have to say about the FACT that the leadership of Lebanon's "democratic opposition"--which you all venerate and seek to associate yourselves with--is OPPOSED to a one-person one-vote system?

The frantic investigations into the terrible attacks in New York and Washington suggest not only connections to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan. There seem to be trails leading to Saddam Hussein as well. Because Iraq’s dictator considers the USA to be arch-enemy No. 1. At the latest since his occupying forces have been kicked out of Kuwait by American and Allied units in 1991. At the time, Northern Iraq which is populated by Kurds and Assyrian-Aramaic Christians, had been declared a protected zone. A catastrophe was averted at the last minute: 1,5 million Kurdish and Assyrian-Aramaic refugees were able to return to their villages after they had been driven out by Iraqi troops into the snow-covered mountains close to the Turkish border.

For decades the Kurds and Assyrian-Aramaic Christians have suffered under the destructive policy of the Baath regime. Up to half a million Kurds, and amongst them tens of thousands of Aramaic Christians and Yezidi, have fallen victim to the regime. About two million Kurds and Assyrian-Aramaic Christians were deported, far more than 4.000 villages destroyed. When in the late eighties the Iraqi air-force attacked 200 mainly Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq with poisonous gas the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) alarmed the public. About 150.000 Kurdish and Assyrian-Aramaic civilians lost their lives in this so-called "Anfal"-offensive. Between March 16th and 18th 1988 about 5.000 Kurds died an agonizing death in the town of Halabja alone, due to poisonous mustard gas and Tabun vapors, around 10.000 were severely injured. Up to this day survivors suffer from skin rashes, disease of the respiratory system and blindness.



http://www.gfbv.de/gfbv_e/docus/terror/middleeast.htm

Kurd Parties Accuse Syria of Mass Arrests

Reuters, Arab News

BEIRUT, 11 April 2004 — Syrian Kurds accused authorities yesterday of arbitrarily arresting hundreds from their community and torturing some of them to death since a bout of unrest died down last month.

“The campaign of arrests and raids is continuing in all the Kurdish areas as well as in Aleppo and Damascus,” Syrian Kurdish parties said in a joint statement. “This campaign has in the past two days resulted in the arrest of hundreds of Kurdish citizens, including women and schoolchildren no more than 15 years old, all of whom were and remain subjected to savage torture.”

Syrian officials were not immediately available for comment. About 30 people were killed in unprecedented clashes between Syrian Kurds and police in March after a soccer match brawl in the northern town of Kameshli escalated.

Kurdish activists said on March 19 that authorities had freed 500 to 600 Kurds detained in the wave of unrest, but said there could be up to 2,000 more still in detention. The state, which has accused unspecified foreigners of stirring violence to shake Syria’s security, has not released its own figures.

The Syrian Kurdish parties said two Kurdish men, identified as Hussein Naaso and Ferhad Ali, had died this week as a result of torture in detention, while another man was in a coma. “We condemn this racist policy against our people and urge authorities to cease the campaign of arbitrary arrests and free all of the detainees,” the statement said.

Rights group Amnesty International this week urged Syria to make known the whereabouts of Kurds detained in the clashes. Kurds make up about two million of Syria’s mainly Arab 17 million population. They have often demanded rights to teach their language and citizenship for some 200,000 stateless Kurds.

Meanwhile, as much of Iraq marked the anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s fall with fighting and bloodshed, Kurds in the relatively stable northern Iraq celebrated with parties and the melting of an ice statue of the ousted dictator.

In the mountains north of Arbil, hundreds of people held a carnival to cheer the fall of a regime that oppressed Iraq’s Kurdish minority, in stark contrast to large parts of the country further south where insurgents battled foreign troops. “Those people who are fighting now don’t like freedom for Iraq. We are celebrating this day,” said the mayor of Choman, Abdullah Wahid.

“The coalition is now wondering again who is with them and who is against. This carnival is our opinion.” The people of the Choman town sculpted a huge statue of Saddam out of ice taken from the nearby mountains where peshmerga militias once fought Saddam’s armies, then melted it.

They danced and picnicked, happy with the relative safety that Iraq’s northern Kurdistan enjoys. “We like the coalition here because they supported us in crushing Saddam,” said Borjan Muhammad, 17, a college student.

http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2004%20News%20archives/April/11n/Kurd%20Parties%20Accuse%20Syria%20of%20Mass%20Arrests.htm

again, is the Cedar Revolution about conducting a new census of Lebanon, and providing for democratic elections based upon a one person, one vote principle?

or, is your purpose in posting these articles to imply that Arabs must be deprived of the same rights that Kurds, Christians, Jews and Bahai are entitled to receive?

because, if so, other than being obviously bigoted against the ethnicity, religion and culture of Arab peoples, it will provoke a civil war in Lebanon, and it will probably result in the destruction of the Christian community there, as the US, France and Israel will ultimately abandon them instead of intervening militarily


[Kurds, Christians, Jews and Bahá-í: persecuted and oppressed in the Middle East
by Sefarad Thursday, Mar. 17, 2005 at 12:21 AM

The frantic investigations into the terrible attacks in New York and Washington suggest not only connections to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan. There seem to be trails leading to Saddam Hussein as well. Because Iraq’s dictator considers the USA to be arch-enemy No. 1. At the latest since his occupying forces have been kicked out of Kuwait by American and Allied units in 1991. At the time, Northern Iraq which is populated by Kurds and Assyrian-Aramaic Christians, had been declared a protected zone. A catastrophe was averted at the last minute: 1,5 million Kurdish and Assyrian-Aramaic refugees were able to return to their villages after they had been driven out by Iraqi troops into the snow-covered mountains close to the Turkish border. . . .]

since it won't get involved again in the Lebanese marshlands to begin with.

"being obviously bigoted against the ethnicity, religion and culture of Arab peoples, it will provoke a civil war in Lebanon, and it will probably result in the destruction of the Christian community there, as the US, France and Israel will ultimately abandon them instead of intervening militarily "

I don't know why I am bigoted against the ethnicity, religion and culture of Arab people.

Although if their religion and culture consists of oppressing other people, I am against indeed.

As for ethnicity, I cannot see the relation between doings and ethnia.

Unless you call informing of what they do being bigoted.

" is your purpose in posting these articles to imply that Arabs must be deprived of the same rights that Kurds, Christians, Jews and Bahai are entitled to receive? "

The purpose is make you notice that Arab and Muslim countries oppress other people and deprive them of their rights.

a non-denial denial

[bigotry?
by Sefarad Thursday, Mar. 17, 2005 at 9:38 AM

"being obviously bigoted against the ethnicity, religion and culture of Arab peoples, it will provoke a civil war in Lebanon, and it will probably result in the destruction of the Christian community there, as the US, France and Israel will ultimately abandon them instead of intervening militarily "

I don't know why I am bigoted against the ethnicity, religion and culture of Arab people.

Although if their religion and culture consists of oppressing other people, I am against indeed.

As for ethnicity, I cannot see the relation between doings and ethnia.

Unless you call informing of what they do being bigoted.

" is your purpose in posting these articles to imply that Arabs must be deprived of the same rights that Kurds, Christians, Jews and Bahai are entitled to receive? "

The purpose is make you notice that Arab and Muslim countries oppress other people and deprive them of their rights.]

OK, I get it, but again, why is it that you just don't want to answer the question?

I support a Lebanon without Syria troops, governed according to democratic elections based upon a current census of the populace on a one person, one vote principle?

do you? and if not, why not?

and why is there such deafening silence on this question from everyone except aaron?

apparently, there is plenty of enthusiasm for exploiting the Lebanonese situation for political purposes, a lot less for describing what would be an acceptable resolution

--Richard

"I support a Lebanon without Syria troops, governed according to democratic elections based upon a current census of the populace on a one person, one vote principle?

do you? and if not, why not? "

I support freedom for everybody.

"and why is there such deafening silence on this question from everyone except aaron? "

Given that I am for freedom and against tyrannies, as I have been demonstrating here, I thought your question was either a joke or an attempt to insult me. So I preferred not to pay attention to it.

why you're fixating on this business of "a current census of the populace"? Why is it even necessary?

[My defeaning silence
by Sefarad Thursday, Mar. 17, 2005 at 10:04 AM

"I support a Lebanon without Syria troops, governed according to democratic elections based upon a current census of the populace on a one person, one vote principle?

do you? and if not, why not? "

I support freedom for everybody.

"and why is there such deafening silence on this question from everyone except aaron? "

Given that I am for freedom and against tyrannies, as I have been demonstrating here, I thought your question was either a joke or an attempt to insult me. So I preferred not to pay attention to it.]

do Muslims in Lebanon deserve equal political rights and privileges as everyone else in Lebanon or not?

it's really not that difficult a question, and I can't imagine why you don't want to answer it . . . unless, of course, your "freedom" doesn't extend to Muslims

as for CT's question: my understanding is that there hasn't been a census in Lebanon for many years, going back to the 1930s or 1940s, and there is a belief that the current Muslim population is understated

if I am wrong, I am willing to be corrected, but, in any event, the US has a census every 10 years, and it seems logical to me that Lebanon should have elections and a government structure based upon the current population, not a measurement that is decades old

--Richard

for your wish to see a an update census taking place in Lebanon.

Still, a population census, be it updated or the outdated one, isn't a necessary prerequisite for establishing democracy in Lebanon based on a one person-one vote principle. The example of Israel's proportional election system suffices to demonstrate my point. I also haven't heard that all the states that embraced democracy worldwide in the late '80s and the '90s conducted populace censuses prior to having truly democratic elections for the first time ever.

"do Muslims in Lebanon deserve equal political rights and privileges as everyone else in Lebanon or not?

it's really not that difficult a question, and I can't imagine why you don't want to answer it . . . unless, of course, your "freedom" doesn't extend to Muslims "

You think you know they answer, huh?

And I guess you have my number wrong.

Have you really read my answer?

I support freedom for EVERYBODY.

[Thanks for explaining the rationale
by Critical Thinker Thursday, Mar. 17, 2005 at 11:43 AM

for your wish to see a an update census taking place in Lebanon.

Still, a population census, be it updated or the outdated one, isn't a necessary prerequisite for establishing democracy in Lebanon based on a one person-one vote principle. The example of Israel's proportional election system suffices to demonstrate my point. I also haven't heard that all the states that embraced democracy worldwide in the late '80s and the '90s conducted populace censuses prior to having truly democratic elections for the first time ever.]

. . . other than the types of rigged systems negotiated by the elites in the history of Lebanon

but, any system, US style, parliamentary style, should be based upon the broadest participation, without any privileged status built into the system for any segment of the population

I suspect that one problem there is that the people who have been empowered over the decades recognize that a truly open, democratic system is a real threat to their continued disproportionate influence

and, in the case of Hizbollah, it is a creation of numerous factors, including the dysfunctional elite politics of Lebanonese society

also, it is interesting to speculate how Hizbollah might be transformed, or eclipsed by a fundamental change in the structure of the society

I'm not necessarily convinced that a true democratic political process would esconce Hizbollah in power for a long time (contrary to Pat Buchanan's recent column on the subject), just look at the factionalization of Shia politics in Iraq

all of the existing political powers in Lebanon seem to have a perverse symbiotic relationship amongst one another, definining themselves in opposition to others, instead of as representatives of a positive vision, and it is hard to know what would happen if these relationships were severed

finally, it may sound strange, but Instant Runoff Voting might be a good idea for Lebanon, as it was recently reported that IRV had the tendency in SF politics to mute some of the more confrontational strategies, because candidates wanted to get the votes of lesser ones as they were eliminated

IRV might get the Lebanonese a voice as to which of their opponents was most palatable and draw the outcomes away from the extremes, but this is obviously a pretty speculative idea

--Richard

Last Update: 19/03/2005 01:55

Seven people injured in Beirut explosion

By The Associated Press



BEIRUT - A car bomb wrecked the front of a building in northern Beirut early Saturday, wounding seven people, police said.

It was not immediately clear what the bomb's target was, but it left a crater two meters deep and shattered windows for several blocks in the city's New Jdeideh neighborhood.

Four fire engines and ambulances rushed to the scene, but there was no fire.

A man rushed up screaming: "Where is my mother?" He was told by soldiers she was with the Red Cross.

A police general at the scene confirmed it was a car bomb.

Witnesses said the car attempted to stop in front of a bingo saloon, but security guards asked its driver to move along. The driver then parked the car a short way down the road. Minutes later it exploded.

The explosion came amid major political turmoil in Lebanon in the wake of the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops to east Lebanon and Syria.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/554074.html