By Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. –Over the weekend, the Syrian government killed 122 people. What’s that? You say some of them were killed by the IDF? No. The Palestinians killed on the Syria-Israel border were sent to their death by Bashar Assad, desperate to deflect attention from the more than 1,200 Syrians he has killed in the past few months, including another 100-plus over the weekend.
The West is slowly and reluctantly concluding that Assad more closely resembles his father – the Butcher of Hama – than the “reformer” Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Kerry want him to be. His victims include unarmed demonstrators, teenagers, women and people who were tortured until they died. More than 10,000 Syrians have been arrested by their government, many of whom disappeared without a trace and a few of whom were returned to their families in bags. Whole villages have been looted, and they’re the lucky ones; tanks have rolled through others, firing.
The oddity Sunday was that the Palestinians were willing to do his bidding, willing to be the bauble that distracted the West, willing to march across what they knew to be a well-defended border, willing to let Junior Butcher decide the time, place and manner of their demise. Or it isn’t odd – the Palestinians have been pawns of their “Arab brothers” since the days of the British Mandate; cats’ paws in Arab efforts to kill Jews and erase Israel.
A few weeks ago, Palestinians were lamenting Israel’s independence while pretending to forget that their state was strangled at birth by their “brothers” and then occupied by Jordan and Egypt. On 25 May, the Syrian government bused hundreds of Palestinians to the Syria-Israel border and told them to cross.[1] The Israelis were taken by surprise – the border having been quiet for 40 years – and the border was breached. No one was killed there, although there were deaths on the Lebanon-Israel border and there were riots in Gaza. Afterward, the IDF drew up very public plans to ensure that everyone understood that the IDF would not permit the borders to be breached on “Naksa” day – Sunday 5 June.
The Lebanon-Israel border was quiet by order of the Lebanese Armed Forces. The Gaza-Israel border was quiet by order of Hamas. The West Bank had mild demonstrations.
But the Syrian government took more than 1,000 Palestinians to the border – past Syrian military and UN outposts – and gave them a shove forward. Activists breached the outer fence and tried to storm the Israeli border. The Israelis fired warning shots and tear gas, and finally, fired low at people who crossed the outer fence.
If “Nakba” day laments the creation of Israel, “Naksa Day” laments the failure of the Arab hordes to destroy Israel in 1967. One wag compared it to Germans lamenting May 8, 1945 as the day Hitler failed to destroy the Allies. That’s wrong. It’s more like the Norwegians – Quislings – willing and evil partners of the Reich mourning the failure of Hitler to rid the world of Jews. The Norwegians were bit players, doing what they could to support the “big guy.” The Palestinians are bit players as well.
If they are smart, the Palestinians will look back on “Naksa Day 2011” and call it “wake up” day, on which they finally understood that their Arab “brothers” have been using and abusing them for more than 60 years. They would if they had any self-respect. They would if they want to be something other than a cover for Syrian war crimes.
[1] One salutary effect of this incident was that the media has been forced to report that Syria monitors half a million Palestinian “refugees” who have lived in UNRWA camps/prisons for more than 60 years.