Frontline Tours In The Holy Land
“There’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime,” Haley told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. “If you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad.”
“We don’t see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there,” Haley added.
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With America firing 59 missiles into Syria as retaliation for Assad’s sarin gas bombing of innocent civilians, the genie is now out of the bottle not to be put back in.
President Trump said the following:
“Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the life of innocent men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many, even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.
“I ordered a targeted military strike on the airbase in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched. There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council.”
The attack on Syrian targets places the US in direct odds against Russia who has used former President Obama’s lack of an asserted approach in Syria and the rest of the Middle East to enter its forces into Syria, thus prolonging the civil war. If Trump brings American forces into the region again both Russia and Iran are in a far more formidable position than before Obama’s term.
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In response to the attack Russian Prime Minister Medvedev said the US strikes were illegal and were “one step away from military clashes with Russia.” Russia has sent its most advanced Black Sea frigate into the eastern Mediterranean late Friday, putting it into direct confrontation with the same US Navy destroyers which were used to attack Syria.
What’s Next?
Given Putin’s response, direct conflict between the two superpowers seems more and more inevitable. The US does not seem to view this attack as a one-off, but rather the beginning of a serious push back against Iranian and Russian influence in the region.
Moscow has suspended the famous deconfliction hotline and has threatened to retaliate.
Expect both sides to continue to build up their armaments in expectationof a broader conflicts, as well as a more determined Trump that will attempt to push back on Putin and the Iranians. If there is to be a direct conflict, it will be in Northern Syria with the US building up its arms there.
By reasserting the USA into a Middle East that now has Russia and Iran firmly established within it, Trump’s attack on Syria has changed the world forever.
Syria is now in the news due to the latest atrocity – chemical weapons being used on civilians.
Due to the prevalence of fake news, I’m seeing a lot of confusion regarding the attack: Who did it? Why? Is it real? Many people don’t know what source to trust and/or do not know where to go to get a clear picture of what is happening and why they should care about it.
I hope to be able to present the reality in a way that is easy to understand. Please note that this is a simplified version, there are more ins and outs to this issue than I will cover. My goal is to give the main points and clear away the confusion.
Question 1: Who can you trust to give you accurate information what is happening in Syria?
Answer:
With the amount of obviously fake news flying around and news slanted for political purposes, I highly recommend being ultra-skeptical. Ask questions: Who is reporting the news? Why are the saying what they are saying? What is their source? Do they actually know what they are talking about?
Israeli news is a good source. We too have bias in our news but, in general, the audience is well aware of the bias and can take the reports with the necessary grain of salt.
Israel’s Middle Eastern Affairs analysts are probably the best in the world. They get information that sometimes never appears on American news. I will never forget hearing one of Israel’s older analysts explain on 9/11, as we were watching the towers burn, that it was probably Al-Qaeda who did it. How long did it take till Americans found out who attacked them?
Amongst all of our experts, I believe Tzvi Yechezkeli is the best. He is the creator of the groundbreaking series Allah Islam and Hijra.
Question 2: So, what actually happened?
Answer:
About the latest atrocity in Idlib, Syria, Tzvi Yechezkeli reported that Assad deliberately, with Russian agreement, attacked Syrian civilians first with chemical weapons (Sarin gas) and then bombed the hospital in that area (which is where the wounded were seeking care).
Most of the people killed were women and children. The Syrians are reporting that 70 people died and hundreds were injured.
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Question 1:
Why would Assad attack his own people?
Answer:
The purpose of this attack was to signal to all of the “rebels” standing against Assad that there is no way for them to win. The image of the lengths he is willing to go to was intended to be his “victory” image.
But why would a leader of a state bomb his own people? It is hard for people who live in democracies to comprehend what a dictatorship actually means. To the dictator, it is not the people that matter, remaining in power is the only thing that counts. This has been true throughout history, all over the world and is true today as well.
The other piece of this puzzle is the myth of Arab Nationhood. This is a European fantasy, created for the benefit of Europeans (ever heard of Lawrence of Arabia?). In reality, Syria (for example) consists of tribes. Assad’s “people” are the ones that belong to his tribe. Other people can be lived with, as long as they submit to him. If they do not, it is legitimate to fight them.
Question 2:
Why would the Russians agree to something so horrible?
Answer:
The Russians gave permission to commit this attack because they are interested in keeping Syria intact as their base in the Middle East. Assad staying in power is the easiest way to do this. If the “rebels” win, Syria disintegrates into a number of tribal areas, not controlled by any one power.
The Russians view the “rebels” as terrorists whom they want to beat. Although not all of the people in the widely-varied group labeled “rebels” are terrorists, many are: there are ISIS fighters, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham a Syrian offshoot of Al-Qaeda in addition to others who simply seized the opportunity to rebel against Assad’s corruption. The Russians believe that in the war against terrorists, the end justifies the means. In other words, if committing an atrocious attack clamps down on terrorism, that’s a good thing.
Question 1: Who is on Assad’s side?
Answer:
Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah.
Support Assad and you get the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world – Iran.
This has led to the slaughter of Syrians who are not the right kind of Muslim, the mass migration to Europe and put the State of Israel in real danger. For us it is not ISIS on the border that is the real problem, it is Iran and their pet terror organization Hezbollah
The Russians are supporting the regime’s story that they bombed a rebel weapons cache that held the gas. In other words, they were trying to rid Syria of chemical weapons and it is the “bad” rebels who caused the horror of women and children gassed to death. This is an obvious lie but if enough people will fall for it or go along for the ride, they will be able to get away with it.
Interestingly, reports from Arab media sources say that the Russians made it clear to Assad that he was not to use chemical weapons on Israeli civilians.
Question 2: Who is on the rebels side?
Answer:
ISIS, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and miscellaneous fighters. In the beginning of the Syrian civil war, it was a video of a rebel fighter eating the liver of a Syrian soldier he had just killed that horrified the world. Who remembers that now?
The American government supported the Free Syrian Army, decided to train them and bring them weapons – before realizing that the same anti-Assad, “good guys” fought shoulder to shoulder with ISIS.
The enemy of your enemy is not your friend.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Israel has been helping wounded Syrians.
There is something about using Sarin gas that makes Jewish skin crawl. It doesn’t matter who is on the receiving end of the attack. Do you have to have had family members who were gassed to death to recognize the horror?
Our enemies are our enemies but they are also people. There are certain things you just don’t do.
Our Prime Minister was the only world leader I heard who immediately, loudly denounced the attack and demanded that the rest of the chemical weapons be removed from Syria.
Red lines need to be embedded in stone, not in the sand. Some things are just not acceptable. Obviously, women and children are not a legitimate target. Gassing anyone is horrifying. Bombing a hospital is wrong in more ways than I have words.
Thanks to Obama, Iran is on my doorstep. Hezbollah is more powerful than before the 2006 war and poses a direct, very serious threat to Israel. ISIS is also on our doorstep.
Thanks to Obama and Kerry’s lauded “diplomatic methods”, Syrians are being massacred, millions have been displaced, Europe is overrun with refugees and there are still chemical weapons in Assad’s hands.
It was American choices that destabilized the region, creating the environment in which Syria fell apart. It was American choices that left a vacuum in the region, making it possible for Russia to step in and open the door wider for Iran.
This is a proxy war.
God help us all.
Originally published in Inspiration from Zion.
News that America has sent marines into Syria to first bolster Kurdish forces in the North of the country and then to spearhead the fight to rake Raqqa has raised the prospect of all out war with US boots firmly on the ground.
This sudden injection of US fighting forces has changed the nature of the war being fought to wipe out ISIS. Up until Trump gave the go ahead, the Russian along with Syrian and Iranian forces were fighting head on against ISIS. There have been some wins, but nothing decisive.
With the American military now directly involved in Syria, the battle of Raqqa may prove fatal for the young caliphate. Yet, Donald Trump’s decision to send troops into Syria may offer something else to ISIS, hope.
There is an Islamic Hadith dating back to the time of Muhammed that says the following:
“The Last Hour would not come until the Romans would land at al-A’maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them).”
The Hadith is referrng to the Western powers coming to do battle with the army of the Caliphate. The US troops were sent to a base West of Manbij. Their first mission was to protect the Kurdish forces there from the Turkish army. Now that this has been accomplished, the US troops and their Kurdish allies will move on Raqqa in an attempt to finish off ISIS.
Look at the map below and notice that Dabiq is about 36 miles from Manbij. The US troops landed west of Manbij, putting them awefully close to Dabiq. Many observers falsely quote the Hadith in saying the battle takes place in Dabiq, but it clearly states they land there.
Have a look at the map below to learn just how close Dabiq is to Manbij.
So why are we quoting a Hadith, afterall Muhammad was crazy, right?
Two points must be made clear. First, Muhammad did not know how to read or write. He was orphaned at a young age and spent lots of time with the Jewish merchants in his area. He began to keep many Jewish traditions. When he proposed that he was actually the long awaited Messiah, many Jewish tribes rejected him outright. Many of these tribes were either killed or expelled.
Despite the Jewish opposition many Jewish tribes actually converted after the Exilarch Shallum ben Hushiel (the head of the Jewish community in Babylon and descendent of King David) met with Muhammed and converted. This weakened the resolve of the Jewish tribes’ opposition to Muhammed.
The Koran and early Hadiths were inspired by Muhammed’s connection to Judaism.
The second point is the fact that Islam draws from what is called “Dark Side Emunah (faith).” This gives its followers strength to see the task through to the end, yet there is something far deeper than simple preserverence. The fact that the Hadith were drawn from a point of faith that was twisted means there are elements of truth to it. Afterall, those Jewish tribes that converted did so even after they saw their brothers and sisters massacred in the battle of Kaibar.
Keep in mind this does not mean the Hadith will come true in its entirety, but that pieces of it may point to signs of an end time war.
The Bible also speaks of an End Time War in the North of Israel in Zecharia and then again in Isaiah chapter 17 with the destruction of Damascus.
Whether it is the Hadith or the Bible, US troops in Syria in combat positions seem to indicate an important line has been crossed. Is the final battle coming? We are certainly closing in on it.
Jerusalem has one of the largest concentrations of press in the world, and as a result, Israel is certainly one of the most scrutinized states. It is perhaps for this reason that the international media can only focus on the Palestinians in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza, while ignoring the plight of Palestinians elsewhere in the Arab World, and especially in the mayhem that is the Syrian civil war, where Palestinians are being brutalized by the Assad regime and the Islamist resistance. Naturally, the western comforts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are more appealing than the killing fields of Syria and Iraq. The fate of the Palestinians in Syria is of no interest to western journalists, if Israel cannot be blamed.
Sharif Nashashibi, writing for Al-Jazeera (October 15, 2016) pointed out that, “The Palestine solidarity movement is facing an unprecedented internal crisis, brought about not by the conflict with Israel, but by the war in Syria. The latter has caused divisions that are arguably deeper and more damaging than those over how to realize Palestinian rights and aspirations.”
Essentially, in the civil war in Syria, the Palestinians have been caught in the middle of the fighting among various factions. Some are fighting on the anti-Assad regime side, however most have chosen to remain neutral in a conflict they consider to be a domestic Syrian affair. Needless to say that neutrality went by the wayside, once the war came to the Palestinians doorstep.
Those Palestinian groups supporting the Assad regime include the leftist PFLP-GC (a terror group) and the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. Some Christian leaders such as Bishop Atallah Hanna, the Greek-Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, also support the Assad regime. Hamas supports the opposition to Assad, and remembers Hafez Assad’s 1982 massacre of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in Hama. Other Gaza-based salafist groups support al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Palestinian groups supporting the opposition remember the role Assad’s Syria played in the massacre of Palestinians at the Lebanese refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar in 1976. Fatah, the largest group (party) within the P.L.O. seeks to remain neutral.
The war in Syria affected Palestinians as it did Syrians. Both Syrians and Palestinians have endured kidnapping and death. The UK-based Action Group for Palestinians in Syria estimated that 3,420 (including 455 females) Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war in 2011. By some estimates, about 250 Palestinians have been kidnapped for ransom, and at least 30 community leaders have been assassinated. UNRWA sources reported that 280,000 Palestinians, almost half of the Palestinian population that is officially recognized in Syria, has been displaced internally, while 80,000 left Syria for Europe. An estimated 43,000 left for Lebanon, about 16,000 moved to Jordan, and 8,000 to Turkey. Ninety-five percent of Palestinians in Syria are dependent on humanitarian aid provided by UNRWA.
These stark statistics indicate a fundamental problem, which is inherently Arab in the making. The refusal of the Arab states, whether Syria, Lebanon, or Egypt, to integrate their Palestinian fellow Arab-Muslims (predominantly Sunni) into their society has resulted in Palestinian statelessness. That is despite sharing the same language, religion, and culture. Unlike Israel, which absorbed and integrated close to a million Jewish refugees from the Arab countries, the Arab states used the Palestinians as pawns in a political game against Israel.
The Yarmouk camp outside Damascus, where most Palestinians were housed, became a battleground between the Assad regime and the anti-regime rebels. The Free Syrian Army entered the camp first. That brought about the Assad regime dropping barrel bombs on the camp, which caused most of the population (Syrians as well as Palestinians) to flee. It resulted in the exodus of the camps residents, which left only 18,000 remaining in the camp. Al-Nusra (the al-Qaeda affiliate) used the chaos to move into the camp, and with them came along the Islamic State (IS). In April, 2015, when the extremist terrorizing IS entered the Yarmouk camp, many of the remaining 18,000 Palestinians and Syrians fled.
Khaled Abu Toameh, writing for the Gatestone Institute (January 23, 2017) quoted Arab sources saying that “The year 2016 was full of all forms of killing, torture and displacement of Palestinians in Syria. The last year was hell for these Palestinians and its harsh consequences will not be erased for many years to come. During 2016, Palestinians in Syria were subjected to the cruelest forms of torture and deprivation at the hands of armed gangs and the ruling Assad’s Syrian regime. It is hard to find one Palestinian family in Syria that has not been affected.”
According to the same sources, the Assad regime was withholding the bodies of more than 456 Palestinians who died under torture in Syrian prisons. The Assad regime refused to release the bodies to the families. More disturbing however, are reports that the Syrian regime is harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians. United Arab Emirate based al-Khaleej (The Gulf in English) newspaper published in the Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, suggested that “testimonies collected by some Palestinians point out that Syrian government-linked gangs have been trading in the organs of the victims, who include women and children. In addition, 1,100 Palestinians have been languishing in Syrian prisons since the beginning of the civil war.”
It is rather ironic if not downright revealing that Israel, rather than much of the Arab world, is seeking ways to help wounded Syrians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on December 20, 2016 that he instructed his government to “find ways to extend medical assistance to Syrians injured in the latest fighting, especially those from the embattled city of Aleppo.” Addressing foreign journalists at a meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, “We see the tragedy of terrible suffering of civilians and I have asked the Foreign Ministry to seek ways to expand our medical assistance to civilian casualties of the Syrian tragedy, specifically in Aleppo where we’re prepared to take wounded women and children, and also men, if they are not combatants.”
The Times of Israel reported on January 25, 2017 “Israel is to grant refugee status to 100 orphaned Syrian refugee children, in line with a decision by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri.” According to Israel’s Channel 10-TV, “the children will receive temporary resident status and become permanent residents after four years, and be able to remain in Israel for their entire lives.”
While Israel is lending a helping hand to the people of an enemy country, Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and Gaza are busy scoring points against each other, as their people in Syria suffer. Mahmoud Abbas is more concerned with the Trump administration’s declared intention to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem than the plight of his people in Syria. Abbas has warned of violence if the U.S. embassy moves to Jerusalem, but has been rather quiet on the bloodshed committed against his brethren in Syria.
Mahmoud Abbas can count on the western press to amplify his self-righteous threats, but the same western press has been silent on the destruction in the Yarmouk camp, and the plight of its Palestinian residents.
Originally Published in FrontPageMag.
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