Visa story: "I regularly read your blog and i've been following up with your "Syrian Boarder" stories recently. I'm a Palestinian, carrying a Jordanian passport (yeah its just a black book to me) but i never thought this small thing can make such a big difference. Yesterday, I was crossing the Lebanese boarder (back from Amman to Beirut). I was filling out the white entry card the officer gave me with 2 other Palestinian guys (Lebanese/ Palestinian refugee brown books in hand) when they were directly ordered by the officer to step outside to fill the card while it was okay for me (the "Jordanian") to fill it inside (!). The 2 men muttered a couple of prayers and stepped outside..I stared at him for a good 10 minutes before proceeding. I'm attaching my personal blog entry from the Syrian boarder (i wrote it while waiting at the boarder last July). You can use my first name if you decide to post any."

Visa story: "Why no mention about other non-Arab Muslims who have to endure humiliation in US airports? Have you heard about the special registration? Check this out: http://www.ice.gov/pi/specialregistration. You know what is more disgusting - when you traveled with the Japanese airline and was the only one out of the 300 passengers who was pulled aside and told to go to this small room where they would fingerprint you,snapped your picture,asked stupid questions, took your credit card number and asked you to wait and wait. The officers would joke among themselves while I have to pray that I would not miss my next plane to DC. The humiliation you have to endure as a non-Arab Muslim in US airport are rarely spoken about. Every time we moved, we have to report our new address to INS. We are bound to restrictions and forced to swallow them. I always sit in the special registration room with deep pain. It's a room for people they believed, are ready to destroy their holy western civilization. Tell the Americans in Syria - about that room. A room with no tea and no friendship but is justified to secure their civilization from the menace of east. If you plan to publish my story, please dont mention my name."

A reader in Iran sent me this: "Your website is not banned in Tehran, but it was banned in Northern Iran in Ramsar. I asked the internet cafe person this and he said the internet filters get stricter as you move from the south of the country to the North. Have no idea how true this is, either."

A professor at Princeton (who does not want to be identified) sent me this: "did you know that Ali Allawi, the ex minister in the iraqi government, requested a visa to come spend some time as a visiting scholar in Princeton and his visa has been pending for several months. interesting isn't it?
P.S. you can use the info but don't quote me. Also his visa case was brought up to the office of dick cheney and nothing has happened."

For those who care, I shall speak on AlJazeera in three hours. I may sing.

There is a juicy split developing within the Fath Movement in Lebanon. Abu Mazen has recently sent some $15 million to his Dahlan ambassador `Abbas Zaki, and the money is being spent in ways that did not please everybody. Sultan Abu Al-`Aynayn who is based in the Rashidiyyah camp near Tyre is now working with the anti-Hariri forces in Lebanon--all men in question are unprincipled.

Palling around with a terrorist. Meet Obama's presumed chief-of-staff. "All are the sons of an Israeli father, now a 70-year-old Chicago pediatrician, who passed secret codes for Menachem Begin's underground. Iregun." And since Rahm had "volunteered" in the Israeli occupation army during the Gulf war, does that not mean that Obama is blatantly and openly palling around with a terrorist--son of.......a terrorist? Is that considered acceptable pallin-around-with-terrorists? (thanks David)

Visas and the Middle East. I thought of this while running: did American occupation soldiers who invaded Iraq and Afghanistan obtain visas before hand?

This thought occurred to me while I was running. I can--literally, as Joe Biden would say--influence the American presidential elections. Really. Think about it. If I were to produce a picture of Obama and me "palling around" it would dramatically shift the public mood against Obama. I can only imagine headlines: Obama palling around with Angry Arab. I feel powerful. Brrrrrr.

The Saudi judge who was selected by the House of Saud to preside over the trial of 900-odd terrorist suspects in Saudi Arabia is Shaykh `Abdul-Muhsin bin Ibrahim Al-Shaykh. He is none other than the great grandson of Muhammad Ibn `Abdul-Wahab, the founder of Wahhabiyyah. It is likely that the judge will award blenders to all of the defendants.

"Three teenage Israeli girls were indicted at the Jerusalem District Juvenile Court on Sunday for attacking police officers with rocks during the evacuation and demolition of an illegal structure in the Givat Harsina neighborhood of Kiryat Arba three days ago."

Two Arab students at Hebrew University were accosted by Israeli occupation security guards for refusing to shake the hands of the visiting Israeli president. One of the students was later questioned at an Israeli occupation police station. (thanks Brian)

I have a theory about US presidents and the Middle East: every president since Lyndon Johnson becomes more pro-Israeli than his predecessor--with the exception of George H.W. Bush. So expect Obama to be more pro-Israeli than George W. Bush--his palling around notwithstanding.

I should have a regular feature titled "Reactions to the message about American students and visas in Syria." I received this response to one of the responses. (I cite with her permission): "

In response to your writer's request I must say that yes, I have been harassed and discriminated against while in Syria. There were numerous men who were obnoxious to the point of making situations very uncomfortable, we were cheated out of money by a few people who sold tickets at the sites. At the Great Mosque in Damascus, women must pay a fee to wear one of the cloaks in order to enter the mosque. There were two soldiers collecting the money and they most definitely cheated my friend of money when giving change. When I tried to point out they had made a mistake, it was not very pleasant. We were even subjected to weirdos looking through our keyhole in several hotels and attempting to open the door in the middle of the night!. While on a bus from Homs to Hama, a man got on the bus with a pistol in a holster, sat on the driver's gear box, and proceeded to stare at us the entire trip. While he was doing his very best to intimidate us, a man old enough to be my father was goosing me under the bus seat and grinning about it when I turned around to tell him to stop! When we left the bus at Hama, the guy with the pistol followed us to our hotel and we then saw him over the next two days when we visited various sites, always staring at us. My friend believes we were monitored during our entire time in Syria. Too often when taking the train or bus, the guy collecting the tickets would deliberately position himself so that we would have to squeeze by him brushing up against his body. After it happened more than once, I simply got into the habit of pretending to drop my suitcase on the man's feet so that he was forced to step back! Really obnoxious stuff like that happened all the time during the entire trip. And YES, we were dressed in a very modest fashion! We also met with overwhelming kindness and courtesy from many Syrians and absolutely loved the country. For us, those incidents are such a small part of the experience and we laugh about them now. We prefer to remember the family, complete strangers, who invited us to their picnic and the many people who helped us on our way. If you can, please pass this along to the reader who made the inquiry. I travel a great deal and could tell quite a few stories about my experiences waitng to enter countries or going through security. I am always pulled aside for further screening or questioning when I travel. I do not know why. Perhaps it is my coloring or some of the stamps in my passport."

" A report issued by the Quds Press stated that the IOF troops killed during last October six Palestinian citizens including two children, which increased the number of those killed during this year to 471 victims most of them in the West Bank."

"Professors at the Cairo-based al-Azhar University said that they were against the enrollment of Christian students, while professors from other Egyptian universities called for more flexibility after the matter was taken to court." (thanks Olivia)

Republican definition of Sexism. Republicans in the US rarely even use the word "sexist." But lately they have been using the word. According to Republicans, sexism is: when you criticize or mock Sarah Palin.

Hoshyar Zebari (Iraqi puppet foreign minister who owes his puppet post to puppet nepotism) amuses me a great deal. Whenever the subject of US withdrawal or even a deadline for withdarawal is brought up, he gets visibly nervous and you can sometimes recognize his sweat beads. You can see him yelling in his head: what about me? What will happen to me if US occupation forces withdraw? What will be my fate? Who will take care of me? Relax, Zebari, I would tell him. You can open a restaurant in some Western capital, or become a manager of Antoine Lahd's Byblos restaurant.

Let me give you a helpful hint. Every "original" story or scoop on the Middle East in the Times of London, the Telegraph, or the French Le Figaro can't be trusted. They usually carry an Israeli intelligence agenda. Safely discard them.

"Bush On reading: 'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.' Quoted in US News & World Report, January 2000"" (thanks Sinan)

Now I know why he was offered a professorship at Harvard University. Ajami reveals the brilliance of his mind: he says--I kid you not--that crowds are undemocratic.

Another courageous gesture by Thomas Friedman. Weeks ("literally," as Joe Biden would say) before the end of the Bush administration, Friedman found the courage to mock George W. Bush.

Zionist media are in deep debate regarding whether Rashid Khalidi was a "PLO spokesman" or not (of course he was not), and the next White House chief of Staff was somebody who "volunteered" in the Israeli occupation army. But this is the "fair and balanced" standards of US media. Israeli professors in the US brag on their resumes that they had served in the Israeli occupation army or in Israeli intelligence. Can you imagine if an Arab academic brags on the resume about his/her services in Arab armies or intelligence services?

This is Zionism: "Testimony: 12-year-old beaten and imprisoned with adults, Sept. '08" (thanks Marcy)

A Syrian in the Middle East sent me this (regarding American students in Syria): "On the subject of the American student in Damascus. You gotta love the white man's whining. Here in the UAE they call it 'whinging'. You hear/read it everywhere: the telecom company was one day late to install his/her broadband connection; the helpline took 10 more minutes to respond to her/his call than they'd have done back in his/her home country; the police man unfairly fined him/her; the fabric on the chair of the dressing table, delivered by a big time furnishing company, didn't match the fabric on his/her sofa set. You can literally read all those complaints on the pages of newspapers like the 7days. If anything, these people are discriminated for and not against. When you visit the municipality clinic in Dubai you could say a queue of hundred Indian workers waiting for their blood samples to be taken (for the purpose of issuing a work permit), while the white man breezes by unhindered. Nightclubs have been reproached for their racist entry policies (charging none-white people for entry while allowing white people in for free) so now they've invented something called 'free entry for face members'. You don't need to think hard to realize what color those faces might be. And Marcy is right, the Palestinian people are probably the hardest hit when it comes to travel difficulties in the Middle East. They're the soft underbelly of the Arab people as they've got no government or a leader who would stand up for them. (or as much as you'd expect a mercenary like Dahlan or the religious demagogues of Hamas to help). A Palestinian living in Syria can't visit Lebanon without half a dozen clearances from intelligence agencies. A Palestinian living in Syria or Lebanon can't get a work permit anywhere in the Gulf except the in the UAE. That is only to mention a few. Somebody needs to document all these hardships and bring it out for the world to see."

More on the American students in Syria. I received this email: "Hello Dr. AbuKhalil, if u think this is worth putting on your blog, feel free to do so: in winter 2005 i tried to obtain a visit visa to enter the US.i'd been a permanent residence of Canada for about 6 month. so i booked an appointment for an "interview" in the American consulate in Toronto, and filled all required applications online + an extra application for being a Syrian!! So on the day of the "interview" i was there on time (supposedly my "interview" started at 9am). they made me, and others,line up and wait outside the consulate for our names to be called (we are talking about Toronto in february, so temp was about -14 C and i'm pretty sure people waited for more than an hour in the cold) once i was let in, i waited for about two hours inside, my name was called, went to a booth for my "interview", asked to submit my papers (including a $100 money order for an application process fee!!), the women working there looked at my documents, looked at her computer screen for couple of minutes, told me that my application was denied and the "interview" was over !!! . no questions, no comments, no explanations. so i'm wondering, why the hell do Americans expect to be allowed to enter Syria without even bothering to get a visa from the Syrian embassy in the US?? and then they're unhappy with the wait on the borders??ok, be happy your were let in, you know the situation and the politics behind it, so if u r visiting Lebanon and planning to visit Syria after, please get a visa before leaving the US and spare us all the headache. at least i'm almost pretty sure that your experience with the Syrian embassy in the US will be way better than mine with the American consulate in Toronto. i want to touch on a more sensitive issue, i'd like to know if any of the Americans students in Syria have ever been harassed or discriminated against by the Syrian (people), although i'm sure the answer is no. now how does that compare with the experience of Syrian students in the US with the American (people)???"

More on the American students in Syria. I received this email: "

"As3ad, I visit my family in Lebanon each year. Everytime I come back, the immigration officer takes me to the other room and search my luggage, wallet, laptop and everthing that I carry on me. And it is always the same execuse, "It is a random search", he says with a look that makes you feel like you are a real terrorsit. One time I had to sleep in the airport for 20 hours because a friend of mine could not wait more than 4 hours for me because he had to go to work. I asked the officer if I can make a phone call because I knew he was waiting for me outside in the hall but he refused with a look similar to the first one. I got really mad and started yelling because I did not give the shit about what was going to happen. Then, the supervisr came in and took me to another room and started saying that he was sorry but this is a normal procedure. He then allowed me to make the call on one condition that I speak on a speaker and english only... This is only a part of what I go through every time I return to the States. If you decide to post, you can use my first name but not the full name. You know what I don't give the shit, go ahead and post the whole thing if you want.. O' by the way, they also took my eggplants from my luggage without even telling me hehe..."

More on the American students in Syria. I received this email: "Since one of your American readers was complaining about her "mis"treatment at the Syrian border, I'd like to share my stories with the treatment of Arabs at American borders, and I'll be brief (don;t use my name if you want to publish this please). A friend of mine, who is a Canadian citizen but of Arab descent was part of a Middle Eastern dance troupe traveling to the US to perform. He was detained at the Buffalo border crossing for several hours and after being interrogated by the American border patrol officers, they asked him to dance for them to "make sure that he really was part of a dance group." Also, my brother, who is also a Canadian citizen of Arab descent, gets interrogated by the Americans for anywhere from 2-5 hours every time he has to travel from Canada to the US for business. Considering he's a high ranking official of his company and his company is an American company, that means that he has to go to the US about once every 2 weeks or so. PS: never once has any American befriended him while he had to wait to get cleared!"

What do you do when a Saudi columnist declares your "end"? Here, Saudi columnist, Dawud Ash-Shiryan, writes: "The End of a Courageous Writer". Yes, he is talking about me. Read the last paragraph when he takes issue with my sarcastic criticisms of Prince Khalid Bin Sultan: he said that the Prince did indeed play an "enlightenment role." (thanks Khaled)

You can't accuse Hassan Fattah of not doing his best to introduce hart-hitting, investigative journalism to UAE. Take this top story for example: "The legacy of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan will be fondly remembered today, the fourth anniversary of his death."

On the American students in Syria. I received this: "For the american student stuck on the syrian border ...

A while back I was stuck in customs on the american border, while the border patrol sifted through my laptop for several hours, after which they confiscated it FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH, while only giving me the excuse that they wanted to be certain I was not an avid supporter of a certain party in the Levant. I got the laptop back after that month. Quite the wait just for being a 20 something year old arab male. To be fair of course, they did offer me some water while I was waiting those several hours before they took my laptop. If you decide to post this, please DO NOT use my name."

"Palestinian women at funeral of Muhammad Abahreh, 67, killed by Israeli troops during a raid in the West Bank(AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)" (thanks Laleh)

"Two people accused of spying for Israel have been arrested in Lebanon, the Lebanese army says."

Dahlan, o Dahlan. "Hundreds of heavily-armed CIA-trained Palestinian troops on Saturday stormed the village of al Burj, 30 kilometers south west of Al-Khalil (Hebron), raiding homes, vandalizing property and detaining a number of teachers and college students suspected of “carrying out anti-Israeli activities.”" (thanks Olivia)

I apologize to my readers: it turned out that the item about Al-Walid's Mercedes was a hoax. I deserve a punishment, and have consulted with House of Saud's Book of Punishment. I shall deserve 100 lashes (with a feather). Volunteers from around the world are being sought to administer the lashes on my behind. (thanks B.)

The corrupt president of Pakistan just spoke to Al-Arabiyya TV (the station of King Fahd's brother-in-law). He said that the Saudi kingdom is "close to our heart." Stay tuned as I learn more about this developing story.

Did the last American progressive die? (thanks Maria)

Freedom of the press around the world: Ranking. (thanks Suad)

More on American students in Syria: Fatima sent me this (I cite with her permission): "My own sister (a lawyer ) wanted to pay me a visit in the UK . I had to travel to London to provide some documents . I took the train (faster ) that was $90 return . $14 for an "herbergement certificate" from the Algerian embassy , $20 from the council that says im on the electoral list , $30 to the lawyer that says i own my home , New Bank statements that show much money i have , and $24 dollars for a form from the Home office . i sent all this . my sister was told because she was less than 60 years old , she has to go to Tunisia to the UK embassy there (for safety reasons) so she has to buy a ticket to travel to Tunisia , take a cab from the Airport to the UK embassy and stay at a hotel as the reply for the Visa may take up to 3 days and not alwys Positive . the UK embassy charges 2000 DA (in Algeria ) that are NOT reumbursed if visa is refused . but for tunisia (not sure how much they charge) . so my sister gave up to visit me in case the visa is refused . Algerians to visit France have to travel to ALgiers byPlane or Train , many spend the night outside the French Embassy . some start lining up at 2 am . rain or shine . because by Midday they wont take anyone . people are shouted at and treated like dirt . the US student was able to make friends with the teaboy , at the uK and French embassy , you wait OUTSIDE behind the gate and they call you when they finish with other people . some people make a business by selling thier spot in the queeue . I wish the US student knows what Arabs and Muslims go through to get a visa ."

More on the American students in Syria: Marcy sent me this (I cite with her permission): "one more thing on the borders around here. if you want to really get into who is harassed at these lebanese, syrian, and jordanian borders you might want to do a post on what happens to palestinians who cross the borders. or syrians who cross into lebanon. or iraqis who try to seek asylum in any of these countries."

My next week trip. For those who care (and who asked) and especially for those who don't care (and did not ask), I will be on AlJazeera (Arabic) the night (Eastern Time) of the US elections to provide commentary and analysis. I will be in the studio from 5:00PM (Tuesday night, Wednesday early morning Beirut time) until 2:00AM Wednesday early morning (Eastern Time). On Wednesday, I shall give a talk on the New President and the Middle East at Northeastern University in Boston at 7:00PM in Ell Hall, 2nd floor . On Thursday, I shall speak at the University of Virginia (same topic) in Physics 203, at 7 pm. Returning on Friday night.

More on the American student in Syria: a reader in Brazil sent me this: "I'm a regular reader of your blog, here in Brazil. Although I have an arab descent, as do some 7 million people in this country, my passport is brazilian. Therefore, I was quite surprised as I read the email sent to you by the american student who complained about having to wait on the syrian border. Waiting for hours at airports, being shouted at, or being sent back home in the next plane without further explanation are some of the things a Brazilian - or any Latin american by that matter - could expect when travelling to Europe, the US, etc . Some months ago, a group of brazilians had to wait for MORE than eight hours in an airport in Spain; the Brazilian ambassador to Israel and his daughter were harassed at the Tel Aviv airport because the israeli officials thought the girl had an Arab name; many, many brazilians were msitreated in European or American airports. My mother, by the way, was almost arrested at the Amsterdam airport the last time she went to visit her boyfriend in Europe, and all because she doesn't speak english well (and maybe because she's got an Arabic surname). And, mind you, Brazil has NOT killed any americans or europeans in any raid! Actually, european migrants have always been welcomed here. There are whole regions of Brazil populated by people that came from Italy, Germany, Polland, Russia, and their descendants."

More on the American students in Syria: a Syrian scientist sent me this: "I read with amazement at the feelings of the American student who was made to wait eight hours for his visa. Imaging, he even "made friends with the tea boy." I probably cannot be more humiliating.
Well, Syrians, I understand, wait actually days for their visas to the US. In most cases they have to travel to Jordan and the Lebanon to obtain it. But this is nothing compared to what a United States citizen of a Syrian origin have to endure if he ventured outside the United States... His family, happened not to be of the same extraction, watch worried sick as he or she is detained, searched, and asked pointless and silly questions in multiple interviews up the 'ladder of command' of the security apparatus, each obviously frightened to take the obvious step of letting the bugger go. I wonder whether the unhappy American student expected to be treated differently. There is an element of audacity in expecting an American traveler whose country have just invaded Syria and killed in midday eight civilians, to receive anything but the natural and genetically justifiable wrath - yet he states clearly that he was treated well, and he was even assisted in getting his visa - another character trait of Syrians that annoys me when I see how Syrians and others are treated like animals in the US and European airports - even if they were United States citizens. A true sympathy with of the predicaments of the people of the Middle East, Arabs, Kurds, Tukmans, Assyrians, etc., is usually expressed by understanding their motives, as well as their state of development too, and not expect to be paid special treatment in return for gracious sympathy to this or that cause. That makes the said sympathy so superficial, so temporary and so unwanted. During a long stint in the UN, the only nationality amongst my Senior Scientists I was comfortable to send to a developing country were the Dutch and to a lesser extent, the French. The arrogance of the Anglo-Saxons, in particular, and the almost spoken racism of the Germans, caused me and the Director-General much grief and many lost opportunities to do work in the vast region of underdevelopment. As time passed, it became apparent that the insecurity they expressed through their muffled racism and other antics, turned out to be more related to their professional capacities, as External Assessment after another criticized their work, and recommended changes in their programs. They could not be fired, as others were, because of the US and British influence in the UN and its agencies!!!"

This article about Rashid Khalidi in the New York Times bothers at so many levels. Let me start first with my premise: that no Arab or Muslim or any person who cares about peace and justice should try to cover up for Barack Obama. It is not only due to our understanding of the nature of the American political system (which runs itself by itself, as Richard Nixon once famously observed, no matter which party is in power) but also becasue Obama--more than Fox News--has been responsible with his silence for the climate of prejudice and bigotry against Arabs and Muslims in the US during this campaign. He could have in one speech rebutted all these horrible claims, and it is ironic that Colin Powell (a Republican) was the one who set the record straight on these matters. Also, for those who are awaiting something from Obama on the Middle East, don't try to guess too much. We know his team: basically, Middle East policy will move from the hands of Elliott Abrams into the hands of Dennis Ross. Is this a cause for celebration? Secondly, why do Arabs need Zionists (preferrably Israeli Zionists) to screen them to determine their humaness: the New York Times had to locate an Israeli student in Israel in order to verify that Rashid is an acceptable human being. Thirdly, why do the Zionist hoodlums succeed in putting moderate Arabs always on the defensive: Rashid here had to stress that he was critical of Arafat (I mean, I detested Arafat not because he was not moderate but because he was too moderate while Rashid was criticing him presumably for not being moderate enough.) And why did Rashid have to say this: "I didn’t endorse killing Israeli soldiers." I did not get that. Am I missing something here? Let me get this straight: the Palestinian people who have been subjected to Zionist terrorism long before the establishment of the Zionist entity (founded on racist principles and on mass violence--and let us not equivocate in stating those simple facts) are asked to refrain from violent self-defense against Israeli civilians AND against Israeli soldiers? What is left for Palestinian resistance, I need to ask. In the past, the Palestinians were asked to only engage in armed struggle agasint Israeli occupation soldiers, and now they are being asked to accept the notion that self-defense agaisnt Israeli occupation soldiers is also terrorism? Are you kidding me here? This when Israeli civilians are armed and have been engaged in pogroms against the Palestinian people since before the founding of the Israeli state? I mean give me a break, as they say. American Zionist professors casually and ferociously endorse every Israeli war on Arab civilians, including that last Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006, and they never feel that they have to explain themsleves and now Rashid has to pledge that he does not want the Palestinian people to engage in self-defense against the occupation soldiers? It is in fact worse: the logical conclusions for such positions taken by moderate Arabs is basically for the Palestinians to accept their subjucation and the mass violence campaign against them silently? And if the Palestinian people speak out agaisnt the occupation--verbal and poetic resistance--moderate Arabs and their Zionist endorsers yell out: oh, no. That is hate speech. The Palestinains can't do that. Don't moderate Arabs see the slippery slopes of such Zionist tactics and ploys? Fourthly, is there no irony here in this article? Those same Zionist fanatics who are defending albeit meekly Rashid are themselves the instigators of the campaign of hate against Joseph Massad? Don't they realize the links between those campaigns? Fifthly, is it not clear that no matter how moderate moderate Arabs are, it will never be enough for the Zionists. It will never be enough unless every moderate Arab tranform himself/herslef into another Walid Shoebat or Khaled Abu Toameh or Muhammad Dahlan (or his lobbyiests in Washington, DC)? Sixthly, and why did the New York Times find it important to note that Rashid's mother is "a Lebanese-American Christian"? What is the point? That his half Lebanese Christian part makes him less dangerous as a Palestinian, just as the half whiteness of Obama makes him less dangerous as a black man? I mean the layers of racism in such articles in the Times are just appalling.

More on American students in Syria. Raed sent me this (I use with his permission): "man, what is it with those foreign students your posting letters of? a bit of modesty could be good, in their situation. Why modesty you may ask? well, just to cool of some of their wrongly oriented enthusiasm i may say. i mean, why is it wrong for the syrian lousy regime to make americans wait at the borders? this is maybe the only good thing the lousy syrian regime is doing.
the american and french regime are not humiliating us at their borders because of reasonnable causes. their policy toward foreigners and especially arabs are due to a whole tendency in their political and beauraucratic discourse aiming at putting the arabs in order. its not because the syrian regime is a dictatorship that the american and frnch regimes treat syrian citizens like trash (and other citizens too). Its because od things intimitaly related to post colonial relationship between old colonial states and old colonized ones. In this case, its because of the lousy syrian regime's policy towards israel, cos remember, that even if for you and me, the syrian regime is not doing enought (and even sabotaging) the struggle of the palestinians, it is NEVER enough for the american establishment for exemple. what is the syrian regime was a democracy, and committed to Palestinian struggle. I bet my... that the american regime would treat the syrian citizens in the same way: As inferiors (im not impressed with the whole anti-terrorist pragmatic new arguments). Would it be wrong if the syrian regime, instead of let say bombing innocent american civilians (which they do not do anyway but the americans do, "normally"), made bureaucratic measures for american citizens a bit uneasy. the palestinians are in the same problem: that of having limited resources for retaliation. this is the situation of the weak: What else could they do? anyway, look at how that student interpreted the lousy regime's policy as "taking out their frustrations". what is this? This is what was said about saddam's regime in the lousiest media in the west (france and US anyway), constructing a vision of a whole 3 million state-fonctionnaire (and 20 million citizens) as mere tools of one man's eros. and what does all this got to do with the Golan? 3ayb. The Golan question (that the syrian regime is handling in a lousy way as i like to think) is something deeply tied to the reason why the regime have problems with the US in the first place (and not the regime's industry of enriched uranium). Citing the Golan here is taking the superiority tone to an upper level. some foreign students have to watch out for:
1) orientalism
2) the anti-orientalism sentiments of the indigenous population (like myself) when confronted to someone who made it his business to have a speech on the things the indigenous have a speech on, a thing a bit out of their control (whether they want it or not) but to which they have to give A LOT of thinking (self-sociology is not of my inventions).
3) not everything on the syrian regime's agenda is bad. Some things are inherited since before the regime was born. The regime, since we are in the diabolic essentialist schemes, is "stuck" with the Golan question (and arabism). This is not very sophisticated explanation, it used to be a cliche."