A very good and honest evaluation of the situation in Syria...

Caution, Curves Ahead

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

There are mounting reports that the U.S. is getting more deeply involved in supporting the Syrian rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad. There is a strong argument for everyone doing more to end the Syrian civil war before the Syrian state totally collapses and before its sectarian venom and refugees further destabilize Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. But I hope that before President Obama gets more deeply involved in Syria, he gets satisfactory answers to the following questions:

 

The uprising against Assad began on March 15, 2011. His downfall has been predicted every month since. Why has he been able to hold on so long? Russian and Iranian military aid certainly help, but so does the support he still enjoys in key communities. Assad’s Alawite minority sect, which has been ruling since 1970 and constitutes 12 percent of Syria’s 22 million population, believes that either they rule or they die at the hands of the country’s Sunni Muslim majority (74 percent). The Syrian Christians, who are 10 percent, and some secular Sunni Muslims, particularly merchants, have also thrown in their lot with Assad, because they believe that either he rules or chaos does. None of them believe the rebels can or will build a stable, secular, multisectarian democracy in Assad’s wake. Why do we think they are wrong?

      

What are Qatar’s and Saudi Arabia’s goals? Are we to believe that these two archrival Wahhabi fundamentalist monarchies, the two main funders and arms suppliers of the Syrian uprising, are really both interested in creating a multisectarian, multiparty democracy in Syria, which they would not tolerate in their own countries?

      

Syria’s rebels fall into three groups: those democrats who want to be free to be citizens in a country where everyone has the same rights; those who want to be free to be more Islamic; and those who want to be free to be more sectarian — to see Syria’s Sunni majority oust the ruling Alawite minority. Last week, Moaz al-Khatib, the president of the main Syrian opposition coalition, resigned. Khatib had pushed for talks with the Syrian regime, which many rebels reject. Who can reassure the Syrian Alawites or Christians that they will have a place in a post-Assad Syria, if the rebels can’t get along with one another?

      

The Lebanese civil war burned for 14 years. It was finally settled with the 1989 Taif peace accord, based on the principle “no victor, no vanquished.” It allowed Lebanon’s Christian minority to be “overrepresented” to reassure them that their interests would be protected in a future Lebanon. Although the Christians made up probably 35 percent of the population, they were given a 50-50 split with Lebanese Muslims in the Parliament. One cannot expect Syria’s Sunni majority, tens of thousands of whom have been slaughtered by Assad, to reach out overnight to the Alawites. In time, though, can we expect the rebels to guarantee a future for Alawites and Christians in Syria, which is the only way the state can remain intact? Or are we fine with the Alawites carving out their own homeland in Syria, the Sunnis taking the rest and the Christians moving to Canada?

      

The lesson of Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya is that the sooner you re-establish security, the more people are ready to think and act like citizens rather than sects or tribes. After Assad falls, who will mediate between the communities and militias inside Syria to bring order? Do we really believe that a post-Assad Syria, which doesn’t seem to have a Nelson Mandela, will be able on its own to build a multisectarian government to rule the whole country without a well-armed, boots-on-the-ground international force, blessed by the U.N. or Arab League, to act as a referee? And who in the Milky Way Galaxy wants that job?

      

My bottom line: We know what kind of Syria we’d like to see emerge, and we have a good idea of the terrible costs of not achieving that and the war continuing. But I don’t see a consensus inside Syria — or even inside the opposition — for the kind of multisectarian, democratic Syria to which we aspire. In this kind of situation, there are three basic options: We and some global coalition can invade Syria, as we did Iraq, sit on the parties and forge the kind of Syria we want. But that hasn’t succeeded in Iraq yet, at huge cost, and there is zero support for that in America. Forget it. We can try to contain the conflict by hardening Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, wait for the Syrian parties to get exhausted and then try to forge a cease-fire/power-sharing deal. Or we can let the war take its course with the certainty of more terrible killings, the likelihood of its spreading to neighboring states and the possibility of its leading to the fracturing of Syria into Sunni, Alawite and Kurdish mini-states.

      

I’m dubious that just arming “nice” rebels will produce the Syria we want; it could, though, drag us in in ways we might not want. But if someone can make the case that arming the secular-nationalist rebels increases the chances of forcing Assad and the Russians into a settlement, and defeating the Islamists rebels after Assad falls, I’m ready to listen.

      

This is the problem from hell. Sometimes the necessary and desirable are impossible, which is why I commend the president on his caution, up to now.

Egyptian mosque turned into house of torture for Christians after Muslim Brotherhood protest

Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear will only get worse.

 

Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators, some of whom were Muslim, say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members.

 

“They accompanied me to one of the mosques in the area and I discovered the mosque was being used to imprison demonstrators and torture them,” Amir Ayad, a Coptic who has been a vocal protester against the regime, told MidEast Christian News from a hospital bed.

 

Ayad said he was beaten for hours with sticks before being left for dead on a roadside. Amir’s brother, Ezzat Ayad, said he received an anonymous phone call at 3 a.m. Saturday, with the caller saying his brother had been found near death and had been taken to the ambulance.

 

“He underwent radiation treatment that proved that he suffered a fracture in the bottom of his skull, a fracture in his left arm, a bleeding in the right eye, and birdshot injuries,” Ezzat Ayad said.

Officials at the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque said radical militias stormed the building, in the Cairo suburb of Moqattam, after Friday prayers.

 

“[We] deeply regret what has happened and apologize to the people of Moqattam,” mosque officials said in a statement, adding that “they had lost control over the mosque at the time."

The statement also “denounced and condemned the violence and involving mosques in political conflicts.”

 

The latest crackdown is further confirmation that the Muslim Brotherhood’s most hard-line elements are consolidating control in Egypt, according to Shaul Gabbay, a professor of international studies at the University of Denver.

 

“It will only get worse,” said Gabbay. “This has been a longstanding conflict, but now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in power, it is moving forward to implement its ideology – which is that Christians are supposed to become Muslims.

 

“There is no longer anything to hold them back,” he continued. “The floodgates are open.”

Gabbay said the violent militias that allegedly tortured Ayad work hand-in-hand with police and may, in fact, be beyond the control of increasingly unpopular President Mohammed Morsi. While he may benefit from roving bands that attack demonstrators, they also undermine his claim of being a legitimate leader.

 

“Egyptian society is split over the Morsi regime, and it is not just a Coptic-Muslim split,” Gabbay said. “The less conservative elements of the Muslim society are increasingly uneasy with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Christian Copts are an easy target, but they are not alone in their mistrust of the Brotherhood.”

 

Experts agreed that the Copts, who comprise roughly 10 percent of the nation’s 83 million people, are not alone in their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, which took power in hotly contested elections following the 2011 ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak. Moderate Muslims and secular liberals are increasingly uncomfortable with the Islamization of the government.  

Sheikh Ahmed Saber, a well-known imam and official in Egypt’s Ministry of Endowments, has blasted Morsi’s justice ministry for allowing persecution of Copts.

 

“All Egyptians in general are oppressed, but Christians are particularly oppressed, because they suffer double of what others suffer,” Saber told MCN.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/26/egyptian-mosque-turned-into-house-torture-for-christians-after-muslim/#ixzz2OoHVGrvJ

Visit to an ancient Russian Orthodox Church

 

This weekend I went to an Armenian Evangelical Church in the town of Stepanavan by the Georgian border for Palm Sunday.  Of course, the sermon was in Armenian but I could grasp the main ideas.  A couple young girls passed out greens to the congregation and people waved them as we sang hymns.

 

In the afternoon, I went to a tiny village near Stepanavan and found this old church.  It is a Russian Orthodox Church as you can see, especially from the design of the steeples.  Unfortunately, it is all locked up and is falling apart like many of the oldest and most beautiful churches in Armenia.  I don't know why but I was fascinated by this church.  I just kept walking around and around.  I wonder what it might have been like in that church on a Palm Sunday morning hundreds of years ago.

Update from priest in Aleppo, Syria

Report on Tragedies Facing Syrian Christians             

Update Circulation from Metropolitan Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim
Aleppo – Syria
February 20, 2013
Christians in Syria Facing a New Unexpected Tragedy
The New Development in Madinat Al-THAWRA (al- Tabqa city)

 

The painfully unfolding events in Syria reflect badly on the deterioration in the security situation everywhere.

For us in Aleppo, security issues are steadily going from bad to worse in all areas, in addition to severe shortages of electricity, water, fuel and basic food materials such as bread. If or when these essentials become available, their prices will rise alarmingly beyond the affordable range for a normal Syrian citizen.

This in addition to the fact that universities, schools, churches, mosques and most infrastructures have been paralyzed, deserted and lost function. Such a reduced state has become expected in Aleppo and most other Syrian cities.

The major and most dangerous phenomenon which has greatly affected the Christian presence in the city of Aleppo is immigration of Christians and seeking refuge in safer cities of neighboring countries, especially Lebanon. Many families have managed to reach Europe, particularly Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. With the current deterioration of security and employment, no one can predict when these families will ever return back to their homes and what we are experiencing is a one way exodus!

The emigration of Christians out of Syria is the most important issue that will affect Christian presence in the Middle East. We cannot confirm that what appears to be a systematic forced displacement, which is experienced by Christians in the region for years, is actually linked to any new geopolitical scheme for the region. Otherwise, Christians may have become a mere demographic surplus that had to be dealt with in such a ruthless manner. Palestine was the first to suffer from immigration of Christians, followed by Iran, then Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and now Syria.

Where can Christians go? Each country has a particular orientation. For Iraq, the United Nations and some churches have contributed to absorb the influx of Iraqi immigrants in North America and Europe, especially Sweden, then Germany, Holland, Austria and Belgium came second in welcoming Syrian families. However, the USA has imposed visa clearance on Syrian immigrants.

The Humanitarian Crisis of Christians in Al-THAWRA City:

The Recent development in our Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo, is that, a few days ago, hundreds of Christian families, who lived for years in the tranquility Al-THAWRA City on the bank of the Euphrates, suffered forced displacement under the fear and anxiety from the fierce fighting in this city. A few families are still trapped there as they could not leave their homes and manage to survive anywhere else for economic reasons. We have been informed by the priest in charge of al-Thawra city , that more than 80 families left the city overnight.

The Syrian Orthodox families have lived in al-Thawra city since its foundation in the 1960s as a service town for the construction of a major dam on the Euphrates. The government helped in offering cheap housing to those families whose members became part of the work force of the dam. Owing to the low salaries given to employees of the dam and the lack of employment in other industries of that city, these families could not develop themselves economically. Depriving those workers and their families from their livelihood and compelling them to immigrate is a major dilemma for these families and for the church.

The human crisis in Al-Thawra is heart breaking and causes us great anxiety and helplessness for two reasons:

First, due to the hazardous situation on the road we cannot reach these destitute families, and due to battlefield conditions, sniping and kidnapping, it has become very difficult and dangerous to move within the same city let alone travel between cities. Adding to that, there are many difficulties in communication. As a result of the sporadic nature of communication by telephones, and internet, communication has become a time consuming, frustrating and futile task.

Second, Most of these families are under great economic pressure because they lost everything they had: their humble houses, the schools they used to send their children to, the employment of their bread winner and their livelihood. Now, by no fault of their own, they have found themselves having to leave their houses overnight and became destitute, in need of food, clothing, medicine and shelter. There is a growing anxiety due to lack of security and the spiraling economic situation in the country which has never had a welfare system to cushion such calamities. Such burdens have all been left on the church’s shoulders. These are the escalating predicaments that we have found ourselves in because of this ruthless and seemingly endless conflict.

We are advocates of peace, and are working with all sides in order to keep this heinous war, that has flared uncontrollably in our homeland Syria, at bay. We cry loudly: “Enough is enough; we are totally exhausted and cannot continue.” Tragic events have relegated us to the ambiguity of the unknown, we cannot see a glimpse of a solution on the horizon coming from inside or from outside. Who should we turn our heads to? Who is going to be instrumental in terminating this mayhem, who is capable of lifting this conspirator yoke which is strangling us?

We are gratefully indebted to all those who have extended their kind generous hands to us, enabling us to help and assist our people in their hours of genuine need and support through our assistance to others. We appeal to you and hope that everybody, especially believers in God, will intensify their prayers to stop the war of attrition. We really are fatigued and all we wish for is to stop the bloodshed that is happening today in the streets of Syria, bring about security and peace, so that humanitarian aid can reach the population who is in desperate need for it all over Syria. Then we too can sincerely co-operate to reconstruct and restore our country in milieu of security, peace and stability.

Syria used to boast an exemplary co-existence between all religions and creeds, and we hope to keep this image in mind, and work to establish and regain that old order and re-usher Syria to its position among countries of the world where safety and stability is a common denominator.

 

America faces a changed Middle East by Rami G. Khouri (Daily Star Lebanon)

Much of the discussion in the U.S. about President Barack Obama’s trip to the Middle East next week centers around whether he will initiate any new diplomatic moves on Arab-Israeli peacemaking, and what he might say about Iran and the continuing Arab uprisings. It is also worth viewing the visit from the perspective of the Middle East itself, where perceptions of the United States and its actions in the region are very mixed, and largely negative.

 

The latest Gallup polling study released a few days ago shows that in 30 foreign countries the median approval rating of U.S. policies dropped to 41 percent in 2012, from 49 percent in 2009. In Europe it dropped from 42 percent to 36 percent. The highest disapproval rates were in the Middle East and South Asia, reaching over 75 percent in Pakistan and Palestine. The highest approval rating in the region was 54 percent, in Libya.

 

Conclusion: People judge the United States by its policies, not its rhetoric or values. Also, disapproval of U.S. policies is not a peculiarly Arab or Middle Eastern problem, but a worldwide phenomenon. So we should not ask what Obama’s country can do for us, but rather how we and the world view the U.S. and the consequences of its foreign policies.

 

I would make four basic points in this regard. This is a historic moment of change in our region, when most Arabs are trying to transform dictatorships into democracies, and the U.S. is reformulating some of its policies (such as retreating from Iraq and Afghanistan). Change, danger and opportunity are in the air in U.S.-Mideast relations, and we must grasp the strands of each of these three elements in order to use the ongoing change to exploit positive opportunities and reduce dangers.

 

The second point is that such a comprehensive analysis of change, danger and opportunity can only be credible and useful if it starts from the assumption that any country’s foreign policies should mutually and simultaneously address the legitimate interests and basic needs of all parties in the region – Americans, Arabs, Israelis, Iranians, Turks or others. A policy like attacking Iraq or threatening Iran that mainly focuses on American and Israeli interests – these two often mesh into a single dynamic in Washington – will not prove sustainable in the long run.

 

The U.S. has not mastered the diplomatic craft of shaping policies that acknowledge the core interests of all concerned, and that thus could lead to win-win outcomes. This is why its mediation in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations since 2003 has consistently failed, and why diplomatic engagement with Iran only started to make small advances in Kazakhstan last week after the U.S. and its Western partners offered a package of moves that addressed the concerns and rights of both sides.

 

My third point is that the U.S., or any other actor in the region, needs to appreciate more maturely the differences and relationships among the four components of any foreign policy: interests, values, rhetoric and policy actions. In recent years – and the self-congratulatory moralistic bombast has not changed appreciably from one American administration to another – the U.S. has tended to use rhetoric to emphasize its own values and interests, which it affirms through disproportionate use of militarism and aggressive diplomacy. The policies on the ground should ideally reflect the values that are so eloquently articulated by American leaders, and admired around the world. However, U.S. foreign policies often contradict those stated values. In other words the U.S. wages wars to fight terrorism, but those wars turn out to be the single most powerful generator of new terrorist recruits in this generation.

 

The fourth point I would make is that any foreign country that reassesses its policies in the Middle East must reckon with a region that is now far more complex and volatile than it was during the previous several generations, when Arab-Israeli issues, the Cold War and energy access were the main policy drivers. Today the Middle East is defined by the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran’s regional roles, the Arab democratic uprisings, the wreckages in Iraq and Afghanistan, the impact of new actors such as Turkey, the Gulf Cooperation Council states, China, and numerous Arab Islamists, the threats of terrorism and weapons proliferation and also of weak or collapsing states, severe socio-economic disparities within and among countries, the new ideological cold war across the region, and the amazing impact of new digital technologies in the hands of emboldened young youths who no longer fear their authoritarian regimes, occupying and colonizing Zionists, or invading and threatening Western armies.

 

Any foreign power’s policy in the Middle East must weave together how these many domains influence each other, and, especially, how much these conditions reflect the consequences of those policies. In my next column I will analyze whether U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in recent decades has contributed to these complex conditions that define the Middle East today.

Portraits of Syrian Rebels and Their Weapons of Choice

by Amanda Gorence on February 14, 2013

 

Kachadur Manukian, 25: “They killed my mother and father. I will kill them with my knife. I will kill them like I would kill a goat.”

Late last year, during a particularly bad day of fighting between the Free Syrian Army and the Assad regime, a band of rebels took refuge in the basement of an abandoned factory building in Aleppo. They had just lost two men and were in desperate need of more supplies and more fighters.
As we all waited for the shelling to stop, I discovered a small hole in one of the factory walls. With that opening providing our only light, I photographed many of the rebels, each with the single item they claimed was the most crucial in their struggle against the government.—Sebastiano Tomada Piccolomini

Sebastiano Tomada Piccolomini is a photojournalist based in NYC and the Middle East known for his work in conflict zones. What They Bring to Battle is a powerful portrait of Syrian rebels and their favored weapons; a series rendered more intense through the glimpses revealed.

Ahmed Alsayin, 29: “I would go crazy without my phone. My fiancée expects me to call her once a day.”


Abou Abdou, 25: “I’m in charge of our bombs. I make them, I dismantle them, and I use the enemy’s own artillery to kill them. I like bombs because they tickle my ears when they explode. It’s a nice feeling.”


Hamzi Hama, 27: “All I can carry is my weapon and the clothes I wear. I don’t have time for other belongings. I don’t even carry my wallet anymore; what can I buy?”


Aiman Swade, 31: “I am the leader of these fighters. My radio is what I carry with me all the time. It’s how I organize and direct operations. Besides that, I carry my family’s memories. They all died in Al Bab.”


Abdoullah, 21: “This PK machine gun. It’s big, it’s loud, and it’s always jamming.”


Moussen Alawi, 25: “I’m in charge of the artillery. I carry our mortar rounds. They look like flowers.”


Youssef, 28: “My homemade grenades. I am the only one in our group able to build them. The guys like me for that. It’s my mark, and I want to leave one.”


Omar Fattah, 29: “Before the war, my father gave me this custom-made AK-47 machine gun. I will bring it back to him once we have defeated the regime.”


Isham, 19: “Cigarettes.”


Salam Hassani, 23: “Bullets. Without them I am powerless. Without them I cannot make my family and comrades proud. Without them I will die.”


Isham Kijaje, 30: “I always carry my RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]. The commanders told me it would be my duty.”

Report details dire plight of Syrian children (Al Jazeera)

 

 



An international childrens' rights organisation has released a report highlighting the severe plight of Syrian children during the country's two-year conflict.

UK-based Save the Children said on Wednesday that at least two million children in the country face malnutrition, disease, early marriage and severe trauma.

It said a substantial number of youth have been shot at, raped and tortured.


"This a war where woman and children are the biggest casualty," Save the Children's chief Justin Forsyth told the Reuters news agency in Lebanon, where 340,000 Syrians have fled to.
The Save the Children report cited new research carried out among refugee children by Bahcesehir University in Turkey which found that one in three reported having been punched, kicked or shot at.

Forsyth said he met one child who said he was in a prison cell with 150 people, including 50 children.
"He was taken out every day and put in a giant wheel and burnt with cigarettes. He was 15. The trauma that gives a child is devastating."

Rapes under-reported

The report also said two-thirds of children surveyed said that they had been separated from members of their families due to the conflict and a third said they had experienced the death of a close friend or family member.
"All these children tell you these stories in a matter of fact way and then you realise that there are layers and layers of emotional trauma there," said Forsyth.
Forsythe said he met a Syrian refugee boy, 12, who saw his best friend killed outside a bakery.

In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

.
"In most conflicts, over 50 percent of rapes are against children. And I am sure that is the case in this conflict too."
Nicole Itano, a spokesperson for Save the Children, said conditions in refugee camps housing displaced Syrians were dire.
"Schools are closed down; food is running out [and] water is making people very, very sick because it's dirty, because the sanitation system has broken down," she told Al Jazeera.
"So these children, these families come across the border - it's an incredibly dangerous journey - and then they reach here and they're exhausted, scared and hungry and they're ending up in camps."
Fear of sexual violence was repeatedly cited to Save the Children as one of the main reasons for families fleeing their
homes, according to the report.

Syria's Internally Displaced Grow Desperate Saad Basir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bab-al-Salam camp, Syria - As darkness descends on the dreary refugee camp bordering Turkey, hungry residents queue for the daily distribution of meagre rations.

Displaced Syrians wait in the long line with tin and plastic containers, hoping those dishing out food will provide enough to feed their families.

Shortages of all kinds of supplies, particularly food and fuel, are common throughout Syria and in this muddy camp near the city of Azaz - 400 kilometres directly north of Damascus - it is no different. The situation at Bab-al-Salam has steadily deteriorated.

"We are watching a humanitarian tragedy unfold before our eyes." - Valerie Amos, UN humanitarian chief

Immersed in a bitter winter cold, the people have become increasingly destitute, desperate and impatient as the nearly two-year-old civil war rages on. Syrians in the north have been largely cut off from international aid. The United Nations refugee agency only reached rebel-held Azaz for the first time in the past few weeks.

About four million people in Syria need assistance, including some two million who are internally displaced, the United Nations said this week. An estimated 70,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011. The conflict has become a bloody stalemate, with no end in sight to the suffering.  

"We are watching a humanitarian tragedy unfold before our eyes," the UN's humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told reporters this week in Geneva. "We are not reaching enough of those who require our help. Limited access in the north is a problem that can only solved using alternative methods of aid delivery."

Relying on rebels

Muhammad, who asked that his real name not be used for fear of government reprisal, is a representative of A'asif al-Shamal, or The North Storm rebel militia that operates the camp outside of Azaz. He said while the cold weather has intensified, fuel prices have quadrupled in northern areas in just one month.  

"Supplies such as flour, milk, diapers, blankets are required … People in this camp are having to buy wood or cut down trees just to stay warm," Muhammad said.

Aid donors such as Turkish NGO IHH and the Qatari government have provided food and tents to the camp. Better off Syrian citizens are also donating money, allowing the rebel militia to buy supplies from Turkey, but the funding is inadequate, camp leaders say.

Internally displaced Syrians trudge through the muddy ground amid the round white tents that house the 2,500 residents here in the crude, improvised village.

Rubbish is littered across the peripheries, and children vigorously try to sell chocolate biscuits and cigarette lighters to help their families financially. Men collect firewood to fend off the nightly sub-zero temperatures.

The Bab-al-Salam camp near Turkey [Saad Basir/Al Jazeera]

The sound of the afternoon call to prayer echoes through the camp, as the smoke from dozens of cherished fires hangs in the air, stinging the eyes.

The camp is less than 100 metres from the Syrian border with Turkey, and is home to residents of the main financial city Aleppo, Azaz and northern rural areas. Most have been denied entry into Turkey or are financially unable to make the journey and sustain their families there.

"People keep coming here because of the bombings and shelling in Azaz by [President Bashar] al-Assad," said Muhammad. "The regime has bombed hospitals in Azaz, which is very near here. They said they wanted to target a rebel commander, but he was in Turkey and many civilians were killed instead."

An UN-mandated commission released a report on Monday that found both sides of the conflict were committing war crimes, though it said government forces carried more blame.

Assad's regime has labeled its opponents "terrorists" who are funded and backed by the West, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The threat of attack by Assad's forces is a constant reality as fighter jets and helicopter gunships fly overhead, plunging the camp into chaos.

Abu Bahar - who also asked that his real name not be used for fear of retaliation - fled from Aleppo. He sits on a plastic chair outside his tent, pensively counting prayer beads.

"My brother and father were taken by Bashar paramilitary groups five months ago, so we had to leave our home," said Bahar. "They also took 50,000 Syrian pounds [US$700]. My father has come back, but my brother is still with them."

He said peace between the warring factions is the only thing that will end the suffering. "We have no electricity, no food but I don't want these things. I want peace. With peace our problems will go away. We don't have to worry."

Bahar said he does not know when or how political reconciliation would play out. He only wants to reclaim his life and have some control over the future of his family.

The young exposed

In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

Another camp resident, who identified himself as Saif, prepares firewood by smashing a boulder into tree branches he's collected. His eight-month-old son died in October amid the biting cold and lack of food.

"He was my only child. What was his crime?" he asked.

When the Assad regime is mentioned, Saif thrusts his chin to the sky and sharply pulls his index finger across his throat and curses.

Saif claimed to be a fighter in the insurgency, but that's impossible to verify. Many young men from Syria's north have joined the ranks of the Free Syrian Army rebels, even though lots volunteer for non-combat roles.

The Syrians gathered at the Bab-al-Salam camp are surviving as best they can, like thousands of others languishing along the northern border.  Assad's government has refused permission for the UN to bring aid supplies across the Turkish border, because northern Syria is largely controlled by rebel fighters.

However, three more international aid agencies - Mercy Corps, NRC and Merlyn - were recently given the green light by the Syrian government to start relief operations in the country, bringing the total to 11.

But Amos, the UN's humanitarian aid official, said that's not enough. She again this week asked Assad's regime to allow UN aid workers access through Turkey.

"I have spoken to the [Syrian] government on a number of occasions about allowing us to bring in supplies across that border. My last conversation with them was yesterday [Monday]. The answer remains 'no'," Amos said. 

A Poem for Spring by Gabrielle Worley

When I walk
I can feel that we are too heavy
Quietly, the earth bends her back
Beneath the weight of things
Too weary to watch
As men cast their fishing lines into sky
Shove stars into pockets
Steal and sell
What is left of her

 Men have captured waters

And winds

Drawn lines across forests and mountains and deserts

War is so simple
And so loud

Listen
The ground is trying to breathe again

 Overhead, birds flap into formation

And the monarch is on its way home

A fluttering mass of delicate orange wings

 The frozen lake moans and opens itself up

fields forgive the fire

and the heavy snow
and the farmer

This is where God’s order may be seen
not in highways and laws and currency
but in the things we haven’t touched

In our willingness to collapse
So that the body may be rebuilt
with something stronger

 There is nothing wrong with breaking

With turning up palms to find

that your hands are empty

This is where the wildflowers grow

Where we can hear the wind coming
before we can feel it
and we begin to see God
everywhere

 

Justice Toward the Immigrant

By Ken Wytsma

 

I am a first-generation American. My dad, Johannes Wytsma, was born in Holland during World War II and later immigrated to the United States. It took most of my life, but he eventually shared the stories of that era with me. He told me how my grandfather, in order to avoid Nazi capture, had to dress up as a woman throughout 1944 and ride a bike over 20 miles to get food for his family and pregnant wife. He told of how they survived by eating tulip bulbs and potato skins discarded by German soldiers.

 

Even if our history as immigrants stretches back farther, nearly all of us come from families who were, at some point, strangers in a strange land. And in a broader sense, all Christians are travelers and exiles, no matter which country claims their earthly citizenship, because we recognize that earth is not our eternal home. We, like the Israelites, are a people of exile. I Peter 2:11 reminds us, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul."

 

The themes of sojourning and pilgrimage are deeply embedded in Christian theology and spirituality. It is also why empathy and the discipline of remembrance are so important in scripture. No other time of year on the Christian calendar carves out remembrance better than Lent. While the intention of these 40 days of Lent is to remember Christ's death, the tradition of remembrance begins on the Old Testament.

 

More than a half dozen times in Deuteronomy, God calls the Israelites to remember they were slaves once too. Remembering helps us empathize. While the word "sympathy" is more concerned with sharing someone's suffering, the word "empathy" connotes a strong identification with another's suffering. Empathy comes from the Greek en (in) and pathos (suffering) and literally means to enter into the pain and experience of the other.

 

That's one reason my friend Jenny's work is so vital. Jenny Yang is the Director of Advocacy and Policy for the Refugee and Immigration Program at World Relief. She travels around the country, engaging churches and other groups to study what Scripture says about empathy and solidarity for the vulnerable in our society. She reminds Christians that their own stories are often not so different from the immigrant stories they may encounter in their communities.

 

"Immigrants are all around us," says Jenny, "whether a recently resettled refugee who left home due to persecution, an undocumented immigrant who cuts your lawn, or an immigrant family in your neighborhood who's been living in the United States for many years."

 

She helps connect people to the biblical narrative which itself is filled with immigrants -- the stories of Abraham, Rebekah, Joseph, Ruth, Daniel, and even Jesus, who fled to Egypt as a child and was later a returning refugee.

 

When I asked Jenny why empathy is so essential, she said, "Immigrants often leave everything behind, and have little in terms of resources or friends in their new homes. Justice is not only about seeking to correct root causes of injustice; it's also about building just relationships with those in your community who can often be marginalized and forgotten. This can start with a simple conversation with someone who is foreign born as you get to know their story. Empathy is a necessary part of our Christian faith because in showing empathy, we recognize that the grace we receive from God is unmerited and unconditional -- and therefore we should love unconditionally those around us, particularly the vulnerable. Scripture is clear about God's affinity for the vulnerable -- as in Zechariah 7:10, which says, "Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other" -- and I'm hopeful that we can learn to practice this, for in the end, I believe the immigrant, the refugee, can be any of us.

 

Immigration is a hot-button issue in America today that often evokes powerful negative emotions rather than the attitude Scripture teaches of loving or empathizing with the alien or foreigner. One of the statistics that drives home both the messiness as well as the human side surrounding the realities of immigration is that there are currently more than 5,000 children in the foster care system in the United States whose parents have been deported or are being detained. Each of those children had one or two parents -- until the day they became virtual orphans. Regardless of my opinions about the specific policies and life choices that result in those separations, my empathy now extends to imagine a child who may never be reunited with his or her parents.

 

Can you imagine yourself in a foster home, separated from your parents, and having no certainty of seeing them again? I believe God wants our hearts to be affected by the same things that affect His. Empathy has a central role to play in helping us to be in concert with God's concerns: regardless of our public, political stance on a particular justice issue (of which immigration is only a single example), our personal attitude toward the people involved must be characterized by godly love and grace.

 

Sometimes I find myself becoming more comfortable with categories or labels than with the people behind them. That's when I need to remember. That's when I need empathy to move me past the labels and connect me again with the human story and with God's call to love and stand with the vulnerable.

Letter from a pastor in Aleppo

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Since my last mail to you nearly 10 days ago, the situation continued to get worse.

 A fight started again in the same area close to ours, which is called Ashrafyyeh, many left their homes escaping from a heavy fight. At least I can tell about three families who attend our church, and they are from the majority background, they left their homes too, one of them came to this area as a refugee from another area, so this is their second move! – of course there are other believers there and I think they left the area too. One of these three families is living now with their relatives, about 20 people in one room!

Thursday morning, I went to see the area and check if our brothers and sisters went back to their homes, in the middle of the trip a bullet from a sniper fell few centimeters from me, which obliged me to return.

I also cancelled a plan to visit Damascus and Beirut for a few days after bad news on Monday 11th, about two [Christians] kidnapped just 20 kilometers out of Aleppo... Kidnapping Christians on the highway from Aleppo – Homs is now a real and daily dangerous thing. At the same time threatening Christians to kill them or telling them about he introduction of Islamic “Sharia” Law is now daily in the opposition news, and advising Christians to prepare themselves for the new Islamic regime which will control the country. They are dreaming and planning to make Syria like Afghanistan!

 During these last 10 days, we spent 4 days completely without electricity, while in the building where our church is, we finished our 2nd week without electricity, and in another area, where some of our church families life they are today reaching the end of their 3rd week, without electricity at all!

 How can I explain our daily life? Very slow and empty. I described it in my last article as a windmill making nothing but noise and a bad smell.

Thank you for your prayers; it is the key for our perseverance in these conditions.

 

From a pastor in Aleppo

 

Syria-Lebanon Synod struggles to meet humanitarian needs as war rages

by Bethany Daily
and Jerry Van Marter
Presbyterian News Service

Louisville -- Mary Mikhael is in the United States to spread the word about how the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon is responding to the violence and turmoil in Syria.

But when she’s tried to get updates from U.S. media here, she hasn’t learned much.

“You hardly have news about this situation,” she said in a Feb. 20 interview with Presbyterian News Service.

Mikhael, who retired as president of Beirut’s Near East School of Theology in late 2011, will spend three weeks in the United States meeting with Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders, schools and congregations to share updates on how the PC(USA) partner church is ministering to those in the region.

She will cut a wide swath during her visit, traveling to Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky and Washington, D.C. before returning to her Beirut home March 8.

Congregations in Syria — where two Presbyterian churches have been destroyed — are working with internally displaced persons (IDPs) to provide spiritual care and worship services. One pastor came to Homs after the Presbyterian church there had been destroyed. He is now leading weekly services from a church-related nursing home nearby. He then travels to another town to lead worship for IDPs there and meets with other clusters of Presbyterians in the area.

The church is also working to provide financial aid and food, clothing and medicine to IDPs. Though exact figures are impossible to calculate, an estimated 1 million Syrians are internally displaced in the country.

“Churches have been heavily involved in helping people with daily needs plus helping them spiritually,” Mikhael said. “Many have lost everything. They thought the conflict would be over in weeks or a month ― now it’s been more than a year,” she added with a deep sigh.

A chief concern for the church is encouraging Christians to stay in Syria. Many have fled to other countries, but it is important for Syria to maintain a Christian population, Mikhael said.

“We cannot empty Syria of its Christian community,” she said. “Christianity existed in Syria ever since Pentecost and it would be a sin for it to be emptied.”

The Synod of Syria and Lebanon has provided $50,000 of its own money to help its displaced members and has also received aid from the PC(USA) and The Outreach Foundation, among other partners and international agencies.

“No church — no church ever — can carry this responsibility on its own in the Middle East,” Mikhael said, adding that “you cannot say ‘no’ to the displaced people of your church under any circumstances.”

More than 350,000 Syrian refugees have poured into Lebanon since the Syrian crisis began. Lebanese society is divided about whether to provide aid to these refugees, Mikhael said. Some want to close the undefined borders between the two countries and some want to provide help as Syria helped Lebanese refugees in the past. But Lebanon is already overwhelmed with refugees.

“We cannot even properly care for the refugees from Palestine who have been here many years,” Mikhael said. “The churches were expecting many Christians from Syria to come to Lebanon and they were trying to find ways to respond to their needs.”

Interfaith work exists in Lebanon to some degree, but faiths are largely concentrated on helping their own members, she said.

Violence is violence, and no participant in a war is pure, Mikhael said. But the situation in Syria has brought a kind of criminal and brutal violence that is unimaginable. Children are being trained to kill, innocent civilians are being murdered and bodies are being dismembered and thrown in rivers, she said.

“The Syrian situation is very tragic because the whole world seems not to understand that Syrians have not been brought up this way,” she said. “Christians have historically fared well in secular Syria, where we have a saying, ‘Religion belongs to God, the country belongs to all.’”

Before the conflict erupted two years ago, Syrians lived securely and in peace. Their world was not perfect, but they were able to hold jobs and function in society while steering clear of the government.

“It was free for us to do what we need to do as Christians,” Mikhael said.

But now, Syrians — whose country once hosted refugees from around the region — are refugees themselves, living in camps where they are subjected to violence, rape and bitter cold.

“It has been very difficult, to say the least,” she said. “It’s a very big burden on everyone’s shoulders. It is a tragic situation in the proper sense.”

For Mikhael, having one side in the conflict win over the other is not the answer. She hopes that government and anti-government forces can come together and arrive at an agreement.

“I say 100 times no to [Syrian president] Assad. We are not in love with Assad. We are in love with the country. But if he is forced out without a political solution it will be loose hell in Syria,” she said. “We must plan the future together.

“We cry for peace and justice and international help and for people to come and sit together and dialogue,” she said. “Nowhere else have so many taken sides. We now speak of war ‘on’ Syria, not war ‘in’ Syria. Why do so many wage criminal activity in the name of God, with tons of money coming from other countries?”

The Synod of Syria and Lebanon is asking its partners for prayer, solidarity, partnership and the promotion of peace and justice.

“We must understand the root causes of evil practices and work as churches to uproot them,” she said. “Unless we know the root causes, we can really be unjust ourselves.”

To contribute to relief efforts in Syria-Lebanon through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, click here.