A festival of hypocrisy
Op-ed: Guy Bechor explains world’s continued silence in face of Assad massacre in Syria
So what’s going on in Syria? All is well, thanks for asking; people are being butchered as usual. And what is the world saying about it? The world is rolling its eyes to the heavens and pretends that 5,000 Syrians have not been murdered already, that tens of thousands were not wounded, and that tens of thousands were not detained by their own regime.
Why was an international coalition forged vis-à-vis the Gaddafi regime? Because the world said Gaddafi is shooting his own citizens. And what exactly is Assad doing? He has undertaken worse actions, bombarding his own citizens using battleships. Yet in this case, disconcerting silence prevails.
A coalition of dark interests allows Bashar al-Assad to act as he wishes – and he knows it. The biggest hypocrites are his Turkish neighbors, of course. Turkey’s prime minister constantly slams Israel over the nine people killed on board the Marmara, but apparently has little to say about the 5,000 people killed in Syria. Turkey has the longest border with Syria, and for a few months now the Turks are pretending to grant Assad “a final opportunity,” yet in practice they are safeguarding his regime.
The Turks are scared of a Syrian vacuum that will come at their expense. Every week, Turkish soldiers are being killed by the Kurdish underground, and the Turks fear that the Kurds will be killing their soldiers on both sides of the Syrian border.
As opposed to the reports and assessments we are hearing, it does not appear that the Turks intend to intervene in Syria militarily. That would prompt an entanglement vis-à-vis Syria’s main supporter, Iran, which does not hide its public endorsement of the murderous regime in Damascus. Another state that maintains its silence is the Shiite Iraq, which views Syria’s Alawites as close associates.
UN lost its raison d’être
So who else supports Assad’s regime? The Arab League. The one that rushes to complain against Israel at the UN Security Council over every tiny violation in Gaza, while allowing an Arab regime to butcher its own people with no interruptions. There is no longer any justification for the existence of the Arab League, which is preoccupied with one thing: Trying to embarrass Israel. The several Arab ambassadors recalled from Damascus are no more than lip service.
And who else is turning a blind eye to events in Syria? Russia, which protects Assad because of the modern, expensive dock it built at the Syrian port of Tartus. Russia needs a home base in the Mediterranean, yet as its fleet can dock in Israel too there is no need to support Assad.
The UN, which is also incapable of averting the mass carnage, has lost its raison d’être. After all, this institution was established in order to prevent new holocausts and further extermination in the wake of World War II. The UN is not even capable of issuing a condemnation of Syria.
Finally, we have President Barack Obama’s Administration. It was Obama who virtually forced a new US ambassador to return to Syria, while portraying Assad as an American ally. This showed complete failure to understand regional realities. To this day, the US has not recalled its envoy from Damascus, thereby continuing to legitimize Assad’s terrible regime of oppression.
Of course, the greatest hypocrisy being exposed at this time is that of the Syrian regime itself, which did not spare insults, incitement and lies against Israel; a tyrannical regime that pretended to be a human rights champion, while falsely portraying Israel’s democracy as a tyranny. At least this is one mask we can remove in the hypocritical global festival surrounding the ailing Syria.
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