MENA Minorities

Agenfor Media , an Italian   non-profit network, published an interesting video report about   Europeans of Syriac heritage who are fighting inside Christan militias in Syria.  Among them is a former Swiss soldier, who is working as an instructor for the Syriac Sotoro militia in the eastern province of Hasaka. The video is in Italian but there is also a BBC Arabic report and multiple newspaper articles on that issue ( link ). Al-Monito r: "European Christians fighting with Syria Kurdish factions "

Mein Kommentar über syrische Kirchenvertreter als Propagandisten des Assaad-Regimes ist in überarbeiteter Form auf dem interessanten neuen Internetportal Shabka erschienen: "Syrische Kirchenvertreter im Dienst von Assad" von Tobias Lang

Blick auf das Dorf Hadar von der israelischen Basis auf dem Hermon Ein Team der deutschen Tagesschau hat die israelische Basis auf dem Mount Hermon (Golan Höhen) besucht. Unter anderem wird in dem Beitrag von einem israelischen Offizier die prekäre Lage des drusischen Dorfes Hadar auf der syrischen Seite der Waffenstillstandslinie veranschaulicht. Das Dorf ist eine pro-Regime Enklave in einer von Rebellen kontrollierten Gegend. Viedeoblog: Blick vom Golan auf syrischen Bürgerkrieg

Aymenn Al-Tamimi did an extensive posting on " Christian Militia and Political Dynamics in Syria " for Syria Comment . Especially the analysis of the dynamics in the Assyrian sector is outstanding and introduces some new points of view.

Written statement by Syrian Christian intellectuals against Church support for Assad via The Syrian Observer .

An interesting piece on regime-minorities relations in Syria was was published recently: " The early reversal on minorities in Syria " by Yahya Alaous for The Syrian Observer . It has some very interesting arguments, which deserve some further discussion. The author argues that the regime might turn on the minorities (not the Alawites of  course)   once their service in the civil war is not any longer needed because their freedom threatens the regime's authority. Here a comparison is drawn to the war of Saddam Husain against Kuwait, his former ally against Iran. Even if I don't think the Syrian minorities can be compared to oil-rich Kuwait by any means, the main argument is definately valuable: What was accepted reluctantly by the regime in the past because of considerations concerning the minorities will no longer acceptable in the same way because the regime has enough burdens. So the regime will not hesitate to alleviate the burdens whenever it can—and ...

*This article first appeared on the Carnegie Endowment 's blog  Syria in Crisis  edited by Aron Lund by Tobias Lang More than thirty years after its annexation of the Golan Heights, the civil war in Syria seems to have presented Israel with a chance to draw the Druze population of the Golan Heights closer to itself. The Druze of the Golan Heights have been under Israeli control since the area was occupied in 1967 but have never accepted their new rulers. Almost all have opposed Israel’s 1981 decision to annex the Golan Heights, and more than 90 percent have refused to accept Israeli citizenship. But as Syria fragments, this long-standing orientation toward the Syrian motherland is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. While there are larger Druze communities in Israel proper, as well as in Lebanon and the rest of Syria, the Druze of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights number some 20,000 people. They live concentrated in four main villages: Majdal Shams, Masada, B...

Watch this interesting documentary, which illustrates the cooperation between Syriac Christians and Kurds in Syria's Hasaka province. 

Finally there is an informative piece on the Syriac Military Council   or   Mawtbo Fulhoyo Suryoyo (MFS) in Syriac. It was published in French and English by  Cedric Labrousse of   Rennes University on his Blog The Arab Chronicle . " Le Conseil Militaire Syriaque en Syrie | The Syriac Military Council in Syria " by Cedric Labrousse

Um die Gefahr, die Islamisten für die Christen im Nahen Osten darstellen, zu veranschaulichen werden gerne Kirchenvertreter herangezogen. Gegen diese Praxis ist prinzipiell nichts einzuwenden, allerdings sollte man sich immer genau ansehen mit wem man es hier zu tun hat. Im Fall von Syrien stehen Kirchenvertreter, die besonders laut und schrill die Gefahren für Christen anprangern, oftmals in einem Naheverhältnis zum Assad-Regime. Ein prominentes Beispiel ist sicherlich die Nonne Agnes Mariam de la Croix, die ganz offensichtlich Propaganda für das Regime im Ausland betreibt und der schon so mancher Journalist auf den Leim gegangen ist. So kann es leicht passieren, dass sich westliche Konservative auf diese Kirchenvertreter beziehen, ohne freilich zu wissen, welche politische Agenda diese befolgen. Oftmals vertreten diese Geistlichen Positionen hinsichtlich Assad, Hizballah oder auch Israel, die sie eigentlich von selbst als Gesprächspartner ausschließen würden, wie Michael Weiss für ...