مندوب الإخـ ـوان في سوريا (سرديات أبو الخطوب 31)

2000 with the pigeons, the representative of the Brotherhood in Syria, Abu Al-Khatoub's narratives 31. Do you know why you are defending the Iranian Mullahs' regime and why you defend Hamas and Islamic Jihad and sometimes you defend Hezbollah and why you antagonize any secular democratic liberal orientation you see in front of you? The answer is because you, no one else, are playing the role of the Muslim Brotherhood's representative.

When I say "you", I don't mean a specific person, I mean the majority of the respected people of our pit. Focus on the word "respected". I, your humble servant Abu Al-Khatoub, respect our people or our peoples. And when I say "sunk in the pit", this is a description, not an insult, and a genuine desire for us to be better than this. Meaning, in short, if you don't like sitting in the pit, get out.

Don't ask me how we want to get out, I've explained it more than once. First, you admit that we are in the pit and we stop digging. We decide to exit and follow the necessary procedures for exiting. Our value will be at the value of the rest of the world's respected peoples. And the most important thing is that each one of us stops being a representative of the Brotherhood.

In your opinion, is this possible? It is possible, but by God, it's very difficult. These demands seem as if they are impossible. What? We admit that we are sunk? We are sunk and we are their people, no one mediates for us, either the forefront among the worlds or the grave. If you want to quote directly the words of Abu Firas Al-Hamdani who said this verse of poetry. True, this is the correct talk. Come and see how many pits we have. As for the "forefront", believe me, getting a chicken breast in the historical lands of the pit has almost become a dream.

When I tell you that you are a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, take the story with an open mind and let's think about this situation calmly. I know there's no need for you to tell me you have no direct relation to the Brotherhood, nor have you ever walked with them, nor even looked at their internal system or their literature, and maybe you don't know where their headquarters are. And yet, and unfortunately, you are their permanent representative, not just in Syria or in the lands of the pit, but everywhere in the world, even in the beautiful secular democratic lands of asylum. From the moment you wake up and rub your eyes until you sleep, you are fighting for the benefit of the Brotherhood. You repeat their words and their terms, and you defend them, and you might even sacrifice yourself or your children so that the Brotherhood remains pleased with you.

For example, you come, sir, talking, tell me about a colleague of yours at work, that "Oh brother, by God, he's a liar." Or you might come and criticize a political figure, a global leader, you don't call him a liar and move on. You say "this is Musaylima the Liar, Musaylima doesn't even come to a drop in his sea" or "Musaylima the Liar doesn't pour water on his hands." Who is Musaylima? Do you know him? Have you read his biography and history? Certainly not. And I am almost certain that you don't know anything about him except one piece of information, which is that he is a liar. So how did you know he was a liar as long as you are not familiar with his history and biography? There is no answer, of course.

Who instilled this in your mind, this information? The Brotherhood, of course. Not necessarily the organized Muslim Brotherhood who have a general guide, I mean the Brotherhood ideology, the Brotherhood mentality generalized to all our minds, and equally.

Today, a lady wrote to me, "What can we expect from you when you call Iran 'Mullahs'?" This talk is absolutely not true. When I talk about Iran the state or Iran the people, I call it by its officially recognized name, Iran. As for the Iranian regime, it is a Mullahs' regime. I wish you would work like me and call things by their proper names.

You yourself and all members of the famous "Puppy Trio", without exception, call Israel an "entity". Look, my uncle, whether you love Israel, hate it, consider it an occupier and aggressor that displaced the Palestinian people, and you want to remove it from existence, absolutely no problem, you are free. But why don't you call it by its name? Simply because the Brotherhood wants it that way. They tell you, "It's not a state, this is a temporary occupying entity whose destiny, with God's help, is disappearance."

Furthermore, calling it an "entity" is not in your favor, and I will explain the reasons to you. If you say "the state of Israel is criminal, murderous, and expansionist, and we want to sacrifice others to erase it from existence," then you are doing a tremendous job. And I, in turn, support you and tell you, "Okay, bravo, sacrifice others and remove this powerful state from existence." But for you to say, "We removed a piece of a Zionist entity from existence," is that really something to be proud of?

Israel, my dear, my uncle's eye, is a state member of the United Nations, advanced technologically and economically, and it is a member of the nuclear club, and recognized by most countries of the world, including the former Soviet Union and current Russia and Turkey. Not only did they recognize it, they used to defend its existence.

Now you might be surprised and tell me, "What is this talk? The Soviet Union, which was giving us support against Israel, was defending Israel's existence?" The answer is: Yes, by God, yes, the Soviet Union itself was defending Israel's existence. The former Egyptian President Mohamed Anwar Sadat, may God have mercy on him, said in an interview, still available online, that every time he visited the Soviet Union, the senior Soviet leaders would tell him, "Beware of thinking of crossing the borders of June 4, 1964." "If you want to liberate, liberate what Israel occupied on June 5, 1967, that is your right, but beware of threatening the recognized Israeli state."

Another question presented to your esteemed self: Have you understood the secret that makes most segments of the peoples of the historical pit support the dilapidated Mullahs' regime? I will give you my answer, and this is my opinion, which is that the three main categories that our people are formed from have one reference: the Brotherhood ideology.

If I ask you now, "What is the nature of the ideology of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party?", you would tell me, "A progressive socialist party, you are enlightened." Well, do you know that the ideology of the Ba'ath Party, according to what the party's founder Michel Aflaq used to say, is based on the concomitance between Arabism and Islam? As a reminder, Michel Aflaq was a Christian, and he didn't say that the Ba'ath's idea is based on the concomitance between Arabism and Christianity; he said between Arabism and Islam. In a letter sent by Comrade Michel Aflaq himself to the struggling Comrade Saddam Hussein, he told him, "I wish to die as a Muslim." Oh, and why would you wish for that, my brother? Just go simply to the nearest mosque sheikh, declare your Islam, and be done with it, oh Arabs, or be done with it, oh Ba'athists.

Fares Al-Khoury, whom they now taunt us with, saying "Oh brother, he was a Christian Minister of Endowments," this is proof of Islamic-Christian coexistence, and he was a Prime Minister in Syria. And when the French cornered him, he didn't side with the French; he began to testify, "No, I am with my people, and I bear witness that there is no god but Allah." And don't forget that Michel Aflaq was a refugee in Iraq.

By the way, Ba'athist groups, like Brotherhood groups, when they have free time, they kill each other. Hafez Al-Assad's regime and Saddam Hussein's regime were, at first, like pigeon fanciers, a "war of plucking," meaning of killing. The word "killing" that I just used is real, not metaphorical. These two regimes were actually killing each other, and the Ba'athists and Muslim Brotherhood were doing business with both sides. You find them, as my friend Mohammed Khair Al-Jarrah says, "from a house of tearing to a house of patching to a house, may God multiply your blessings."

The Ba'athists who fled from Syria after the February 23, 1966 movement took refuge with the Tikritis in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein was still Vice President, and most Iraqi opposition members used to come and stay as guests in Syria. I have no problem with opposition members of one state's regime seeking refuge in another state, "welcome and goodbye." As a Syrian, I have no problem, even for them to preserve their lives, because the issue is that they might be killed in their own country. But when they engage in politics through the second state or the second regime, the situation changes. These Syrian Ba'athists who fled from Syria to Iraq became known in Syria as the "Right-wing Ba'ath" because the February Ba'ath was leftist. The Ba'athists of the Left used to call those others the "rotten Right." Look at this political luxury, right and left, as if we are sitting in the British Parliament.

And Saddam Hussein also hosted the Muslim Brotherhood organization in the eighties. And support used to come for the Syrian Fighting Vanguard organization at that time from Comrade Saddam. I also remember the bombings that occurred in Syria after the events of Hama ended in 1982. After a period, there was a bombing of a railway track near Jisr al-Shughour, and later there was a bombing of the bus station in the city of Damascus. And the Ba'athists in Damascus used to say, "The Ba'ath of Iraq (the criminal) carried out these bombings."

Where was the main headquarters of the Brotherhood's Hamas movement? I tell you. The Hamas Islamists did not go and settle in the pulsating heart of Islam. Their headquarters was the pulsating heart of Arabism, which is Damascus. A hundred welcomes to the youth, welcome to the brave ones, welcome to the good ones, God knows you honored us, enlightened us, and attended, and what you brought was not enough for you. Come on, Hamoud, let's have coffee with the youth.

After the welcome and hospitality, a slightly difficult question arises for us, "What brought the Levantine to the Maghrebi?" What made a Brotherhood faction, whose Brotherhood identity is explicit, seek refuge with a Ba'athist regime that fights the Muslim Brotherhood with a "war of plucking"?

Now my Damascene friend is surely annoyed and wants to tell me, "Every now and then you tell us 'war of plucking', what is 'al-shamat', oh my father?" I, your brother Abu Al-Khatoub, am "cut and connected" as they say, and the world has kneaded and baked me. You'll find me now youthful, even though I've aged, and as my uncle Abu Kamal, may God have mercy on him, used to say, "a master of the drum." And I even understand the language of pigeon fanciers. Every pigeon fancier in Idlib has an umbrella (a term for a pigeon loft/group) and a "kashat hamam" (a flock or group of pigeons). And birds are of types: you have the chick, the offspring, the "mikan" (a type of pigeon), the male, and the "farfouha" (a playful/fluffy pigeon). And every owner of an umbrella must define his relationship with the owners of other umbrellas. If it's a truce, it means you catch a bird for me, you have to return it to me. And if you "ghatt" (deny), meaning you deny catching it, then you and I go to argue before trusted pigeon fanciers. And war also has its terms: you have "war of redemption," meaning you caught a bird for me, I redeem it with my money, with my wealth. And the most extreme type of war is the "war of plucking," meaning you catch the bird, and in front of its owner, you pull its body from one side and its head from the other, you "pluck" it, meaning you slaughter it, but in a very primitive and cruel way. And the owner of the plucked bird has no right to protest, why? Because you and he are in a "war of plucking," this is an agreed-upon thing.

Law No. 49, in effect in Syria since 1980, sentences every member of the Muslim Brotherhood to death. Execution, in the language of pigeon fanciers, corresponds to "plucking." Meaning, a pure Hamas Brotherhood faction comes as an honored guest to the owner of this very Law No. 49, no one else.

Here, we must agree on the narrative: the Hamas Muslim Brotherhood tell their audience, who are ready to believe anything, "We accepted this out of respect for the cause." "We want to liberate Palestine, and all these young men, whether Saddam Hussein or Hafez Assad or Muammar Gaddafi, also want to liberate Palestine." Hafez wasn't very interested in convincing his audience with such a narrative; his word among his audience was never questioned. Whenever he wanted, they would bring out a million-strong support march that would pass for long hours beneath the balcony of the Ministry of Education in Jisr al-Abyad, and he would stand next to Abu Najib Sayed Ahmed and wave his hands to the crowds.

In Bashar al-Assad's time, the Hamas organization remained in Syria. Where would they go? Do you want anything more beautiful than Damascus's air and Qasioun? "Look, my homeland!" Many Syrians opposing the Assad regime didn't dare to come to Damascus because they were wanted by the branches, while the Hamas member was sitting happily, and bless him, a "resistance axis" and "cut off news."

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, their situation was even more difficult than ordinary opposition members because a death sentence awaited them at the airport. A Brotherhood member, they would drag you from the reception hall, "scarce," to Brother Al-Ashmawi (the executioner).

Did you hear the video clip of Abu Al-Walid Khaled Meshaal? Abu Al-Walid told the leaders of the Syrian Brotherhood, "Why don't you reconcile with the Assad regime?" This question, by the way, is not just wonderful, it's more than wonderful. Why don't the Brotherhood, and not just the Brotherhood, all the Brotherhood-affiliated, nationalist, and some communist factions (some of them, not all), really, why don't they reconcile with the Assad regime? That it's dictatorial? They are all, without exception, dictators. Which of them was demanding democracy? None, bless you. Is there an ideological dispute between them and the Assad regime? No, because the Aflaqi Ba'ath is the concomitance of nationalism with Islam. And this is true, by the way, evidenced by the fact that Hafez al-Assad and after him Bashar, how many mosques they built in Syria, and how many institutes they opened for memorizing the Quran, and supported Islamic groups, but loyal to them. And even Brotherhood movements like Hamas, they were hosting and pampering us. Convince the followers of these Islamic and nationalist organizations that the real dispute between them is exclusively over power, it's difficult for them to be convinced, by God, my brother.

Anyway, the Syrian Brotherhood at that time told Khaled Meshaal, "Our hand is on your fishing hook, Abu Al-Walid, go reconcile us with Bashar." This phrase here is literal, by the way, not metaphorical. And Abu Al-Walid said, "I went and conveyed their desire to Bashar, and Bashar, here's the beautiful surprise, he was the one who refused to reconcile." How do you like that for a slap?

Who then understood the story in its entirety? The answer is the conqueror Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham militia. As soon as he arrived in Damascus, he shook off the slogans, speeches, and jihadist strategies from his head and told the whole world, "Let me rule, and whatever you want, you'll get from this beard." I am not now in the process of talking about al-Jolani's credibility and the possibility that he can convince his group to abandon slogans, but in the early days of his ascent to power, he did this. And then, slowly and gradually, he started to descend, he harmonized with his extremist groups, and the "Daesh-ification" reached the horses' girths in Syria. And threatening Israel in the Syrian streets became in full swing.

Here, signs of disappointment began to loom on the horizon for the "Merry Trio" supporting the dilapidated Mullahs' regime. Why am I saying "dilapidated"? Because most of their leaders have been killed, and the rest don't dare to call each other on the phone because the phone gives the imperialist Zionist enemy their coordinates and they hunt them down. And the Iranian army, which was built over 47 years and cost trillions of dollars, has almost had its largest part destroyed. And the economic situation in Iran has reached the brink of starvation, and whoever was not hostile to Iran is now hostile to Iran. Meaning, if now Donald Trump tells the Iranians, "Soak the remaining missiles you have, and even the chemical weapons, and drink their water," and leaves them and walks away, they will come out of their bunkers and look around like this, finding the land barren and the destination far.

Until now, to be realistic and objective, Iran has not allowed Trump and Netanyahu to win the war. How, and what is the weapon Iran relied on to prevent them from winning? The answer: Piracy. The Iranian state transformed, after losing the components of a state, the state's weapon, and the state's army, into a pirate. "That we close the Strait of Hormuz, we strike global navigation or make it prohibitively expensive, and we harm you, neighboring countries." This is what our "Merry Trio" groups are happy about: the Brotherhood, the nationalists, and the communists who support reactionism, considering it a victory for their beloved Mullahs' regime. This is not a victory, young men. A state has been destroyed and brought to the ground, and you tell me it's a victory? But this is not strange for a generation raised for more than a quarter-century on Al Jazeera's announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza after all of Gaza was brought to the ground. Many people believed that this was a glorious victory for Hamas.

What do you think, my dear Merry Trio, in the midst of your celebration of Iran's victory, if a pragmatist emerges from the heart of the Iranian regime, with apologies for the term "pragmatist," like Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, and goes to negotiate with America? And suddenly you find him engaged in discussions to conclude a security agreement, just as al-Jolani did with Israel. What do you think? You'll be happy here. You'll be happy anyway, because the proverb says, "Whoever grew up on thuggery will grow old with it."

It is said, and the responsibility is on the narrator, that China is the one that pushed the Mullahs' regime to proceed with negotiations. And this Iranian acceptance of negotiation was in exchange for the Chinese-Russian veto in the Security Council. Imposing fees on any ship crossing the Strait of Hormuz is a dangerous precedent in the history of global trade. The first one to object to it will be China, which imports oil from Arab countries, not just from Iran. Then this measure leads to others; meaning, countries that control Bab al-Mandab, like Somalia and Yemen, might say, "We also want fees." And Turkey imposes fees for crossing the Bosphorus. In this case, Russia will be harmed and will surely refuse. And Iran, no one else, will ask America to vacate its bases from the Gulf. Meaning, your uncle Donald Trump, who reached the presidency under the slogan "We will make America great again," will let Iran interfere in America's internal or external affairs? Man, Russia itself in such a situation might protest and raise the veto in the Security Council because it also has military bases in Central Asian countries and in Africa.

Okay, a question for our brothers in the Merry Trio: Lebanon is being severely hit because of Hezbollah, meaning because of Iran. So what is Iran's position? Didn't it say that the agreement they signed includes Lebanon? It turned out it doesn't include Lebanon. How is Lebanon being hit now, and Iran remains committed to this agreement?

If you want to speak the language of reason and logic, you would say there is no party in the world that wants Iran to possess nuclear weapons. The extremist Islamic Mullahs' regime possessing nuclear weapons does not please China, nor Russia, nor even Pakistan, nor Turkey. Turkey sees that it has the right to be the leader of the Islamic world, and Pakistan is now looking for a distinguished position in the Islamic world. So they will not be happy with Iran possessing nuclear weapons, because here, Pakistan, as a human, will lose its role in the Islamic world.

Perhaps here, at the conclusion of this video, we can remember the Aleppine proverb that says, "They asked her, 'Sister, is this your natural hair or a wig?' She told them, 'The meeting is at the public bath basin.'"