How do you know when a war begins? Syria and Ukraine.

WHAT does it feel like when a war begins? When does life as you know it implode? How do you know when it is time to pack up your home and your family and leave your country? Or if you decide not to, why? 

-- Janine di Giovanni, 2012

I've been spending a lot of time reading about the war in Ukraine, which is beginning to resemble the Syrian war in many sad and destructive ways. The Russians bombed the child and maternity hospital in Mariupol yesterday, as they also destroyed so many hospitals in Syria. I was just looked back at my many blog entries, searching for an article I read then about the shock of war beginning.

In 2012, I was in Israel on sabbatical from January to the beginning of August. Bashar al-Assad was already slaughtering his own people. Janine di Giovanni's article, "Life During Wartime," made chills go down my spine. I was safe in Jerusalem, but Syria was so close.

di Giovanni writes about the moment when the war finally arrived in Damascus, 17 months after it had begun in Deraa, with the arrests of children who had painted anti-regime messages on a school.

WHAT does it feel like when a war begins? When does life as you know it implode? How do you know when it is time to pack up your home and your family and leave your country? Or if you decide not to, why?

For ordinary people, war starts with a jolt: one day you are busy with dentist appointments or arranging ballet lessons for your daughter, and then the curtain drops. One moment the daily routine grinds on; A.T.M.’s work and cellphones function. Then, suddenly, everything stops.

Barricades go up. Soldiers are recruited and neighbors work to form their own defense. Ministers are assassinated and the country falls into chaos. Fathers disappear. The banks close and money and culture and life as people knew it vanishes. In Damascus, this moment has come.

War starts very suddenly:

I know about the velocity of war. In all of the wars I have covered — including in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Kosovo — the moments in which everything changes from normal to extremely abnormal share a similar quality. One evening in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in 2002, for example, I went to bed after dinner at a lavish French restaurant. When I woke up, there was no telephone service and no radio broadcast in the capital; “rebels” occupied the television station and flares shot through the sky. In my garden I could smell both the scent of mango trees and the smell of burning homes. My neighborhood was on fire. The 24-hour gap between peace and wartime gave me enough time to gather my passport, computer and favorite photos and flee to a hotel in the center of the city. I never returned to my beloved house with the mango trees.

The malign Russian role in the Syrian war had already begun - not with Russian soldier and aircraft, but with the UN:

As Russia continues to veto Security Council efforts to sanction and reproach President Bashar al-Assad, friends in Syria e-mail and tweet about assassinations, brutal killings, doctors torturing victims.

Russia now also stymies any Security Council actions with its vetoes. 

We have been here before in Europe.

Thirteen years ago [now 23 years ago], [UN Secretary General] Mr. Annan issued a report to the General Assembly on the failure of the international community to prevent the massacre of Bosnians at Srebrenica. He called it “a horror without parallel in the history of Europe since the Second World War.” 

We now have another unparalleled horror in European history. I've been struck by how many commentators write about the Russian war on Ukraine as if it's the only violent European episode since 1945. In the meantime, Russia has waged war in many other countries (just as the US has), and is now using the same tactics in Ukraine as it did in Syria and Chechnya.

Last weekend, there were two rallies in Ithaca in support of Ukraine. One, at noon on Sunday, March 6, was organized by Codepink in coalition with other dubious organizations, like Stop the War UK and the No to NATO Network. I don't know what the signs were in Ithaca, but looking at photos of other rallies sponsored by this coalition, it's clear that they blamed NATO just as much as Russia for the war. The slogan on one Codepink poster: "Stop the war in Ukraine, No to NATO expansion." Another sign - "NATO is the problem."

The second rally, at 2:00 pm, was organized by Ukrainians in Ithaca. I went to the second one, since I actually wanted to support Ukraine.

Ukraine

One of the earliest political events that I was really aware of and read a lot about at the time was the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968, when I was 12. I think most Americans who were politically aware at the time were more focused on the Vietnam War and the Democratic Convention in Chicago than on the Russian invasion. What's going on in Ukraine now really reminds me of what happened in Prague, although of course there are major differences. The Soviet Union is no more and communism has collapsed. Russian imperialism, however, persists.

Did Israel bomb Syria a fourth time? Will Syria react?

There's an article on the Haaretz website today about the mysterious bombing of Latakia, Syria, that happened on July 5.  The target was apparently Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles, which the IDF sees as a threat to Israel. It wasn't clear last week what had happened, but there were reports that "fighter jets" were seen over the city. Yesterday, CNN reported, on the basis of interviews with three US officials who were not named, that Israel had bombed the site. If this report is correct, it will be the fourth time this year that Israel has attacked a Syrian site. After the third one, Assad threatened that if Israel attacked again, he would respond militarily.

The question I have is - why would American officials spill the news to CNN? What possible interest does the US have in provoking fighting between Israel and Syria? If Israel in fact bombed these missiles in Latakia, and subsequently both Syria and Israel studiously avoided saying anything about it in public, what purpose is there in revealing the information? One could say the same about the alleged Israeli destruction of a Syrian nuclear reactor a few years ago. Both Israel and Syria kept their mouths shut (what I recall is that the North Koreans protested the bombing at the time, which was curious, but became clear later on when it came out that they had probably built it for the Syrians). It was US officials, again, who revealed that Israel had hit the reactor - but why? Was it in the interest of the US to reveal this information? Why?

And now that this report is out there - what will Syria do? The Haaretz report comments:

If indeed it was Israel that attacked last week, the attack has largely flown under the radar, at least until the CNN report. After the two suspected Israeli attacks in May, Assad clearly stated that he would not ignore another Israeli infraction, and Israel would pay a heavy price for any attack. Assad hinted then that he was considering opening a terror front in the Golan Heights. The fact remains that if CNN is correct regarding the identity of last week’s attacker, Assad must know it as well, and if he chooses to ignore this attack as well, we can learn that he still has no intention of directly confronting Israel, despite his aggressive declarations. Assad’s silence relies upon his ability to comprehensively deny the attack, much like in the past, and totally ignore the violation of Syrian sovereignty.
     
The CNN report makes comprehensive denial rather difficult – but it comes rather late, more than a week after the incident took place. During the coming days, it remains to be seen if Assad, who is concentrating all his efforts at putting down the fierce rebellion within Syria, will chose to ignore this latest attack, believing that slight humiliation in the media is still preferable to a direct confrontation with Israel.

I hope that Assad decides that it's best to ignore this report and not attack Israel - I have a personal interest in this, since I'm in Jerusalem until early August, and even if I weren't here, I certainly wouldn't want Israel to get involved in the Syrian civil war.

Moscow's Gay-Bashing Ritual

When will the "Pinkwashing and Homonationalism" crowd get around to condemning the beatings and arrests of gay activists in Russia simply for trying to have a demonstration? 

Moscow's Gay-Bashing Ritual (New York Times)

A concerted effort by Moscow activists to secure a legal permit for an L.G.B.T. pride parade resulted, after several years, in a 2010 European Court on Human Rights ruling that directed the city authorities to allow the event to be held. Though Russia usually complies with E.C.H.R. decisions, this time the Moscow City Court responded by banning gay pride events for the next 100 years. That, and the pending legislation against so-called propaganda of homosexuality — passed in a number of Russian municipalities and likely to face a final vote in the national Parliament as soon as this week — have pushed L.G.B.T. issues to the foreground of Russian politics and L.G.B.T. organizing deep underground.  

Earlier in the day, a young woman stood up in front of Parliament with a poster and was attacked by a self-identified Orthodox believer before she had a chance to turn the poster to face the onlookers; she was then detained by the police. Then another woman unfurled a poster with the words “Love Is Stronger Than Hate” and had barely had time to say, “This is a legal one-person picket to protest the homophobic laws” before two policemen grabbed her and dragged her away. In all, at least 25 people were detained by the police in the early afternoon. Because what they had been doing was legal, they were eventually released without charge — but not before the 5 p.m. rally was over.