Yesterday, responding to a Qatar-sponsored resolution, the U.N. General Assembly “condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and praised the opposition.” A day before that, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that “at least 94,000 people have been killed during Syria’s two-year conflict, but the death toll is likely to be as high as 120,000.” The group, known for its opposition to the Syrian regime, added that “at least 41,000 of those confirmed killed were Alawites, the sect of President Bashar al-Assad.” During several weeks leading to the vote, a gruesome video was circulating on the Internet. In the video, a leader of the Syrian opposition, whose identity was confirmed by human rights organizations and news media, was shown cutting the body of a Syrian soldier open and chewing on his internal organs while threatening the Alawite minority with the same fate.
The UN resolution was supported by 107 out of 193 nations. Without doubt, the majority of the 107 countries, representing political leaders, were swayed by the high deaths. But I doubt that the people (and perhaps leaders) of these countries knew about the fact that nearly 50% of those killed in Syria belonged to the group that constitutes merely 15% of the population. The campaign of propaganda and deception orchestrated by Qatar and its allies made the war in Syria appear to be a systematic killing of the majority Sunnis by a minority led government. The numbers show otherwise: Alawites are facing a real genocide. The condemnation of the violence committed by the regime and the praise of the opposition that is equally guilty of acts of atrocities does not help stop the violence in Syria.
Politicizing the tragedy in Syria does not further the cause of peace and it does not save the lives of innocent people from all sects and ethnic groups. The racialization of victimhood builds more hatred and does not end suffering. The West and its allies in the Arab world can stop extremism and end violence by refraining from politicizing the Syrian crisis and trading with the Syrian blood. The UN resolution was the wrong move in the wrong time. The brutality of the Syrian regime should be condemned, but so should be the atrocities committed by opposition fighters. The numbers show that Alawites are facing genocide before their foes take power. One can only imagine the number of massacres that would take place once the opposition forces defeat the regime. Because of these facts, only a political solution to the Syrian crisis can safeguard life and property of all Syrians.
______________________
* Prof. SOUAIAIA teaches at the University of Iowa. Opinions are the author’s, speaking on matters of public interest; not speaking for the university or any other organization with which he is affiliated.
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
90 days
__utma
ID used to identify users and sessions
2 years after last activity
__utmt
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
__utmv
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
1 minute
Marketing cookies are used to follow visitors to websites. The intention is to show ads that are relevant and engaging to the individual user.
A video-sharing platform for users to upload, view, and share videos across various genres and topics.
Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.
1 day
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. Also used for marketing
179 days
PREF
This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.
10 years from set/ update
YSC
Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Session
DEVICE_INFO
Used to detect if the visitor has accepted the marketing category in the cookie banner. This cookie is necessary for GDPR-compliance of the website.
179 days
LOGIN_INFO
This cookie is used to play YouTube videos embedded on the website.
