83 summarily executed in genocide

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c056q0zgy8jo

I am horrified by this but pleased it has been reported.

Thank you for highlighting.

I think it's appalling and does need reporting. The descent of Syria into more civil war would be a catastrophe. The problem with having a narrow approach to conflict in the middle East is that it is not just all about Gaza. In fact through out the 2.5 year war in Gaza there have been no reports of systematic deliberate execution of civilians on a mass scale .

The various tribal groupings in Syria receive limited world attention but I glad the UN are commenting. Also if you look at the death rate in Syria just over the course of 2 days and extrapolate that to 2.5 years you get a death toll greater than that for Gaza. The word 'genocide' though is something it appears only Palestinians can claim.

I think we are quickly learning that if Israel can’t be blamed for something, nobody is interested.

900 dead in a week that would equate to around 52000 dead in a year and a 100000 in 2 years of we saw the same level of uncontrolled violence.

I’m really worried about the lack of attention this is getting. On twitter I’ve seen reports of

Men being forced to jump from buildings
beheadings
entire families wiped out
someone being cut open whilst alive

In addition to just regular murder.

The level of brutality is sickening, they are clearly trying to wipe them out. Theres reports of 1000 dead within 96 hours.

People have identified people from places like Saudi and the Netherlands travelling to take part in this shit.

It looks like ethnic cleansing. These people are in some sort of blood frenzy. Christians are calling for help as well now as they have attacked them too.

I’m increasingly thinking there isn’t space for minorities in Syria. I don’t blame the kurds for not putting down their weapons.

I don’t understand why nobody seems to care.

I didn't know about this - thanks for highlighting @mids2019

It's a sad tale. Assad was an utter bastard but he kept tribal divisions suppressed. Remove Assad and you have a power vacuum. When the government may appear to be a participant in this blood bath it may just all dissolve into chaos.

What gets me is the sheer number of people who probably never had dealings with the Druze prepared to drive for hours to just kill some. It’s religious hatred pure and simple.

That's probably too simplistic. Not suppressed so much manipulated. I can't begin to really understand the complexity of Syrian politics

https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/syrias-druze-have-run-out-of-patience-with-assad/

With such deep seated hatred either you divide Syria into separate states or allow the chaos to continue? I just worry if won't get coverage (unless Israel so some bombing and that will catch the world's attention strangely....)

This is such a strange take on the conflict in Syria. Of course it is getting coverage. The conflict in Syria has been all over the news recently. And who has the 'a narrow approach to conflict in the middle East' that you mention, OP, other than various bubbles in social media politico-chat? Who on earth thinks that "the word 'genocide' ... is something it appears only Palestinians can claim" ?

This thread strikes me as an appalling attempt to enlist the existence of yet more violence and death in the long recent history in Syrian war into the cause of point-scoring in relation to the current catastrophe in Gaza,

It has really shocked me in recent years how the quality of political discussion on MN has descended into these awful polemicised caricatures of political comment. Mass death discussed with the same dynamics, the same facile obsession with Being Right On The Internet that we see in angry MN threads about toxic MILs, bridzillas and mums-at-the-school-gate.

These are people's actual lives that you are recruiting into winning at chat.

Absolutely horrific.

the issue is that the middle East has been riven by conflict for decades and the just seems to a very biased view that Israel is the cause of all the problems in the region when it is patently not. People will not come out into the streets of London protesting against the ISIS like group a that have participated in gruesome murders on a mass acale. It is true that coverage of middle eastern conflict other than the Gaza war gets less attention as it seems that the BBC and Guradian at least have subsections for just one conflict. I think that editorial policy may have been a mistake in hindsight as there are merging conflicts deserving of their own focus that won't be highlighted.

no one like civil an death in Gaza but a single minded view that Israel is the cause of all the region's problems is far too simplistic. We need to continue to focus on Islamist terrorism of which Hamas are a part and which seems to be fearing its ugly head in Syria. No flag waving protests against these heinous killers are there?

The reasons the current protests are so centred on Israel is that it is currently Israel that is dropping the bombs.

In earlier decades the mass protests were against the US and the UK for their invasion of Iraq - which has been such an important part of the cause of the explosion in Islamism.

Powerful nations dropping bombs naturally attract the most vocal opposition.

There is an ISIS like group in Syria deliberately murdering people is a foul and horrific manner with the same results as bombs with the exception these killings are deliberate against civilians. Where is the protest against them?

It really isn’t, I have subscriptions to various newspapers, it’s really not getting coverage.

Personally this isn’t about Israel it’s about the hostility to minority groups in the middle east. The sheer level of hatred that motivates thousands to get in the cars and trucks and go to an area of the country to hunt a specific religious group. They have no reason to be there. There was no Druze terror attack on Sunnis. A conflict between Druze and Bedouin has escalated to thousands of sunnis calling for the Druze to be wiped out. There were protests in Damascus calling for the eradication of the Druze. That is what genocidal intent looks like. The christians are calling for help and the Kurds and Israelis are sending aid.

The insanity of that is mind boggling.

They need to have a federal system otherwise the minorities in Syria are going to end up decimated.

There are armies heading towards an area full of civilians and killing them very much on purpose only because they are Druze.

Gaza is at war because their leaders dragged them into a war, it’s shit and civilians are suffering but Hamas lays down it’s arms and returns the hostages and it can be over.

The Druze are being killed for being Druze. Christians are being killed because they are Christian.

It was the top story in all R4 news coverage yesterday, all day.

Islamist terrorism is a scourge of the middle East and we can't be blinkered to this. It's easy for us in the West to not comprehend the death cult mentality of such group as it undermines our belief in humanity but it exists and the consequences are all too real.

At least coverage is increasing so well done BBC.

Not seeing it in the papers except for small by-lines.

Just saw Jolanis cousin helpfully reminding everyone that it’s permissible in Islam to take Druze women as sex slaves. Fucking lovely.

It's described as clashes and unrest in the non biased Guardian. No floods of commentators opining on the genocidal intentions against the Druze strangely

Ugh ...that is abhorrent.

The West struggles to understand tribal based societies which has caused endless pain - Afghanistan is a perfect example, Syria is another. We saw it during the dreadful genocide in Rwanda in the early 90s.
When there is a very “strong” leader like Assad or Kagame, the national identity can be paramount but often by methods the West don’t agree with - lack of democratic institutions for instance. When this leader is gone, it can be very difficult as the different factions fight for control, as we are now seeing in Syria.
I hope this can be resolved by the Syrian people peacefully and without more
bloodshed.

I was watching Tousi TV last night and saw the reports of it, then found a video on X Tousi didn't show because it was too graphic (people being forced to jump off a balcony). It's horrific. Gangs of men with automatic weapons summarily executing people.

BBC downplaying it to make it sound like tribal fighting, rather than the murder that it is. Israel the only country to actually do anything to help, but those people are going to need more help than that. Why minority groups who are no threat are being targeted is just insane, they're hardly likely to or interested in toppling the regime. They are simply 'other', apparently that's a good enough reason to slaughter them.