Yet more Arab lives were sacrificed over the weekend for the cause of keeping Bashar al Assad and his family in power. Only this time the Assad regime had Israeli troops do the killing.
Hundreds of Syrian Palestinians and their supporters arrived at the border with Israel in buses on Sunday. Syria is in military lockdown, with tanks parked in town centres and numerous checkpoints controlling what travels on the road.
The buses of protesters only reached the border area because authorities allowed them to. They may well have been organised by the regime or at the very least encouraged.
Once again it seems Palestinian men were being used as pawns by an Arab regime. In their 100s they marched towards the border despite strenuous warnings from Israeli soldiers. They were pinned down by live fire for hours in trenches the Israelis had dug ready for them.
Some were killed by Israeli gunfire, others by anti tank mines that exploded near Quneitra when a brush fire was started by Molotov cocktails.
The tragic events were carried live by Syrian state television in marked contrast to the cover up perpetrated by Syrian government media of the military offensive being waged against its own people inside the country that has killed hundreds.
State ‘journalists’ appeared to have recovered their ability to count bodies stating at least twenty had been killed
While the world watches the pictures from the Golan, it will be distracted from the bigger story, Syria’s slaughter of its own people and the gradual demise of the Assad regime.
Apparently Hama apparently Friday. At 00:58 man in plain clothes firing rifle alongside police
The regime’s cynical obstruction of the media means we have almost no pictures of the massacres carried out since Saturday in the east of Syria for instance.
Witnesses have confirmed Israeli troops issued warnings to the advancing Syrian Palestinians and initially fired over their heads.
There are no reports of such niceties being observed by Syrian snipers firing into crowds at a funeral in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour over the weekend. According to Syrian activists more than thirty have been killed by their own security forces in the east of Syria since Saturday.
Apparently Damascus, apparently Friday. Anti Assad protest in the Syrian capital.
Using Palestinians as pawns is one of a dwindling number of cards held by Bashar al Assad. Protests last week spread to parts of Damascus and Aleppo Syria’s two biggest cities so far relatively untouched by the unrest. He has other cards to play, each likely to be more desperate than the last.
Rami Makhlouf, a playboy billionaire crony of the president recently warned that Syria could cause instability on the borders of its neighbours. He should be taken at his word as this weekend’s events have shown.
