|
By Wendy Campbell
I just got back from a fabulous trip to Syria, truly a hidden
treasure full of fantastic historical sites going back thousands of
years and a delightful place with incredibly friendly and hospitable
people, even after finding out that I am an American.
You might be surprised to hear that Syria is a fantastic
destination, even for Americans. But think about it. Who has been
telling you that Syria is full of terrorists? Of course, it's the
Zionist-dominated American media. The very same media that has been
embedded as part of our Zionist-dominated war-mongoring government.
The very same media that has been beating the drums for war against
all the countries that Zionists would like to see the US invade and
"democratize". The very same media that when being "risque" may even
try to blame the war on "oil". The very same media that goes out of
its way to avoid the word "Zionism" or explaining Israel's apartheid
regime, or Israel's on-going history of ethnic-cleansing against
non-Jewish indigenous Palestinians in Palestine-Israel. The very
same media that tries to deny that the war on Iraq has been a war
fought on only Israel's behalf.
Yes, THAT U.S. media. That Department of Misinformation.
So, no wonder that I, for one, was not surprised to find out that
Syria is actually a friendly, beautiful and fascinating place to
visit.
However, I must say, that I was surprised at how incredibly friendly
the Syrian people were. We went in with a small group tour, all
Christians (mostly Christian Scientists, and a couple Roman
Catholics), and one agnostic.
Everywhere we went, even just walking down the street, many of the
Syrian people called out "Hello" and "Welcome!" to us, even after
they found out we were American, which we were more than a little
ashamed to admit since we are all anti-war and detest Bush's
policies. We were welcomed into many Syrians' homes for "flower tea"
or Syrian or Turkish coffee, into upscale homes, modest city
apartments and Bedouin beehive-shaped adobe mud homes sitting on
carpets way out in the countryside.
By
the way, our tour guide, a Greek Orthodox Christian, said on several
occasions to our group that Syrians are not against Jews and Judaism
but they are against Zionism. Syrians all know what Zionism is, but
Zionist Jews in this country have not gone out of their way to
explain to non-Jewish Americans exactly what Zionism is. The
typical explanation a Zionist Jew will give to explain to a non-Jew
when asked about Zionism is to claim that Zionism is the belief that
Jews must have a homeland in Israel, formerly known as Palestine,
and that Jews must have self-sovereignty in a Jewish state. They
never include the fact that in order for Jews to have a Jewish
state, it has always been and continues to be at the expense of the
indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian people. Zionists typically put a
veil on the ugly way in which Israel was created and Israel’s
on-going ethnic cleansing campaign against the indigenous,
non-Jewish Palestinian people who are being persecuted and denied
equal rights in their own ancestral homeland.
The
ethnocentric Jewish state of Israel is also maintained at the
expense of the American people with the billions of our tax dollars
which our government funnels to Israel every year unconditionally
and virtually on demand. On top of that, our government’s political
and economic support of the apartheid state of Israel has created
anti-American sentiment worldwide and sacrifices our credibility.
Palestinians continue to pay the ultimate price for racist Israel
with their lives and property, but now Americans are paying not only
with their tax dollars and our country’s reputation, but also with
American blood in fighting wars for Israel, such as the war on Iraq.
Fortunately not all Jews are Zionists and not all Jews try to hide
the truth about Zionism and Zionist Israel. An excellent primer
entitled “Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict” written by Jews
For Justice in the Middle East can be found at the website
www.cactus48.com <http://www.cactus48.com/> . For information about
how some Jews believe Zionism to be the exact opposite of Judaism,
read about the Neturei Karta, a worldwide organization of Ultra
Orthodox Jews, at www.nkusa.org <http://www.nkusa.org/> or order my
documentary entitled “Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism” via my
website at www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com <http://www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com/>
.
Contrary to what Zionists' would have Americans believe, Syrian
women are free to wear whatever they want. In any given street scene
or restaurant, the spectrum of clothing that women in Syria wear
ranges from Brittany Spears' style skin-tight jeans and teeshirts
(but no belly showing) to professional Western-style suits, to
wearing a hejab and sometimes a traditional robe to being entirely
covered in flowing black, face included (mostly from Iran, I was
told). There were no Afghan-style burqas to be found, even in a
store, which we had wanted to bring back for a Halloween outfit.
Contrary to what Zionists would have you believe about the Muslim
men oppressing their women, we found Muslim men to be very charming,
natural and relaxed and even deferential to women. As a woman I felt
completely comfortable in communicating with the Syrian men I met.
In fact, at one point, my fiance decided to stay with the tour in
the museum, and I decided to split to explore the nearby shops on my
own. We were in Aleppo, the oldest continuously inhabited by humans
city in the entire world. I went into a shop that sold some hookah
pipes to photograph them, and a small gathering of men inside the
shop kindly invited me to join them in smoking the "hubbly-bubbly"
as it is called. I was sincere when I said I would like to but
didn't have time. They were most gracious.
By the way, the "hubbly-bubbly" is a recent popular craze at all the
Syrian restaurants and cafes. It is just flavored tobacco with apple
being the current Syrian favorite, but it is available in other
flavors such as mint, cappuccino and more. I tried it twice later,
and can attest to the fact that it is very mild tobacco. I did not
even get a nicotine buzz! It's just a fun thing to do. It made me
think of the hookah-smoking caterpillar in “Alice in Wonderland”.
Both men and women smoke it with languid relish. It certainly adds
to the exotic mystique of Syrian ambiance.
Another common myth that the Zionist-dominated media puts forth is
that the Syrian President Assad is some kind of malevolent dictator.
We found that both Assad Jr, and his father are very popular with
most Syrians. Many of the homes we visited, including a Kurdish
Bedouin adobe beehive-shaped home, had a poster of him prominently
displayed on their living room wall. I asked our guide if this was
mandatory in Syria, and he replied that it was not and pointed out
how he hadn’t put up a poster of Assad in his living room where we
had all enjoyed some flower tea and Turkish coffee early in the
trip. Not only were the posters of Assad in most public buildings,
and a private Christian school, and restaurants, many Syrians had a
decal of him on their cars! A Syrian businesswoman who joined us
for dinner in Damascus one night spoke very warmly and approvingly
of Assad, and she seemed quite sincere. Syrians think their
president is doing a great job. This is certainly something Bush
cannot boast of! I don’t know anyone who has a poster of him
anywhere in the USA unless it’s making fun of him!
Yet another common myth is that Jews were chased out of Syria, and
that any Jews who remain in Syria are discriminated against. It
should come as no real surprise in this age of Orwellian “news” that
quite the opposite is true. First of all, many Jews left Syria
voluntarily to be in Israel, which as you know gives favored status
to Jews. The Jews who have chosen to stay in Syria are among the
wealthiest of Syrian society. On top of that, the Syrian government
goes out of its way to make sure that Jews are not discriminated
against there, and in fact, apparently Jews get preferential
treatment in many cases. Just for an example, Jews may get
governmental documents speedier than non-Jews in Syria precisely to
avoid any charges of discrimination, we were told. We personally
met a Jewish man who was managing his antiques shop in Damascus,
where he had non-Jewish shop-owners as neighbors. They all seemed
to get along together quite well. Once again, another Zionist myth
shattered.
One interesting fact about Syria is that cars are prohibitively
expensive there, with huge taxes being imposed on them, sometimes
three times as much as the original price of the car! Therefore,
Syria is simply awash in taxi-cabs! It’s very cheap to take taxis
in Syria, fortunately, and they also have community taxis for those
on a very tight budget.
It may not come as a big surprise that the Syrian newspapers have
many stories about the evils of Zionism, the neoconservatives,
apartheid Israel, Israel's Apartheid Wall, the war crimes of Ariel
Sharon, and general wrath about Israel's aggression against the
Palestinian people. These kinds of candid stories are not what one
typically finds in the US media. By the way, there were no Syrian
stories dwelling on that red herring of "oil" as the reason for the
US-led war on Iraq. Because the Syrians know, along with the rest of
the world, that the war on Iraq was the brainchild of Israel and the
Zionists, both Israeli and American.
The following revelation most likely will come as a surprise to you,
dear readers, as it was even a surprise to me, an expert on Zionism
and Palestine-Israel.
As a matter of fact, it is a fact that is not known by many outside
of Israel or the Middle East:
The Zionist Jews are already re-building the Third Temple offsite
somewhere in the Jewish state of Israel, which they plan to
re-locate to the original site of the first two temples in
Jerusalem--- on top of the Temple Mount where the Al Aqsa Mosque
currently sits. The Zionists are waiting for the right moment to
destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque of the Dome of the Rock, which is the
third most holy site of the Muslim world, and then re-locate the
temple they are currently building off-site. We were informed about
this endeavor by a top-level Syrian businessman during our trip over
dinner.
According to him there are many Zionist organizations whose sole
purpose is to realize this event. Apparently this is common
knowledge in the Middle East, yet Americans are certainly not aware
of this. This makes it even clearer why Sharon’s visit to the Al
Aqsa Mosque in September 2000 with 1000 troops sparked off the
Second Intifada by the Palestinians. Of course, the Palestinians
were already pushed to the boiling point by many factors at that
point.
However the military visit to Al Aqsa Mosque was a deliberately
provocative act by Sharon to show that he was stepping up the
timetable to realize the Zionist dream of rebuilding the Temple on
the site of the Al Aqsa mosque, heralding a NEW WORLD ORDER with
Jerusalem as the capital of the world. The Zionists have already
been digging tunnels underneath the Al Aqsa Mosque. For more
information about this, please check out http://www.hoffman-info.com/warren.html
and also http://www.templemount.org/tempprep.html.
Of course, the Palestinians reacted predictably violently as Sharon
was hoping, to give him an excuse to “retaliate” with even greater
force and more deadly violence, since Israel has the fourth
strongest army in the world, and the Palestinians have NONE.
Unfortunately for Sharon, the WILL OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE is
stronger than all of his weapons. However, the Palestinian people
are being sorely tried. It’s up to the American people who have been
enlightened about the evil of Zionism to spread the word of this new
Nazism, this neo-Nazism, and to stop it by pressuring our government
to end its unconditional support of racist apartheid Israel and
becoming the media ourselves. We must spread the word NOW. There is
still time for JUSTICE to triumph over evil.
As a lone sign at the recent anti-war rally in NYC on March 20th
stated: "Second Most Important World Super-Power: American Public
Opinion."
If you believe in justice for all regardless of religion, ethnicity
or sex, you and me, we've got our work cut out for us.
At any rate, if you are looking for a fantastic, eye-opening
adventure with good value for your money, I highly recommend that
you consider taking a trip to Syria. I have been to many places
around the world, and my trip to Syria ranks somewhere at the very
top.
For more information on travel to Syria, contact author Scott Davis
about his upcoming tours to Syria and his book “Road From Damascus”
via his website www.cunepress.net <http://www.cunepress.net/> and
www.dialoguesyria.org <http://www.dialoguesyria.org/> . If you want
to go to Syria on your own, please contact Caravan-Serai. Based in
Seattle, they specialize in arranging travel to Middle Eastern
countries. Their website is www.caravan-serai.com <http://www.caravan-serai.com/>
.
For information on how to get a VHS tape of a travelogue-documentary
I am making about my trip to Syria, please contact me via my website
at www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com.
|
