Israel to Assad: air strikes did not aim to help Syria rebels

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM : (Reuters) – Israel sought to persuade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday that recent air strikes around Damascus did not aim to weaken him in the face of a two-year rebellion, and played down the prospects of an escalation.

“There are no winds of war,” Yair Golan, the general commanding Israeli forces on the Syrian and Lebanese fronts, told reporters while out jogging with troops.

“Do you see tension? There is no tension. Do I look tense to you?” he said, according to the Maariv NRG news website.

Intelligence sources said Israel attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored near the Syrian capital on Friday and Sunday as they awaited transport to Assad’s Lebanese guerrilla ally Hezbollah.

Israel has repeatedly warned it will not let high-tech weaponry get to Iranian-backed Hezbollah, with which it fought an inconclusive war in 2006.

Damascus accused Israel of belligerence meant to support outgunned anti-Assad rebels. The air strikes were tantamount to a “declaration of war”, it said, and threatened unspecified retaliation.

Veteran Israeli lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Monday that Israel did not want to clash with Assad.

Interviewed on Israel Radio, Hanegbi said the Netanyahu government aimed to avoid “an increase in tension with Syria by making clear that if there is activity, it is only against Hezbollah, not against the Syrian regime”.

Israel is reluctant to take sides in Syria’s civil war for fear its actions would boost Islamists who are even more hostile to it than the Assad family, which has maintained a stable stand off with the Jewish state for decades.

Hanegbi said Israel had not formally acknowledged carrying out the raids in an effort to allow Assad to save face, adding that Netanyahu began a scheduled week-long trip to China on Sunday to signal the sense of business as usual.

The Israel prime minister did not comment about Syria during a visit to Shanghai on Monday.

“DIPLOMATIC CHANNELS”

Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest-selling newspaper, said the Netanyahu government had informed Assad through diplomatic channels that it did not intend to meddle in Syria’s civil war.

Mohajir Sooba (Jinnahpur) conspiracy is a new occupation in the 21st century. A big NO by the people of Sindh to this occupation.

By: Comments of Sindhis on facebook

A big “fitna” (trouble) is raising its head as some former MQM legislators, Rabita Committee members and others have addressed a press conference and demanded a Mohajir Province (Jinnahpur). This is indeed a recipe for disaster in Pakistan. A big trouble ahead that will result in unprecedented bloodshed, which will not have different results than in Sri Lanka. The foolish demand is not only Alarming but could be a lethal as well because the fascist city group is a culprit as they have facilitating these efforts only for the sake of power or rather because the Master is same .

Why MQM can not learn from mistakes of others? Why they would insist on dividing people instead of bringing them together?

This is tantamount to a new occupation in the 21st century…!!!… occupations result in glory for the occupiers & slavery for the occupied.. .the people of Sindh prepare themselves to say a big NO to this occupation …

Though we know the history’s course is brutal and painful. It doesn’t give SUBSIDY (wazeefo) to indigenous people of Sindh (Sons of the soil). Tomorrow may all fascist groups will join each-other for their SHARE (BOTTY) pushing Sindhis into isolation. Now  days it is impossible to crush aboriginal, indigenous people. Take the example of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Kashmir and we have a long list to go on. Sindhis are the real and true sons of Sindh soil and let me assure you that  nobody can snatch our mother land.  yes, NOBODY. But I agree that JANG WADEE AAHEY SABHNEE KHEY QURBANI DIANI PAWANDEE.

PPP can’t afford to be hand in glove with the MQM in this conspiracy… international forces may push the MQM to do this to weaken the state of Pakistan. But the occupation of Sindh by the fascist city group is not so easy. It does not come by drawing maps. The capital city of Sindh, Karachi is inhibited by the people, belonging to each ethnicity in Pakistan. The MQM should be most worried from the deep state of Punjab than Sindhis. Majority of the population in Karachi belongs to Punjab and Pakhtunkhwa, who are otherwise well organized and have major economical interests in the city. Besides, Sindhis (the real sons of soil), MQM will have to face a lot from such ethnic population. We feel that the drama of division of Sindh is being staged by the deep state influenced by Punjab elite forces and the agencies, so as to create unrest in Sindh and at the same time garnering support against the creation of Seraiki province in Punjab.

During a research paper writing on ‘ethnic conflict in Sindh and democratization of Pakistan’ (thanks to Shuhab Usto for his intellectual input) an Urdu speaking (and a proud Sindh lover) asked a question ‘ Do you know why a little town of Khartoum took too many days to get captured by Anglo-Egyptian garrison and why a huge city Damascus was surrendered in hours to French forces?’- I kept quit and humbly requested the great social scientist, town planner and historian to explain. He said because Khartoum’s water line (river systems) was complicated and Damascus water lines (river systems) were simple to invade and capture. Then he confidently told me that please don’t be defensive while fighting/ arguing/ debating the case of Sindh’s integrity and sovereignty. He taught me that those who lives with this foolish and wishful thinking that the capital city Karachi shall be separated from rest of Sindh don’t forget that the principle flow of water of Indus to Karachi is like Damascus’s water supply.

This is a precious time to organize a mass campaign to mobilize the public opinion towards a united stand that ‎”There is no Sindh without it’s capital city Karachi. If we don’t for Sindh, we don’t fight for any thing else. Sindh will not be divided – not half n half, not 60-40, not 75-25, nothing. Full stop.”

Courtesy: Facebook/ Social media

Indian Muslims feel secure under secularism

by Farooq Sulehria

“Secularism is not about lifestyle, it is about ideology and thought. Some of the most liberal souls in South Asia have practiced the worst kind of fundamentalist politics, using their positions to sow the seeds of conservative thought,” says Seema Mustafa. A leading Indian journalist, peace activist and public intellectual, Seema Mustafa also contributes for Viewpoint. In an interview, she discusses different aspects of secularism in the Muslim world. Read on:

Why has secularism not taken root in the Muslim world? If Islam and secularism are incompatible?

Islam and secularism are totally compatible, as is any religion practiced in its true sense. Syria, Libya and Iraq earlier did try to develop as secular states keeping religion out of politics. Last month I was in Syria and in a long conversation, the Grand Mufti in Damascus made it very clear that there was no room for religion in politics, that organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood were unacceptable so long as they insisted on mixing the two, and that the secular character of the Syrian state would not be compromised. …

Read more » ViewPoint

Robert Fisk: How long before the dominoes fall?

The West is offering lessons in democracy to New Libya; how to avoid the chaos we ourselves inflicted on the Iraqis

The remaining Arab potentates and tyrants have spent a second sleepless night. How soon will the liberators of Tripoli metamorphose into the liberators of Damascus and Aleppo and Homs? Or of Amman? Or Jerusalem? Or of Bahrain or Riyadh? It’s not the same, of course.

The Arab Spring-Summer-Autumn has proved not just that the old colonial frontiers remain inviolate – an awful tribute to imperialism, I suppose – but that every revolution has its own characteristics. If all Arab uprisings have their clutch of martyrs, some rebellions are more violent than others. As Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said at the start of his own eventual downfall, “Libya is not Tunisia, it’s not Egypt…It will become civil war. There will be bloodshed on the streets.” And there was.

And so we gaze into the crystal ball. Libya will be a Middle East superpower – unless we impose an economic occupation as the price of Nato’s “liberating” bombardment – and a less African, more Arab country now that Gaddafi’s obsession with central and southern Africa has disappeared. It may infect Algeria and Morocco with its freedoms. The Gulf states will be happy – up to a point – since most regarded Gaddafi as mentally unstable as well as mischievous. But unseating tyrannical Arab rulers is a dangerous game when unelected Arab rulers join in. Who now remembers the forgotten 1977 war in which Anwar Sadat sent his bombers to pulverise Gaddafi’s airbases – the very same airbases Nato has been attacking these past months – after Israel warned the Egyptian president that Gaddafi was planning his assassination? But Gaddafi’s dictatorship outlived Sadat by 30 years. …

Read more → independent.co.uk

Arabic music

Viva Arab music!

– YouTube

Please show respect to the millions of people in Arab countries who have risen against dictatorships. It is an insult to them if you consider their movements US-inspired-instigated

Unrest in Syria: What you need to know

By Zachary Roth

The uprising in Libya, which provoked military intervention by the United States and its allies to avert a brutal government crackdown, has dominated this week’s headlines. But meanwhile, there’s new unrest in yet another Middle Eastern nation–one with perhaps greater strategic implications for the United States.

Could the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad be set to go the way of the dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, which were toppled last month by massive popular protests? And what would that mean for the U.S.?

Here’s a rundown on the current situation in Syria:

What exactly has been happening on the ground?

Mass protests against the government have been going on since last week, and on Wednesday, demonstrators in the southern city of Dara’a were killed by al-Assad’s security forces while taking refuge in a mosque. The number of casualties hasn’t been confirmed, but some witnesses have put it as high as 100.

The deaths prompted even bigger anti-government demonstrations in Dara’a yesterday, and today the protests spread to the capital city of Damascus, where people called out: “Dara’a is Syria” and “We will sacrifice ourselves for Syria.” In response, supporters of the president chanted back: “God, Syria, and Bashar, that’s all.” ….

Read more : YahooNews

Syrian Troops Open Fire on Protesters in Several Cities

– MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — Military troops opened fire on protesters in the southern part of Syria on Friday, according to news reports quoting witnesses, hurtling the strategically important nation along the same trajectory that has altered the landscape of power across the Arab world.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in the southern city of Dara’a, on the border with Jordan, and in some other cities and towns around the nation took to the streets in protest, defying a state that has once again demonstrated its willingness to use lethal force. It was the most serious challenge to 40 years of repressive rule by the Assad family since 1982, when the president at the time, Hafez al-Assad, massacred at least 10,000 protesters in the northern Syrian city of Hama. …

Read more : Wichaar

Current wave of extremism in Pakistan

Statistical ambiguity society

Just how some recent events of our surface politics offer an interesting study of the deep politics

By Dr Ahsan Wagha

It started with the worst ideological polarisation promoted by the military generals in the 1970s when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was forced to invite Saudi ambassador Riaz Al-Khatib to mediate between him and the opposition, a practice that was reverberated during the Musharraf-Nawaz conflict and has almost culminated into becoming one of the basic features of our foreign policy. The phenomenon can be investigated in the background of the history of Arab colonisation of this region.