Very Important Rockets

I don’t appreciate it when Arab bloggers and media agencies report and cover the Gaza blockade merely through the death of children and women – not sure why Palestinian men's lives don’t count. It is as if the problem is not in death itself but in the death of children. So the counter argument by Israelis would be by starting to count Palestinian children who have died due the siege and support their arguments with the lack of resources:

"More Muslim mendacity. If children were indeed starving, why are there no photos of their swollen bellies?"

According to this logic, one can argue that since there are no photos of the Holocaust gas chambers in which the Jews were collectively massacred by the Nazis, then I guess the gas chambers did not exist.

To get back to my point, the argument to oppose the Israel’s apartheid policies against the Gazans and Palestinians, in general, should not be through counting/demonstrating dead children and women or even merely focusing on the inhumane conditions that the Palestinians are going through. The argument should in fact address the apartheid racist logic that produced such inhumane practices. My problem is not by bringing up the victims in the Gaza blockade coverage but rather making it the argument to oppose Israel as a counter argument. Death and shortage of food, medicine and fuel are only the visible practices of an Israeli apartheid state. They are not the problem of this state and hence they shouldn’t be our rhetoric and our defense against Israel.

It seems that we have the right to "speak", so loudly, against Israel when we have a picture of a child dying that without this child, we wouldn’t have a case against Israel's inhumane blockade of Gaza.

The Arab rhetoric should renew its arguments, which are again, bombastic and not strategically analytical in reading their own realities in relation to the enemy or in reading the enemy's strategy that constantly presents itself as a "prior" party in the "Palestinian-Israeli struggle." The thing that would damage the core of the Palestinian cause when readers support us merely as sympathizers with the dead children and not as supporters to Palestinians' right to live secure and equal to Israeli citizens.

Having said this, I have something to say about Israel’s right to 'self-defense' against Qassam rockets.

Before assuming there is an opponent struggle taking place between the Israelis and Palestinians, one should agree then that the two parties, equally, have the basic right to live peacefully and securely, and accordingly have the right to self-defense. But when Israel, supported by the UN, US and Europe, keeps prioritizing Israeli citizens at the expense of Palestinian citizens, one should not adhere to the term "Israel-Palestine struggle" since it suggests an adversary. In "Israel-Palestine struggle" there is one party - Israel - which has the right to exist, and hence the right of self-defense. And for that right, it has the right to control the other party's right to live peacefully: it decides on behalf of the Gazans how they should live: "not easily", and block their access to fuel, food and medicine and arbitrary night-raid their homes and bulldoze them on their heads.

This Israeli right to live and right of self-defense is embedded in every single report, with or against Israel’s complete closure of Gaza Strip:

“We all understand the security problems and the need to respond to that but collective punishment of the people of Gaza is not, we believe, the appropriate way to do that,” said John Holmes.

So while the world wholeheartedly backs the right of Israelis to live securely, the world is merely sympathizing with the Gazans lack of fuel, food and medicine. i.e. lack of life.

With Israel, the rhetoric is about its safety and its right to exist and for that, it has the right to defend this very existence and life. With the Palestinians, the rhetoric comes as the right to eat, have hospitals and be warm in winter. Palestinians don’t have the right to have a life, or to exist, and certainly not the right to defend themselves. Palestinians are not equal to Israelis – they are inferior. They have the right to be fed only. While Israelis are always remembered, the Gazans are only remembered when they are dead.

Again, the world prioritizes Israelis, even when they support the Gazans now.

And the Arabs celebrate this utterly biased stance with the right of Israelis to be secure when their mere opposition to the siege is dealt with on a humanitarian basis while they should be arguing for the right of Palestinians to live equally – just like the Israelis, securely and peacefully not just in regards to their basic needs to survive.

Furthermore, all the reports seem to be convinced that Israel’s siege on Gaza is a "reaction" to Qassam rockets when they recognize Israel's right to "self-defense but demand its attention to Gazans’ humanitarian rights. I find this rhetoric as apologetic to Israel’s terrorist policies against the Palestinians. Linking between Qassam rockets and Israel’s two-year siege on Gaza is dealt with on one level, as if the damages on both sides are similar. Let's take a look at Gaza's damages because of the siege:

68 Patients killed by Israeli Occupation due to Closure!

1562 patients in need of treatment outside Gaza Strip

322 patients are in serious danger and in need of urgent treatment

22 money holistic are suspended from work due to the siege

107 class of basic medicines are depleted from Gaza Strip

97 sorts of medicines on the verge of depletion

136 medical instrument are stopped or our of order

6 months, Gaza with closed crossings and borders

160 thousand workers are out of work

3000 fishermen become out of work due to siege

$370 millions are the costs of stalled construction projects

$14 million are the wastage of strawberry and flowers season

4500 strawberry farmers become out of work

470 cancer patients are likely to die

And on the Israeli side:

Homemade rockets have killed in a most updated report 12 Israelis, including three children, according to Israeli Defence Forces.

Yoram Schweitzer of Tel Aviv's Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies comments:

"Qassams are very primitive missiles and their main effect on Israelis in the area is psychological torment - a kind of Chinese water torture."

So I wonder how can psychological insecurities be considered parallel to the blows mentioned above which the Palestinians have suffered, and how can two years of blockades be considered a "reaction" to such primitive rockets? Hence, the link that is meant to be apologetic to war crimes committed on civilians to maintain the security and not the lives of Israelis, only takes into consideration their psychological situation.

I find the argument in Betselem report on the closure of the Gaza Strip able to stand on its own in unfolding the truth behind the Israeli siege on Gaza:

"Israeli authorities often exploit security threats in order to advance prohibited political interests under the guise of security."

Indeed, Sderot is inhabited by"Mizrachi" Jews and not by Azhkenazis, and some of the inhabitants feel insecure not only from the Qassam rockets but from the racist Israeli government:

"The worst part of all this isn't the rocket fire - it's the fact that the government just doesn't care," says a Sderot settler.

While I reject the article altogether, I think it sheds light on something that can be useful to unfolding the Israeli government's lies in claiming its "need to protect" its settlers; they're not killing civilians for Sderot settlers but against Gazans' political reality - Hamas. So the siege is strictly practiced for political reasons and not for security reasons.

Why is Israel targeting Hamas now? This is where my amateur reading ends.

An Hour for Gaza

For those who're in Syria and in Damascus there is going to be a silent strike :

Let’s break the silence in support of our children in Gaza. Dare to say no to the ongoing injustices taking place in the shadow of regional politics, orchestrated Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and the glamorous visit of the western presidents. Peace starts by stopping the killing of innocent children everywhere. Join us to a peaceful gathering to submit a petition to the United Nation.

Time: Friday January 25, 2008 at 12.30 p.m
Place: United Nation Building Mezzah, Western Villas, Ghazawi Street. Damascus, Syria

I am not in favor of strikes and demonstrations in countries like Syria for few reasons:

1- Can the public influence its government when the government is in isolation with the whole world? even though Syria is a "proud Arab country" and all, but didn’t Egypt, Jordan and KSA, despite of their submissive and assimilations to/with the American administration, have used their very ties with the West and Israel to help the Gazans? How can Syria be an Arab and so generous to Palestinians as it claims if it doesn’t have an affect whatsoever?

not to read my comment as in favor with similar submissive relations of Syria with the Americans or the Europeans, what I am saying, is that a complete isolation as that of Syria is as bad as a complete submissiveness as that of Egypt, KSA and Jordan. So no heroes here.

2-so if the government cannot affect the world, how can the public affect the government? Assuming the government actually cares what its public thinks.

3-so why go to the strike then? I think in paralyzed communities like the Syrian one, civil disobedience and strikes are beneficial to the makers of these activities rather than to the receivers. It would encourage them to be part of the Syrian and regional public affairs, and I have learned that the creation of an active society start with simple multiple tries to gradually become greater.

4-But what really can we do to the Gazans? I believe what we can do is raise carefully studied awareness AND donate. And so far I know this link to donate money to Gaza:

TAKAFUL: The Palestinian Refugee Support Network

Living in Gaza

They know they'll live tonight, when another family dies.
Living in Gaza, is living under occupation.

If Motherhood is Selfless

How come women need to give birth in order to be mothers?
What about the children without mommies?
Parents like to be their own children "selfless" parents. Not sure how motherhood and fatherhood are selfless.

I think there should be a holiday for adoptive parents whom can have children, but chose to be parents to children without parents. Oh but wait, adoption is prohibited in Syria, so decided our most wise moral Muslim Sheikhs. But hey, that means I need to be thankful that I have another citizenship; I still can adopt a Syrian orphan child because of a non-Syrian citizenship, to give the lone child a real home, give her real education, and perhaps give her other alternatives and chances to becoming a better Syrian. Wonder why we always need foreign papers in order to build our most beloved Syria.

It Could Be You: Release Syrian Blogger Tarek Baiasi

Tarek was detained on 7-7-2--7 for critiquing security forces in Syria. He has not been taken to court up to this moment

His name is Tarek Baiasi and he's 23 years old. He lives in Banyas with his mother and two sisters. His father was detained during the 80s by the Syrian security agents, who mistook him for a Muslim Brotherhood member, where he spent 20 years behind bars.

Tarek sells and maintains PCs. He is described by his friends as shy and quiet, spending his time surfing the web and blogging at Ektub here.

On 7-7-2007, Tarek was asked by the security branch in Banyas to answer a few questions concerning a comment he left on one of the "sensitive" websites. That was the last his family heard from him.

I had previously mentioned Tarek on my blog when I posted about the kidnapping of the Syrian bloggeress Rukana Hammour by Syrian security agents, but had not heard anything new about him until yesterday when Syrian bloggers reported on the day which marked the completion of his six months of detention. The bloggers appealed to Syrian and international human rights agencies to highlight his case and the cases of others as well.

Syrian blogger Ahmad was the first to write about Tarek's case:

اعتقل طارق بياسي بتاريخ 7-7-2007م.
- سبب اعتقاله تعليق له في منتدى أنا مسلم تعرّض فيه لإيجابيات وسلبيات أجهزة الأمن.
- بعد اعتقاله فُتّش منزله ، و صودرت حواسيبه.
- انتهى التحقيق معه لكونه اعترف بتعليقه مباشرة، لكن لحد الآن لم يُحال للمحكمة ، و لا يُعرف مصيره.
- طارق وحيد لأمه ، من مواليد 84 ، من مدينة بانياس الساحلية.
- اعتقل أبوه لمدة 20 عاماً من أيام الأحداث ، كان عُمْرُ طارقٍ حينها بضعة أشهر فقط

-Tarek Bayasi was detained on 7-7-2007 for a comment he left on one of the forums called "I am a Muslim" in which he presented the advantages and the disadvantages of the Syrian security forces policies.
-His house was searched and his computers were confiscated after his detention.
-Investigators were through with him ever since he confessed posting the comment, but until now he was not taken to court and no one knows his whereabouts.
-Tarek is his mother's only son, born in 1984 in Banyas.
-His father was sentenced for 20 years during the 80s when Tarek was a few months old at the time.

Ahmad posted several posts earlier on Tarek's detention in which we learn that the detained blogger was later on taken to Palestine Camp's security branch in Damascus:

لتصفحه مواقع انترنت ، طارق مازال في معتقلا في فرع فلسطين بدمشق
طارق عمر بياسي ، مواليد 84، يعمل في محله في بيع أجهزة الكمبيوتر و صيانتها الكائن في مدينة بانياس الساحلية.
لم يكن الدكتور عمر منظما في جماعة الإخوان و لا أحسبه مقتنعا بأفكارهم حتى يومنا هذا
عن تهمة طارق فهي تصفحه و مشاركته في مواقع “مشبوهة” و ينظر لها بعين الريبة من قبل الأمن ، و هذه المواقع على الأغلب هي موقع أنا مسلم و موقع آخر شبيه به

For surfing the Internet, Tarek is still being held in the Palestine Camp's security branch in Damascus.
Born in 1984, Tarek Omar Bayasi, sells and maintains PCs where he lives in the coastal town of Banyas.
Dr Omar wasn’t a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and I don’t think he is convinced of their thought even today.
Tarek is being accused of surfing the Internet and ‘suspected’ sites, feared by the security forces. Most probably the site is “I am Muslim” or something similar.

Another Syrian blogger, Jassas, blogs about Tarek's case asking us to write to the Syrian human rights agencies and support Tarek. Marfa' blog owner, too, adds his voice to Jassas' appeal and asks us to shed some light on Tarek's case by contacting human rights agencies.

Arwa wishes that all the bloggers would agree on a certain statement to publish on their blogs:

أتمنى من جميع المدونات أن تتفق على “خطاب نصي” يشارك فيه المدونون كخطوة عملية وجماعية من أجل طارق

I hope all the bloggers would agree on a text in which the bloggers would participate in publishing as a practical and collective step in support of Tarek

And finally, the owner of Msabba' el Karat Syrian blog writes on Tarek's detention wondering why every time a Syrian citizen is detained for merely criticizing his nation's flaws, asserting that it's the people who eventually defend their nation:

هل من المعقول أن يسجن الإنسان كل هذه المدة من أجل كلمة تقال في حق الوطن ؟! عندما أنتقد الوطن والقائمين عليه ، هذا لا يعني أني لا أحبهم و لا أتمنى لهم الخير ، بل أنتقدهم لأني أريد أن يكون وطني مثالا يحتذى به في كل المجالات ، هؤلاء الشباب هم زهرة الأوطان ، هم الذين سيدافعون عن قضايا الأوطان ، و بهمتم العالية تبنى الأوطان ، فلماذا تنزع كرامة الشاب من أجل كلمة تقال ، إن كنا نعرف أن بعض كلمات ستودي بنا إلى السجن ، فسنوقف أقلامنا ، و نغلق أفواهنا ، و نقطع ألسنتنا ، و نجلس عبادا نساكا ننتظر رحمة الله و فرجه القريب

Is it possible to detain someone this long for having his say on his nation's affairs? When I criticize my nation and its leaders, it doesn't mean that I dislike them or wish them harm. I just do it to make my country better in all fields. Those youngsters are the nation's blossoms; they'll defend and protect the country, and with them we build it. So why are we stripping a man of his dignity for a word he said? If we knew that a few words would lead us to jail, we would stop writing, shut our mouths, cut our tongues and sit back as slaves waiting for God's mercy.

At the end of his post, the blogger draws our attention to important statistics:

ملاحظة : هناك 40 ألف قضية في قصر العدل لم تتطرق لها المحكمة بعد ، هذا ما أشارت إليه النائب العام غادة مراد في حديثها للجزيرة ضمن برنامج رائدات

P.S. There are 40,000 pending cases in the Justice Courthouse that the judiciary has not dealt with up to now, as general prosecutor Ghada Murad said on Al-Jazeera.

Up to this moment, one Syrian human rights agency did report on Tarek's detention at the very day of his detention on 7-7-2007. HRW mentioned his name in its report on Syrian officials' continuous arrests of people over online comments:

On June 30, 2007, Military Intelligence in the coastal city of Tartous arrested Tarek Biasi, 22, because he “went online and insulted security services,” according to a person familiar with the case. Biasi remains in incommunicado detention, his whereabouts unknown.

The HRW report says Tarek was detained on June 30, but the Syrian human rights agency and his family and friends confirmed that Tarek was detained on the 7th. of July and not on June 30th. I am noting this issue for documentation purposes.

Tarek does not stand alone in these arrests policy over online comments, the HRW report lists seven names among those who've been detained for expressing their views online. This policy started in 2002 but it has been increasing recently and especially after the “Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology” circular; Sami Ben Gharbia wrote about the repression of internet in Syria and here he uncovers the circular's instructions:

Recently, the new-formed “Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology” issued a new circular asking the owners of the Syrian websites “to exercise accuracy and objectivity (…) and to post the name of the writer of an article and the one who comments on it in a clear and detailed manner.” The Ministry added that “the failure to do so would result in warning the website owner and rendering his website temporarily inaccessible. In case the violation is repeated, the website will become permanently inaccessible.

Here's my response to this circular.

It is not a secret that the Syrian tyrant regime is tight on the Syrian people and tighter on those who try to break through, but as I mentioned earlier in my blog there is no space on the ground for the youth to express their views or to embody their interests except on the cyber world. So what made li Zein al-`Abideen Mej`an, Karim ‘Arbaji (29), Tarek Biasi (22) and many others turn to the Internet? Isn't it the very absent tangible Syria? Among all of the people who live in Syria, the Syrian government is detaining those who actually care about the Syrian public affair, those who care about Syria; those who have opinions and express them online simply because they can’t express themselves elsewhere. So by detaining these people, the Syrian government is making one of its exquisite statements: "don’t even bother to think and have a say, we'll just do it for you".

So there is no tangible Syria, and soon enough there might be no virtual Syria as well, I wonder how can there be Syrians without Syria, or Syria without Syrians who care.

Censorship in Syria is not a joke and it's shouldn’t be viewed as the "norm/typical/predictable policies" of the tyrannical Syrian government. We're not talking about the imprisonment of political activists anymore, not even human rights activists, we're talking about detaining people, just people like you and me, mostly students, whose mere accusation was having opinions, whether I agree with them or not, and mostly I don’t, is never the case, but the fact that someone who still cares and dares to express her/his views in Syria is not the norm, it's a rare case, and the detention of these rare people is very serious.

For those who are interested in helping Tarek and his family please send me and email at arab.spring@gmail.com.

Many thanks to Amira al Hussaini for editing this post.

Little Marginalizer

I had a huge fight with dad last night, it was the kind of fight that makes you retreat more from your parents, even though the more they grow older the more you feel responsible towards them and scared to lose them. But some people cease to grow up once they become parents.

I got dressed and left home, walked to this mall that's near where I live, I was supposed to wait for a friend to pick me up, I just needed a drink.

Taxi drivers where pressing their cars' horns asking me if I needed a lift, people pass by looking at the lone girl with the high heels boots, but only one approached me:

....خديلك مسّاحة يا خالة, أربعة ب 100, الله يخليكي, منشان الله, أربعة ب 100

I didn’t look at him at first, I was accustomed to ignore beggars and especially children beggars: we should not encourage them to beg by giving them what they expect from us.

But he kept talking, some get tired and leave you alone when you ignore them, some change their begging style and start crying to get what they want, but this little kid did not change his tone, nor his words, nor his facial features, nothing changed at all, he just kept talking raising his little head at me. I looked at him while he was addressing me, I kept looking at him for few seconds, at his wide brown eyes while blinking, he is looking at my eyes and he cannot see me, I was invisible to him, he was invisible to him. I freaked out; I inserted my hand into my purse to give him the money: "I don’t need anything, just take the money." He got the money and walked away quietly, I changed my spot.

My friend came just this minute, I got into the car faceless. Sat back thinking about this kid whose face was tougher than dad's.

Many are poor and many people's lives are abused and many are many sad horrible things, each child beggar has a horrible story, but some remain children while begging, they lie and cry and act but you can still feel their sad childhood. This kid wasn’t a child, his very marginalization dehumanized him and his dehumanization marginalized me, he cannot notice life, he is dead. I was dead that minute. His problem is my problem. I am not being selfless, I am being very selfish.

Many things make children what they are, it's not their innocence, but their curiosity and their attentiveness to details, they observe things we take for granted. That fundamental characteristic was not there in this kid, and that's what made me truly scared.

Too much attention makes you invisible sometimes.

Here I have to say that during my stay in Beirut, I ran into one child beggar, I talked to him and introduced myself as a Syrian, "I am Syrian too! I am Kurdish, and you're invited to visit us anytime", he said.

Why most beggars in Syria are children? And why is it normalized?
I was thinking after that bloggers meetup to have a certain theme each monthly blogger meetup, that every meeting there is a "Syrian Bloggers' Story of the Month" and I am thinking that this month's story would be on children beggars, each blogger would sit down in the café interviewing the child and reflect his/her situation on her/his blog, it's not that we're helping them or reflecting their truths, but I guess it's a good start to try to understand? and perhaps one day we'll try to help other people's children. That's what it means to be part of any country and any nation, what it means to call yourself "Syrian", this very suffix, n, simply means you care enough to make Syria better.

Free Fouad

Day of Blog Silence for Fouad