{"id":16812,"date":"2012-03-18T17:32:05","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T13:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=16812"},"modified":"2012-03-18T17:32:13","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T13:32:13","slug":"no-more-jaw-jaw-on-syria-action-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/showcase\/no-more-jaw-jaw-on-syria-action-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"No More ‘Jaw-Jaw’ on Syria: Action Needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I normally write about Saudi but the situation is getting dire in an area that\u2019s increasingly becoming a blind spot for the rest of the world. In Syria the death toll is 8,000 and growing and the refugee count<\/a> has reached 34000. Yet instead of at least covering what\u2019s going on, there\u2019s been a trend to sensationalize<\/a>\u00a0the Asaads and even question the opposition\u2019s integrity. Yes maybe out of desperation some Syrians have acted or scripted their videos but that does not change the fact that they are desperate and fighting for their lives against a ruthless regime. Long before the Arab Spring, it was common knowledge, even a fact of life, that Syria has a cruel oppressive government. The worst<\/a>\u00a0that Saddam\u2019s Iraq did, was inspired by what Asaad\u2019s Syria did years before<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The thing is, this is not only a humanitarian crisis, it\u2019s a world peace cause. There\u2019s a rhetoric within the Middle East that harks back to the same kind of\u00a0demagoguery that created Al Qaeda. There are religious leaders all over the Middle East preaching about how something has to be done for Syria. Sheikh AlBraik here actually cries<\/a>\u00a0as he says that \u201cthere is a fateful Godly reason why victory has been delayed in Syria; so that our hearts may lose hope in the UN and the Security Council and we turn to God\u201d. Another video<\/a>\u00a0by a highly popular Kuwaiti sheikh, Nabeel\u00a0Al Oudhi, refers to the Prophet\u2019s hadith that at the end of the world it is best to be a soldier in Syria. And here<\/a>\u00a0another extremely popular sheikh, Alarefe, recites a poem in support of the Syrian opposition and likens Asaad\u00a0to the Quranic (and biblical) account of the pharaoh.<\/p>\n

If the international community does not act soon, this stalemate will lead to a return to the Bush-era\u00a0polarization of West vs. East. I know that the polarization has not completely gone\u00a0away but what happened in Egypt and Libya and the rise of social media had things looking up. More and more young people had started to believe in a humane supportive one world regardless of ethnicity and religion. The world needs to stick to the same action plan of quick thinking, creativity and international cooperation that got us through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.<\/p>\n

A whole year<\/a> has passed of children being tortured<\/a> and journalists targeted<\/a> and killed<\/a>. Cartoonists<\/a> and poets<\/a>\u00a0have been disfigured\u00a0and murdered. And nothing is done except talk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EMAN AL-NAFJAN: Syria seems to have captured the attention of the region’s religious leaders but still the international community just talks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":16813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,82,483,60,482,317],"tags":[169,628,18300,18321,18332,191,4240,2726,143,18330,18322,387,18313],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16812"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}