The Syrian opposition represents the best advertisement for the Syrian regime as it includes honest, patriotic oppositionists who rebelled for legal causes. However, it also includes imported terrorists and local crime mobs that are quite “stodgy." If I had to describe our newspaper, Al-Hayat, with one word, it would be “credibility" and if I had to choose another term, it would be “objectivity." No one in the entire world can impose on the newspaper what to publish or not. I know for sure that the publisher, Prince Khaled Ben Sultan, will close it down if it were to lose its credibility or objectivity. I say this to some Syrian oppositionists all the while excluding the honest, patriotic opposition. Early this month, I wrote a piece about the Syrian situation. Some of the information from that piece came from oppositionists – including one defector. I spoke about a high wall that the revolution has slammed into unlike the revolutions of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. These revolutions succeeded while the Syrian revolution has yet to do so. In that piece, I (literally) wrote: - There will be no quick settlement in Syria and any other kind of talk constitutes mere wishes or day dreams. - For every armed oppositionist that the governmental forces killed, dozens of civilians were also killed in addition to the demolition of streets and buildings - The ranks of the opposition are divided and the internal conflict within it is as strong as the conflict with the regime - The government has committed some atrocities but the opposition was also not innocent at all (At this point, I quoted two reports of the Human Rights Watch) - Half a million Syrians have been displaced within their own country and half a million others have been displaced to the neighboring countries. I concluded the piece by saying: I condemn all the parties and I ask the compassionate God to have mercy on the Syrian people as these people deserve good things. I write under my real name and my address is well known. However, there is a coward oppositionist who had written to me in the past without revealing his name – since he only uses the pseudonym of “Damascus Damascus." From my entire piece, this person only selected the phrase: there is definitely a national opposition that rebelled for legitimate purposes; but there are also terrorists of the worst kind, as well as stealing mobs that are trying to control the streets in Aleppo for instance. They are establishing barriers, stopping citizens, and robbing them. The above is correct like all what I wrote. I have friends in Aleppo who are like family to me and I obtained my information from them. In addition, these pieces of information were also mentioned in the western press. Then comes a very “stodgy" oppositionist who alludes to my friendship with the regime while I condemn the latter in every sentence I write. Some members of the Syrian opposition, including “Damascus Damascus" are so soaked with ignorance, hatred and sickness. This is the biggest offense to the honest patriotic opposition that I never failed to mention once. I dare all the Syrian oppositionists to come up with a single line that I wrote praising the Syrian president since 1994 before he even became president. I dare them all. All that there is between me and him are questions and answers and no praise in between. I should add that some Egyptian readers are not better. Some of them are Islamists and this is their right. However, they do not want me to talk to either Omar Suleiman or Ahmad Shafik. They do not understand that the latter two, rather than I, make the news and I never said that their statements were sacred. Perhaps this coward opposition member and people like him were shocked by me saying that I have halted any direct and indirect contacts with the Syrian regime since March 2011. I have suspended my relationship with this regime until the killings stop and I will not be in contact with any of its' members as long as the daily slaughter persists. Syria, like every Arab country, is my home. I know it better than its own people. Not one year has passed by without me visiting it at least once or twice or even more. Now, I am waiting for the battles and the killings to stop so that I may return. I have in front of me several articles that justify the opposition's fighting in heavily populated streets of the Syrian capital, which in turn generates responses with heavy weapons on the part of the regime, “because great revolutions call for great sacrifices." This is one point of view and those who hold it have the right to do so. However, I insist that preserving life is more important than the regime or the opposition. [email protected]
