1982, The Year of Arab Catastrophes. By: Marwan Arikat

Months before the vicious massacres of Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, perpetrated by extremist elements of the Maronite Phalangists with the help and direct support of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Occupation Forces, a systematic genocide and extermination of innocent people was happening in neighboring Syria, more precisely in the city of Hama.  However, unlike the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, the genocide committed against the people of Hama did not receive much media coverage in international or even Arab media. Even the US government and major media outlets, which despises the Assad regime, ignored and downplayed  the genocide committed by Hafez Assad and his brother, Rifa'at Assad. This was probably due to the perception in Washington that Assad, as bad as he was, was fighting a common enemy of the US, Israel and the Syrian régime, the "Islamic Fundamentalists."   Moreover,  the United Nations and the rest of the so-called civilized world chose to turn a blind eye to the genocide in Hama that is considered today to be the worst mass extermination and killing in Arab modern history perpetrated by an Arab, the closest  other mass murder that resembled the Hama genocide, was committed by the Jordanian régime against the Palestinian population in Jordan between 1969 and 1970 in what is known as "Black September." Although no one was surprised by the Arab governments and régimes being a silent accomplice to the crimes in Hama, the fact that Arabs had to follow the Israeli media to get a glimpse of what was happening in Hama, Syria, was sickening.   Other than the Syrians, the Palestinians were mostly disgusted by the actions of the Syrian régime, who used and still uses the Palestinian card to silence his opponents, however, the Hama genocide showed the Palestinians that the real purpose of the weapons that the Syrian régime was accumulating was not to liberate Palestine or even the Golan Heights as we were taught in school, but it was used to demolish mosques, houses and infrastructure in the Arab and Syrian city of Hama. The death-toll in Hama, if we choose to ignore the Syrian civilians who until this day are still missing, was estimated to be between 20 to 40 thousands!  Today history is repeating itself, Assad the son, has launched his homicidal machine to crush the protesters in Hama and the rest of Syria. On the other hand, today we do not have any excuse to stay silent and blame mainstream media instead, because we all have access to our own media, thanks to the internet, so we have the choice to expose the Syrian regime or we can choose to be silent accomplices to Assad's crimes.