The Daily Clue - Showing you the Arab World day by day

Syria, 1982.

Hafez Assad, the dictator of Syria had outlawed all political parties except his own (the Baath Party) and opposition began to surface from the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood had the goal of overthrowing the Syrian government. This of course didn’t sit well with Assad, who went on to do what many an Arab dictator has done when facing similar problems.

The city of Hama had been more persistent with it’s criticisms of Assad and the Muslim Brotherhood had a relatively strong foothold there, according to Syrian government sources at the time, 200 armed men.

Assad wanted to set an example.

Starting February 2nd the town was put under siege and suffered severe military attacks (according to some sources including chemical weapons) resulting in anywhere from 20,000 - 40,000 civilian deaths, depending on the source. This of course included women, children and the elderly. Assad wanted to set an example and so he did. Today, his son still reigns Syria.

Read more about the Hama Massacre here and here.

While randomly strolling through some blogs I came across the “Angry Arab News Service”, which employs a typical technique in creating anti-Israeli propaganda, taking news out of context to the extreme without supplying sources. In this post the blog claims:

“Israel’s justice ministry is deciding whether to prosecute a hospital that held a newborn [Arab] baby for two months as a “guarantee” until a bill was paid.”

To which comments on Israel’s unfair laws towards Arabs of course follow.

The post is referring to this bit of news. In fact, the hospital in consideration of prosecution is an Arab hospital in east Jerusalem, and the decision to hold the baby was made by the manager of the hospital, also an Arab, in an attempt to secure payment against Israeli law. The Israeli ministry of Justice forced the Arab manager to release the baby.

It looks like the “Angry Arab News Service” feels it needs to completely disregard the facts in an attempt to twist Israel into the bad guy spot. Kind of makes you feel good, no?

In a clear answer to anyone advancing the “governmenment creates pragmatism” argument Khaled Mahal said: “Power is not our ultimate goal… if it becomes one, let power go to hell. It will not hold us back from our targets which we hold dear”

And what are those targets?

“Talks with Israel would be a waste of time”

“We and the Zionists have a date with destiny. If they want a fight… …we are for it to the end”