Uri Avnery, veteran Israeli peace activist and chair of Gush Shalom, combines personal recollections with political analysis to give us some idea of what might happen in Syria in the coming years. We in the Network of Spiritual Progressives pray for peace and liberation for the Syrian people, an end to all the violence and the oppression of the monstrous actions of those sending an army against their own civilian poulation (which would require not just the overthrow of Assad but also of the military/judicial/economic/political elites that shape the current regime), internal reconciliation between the many different communities of Syria, and reconciliation with Israel. Here in the article, published originally on Outlook India – excerpt below – Avnery shows us how complicated that may be and how very different it might look from our expectations.
The unity of Egypt, like that of Tunisia and even Libya, after the overthrow of the dictators, is evidence of the national consciousness of these peoples. This is not a given in Syria.
If the Monster of Damascus is finally removed, will Syria survive?
All over the West, and in Israel, pundits gleefully foretell that the country will break into pieces, more or less on the lines of the French colonial precedent.
For the rest of the article, click here.
“The European imperialist powers, Britain and France, which broke up the all-inclusive Ottoman Empire after World War I, had scant respect for the diversity of their new acquisitions. However, they both adopted the principle of “divide et impera”. The French excelled in it.”
I find it strange that Avnery glorifies the Ottoman empire and claims it was “all inclusive.” I guess he forgot about the 1 million Armenians who were massacred by the Ottoman Turks in WW 1. This coming after numerous other massacres conducted by the Ottoman Turks.