Jerusalem: Divided….Never, Shared…Forever, by Jamil Shawwa

In an expose last Sunday on the CBS 60 Minutes program, Leslie Stahl, one of the program anchors, went to Jerusalem and to Silwan, adjacent to the city, and interviewed people managing the City of David project, a tunnel that the owners of the project say that David, the divine prophet, had his city in while in Jerusalem or it is the old city of Jerusalem, the biblical one that David built and lived in. The project is sponsored and owned by “EL-AD” an investment group based in the State of Israel with global offices; very successful team. The expose was not about the tunnel or the benefits of this project to people and tourism and the enhancements that it could bring to the City of Jerusalem, although the Mayor of Jerusalem, correctly and cleverly so, have focused on the financial and tourism benefits of the project. The whole focus was on as Leslie Stahl put it, the division of the city and the rights of both people, the Palestinians and the Israelis to the historic city that is cherished by the followers of all three divine religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The El-AD project manager focused on the religious dimensions to the tunnel and the Palestinian speaker, that 60 Minutes chose to represent the Palestinian side was a local resident of Silwan the city by the city with majority residents of Palestinians, chose to blast the project and act as victim rather than showing vision or practical solutions- I only saw anger on the Palestinian side, I did not see empowerment or solutions. The whole discussion was fruitless in my opinion, as I mentioned it focused on a moot issue that no one discusses anymore, which is the division of the city, the focus should have been though, in my opinion, about the future solution, the only solution for Jerusalem, which is the sharing of the city among it’s residents and the sharing of the city among the two states that will have Jerusalem as their capital; The State of Israel and the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza. I personally do not mind the project, the City of David, and I looked at it from the point of view of Mayor Nir Barkat of Jerusalem, that it is good for tourism. Now, of course such projects usually involve the local residents, and need to have their opinions and their involvement- City Hall discussion. The City of David might end up after the final solution either shared by both the Israelis and the Palestinians exactly like the Eurotunnel between France and England or it could fall under one authority, either way, it should be preserved and in the process, preserve and maintain all the holly sites in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem of tomorrow.

The Killer and His Accomplices----Al-Assad and the Syrians…by Jamil Shawwa

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       The stories coming from Syria are horrifying, terrifying and exceed all imaginative and unimaginative terror that many of us humans knew about Al-Ba’ath party and the criminals that run Syria now. Boys, girls and children in the streets are being killed and being kidnapped, mothers crying their loved ones and the stories go on and on. It has been an endless nightmare since 1963.  This the gratitude Al-Assad is providing the Syrians for allowing him to stay in power for generations, for allowing him to turn the Syrians into the worst in the Middle East, and making them ashamed of calling themselves Syrians. Al-Assad killed the Syrian mind and personality and turned his people into machines and mouthpieces for his sick propaganda, using his own sick logic and living and breathing conspiracy theories against Syria. What conspiracy and for what; Syria now is nothing, it is not a threat to anybody, it has no political weight, and it has nothing to do with the Palestinians or the Lebanese, The Golan Heights will wait until a democratic Syria is formed, no one needs Al-Assad anymore, his services are no longer attractive and his price is no longer a bargain, and he has no talents to bargain to start with. But Al-Assad is not alone, he has accomplices, has partners in the crime, he has the Syrian people. If you listen and hear many of them, you feel how they have been brainwashed; everything around them, in their mind is about conspiracy theories and metaphorical nonsense. They talk like him, they inject in their conversations, these illogical, sick minded challenging concepts and theories, trying to show logic or a trend in something that is so bizarre and so chaotic.  The face of Syria is a fascist, destructive, divisive face; it is the face of the propaganda machine of Al-Assad. I want to hear the voice of the Syrians, the ones that have resisted the brainwash that has made the Syrians doubt themselves, scared of their shadows, questioning their logic and their mental capacities to think.  The Syrians need to start thinking, and using the human logic, and see if things make or do not make sense- their sense and not Al-Assad sense. The Syrians have been drugged for generations and have been in coma for generations, and the time is now to wake up, and the time is now to start looking up, with head high and it is the time now to tell that sick, criminal, Al-Assad and his mini criminals in the Ba'ath party to go. It will take the Syrians some time to clean up after him, they even might need multinational organizations to clean the garbage he is leaving in every Syrian home and street, but the most importantly, who can clean the garbage he planted in the Syrian mind, and the Syrian logic and the Syrian personality and the Syrian reputation and the Syrian soul.