What Really Happened at Eish Kodesh - a Personal Viewpoint

by Rabbi Chaim Richman

Many incidents and instances of gross injustice, governmental duplicity and police brutality have been inflicted upon the families of Eish Kodesh, This is another.

I have not made any entries or updates to my personal Facebook page for several months, and was not planning on doing so. I am simply too busy, and anyone who wants to reach me can always do so by email or through the Temple Institute's Facebook page. But after what transpired this past week concerning the tiny community of Eish Kodesh, and in the face of the lies that are being perpetrated in the media, I cannot remain silent. Of even greater concern is the complacency and prejudice of the general public, even among those who identify ideologically with the settlement movement.

Eish Kodesh is a growing, vibrant young community in the hills of the Benjamin region of Samaria, the heartland of the Land of Israel. The land upon which the community sits, by all accounts [--]

The residents of Eish Kodesh are young and idealistic. Among its members are farmers, army officers, computer experts and other professionals, a variety of self-employed businessmen, and of course, Torah scholars and teachers. The community has grown to over 30 families with at least 100 children between them, the oldest of which is not yet bar mitzvah.

We are knowledgeable about all this from first-hand experience because we have two married daughters living there. Like all the young families who live at Eish Kodesh, our children have decided to live there and raise their children there at great personal cost and self-sacrifice…they truly live the mitzvah of living in Eretz Yisrael, and their very presence in this place is a constant sanctification of G-d's name.

The presence of the settlement of Eish Kodesh is begrudgingly acknowledged by the State of Israel, which considers its legal status – despite the universal recognition of the community having been established on uncontested land – as dubious. Because of the politicization of the settlement issue in general, pressure from the United States and the European Union, efforts made by the Israeli Left-dominated media to demonize and delegitimize the settlers, and constant Palestinian terror, encroachment, thievery, violence, harassment and intimidation, the lives of these young families are fraught with challenges that most of us cannot even imagine.

But Eish Kodesh's residents are deeply rooted in faith in G-d and their Jewish heritage, and their love for the Land of Israel knows no bounds, so they rise to these challenges with bravery, integrity and aplomb.  

Many incidents and instances of gross injustice, governmental duplicity and police brutality have been inflicted upon the families of Eish Kodesh, but the incidents of this past week are so horrific that all past experience pales.

On Tuesday, January 7th, large and numerous forces of police and army arrived at Eish Kodesh and destroyed the vineyards and orchards belonging to two of the residents of Eish Kodesh. The Palestinians of the adjacent village of Kusrah, who continually instigate violent confrontation with the Eish Kodesh residents, were emboldened by the State action against the settlers, and with a phalanx of police to 'protect' them they gleefully 'reclaimed' these lands immediately and within moments, ploughed the earth and declared their ownership.

In addition to the destruction of the orchards and vineyards, the police also confiscated and/or destroyed privately owned farming equipment belonging to two of the residents, who together sustained over 80,000 NIS in damages and financial loss.  

The feeling in the community, in the face of this government-sponsored pogrom, was one of abandonment and betrayal. This act of destruction, carried about by the government of Israel, was ordered by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.

MK Moshe Feiglin (who donated 600 new trees to Eish Kodesh in solidarity) addressed the incident in the Knesset and questioned the massive action's legality, and the strange, cruel and wanton way in which the destruction was carried out.

When word of the police action that was taking place in Eish Kodesh began to spread throughout the settlement communities, residents of other communities and many young people began to converge on Eish Kodesh to show their support and express their outrage in a universally-recognized democratic fashion.

The Palestinian locals were greatly emboldened by seeing the way in which the Jews of Eish Kodesh were treated by their own security forces. A large group of Jews, led by a resident of Eish Kodesh, decided to hike through the adjacent hills in order to show that they consider this area to be their home, they will not stop living here or live in fear. A number of weeks earlier, a similar hike had taken place along the same route without incident.  

The hike was peaceful. The entire group was completely unarmed. The purpose of the walk was to declare: We live here. We will not be afraid. The participants in this hike had no intention whatsoever to commit any "price tag" act of revenge or intimidation against the local Palestinians. They did not walk to the village of Kusrah and had no intention whatsoever of entering the village.

Near the outskirts of the village the group was ambushed by a mob of hundreds of Arabs who blocked their way and set upon them. This mob forced the group into an unfinished building outside the village, where they bound them and proceeded to beat them with their fists as well as with clubs and pipes. One of the Jewish men lost consciousness (and was subsequently hospitalized…and arrested!). After 40 minutes, soldiers of the IDF arrived and 'convinced' the mob to release the group; until they were released the beatings continued under the noses of the soldiers, who did nothing to stop them.

Some of the Jews were arrested; none of the members of the Arab mob were arrested, though they kidnapped and beat the Jewish group.

It is an absolute miracle that none of the hikers were killed. They suffered horrible beatings. Photographs of the bloodied and broken Jews, bound and prostrate, proudly taken and displayed by members of the Arab mob on their Facebook pages have been widely circulated.

Certain cynical, self-serving and manipulative Israeli politicians, quick to promote their own agenda and ever-ready to vilify the settlers, announced that the group was "from Eish Kodesh" and were "on their way to commit an act of 'price-tag' vandalism; " why else would they enter into the Palestinian village of Kusrah?

But the young people in the group were not from Eish Kodesh, where the youngest child is still below bar-mitvah; they had no intention of committing any violence whatsoever, but wanted to demonstrate their presence in the Land; they did not intend entering into the village, but were kidnapped and imprisoned there, where they were savagely beaten; the same hike route had been taken only a few weeks earlier.

It pains us greatly to see how the true version of these events is barely reported and is not widely believed. Those elements that have an anti-settler agenda are seizing this opportunity to besmirch Eish Kodesh and its residents; it pains us even more to see that many good people blindly believe what the media tells them. Indeed, if we did not have children there, how would we know the truth?

These same element who are attempting to put forward their agenda regarding the dismantlement of Eish Kodesh, on the grounds that its residents commit violence against its Arab neighbors, would scream "injustice!" from every rooftop if such a suggestion was made against truly hostile and dangerous Arab villages.

The radical, rabid "Peace Now" movement has called for the community of Eish Kodesh to be dismantled – even though Peace Now itself admits that their land is not Palestinian – on the grounds that its members commit "price tag" vandalism. But nothing can be further from the truth, and the members of this community are themselves the victims of a concerted attack against their legitimacy and basic human rights.

The needs of Eish Kodesh are great. You can show your solidarity and support by donating money to the community which is desperately needed for the development of the settlement as well as for legal defense. If you are interested in donating to Eish Kodesh (a US tax 501-C-3 tax deduction is available) contact me privately for details.

In addition to financial support you can help Eish Kodesh by speaking up and spreading the truth. Please repost this note and participate in forums and talk-backs that are engaged in spreading falsehood. And please write to members of the Israeli Knesset and register your outrage at the manner in which this community is treated.


Rabbi Chaim Richman is the Director of the International Department of The Temple Institute in Jerusalem.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14373#.UtQHfLTfVzV

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

John Kerry Starts the Bidding on Refugees

by Richard Baehr

A Chinese news agency is reporting that Secretary of State John Kerry has offered one of his many "bridging proposals" on the right of return of Palestinian refugees, in his effort to move the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks along. These talks appear to be going nowhere on their own when Palestinians and Israelis are left to deal with each other directly, but also nowhere with Kerry in the middle, as he seems to be regularly, now that his most recent diplomatic "breakthrough," the Iranian nuclear deal, remains in limbo, near two months on from the much ballyhooed November signing in Geneva.

The six-month interim period established in the Geneva agreement, during which Iran agrees to freeze some of its nuclear activity, and Western nations relax some of their sanctions, has not yet commenced, and no one is quite sure at this point what has been agreed to. In any case, Iran continues to proclaim the things they intend to do during the interim phase, such as advanced centrifuge development insuring that the new centrifuges can be quickly installed and begin spinning if the interim agreement is not extended and talks break down at some point short of a final agreement, as they seem likely to do.

The report on the refugee proposal is significant since this is not a minor issue for the Palestinians. Their narrative of the Palestinian Nakba argues that European imperialists established Israel due to guilt over the Holocaust and made the Palestinians pay the price with their expulsion in large numbers during the 1948 war, thereby creating the refugee situation. Of course, the Zionist movement preceded the Holocaust by decades, and first won European support after World War I. The Palestinian narrative places the Palestinians in their now established role of victims, ignoring the many opportunities they had and rejected over the last 75 years to create a state of their own. 

It also gives no agency to how Palestinians have dealt with refugee matters themselves, or how neighboring Arab countries have handled the issue since 1948. In both cases, the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors have chosen to make the refugees and their far more numerous descendants, now three generations on, cling to a fantasy of return to a land where almost none of them ever lived. It is why so many Palestinians live a life of squalor in U.N. Relief and Works Agency camps in various countries, infused with political indoctrination about destroying Israel and returning to their homes. Alone among the refugee populations of the world (well over 50 million since World War II), the Palestinian refugees are permanent, and avoid (if not fight) resettlement. Resettlement would mean accepting that they are not going back (or for the first time) to Israel and need to get on with their lives. This would mean a sort of tacit acceptance of Israel's existence. Three and in some cases four generations of Palestinians have sacrificed their futures or had them sacrificed absent their own choosing, so this dream of the elimination of Israel can remain alive.

Most estimates place the number of Arab refugees from the 1948 war at between 600,000 and 700,000, a number that is dwarfed by the greater number of Jews who were uprooted and driven out after centuries of living in various Arab countries. Over two-thirds of the Jews who were forced out arrived in Israel, and within a fairly short time, were no longer in camps or temporary housing, but on their way to new lives in a new country. The Jews who arrived in Israel after the 1948 war, including displaced persons from Europe and those expelled by the Arab countries, doubled the size of the Jewish population in Israel in a few years. The Arab refugees, on the other hand, were a blip on the populations of the Arab countries, other than Jordan.

The Arabs who left their homes during the war, arrived in other Arab lands nearby, whether the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, or Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, where the same language was spoken and the same religion was practiced. While some of the refugees were encouraged to leave by the Zionists during the fighting, others left on their own so as to be out of the war zone, some left before the war even started, and others left their homes with the active encouragement of Arab armies (to get out of the way so the Arabs could finish off the Jews in the fighting) and even some political leaders among the Palestinian population.

In fact, there was no distinct nationality in Palestine itself, as the Arab refugees were indistinguishable from their neighbors, except for how they became pawns in the endless battle to delegitimize and undermine Israel. As revealed in Joan Peters' exhaustive work, "From Time Immemorial," many of the Arabs who resided in Palestine at the time of the 1948 war had been recent arrivals, lured to Palestine from other Arab lands by the improving standard of living that arrived with the Zionists.

The demand for a right of return for all refugees, meaning every original refugee and all descendants of refugees, is another unique feature in the way Palestinian refugees are treated by international organizations, in that other refugee populations around the world have only included those who became refugees themselves, and future generations were never considered refugees as well. This is why the number of Palestinian refugees, which at one time was in the 600,000 to 700,000 range, now includes over 5 million registered refugees, regardless of whether they live in refugee camps. And of course, Palestinian have their own refugee agency, while all the rest of the world's refugees are handled by a separate agency.

Into this twisted narrative of an ever-soaring refugee population, Kerry seems to have pulled a number out of the air for refugees who should be allowed back into Israel -- 80,000. This number almost certainly exceeds the number of living refugees from the 1948 war. The Chinese report suggested that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, now serving in the 10th year of his four-year term in office (more evidence of Palestinian number inflation), has supposedly countered Kerry's offer with one of his own, demanding that 200,000 Palestinians be allowed back into Israel. Of course this demand is for Palestinians to enter Israel after a supposed peace deal is struck, and many Palestinians are counting on such a deal only deferring the next stage in their war against Israel. If a peace deal weakens Israel strategically (how could it not?), many Palestinians, including leaders of the various political and terror groups, are counting on a future defeat or collapse of Israel, leading at some future date to a universal right of return for Palestinians, all of whom at that point would have no residential linkage whatsoever to the land of Israel itself. 

Israeli leaders were quick to argue that there would be no recognition of a right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel itself in any peace agreement, but only to a new Palestinian state. But with Kerry and Abbas negotiating a range for the number of refugees allowed back in, it appears that Israel was not consulted, or was merely ignored by the secretary of state, and will appear to be "intransigent," to use a favored New York Times descriptor, if it does not enter the bidding.

The Israelis for their part have demanded that Palestinians accept that Israel is the Jewish state (with non-Jews of course representing a substantial minority population within the country). With current high and growing Jewish birth rates, and declining Israeli Arab birth rates, the fact of a heavy Jewish majority will not disappear in future generations, as once forewarned by some analysts. But it is not empirical evidence that is at issue with the total Palestinian rejection of the concept. It is much more that the concept is in conflict with their own narrative, which claims that except for the (supposed) expulsion of the refugees, Arabs would now be dominant within the country, and so they cannot concede Israel's permanence and the Jewish majority's permanence in Israel without ignoring their own narrative. This would be an abandonment of the refugees. Of course, the Palestinians also demand that no Jewish Israelis at all may live in the new Palestinian state.

Kerry has walked onto one of the many land mines in this conflict with his offer, if the story is even real. Refugees are not a split-the-difference issue and such leaks of bridging proposals serve no purpose if progress on difficult issues is what one or both sides really want. Sixty-five years after a war they started and lost, the few remaining Palestinians who are among the original refugee population need to move on. The fake refugees who are their descendants need to give up their delusions of victimhood. Israel is not their land.

Richard Baehr

Source:

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Arab Spring Fever in Jordan

by JanSuzanne Krasner

Many in the western world believe that the  Arab Spring fever is by-passing Jordan and King Abdullah's government has only the challenge of containing the Syrian War from pouring into Jordan, along with an occasional protest demanding political and economic reform...and the end of government corruption. 

But, according to Mudar Zahran, one of 15 leaders of the growing "Dignity Revolution" in the Middle East, a leader of the secular Jordanian Opposition Coalition, and an outspoken critic of the Hashemite King, the realities on the ground are quite different.


Zahran: 

"Palestinians [of Jordan] and Bedouins, they hate the Hashemites...That is what you see today - people chanting against them."
"All Arab countries, all of these names - Jordanian, Palestinian, a Qatari, etc. - are bogus names; they never existed...We were all Arabs and proudly so... The Hashemite regime, like all Arab regimes, works on our divisions to make us hate one another, creating bogus animosities between us. In order to make us hate each other for the last 40 years and therefore stay in power, the Jordanians of Palestinian origin were deprived of education and government jobs; no more than 10 percent of the ministers in Jordanian government can be Palestinian."

It is statements like these by Mudar Zahran that demonstrate all is not well in King Abdullah's Kingdom and have gotten him indicted in a Jordanian court, in absentia, and he is now awaiting trial. If convicted by the military state security court, court officials say Zahran stands to go to prison for up to 15 years and do several years of hard labor.


Meanwhile, Zahran has been living in exile with his family in the UK for several years and has been granted political asylum. During these last years he has been writing and criticizing King Abdullah II and his government through his published articles in the Gatestone Institute, the Middle East Forum and his latest articles in Israel's Jerusalem Post.



It must be noted here that Jordan, like all Arab nations, makes it lawful to prosecute any activist, peaceful or a terrorist. Zahran's articles that have recently appeared in the Israeli newspaper must have been the final straw that broke the King's back and he has been called on the carpet, according to Zahran, to be "silenced."


In reviewing Zahran's commentary in the Israeli newspaper, one will see how he condemns the Hashemite Monarchy for their decades of deception. Just the titles of a few of his articles have obviously called attention to Zahran's poor opinion of the King: Is Jordan the Hashemite-Occupied Palestine?; Jordan's King Trying to Play on Israel's Fears; and Jordan's King and the Islamists: In One Boat? (http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/SearchResults.aspx?q=Mudar%20Zahran)

In a Jerusalem Post interview, Zahran explained that the four separate charges against him relate to

"incitement against the ruling political regime of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, "The court has indicted me for the crime of inciting hatred and attacking Jordan's image and the image of its one nation."

But, Zahran's critique doesn't stop with Jordan's King. It includes criticism of other Islamic leadership for using the "Palestinian cause" for their own agenda.

"It is the Demonization of Israel in the Western media that is not good for the Palestinians... It is a threat to Palestinians... Arab dictators such as Jordan's current King, have been able to butcher and oppress Palestinians only because the media is busy demonizing Jews in Israel."

Zahran claims that he is intentionally being targeted by the King because he speaks the truth and there are many Palestinian-Arabs who listen to him.  Zahran's name was recently heard being chanted at a protest aimed at the King's mistreatment of the Palestinian Arab citizenry. His statements that the Jordanian Palestinians continue to be "treated as second-class citizens in comparison to the Bedouin and Muslim Brotherhood" seem to threaten the security of the King's position.


Zahran asserts that the majority of the Jordanian population, somewhere between 60-80%, identify themselves as Palestinians with family having lived in the land now called Jordan, while the King's Hashemite dynasty originates from a small tribe in what is now called Saudi Arabia. In addition, the 'West Bankers,' Jordanian-Palestinians now living in the West Bank, have been stripped of their Jordanian citizenship.

"The ruling Hashemites insisted that the West Bank become a part of the Hashemite kingdom as well [starting in 1948]. Then, when they retreated and ran away wearing women's clothes in 1967, they came back and told us suddenly: 'You from the West Bank are now not Jordanians any longer, you are Palestinian.'"
"My call for a civil state that provides equality to all Jordanians including the West Bankers, East Bankers and Christians are a major threat to a King who survives on an apartheid regime...otherwise, why would the king single me out of all of his opposition members living in exile?"

And in an interview with Al Jazeera, Zahran once said he wished "Jordan's King would treat his (Palestinians) the way Israel treats the Palestinians".


Mudar Zahran has not forgotten history, so he does not buy into the myths and lies that the Islamic leaders have perpetrated on his people and the rest of the world for decades.

"I am a textbook Palestinian... I have seen it all. We've had family members who were imprisoned because of terrorist acts, just like any family in the West Bank... I have a cousin who was killed by Israeli forces on my wedding day, and I saw his corpse on Al Jazeera." "Of course Al Jazeera didn't report that he had been caught in cross fire between Israel and PLO forces."

Zahran adds:

"The king is trying a secular, anti-Islamist leader who wants to change Jordan through peaceful means and who seeks equal rights for Christians as well as peace with Israel, while the Muslim Brotherhood is free to preach hatred."

Zahran is talking to the Israelis now and the Israelis are listening. They know what is happening on the ground in Jordan, of King Abdullah's growing weakness, and Zahran's political coalition may represent the basis for a democratically ruled Jordan, for real peace and cooperation with Israel, and the recognition of Jordan as the Palestinian Arabs' rightful homeland.


Mudat Zahran is the outspoken Muslim leader of the non-sectarian coalition that wants to take Palestinian-Arabs out of the 7^th Century and bring them into the 21^st Century. He is an important person, one whom the rest of the world ought to be listening to, especially Americans, when it comes to looking at options for a democratic government in Jordan and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue. But it is certain that King Abdullah is listening to what Mudar Zahran is saying...and one can believe Zahran when he claims the king wants to silence him.

JanSuzanne Krasner

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/01/arab_spring_fever_in_jordan.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

A Brother's Vengeance: The Preacher Who Could Topple Erdogan

by Maximilian Popp

The greatest threat yet to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan comes from a former ally. Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen and his influential followers seem determined to accomplish what the recent protest movement could not: overthrowing the current regime.

Turgut Keles loved his premier. He maintained his support of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan through early summer, when demonstrators in Istanbul were protesting the redevelopment of Gezi Park. When Erdogan held a rally for tens of thousands of supporters, Keles was in the first row.

But just half a year later, everything has changed. "Erdogan must go," the former fan now says, adding that the prime minister has "betrayed" millions of Turks. Keles long voted in favor of Erdogan's conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP). But his support of the party is exceeded by his admiration of Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen, the leader of a powerful civic movement that is now at odds with Erdogan. 

 

Keles attended a school founded by Gülen followers, and later studied at one of the movement's universities. The organization helped him find a job, he says. Today, Keles works for a construction company in Istanbul and remains a devoted follower. "Anyone who insults Gülen, insults me," he says.

For a long time, Gülen and Erdogan were allies. This fall, however, the prime minister announced that tutoring centers run by the Gülen movement would be shut down. Erdogan has accused the preacher's supporters of creating a "state within a state," and since then the two sides have been locked in a bitter power struggle. The conflict appears to confirm what many once dismissed as a conspiracy theory -- that in many cases the Gülen movement controls the police and justice system.
Just before Christmas, police arrested more than 50 suspects, among them high-ranking AKP members, business owners and the sons of three ministers. They are accused of accepting bribes and involvement with illegal oil deals with Iran. 

Gareth Jenkens, a Turkey expert from the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, suspects that Gülen supporters are behind the investigations. "The movement wants to intimidate Erdogan. It is desperately trying to prevent the closure of its tutoring centers," he says. 

A former justice minister with the AKP even says that one employee of the country's top court sought the preacher's advice before ruling on a case. 

'Powerful Islamist Grouping'
 
Afraid of being watched, Keles looks into a cafe on an Istanbul side street. He's not actually authorized to speak about the Gülen movement, which is also why he doesn't want to use his real name. He wants to set one thing straight: It wasn't the movement, but Erdogan, who started the current conflict, he says. "He's behaving like a despot."

Fethullah Gülen, who is believed to be 72, lives in exile in Pennsylvania. He fled Turkey in 1999 when the government, which was secular at the time, accused him of attempting to Islamize the country. His some 8 million supporters run schools, media companies, hospitals and an insurance company in 140 countries, including Germany. It is the "most powerful Islamist grouping" in Turkey, according to US State Department diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks in 2010. The network "controls major business, trade, and publishing activities, has deeply penetrated the political scene -- including AKP at high levels."

Gülen got his start as an imam in Ederne and Izmir, and soon persuaded pious businessmen to make donations. With this he financed schools, and his supporters founded student housing known as "lighthouses," which are a fundamental part of the organization. Keles lived in one of these facilities, which often offer free accommodation in exchange for loyalty. Dropouts say the tone inside is militaristic; residents study Gülen's writings and sermons under a provost's supervision. 

The community recruits new supporters in its schools and tutoring centers, training them as "soldiers of light." Their task, whether they become businessmen, politicians or judges, is to spread Gülen's conservative vision of Islam and to expand his influence.

But despite the fact that it's a huge organization, the Gülen movement has no address and no headquarters. Fethullah Gülen alone determines its structure and path, while the cleric's trusted "brothers" are in charge of its most important businesses. Among these is Zaman, Turkey's highest-circulation newspaper, along with Bank Aysa, the country's largest. 

Infiltrating the Turkish Government
 
More than two years ago, Gülen urged his followers to infiltrate the Turkish state in a sermon that was captured on video. "You have to penetrate the arteries of the system without being noticed," he said. You have to wait for the right moment, until you have seized the entire power of the state." Gülen says the video has been manipulated.

When AKP assumed power in 2002, the prime minister saw an ally in the Gülen organizations. He promoted the movement by appointing members to important positions in law enforcement and the judiciary. Together, Erdogan and Gülen ousted the military, which until then had acted as guardian of the secular state.

The five-year trial against the "Ergenekon" network, the most spectacular and controversial case in the Turkish judicial system's recent history, has led to the arrest of generals, but also hundreds of politicians, lawyers and journalists, for their involvement in an alleged coup attempt. Crimes could be proven for individual defendants. Often, however, the allegations turned out to be fabricated. Critics say that, with Erdogan's permission, the Gülen movement manipulated the trial to eliminate political rivals in the government and civil society. The prime minister's chief adviser admitted two weeks ago that forces within the judiciary conspired at the time against the military. The general staff now wants to bring the case back to court.

A high-ranking former party member asserts that numerous state officials acted on the orders of the Gülen brothers: "They were our students. We trained them and supported them. When these grateful children take office, they continue to serve Gülen."

Critical journalists were also persecuted. The reporter Nedim Sener, for instance, reported on the machinations of the Gülen community, as did his colleague Ahmet Sik. In March 2011, the two were arrested. They were not released until the following year.

'They Want Influence and Money'
 
Sener says he doesn't doubt the seriousness of the corruption allegations -- but the motives of the investigators has to be questioned. These are hardly neutral jurists at work, but rather Gülen followers. "The community is not governed by rule of law and democracy," says Sener. "They want influence and money."

Because it's not just about ideology; it's also about wealth. By opening schools abroad, the Gülen movement has developed new markets for Turkish businesses. The Calic Group, for instance, which is run by Erdogan's son-in-law, benefited from the group's connections to the former Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov.

But the alliance between Erdogan and Gülen began to crumble after the parliamentary elections of 2011. Erdogan said the movement could no longer be relied on. Gülen's followers, for their part, were disturbed by the prime minister's increasingly authoritarian governing style. "Erdogan became a burden for us," says Keles.

Among other things, the two camps are at odds over how to deal with the Kurds. Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan led secret peace negotiations on the behalf of the prime minister with the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Gülen, however, called on the Turkish military in a video message to attack Kurdish separatists: "Locate them, surround them, smash their units, let fire rain down on their houses, cover their wailing with still more cries of pain," he said.

The Conflict Escalates
 
In February 2012 state prosecutors attempted to apprehend Erdogan's intelligence chief. The prime minister prevented Fidan's arrest -- and transferred police powers to intelligence. The media attacked Erdogan's actions with the same vehemence they once reserved for the opposition. In summer 2013 Gülen criticized Erdogan for his brutal handling of the Gezi protesters. 

But only after Erdogan threatened to close the tutoring centers did the conflict escalate. Lawmaker Hakan Sukur, a former soccer player and national hero, announced his resignation from the AKP: "As a supporter of the movement, I take the hostilities against Gülen personally," he said. Afterward, the daily newspaper Zaman called him a "hero with a lion's heart" and interpreted his resignation as a "final warning." 

 

The corruption scandal shook the country just a day later. The prime minister is still trying to dismiss the allegations as conspiracy, speaking of a "second war of independence." He announced he would take action against Gülen's supporters. More than 500 police officers have already been transferred. Erdogan is expected to present a list with the names of 2,000 more alleged Gülen followers within the state apparatus.

Gülen supporter Keles says the movement is prepared to fight to the "bitter end." Ilhan Cihaner, the opposition politician and Gülen opponent, expects further revelations in the coming weeks. He says the group possesses enough compromising documents to topple Erdogan: "The conflict is far from over."

Maximilian Popp

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/turkey-erdogan-sees-power-threatened-by-muslim-cleric-guelen-a-942296.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Pettiness of the Academic Boycott Israel Movement Revealed

by Peggy Shapiro

Updating: MLA Lays the Groundwork for Promoting Punishment of Israel

The Delegate Meeting of the Modern Language Association, MLA, began with an hour-long session on the perils of falling enrollment in the MLA and reduced support for the humanities in general. What better way to get a pedantic organization into the headlines than a little anti-Israel action?  So the MLA Delegate Assembly took up two resolutions targeting Israel. Now for the first time reporters flocked to cover a conference whose delegate sessions are normally a "Roberts Rules of Order" soporific.


One (Resolution 2014-1), asking the U.S. State Department to pressure Israel to relax its controls of who enters the country, passed by a narrow margin. (60-53).  By the time it made it the floor, it had been defanged because of its shoddy research.  The oversight committee presented it for a vote after making two amendments because of "insubstantial support."  Gaza was removed because the resolution's sponsors had ignored the fact that Egypt controls Gaza's southern border entries.  Rather than amend the resolution to also condemn Egyptian restrictions, they simply removed Gaza.   If Israel couldn't be blamed, apparently there was no point to the resolution.  Another required amendment was removal of the word "arbitrarily" because Israel's visa requirements are not arbitrary but rather are consistent with the standards of other liberal democracies. 


In a chaotic 5 ½ hour session, where there was more time spent discussing how much time should be allocated speakers from the floor than time speakers actually spoke, I was one of the few who had a full 3 minutes.  There was so much I had wanted to say about the ludicrous complaints against Israel's security at a venue with extremely tight security, so restrictive that I had to re-register and obtain a new entrance ticket just because I went to the ladies room.  With few afforded the opportunity to speak, I tried to make the most of my three minutes.


"Delegates look carefully at the packet you received, not for what is in it, but for what is not in it. There is no understanding or explanation of Israel's defense needs and opponents of the Resolution are given only one minute to unwind a tangled web of misinformation, unsubstantiated anecdotes which are presented with no context.   For example, removing the word "Gaza" because the resolution presenters were not even aware of the simple fact that the entry to Gaza is in Egyptian and not Israeli control. What else did they not tell and what else do we need to know to make an informed decision?  They also said there is a State Department warning not to visit Israel. Not true. The warning is not to visit Gaza because it's run by a terrorist organization." 


I read from the State Department site on my smart phone, a technological feat I had not known I could do.


Israel's visa requirements are similar to those of other liberal democracies, though Israel is forced to be more vigilant because of the dangers of ongoing terrorism.  The resolution never acknowledged this reality.  Israel's visa denials can be appealed in Israel's courts.  Nonetheless, in 2012, Israel rejected only .02% of the 626,000 Americans who sought visas while the U.S. denial rate of Israeli applications for B-visas was 5.4 percent.  Furthermore, Palestinian universities themselves boast about the number of foreign professors, including Americans, who teach at their schools. 


Facts be damned! The delegates passed the resolution (60-53). It must now go to the executive committee, who will probably pass it because it says nothing but sounds like someone is taking a stand against Israel. If they approve it, the 30,000 members of the MLA will vote for or against it online. Ten percent of members must vote for it to officially pass.


An amended resolution calling for academic freedom of access and entry to be applied to all nations was defeated after a number a parliamentary twists and maneuvers by the moderator.  Five hours after the meeting began, the "Emergency Resolution in Support of the American Studies Association" was brought to the floor. This resolution, which was introduced by the MLA's Radical Caucus, was turned down for consideration and discussion by a vote of 59 to 41. (As an emergency resolution, it required 75% of the vote to be entertained.)


Perhaps it was rejected because the ASA had faced increasing criticism because of its vote last month for an academic boycott of Israel. The major U.S. academic organizations and 182 leading universities had strongly condemned  the measure as an assault on academic freedom.  Perhaps the delegates were standing up for the right of the ASA to say stupid things and the right of others to point out the stupidity. Perhaps they were just exhausted from waiting for hours to speak, watching the moderators scurry around examining rule books, being told to stand "at ease," and then told that the rules had been misread. That this conference of language professors has so much trouble communicating clearly is another matter.


If the MLA had hoped to have its moment in the lights, it may regret getting what it asked for.  The morally bankrupt vote, the lack of sound scholarship, the almost comical chaos, and the perversion of rules were in the spotlight, an embarrassment which will make MLA members cringe and ultimately harm the once worthy goals of the organization.



Peggy Shapiro is Professor Emeritus, Chair of the Foreign Languages/ESL Department, Harold Washington College, MLA Member and Midwest Coordinator of StandWithUs

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/01/the_pettiness_of_the_academic_boycott_israel_movement_revealed.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Is America More Sectarian Than Iraq?

by Michael Rubin


The seizure by Al Qaeda of the cities of Ramadi and Falluja in Iraq’s al-Anbar governorate has been pause for reflection around Washington and among many former officials, journalists, and other Iraq watchers. Many blame sectarianism, and that is not wrong. Al-Qaeda is a sectarian organization that sees Shi’ite interpretation of Islam as corrupt and profane.

Politico Magazine typified this when, on January 9, they asked various officials and analysts “Is Iraq’s Mess America’s Fault?” Here’s how Politico introduced the segment:

Sunni militants—provoked by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government and abetted by extremist spillover from the Syrian civil war—have gained a foothold particularly in Iraq’s Anbar province, where last week members of the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed the city of Falluja.

Think about the implication of that: Blaming Maliki for provoking al-Qaeda is like blaming the United States for provoking Osama Bin Laden before 9/11. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s policies may have antagonized many Sunni Arabs in al-Anbar, but the root of Al-Qaeda’s antagonism is not isolated toward Maliki but rather the fact that any Shi‘ite holds power over Sunni Arabs.


The sectarian narrative is simple to grasp, and many do. Col. Peter Mansoor (ret.), John Nagl, and Emma Sky, all  of whom served admirably in Iraq, blame Maliki for pursuing sectarian vendettas. While Sky is write to say that the prime minister has worked to remove and marginalize rivals, she continues:

The trumped up warrant against the former finance minister, Rafi al-Issawi, a Sunni, in December 2012 sparked widespread year-long protests by Sunnis aggrieved at their marginalization. A raid last April by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) on a protest camp in Hawija led to the deaths of 50 Sunnis. Last month, in response to the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and horrific attacks against Shia civilians, Maliki ordered the ISF to raid an al Qaeda training camp in the deserts of western Anbar province. But when 24 Iraqi soldiers, including the commander of the Seventh Army Division, died in the raid, Maliki then ordered ISF into the city of Ramadi to arrest a Sunni member of parliament, Ahmed Alwani, and to close down the protest camps, which he accused of being occupied by al Qaeda.

While this creates a damning narrative, what she omits is also important: How trumped up were the charges against Issawi when he himself has paid blood money to make settlement with the families of victims in whose murders he was complicit? Likewise, while the raid on Hawija led to the deaths of 50 Sunnis, Iraqi forces first went in with water cannons until they were fired upon with heavy weapons by the protestors. Only then did the raid turn violent. Hawija has for years been a hotbed of radicalism widely sympathetic to Al Qaeda and hostile to any Shi’ite or Kurd who might step foot in the town. It is true that the Iraqi government might have exaggerated the numbers of al Qaeda present in the  protest camps of Ramadi, but what is certain—at least according to YouTube videos of Friday sermons and rallies and Facebook declarations—is that al-Qaeda was present. That raises the question about how much al-Qaeda presence Maliki should tolerate and, just as important, how much Al Qaeda presence, Sunni residents of Anbar should tolerate before being forced to react or expecting an Iraqi government reactions? To transpose that question to the United States, how much Al Qaeda presence should the United States tolerate in its midst before taking action?

Mansoor’s narrative is also one-sided:

Prime Minister Maliki, emboldened by the improvements in security, turned on his political enemies with a mailed fist. His first target was Tarik al-Hashemi, a Sunni vice president of Iraq and longtime political adversary. Hashemi escaped the country, but Maliki had the courts try him in absentia and sentence him to death. The prime minister didn’t stop there. Faced with non-violent Sunni resistance to his increasingly authoritarian leadership style, Maliki sent Iraqi security forces into protest camps last April and again a week ago.

The question Mansoor does not address is whether Hashemi was guilty of terrorism and, indeed, it seems overwhelmingly that he was. A follow-on question would then be whether Hashemi’s sectarian preference should be a mitigating factor. The answer to that is clearly no. More complicated would be the question whether Maliki or others should decline to pursue those engaging in terrorism if they know the result of that pursuit might be violence. That is tricky, but to fail to pursue terrorists out of fear of violence would, in effect, be succumbing to blackmail. Again, it is useful to transpose the question to the United States: Should American police refuse to pursue cases against extremist militias for fear that prosecuting them might encourage revenge? Again, the answer to that question is no.

The Baghdad government should take steps to ameliorate the grievances of al-Anbar, so long as those grievances are not the democratic system itself: Too many Al Anbar residents and their politicians—including those who participating in the Awakening Councils—seem unable to reconcile themselves to the fact that Sunnis are a minority in Iraq and that no amount of encouragement to their community from sectarian countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia will return Iraq to its pre-2003 order.

It seems, unfortunately, that too many Americans have bit into the sectarian narrative, hook, line, and sinker. Because Americans—especially those whose background is in CENTCOM which has its own distinct culture and biases based on its operations and interactions with the militaries and governments of sectarian Sunni emirates, kingdoms, and republics—now wear sectarian blinders, many refuse to acknowledge the complexity of the situation in which Sunni victims complain to a Shi’ite government about abuses by Sunni politicians, as was the case with both Hashemi and Issawi. Likewise, that Sunnis displaced from Anbar choose to take refuge in predominantly Shi’ite Karbala rather than neighboring (and largely Sunni) Ninewah governorate or Jordan says a lot about the complexity of Iraq today.

Sectarianism and ethnic chauvinism do exist in Iraq, but it is dangerous for Americans to base analysis on a narrative that may have been truer during their service many years ago, when the situation has evolved significantly since. When Americans are more sectarian in their judgments than many Iraqis, they risk reigniting sectarianism rather than ameliorating it. The United States should not accept blindly the narrative whispered by Saudi, Jordanian, and Turkish diplomats and generals. More dangerous is the implication of such sectarianism in the Western narrative: to suggest that al-Qaeda has legitimate grievances in Iraq, as Politico‘s introductions appears to have done, risks setting policy down a slippery slope that will nullify the war on terror not only in Iraq but far beyond.


Michael Rubin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/01/12/is-america-more-sectarian-than-iraq/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Egyptian Novelist Youssef Ziedan: Our Politicians Curse Israel to Gain Popularity

by MEMRI


Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian novelist Youssef Ziedan, which aired on Egypt's CBC TV on December 30, 2013.

Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV

Youssef Ziedan: "We should reconsider our notions regarding the Jewish question. We are not even aware how much this affects us. [Antisemitism] has become a common trade, benefitting all our politicians. Any politician who wants to gain popularity curses Israel, but when he comes to power, he has no problem with Israel.

"That's stupidity. That's stupidity which is connected to the ignorance of the people. We should reconsider this. Nobody looks out for our interests. We should be aware of this."

Interviewer: "What did you mean when you talked about 'Jewish issues'?"

Youssef Ziedan: "Anything that has to do with the Jewish question: the hadiths adopted from Jewish and Christian traditions, our shared history, the so-called Middle East problem, which I do not consider to be a problem at all.

"The Nasserists have been oppressing the people for 60 years under the pretext of the Middle East problem... Wars were fought, and people were killed.

"Where does the problem lie? The Jews settled in Palestine and declared their state in 1947. Why did the Jews do that? After all, they had lived in Arab countries. They say that this land was promised to them. They say it appears in the Old Testament, which the Christians also believe in."

Interviewer: "There was also Balfour."

Youssef Ziedan: "Forget about Balfour and his declaration for a moment. We were indoctrinated at school: 'What do you think about the Balfour Declaration?' According to the system of ready-made answers, we were expected to respond: 'He gave what he did not own to those who did not deserve it.' That's it. There could be no other answer."

Interviewer: "You reminded me of the old days..."

[...]

MEMRI

Source: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/4097.htm

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Sharon - The Left's Adopted Darling

by Dror Eydar

     

1. Ariel Sharon left us eight years ago. Yesterday was his final step. He disengaged from us following the last significant act of his life, which was, ironically, the disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Much like his giant personality, bursting with charisma and always controversial -- his death, too, was unprecedented: Eight years of limbo between heaven and earth. 

2. It is a shame Sharon was never embraced by the media -- or at least that he didn't receive fair treatment -- prior to his last political act. One could honestly say that Sharon was merely interested in the retreat from Gaza, but that the media detractors who became his champions were interested in the destruction of Jewish communities, the "settlements."

3. The Ariel Sharon who ascended to the premiership was different from the decorated general who crossed the Suez Canal in 1973. The tactician was still there, but the decades of being perpetually delegitimized ensured that his pragmatism -- which had helped him before -- would override other considerations, no less profound and far-reaching.

4. For years, Sharon was the punching bag for journalist Yoel Marcus, who, like the rest of his colleagues, never missed an opportunity to take a swing at the person perceived as the biggest threat to the Left's hegemony. 

Indeed, the first time Sharon outlined his disengagement plan was to the very same Marcus who Sharon had invited to his ranch. 

The enemy became infatuated. In historical terms, Ariel Sharon "walked to Canossa" to clear his name, and on his path toward gaining renewed acceptance from his enemies, those who he grew up with and who educated him in his youth, before he crossed the line to join his political rivals.

5. In the Mishnah's Ethics of the Fathers, we are taught by Joshua ben Perachiah to "judge every man favorably." One interpretation sees it as instruction to look at each person as an aggregate whole, not to judge him by one specific act or another. 

In regard to the calls I have heard from the Right: With all due respect to the pain involved, Sharon and his lifelong contributions to Israel's security and to the settlement enterprise cannot strictly be seen through the prism of the disengagement. The appropriate historical distance is required in order to distill the important from the unimportant. 

Rest in peace, Ariel Sharon, even your rivals salute you.

Dror Eydar

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6987

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What Gates Gets Wrong

by Michael Rubin


Many on the right have seized upon former Secretary of State Robert Gates’ criticism of President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of State Clinton in his new book to show the cravenness of behavior and their treatment of American soldiers in harms’ way as political footballs. That may all be true, but as with the lionization of Ryan Crocker (who has embraced unconditional talks not only with Iran but also Hezbollah) and David Petraeus (who repeatedly sought to appease radical Islamists and unrepentant Baathists and wanted also to engage with Bashar al-Assad in Syria), there is a danger in amplifying Gates’ welcome criticism into an imprimatur of statesman-like wisdom.

As Hugh Hewitt pointed out during a conversation on his radio show last Wednesday, the paragraph in the excerpts of Gates’ book that too many experts overlook is this:

Wars are a lot easier to get into than out of. Those who ask about exit strategies or question what will happen if assumptions prove wrong are rarely welcome at the conference table when the fire-breathers are demanding that we strike—as they did when advocating invading Iraq, intervening in Libya and Syria, or bombing Iran’s nuclear sites. But in recent decades, presidents confronted with tough problems abroad have too often been too quick to reach for a gun. Our foreign and national security policy has become too militarized, the use of force too easy for presidents.

Today, too many ideologues call for U.S. force as the first option rather than a last resort. On the left, we hear about the “responsibility to protect” civilians to justify military intervention in Libya, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere. On the right, the failure to strike Syria or Iran is deemed an abdication of U.S. leadership. And so the rest of the world sees the U.S. as a militaristic country quick to launch planes, cruise missiles and drones deep into sovereign countries or ungoverned spaces. There are limits to what even the strongest and greatest nation on Earth can do—and not every outrage, act of aggression, oppression or crisis should elicit a U.S. military response.

First, let’s put aside Gates’ legacy statement that “too many ideologues call for U.S. force as the first option rather than a last resort.” That seems a straw man argument, and a cheap one at that: Who exactly with any credibility on issues calls for U.S. force as the first option? The Iraq war was launched as the sanctions regime was collapsing after failing for 13 years to bring Saddam in from the cold. The intelligence regarding Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction was faulty, but what was not—and was confirmed subsequently from seized Iraqi documents—was that Saddam sought to restore his capability after the international community abandoned sanctions.


While Gates is certainly right that the decision to utilize military force should not be taken lightly, he fails to consider what happens should resistance to military force allows problems to spread. Take the case of Syria: Two and a half years ago, the United States had the way but not the will to catalyze the conflict’s end and President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster before Syria became a magnet for international jihadism. The opposition had radicalized today not only to the extent that it dooms Syria but also will threaten many other countries throughout the region as their citizens fighting with radicals in Syria return home. Moroccan security experts believe, for example, that perhaps 600 Moroccans have joined jihadi groups inside Syria. Tunisia, Jordan, and Turkey will face similar blow back, all of which more decisive action in a limited window might have prevented. Likewise, while the Obama administration celebrated its ‘leading from behind’ approach toward Libya, the American desire to take a hands-off approach to the situation on the ground meant that no one secured ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s weapons caches. Not only will we eventually pay the price for the surface-to-air missiles which went missing, but the collapse of Mali into civil war was a direct result of the resulting flow of Libyan weapons to terrorist movements across the Sahel.

Gates also seems not to understand the danger of signaling emptiness to American red lines. Not only during the Obama administration, but also during the Republican and Democratic administrations which preceded him, a tremendous gap has developed between the rhetoric of policy and its reality. That encourages international rogues to test the line. When they become too overconfident or improperly assess American resolve, the result can be devastating.

Gates’ frustration when testifying in Congress also gained press attention. “I may be the secretary of defense, but I am also an American citizen, and there is no son of a bitch in the world who can talk to me like that. I quit,” he wrote, adding, “It was, I am confident, a fantasy widely shared throughout the executive branch.” Again here his umbrage is dangerous. Anyone who has testified before Congress knows that they are mere props for representatives and senators who are speaking more for the television or their constituents than to the item at hand. Still, the job of Congress is oversight and the notion either that such oversight should be mitigated for the ego of a secretary, or that the thin skins of senior executives within the United States government mean that words must be crafted to a Kindergarten code is nonsense. Had the Pentagon’s own congressional liaisons done a better job, perhaps such exchanges would not have been so testy, but the Pentagon’s congressional liaisons are not the most effective bunch as the culture of the Pentagon does not encourage the type of glad-handing, back-slapping, alcohol-imbibing culture that permeates Congress and its staff. That said, it would be nice if everyone was nice and demonstrated class, but if senior officials cannot put with the likes of Carl Levin, John McCain, or Rand Paul, then they should not be trusted to deal with Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. That said, had the cynicism of Obama, Biden, and Clinton really frustrated Gates to the extent he suggests, then he should have quit for, by doing so, he literally could have put his money where his mouth was and changed the debate when it still mattered.


Michael Rubin

Source:

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Syrian Opposition and ISIS Continue Idlib Battle

by Asharq al-Aswat

Islamic Front activists say they have taken control of the eastern district of Saraqib 

 

 

Rebel fighters man a checkpoint in al-Dana town in Idlib province after they captured the town from fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) January 9, 2014. (REUTERS/Abdalghne Karoof)

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—Clashes continued on Saturday between Syrian opposition forces and fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the areas of Saraqib and Idlib in northern Syria, according to reports by the UK-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR).

Maarouf Qaddour, a leading figure in the Syria Revolutionaries Front which is involved in the fighting, told Asharq Al-Awsat that he expected “the opposition factions to tip the scales in their favor quickly in Saraqib because ISIS is becoming weaker.”

Islamic Front activists announced they had taken control of the eastern district of Saraqib, killing dozens of ISIS fighters and besieging the leader of ISIS in the area, Abu Al-Baraa, in the center of the town.

The commander of the Hananou Brigade of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Hamza Habboush, told Asharq Al-Awsat he feared “members of ISIS in Saraqib would execute their prisoners as they did in other areas when they were defeated.”

The Syrian government lost control of Saraqib in November 2012. The town lies on the strategic highway between the cities of Hama and Aleppo, and is one of the last strongholds of ISIS in the Idlib region.

SOHR said a convoy of 200 fighters with tanks and armored vehicles from the opposition’s Islamist brigades and other factions were seen heading to Saraqib, where hundreds of ISIS men were stationed. The organization added that five opposition fighters were killed when their car was destroyed by a land mine planted by ISIS fighters.

Fighting has raged between different factions of Syria’s rebels since January 3, with the Islamic Front, Jaish Al-Mujahideen and Syria’s Revolutionaries Front on one side, and ISIS on the other. Activists and opposition figures accused ISIS of imposing its extremist ideology on areas it controls and of kidnapping and murdering other members of the opposition.

The Syrian National Council, a prominent opposition umbrella group, has issued a statement praising opposition fighters in Homs, where 45 men were killed trying to break the siege in the city. Some areas in Homs which are controlled by the opposition, especially the city’s old quarter, have been under siege by government forces for nearly two years.

Activists have reported a chronic shortage in food and medical supplies, and that aid agencies had been unable to enter the city. Yazan Homsi, an opposition activist, said “hunger and the despair of any help coming to those areas prompted a number of fighters to attempt a suicide mission to secure a route to evacuate the residents.”

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos arrived in Damascus on Saturday, on a scheduled two-day visit to Syria to supervise the response to the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Syrian conflict.

Amos told the BBC that the humanitarian situation in the country was increasingly dire, saying on Sunday: “There are reports of people on the brink of starvation including in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp close to the center of Damascus.”


Asharq al-Aswat

Source: http://www.aawsat.net/2014/01/article55327081

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