Remarked another official, "Israel has made a big mistake. I was a young man in 1948 and know how that state was founded, on the ruins of Palestinian lives and homes. I know the founding ethos of Israel. Two months ago, my five-year-old son and his friends, they did not know this. It was abstract to them. Now, they too know the barbarism of Israel, which has renewed conflict and enmity for another 50 years. And this time America has placed itself right in the middle of it."
I found this comment from that article indicative of how Syrians can readily condemn Israel, yet not see how their foreign policy is even more "assertive" with regard to Lebanon and the supposedly renounced "greater Syria" policy (how's that for "founding ethos" of Syria).
If that's the case, why are there still some 30,000 Syrian troops still in Lebanon?? Vacation??
news.bbc.co.uk
Heck, they only recently pulled out of Beirut in 2001, more than two decades since they first set up shop there.
news.bbc.co.uk
Yet, even after the Israelis have pulled out completely from Lebanon, Syrian troops continue to occupy and control parts of the country. So where's the difference? Do Syrians proclaim they need to be there out of their own security interests, while ignoring similiar Israeli vis-a-vis the WB and Gaza??
Heck, the Lebanese lobby here in the US went to the point of having legislation written to hold Syria accountable for its actions and to get them to withdraw from Lebanon.
ou.org
And if they want to talk about brutality, then let the Syrians fess up about their own brutal treatment of religious Sunni extremists at Hama... (20,000 dead in a "pave the earth" operation).
Wouldn't it be nice if journalists asked hard questions and knew enough about a region that they would be able to make comparisons?
Hawk |
