Bashar Quotes

The first step towards true enlightenment is to lighten up on yourself.

Doubt is a one hundred percent trust, in a belief you don't prefer. You are never really actually in doubt. You are always completely trusting in something.

Do not rely on the outer world as your measuring stick for your own spiritual growth. Rely on your response to the outer world to determine how much you have grown.

You already own what you think you need.

How can you be afraid to feel? Isn’t fear a feeling? If you’re feeling fear, you’ve felt one of the most negative emotions there is to feel. Everything else should be a piece of cake.

What is patriotism? Let us begin with what patriotism is not. It is not patriotic to dodge the draft and to mock war heroes and their families. It is not patriotic to discriminate against active-duty members of the armed forces in one’s companies, or to campaign to keep disabled veterans away from one’s property. It is not patriotic to compare one’s search for sexual partners in New York with the military service in Vietnam that one has dodged. It is not patriotic to avoid paying taxes, especially when American working families do pay. It is not patriotic to ask those working, taxpaying American families to finance one’s own presidential campaign, and then to spend their contributions in one’s own companies. It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators. It is not patriotic to cultivate a relationship with Muammar Gaddafi; or to say that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are superior leaders. It is not patriotic to call upon Russia to intervene in an American presidential election. It is not patriotic to cite Russian propaganda at rallies. It is not patriotic to share an adviser with Russian oligarchs. It is not patriotic to solicit foreign policy advice from someone who owns shares in a Russian energy company. It is not patriotic to read a foreign policy speech written by someone on the payroll of a Russian energy company. It is not patriotic to appoint a national security adviser who has taken money from a Russian propaganda organ. It is not patriotic to appoint as secretary of state an oilman with Russian financial interests who is the director of a Russian-American energy company and has received the “Order of Friendship” from Putin. The point is not that Russia and America must be enemies. The point is that patriotism involves serving your own country. The

The only thing you discover in the unknown is more of yourself.

Do not think like a human. You have the ability within you to create anything you wish. Truth is, you are all highly powerful entities walking this planet, disguised as simple biological beings & the disguise fools everyone -- even yourself.

Your purpose is to be YOU as fully as you can and the way that's perhaps most easily done is to act on your highest joy.

All emotions stem from beliefs. You can't feel something without believing something to be true first.

Surrendering is not the giving up of something. True surrender is the total acceptance of yourself. You're not 'losing' anything in the surrender, the way your society usually means that word. You are not giving up anything in the sense of loss. Surrender means to open up: Open up to your total self; to give in and let go of the things you think you're supposed to be. Just be who you are. It will see you through.

Any exciting goal will arrange exciting ways to achieve it.

Circumstances do not determine your state of being. Your state of being determines your circumstances.

What you put out is what you get back.

The greatest power requires the gentlest touch. If you have to intervene or force yourself on someone else, then what that's actually an indication of is that you don't actually believe in your own power. Because if you believed in your own power - if you knew you were powerful enough to create the reality that you prefer - why would you need in any way shape or form to interfere with anyone else's process?

There is NO REASON to DOUBT Yourself! If you know what your intentions are, you will always give yourself the Guidance – and even if you momentarily seem to get off track – which is NOT really possible – then you will always allow yourself to know that there is something you will learn from it in a positive way and know that you haven’t really left the track at all. You have simply expanded the track wider.

Physical reality is a reflection of what's going on in our belief systems and in our energy. (...) Physical reality is really nothing more than a mirror of the energetic state of being that we choose to be in, based on the beliefs we hold to be true. (...) It's possible to learn the lesson that allows us to change ourselves and get a different reflection.

We never change the world we're on. We change ourselves and we we actually shift to another version of Earth that already exists that is more reflective of the change we made in us. This gets into things like parallel realities, the multiverse - all of that kind of idea.

[Excitement is] your true vibration. It's your body's translation of the frequency of your True Core Being. That's why [our biggest teaching is: "Follow your Highest Excitement" in life]. Because that means when you act on it you're in alignment with yourself. It's the compass needle pointing to your magnetic north.

The purpose of a relationship is to reflect to all the others in the relationship what they need to understand to become more of themselves. Everyone in a relationship is in a relationship for the purpose of helping the other people in the relationship, giving them opportunities to learn to be who they are more and more.

With all colors combined the world shines

Dysfunctional systems will fall under their own weight. Let them.

A path is not something you're on. A path is what you are.

Fear, f-e-a-r, is: False Evidence Appearing Real

It's so important to identify beliefs. Because once you identify [a negative belief], once you bring it into the light, you will see it doesn't belong to you: - That it came from your parents; - It came from your family; - It came from your society; - It came from your friends. And you bought into it. But it isn't yours. Holding on to something that isn't yours is called theft. Don't be a belief thief! Let go of what isn't yours.

Assign positive meaning.

There is always a door, no matter how dark the room is, find it and get out.

Opposites attract because they are alike. They are alike in that they are opposites.

Don’t need what you want. Want what you need.

The fervor and single-mindedness of this deification probably have no precedent in history. It's not like Duvalier or Assad passing the torch to the son and heir. It surpasses anything I have read about the Roman or Babylonian or even Pharaonic excesses. An estimated $2.68 billion was spent on ceremonies and monuments in the aftermath of Kim Il Sung's death. The concept is not that his son is his successor, but that his son is his reincarnation. North Korea has an equivalent of Mount Fuji—a mountain sacred to all Koreans. It's called Mount Paekdu, a beautiful peak with a deep blue lake, on the Chinese border. Here, according to the new mythology, Kim Jong Il was born on February 16, 1942. His birth was attended by a double rainbow and by songs of praise (in human voice) uttered by the local birds. In fact, in February 1942 his father and mother were hiding under Stalin's protection in the dank Russian city of Khabarovsk, but as with all miraculous births it's considered best not to allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.

Time and space are illusions. Everything exists at the same time. We only see what we are tuned to the vibration of to see. As we change our ideas, we change our vibrations, we start to see a different world, literally. Because we have shifted our consciousness, our focus, to a different version of Earth that exists simultaneously with the version we were on a moment ago. And we are experiencing literally, bit by bit, whether fast or slow, a progression through different versions of Earth. So the change has to be made within the person. They may for a while still be able to see and observe the version of Earth that they are no longer really strongly connected to, but that will change over time. It's not that the world they were on changes, it's that what changes is their ability to still perceive that world as opposed to perceiving one that's now more in alignment with the vibrational frequencies they have changed within themselves.

When you feel the emotional reaction of someone's supposed [verbal] attack, what you're doing is getting them to reflect to you that some portion of yourself feels that way about yourself. Otherwise you wouldn't react. You would just observe it - "oh interesting." - and move on with your day. But if you react to it, it's showing you some part of you actually is buying into this as true. So say: "Well thank you: Thank you for showing that I was not loving all of myself." And when you really start doing that, then you may start to see that someone else's attitude toward you may change.

The greatest gift creation has given to all of you is that life is fundamentally meaningless. That means it has no built-in meaning. What that also means is, you were designed to give it the meaning you prefer to give it. And the meaning you give it will utterly determine how you experience it.

Positive energy is collective, integrative, expansion. Whereas negative energy (...) is simply that which disconnects, which segregates, which separates, which lowers energy, lowers frequency. Whereas Positive increases the frequency and allows us to see things more holistically. Whereas negative energy breaks things into parts that makes things a bit more challenging to manage.

Here is the true secret of the Law of Attraction: You have a core vibrational frequency. It is purely uniquely you. It's a beacon. It's like a lighthouse. It shines. It radiates purely that signature frequency of your unique being. It never stops radiating that light, that frequency, that energy - never stops. Everything that is in alignment with that frequency is doing its utmost to come to you. Everything that is not aligned with that frequency is doing its utmost to get as far away from you as it possibly can. If the things that are aligned with that beacon aren't reaching you, it's not because "you're not vibrating at the resonance that you need to attract it". It's because your definitions and beliefs are holding it away. If the things that are trying to get away from you can't get away from you, it's not because they're not trying - it's because you're holding onto them. So the true Secret of the Law of Attraction is not "how to learn to attract what you prefer", it's how to learn to let go of what you don't, so that you can let in what is trying to get to you automatically - by definition. That's the true Secret and that's why it's effortless. It's just about letting go and letting in. It's not about having to learn to do something you're not already doing.

Whatever it is we truly believe to be true, and that also goes with what we are afraid is true, is going to have a reflective consequence in physical reality. The idea of choice is, we might be unconsciously choosing to buy into things that are out of alignment with who we truly are or who we prefer to be. And it's those choices to hold onto things that are out of alignment with us, that cause the consequence.

People who are saying that they are afraid of heights are usually not actually afraid of heights. They are afraid of falling, which means it's a synonym for losing control. So they have to get in touch with the definitional belief to find out what's really going on.

What seems to be a dead end may be an arrow pointing you in an unexpected direction.

You must own the choices you have already made before you can make new ones.

Life is not a period or a question mark. It’s an exclamation point.

All pain is the result of resistance to the natural self.

This is the year 2020. We use the idea of 2020 to represent clear vision forward. We also use the idea of 2020 to talk about clear vision backward; 2020 hindsight. So the idea is that we're smack in the middle of the idea of the past and the future. And 2020 represents our opportunity to really see clearly what we've chosen in the past and really apply that clearly to what we prefer in the future.

You have to allow the fear to be a messenger; to give you information that it's attempting to tell you: that you have a negative belief. You can't be afraid of the fear. You have to recognize it. Allow it to do its job. And therefore once it delivers the information, what it's bringing your attention to [is]: "Hey! hey! knock knock knock! You have this negative belief that is out of alignment that you don't prefer!" Once it brings your attention to that, you can say: "Thank you fear. Thank you for bringing my attention to something I didn't know about within myself, so that now I can deal with it, now that I can let it go. Thank you fear." And as soon as you use fear that way and allow it to be what it is; allow it to do the job it was designed to do, it will not be felt as fear anymore. You will welcome it as a messenger that will alert you to anything within you that's out of alignment. And you will be excited about feeling it. And then it will turn into excitement. That's how you "Allow" with fear.

Achievement is living your life to the fullest. Being you as best as you can. And the way you do that is by acting on your highest excitement. That's it. That's your purpose in life; that's your mission; that's the highest achievement; is to be you, the true you, as fully as you can and enjoy the ride. That's it.

Unrequited love: there's no such thing. If it is unrequited it isn't love, it's expectation [that they should treat you in a certain way]. It's not allowing the relationship to be what it is. It's not accepting the love in the form in which it actually comes in that relationship as being real enough, as being good enough. That's the only thing that creates the idea of "unrequited" is you're not really paying attention to what it is, you're only paying attention to what you expect it to be. [For the person experiencing unrequited love;] the real unrequited love is that they're not loving themselves as much as they could. That's what's unrequited, and they're simply getting a reflection of that.

the United States helps topple the dictator Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday, then what will it do on Thursday, when it finds that it has helped midwife to power a Sunni jihadist regime, or on Friday, when ethnic cleansing of the Shia-trending Alawites commences?

If Syria is to rise from the ashes it needs a united Arab world which has one thing on its agenda, not the falling of a dictator for we have seen many of those fall, but the reemergence of a prosperous Arab nation, one that is not reliant on foreign aid but is self-sustained and set on its way to become powerful once again.

We call ourselves poor, that's why we're poor. When we will start calling ourselves rich then we will become rich, even it won't look like that. Self trust is freedom.

Don't make your character that people can walk on it, make your character as sky so that people would dream to get there

We must not be beggars, why should we beg? We have something to offer.

I am drowning in a ocean of thoughts and sadness

Give it a positive meaning so you can get a positive result.

If you're going to be in a traffic jam, at least enjoy the flavor. Make some toast.

If you are capable of perceiving it, you are capable of living it.

Stop arguing with creation.

If you have writer’s block, write about having writer’s block, and you will no longer have it.

Obama was the most powerful man in the world, but that didn’t mean he could control the forces at play in the Middle East. There was no Nelson Mandela who could lead a country to absolution for its sins and ours. Extremist forces were exploiting the Arab Spring. Reactionary forces—with deep reservoirs of political support in the United States—were intent on clinging to power. Bashar al-Assad was going to fight to the death, backed by his Russian and Iranian sponsors. Factions were going to fight it out in the streets of Libya. The Saudis and Emiratis were going to stamp out political dissent in Egypt before it could come to their kingdoms. A Likud prime minister was going to mouth words about peace while building settlements that made peace impossible. Meanwhile, innocent people were going to suffer, some of them were going to be killed, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. Obama had reached that conclusion before I had. History had opened up a doorway in 2011 that, by the middle of 2013, had been slammed shut. There would be more war, more conflict, and more suffering, until—someday—old men would make peace.

Syria, the March 2011 arrest and torture of fifteen schoolboys who had sprayed anti-government graffiti on city walls set off major protests against the Alawite Shiite–dominated regime of President Bashar al-Assad in many of the country’s predominantly Sunni communities. After tear gas, water cannons, beatings, and mass arrests failed to quell the demonstrations, Assad’s security forces went on to launch full-scale military operations across several cities, complete with live fire, tanks, and house-to-house searches.

Physical reality is only a mirror. And whatever you define it to be; whatever you believe is most true, is what you get. So it's very important to pay attention to those beliefs and those definitions, for it is those and only those that create your physical reality experience.

It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators. It is not patriotic to cultivate a relationship with Muammar Gaddafi; or to say that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are superior leaders. It is not patriotic to call upon foreign leaders to intervene in American presidential elections. It is not patriotic to cite Russian propaganda at rallies. It is not patriotic to share an adviser with Russian oligarchs. It is not patriotic to appoint advisers with financial interests in Russian companies. It is not patriotic to appoint a National Security Advisor who likes to be called “General Misha,” nor to pardon him for his crimes. It is not patriotic when that pardoned official calls for martial law. It is not patriotic to refer to American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.” It is not patriotic to take health care from families, nor to golf your way through a national epidemic in which half a million Americans die. It is not patriotic to try to sabotage an American election, nor to claim victory after defeat. It is not patriotic to try to end democracy.

Israel’s constant drone surveillance over Gaza also impressed President Vladimir Putin. Moscow needed reliable surveillance drones after it lost many planes during its war in 2008 against Georgia in South Ossetia. Tbilisi had used Israeli drones, and years later Moscow decided to follow suit. Having seen Israeli operations over Gaza, Russia licensed the Israeli Aerospace Industries Searcher II, renamed “Forpost” by its new owners, and it became a key asset in Russian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.33 Israel trained Russian pilots to operate the drones. Russia and Israel maintained a close relationship during the Syrian civil war despite the former supporting Assad and the latter worrying about the growing presence of Russian allies Iran and Hizbollah in the country. This led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and Naftali Bennett) to routinely attack Iranian and Syrian military positions in Syria to stop the transfer of weapons to Hizbollah. However, Moscow usually turned a blind eye to these attacks, assisted by a de-escalation hotline between the two governments.

[...] il 7 ottobre 2011, in occasione dell'assassinio di Mechaal Tamo, figura di spicco dell'opposizione curda al regime, schierato e impegnato con la rivoluzione. La sua uccisione ha provocato manifestazioni in molte province del paese e 50.000 persone hanno partecipato al suo funerale a Kamechliyeh. Di fronte al coinvolgimento crescente della componente curda nella rivoluzione e alle dinamiche di incontro e unità con i suoi altri protagonisti i diversa provenienza, culminate nel venerdì "Hurria, Azadi" ("Libertà" in lingua araba e curda), il regime sceglie di giocare la carta della divisione, risparmiando le aree curde dalle distruzioni, anzi ritirandosene. [...] I giovani curdi hanno sfidato una dittatura che negava persino le loro esistenze e hanno dimostrato di non essere mossi solo o prevalentemente da rivendicazioni "nazionali" proprio rifiutando di accontentarsi del riconoscimento della loro cittadinanza, obiettivo per cui avevano lottato generazioni precedenti di curdi. In questa chiara scelta di schieramento erano compresenti il rifiuto di farsi comprare con un passaporto e la sfida alle logiche e alle formazioni politico-militari da decenni in competizione, anzi in lotta, tra di loro, alcune delle quali si erano collocate addirittura a fianco del regime di Assad. [...]

هل تعلم لماذا احب رمال الصحراء اكثر من مياه البحر !؟عندما ترمي نفسك في مياه البحر فستمسك بك وتعانقك حتى تسأم منك وترميك على سطحها..لكن عندما ترمي نفسك في رمال الصحراء فستعانقك للابد.. للابد..

U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003 because President Bush determined that if sanctions could not force regime change, the military must. In this case, shrugging off Saddam’s bravado and keeping him isolated was the better choice. In 2013, when Syria’s Bashar al-Assad appeared ready to use chemical weapons on his own people, President Obama drew a red line. Assad’s use of these weapons, Obama warned, was a “game-changer.” Assad is then believed to have used those chemical weapons, but Washington took no action against his government, instead allowing Russia to broker a hasty deal to destroy the weapons. Obama chose flexibility; he was wise to do nothing.

When the Islamic State decided to set up shop in Syria, it already had a network in place. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad had funneled hundreds of jihadists into Iraq to fight against the United States. According to the U.S. government, in 2007, 85 to 90 percent of the foreign fighters in Iraq had come through Syria.95 The Islamic State had received many of those fighters96 and had maintained its facilitation network in Syria after the end of the Iraq war.97 When Syrians began peacefully protesting against their government in 2011, the Assad regime released an unknown number of jihadists from prison.98 The release was calculated to foster violence among the protestors and give Assad a pretext for a brutal crackdown. It worked. As a Syrian intelligence officer would later reveal, “The regime did not just open the door to the prisons and let these extremists out, it facilitated them in their work, in their creation of armed brigades.

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics”- Darryl Anka (Bashar) [25]

The man who doesn't fear death, fear nothing.

In this book I explain the roots of its success—in the political situation created by the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, the war against Bashar Assad in Syria, and the resulting chaos—but also in the deep currents of Islamic thought. I demonstrate how the Islamic State’s rapid success would never have been possible without its claim to reconstitute the caliphate, a claim that has proven to be extraordinarily potent among Muslims worldwide.

YUM33。ＮＥＴdominant jihadist movement capable of operatiinternal rivals — Bashar

In Syria, the Obama administration has constantly wrestled with a fiendishly difficult question: Should America and its allies work to take out the murderous Syrian president Bashar al-Assad first—in which case they would lose the support of Iran and Russia and likely introduce even more near-term disorder into Syria? Or should it take out ISIS first—with the tacit support of Iran and Russia—and allow Assad to stay in power, containing total disorder but also crushing the more secular, democratic Syrian opposition? As of the writing of this book, America has not resolved that dilemma.

although minute quantities of chlorine are life-saving, if too much is inhaled in its gaseous form, it can cause death in under thirty minutes. Recently, the Syrian government has used chlorine directly against civilians as a chemical weapon. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has thus transformed a principal element of public health into a tool of both disease and terror.

Michel Samaha, a Lebanese politician with strong public links to the government in Damascus, calls the revolution against President Bashar al-Assad “a Salafist awakening.

WASHINGTON- President Barack Obama said Wednesday the U.S. will increase assistance to the Syrian opposition, opening the way for the likely training and possibly equipping of moderate rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Assad.

If I wanna die I may be awesome that I fear nothing. So I can do anything in this earth. Cause I am about to die. And If I start to do anything in this earth, the worst can be, I will die. This is the way I make impossibles possible.

One of the real reasons that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is so intent on remaining loyal to Syria’s Dictator Bashar Al-Assad, is that in January 2017, Russia and Syria signed a lease to extend Russia's control of its naval facility in the port of Tartus, Syria for 49 years. As with the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, the Russians have sovereign rights over the territory, considered a Material-Technical Support Point and not technically a naval base. The piers are large enough to accommodate four medium-sized vessels but not any of their larger ships of the line, including cruisers or their aircraft carrier. The facility which gives Russia a warm water port, consists of office space, two storage buildings, barracks and a parking garage for about six vehicles. Under the terms of this lease agreement, the Russians also operate Khmeimim Air Base located south-east of the city of Latakia, Syria. The present lease for these military facilities has an extension clause for an additional 25 years.

With all due respect, Stazi, Cedric will drop the ball, again, before Bashar ever does once.

He shouldn’t have tried? We’re humans. We have to try, no matter what the odds are. There are never any guarantees. Every action in life is a gamble. The Bashar fought to the last instant of his existence, because he believed there was a chance. I intend to do the same.

Shia Iran is currently fighting the Islamic State, a Sunni group, in Iraq, which has a Shia majority. Meanwhile, Iran has also helped prop up the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad (an Alawite whose sect is associated with Twelver Shia), who is still fighting a civil war against Sunni rebels financed by nations like Sunni Saudi Arabia. Iran and Syria have both historically been primary sponsors of Hezbollah, a Shia militia of considerable strength in Lebanon.

II, renamed “Forpost” by its new owners, and it became a key asset in Russian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.33 Israel trained Russian pilots to operate the drones.

I have seen people and their fruitless societies in such repetitive posturings that their nonsense fills me with boredom...I have seen-caliphs and mjeeds, rakahs, rajas and bashars, kings and emperors, primitos and presidents-I've seen them all. Feudal chieftains, every one. Every one a little pharaoh.

as a centrist/lefty Israeli, I keep looking for the Bashar Masris of the region. But so far the Arab nations and then the Palestinian people have refused each and every offer. From 1922, 1947, 1948, 1967, 1973, 1994, 2000, 2008, and 2019. It has just been one big fat “Nope.

Islamitische Staat is als een bliksemafleider waar alle spanningen en frustraties samenkomen. We leven in een goor neoliberaal tijdperk, en mensen worden door het economische systeem aan de kant gezet. Ze worden steeds overbodiger, kijk maar naar de berichten over de nieuwe golf automatiseringen die op komst is. De strenge islam biedt buitengesloten jongeren een sterke identiteit en groepsgevoel, en daarbovenop een staat die je de kans geeft om iemand te zijn, om avontuur te beleven, om te ‘leven’ tout court. In 2012 had je nog een soort idealisme bij jongeren die naar Syrië trokken. Ze gingen tegen dictator Bashar Al-Assad vechten. Naïef, maar begrijpelijk. Maar nu is Islamitische Staat puur fascistoïde geworden. Iedereen die zich daar nu nog bij aansluit is medeplichtig aan oorlogsmisdaden.

A soft barbed tongue cannot clean the bloody crooked claw hands. After a conversation with Dr.Muhsin Bilal who tried to wash the bloody hands of his party (Baʿath) in general and Bashar al-Assad in particular.

In government-controlled Syria, the broken land over which Bashar al-Assad presided as nominal victor, there was no sign that the regime would cease the policies of repression and violence that had provoked the original uprising. In July 2018, the government issued death certificates for sixty thousand people who had simply disappeared in government detention.

Behind him hung a portrait of the president. Under it someone had scrawled: If not for the fear of God, I would worship you, Bashar, although you are a human being.

I walked around and saw writing on the walls, like: “There is no God but Bashar,” and “Assad, or we’ll burn down the country.

Sometimes I joke to Munir that someone should gather all of us Syrians in one place and kill us so we can be done with this whole thing already. Then we’ll all go to heaven and leave Bashar al-Assad to rule over an empty country.

If the United States helps topple the dictator Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday, then what will it do on Thursday, when it finds that it has helped midwife to power a Sunni jihadist regime, or on Friday, when ethnic cleansing of the Shia-trending Alawites commences?

With Syria being torn asunder by a war that had long since attracted many outside actors, exacerbating an already horrifying situation, not even Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was thinking about Israel returning the Golan to Syria. It was, for the foreseeable future, a non-issue.

Ezekiel 38 tells us of the evil intentions of Russia when it describes how Ros will be led down to Israel as if a hook were put into its jaw. Ros will come down not for the purpose of peace, but plunder. Today, the Russians are the number one player in the Syrian civil war, and they don’t even try to hide the fact that they are there primarily for the gas and oil. Russia’s only warm-water seaport giving access to the Mediterranean and the Middle East is in Syria. That’s why Russia backs the government of Bashar al-Assad.

the aforementioned case of Muhammad Hegazy, who was not permitted to change his religion from Islam to Christianity on his I.D. card. In February 2009, another apostate, Maher Al-Gohary, fifty-eight, tried to officially convert to Christianity—only to be accused of apostasy, with prosecutors calling for the death penalty. As Maher himself put it: “Our rights in Egypt, as Christians or converts, are less than the rights of animals. We are deprived of social and civil rights, deprived of our inheritance and left to the fundamentalists to be killed. Nobody bothers to investigate or care about us.” He has been attacked in the street, spat upon, beaten, and threatened by text messages and phone calls—all simply because he petitioned to be granted the right to convert to Christianity. Eventually he and his daughter fled to Syria, once a moderate nation under secularist Bashar Assad. However, since the “Arab Spring” reached there, too—with Syrian Christians under attack by jihadis—in 2011, Maher and his daughter managed to flee to France where they applied for asylum.66

The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events. —THE BASHAR TEG

under the command of General Ali Haydar, besieged the city for 27 days, bombarding it with heavy artillery and tank [fire], before invading it and killing 30,000 or 40,000 of the city's citizens – in addition to the 15,000 missing who have not been found to this day, and the 100,000 expelled.

3). Although he always towed a strong line against Israel, which included supporting anti-Israeli groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, he also tried to make peaceful overtures to the West, most notably his country’s participation in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (Lesch 2012, 11).