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June 8, 2016 Special Dispatch No. 6463

Syrian Oppositionists: Participation Of Assad's Advisor Buthaina Sha'ban In D.C. Counterterrorism Conference - A Moral Failure Reflecting A Withdrawal From Previous U.S. Positions On Syria

June 8, 2016
Syria | Special Dispatch No. 6463

 On June 2, 2016, Buthaina Sha'ban, political and media advisor to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, participated via Skype in a conference held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. The conference, titled "United We stand to Terminate ISIS," was sponsored by the Global Alliance for Terminating ISIS/Al-Qaeda (GAFTA), an organization founded in 2014 by Ahmad Maki Kubba, an oppositionist to Saddam Hussein who fled from Iraq to the U.S. 30 years ago. Sha'ban, who was presented at the conference as "a model for women everywhere" and a Nobel Prize nominee,[1] was invited to address the conference even though she has been under U.S. sanctions since August 2011.

In the conference, Sha'ban attacked the Syrian opposition, which she described as composed entirely of Islamists, and accused the Western media of failing to report the truth about the events in Syria. She denied the reports about the difficult humanitarian situation in several parts of the country, especially in the city of Darayya near Damascus, which has been under siege for several years, and which, according to the U.N., is being denied humanitarian aid by the regime forces.[2] Addressing this issue, she said: "There's nobody starving in Darayya... The Syrian people are able to feed themselves... The Syrian people are not very happy with the humanitarian assistance. They have never been used to eat[ing] tinned food and macaroni, brought from somewhere. Syrian people are used to sweet fruits, and fresh vegetables, and fresh crops that they themselves grow in Syria... Air drops or no air drops, or trucks on the road, this is something that is being discussed between the U.N. and the Syrian government, and this is not very important to us. The most important thing is to uproot terrorism..."[3]

Sha'ban's participation in the conference sparked intense criticism from Syrian oppositionists in and out of Syria, and by other Arab writers on social media and in the Arab press. The critics attacked the U.S. authorities for not preventing her participation even though she is under sanction by the U.S. government, and some saw this as evidence of a change in America's position towards the Syrian regime. Criticism was also directed at the National Press Club for allowing her to participate in the conference it hosted. In addition, many slammed and ridiculed Sha'ban's statements regarding the humanitarian situation in Darayya and other parts of Syria.  

The following are excerpts from some of these responses:

Sha'ban's Participation In The Conference Casts Doubts On Value Of U.S. Sanctions

As stated, Buthaina Sha'ban's participation in the Washington conference, albeit via Skype, sparked harsh criticism against the U.S. administration. The critics saw it as a violation of the U.S. sanctions and as recognition of the Syrian regime as a legitimate force fighting ISIS. The London-based online daily Al-Rai Al-Yawm stated: "Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's political and media advisor [Buthaina Sha'ban] entered the U.S. with picture and sound when the National American Press Club hosted her via Skype..."[4]


Syrian oppositionist website: "Buthaina Sha'ban violates the American sanctions 'electronically'" (enabbaladi.org, June 3, 2016)

Writing on the oppositionist website Orient News, Syrian journalist Seema Na'na'a questioned the value of the American sanctions, saying that the failure of the U.S. authorities to prevent Sha'ban's participation in the conference indicates a significant withdrawal from its previous positions. She wrote: "Sha'ban's appearance in the American capital raises the important question of how genuine the American sanctions are, and how much they are worth [the minute] they clash with [American] interests. Sha'ban's participation in the conference was announced more than 10 days before it was held, and the [U.S.] Treasury - which blacklisted Buthaina Sha'ban - could have prevented the invitation from being realized. We cannot place the blame exclusively on the National Press Club, when we see that, ever since the start of the Russian aggression against Syria, the American political echelon has been withdrawing and retracting its statements, and signaling to the dictator Assad that he may be reaccepted [as a legitimate leader]... [all this] while disregarding the tragedy of the Syrians and the killing and expulsion that have been their lot in recent years. All these [American] lies, declarations, sanctions and decisions are mere decorations, intended [to sound good] in the newspaper headlines and on news broadcasts..."[5]   

Many also condemned the National Press Club for including Sha'ban in the conference. Noura Al-Amir, member of the political bureau of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, said: "[Sha'ban's] participation was a moral failure by the organization that held and hosted the conference, and a blatant violation of U.S. law, which forbids extending any kind of service to anyone who appears on the U.S. sanctions list... Sha'ban is party to the murderous Syrian regime, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people in Syria... and this must not be passed [over in silence] without holding [her] accountable."[6]

Similar sentiments were expressed on the Syrian Revolution Network, a network of oppositionist Syrian media outlets, on its Facebook page: "The National Press Club in Washington recently provided a platform for [Assad's] organized crime regime to defend its terrorist acts of killing civilians!... Providing a platform for this new Nazi [Sha'ban] to speak and spread deception [is an act of] aiding and abetting terror."[7]  

 
Illustration that accompanied the post on the Syrian Revolution Network's Facebook page

The critics also pointed out that the conference had not included any representatives of the Syrian opposition to offset Sha'ban's views. Seema Na'na'a wrote: "The club provided a platform for freely expressing the positions of the Assad regime, which has been killing Syrians without batting an eyelid - but it did not include a single representative of the opposite position. Sha'ban was allowed to utter her statements and the regime's lies to a wide audience, but no Syrian oppositionist who understands the situation in Syria [was there] to stand up to her and refute her remarks..."[8]

Sha'ban Distorts The Truth, Like Goebbels And ISIS

Sha'ban's statements about the humanitarian situation in Darayya also sparked condemnation and sarcastic responses from oppositionists, who said that she distorts the truth just like Hitler's information minister Goebbels, and like ISIS. Oppositionist Iyad 'Issa wrote scathingly on Orient News: "[According to Sha'ban] there is nobody starving in the besieged areas [of Syria], including the people of [the city of] Darayya. These [besieged] areas don't even exist. All that is happening is that the people insist on feeding themselves by themselves, and are cleaving to the accomplishments of father Hafez [Al-Assad] and his son [Bashar Al-Assad], with the assistance of nutritionists and alternative medicine practitioners. [It is] the lying media that presents [these experts] as local sectarian crack units and exported Iranian militias. What a despicable lie, said the offended Buthaina, and [also] rebuked the Western media for describing the entertaining aerobatics performed by Assad's planes as airstrikes, and the gifts that they shower upon the peaceful citizens and their children as barrel bombs. [According to Sha'ban], there is nothing going on in Syria. There is neither a revolution nor a moderate opposition - only a few Islamist terrorists. Other than that, life is normal, the world is beautiful, the skies are clear and the birds are singing..."[9]  

 
Cartoon that accompanied Iyad 'Issa's article

Muhyi Al-Din Lazikani, a Syrian oppositionist who lives in London, wrote on his Twitter page: "Do not be surprised by Buthaina Sha'ban's claim that nobody is starving in Darayya and that the Syrians are used to eating vegetables. After all, every donkey thinks that weeds and tree leaves are a kind of fruit or vegetable."[10]

 
Lazikani's tweet

Eyad Abu Shakra, a columnist for the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, tweeted a news report about regime and Hizbullah bombardments of the city of Al-Zabadani, and added: "While B[uthaina] Sha'ban was lying to the U.S. media, it was 'business as usual' for her master [Assad] in 'the killing fields' of Syria!"[11]

 
Eyad Abu Shakra's tweet

Ahmad Al-Maliki, a columnist for the Lebanese news website "New Lebanon," which opposes Assad and Hizbullah, likened Sha'ban to the Islamic State (ISIS), saying that both distort reality: "Apparently, the Syria that we know and have been following since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, which later transformed into an armed revolution and eventually into [a war involving] terror organizations, is not the Syria Buthaina Sha'ban is familiar with... The Syria we know is a living hell of barrel bombs and starvation, of millions fleeing the country and leaving their homes... [not to mention] the madmen of ISIS who are killing in the name of Islam. That is the Syria we know, and to be honest, I am not familiar with any other Syria... Perhaps Buthaina Sha'ban does not realize that [the world] has become a small village, and is still living in the era of the single media outlet and the single voice that could deceive the world regarding the crimes of the Bashar Al-Assad regime... If Buthaina Sha'ban... thinks that Syria is a paradise, rather than the hell we are familiar with, then she is not much different from ISIS, which disseminates images and videos of the areas under its control, such as Al-Raqqa in Syria or Mosul in Iraq, that describe life under ISIS rule as a paradise and call on young people to [come and] live there - just as Sha'ban describes Syria as [a country] without barrel bombs or starvation, while the real situation is dire and tragic..."[12]

Raja Talib, a columnist for the Jordanian Al-Rai daily, likened Sha'ban to Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and to Saddam Hussein's information minister Muhammad Sa'id Al-Sahhaf, who were masters of deception and lies. He wrote: "The denial of truth in Sha'ban's utterances and statements is unprecedented in its extent in the world of [contemporary] media and politics... It is reminiscent of the statements of [Iraqi] president Saddam Hussein's last information minister, who [in 2003] declared that the American attack on Baghdad's international airport had failed and firmly denied that there were American troops on Baghdad's streets - while Arab and other satellite channels were showing live footage of Saddam's statue being pulled down by American marines in the heart of Baghdad... Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, was the founder of [this] school of media [that is based on] political lies... and he is the one who uttered the famous line, 'lie until people start believing you'... Buthaina Sha'ban is one of those people who have an incurable case of [emulating] Goebbels. Whoever hears her statements and her answers regarding the events in Syria will be shocked and start laughing hysterically... From today onward, we should strike out Goebbels from the history of media propaganda... and adopt the theory of Assad's advisor [Sha'ban] that the events in Syria are merely a Hollywood film that was deliberately created in order to harm President Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian regime."[13]

 

Endnotes: 

 

[1] Gafta.net, June 2, 2016.

[2] Al-Quds Al-'Arabi (London), July 6, 2016.

[3] Nytimes.com, washingtonpost.com, June 2, 2016.  

[4] Raialyoum.com, June 3, 2016.

[5] Orient-news.net, June 4, 2016.

[6] Smo-sy.com, June 3, 2016.

[7]  Facebook.com/Syrian.Revolution, June 2, 2016.

[8] Orient-news.net, June 4, 2016.

[9] Orient-news.net, June 5, 2016.

[10] Twitter.com/muhydinlazikan, June 5, 2016.

[11] Twitter.com/eyad1949, June 3, 2016.

[12] Newlebanon.info/lebanon-now, June 2, 2016.

[13] Al-Rai (Jordan), June 6, 2016.

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