The goal of the meeting that took place in Doha last Friday was not to protect the Palestinian people and stop the brutal aggression against Gaza, which was bleeding. If that were the case, the attendees would have waited a few days to emerge from a unified Arab position that provides protection, support and aid to the Palestinian people and takes decisions and measures to stop the brutal aggression and protect the Palestinian people. Palestinian people
Anger for the sake of Gaza and for the sake of the people of Palestine does not mean adopting a policy of axes and consolidating the Arab division. What is more dangerous than that is using the Palestinian issue as a means to achieve Arab division at a time when the Palestinian issue needs Arab unity and solidarity.
We heard fiery speeches and slogans that suggested that they were preparing their armies to confront the aggression and liberate Palestine and the Golan.
One of the goals of the meeting is to include Arab public opinion, which came out in the wake of the aggression demanding practical measures and opening fronts to save the people of Palestine.
Whoever listened to Bashar al-Assad’s speech believes that the Syrian forces are at the gates of the Golan to liberate it, wash away the shame of the defeat of June 1967, and rescue the Palestinian people who are bleeding because of the brutal aggression.
The Syrian people came out in all their cities and countryside, demanding the opening of the Golan Front in support of the wounded, brotherly Palestinian people. The Syrians expected that the President of the regime, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Armed Forces, would lead these forces, but that did not happen. The response to the Syrian masses was replaced by launching bursts of positions, slogans, and accusations, trying to mislead Syrian public opinion. Firstly, and Arabic secondly, introducing himself to the new American administration that he is the one who commands and prohibits in the region, expressing his readiness to cooperate with the new American president, calling on him to accelerate action for peace at a time when he announced in the Doha meeting the burial of the peace process and the dropping of the Arab initiative.
When was Bashar al-Assad interested in the Palestinian issue, wasn't he seeking a Syrian-Israeli solution, ruling out the Palestinian and Lebanese tracks?
Did he not focus, in his direct and indirect negotiations and contacts with the Israelis, on the bilateral issue, leaving the Palestinians alone to enter the arena of negotiations for peace?
In early May 2003, the US Secretary of State visited Damascus, and in a meeting with the president of the regime, he presented him with a basket of demands, including removing the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Popular Front General Command movements from Syria and preventing the Palestinians from activities in Syria?
What did Bashar al-Assad do at the time? Didn’t he ask his agencies to inform Palestinian organizations to close their offices and stop all their media activities?
Didn't he say in party meetings that he would ask President Mubarak to pay attention to the Palestinian issue because Egypt has more experience with it and that he would focus his attention on the Golan?
If he was concerned for the Palestinians, the Palestinian cause, and alleviating their suffering, then why did he refuse entry to the Palestinian families displaced from Iraq who are still in camps on the Syrian-Iraqi border?
Simply put, the Palestinian issue is not his issue, but it is a card he uses in the context of serving his interests, and it is the strongest card in influencing public opinion and misleading it about the actions this regime is doing that harm the Syrian people and the Palestinian cause.
The big question is why support Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel and close the gates of the Golan to resistance to the occupation?
If the pretext was a separation of forces agreement, then the agreement did not include a text prohibiting acts of resistance, and the negotiations were halted at that time for more than two weeks until the Israelis, through the mediation of US Minister Henry Kissinger at the time, agreed to accept the Syrian point of view.
The issue is not a question of what is happening in Palestine, but rather a question of what is happening in the International Investigation Commission and what will happen in the International Tribunal regarding the case of the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr. Rafik Hariri.
After he assumed power and until the issuance of Resolution 1951 following the extension of the term of former Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and the assassination of the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Mr. Rafik Hariri, and the issuance of Security Council resolutions on that, Syrian-Iranian relations were relations of cooperation based on mutual interests, but after that they turned into alliance relations in which Bashar al-Assad was linked. Syria is aligned with Iran's regional strategy and thus constitutes an axis extending from Tehran that includes Iran's allies in Iraq, the Syrian regime, Hezbollah, and the Hamas and Palestinian Jihad movements.
What the head of the Syrian regime said in the Doha meeting about Israel’s obstruction of the peace talks since the Madrid Conference until now is true because Israel has its own strategy that conflicts with the requirements and obligations of peace and has its own expansionist and aggressive goals, but the question is: What did the regime do in the face of this situation and what did it prepare to liberate the Golan and support the Palestinian cause?
What is the alternative to confronting Israel's aggressive strategy? Is it by launching slogans? Is it by weakening national unity? Is it by monopolizing power, oppression and tyranny? Is it by impoverishing the people and encouraging corruption? Is it by that choir of corrupt people that surrounds it leading the liberation process? Is it by arresting observers for freedom and democracy or by policies that lead to the spread of hunger, poverty and a low standard of living? Is this done by raising generations by chanting “Forever, Forever, Assad?” These are questions asked by citizens as they see the president of the regime trying to imitate the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser when he said, “What was taken by force can only be recovered by force.” So what did Bashar al-Assad do to provide this power?
Is it enough for him to mislead himself and try to mislead public opinion by launching slogans?
We listened to the speech of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and we imagined that Iran had taken a historic decision to mobilize its forces on the Syrian front, as it did in June 1982 following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. It then sent forces to Syria and Lebanon, even though it was at that time at war with Iraq and did not have the military arsenal it has today. We see it in the media
Is the invasion of Lebanon less dangerous than the invasion of Gaza?
It is the one that adopted the Palestinian cause from the first days of the revolution, provided aid to some Palestinian factions, and then allied itself with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.
The big question is: Does the Israeli aggression and invasion of Gaza serve the strategy of the Iranian-Syrian-Qatari tripartite axis by consolidating the division in the Arab and Palestinian arenas?
If one of the goals of the Iranian-Syrian-Qatari axis was to protect the Palestinian people, would that be by encouraging the Palestinian division that led the Palestinians to an armed conflict between the Fatah and Hamas movements, to a coup in Gaza, and to the separation of Gaza from the West Bank?
Isn’t the goal of these slogans and accusations to employ the raging emotions of Arab public opinion to polarize the masses and deepen the divisions in the Arab arena, in which the axis owns the corner of the Arab street and directs its dialogue with the international community in general and the United States of America in particular, while it controls the Arab arena?
How can we imagine a situation in which Arab conflicts intensify and that this situation is capable of protecting the rights of the Arabs, protecting the Palestinian cause, and supporting the Palestinian people?
It is striking that some political forces in the Arab arena did not realize that the regime in Syria was unable to respond to their requirements due to the nature of the regime, its behavior and its structure, so they made the mistake of calling on the regime to achieve national unity and to open the doors of Syria to those who wanted to resist, as if they did not know the nature of this regime and had not been exposed to its harm. They have not tested it for many years
We believe that a new dawn will soon appear in Syria, and that a Syria freed from tyranny, oppression, injustice, and corruption, and in control of its affairs in a democratic system that enhances national unity, is the Syria of hope for a bright future for Syria and the Arab nation.