The Syria Crisis: Assessing Foreign Intervention

By Scott Stewart, Stratfor Global Intelligence, Dec. 15th 2011

The ongoing unrest, violence and security crackdowns in Syria have been the subject of major international attention since February. Our current assessment is that the government and opposition forces have reached a stalemate in which the government cannot quell the unrest and the opposition cannot bring down the regime without outside intervention.

In the Dec. 8 Security Weekly, we discussed the covert intelligence war being waged by the United States, Israel and other U.S. allies against Iran. Their efforts are directed not only against Tehran’s nuclear program but also against Iran’s ability to establish an arc of influence that stretches through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. To that end, the United States and its allies are trying to limit Iran’s influence in Iraq and to constrain Hezbollah in Lebanon. But apparently they are also exploring ways to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al Assad, a longtime ally of Iran whose position is in danger due to the current unrest in the country. In fact, a U.S. State Department official recently characterized the al Assad regime as a “dead man walking.”

We therefore would like to examine more closely the potential external efforts required to topple the Syrian regime. In doing so, we will examine the types of tools that are available to external forces seeking to overthrow governments and where those tools fit within the force continuum, an array of activities ranging from clandestine, deniable activities to all-out invasion. We will also discuss some of the indicators that can be used by outside observers seeking to understand any efforts taken against the Syrian regime.

Syria Is Not Libya

It is tempting to compare Syria to Libya, which very recently was the target of outside intervention. Some similarities exist. The al Assad regime came to power in a military coup around the time the Gadhafi regime took control of Libya, and the regimes are equally brutal. And, like Libya, Syria is a country that is quite divided along demographic and sectarian lines and is governed by a small minority of the population.

However, we must recognize that the situation in Syria is quite different than Libya’s. First, the fault lines along which Syrian society is divided are not as regionally distinct as those of Libya; in Syria, there is no area like Benghazi where the opposition can dominate and control territory that can be used as a base to project power. As our map indicates, protests have occurred throughout Syria, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) claims to have a presence in many parts of the country.

Moreover, while some low-level, mostly Sunni soldiers have defected from the Alawite-controlled Syrian military to the FSA, Syria has not seen the large-scale military defections that occurred in Benghazi and eastern Libya at the beginning of that conflict that immediately provided the opposition with a substantial conventional military force (sometimes entire units defected). The Syrian military has remained far more unified and intact than the Libyan military.

Second, Syria simply does not have the oil resources Libya does. We have not seen the Europeans push for military intervention in Syria with the same enthusiasm that they did in Libya. Even France, which has been the most vocal of the European countries against Syria, has recently backed away from advocating direct military intervention. The strength of the Syrian military, specifically its air defense system — which is far superior to Libya’s — means military intervention would be far more costly in Syria than in Libya in terms of human casualties and money. In fact, Syria spent some $264 million on air defense weapons in 2009 and 2010 after the embarrassing September 2007 Israeli airstrike on a Syrian nuclear reactor.

With the future of Libya still unclear, it does not appear the United States and Europe have the political will or economic incentive to conduct another major military intervention (operations in Libya were very expensive). We also do not believe that regional powers interested in Syria, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Turkey, could take military action against Syria without U.S. and NATO support.

Regardless, it is important to remember that there are many options foreign governments can apply against the al Assad regime (or any regime, for that matter) that do not constitute outright invasion or even entail an air campaign supported by special operations forces.

The Force Continuum

As we examine some of the actions available along that force continuum, we should keep in mind that the steps are not at all static; there can be much latitude for action within each step. For example, training provided by mercenaries or the CIA’s Special Activities Division is far more low-key, and therefore easier to deny, than training provided by the U.S. Army’s Special Forces.

The least risky and least detectable option for a country pursuing intervention is to ramp up intelligence activities in the target country. Such activities can involve clandestine activities like developing contact with opposition figures or encouraging generals to conduct a coup or defect to the opposition. Clandestine efforts can also include working with opposition groups and nongovernmental organizations to improve their information warfare activities. These activities may progress to more obvious covert actions, such as assassinations or sabotage. Most of the actions taken in the covert intelligence war against Iran can be placed in this level.

Clandestine and covert activities often are accompanied or preceded by overt diplomatic pressure. This includes press statements denouncing the leadership of the target country, the initiation of resolutions in international organizations, such as the Arab League or the United Nations, and international economic sanctions. These overt measures can also include formally meeting with representatives of the opposition in a third country, as when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Dec. 6 with Syrian opposition members in Geneva.

The next level up the force continuum is to solidify a relationship with the opposition and to begin to provide them with intelligence, training and advice. In the intervention in Libya, this happened fairly early on as foreign intelligence officers and special operations forces traveled to places like Benghazi, then later the Nafusa Mountains, to provide the Libyan opposition with intelligence regarding Gadhafi’s forces, and to begin to train the militia forces to fight. In Syria there is still a very real issue of a lack of unity within the opposition, which is apparently more fragmented than its Libyan counterpart.

In this level, outside governments often take opposition fighters to a third country for training. This is because of the difficulty involved with training inside the home country, which is controlled by a hostile government that rightfully views the opposition as a threat. Already we are seeing signs that this is happening with the training of FSA members in Turkey.

Continuum Of Foreign Intervention

The next step beyond training and intelligence-sharing is to provide the opposition with funding and other support, which can include food, uniforms, communication equipment, medical assistance and even weapons. To restate a point, providing funding is not as aggressive as providing weapons to the opposition, so there is a great deal of latitude within this level.

When providing weapons, an outside government will usually try to supply opposition forces with arms native to their country. This is done to maintain deniability of assistance. For example, at the outset of international support for the mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, efforts were made to provide the fighters with weapons consistent with what the Soviets and the Afghan communists were using. However, when those weapons proved insufficient to counter the threat posed by Soviet air superiority, the decision was made to provide U.S. FIM-92 Stinger man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) to the Afghan fighters. Tactically, the MANPADS greatly benefited the mujahideen on the battlefield. But since they were advanced, exogenous weapons systems, the MANPADS stripped away any sense of plausible deniability the U.S. might have maintained regarding its operations to arm the Afghans.

We saw a similar situation in Libya in May, when rebels began using Belgian-made FN-FAL battle rifles. While the rebels had looted many Gadhafi arms depots filled with Soviet-era Kalashnikovs, the appearance of the FN-FAL rifles clearly demonstrated that the rebels were receiving weapons from outside patrons. The appearance of Iranian-manufactured bomb components in Iraq in 2006-2007 was another instance of a weapon indicating foreign government involvement in an armed struggle.

Since furnishing weapons foreign to a country eliminates plausible deniability, we are listing it as a separate step on the force continuum. Unveiling the foreign hand can also have a psychological effect on members of the regime by signaling that a powerful foreign actor is supporting the opposition.

The next level begins to bring direct foreign involvement into play. This usually entails foreign special operations forces working with local ground forces and foreign airpower being brought to bear. We saw this model used in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, where the CIA, special operations forces and airpower augmented Afghan Northern Alliance ground troops and helped them to defeat the Taliban quickly. This model was also used successfully against the Gadhafi regime in Libya.

The highest and least exercised step on the force continuum is foreign invasion, like the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Preludes to Intervention

With this range of actions in mind, outside observers can look for signs that indicate where foreign efforts to support a particular struggle fit along the continuum.

Signs of a clandestine intelligence campaign can include the defection of critical officers, coup attempts or even major splits within the military. When figures such as former Libyan intelligence chief and Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa defected from the Gadhafi regime, they were doing so in response to clandestine intelligence efforts.

Signs of training and support will translate to increased effectiveness by the FSA — if they suddenly begin to employ new tactics, strike new targets, or show the ability to better coordinate actions over a wide geographic area, for example. Another sign of increased effectiveness would be if the FSA began to execute sophisticated asymmetrical warfare operations, such as coordinated ambushes or hit-and-run strikes directed against high-value targets. Foreign trainers will also help the FSA learn how to develop networks within the local population that provide intelligence and supplies, communication, shelter and early warning.

Outside training and intelligence support would lead to an increase in the strategic impact of attacks by armed opposition groups, such as the FSA. The opposition claims to have conducted several strikes against targets like the Syrian Directorate for Air Force Intelligence in suburban Damascus, but such attacks do not appear to have been very meaningful. To date these attacks have served more of a propaganda function than as a means to pursue military objectives. We are carefully monitoring alleged FSA efforts to hit oil and natural gas pipelines to see if they become more systematic and tactically effective. We have heard rumors of American, Turkish, French and Jordanian special operations forces training FSA personnel in Turkey, and if these rumors are true, we should begin to see results of the training in the near future.

As we watch videos and photos coming out of Syria we are constantly looking for evidence of the FSA possessing either an increased weapons supply or signs of external weapons supply. This not only includes a greater quantity of weapons, but different types of weapons, such as anti-tank guided missiles, mortars, mines, MANPADS and improvised explosive devices. We have yet to see either increased weapons or external weapons; the FSA appears to be using the weapons with which they defected.

If outside powers are going to consider launching any sort of air campaign — or establish a no-fly zone — they will first have to step up surveillance efforts to confirm the location and status of Syria’s air defense systems. This will lead to increased surveillance assets and sorties in the areas very close to Syria. Aircraft used in the suppression of air defenses would also be flown into the theater before launching any air operation, and an increase in aircraft, such as U.S. F-16CJ and British Tornado GR4s in Cyprus, Turkey or Greece, is a key indicator to watch. Increased EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft, both carrier-based aircraft that regularly transit the region aboard U.S. Carrier Strike Groups, would likewise be important to watch. Aircraft carrier battle groups, cruise missile platforms, and possibly a Marine Expeditionary Unit would also be moved into the region prior to any air campaign.

Like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, any invasion of Syria would be a massive undertaking and there would be clear evidence of a buildup to such an invasion. The likelihood of actions against Syria happening at the top of the force continuum is very remote. Instead we will need to keep focused on the more subtle signs of foreign involvement that will signal what is happening at the lower levels of the scale. After all, any comparison to a “dead man walking” makes one wonder if the United States and its allies will take steps to hasten demise of the al Assad regime.

Media War: Lies And Truth About Syria

By Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, Nov. 28th 2011

For eight months, Western leaders and some public media have been agitating for a war in Syria. The extremely serious accusations leveled against Assad intimidate those who question the justification for a new military intervention. But not everyone, because - on the initiative of Voltaire Network - some came to Syria to investigate for themselves and were able to measure the extent of NATO’s propaganda. Thierry Meyssan reports on the state of the media war.

In 1999, during the Kosovo war, Voltaire Network was outraged that France could be going to war alongside NATO without a vote from the National Assembly, with the passive complicity of the parliamentary group leaders. We considered that the refusal by the President and the Prime Minister to hold an open debate portended the opacity with which this war would be conducted. So, we took the initiative of publishing a daily bulletin on the conflict. The Serbian government websites having been immediately destroyed by the Atlantic Alliance, we had no access to the Serbian version of events. In the absence thereof, we took out subscriptions to news agencies in the region (Croatian, Bosnian, Greek, Cypriot, Turkish, Hungarian etc.).

Throughout the conflict, we presented a daily summary of NATO’s press conferences in Brussels and a summary of the reports by journalists from neighboring countries, some of which were engaged in a serious dispute with Serbia, but whose governments gave a mutually consistent account of the events. Eventually, NATO’s version and that of the local journalists drifted apart to the point of having nothing in common.

In the end, we were dealing with two radically different stories. We had no way of knowing who was lying and whether one of the two sources was telling the truth. Our readers had the impression of becoming schizophrenic, especially since the West European media were relaying exclusively NATO’s version; they were, therefore, exposed to the two parallel versions only when reading out website. We continued this exercise during the three months of fighting.

When the guns fell silent and it was possible for our colleagues and friends to go on the spot, they noted with astonishment that the "propaganda was not on both sides." No, NATO’s version was entirely false, while that of the local journalists turned out to be entirely true.

In the months that followed, parliamentary reports were released in several Member States of the Alliance establishing the facts. In addition, several books were published on the method developed by Tony Blair’s media adviser that enabled NATO to manipulate all of the Western press: the "story telling".

Indeed, it is possible to intoxicate Western journalists en masse and to hide the facts from them if they are told a children’s tale, provided the narrative is never interrupted, that it is charged with references stirring up buried emotions, and that its consistency is maintained.

I did not have the reflex to visit Serbia before the war started and I could not do so after the fighting broke out. However, dear reader, today I am in Syria, where I took the time to investigate and from where I am writing this article. With full knowledge of the facts, I can say that NATO’s propaganda is currently operating in the same way Syria as it did in Serbia.

The Alliance began telling a story out of touch with reality, which aims to justify a "humanitarian military intervention," according to the oxymoron coined by Blair. The parallel ends there: Slobodan Milosevic was a war criminal who had to be portrayed as a criminal against humanity so that his country could be dismembered; Bashar al-Assad is an opponent of imperialism and Zionism, who backed Hezbollah when Lebanon was under attack and supports Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in their quest for the liberation of the Palestinian homeland.

FOUR NATO LIES 

1. According to NATO and its Persian Gulf allies, for eight months mass demonstrations have taken place in Syria to demand more freedom and the departure of President Bashar al-Assad.

Not true. There have been demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad’s, in some cities, at the call of Saudi and Egyptian preachers speaking on Al-Jazeera, but which rallied only some 100 000 people at the most. They were not claiming more freedom, but the establishment of an Islamic regime. They demanded the resignation of President al-Assad, not because of his politics, but because these protesters adhere to a sectarian strand of Sunni power, Takfirism, and they accuse Assad of being a heretic (he is Alawi) and of usurping power in a Muslim country, which they claim can only be legitimately governed by a Sunni from their theological school.

2. According to NATO and its Persian Gulf allies, the "regime" responded by using live ammunition to disperse the crowd, leaving at least 3,500 dead since the beginning of the year.

Not true. In the first place, it is not possible to suppress demonstrations that never existed. Then, from the outset, the authorities realized that efforts were afoot to provoke sectarian strife in a country where secularism has been the mainstay of the state since the eighth century. Consequently, President Bashar al-Assad prohibited security, police and army forces from using firearms in any circumstance where civilians might get hurt. The purpose is to prevent that the injuries, or even death, of a person belonging to one creed or the other, be exploited to justify a war of religion. This prohibition is respected by the security forces at the risk of their own lives, as we shall see later. As for the dead, their number should be cut in half. The majority are not civilians, but soldiers and police, as I was able to observe during my visits to hospitals and morgues, both civilian and military.

3. After we managed to break the wall of silence and got the big Western media to acknowledge the presence in Syria of death squads from abroad, setting up ambushes against the army and murdering civilians in the heart of the cities, NATO and its Gulf allies reported on the existence of an army of deserters. According to them, a group of military (not police) who had received the order to fire on the crowd allegedly rebelled. They apparently went underground and constituted the Free Syrian Army, already 1500 men-strong.

Not true. The deserters are only a few dozen, having fled to Turkey where they are supervised by an officer associated to the Hakim Rifaat el-Assad/Abdel Khaddam clan, famously linked to the CIA. There is, however, an increasing number of young people who refuse to do military service, more often under pressure from their families than by personal decision. Indeed, those soldiers who are caught in an ambush don’t have the right to use their firearms to defend themselves if civilians are on the scene. They have no choice but to sacrifice their lives if they are unable to escape.

4. According to NATO and its Persian Gulf allies, the cycle of revolution/repression has paved the way for the start of a "civil war". 1.5 million trapped Syrians would be suffering from hunger. It is therefore essential to set up "humanitarian corridors" to deliver food aid and allow civilians to flee the combat zones.

Not true. Considering the number and the cruelty of the attacks by death squads from abroad, population displacement has been minimal. Syria is agriculturally self-sufficient and its productivity has not declined significantly. On the other hand, with most of the ambushes taking place on major roads, traffic is frequently interrupted. Moreover, when attacks spring up inside the cities, merchants shut down their shops immediately. This results in serious distribution problems, including food. The real issue lies elsewhere: economic sanctions have wrought disaster. While for the past decade Syria had registered a growth of around 5% per year, it can no longer sell its oil to Western Europe and its tourist industry has been hit hard. Many people have lost their jobs and income, having to save on everything. 

They are subsidized by the government, which distributes free food and heating fuel. Under such circumstances, it would be more fitting to say that if it were not for the Al-Assad government, 1.5 million Syrians would be suffering from malnutrition because of Western sanctions.

Ultimately, while we’re still in the stage of unconventional warfare, with the use of mercenaries and special forces to destabilize the country, the narrative spewed out by NATO and its Persian Gulf allies has already strayed from reality. This gap will widen more and more.

As far as you are concerned, dear reader, there is no reason why you should believe me rather than NATO, since you are not on the spot. However, there are several elements that should send up a red flag.

Bernard-Henry Levy, who boasted of having embroiled France in the war on Libya to serve Israel’s interests, told "Le Parisien" that he has a hit list of countries.

FOUR CLUES CAREFULLY HIDDEN BY NATO

 1. One would think that the charges concerning the alleged repression and the number of victims were carefully looked into. But not at all. They originated from a single source: the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, based in London, whose leaders demand anonymity. What is the validity of such grave accusations if they are not cross-checked and why do institutions such as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights rubber stamp them without verifying their authenticity?

 2. Russia and China vetoed a draft Security Council resolution meant to pave the way for an international military intervention. NATO political leaders have forlornly explained that the Russians are protecting their naval base at Tartus and that the Chinese will do anything to scrape together a few barrels of oil. Should we accept the Manichean view that Washington, London and Paris are guided by good intentions, while Moscow and Beijing are essentially selfish and insensitive to the martyrdom of the population? How to avoid noticing that Russia and China have much less of an interest in defending Syria than Westerners have in destroying it?

 3. It is somewhat bizarre to observe who makes up the coalition of so-called well-intentioned states. How can it escape anyone’s notice that the two main sustainers of the Arab League and promoters of the "democratization" of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are puppet dictatorships in lockstep with the United States and the United Kingdom? Should not one wonder how credible the West can be - after having successively ravaged Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and killing more than 1, 2 million people in ten years, thus showing how little value they attach to human life - when it waves a humanitarian banner?

 4. To avoid being manipulated on the events unfolding in Syria, the best thing is to put them in context. For NATO and its Persian Gulf allies, whose armies invaded Yemen and Bahrain to savagely quell peaceful demonstrations, the "Syrian Revolution" is an extension of the "Arab spring", perceived by them as peoples in the region who dream of a market democracy and the comfort of the American Way of Life. On their part, the Russians and Chinese, apace with the Venezuelans and the South Africans, recognize the events in Syria as the continuation of Washington’s plan "to remodel the Greater Middle East", which has already claimed 1.2 million lives and which anyone truly concerned about protecting human lives must strive to put an end to. They haven’t forgotten that on 15 September 2001, President George W. Bush green-lighted a plan to wage seven wars.

Preparations for the attack on Syria formally began on 12 December 2003 with the adoption of the Syrian Accountability Act in the wake of the fall of Baghdad. Since that day, the president of the United States - today Barack Obama - is under an order from Congress to attack Syria and is dispensed from any further clearance before launching hostilities. Therefore, the question is not whether NATO has found a divine justification for going to war, but whether Syria will find a way out of this situation, in the same way she outmaneuvered all the previous pitfalls and defamatory accusations leveled against her, such as the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the Israeli raid against an imaginary nuclear military plant.

WESTERN MAINSTREAM MEDIA TESTIFY

At the end of this article, I would like to underscore that Voltaire Network facilitated a press visit to Syria, organized at the initiative of the Catholic Information Center of Middle East Christians, as part of the opening towards Western media announced by President al-Assad at the Arab League. We assisted mainstream journalists to travel to combat zones. At first, our colleagues were wary of our presence, both because they had negative preconceived ideas about us to us and because they thought we were trying to brainwash them. They eventually came to realize that we are normal people and that the fact of having chosen our camp did not mean we had renounced our critical spirit. In the end, though still convinced of NATO’s benevolence and while failing to share our commitment to anti-imperialist, they opened their eyes and ears to the truth.

Currently, their reports honestly reflect the actions perpetrated by the armed gangs that are terrorizing the country. Of course, they have refrained from openly contradicting the Atlantic version and tried to reconcile it with what they saw and heard, which called for some awkward contortions around the concept of a ’civil war’ allegedly pitting the Syrian army against foreign mercenaries. Nevertheless, reports by Télévision Belge (RTBF) and La Libre Belgique, to name a few, now clearly reveal that for eight months NATO has masked the actions of death squads and falsely attributed their crimes to the Syrian authorities.

© Thierry Meyssan

French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English: 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

With Friends Like These, Gingrich, Israel and the Palestinians

The US Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has declared that the Palestinians are an "invented" people, stating that they are no more than "terrorists" with "an enormous desire to destroy Israel"

During an interview with The Jewish Channel, a cable TV station, the former US House speaker and current Republican candidate for the US Presidency elections in 2012, said the following UNBELIEVABLY STUPID statements:

"Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire...I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic".

Then, comparing between the SO-CALLED State of Israel and the Palestinian people, Newt said, with a clear ass-kissing bias to the former:

“Right, but if I’m evenhanded between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles everyday, that’s not even handed, that’s favoring the terrorists.”

Below is one of many articles written (by Uri Avnery) in reply to the words of STUPID STUPID NEWT!

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With Friends Like These, Gingrich, Israel and the Palestinians

by URI AVNERY, Counterpunch, Weekend Edition, Dec. 16-18, 2011

What a bizarre lot these Republican aspirants for the US presidency are!

What a sorry bunch of ignoramuses and downright crazies. Or, at best, what a bunch of cheats and cynics! (With the possible exception of the good doctor Ron Paul)”.

Is this the best a great and proud nation can produce? How frightening the thought that one of them may actually become the most powerful person in the world, with a finger on the biggest nuclear button!

BUT LET’S concentrate on the present front-runner. (Republicans seem to change front-runners like a fastidious beau changes socks.)

It’s Newt Gingrich. Remember him? The Speaker of the House who had an extra-marital affair with an intern while at the same time leading the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton for having an affair with an intern.

But that’s not the point. The point is that this intellectual giant – named after Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist ever – has discovered a great historical truth.

The original Newton discovered the Law of Gravity. Newton Leroy Gingrich has discovered something no less earth-shaking: there is an “invented” people around, referring to the Palestinians.

To which a humble Israeli like me might answer, in the best Hebrew slang: “Good morning, Eliyahu!”  Thus we honor people who have made a great discovery which, unfortunately, has been discovered by others long before.

* * *

FROM ITS very beginning, the Zionist movement has denied the existence of the Palestinian people. It’s an article of faith.

The reason is obvious: if there exists a Palestinian people, then the country the Zionists were about to take over was not empty. Zionism would entail an injustice of historic proportions. Being very idealistic persons, the original Zionists found a way out of this moral dilemma: they simply denied its existence. The winning slogan was “A land without a people for a people without a land.”

So who were these curious human beings they met when they came to the country? Oh, ah, well, they were just people who happened to be there, but not “a” people. Passers-by, so to speak. Later, the story goes, after we had made the desert bloom and turned an arid and neglected land into a paradise, Arabs from all over the region flocked to the country, and now they have the temerity – indeed the chutzpah – to claim that they constitute a Palestinian nation!

For many years after the founding of the State of Israel, this was the official line. Golda Meir famously exclaimed: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people!”

(To which I replied in the Knesset: “Mrs. Prime Minister, perhaps you are right. Perhaps there really is no Palestinian people. But if millions of people mistakenly believe that they are a people, and behave like a people, then they are a people.”)

A huge propaganda machine – both in Israel and abroad – was employed to “prove” that there was no Palestinian people. A lady called Joan Peters wrote a book (“From Time Immemorial”) proving that the riffraff calling themselves “Palestinians” had nothing to do with Palestine. They are nothing but interlopers and impostors. The book was immensely successful – until some experts took it apart and proved that the whole edifice of conclusive proofs was utter rubbish.

I myself have spent many hundreds of hours trying to convince Israeli and foreign audiences that there is a Palestinian people and that we have to make peace with them. Until one day the State of Israel recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the “Palestinian people”, and the argument was laid to rest.

Until Newt came along and, like a later-day Jesus, raised it from the dead.

* * *

OBVIOUSLY, HE is much too busy to read books. True, he was once a teacher of history, but for many years now he has been very busy speakering the Congress, making a fortune as an “adviser” of big corporations and now trying to become president.

Otherwise, he would probably have come across a brilliant historical book by Benedict Anderson, “Imagined Communities”, which asserts that all modern nations are invented.

Nationalism is a relatively recent historical phenomenon. When a community decides to become a nation, it has to reinvent itself. That means inventing a national past, reshuffling historical facts (and non-facts) in order to create a coherent picture of a nation existing since antiquity. Hermann the Cherusker, member of a Germanic tribe who betrayed his Roman employers, became a “national” hero. Religious refugees who landed in America and destroyed the native population became a “nation”. Members of an ethnic-religious Diaspora formed themselves into a “Jewish nation”. Many others did more or less the same.

Indeed, Newt would profit from reading a book by a Tel Aviv University professor, Shlomo Sand, a kosher Jew, whose Hebrew title speaks for itself: “When and How the Jewish People was Invented?”

Who are these Palestinians? About a hundred years ago, two young students in Istanbul, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the future Prime Minister and President (respectively) of Israel, wrote a treatise about the Palestinians. The population of this country, they said, has never changed. Only small elites were sometimes deported. The towns and villages never moved, as their names prove. Canaanites became Israelites, then Jews and Samaritans, then Christian Byzantines. With the Arab conquest, they slowly adopted the religion of Islam and the Arabic Culture. These are today’s Palestinians. I tend to agree with them.

* * *

PARROTING THE straight Zionist propaganda line – by now discarded by most Zionists – Gingrich argues that there can be no Palestinian people because there never was a Palestinian state. The people in this country were just “Arabs” under Ottoman rule.

So what? I used to hear from French colonial masters that there is no Algerian people, because there never was an Algerian state, there was never even a united country called Algeria. Any takers for this theory now?

The name “Palestine” was mentioned by a Greek historian some 2500 years ago. A “Duke of Palestine” is mentioned in the Talmud. When the Arabs conquered the country, they called it “Filastin”, as  they still do”. The Arab national movement came into being all over the Arab world, including Palestine – at the same time as the Zionist movement – and strove for independence from the Ottoman Sultan.

For centuries, Palestine was considered a part of Greater Syria (the region known in Arabic as ‘Sham’).  There was no formal distinction between Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Jordanians. But when, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the European powers divided the Arab world between them, a state called Palestine became a fact under the British Mandate, and the Arab Palestinian people established themselves as a separate nation with a national flag of their own. Many peoples in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America did the same, even without asking Gingrich for confirmation.

It would certainly be ironic if the members of the “invented” Palestinian nation were expected to ask for recognition from the members of the “invented” Jewish/Israeli nation, at the demand of a member of the “invented” American nation, a person who, by the way, is of mixed German, English, Scottish and Irish stock.

Years ago, there was short-lived controversy about Palestinian textbooks. It was argued that they were anti-Semitic and incited to murder. That was laid to rest when it became clear that all Palestinian schoolbooks were cleared by the Israeli occupation authorities, and most were inherited from the previous Jordanian regime. But Gingrich does not shrink from resurrecting this corpse, too.

All Palestinians – men, women and children – are terrorists, he asserts, and Palestinian pupils learn at school how to kill us poor and helpless Israelis. Ah, what would we do without such stout defenders as Newt? What a pity that this week a photo of him, shaking the hand of Yasser Arafat, was published.

And please don’t show him the textbooks used in some of our schools, especially the religious ones!

* * *

IS IT really a waste of time to write about such nonsense?

It may seem so, but one cannot ignore the fact that the dispenser of these inanities may be tomorrow’s President of the United States of America. Given the economic situation, that is not as unlikely as it sounds.

As for now, Gingrich is doing immense

 damage to the national interests of the US. At this historic juncture, the masses at all the Tahrir Squares across the Arab world are wondering about America’s attitude. Newt’s answer contributes to a new and more profound anti-Americanism.

Alas, he is not the only extreme rightist seeking to embrace Israel. Israel has lately become the Mecca of all the world’s racists. This week we were honored by the visit of the husband of Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front. A pilgrimage to the Jewish State is now a must for any aspiring fascist.

One of our ancient sages coined the phrase: “Not for nothing does the starling go to the raven. It’s because they are of the same kind”.

Thanks. But sorry. They are not of my kind.

To quote another proverb: With friends like these, who needs enemies?

URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

George Abdallah: The Oldest Prisoner Of "Opinion" In The French Land of Public Liberties (III)

George Abdallah: Not All Lebanese Citizen Are Equal

By: Nader Fawz - January 18^th, 2012, Al Akhbar Newspaper

What does a Lebanese citizen who is imprisoned in a foreign country do?

If he were a diamond merchant in Africa, MPs would send a high-ranking delegation from their ranks to the county in question in order to advocate for the detainee.

But if such a detainee is not politically connected, then little can be done. Taking this into consideration, what should a Lebanese political prisoner in a French prison do?

So far, the answer seems to be nothing. The Lebanese diplomatic corps has not followed up on the issue, the family of the prisoner has no political backing, and no concerned political forces have taken action on the matter recently.

Liberate George Abdallah:
28 Years Are Enough!

The only people concerned with the cause of George Abdallah, who has been imprisoned in France since October 1984, are his family, close friends, and a few young activists from the Union of Lebanese Democratic Youth (ULDY). They are also the only ones who are familiar with the details of his case.

They know that Abdallah completed his sentence 12 years ago and that the decision to keep him in prison is motivated by politics. They know that French prosecutors rejected, appealed, and suspended French court decisions to free Abdallah.

They know that he has filed for parole nine times but that all of his requests have been rejected by the French judicial and political authorities.

They know that the French authorities are keeping George Abdallah in prison because, when asked, he tells judges in French courtrooms that if he were to get out of prison, he would not stop his political struggle to liberate Palestine.

While his supporters have little political backing, advocates for Abdallah have established two different organizations to lobby for his release. The first is the International Campaign to Free George Abdallah (ICFGA). The other is a domestic organization – the Committee of the Comrades of George Abdallah (CCGA) – which is primarily made up of his family members, friends, ULDY, and various independent figures.

Twenty-eight years have passed since Abdallah’s arrest and yet many in Lebanon are ignorant concerning the specifics of his case. Some officials still ask who George Abdallah is, while others accept the French authorities’ opinion that he is “a terrorist and a subversive.”

This explains why a close aid of Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that the prime minister does not know yet if he is going to bring up Abdallah’s case with French officials during his upcoming visit to France in the first week of February.

This announcement was made despite a visit Wednesday by a delegation from the ICFGA, its second, to the prime minister’s office.

Lebanese officials have not taken action on Abdallah’s case since 1999 when Salim al-Hoss was prime minister. Similar negligence can be observed by other groups in relation to Abdallah’s case, even within some leftist circles to which he belongs.

For example, a few days ago, a conference of the Arab left was held in Beirut. Arab participants paid tribute at the conference to “all the prisoners and detainees in Arab and Western prisons, especially the Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Zionist prisons.”

But neither the summaries, nor the tributes, nor the conference itself remembered George Abdallah.

About one week ago, communication was established between the ICFGA and the Lebanese Consul in France, Ghadi el-Khoury.

El-Khoury told Abdallah’s “comrades” that he discussed the issue with French officials and sent a telegram informing the Lebanese Foreign Ministry about the inquiry and the details of the conversation between the consul and those advocating for Abdallah.

Abdallah’s comrades later found out from the French that “the Lebanese state is not demanding the release of Abdallah.” Abdallah’s supporters say that this should call into question the extent to which the Lebanese government is working for the release of Abdallah.

Two weeks ago, on 5 January 2012, a member of the Free Patriotic Movement’s (FPM) Change and Reform bloc, MP Simon Abi Ramia, sent a message to Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour inquiring about the position of the Lebanese state regarding Abdallah and its failure to demand his release.

The answer was delayed. A written answer concerning the state’s position on Mansour was expected to be delivered within a matter of hours. Instead, the question made the rounds for days between the office of the prime minister and other decision-making centers. This suggests that something is in the works regarding Abdallah’s case among certain parliamentary circles, specifically the Change and Reform bloc, the Amal Movement’s Resistance and Development bloc, and Hezbollah’s Loyalty to the Resistance bloc.

After Abi Ramia’s action, informed sources indicated that two MPs, Nawwar al-Sahili (Hezbollah) and Ali Bazzi (Amal), were assigned the task of following up on the issue. They have been working behind the scenes trying to get to know the details of the case.

Joseph Abdallah, George Abdallah’s brother, who is active in the CCGA and the ICFGA says: “In light of the work done by the campaign and certain developments that have taken place, there is talk suggesting that the issue of George Abdallah will be raised again.”

Jospeh points to what the former Director of French Intelligence Yves Bonnet told the newspaper La Dépêche on 7 January 2012, when he attacked his government, characterizing the continued detention of George a “scandal” arguing that the issue has become one of “state vengeance.”

Joseph says there are developments that must be taken seriously without “deluding ourselves with anything.” That is, without misleading George’s comrades and friends concerning what the Lebanese state is capable of doing for Abdallah.

On the other hand, the committee leader in the ULDY, Hassan Sabra, says that the group has worked on this issue since 2006 and will continue to do so until Abdallah is released. Sabra adds that they have established direct communication with the “freedom fighter” because “he trusts us and our activism and he is in line with our views.”

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition

© Al Akhbar Newspaper