Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Essere palestinesi in Siria

http://londonthenews.com/news/US/20120730/34094587/The-Fate-of-Syria-is-in-the-Hands.htm
 
 
The Fate of Syria is in the Hands of … Palestinians?
Reported by The New Republic on Monday, 30 July 2012
 
For decades, the Assad regime in Syria was the most ardent regional 
champion of the Palestinian cause. When the country went to war with 
Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973, it claimed to do so on behalf of 
Palestine. Hafez al-Assad stood steadfastly against the Oslo Accords, 
refusing to support the compromise that the Palestinians were themselves 
prepared to make. And since coming to power in 2000, Bashar al-Assad has 
been a crucial patron of numerous Palestinian terrorist groups, just 
like his father before him. In recent years, Syria has served as a 
pivotal training ground, transit point, and weapons pipeline for groups 
engaging in “armed resistance” against Israel, including Hamas, 
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Popular Resistance Committees.
 
For their part, the Palestinians who have been aided and sheltered by 
Syria—there are some 500,000 Palestinians in Syria, the majority living 
in nine refugee camps throughout the country—have responded by paying 
fealty to the regime. But with an internecine war now raging inside 
Syria’s borders, the Palestinians appear to be breaking rank. The 
London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that PIJ left Syria for Iran, 
while Maan News Agency reports that PIJ leader Ibrahim Shehada recently 
departed Syria for Gaza.
 
Indeed, it is already clear that the Syrian conflict has placed Assad's 
Palestinian clients into an untenable position. It’s hard for 
Palestinian groups to claim they are fighting for justice when their 
patron is in the midst of slaughtering its own people—18,000 souls and 
counting—in cold blood. That is why an ever growing number of 
Palestinians are now working to topple the regime that once supported them.
 
THE MAJORITY OF Palestinians living in Syria are descendants of the 
original refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars, which means they were 
born and raised in their adopted country. As such, they have developed 
dual identities: Palestinian and Syrian.
 
But while the Assad regime has been willing to leverage the Palestinian 
cause on the international stage, it has never treated Palestinians 
equally within Syrian borders. Though many of these Palestinians feel 
Syrian, as The Independent (UK) notes, Palestinians in Syria “are not 
allowed to vote or hold Syrian passports.” Moreover, they cannot “stand 
for parliament or other political offices. Palestinians are barred from 
buying farmland and prohibited from owning more than one house. The 
female descendant of a Palestinian refugee can become a Syrian citizen 
by marrying a Syrian man. The male descendants of Palestinian men and 
their children are barred from acquiring Syrian citizenship, even if 
they marry Syrian women.”
 
As if the tenuous position of Palestinians in Syria was not clear 
enough, some 10,000 Palestinianshave reportedly been detained by the 
regime since the uprising started last year. Jihad Makdissi, the 
spokesman of the Syrian Foreign Ministry, recently described 
Palestinians in Syria as “guests” and cynically told them to “leave 
Syria for one of the Arab democracies” if they misbehave.
 
It was only a matter of time before the Palestinians were going to have 
to choose sides. The Syrian uprising has killed as many as 300 
Palestinians and injured 900 more since the violence began in early 
2011. In recent weeks, the Palestinian death toll has spiked. In one 
incident, Syrian forces bombed a hospital in Yarmouk refugee camp, 
reportedly because medics were treating the wounded from both sides. 
This came on the heels of reports that Syrian forces opened fire on 
demonstrators in Yarmouk, killing four and injuring several others.
 
Even before that, unidentified assailants reportedly abducted 16 members 
of the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA), a Palestinian splinter group of 
the Syrian army, and killed them by slitting their throats and then 
leaving them in an open field outside Damascus. Some reports suggest 
that these members of the PLA refused to carry out acts of violence on 
behalf of the regime and paid the ultimate price. Other reports suggest 
that the FSA attacked the Palestinians because of their loyalty to the 
regime.
 
The Palestinian faction that clearly does fight on behalf of Assad is 
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command 
(PFLP-GC). Famously, in June 2011, members of the PFLP-GC shot and 
killed 14 of their fellow Palestinians in Yarmouk. As one Palestinian in 
Syria told the New York Times, “Every Palestinian in Syria knows that 
the PFLP-GC’s fighters are working for the mukhabarat [intelligence] and 
running security patrols for the regime.” The key to understanding the 
PFLP-GC’s alliance with Syria is its leader, Ahmed Jibril, who formally 
split from the Palestinian mainstream in the late 1980s, thereby 
tethering himself to the Syrian regime and its Iranian patron. Jibril 
recently told the Iranian press, “if foreign elements want to invade 
[Syria], we will be part of this battle and we have discussed it with 
our brothers in Syria, with [Hezbollah chief] Seyed Hassan Nasrallah and 
our brothers in Iran.” Meanwhile, the Jordanian al-Sawt website reports 
that Jibril is helping Syria’s mukhabarat infiltrate Jordan.
 
But the most well known Palestinian militant group of all, Hamas, has 
recently parted ways with the regime because of the violence in the 
country. This could not have been an easy divorce. Hamas established its 
headquarters in Syria in the late 1990s, following the group’s expulsion 
from Jordan. Among other things, the external leadership in Damascus 
under Khaled Meshal was closely identified with the “armed wing” of 
Hamas, the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades.
 
With a clear understanding of where its bread was buttered, Hamas 
quietly stood by Assad in the early months of the uprising. But by 
February of this year, the external leaders packed their bags for Qatar 
and Egypt. Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh went as far as to 
“salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, 
democracy and reform.” Anti-Assad protests, previously unheard of, have 
recently erupted in the Gaza Strip.
 
While Hamas and the rival Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) can 
rarely agree on anything since the internecine conflict that erupted in 
Gaza in 2007, they do see eye-to-eye on the horror that has consumed 
Syria. Of course, the Iranian press occasionally produces news items 
suggesting that the PLO is still behind the Assad regime. One piece of 
dubious veracity cited an official claiming that Palestinian refugees 
would not embrace the “interests of the Zionist regime.” But it has 
become increasingly clear where the PLO stands. In August 2011, Yasser 
Abed Rabbo, the PLO secretary general, said that Syrian security forces 
had carried out crimes against humanity with its attack on the city of 
Latakia, including the crowded refugee neighborhood of Raml. Palestinian 
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman called on “Syrian 
authorities to stop the attack on the refugee camp immediately.”
 
Seeking to hedge their positions, most of the Palestinian militant 
factions have found a way to quietly exit the country while Syria burns. 
But for the 500,000 Palestinians who still call Syria their home, it has 
become virtually impossible to remain on the fence. As one activist 
noted, “Day by day, Palestinians began to see and hear by their eyes and 
ears what the Assad regime does, and this pushed us, slowly, to change.”
 
True, many stay put and simply hope their homes remain standing in the 
morning. However, as Human Rights Watch notes, increasing numbers of 
Palestinians have picked up arms and joined the FSA. Colonel Kassem 
Saadeddine, spokesperson for the FSA, confirmed that "Palestinians are 
fighting alongside us, and they are well trained." And while it’s 
impossible to know just how many have joined, it’s remarkable to think 
about the impact the Palestinians could have if just one percent of the 
population joined the fighting; that would be 5,000 fighters.
 
While the fighting rages, many Palestinians have fled to the Jordanian 
border, not to mention Lebanon and Gaza, much as previous generations 
had in the wake of the wars with Israel. But while the refugees of 
previous generations became living symbols of Syria’s opposition to the 
Jewish state, today’s refugees are now sadly ironic symbols of 
unspeakable injustices perpetrated by the Syrian regime that for decades 
championed their cause.
 
Jonathan Schanzer is vice president for research at the Foundation for 
Defense of Democracies and author of Hamas vs Fatah: The Struggle for 
Palestine. He tweets at @JSchanzer.
-- 
Namib
--
I have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never 
again found the Rue d'Auseil (HPL)

 Pippo Baudo....HAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
 
E' la solita "infermiera di Gaza"? :)


Essere dei palestinesi, cioé dei senza patria, è scomodo ovunque, anche 
in Palestina.
 
Eppure ci sarebbe modo per evitare loro questa condizione disgraziata: 
indovina quale...
(HINT: segui le risoluzioni ONU)
-- 
Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 
 

 (HINT: segui le risoluzioni ONU)
 
Cioè, se il serial killer fascista preferito da Persio spara cannonate sui
campi profughi palestinesi, o tiene i palestinesi in condizioni di
apartheid, chiusi in campi di concentramento, senza cittadinanza né lavoro,
la colpa è di Israele (dove i palestinesi vivono come cittadini con uguali
diritti)
 
Il pirla antisemita oggi ci regala un pirlata importante.
Non nuova, ma comunque di un certo peso.
 
-- 
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of  freedom, must, like men,
undergo the  fatigues of supporting it.”  - North Idaho 21st Batallion of
Light Foot

 Non nuova, ma comunque di un certo peso.
 
e forse non è nemmeno troppo autonomamente elaborata.
 
<:3)- 
 
-- 
"Comunque, a prescindere dal fatto che nahum è uno stronzo integrale, 
bisogna riconoscere che come ebreo ha le carte più in regola tra quanti 
bazzicano su IPI." [persio su ipi]