Transcript of the video:

Helena Cobban (00:00:03):

Hi everyone. I'm Helena Cobban, the president of Just World Educational, and I'd like to welcome you to this sixth session of our 10 part webinar series, Commonsense on Syria, in which I'll have a conversation with the two great Middle East journalists, Elijah Magnier and Sharmine Narwani about the role the Syrian conflict has played in regional and global politics. I trust that by now you are all familiar with their stellar resumes. Anyway, a big welcome to you both. Sharmine, you are with us in Beirut. How are things there?

Sharmine Narwani (00:00:40):

Under lockdown and I, we're entering week six now, so a little bit ahead of Elijah, I think in Belgium.

Helena Cobban (00:00:47):

Great to have you with us. And Elijah, you are in Brussels. How are things in Brussels?

Elijah Magnier (00:00:56):

Hello, Helena. I'm fine. Thank you for having me in Brussels. Situation is good. The weather is beautiful today.

Helena Cobban (00:01:06):

So here we all are in our respective little boxes. By the way, I urge everybody listening to this to follow both of our guests on Twitter, where they're both very active. In addition, if you go to Elijah's blog, you'll see he has an amazing network of people he works with who translate his articles there into maybe seven or eight different languages. Actually, he just told me about 12. But anyway, do share that resource with your friends. I'm so glad so many people have joined us here already. I see 92, 94, the numbers keep going up, as I'm sure you know by now, A Zoom webinar is a little different than a regular Zoom. The webinar is more like a seminar or a public presentation in that there are the main speakers in this case, Sharmine and Elijah and I, while most of the people in this room are attendees whom we engage in an orderly way that allows for reasoned discussion of these very complicated issues.

Helena Cobban (00:02:07):

The other people working behind the scenes here are our Just World elves. You can communicate with them via the chat button that you'll find at the bottom of your screen. They can answer any technical questions you have, and they will also receive and organize the questions on substance that you may want to pose to the panelists. We are delighted that our chief elf is our very distinguished board member, Dr. Alice Rothchild. Please note that we are not using any q and a key capability today. If you want to ask a question of the panelists, you can do so via the chat box. And if you want your question to have a chance of actually being asked, please word it succinctly and have it be an actual question. Our elves do not have the time to read through long rants. We also ask you to keep your questions to the topic of today's session, which is the role of the Syria conflict in regional and global politics. Okay, I am going to share a screen. I'm getting better at this every time. Let us hope. Okay. So I believe that most of the attendees who are with us today have been to many or most of our sessions. Today, we're launching into the second half of our 10 session series. We've already had a broad tour of the many aspects of Syria's recent history and current plight. If you want to see the videos of the earlier sessions, you can access them via the big URL there. I hope you have a pen and paper to hand.

Helena Cobban (00:04:09):

In earlier sessions in this series, I launched some little snap polls to engage the attendees and to keep you on your toes. By the way, we now have 107 today. I'm not going to do that, no polls today. But instead, I'm going to preface my discussion with Sharmine and Elijah with a super quick tour around the regional geography in which Syria exists. Okay, here we go.

Helena Cobban (00:04:44):

So this is a big map of Syria. I will get it to fit onto your screen a bit better. I hope everybody can see this. So from the, from here you'll see this is Turkey. Turkey comes up to here, and then coming up there, it starts to be Iraq on the neighboring Syria. And then you come down to this border with Jordan. And you might recall that when these borders were drawn as Joshua Landis told us in session one, they were drawn very much with oil pipelines in mind. And the reason that Jordan goes right across to Iraq is obviously because the British wanted to control that oil pipeline. And if you drive along that road, it really is just an oil pipeline. And the little towns along there have the names like H4, H5, H6, it's just completely designed for the oil pipelines.

Helena Cobban (00:05:57):

And then, so that's Jordan, and then you come, there's Golan right there. Here's Israel and Lebanon and back to Syria's coastline. So some of the interesting things there, obviously most of the population in Syria is over toward the west of the country where the, because the east is very heavily desert, apart from the Euphrates, which comes down here. There's a big lake Assad there behind a dam. Actually, if you go up a little bit, you'll see the, the Turks have damned the Euphrates a lot up there. And then the Euphrates comes down. And here is a place called Abu Kamal, also known on the Iraqi side as El-Qa'im.

Helena Cobban (00:06:51):

And then I do have one more thing. I'll, I'll share my other map with you later. I wanted to have them both up together, but that's alright. So I will just try and find what I'm supposed to be saying right now. Oh, no, no, no. That's not what we're gonna share. Okay, so now let's get into our discussion with our two panelists. I'm gonna start with Sharmine, and I'm gonna ask you about a theory that I've heard quite a lot from some of my friends here in the United States, in the Palestinian rights movement, who talk about the Syrian conflict being one between a number of dueling imperialisms, whereas some of us see it as one major form of imperialism, which is the US NATO imperialism. But some other people here see it as multiple imperialisms. What, what do you think about that?

Sharmine Narwani (00:07:59):

You know, Helena and I have been writing about narratives since at least 2010. It interests me the way language sort of puts us between parameters in our political discourse. And I think Palestinians would know this more than anyone. I mean, they get asked, what about their violence? When are they gonna stop their violence? They get asked, you know, what about Jewish rights and what about Jewish history, when actually the discussion should be the other way around? So in terms of, there's a lot of language we've been hearing around Syria that just simply isn't true. So you have the expansionism of empire and the expansionism of its proxies in the region like Gulf states, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar in the UAE, in Libya, in the Horn of Africa, in in, in, in carving up colonizing and carving up Yemen, trying to carve up Syria.

Sharmine Narwani (00:08:56):

And yet the word expansionism is used for Iran. You know other countries have allies and alliances. Iran has proxies as though it orders country, you know, groups and states what to do. So, you know, this is, you're referring here to allegations of Russian and Iranian imperialism. Okay? when in fact, it's exactly the other way around. About a dozen countries decided to regime change Syria to change the government in Syria, and break the resistance axis all the way from Iran to Lebanon in, in the process. And this was part of the, the, the redirection of the Arab Spring to US adversaries as opposed to US allies. So, you know, are Iran and Russia imperialist powers, well, what's an imperialist power? It's a country or an empire that is aggressively extends or tries to extend its ruler authority over countries politically, economically, militarily.

Sharmine Narwani (00:09:58):

Did Russia and Iran do that? I mean, first of all, if this was a plan, Iran only got involved in the Syrian conflict in terms of fighting militarily in 2013, though it was there in 2012, defending Shiite shrines. Russia came in in 2015. You know, both of them were, were dragged in, in essence because they had very clear danger signs happening in Syria that affected their national security. So, you know, these were reactive countries as opposed to ones with design going into Syria. Furthermore, I think it's important to note that they were in Syria legally. They were allies of the Syrian government and have become absolute strategic allies today, you know, through this conflict. They do not dictate military diplomatic political policy to the Syrian government. They collaborate. Okay. So and, and this is important, and that is, you know, a major distinction between an imperialist power and when imperialist power, how it acts with its with its client state as opposed to how the Russians and, and Iranians act in Syria, again, invited in, came in at a later date. They collaborate with their Syrian partner. It's legal under international law. It's not an act of aggression. So I think, you know, let's, let's throw that imperialist Russia, China language or narrative, you know, out with the trash because it makes no sense in this context.

Helena Cobban (00:11:24):

Thank you. There's another sort of narrative that has taken root. This one was launched, I guess, by Jordan's King Abdullah, and he talked about the threat of a Shia Crescent having been built across the top of Jordan there. So Elijah, if I could invite you to jump in and tell us about the theories of the Shiite Crescent.

Elijah Magnier (00:11:50):

Well, actually it's a front that is against the USA, Germany, and the Middle East. So if, if we talked about if we, if we mention Iran, for example, the problem between Iran and the United States is the fact that Iran is rejecting the US dominance if we see Iraq where the majority are Shia, but there are 65%, but we, there are Kurds, there are Christian, there are Sunni, there are many other inhabitant that rejected the US dominance. So the people who started the attack against the American forces in 2003 were the Sunni followed by the Shia in 2004. If we look at Syria, that King Abdullah wanted to include in the Shia correction, there are 75% of the population who are Sunni. They're not Shia. So this is not really accurate to say the Shia Crescent. And if we talk about Lebanon, that is rejecting the US dominance, there are part in Lebanon that are not Shia and who are the majority of the country because the Sunni and the Christian are more than the number of the Shia inhabitant.

Elijah Magnier (00:13:10):

There are part of the Shia of the Sunni and part of the Christian who reject the US dominance. So they're not part of the Shia Crescent, but they are part of, let's say, the axis of the resistance. And if we go further down to Palestine, we see in Gaza there are Sunni brother Muslim Brotherhood who also reject the US dominance and reject the Israeli occupation. So really saying the Shia Crescent in an area that start from Tehran and goes down to Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Gaza, we see a bouquet of religions that are not Shia, but they all reject the US dominance. And if you go further toward Yemen, that is even worse because the Yemeni are Zaidi, they're much more closer to the Sunni rather than Shia. So all these, this axis is rejecting the US dominance, and it's not a Shia Crescent. It is an access that's saying to the Americans, do not interfere our region, let us solve our own problems alone.

Helena Cobban (00:14:23):

So what you are saying Elijah, is that it's mainly a political issue of are you four or against US hegemony,

Elijah Magnier (00:14:32):

Of course, because if we see Iran is supplying support to Gaza, there is no one Shia in Gaza. That's true. If we look at Palestine, there are no Shia in Palestine. If we look at Syria, the majority are Sunni. And the Hezbollah Lebanese Shia is fighting along the Syrian army, and the Syrian army counts a minimum of 70% of Sunni. There are Druze, there are who stood against the occupation of the Golan Height, and they are not Shia, they are with the Syrian government. They are with the stability of Syria, and they are against the US will to create a fail safe in Syria and to give the power to the Takfiri and to create a havoc in the Middle East.

Sharmine Narwani (00:15:21):

Yeah. can I jump in a second here, Helena?

Helena Cobban (00:15:24):

Yeah.

Sharmine Narwani (00:15:25):

Again, you're, you're absolutely right. The way you introduced this, this is another narrative ploy that's been foisted on us. The King Abdullah of Jordan coined this phrase in 2004. So what was happening then? Basically, the Americans had invaded and occupied Iraq and overthrown the government of Saddam Hussain. And so the natural Shia majority in that country were going to come into power, into, into government roles. And so it, he later clarified that he meant, he didn't mean sect and religion as much as he meant a political thinking. And of course, the Arab monarchs were, were scared that with the changing demographic in terms of political power in Iraq, you would have a clean sweep of this Iranian mentality. And what was the Iranian mentality was, was the resistance axis mentality, which is, as Elijah was saying, anti imperialism and anti-Zionism at its core.

Sharmine Narwani (00:16:23):

But he rightfully says, one of the most interesting things about the resistance axis is it's Shia, and Sunni, it's Iranian and Arab. It's Christian and Muslim, and Drews, it's Islamist and secular. It's actually got no color. So this was, this was about framing a political problem and associating a word Shia, which is not very known in the Arab world unless there is Shias in in someone's neighborhood, with Iran, which had already been a lot of narrative work had been gone going into Iran since 1979, casting it as an enemy of Arabs. So associating Shia with, with Iran. And importantly, there really wasn't a Shia crescent. I wanted to point out that if, if I could share my screen very quickly in 2013, before ISIS came on the, on, on the scene, I did a map showing that these four countries that were called the Shia Crescent, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran that didn't work together very much, you know, here and there. In fact, were being forced to work together on the security issues. So for the first time, we saw these four countries truly come together to deal with the terrorism onslaught in security intelligence, military matters, working from a single command center. So by, by by, by trying to break the resistance axis, the, the adversaries of Iran and its resistance mentality actually helped create the security arc and bring these four countries together.

Helena Cobban (00:17:59):

Could you stop? Yeah, <laugh>, well done. You are so much better at screen sharing than I am. I actually, I, I have a little screen that I want to share because I'm gonna come on, because Elijah has not long ago been in Syria and Iraq over where they are, where they get together which, okay. So this is a a small map that I'm sharing that I have shown before. And it's kind, it shows you kind of who's in charge in various parts of Syria, relatively recently. The yellow is the Syrian Democratic forces, the US-backed Kurdish led coalition. Purple is Turkey and it's allies. The gray is Idlib, which is controlled by these Jihadi Al-Qaeda people from this organization called Tahrir al-Sham. In red, is the government of Syria. The little black blobs are ISIS remnants. And what is that green big blob that is the US military presence. So Elijah, you have recently been over to where the red and the yellow join Iraq. Is that right? Can you tell us about that and tell us what you learned when you were there?

Elijah Magnier (00:19:36):

Well, I've crossed the country of across Syria from Lebanon to Paymyra, from Palmyra to Al-Sukhnah, to Deir ez-Zur, to Al-Bukamal, and to al-Qaim. And really this is a road I used to do in 2003, 2004 until 2006 when there were no flights between the Baghdad and other part of the Middle East. And I, I had to go to Beirut and take a car to Damascus and change a car and go through a al-Tanf, or sometime the road is closed. So I would take the Kurdish crossing what used to be a Kurdish crossing. So basically what, what the Americans are trying to tell us is they are controlling the borders at Al-Tanf and Al-Qaim, and crime is not in their, under their control. It's because they want to stop the flow of weapons between Tehran and Beirut.

Elijah Magnier (00:20:43):

Actually, this is a big lie and inaccurate because we see throughout the decade, Hezbollah used to receive weapons through the airport of Damascus and through the sea of Lebanon, and most of the time was going through Syria, by land, or by airplane. So basically the presence of the Americans on the borders, it is not related to stop the crossing from Iraq to Syria. It is stopping the Syria from recovering its economy. And this is what the American called, the land bridge between the two country or between the axes that we talked about recently. So what I saw during my trip is basically ISIS is still there present, but on a very minor level because the ISIS people are people of the region. They didn't come from outside. They are illiterate. They are people who don't have a television.

Elijah Magnier (00:21:56):

They're people who live in the middle of the desert, and they are people who live in the small houses, small villages, and they're people who join ISIS because ISIS sent an army of holy men to preach about Islam and how they have to go to paradise to meet the virgin and to have lunch with a prophet. And this is the kind of argument they convince the people. And what ISIS does is attack any car basically in the morning. So the trick is to allow a car to cross before you, and then this car will be attacked and you will not be attacked. And and the attack is really minor. It's not very serious because you see two people on the motorbike with an RPG over the AK 47, and then you continue your journey.

Elijah Magnier (00:22:51):

And what I saw, and this is something nobody speaks about, is most houses are destroyed. And because the war was so devastating, there is no possibility for people to return. And actually the Americans are contributing in that because as Donald Trump said, rightly, he is in Syria not to fight ISIS. He's in Syria to take the oil, and he's not in Syria to remove President Assad. He's in Syria, to remain in Syria to support Israel and to take the oil, and keep the oil for himself and for the Kurds in the hope that he can create kind of a proxy for a temporary proxy. These are not going to last for very long. So what the Americans are doing is preventing Syria from recovering its economy and rebuilding the country because the oil is very precious. Oil and gas are in the area under the US occupation.

Elijah Magnier (00:23:53):

And because the US came to Syria to remove ISIS and let us agree that we accept that Syria that the Americans contributed in removing some part of ISIS that were on the other side of the Euphrates river that you pointed out in your image, what they are still doing in Syria, they are there only to make sure that the country is not united. They are there to make sure that they take the oil and they prevent the country from recovering, and they prevent the Syrian from electing the president. They want, they're preventing the refugees from returning to Syria. They put pressure on every single country in the region, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, to prevent these countries from allowing the return of refugees and return of Syrian to go and vote for their own president. It is not up to us to decide who's going to rule in the United States and is not up to the United States to decide who's going to rule in Syria or in the Middle East.

Helena Cobban (00:25:03):

And I guess that all goes together with the sanctions, I mean, preventing the return of refugees. And we will be talking about refugees on Wednesday. So I urge everybody who's listening to this to tune in on, on Wednesday for the refugees discussion. But what you describe is very much a, an attempt by president Trump and all his allies to prevent the rebuilding of, of Syria. So you have also been to up near to Idlib. And could you talk a little about the role of Russia and Turkey

Elijah Magnier (00:25:40):

At the first beginning, Russia, when Russia arrived to Syria, as Sharmine mentioned, in September, 2015, Russia was new to the region because it is, it was starting to wake up to a role that it gave up on since the Perestroika we're talking about 1990, 1991. And when Russia arrived to Syria, everybody made fun of Russia. All its tools, its ships, it's guns, it's, every military hardware Russia brought in. I remember all the analysts making fun of Russia, and actually Russia, to be honest, did not want it to confront the US in Syria. Russia wanted to make sure that it's protecting his naval base and to stop the war and was even ready to have a deal with John Kerry and create a kind of demarcation lines all over Syria. Luckily, the Americans refused and luckily for Syria that the war continued and Syria managed to recover most of the territory.

Elijah Magnier (00:26:53):

So now what the Russian did is Russia isolated all the different part of Syria and the north and the middle and the south, and create a kind of a truce between the rebels and the Syrian government. And by doing that, all those who refused ceasefire were transported to Italy, any northwest of the country. That area is under the Turkish control, because Turkey wanted to have a part of Syria because Erdogan like many leaders around the world believe that president Assad is going to fall within three months, six months, one year, and then he's staying and everybody's leaving. So by concentrating Al-Qaeda, the Jihadists and the pro-ISIS in one area in Italy, it was time for Russia when they finish everything at the exception of the area occupied by the US in the Northeast and the area of Idlib where Al-Qaeda is present in Turkey.

Elijah Magnier (00:27:53):

And they made the deal with the Turks, and they ask the Turks to make sure that Al Qaeda is removed and there are no more Jihadists, and then only rebels who disagree with President Assad can reach an agreement with a dialogue. And this is what Russia started, and asked Turkey to be in charge and said to Turkey, you need to remove all these jihadists, but did not put the frame of time because the president of the Americans world, the majority, it is possible to remove Turkey, but not possible to remove the Americans. So when the Americans decided to redeploy the forces and concentrate only on the area where there is the oil, then Russia said to the Turks, now it is time to implement the deal. And Turkey thought it can keep Idlib and take it as part of Turkey, because Turkey occupied also Afrin that is the Kurdish enclave, and to talk about the Kurds, that's another episode that is not the time to talk about it now.

Elijah Magnier (00:28:56):

So what happened is they said there are two axis. An axis comes from Damascus to Aleppo through a very important city of Saraqib, and another axis that goes to Sarqiba, let's say Aleppo, to make it easier and goes down on the west side until Latakia and these two access were supposed to be free. Now, the jihadists refused and started to attack the Syrian army and the Syrian civilians in Aleppo on several occasions, and they caused hundred of killed and wounded. So the Russian said, okay, that's enough. Now, if you are not going to free it, we are going to free the area. So I went to Aleppo and I went to the demarcation line very close to Suraqib on that week. And then what happened is nobody wanted the war with Turkey, but everybody wanted to remove Al-Qaeda, that was supported all this time by NATO and by the Americans preventing a deal in Idlib, preventing the Syrian army from recovering Idlib, or at least preventing the removal of Al Qaeda from Idlib.

Elijah Magnier (00:30:13):

They wanted Al-Qaeda to remain and for Al-Qaeda to remain Idlib. It creates a very valid reason for the Americans to say, we still have terrorists, not in our area, in Syria as a whole, and we need to stay under the title of war on terrorism. But there are no terrorists at the exception of the area of Idlib that the Americans are trying to defend and raising the voice by saying, there are so many hospitals destroyed. The last hospital is destroyed, another chemical attack is on the way. There are civilians that are killed in that. Of course, there are civilians that are killed in every war. War is not a pleasant thing. There are always what the Americans call unintended consequences when they are the one who are declaring the war. And when others are carrying out a liberation of their own land and their own territory, they call the massacre of civilians. So, so the battle Idlib started. Yeah, go ahead.

Helena Cobban (00:31:24):

I I just am interested for the, for the Russians, they have interest, an interest in having good relations with Turkey and trying to split Turkey off from NATO as much as possible. And Russia also has an interest in good relations with Syria. Do you see Russia being like pulled one way and the other?

Elijah Magnier (00:31:48):

No, I don't see Russia as trying to pull Turkey away from NATO. Russia is very pragmatic here. Like Iran is very pragmatic. Russia is saying, I have interest in the region and my interest work alone with Turkey in certain part, like the South stream, the gas that comes from Russia to Turkey to the rest of Syria. And there we have a common ground to stand on, but we disagree on Syria, and we want the re the to free, the Syrian territory because Syria should remain completely should be liberated because by dividing Syria and leaving, giving a safe haven to Al Qaeda in Syria, it gives an example to do the same in Iraq, later on in Jordan, later on in Lebanon and destabilize the entire Middle East, which is not in the interest of people who want to make business, who want the economy to flourish. And for Russia to expand its connection with the Middle East. Russia came to Syria to make sure that Syria is not going to be divided and not to have to declare war on the US or to bring Turkey away from the US.

Helena Cobban (00:33:12):

Thanks for clarifying that. I want to come to Sharmine. Sharmine, we've had a very complicated situation described. And I know that a lot of the people who watch this don't read the news about Syria as intensely as you and Elijah and I do. But bottom line, should we be supporting the Syrian government or not?

Sharmine Narwani (00:33:38):

Who's we?

Helena Cobban (00:33:40):

<Laugh> people who are anti imperialists and social justice activists here in the United States or, or worldwide?

Sharmine Narwani (00:33:50):

You know, one of the things I found in this conflict is it's really split the left. It's really split progressives. I you know, I think independent thinkers tend to bicker a lot on principle at every turn. But you have to look at the larger picture here. Why was the US pushing for regime change in Syria? I, I'd like to point out just a few years before things kicked off there, the US, the French, the British, the Europeans were wining and dining Assad. Okay? You have that famous picture, John Kerry and his wife having dinner with the Assads in a restaurant in Damascus. And, and many other sort of many other countries partook in outreach with, with the Syrian, with the, with the Assads and the Syrian government. And that changed, in my view, abruptly when a picture was released of Bashar al-Assad Mahmood Ahmadinejad, who was then the president of Iran and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, all three of them walking together.

Sharmine Narwani (00:34:58):

It was a picture is worth a thousand words. You know, Assad had said, this is where, this is where my worldview lies. Okay, this is where my strength lies. And he was right to say that because no nation is strong unless it has friends in its neighborhood. Okay? So this was, anyway, you look at it, you know, people who still talk about a Syrian revolution. I forget how it started, okay? But very quickly, I'm talking in the initial periods I did a, I did a, an investigative piece that showed 88 soldiers, Syrian soldiers, not policemen in security forces, but 88 Syrian soldiers who were not even on the front lines at that time, were killed, ambushed, and killed within the first month of protests in Syria, between March and April, 2011, across the country. So there were elements involved right from the beginning and very quickly you know, various political parties and governments in the region started to see what this was.

Sharmine Narwani (00:36:01):

This was a redirecting of the Arab Spring to US adversary nations, okay? You know, to Libya then to Syria. And a line had to be drawn. I think you know, if you wanna talk about the rule of Bashar Al-Assad, whether it was good or bad, I never understood that. I never understood why it was the business of foreigners to intervene in Syria and say, well, we should be okay with the arming of, of, of men coming from 80 different countries in order to overthrow the guy because he is not good for his people. The Syrian people are the only ones who have the right to decide that, you know, we have to be consistent, you know, if leftists, progressives, whatever, you have to be consistent in this. Either you uphold international law or you don't. So those talking about democracy, forget something that international law, the very UN Charter, okay, the very current world order that we live in is premised on sovereignity and territorial integrity.

Sharmine Narwani (00:37:00):

Okay? All states have those rights, and you have, you, you are also not allowed to interfere in the business of states. Now, western imperialist states have muddied the waters of international law. They have consistently violated these principles in the UN Charter and of international law to do what they will. So again, going back to should we support the government of Assad or not? The, the law is the principle, not just the principle, but the law is this is illegal, okay? This is illegal, what happened? And then on the other hand, it's, it's up to the Syrians to decide who's, who's going to rule them. But let's look at something else. Helena. I remember being asked in the early days, maybe this was 2012, because Assad had had, had launched very far-reaching reforms in 2011. And through 2012, things that many of the dissidents I met in Syria, the secular dissidents who were opposed to the armed the armed uprising you know, had been wanting for years.

Sharmine Narwani (00:38:04):

I mean, he basically, you know, I walked into Syria in January, 2012, and all of a sudden, Twitter and Facebook were available where they weren't before, where other Arab governments were shutting these, these social platforms down. But, but why, why did Syria not fall? It's not just Iran and Russia and Hezbollah, you know, from the very beginning you saw that the major cities, Aleppo and Damascus, still by and large supported the Syrian government, okay? You have the Syrian military that was very much behind the Syrian government. You had the minority groups. This was very important, okay? At that point, the, the Druze, Shiites, Alawites, Christians supporting the Syrian government. And then importantly, you had secular Sunni and the, the business and elite class in Syria supporting the Syrian government. And don't forget, the Baath party that is made up of about 3 million members are majority Sunni, as well as is the Syrian army.

Sharmine Narwani (00:39:03):

And they supported the Syrian government. So right from the start, you had you had a small majority of the people consistently supporting the Syrian government. And as violence abated in areas, and Syrians who were maybe anti-government moved into safe areas under government control, those people stepped away from the fray and supported the government position because they wanted an end to violence. So I'd say throughout this conflict, Syrians themselves you know, have shown, have shown you know, a a small majority has shown a consistent support for the Syrian government. And, and, and that's all we can really speak of.

Elijah Magnier (00:39:45):

I would like, I would like to say something if I may

Helena Cobban (00:39:48):

Please.

Elijah Magnier (00:39:49):

We cannot say that there is no opposition to the President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. That is not fair to say. All, all the Syrian support President Assad, there is an opposition. There are people who reject the ruling of President Assad. And there are people who fled the country because they had the opportunity first to look for another life, and second to escape the ruling of President Assad. If we are talking about dictators in the Middle East, we can start by our closest allies, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the Emirate, every single country in the Middle East is ruled by a dictator. And as rightly, president Trump said, I don't want to lose them. He wants their money. He wants the Saudi money. So he's careless about the dictators. He himself said, I receiving in the White House dictators and other presidents. So it is not a question of who is the dictator if the people of Syria who are outside Syria.

Elijah Magnier (00:41:00):

And I saw many video from friends of mine, the Syrian refugees, breaking the quarantine in Lebanon because they are queuing outside banks to receive between 150 to $200 a day, which is a huge amount for a Syrian in his own country, because it's, it represents the devaluation of the Syrian era, a very big amount. These people don't want to leave because they have enough money. They have a lot of support from the international community, but they can also return to their country and try to change if they have the majority. And that will be up to the Syrian to decide. And also, we see all the Arab countries who stood against Assad and financed Al-Qaeda and the rebels and ISIS at the first beginning. Now they are all returning to Damascus, and they all regained the relationship with President Assad, but they were stopped by the Americans because the Americans want to keep the sanction on the government, and the Americans don't want the government to regain the health and the recovery after this devastating war.

Helena Cobban (00:42:21):

Thank you both of you. So, Sharmine, I had a question. Because I know you've done a lot of work on visiting and writing about the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. Could you just very briefly sum up your findings and tell us when you went and and, and what you found when you went?

Sharmine Narwani (00:42:44):

Yeah. You know, the, the prevailing narrative in Western media and even sort of an, an independent media, including publications like the Electronic Intifada, was that Palestinians are being oppressed by the Syrian government, and Palestinians are anti-government. So when I, when I decided to do a piece on Palestinian refugees in Syria, I was able to go to three camps Yarmouk, Jermanah, and the camp in Homs. And, and what I did beyond that is I met with every one of the political parties Palestinian political parties in Syria. I met with the PLA, I met with soldiers, Palestinian soldiers. I met with Palestinian fighters in Yarmouk Camp and in Jermanah Camp who were defending the camp. And Palestinians very early on this conflict, at two points, signed onto a letter, almost every Palestinian group, I, I believe, except for Hamas, signed onto a letter expressing neutrality desire to take a neutral position in the Syrian conflict, okay?

Sharmine Narwani (00:43:43):

When in fact when I, when I went to Jermanah Camp it literally, it was, it was Youm al-Ard, okay? So a day that Palestinians celebrate every year when, when many Dunums of Palestinian lands were stolen from them in in occupied Palestine. And there, there were some children practicing rehearsing for a production they were going to put on. I followed them and they were waving Syrian flags, and they're waving Palestinian flags, and they even had some posters of Assad. Okay, this is a Palestinian camp. There weren't Syrians there. I turned the corner and there's this massive tent with posters of Nasrallah <laugh>, you know, a and, and I was surprised. And it turned out it was like a a day to, to gift volunteer teachers in the camps that used to be held at Yarmouk for 10 years.

Sharmine Narwani (00:44:34):

It was a Palestine Iranian association that had been having this annual event. But what I saw generally speaking, was that Palestines themselves, like Syrians, okay, had been confused in the early stages of the conflict as we were, you know, with competing narratives, what's really going on in Syria? So, of course, every every decent person wants to support the population against oppression, you know? And so you did hear those themes, but very quickly, the Palestinians saw in, in their own experiences, but by watching Palestinian soldiers members of the, members of the Palestinian Liberation Army being ambushed and killed off. And this started in early 2012, and went throughout the year, okay? So at the end of the day, ambushed, oh, well, fighters, unknown, unknown gunmen, okay? And, and there were some very famous incidences, for instance, there was, there was one where PLA soldiers were being driven from Neirab camp to their training ground.

Sharmine Narwani (00:45:35):

And they were ambush, ambushed. And many of them had their heads cut off. And the driver, a man called Ahmed who was not a soldier, was strapped into a vehicle with, with bombs and, and directed to drive through a Syrian check, Syrian army checkpoint. And at the last minute, this young driver decided to veer away from the checkpoint. And of course, his car exploded and he died, but he saved the Syrian soldiers, and he was given a marchers funeral in Neirab Camp. And these were kind of things you, you would see and hear that were not at all reflected in English, in, in, in the alternative media outside. But by and large, I would say Palestinians, when I met them around 2014 and 15, were telling me that the, the outside forces, the other are trying to break Palestine from Syria.

Sharmine Narwani (00:46:30):

Okay? They're trying to break the Palestinian cause by breaking Syria, understanding in fact, that their plight was maybe tied to the only Arab nation that would still host them in the way they did, you know, giving them equal rights and and training their armed forces and providing them with weapons and funding, et cetera. You know, so, you know, and who, who who spoke proudly about the Palestinian causes opposed to a lot of Arab leaders who just dropped it, you know, except for some lip service here and there. So, Palestinian, I'm talking about Fatah, I'm talking about the PLO ambassador in Damascus as well. Groups that were not naturally you know, inclined towards the Assad government were saying very strong things like they were trying to break the Palestinian cause by breaking Syria. And so I, I would say anyone who traveled through the camps in Syria today and seen what they've been through would, would very much hear, I think what I'm telling y'all, the refrain that they came to after a few years of watching what was going on around them. And, and Palestine camps, by the way, have been very much a target in this conflict. You have a number of camps that are completely destroyed, and there are no civilians living there anymore. And and, and so they were targeted in this conflict. And as I said, Palestinians said, it was partly to destroy the Palestinian cause and partly because they were located in strategic areas of Syria.

Helena Cobban (00:47:59):

Well, that's, thank you Sharmine, because too few people have really investigated that situation. And obviously the Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli aspects of what is happening are a big part of the regional context for what's been happening in Syria. So I'm afraid we're gonna wrap up the q this part of, of the discussion and move to the q and a, which is probably what a lot of people have been waiting for. So I'm gonna call on our board member Dr. Alice Rothchild, who has been going through the questions. Alice, can you tell us give us, give, give our panelists a couple of good questions to answer?

Alice Rothchild (00:48:40):

Okay. So first of all, there are a lot of good questions, so I apologize for all the people that are not gonna get their questions answered. This is from William Quandt the United Arab Emirates, crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has reportedly offered support to Bashar Assad if he will keep military pressure on Turkey. Is there any evidence for this? And what would be the rationale if true, is Saudi Arabia on the same wavelength?

Elijah Magnier (00:49:07):

Would you like me to take that question?

Helena Cobban (00:49:11):

Yeah <Laugh>.

Elijah Magnier (00:49:12):

Yeah. So, no, it is not true. The Emirate offered support to Assad. Saudi Arabia offered support to Assad, actually Asad sent his chief of National Security in 2015 and met Mohammed bin Salman in Riyad in Saudi Arabia. The relationship between Saudi Arabia and Syria never seized, even if Saudi Arabia spent billions of dollars trying to destabilizing the Syrian government to the request of the Americans. And the Emirates they, all the Gulf countries want to establish, we establish good relationship with Damascus because they don't want Iran to get the whole cake. They want to be part of it. And they understand the Qatari Prince said, it is gone, it's finished. We can't remove asset, so we have to accept it and step aside. And in fact, from the Battle of Ghouta close to Damascus, the Saudis pull out all their support, and now they are investing only in the Kurdish area where the Americans are asking them to pay the money. So the Emiratis are offering unconditional supports like the Saudis, like the Egyptians, and like the Bahraini and all the

Sharmine Narwani (00:50:37):

Others. But I have to, I have to point out the, the the Saudis and the Emiratis have another reason to be doing this, and it's because of Turkey and, and Qatar, this alliance that sort of broke up from the, the large amount of opposition supporting countries. 2016, 2017, I can't remember now. When, you know, it used to be that when, when the Syrian army would make gains on the west of the country where sort of Turkey and, and and the Qatar had a lot of their fighters that they were supporting then Isis would flare up in the east. And so it was, you know, the Syrian army would be ping ponged back and forth, just exhausted over time. And at some point, the Western side calmed down, which gave the opportunity for the Syrian army and their allies to head east, east, east and destroy Syria within a few short months sorry, destroy Isis within a few short months.

Sharmine Narwani (00:51:39):

And, and this is when, it was after this, that the Saudis you know, and the Gulf countries dumped Qatar you know, very shockingly, and almost with, you know, seemingly no provocation. Qatar and, and Turkey have an alliance in this. And the, the Saudis and the Emiratis are against the Muslim Brotherhood and against Iran. And Qatar and Turkey have a different, you know, do support the Muslim Brotherhood and are happy to play with Iran. So, so, you know, these countries broke off in the opposition from each other. So when Qatar, sorry, when Saudi Arabia and the Emirates step up right now and offer all kinds of help and support to Syria, part of it is, is to keep Turkey at bay, because Turkey has now basically invaded the north of Syria.

Helena Cobban (00:52:28):

Thanks. next question, Alice.

Alice Rothchild (00:52:31):

Okay, this is from Peter Ford. Could you say something about the fabled land bridge from Iran to the Mediterranean? Does this make the slightest bit of strategic sense?

Helena Cobban (00:52:43):

Sharmine?

Elijah Magnier (00:52:43):

Very good question, yes.

Sharmine Narwani (00:52:45):

Okay. I do wanna talk about this because for me, the essence of why the Americans and their allies gave this, their all was to break the resistance axis. And, you know, during the Silk Road era transit from Iran to the Mediterranean was open, and it's only when colonialism came to the region that that kind of transit between states stopped. And there, you know, we know the principle and of divide and rule, but truly Syria and Iraq were kept apart so voraciously for so long by imperialist powers. And, you know, you had in the la last half a century, these pathways were always blocked, you know, Hafez Al-Assad. The current president's father and the ex Iraqi president, Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr were almost reaching a deal, you know, for cooperation. When Saddam Hussein you know, formed a coup d'etat overthrew them hung, hung the army officers who supported rapprochement with Syria, and of course, launched a war against Iran.

Sharmine Narwani (00:53:51):

So for many years, the, the, the route was blocked, then comes the American withdrawal, the American invasion, 2003, they stayed there till 2011, right? And that's when the Syrian uprising started. So at, at so many points in the last half century, these routes have been blocked. I think it is the essence of what the imperialist powers were trying to establish there, because a route for Iran, through to Palestine would change the dynamics of the region. And in fact, this, this the, the, this abomination that they've launched against Syria has strengthened the very powers and groups and states that they wanted to weaken because they, they've now come, emerged out of this crisis stronger than before, with a lot more experience, fighting experience, and experience with each other. But you know, as Elijah was referring to earlier, during his trips to Syria, the, that border al-Qaim and Abu Kamal border is very critical for the Americans. As is Al-Tanf, there's another border there in the south, you know, and there's, there, there will continue to be efforts to, to you know, put obstacles in the land bridge between Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine. I do think it is essential part of why this war happened.

Helena Cobban (00:55:15):

So let's, I'm sure Elijah has a lot to say, but I want us to move along and have some more questions coming from Alice. So Alice, what, what's the next one? So

Alice Rothchild (00:55:25):

The next one is, since much of the debate regarding the conflict has to do with facts about what happened at the beginning of the uprising in March, 2011, can you give us some resources to do our own investigation and try to learn the facts, articles, books, websites?

Helena Cobban (00:55:43):

You know, this question is good, but it's we actually talked about the uprising in an earlier session. We will try and get good resources onto our resource page when we pull it all together. So maybe you could move on to another question.

Alice Rothchild (00:56:01):

Okay.

Elijah Magnier (00:56:01):

Would you like me to give few words on this?

Helena Cobban (00:56:05):

Sure, go ahead.

Elijah Magnier (00:56:08):

Sorry. So basically what, what is important to know that in 2011, Al-Qaeda in Iraq that became ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq sent a group of religious people to Syria to spread the teaching of Islam in their own understanding and create a robust and solid base, particularly in the area that I visited along the borders. Going from Al-Qaim, Al-Bukamal, Deir ez-Zur, Palmyra going down to Homs and all this area, because this is an area a kind of isolated. So this is, yes, there was an uprising by people who rejected the regime, but at the beginning, there were not against Assad, there were against the behavior of the military, and Al-Qaeda was already there. I advised the person to look at the history of al-Nusra when al-Nusra started. That is ISIS, part of ISIS, and then the leader of al-Nusra switched to Al-Qaeda, and then he went solo. So it is important to understand that the flow of Jihadists were there even before the uprising.

Helena Cobban (00:57:29):

And, and just another little resource there is the, the book by Sami Moubayed, that whom we had last week actually on on Wednesday on, on the webinar series. He does go into that a lot. So yeah, thank you for mentioning that, Elijah. Alice, next question.

Alice Rothchild (00:57:48):

Just to confirm what I heard, that Russia is not behaving as an imperialist power in Syria. It was invited by the brutal regime. So does the speaker justify the bombing in behavior of Russian troops against Syrians?

Helena Cobban (00:58:04):

Sharmine or Elijah? Which of you wants to take this?

Sharmine Narwani (00:58:07):

Both of us can. Elijah, I spoke a lot recently. You want to go for it?

Elijah Magnier (00:58:12):

Yes. Okay. So I think the there is no war without victims, and the victims always are the civilians. And when the Russian moved in, we understand that Russia wanted to liberate to help the Syrian regime to liberate the country. And as every group we learned afterward in every liberated city, the Al-Qaeda and the Jihadists had their main headquarters under the ground in every hospital, every school. And that is inevitable that there are civilians killed in every war. There are civilians killed by the Americans. There are civilians killed by the Russian, by the Syrian, by the Saudi, by everybody. When the Saudi and the Jordanian were bombing ISIS, they were also killing civilians. So there's no justification, but this is a war. And in the war, there are always civilians who pay their life.

Sharmine Narwani (00:59:14):

I, I would like to also point out that when, when the Americans were bombing Mosul there were a lot of Western media headlines about the fact that, because the Americans had bombed a hospital, the western media made it very clear that this hospital was actually an arms depot, an HQ for ISIS fighters, but they will never make that distinction for Syria. So I thought that was very interesting. Again, a narrative play, right? And, and most of the hospitals were occupied by ISIS in Syria. They were not occupied by ISIS or Al Qaeda.

Elijah Magnier (00:59:51):

Well, there are civilians killed. And if you look at the, when the us attacked ISIS in Raqqa, that was the capital of ISIS, they kill thousands of civilians according to their own information. And they said, yes, there were many unintended consequences, death.

Sharmine Narwani (01:00:10):

And people who frankly talk about being concerned about Syrian civilians are often people who were supporting the aggression of foreign states. The, the, the support, the, the support through funds and arms and training of militants in Syria. It's a little bit hypocritical. Just also to point out I've done a lot of research myself in 2012 and 2013, especially on the civilian, sorry, the casualty count in Syria, and the makeup of casualties in Syria is very different as, as to what we hear, the, the narrative is 500,000 dead in Syria, all killed by the Assad regime, in fact. So ISIS, Al-Qaeda, these Islamist militant groups killed nobody. All right? The, the UN released a study that was compiled from various opposition groups where they, they ran the data and merged, merged civilian death cases and came out with this really interesting fact that 93% of the dead in the Syrian conflict, at that point, it was between 60 and 70,000.

Sharmine Narwani (01:01:17):

Okay? So 93% of the dead were male. And that is not reflective of a civilian population. In fact, the rebels very clearly tried to disguise rebel deaths by calling any dead person a civilian. In those days they weren't wearing military uniforms, you know, so there's a lot of playing with, you know, pulling on our heartstrings on the civilian narratives in Syria, when in fact, a lot of it is simply not true. But as Elijah says, of course, civilians are going to die in any conflict. And, and those who, who, you know, who object to this, shouldn't be the one supporting the arming of militants in Syria,

Elijah Magnier (01:02:00):

The invasion of Iraq costs a million Iraqi dead.

Helena Cobban (01:02:06):

So I think Alice, we can probably, I don't know if Elijah and Shamine are willing to stay on for another 10 minutes, and we could have another few questions.

Elijah Magnier (01:02:19):

Sure.

Alice Rothchild (01:02:20):

Okay. Please comment on Syrian refugees fear of returning due to oppression by Syrian security forces and the mukhabarat who threatened returnees.

Sharmine Narwani (01:02:32):

By the way under the United Nations international organizations will not allow the return of refugees who are feared for who, who are afraid for their safety. They're not allowed to do that. So anyone who truly fears for their life fears the government of Syria will not be forced to return. Okay. We're talking, as Elijah mentioned earlier, about sort of efforts to ensure that bordering countries bordering Syria like Jordan and Turkey and and Lebanon, are not allowed to repatriates Syrian refugees who would like to go home. And a few years ago I was interviewing the UNDP chief here who said he is not to date met a single Syrian refugee who does not want to go home. So of course, there are people who don't wanna go home and are afraid for their lives, but they will never be forced to go home. How about the rest of the Syrian refugees though.

Elijah Magnier (01:03:31):

I spoke to, I spoke to several diplomats who told me the main reason why they don't want the Syrian refugee to return home is because they want to avoid presidential election in Syria because there are certain Assad will win the elections. And because of that, they don't want the Syrian to return. And they would want always to say, well, the election is not legitimate because there are million of Syrian abroad. And as Sharmine said, yes, there are Syrians who are afraid of returning. There are Syrian who are outside. There are dissidents in every single country around the Middle East who are afraid to return home, and some of them are invited to consulate and are cut in pieces. And yes, there are people who are against the regime in every single country in the Middle East.

Sharmine Narwani (01:04:32):

Syrian refugees also, another reason for them not going home is, or, or not being encouraged to go home by certain powers is it will, there'll be an influx of manpower to rebuild Syria and to replenish the ranks of the Syrian army and the National Defense forces that are obviously exhausted after years and years of fighting. You know, these guys who are supposed to be in service for only two years. Some of them were in service for seven years during this conflict. But you know it, so, so it's, it's replenishing manpower. Also, the other thing is it creates leverage with neighboring states of Syria. Okay? for, for Syrian refugees to go home means the, the conflict, the crisis is essentially over. There was always from day one, roots made available for Syrians to escape violence over a border, but never roots back for them. And that was external countries not allowing this to happen. You know? And of course, Jordan and Turkey and Lebanon want Syrian refugees to return. They have their own economic crises, you know, and Corona, et cetera at this point. But so why aren't they returning? You know the, the, as Elijah said, there's a concerted effort by Western states not to have these refugees return for the various reasons we've outlined.

Elijah Magnier (01:05:52):

And there is a big problem, sorry. It is the camp close to al-Tanf crossing border. There are 50,000 Syrian refugees there forced by the Americans to stay there. And they are living in a most abominable situation. And they are not allowed to return home. Not because these people are afraid of the regime, because the regime is reconciling with many people, but because the Americans are preventing their return because the Americans want to have a reason why to stay at that particular point of crossing between the two country to prevent the prosperity of Syria. So my question is to the American people, why on earth, your soldiers are in the middle of a desert. I know Tanf you drive for an hour in the middle of the desert, there is nothing o gasoline station and one farm, and there's a checkpoint of the Syrian, and then after that, a checkpoint of the Iraqi. Why on earth you're putting all your soldiers in the middle of the desert to do what, what is the interest of the US to stay in the middle of a desert? Exactly what Trump said at the beginning. It's a sand and death. And if it's a sand and death, why on earth are we there?

Helena Cobban (01:07:18):

So actually what the, the, the situation you are describing is very similar to Venezuela, where the, the Western powers have encouraged an outflow of Venezuelan people, and then they claim there's a, a humanitarian crisis. And all of this is linked to sanctions. You know, the humanitarian crisis is, is deeply linked to the US and EU sanctions in

Sharmine Narwani (01:07:44):

It's disruption. It's disruption of a country in every way possible to keep it weak and to keep the central government ineffective, you know, in, in seeing to the needs of, of its citizens. So yeah, unfortunately, you know, it's a nasty game, this refugee crisis.

Helena Cobban (01:08:00):

So, so maybe one,

Elijah Magnier (01:08:00):

I would like to say last word if I may on this topic the reason what the Americans are doing is they are forcing Lebanon, the Lebanese government, asking the Lebanese government not to allow the refugee to return to Syria. And what the Lebanese government did is they set up an office, the different offices in different part of the country, and they say, those who are willing to return and feel happy to go back home, we will talk to the Syrian government and ask them if you can go. And the Syria always said, yes, they can go and many travel, but the, the Americans are trying to say, we pay you money to keep the Syrian, the Americans are paying to the, the Americans and the Europeans are paying to the, to Turkey to keep the Syrian. And they are paying a lot of money to Jordan to keep the Syrian as refugees and not to allow them to go back home.

Helena Cobban (01:09:01):

So Alice, maybe we could have one last question and then we need to wrap this up.

Alice Rothchild (01:09:06):

Okay. How can Syrian people truly decide on who can be their ruler? Can they vote freely? Does Syria have free and fair elections?

Sharmine Narwani (01:09:15):

Not really <laugh>. You know to date not, but I'll tell you what was interesting in 2012, I think it was when you know, the reforms had been coming hard and fast, and there was an effort to have a referendum on constitutional changes. So Syria has a constitution and they had you know, people go to vote for you know, whether they accept this new version of the Constitution or not. And a lot of opposition and I I'm talking also peaceful opposition, not, not militants, just, decided boycott the, the referendum. And we learned that about 60% of the population showed up, you know, and we learned that just over a majority voted for the, the, the, the constitution. So it, it showed that and, and that is probably reflective of what actually Syrians wanted. But you know, the numbers used to be sky high in past elections.

Sharmine Narwani (01:10:17):

And, and, and this was maybe like we were seeing actually Syrians will vote and will vote responsibly and, and will vote in this case a little bit more of them will vote in favor of the government than will not. So I think there is the possibility, and I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Elijah, but I believe, I mean, it's, it's the thrust of what the Russians and the Iranians and the Chinese have been saying: hold elections when things have calmed down and let the Syrian people decide. And I believe the Syrian government has accepted international observers for this. So you know, one can only,

Elijah Magnier (01:10:55):

Yeah, yeah, no, they are also now working on reforming the Constitution. And this is what Russia is engaged with Turkey to allow all the people who don't want to live under Al-Qaeda and other jihadists' control to reconcile and to have their place. And reform the constitution, the United Nations is engaged in that. And the Americans are also invited, the Europeans are also invited. It is on the way. It hasn't been achieved, but it is on the way. And things will not return as they were before 2011, not only because there is internet, because people are more educated, they know what happened. Also the government is aware that things cannot go back to the old age, but also because a reform of the constitution is needed for people who were unhappy to go back under the umbrella of a stable government. Because many people from the opposition who are against the President Asad, are still in Syria and don't want the Jihadist and ISIS or Al Qaeda like to run their country.

Helena Cobban (01:12:10):

And so there was the United Nations convened a conference in October in Geneva, and we are hopeful that obviously that process, which is for a constitutional compromise, can resume as soon as possible. We're gonna be talking about this in the, the last session of our webinar series. So I hope that whoever had that question will carry on watching until then.

Sharmine Narwani (01:12:40):

Just a little prediction. I think the the changes on the constitution and the reforms that are implemented at the end of this crisis will take us to, back to 2011, 2012, and the reforms that Assad was sort of doling out thick and fast, you know because they were substantial, but nobody allowed them time to take hold. And one will wonder at the end of the day, if all this carnage could have been avoided, had people just allowed those reforms to take hold.

Helena Cobban (01:13:11):

So this has been a very rich discussion. It, we haven't, we haven't solved anything, but I think we've we've all learned a lot. I want to thank everybody who has been with us on this learning adventure today including all the attendees and participants super Elf team led by Dr. Alice Rosschild, and of course Sharmine and Elijah, thank you so much for the time you've given us, Sharmine, it's been great to have you with us from Beirut. I hope things are, are good for you there, so stay safe.

Sharmine Narwani (01:13:46):

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Helena Cobban (01:13:48):

And Elijah, it's been great to have you with us too. I, I'm still in awe at this kind of globe circling technology that we can use to have a discussion that involves so many people. Thank you, Elijah.

Elijah Magnier (01:14:04):

Well, thank you.

Helena Cobban (01:14:06):

And just want to remind everybody that the maximum number of of people that we saw here was something like 111 on the webinar. And that, of course, these webinars are all being recorded and the video will be available within just a few hours. We're gonna be holding these webinars on Wednesday and Saturday at 1:00 PM New York City time from now through April 25th. And the next one that we are gonna have is, I'm getting better at this screen sharing thing, is Omar, professor Omar Dahi, who is professor at Hampshire College. He's gonna be talking precisely about the question of Syria's millions of cross-border refugees and the equally large number of internally displaced people, IDPs. Let me stop sharing that. And now, people who've been on these webinars before know that I am gonna make a quick fundraising pitch here because we make all our programs available to the public at no charge, but of course they do all cost money to put on.

Helena Cobban (01:15:22):

And if you want to support what we're doing here, please go to our website, www.justworldeducational.org and click on the donate button. And you know, if you've got a spare thousand dollars lying around, you know, we'll take it all. If you have $30, that would be great too. Anything in between, well, even 25, whatever. So thank you all of you being here. Again, when you click on the leave webinar button that's at the bottom right of your screen, zoom will direct you to a questionnaire where you can give your feedback and evaluation of this session. Please do fill it out because it really helps us to make our programs better. Thanks for being with us today, everybody. Stay safe and be sure to join us for next Wednesdays session with Omar Dahi. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.