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In this mailing:
* Uzay Bulut: Turkey's Syrian Jihadists Take Over Syria: Kurds, Half a Million Christians Under Intolerable Threat
* Daniel Greenfield: Everything in the Middle East Means the Opposite


** Turkey's Syrian Jihadists Take Over Syria: Kurds, Half a Million Christians Under Intolerable Threat ([link removed])
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by Uzay Bulut • December 16, 2024 at 5:00 am
* A former branch of Al Qaeda, in 2018, HTS [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] was officially designated a terrorist organization by the US government. HTS, which cooperates with the Turkish military and Turkish-backed groups in Syria, is committed to establishing an Islamist state across Syria, at least for a start.
* Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Al-Jolani are now making all sorts of human-rightsy promises that they know the West likes to hear – just as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini did before he took over Iran, and as the Taliban did before they quickly demolished 20 years of US human rights progress in Afghanistan.
* Just as Iran is the Shiite "head of the octopus" whose tentacles consist of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other assorted militias, so Erdogan is the Sunni "head of the octopus" in Syria. While everyone is busy staring at rival terrorist groups in Syria, it is crucial not to forget for a minute the country backing them: Turkey.
* Erdogan's dream has always been "the liberation of Jerusalem".... A Sunni jihadi Syria provides a conveniently straight path to fulfill that long-term dream.

In Syria today, roughly half a million Christians and 2.5 million Kurds face a future of persecution and abuse at the hands of jihadist terrorists. Pictured: A view of the Greek Catholic Church of St George in Aleppo, Syria on December 12, 2024. (Photo by Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

The Assad family's rule of Syria, which lasted more than 50 years, collapsed on December 8. Jihadist forces took control of Damascus after President Bashar al-Assad escaped to a luxurious life in Moscow. Today, roughly half a million Christians and 2.5 million Kurds in Syria face a future of persecution and abuse at the hands of jihadist terrorists.

The offensive launched by the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, began on November 27. These terrorists, backed by Turkey, first captured Aleppo and a string of other towns and cities in a matter of days, before converging on Damascus.

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** Everything in the Middle East Means the Opposite ([link removed])
The easy way to make sense of Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Israel
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by Daniel Greenfield • December 16, 2024 at 4:00 am
* After saving Syria from Assad, who will save it from the saviors?
* US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is going on a tour to persuade the Turks and their Jihadis to establish an "inclusive" government in Syria. But inclusivity now means Sunni Jihadis, backed by Turkey, repressing and killing everyone else. This will be a fundamental liberating change from the old order, in which Shiite Jihadis, backed by Iran, repressed and killed everyone else.
* Turkey bombing and displacing Kurds in Syria is considered "inclusivity", but Israel bombing Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon is termed "genocide".
* "Genocide" is another of those many words that have different meanings in the New Middle East Dictionary. Amnesty International has come under fire for changing the definition of "genocide" in order to be able to accuse Israel of it.
* War becomes genocide. But only in the case of Israel. Meanwhile, actual genocidal efforts by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and by Turkey in Syria to target ethnic groups, are redefined as "liberation".
* Over 1 million tons of food have entered Gaza since October 7, 2023. That's half a ton for every terrorist supporter. Half a ton of food for every man, woman and child is... "starvation."
* The Arab Spring redefined Islamist takeovers as "democracy movements".
* When Muslim Jihadis commit genocide, it becomes liberation. And when anyone fights back against them, it's genocide.
* Redefinition makes everything in the Middle East factually opposite, to make it morally opposite.

When Muslim Jihadis commit genocide, it becomes liberation. And when anyone fights back against them, it's genocide. Redefinition makes everything in the Middle East factually opposite, to make it morally opposite. Pictured: A jihadist gunman at a public event in Damascus, Syria, on December 13, 2024. (Photo by Bilal Alhammoud/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Even as Islamic Jihadists are taking over Syria, ethnically cleansing Kurds and terrorizing Christians, the media is hailing the new "inclusive" regime which "liberated" Syria.

The regime is indeed inclusive if you consider bearded men with assault rifles to be the measure of inclusivity. And terrorizing minorities to be the exciting new diversity.

"This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire Islamic nation," Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former Al Qaeda and ISIS-allied group, declared in the Umayyad Mosque. The mosque is a symbol of the old Caliphate, and it echoed the speech given by his old friend, the former ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in Mosul's Great Mosque of al-Nuri, declaring his own caliphate. But it will no doubt be a most inclusive caliphate.

As Jawlani had previously said:

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