*|* What’s next for Syria’s Christians After Assad’s Fall? (Opinion)
Opinion. The other side of the story: Robert Spencer: The Roots of the Hamas-Israeli War. What the Left doesn’t care to Face.
“Robert Spencer was baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church and joined the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in 1984.[21][22] Spencer has stated that, under the reign of President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, his grandparents were forced to emigrate from an area that is now part of Turkey because they were Christians.[23]
+ Spencer: A Historical Critique of Islam
Will it ever end?
+ Spencer: Israel, Iran and the Left
It didn’t begin on October 7 when Hamas launched its unprovoked attack killing some 1,200 Israeli young people: Israel, knowing Hamas’ brutal history, believes there’s a need to fight, even if some of us deeply regret the excesses of its responses.
The Six-Day War
Fair warning:
“In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli.
The provocation
“In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel[36] and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.[37][29]
On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities, launching its war effort.[29] Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt’s military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula.[38] Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel. However, the Jordanians did launch attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel’s advance.[39] On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.[40]
“Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire on 8 June, and Syria on 9 June, and it was signed with Israel on 11 June. The Six-Day War resulted in more than 20000 fatal Arab casualties, while Israel suffered fewer than 1000 fatal casualties. Alongside the combatant casualties were the deaths of 20 Israeli civilians killed in Arab forces air strikes on Jerusalem, 15 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strikes in the Sinai at the outset of the war, and 34 US personnel killed in the USS Liberty incident in which Israeli air forces struck a United States Navy technical research ship.
At the time of the cessation of hostilities, Israel had seized Syria’s Golan Heights, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. The displacement of civilian populations as a result of the Six-Day War would have long-term consequences” — Wikipedia, headings supplied.
Robert Spencer received an M.A. in 1986 in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His masters thesis was on monophysitism and the history of the Catholic Church.[25]
+ Spencer’s Jihad Watch Website
+ What the Critics of the Crusades Forget or Ignore
Catholic Critique 