 Welcome, everyone. Apologies for the delayed beginning. We're on Arab time today. This event is co-sponsored by the Middle East Task Force of the New America Foundation and the Syrian Action Council. I'm Layla Halal, the Director of the Task Force, and I'm going to hand it over to the Executive Director of the Syrian American Council to introduce the organization, which is relatively new but extremely active. So I thought to give you a few minutes to explain your activities, Doctor. Thank you. My name is Mahmood Katab. I'm the Chairman of the Syrian American Council. It's not really new. We started in 2005, and we have 20 chapters across the country. But we have also a coalition with four organizations, the Syrian Emergency Task Force, United for a Free Syria, Syrian Expertariat and Syrian American Council, and I chair the board for this coalition. On behalf of the coalition, we invited Father Paolo to be with us here and do some activities and participate in this event today. So please welcome Father Paolo. Thank you very much. Welcome. I'm very pleased to be here with you. Father Paolo Aglio is an Italian Jesuit priest who lived in Syria for 30 years before his expulsion last month for his support for the activists in the Revolution. While in Syria, the father restored a 1,000-year-old monastery that became a center for Muslim and Christian dialogue, and he brings with him today a very important message about what's happening inside Syria and issues of inter-communal coexistence and the future of the country. We also have with us today a special guest, Hadeel Kukuki, a Syrian activist from Aleppo who fled Syria after long periods of detention and torture, a very traumatic experience. Hadeel will contribute to our conversation today to bring a perspective about what's happening on the ground in Syria. So Father, I'll begin with you. Before we talk about Syria as a place of conflict, I'd like you to tell us about your journey to Syria. You lived in Syria for 30 years and it was your home. What inspired you to stay in the country and some of the memories that you have of the country before conflict? Thank you to all of you to take care of Syria, to be worried about Syria and to be here with us today. I was born in Rome in 1954. Perhaps there is a background in the family for fighting for freedom. There was the experience of my father during the Second World War, asking for democracy in Syria, in Italy. I am adjusted by 1975 and in Lebanon and Syria by 1977. 1980, I was learning Arabic and Islamic studies in Damascus. I still have good friends from that time. By 1982, I started to restore this monastery in the mountains. It is a very incredible place on the rock mountains and with frescoes from the 11th and 13th century, great monument of Syrian Arabic Christian art. This was the body for my desires of serving harmony and Christians and Muslims on the base of the declarations of Second Vatican Council that have changed the perspective of the Catholic Church from an attitude of hate and refusal and concurrency to an attitude of harmony and dialogue and brotherhood with the Muslim community. To try to implement this on the ground, we have worked on environmental issues, art issues, dialogue issues, theological and also the development of a civil society in Syria on the grass level. During the last 10 years, this has been slowly coming to a strong contradiction because from one side the administration of Bashar al-Assad was stating a desire to develop step by step a modernity and a more participative society, let's say. But this was blocked by the family attitude, the regime attitude and the positions being taken in the regional difficulties, especially regarding Lebanon and to some extent also Iraq and Palestine issues. Just an example, we have worked with people on the Abraham Pass initiative. You can look Abraham Pass on the internet, you will have a site there. It is built on the idea that people are created not for tension but for harmony. Today there is a problem, there is a conflict, but we have to work how to overcome this Muslim Christian and Jews and spiritual people to work, working together to achieve a privilege of peace. This was the idea to create a channel of awareness of engaged tourism for youth, a kind of educational tourism in Syria and Jordan and Palestine. This was refused completely as a Zionist project and the regime started to fight against my activity and our activity, our friends and this came to an end in 2010 when all our work was stopped, the regional environmental region and park was abolished and the inter-religious dialogue was forbidden and everything stopped and then it went worse slowly, slowly with the revolution has been obliged morally and culturally to say the youth, the Arab youth are asking for democracy and dignity. The repression is not new in Syria, we have 40 years of repression, we know that. But now the request of the youth society in all the Arab world is clearly showing a new step in cultural evolution of our countries. There is a new fact, you cannot interpret what is going on with the old conspiracy interpretation system and people, even religious people, I say this was a bit of a shame the religious leaders of the Christians for example have been used to stay repeating and repeating the old stories of imperialistic conspiracy and there is nothing new going on, the Arab Spring is nothing other than terrorism and the hero of the Arab people, Mr. Bashar al-Assad is fighting terrorism and this is the all of the interpretation of the phenomena, I can't accept that. I know those youth have been working together, Muslim Christians side by side with enormous passions and hope for our countries and those people have been repressed, jail tortured, expelled we should clearly have been for reconciliation and there is only one condition to reconciliation, the right to express freely your opinions. If the Syrians were respected in this basic right to express their opinions all the 16 or 20,000 dead people, the massacres that all this would not have happened I think it is Jesus enough by now Father, one of the controversies that I think is increasing as the conflict protracts is the militarization of the revolution and within the Syrian community in particular there is this debate is it civil war or is it revolution? I have noticed that nonviolent activists have worked quite closely with free Syrian army and they have up until this point seen themselves as working toward the same end however I think in the past week there has been a significant reduction in protest and it seems that the fight is increasingly one of military conflict what do we make of this and what is the implication for the youth activists who aspire to these ideals for Syria? From the very beginning the answer of the regime against the pacifist people asking for freedom has been very rushed immediate prison and torture has been the system from the very beginning, from March 2011 and very quickly a side of Daraa that was the mother of the revolution also because of the immediate incredible amount of repression on kids and the people of Daraa, they have not a culture of nonviolent activism they have done what they have done according to their feelings and their convictions but if you look at the coast we have had immediate problems in Latakia and Banias and Tel-Kalach and Qusayr and Homs and Raastan and Hama so this describes a geographical issue where the Shabbiha came on the ground to immediately militarize the confrontation the idea that the regime wanted, not the idea, the fact that the regime wanted to militarize the conflict was clear from the first weeks of it the program was go into violence the political center, the political body of the people asking for democracy would be obliged to go back to old solidarities because we are afraid of those armed Muslims or they will be pushed into a terrorist attitude and our enemy will destroy them so the body for democracy has been split in two and this was a plan why it was a plan, why we see that it was a plan because we have seen a systematic negation of facts the interpretation of the revolution as terrorism has been systematic from the beginning and we have seen the religious leaders, Muslim Christians that are organic to the regime complex knowing that this is lying has been lying with the regime and the negationist attitude has been used systematically by the media structures of the regime just an example you have heard perhaps about the Terry Mason Resolvoltaire organization this is a center for, pardon to say that, to sell information and they are negationist in root is the man that negate the 11th of September saying that it is done by the American themselves and then he is a Frenchman working in Beirut has been completely sided with Gaddafi till the last day and saying that there was no revolution in Libya there was just an anti-terrorist reaction of this blessed leader and they have used the same frame for Syria and very cleverly they have sent some nuns and priests to say the lies of the regime to spread it and from where they take it from the most traditionalist groups in Europe that are even people that negate the Shoah, the Holocaust of the Jewish people so the negationist in cultural roots has been used by the negationist system of the Syrian regime they believe complets and conspiracies because they live in a conspiracy all the time, culturally and these people are dangerous because BBC has put a knee and a sister in front of each other on the radio and when somebody lies without any problem truth become very weak because people from the radio cannot go on the ground in hams and see what really is going on so thank you for this possibility to express and to say that in Syria there is a real revolution of youth like this girl asking for freedom they are not moved by an Islamic agenda some of them are Muslims of different obedience and we want to create together a pluralist and democratic Syria the question I want to ask I am happy that you are sounding a positive note but the question I have is are Christians and other minorities under threat in Syria? yes they are I wrote to the Diplomacy of the Vatican in June 2011 and I said a civil war is coming take care of your people you will lose a Christian community because they will be trapped in the middle of a conflict that is not their own and it is the conflict of the people that are in full solidarity with the regime because they are afraid of the coming Syria what they call the Islamist Syria that is not our project they call it like that and those people are the Alawites society but we have Alawites friends that have been jailed by the regime these Alawites communists, Alawites people for human rights Alawites that have been fighting for freedom these people have been jailed for years and are now working for the revolution but as a social group especially on the mountain and in some part of Damascus those people are used by the regime to have a social base and so in these cases in fact the civil war is happening and being the many Christians are living with them and they are associated culturally to their own kind of reactions so there there is a danger for Christians it is a matter of fact and when in homes the revolutionary groups have been pushed by the repression from one part of the town to another they have been able to occupy the two old Christian quarters of the town Hamidiyeh and Bustaneh Diwan where most of the Christians and the churches are and in fact the Christians left because they didn't like to fight in the logic of civil war they have left the ground because the war was ongoing between the revolution with some Christians like Shadi, Basel Shadi many Christians I know them from homes are with the revolution but the families have left it's normal but the fact that the Russian Christian community has not been able to have an effect on the Russian government in order to stop the repression and coming back go back to politics, to negotiation this had an effect in homes 150,000 Christians left homes and all the churches have been destroyed but believing or not the shelling was from the army there is no other people having the possibility to have a shelling of that kind the church has been shelled by the army and still you have some religious leaders and we don't know who is shelling because they go with the regime aptitude, what is going on in homes nothing very simple, we are fighting terrorists out of fear or out of belief the Christians the idea is that this division between the lack of the failure of the Christian community to stand up Basel Shadi, the story is he was denied, he was killed he was a young filmmaker, activist very well known amongst the community he was killed and denied a funeral by the Christian church and you gave the youth a space in the monastery to memorialize him now the denial of the church to recognize him and to provide the funeral that refusal to identify with the revolution is that out of fear? do we understand it as being out of fear and it's possible in the future to bring the Christian community into the future of Syria or are the divisions so deep that we fear for a united Syria I appreciate your analysis it's very good we have some Christians that are even priests and bishops organic to the regime they are used and used for the regime they are fully convinced that they will leave the country with the regime people they are not the majority the majority of the Christians are learning for a just society there are people like him that has been working with the society and with the most upstanding people trying to have an evolution toward democracy and most of the Christians have been with this idea they want to have a pluralistic society they want to be citizens like everybody else in a modern society most of them when they think to emigrate they come to the United States or Canada then we have on the ground Christians have been in the army they are suffering in the army some of them have been chosen for the security system because the security system uses young Christians and other whites to have their military service in the security organization so from the start point before the revolution many Christians were already in the security system because the regime chooses the pupils of the minorities to have the security on their side so they are already in the system how, what they can do when they are in the system and this washing brain active very active from the regime until now then we have Christians been jailed Christians have been tortured not from now, from years and today many are active on the ground not many of them with weapons in their hands is not their culture when you are a minority in a situation like Syria is not their culture but they are active in thinking, in politics in organization, in helping people in assisting displaced people working for the health of people having in my mind a girl of Damascus she was very much with the regime culturally, psychologically and then slowly, slowly she shifted and she started to buy medicine from the pharmacies and to send it on the ground where the people are repressed I think this is a good moment to bring in Hadeel do you want to say a few words about your story and comment on anything that you've heard the father say? first, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to be here and talk about my story which is the same of a lot of stories of a lot of activists in Syria I would ask you to excuse my English, I'm new here my English is not that good when did you arrive? I arrived here about 20 days ago and you left Syria when? I left Syria about 7 months ago yeah my story started last year when I was 19 I am from Haseke which is in the northeast of Syria I am a student in Aleppo University I was studying law and English literature at the beginning of March me and my friends my colleagues in Aleppo University exactly on 10th of March we distributed leaflets in Aleppo streets calling on people to go and demonstrate against the dictatorship calling on a real parliament on freedom on the new Syria without this dictatorship two days later they arrested me with my colleagues they arrested us and kept us in jail for about 40 days we were in jail then the revolution started in Darah after that, after these 40 days of suffering, torturing they released us I came back to my university as my colleagues but we completed our activities with our colleagues in Aleppo University which is very active in the revolution after that after maybe about in August 2011 they arrested me again from a demonstration in Aleppo they arrested me and kept me in another security center in the second time they tortured me a lot more than the first time maybe they tortured me more than any other people because I belonged to a minority I'm a Christian girl and as everyone can see the regime always wants to show the revolution as an extremist Sunni revolution which is not true because of that they always want to like to to let the other minorities ask questions, to allow it and others to be always afraid of involving in the revolution they kept me in jail for about 15 days then they released me again and arrested me for the third time for also the same reasons for my activities in the revolution me and my colleagues were helping the injured people in Idlib which is in the north of Syria we were like helping the injured people in the demonstrations always the regime banned us of taking the injured people to hospitals as one of my friends said if we take an injured person in the demonstration to a hospital with a bullet in his hand then he would get out of the hospital with a bullet in his head then we helped them at like small hospitals in homes after that I was in a real danger of the regime because of all what happened I was obliged to escape from the country after it deprived me from my university I was banned of going to the university I was banned of going to the university I was banned of even leaving my my own city which is Hasakie I decided to go out then the Free Syrian Army helped me to get out of Syria by the Turkish borders the Free Army which the majority of it are Sunni and always the regime claimed that they are extremist Sunni people they helped me the Christian girl while I was in danger from the regime the regime which it arrested my father after when I left the country my family suffered a lot and still suffering in Syria because of this regime who always claimed that he protected the minorities which is not true at all I was with my colleagues we were Christians Muslims and we never asked what is your religion I never felt from bad behaviors from other Sunni people in the revolution one of the vexing questions that makes people very worried about the future of Syria is the disunity of the opposition and I want to hear from you as a youth activist about your thoughts before I open it for questions to the audience about your thoughts about future leadership in Syria I am not an expert in the political issues but I was just an activist inside Syria me and the other guys the activists in Syria we were really united we had just one goal to reach freedom Syria so it doesn't matter if the opposition outside are not united so we will open it now for some questions we will start here the doctor in the gray yes please the Syrian regime has been described and rightly so as being brutal and you have elaborated father on this issue quite well and you seem to indicate that the brutality the opposite brutality the resort of violence was a result of regime's investigation the most prudent in my judgment of the Syrian oppositions have declared themselves against resorting to violence against foreign intervention and against inciting sectarian feelings the Christians of Homs for example that you mentioned you seem to say that they have left by their own will because the because of the war condition I was a couple of days ago on on BBC and a friend of mine Dr. Jo Afram a surgeon that many of you of the Syrian community would probably know heard and was a little bit disappointed with my performance I was on the other side was can you ask a question please sir the question is that the Christians his description is that the Christians who left left at gun points and churches were occupied and is this the way to democracy is this the way to to really achieve the Syria that we want is this a way to respond to a regime that is bent on violence and that's what he does best are you saying that they were they were forced out at gun point by the if you let me read his email to me I will tell you he said my family my sister and her children and grandchildren 11 people were forced by gun point by the Free Syrian Army and then our church the Ibn Zunar church of the Syrian Orthodox Church were also was desecrated and was occupied this is not a way to democracy just a question when was this when was that what date it was in March they have left March 12 yesterday what do you mean to me I think it matters which month March his sister and her family were vacated and the rest have followed but those who resisted were killed immediately on the spot okay I'm gonna take two more questions you have the names of those who have been killed on the spot by the revolutionary well I'll read you this is Mr. Joe Afram I did yours okay okay okay we no yes here yeah Bill Jones from Executive Intelligence Review I'd like to return to the issue of the opposition the nature of the opposition and obviously it's a very mixed bag you have good guys you have people are out on the street because of the oppression because of their hatred of the regime and have a lot of other people who have other motives who want to reshape the Middle East and Syria in their own light this also could represent a danger to the ethnic divisions whatever you want to say about the Assad regime there was at least stability in terms of the ethnic violence question is is that going to remain people have a lot of questions about this and we're assured by the western press that it's always it's the good guys who are in charge but I'm not really sure that that's the case and a lot of people are very concerned what will happen if that isn't the case and secondly you've been getting a lot of support from the international community let me put it that way who are doing that not so much in terms of their love for democracy and love for a free Syria but there's a geopolitical game going on in which the issue is the Middle East and Iran and the support that has been given to the opposition in trying to get rid of Assad and they didn't want to negotiate nobody wanted to negotiate with him they wanted him out would be an attack in order to undermine Iran so in one sense there's also a game being played in which the Syrian opposition is becoming something of a guinea pig in a greater play and I'd like you to I know I know I'm going to let you answer both of these questions before we bring in more there is plenty of analysis in the world saying Syria is a spot of regional conflicts is an issue of geo-strategic equilibrium this is pathway I agree with you but there is an element that is taken seriously into consideration there is a new tree and this is the Arabic youth saying enough is enough I know for cynic analysts of political realism this is difficult to be accepted and accept ideals in youth people they always should believe and see how this has been used by somebody and built by calculations but it's not like that people are standing for freedom in all the Arab world they are Sunni and they are Shiite I want to say that Bahrain people have been Shiite they had the same right of the people of Syria mostly Sunni to have the freedom then when you are on the ground and under repression then there is all the other stuff that come in today Syria is an enormous regional issue and a geo-strategic global question so we ask we beg from the powers United States, Russia, China Turkey Saudi Arabia to try once again to agree that the Syrian people have the right to achieve democracy and pluralistic democracy and the other should help and not make of our country a ring for the conflicts then for homes it is difficult by words to address the organization of lying so there is not much to do I can just oppose my word to yours and people will be obliged to to stay in the middle and in the middle is not true I say to the journalists this superficial I have heard this and I have heard this somewhere in the middle should be the truth is not true you should seek to understand what is really happening the Christian part of homes was occupied by the army repressing the people and it was one chapter of the fight to free homes from the side of people that are defending themselves and fighting their fight for revolution I cannot exclude that in some cases there has been case of violence that can be interpreted as confessional hate there is a fact some little groups in this terrible winter of Syria there was not only dangerous was also very cold there was groups on board that are not depending from the Syrian free army in the older region of homes there is people that are clandestine and when you know that the regime of Assad has been using people of Qaeda in Iraq and in Lebanon you cannot be astonished that those people are now around again doing their own program and agenda but for homes is not true the apostolic nuns having direct access to the informations on the ground from his priests in homes has declared in an important meeting of organization gathering in the Vatican you can check this in internet where the question was raised in the terms you sir have been raising and he said no have not assisted to confessional aggression and violence from the revolution against the Christian not even in homes and the church has been destroyed by the shelling the people in the army have been in the courtyard of the church but they didn't desecrate the churches the church has been desecrated by the shelling from the tanks the heavy artillery of the of the army I have to say this because it's true and I'm happy to say the apostolic nuns confirm that in official state thank you very much for coming here father Paolo and dear Hadil I'm Ola Hamid I'm Syrian and I left my country like 7 years ago with my family my question is for both of you please if you can answer it about international intervention about what do you think we can do in Syria as an international community personally I believe that we exhausted all the scenarios and we need international intervention to stop Assad from killing he is now in Damascus also I'd like to ask you Hadil the same question the Christian youth want from the international community exactly now after the major attacks in Damascus and Ilepo recently thank you very much for coming we're running short of time so I'm going to ask the gentleman in the orange to ask a question thank you again for this enlightening talk however I have some troubling questions that have been bothering me for a long time I've been in this country for 52 years I've been here but I have relatives there and my town is a suburb of Damascus 30 miles away and from day one I had been told by my relatives over there that the Saudis were paying every person $500 to go in and demonstrate against the government yes okay okay this has been documented alright let me finish let me finish no no no you have the right to repeat the lies of the regime and we have obliged to hear you in a proper way so that's what I heard first then later on the Saudis and the Saudis have hijacked the Arab League meeting and expelled Syria on illegal ground but that's besides the point and furthermore they continue to supply arms opened it my question is how can they we have many questions look it's part of the discussion I will not stand for any comments like this please I am telling you what I heard and I would like to know the answer the question is our government here keeps supporting the Saudi effort in supplying arms to the rebels at the same time they are asking the regime to stop killing well if you want to stop the killing you have to preach on both sides okay please you want to answer this question of money to the demonstrators how much they paid you they paid nothing for me and they paid nothing for the other activists you know we go to demonstrations and maybe we will die there everyone go to a demonstration knows that he could die in the demonstrations they went with their families a lot of people lost members of their families they lost their their homes they lost everything they are not losing everything for some money they are losing everything for the free Syria do you want to answer the question about intervention yeah about the intervention I say I am not an expert a political expert I think it is unfortunately the only way now to reach our goal because the violence of the regime is more and more everyday so of course we need some help at least to support the free Syrian army with weapons we need a free zone area I think those are our necessities now on the same on the same issue from September 2011 I asked the international community to be coherent, consistent sending in a non-violent concept of intervention thousands I said a biblical number 50,000 peacekeepers non-violent peacekeepers in order to see the regime want to bring back the political space for a democratic discussion on the future of Syria now when we have on the ground a fact of civil war in the west of Syria and facts of civil war in some parts of Damascus we made also Russia in an agreement to send the army of the united nation to separate and protect civilians from the civil war and then again I say we made the international civil society sending peacekeepers activists to help the society the Syrian society to go into democracy in the right way being side by side with the Syrian people in this intermediate time where the regime should be taken away and they say this is ideals because Russia is not coping with this is not working with that so the fact on the ground is that the Syrian free army defending the people are winning the war but is the interest of Syria and the interest of the youth using the weapons and the interest of the international society and the interest of Israel and the interest of everybody to stop the killing and open the floor for democratic process how do we do that up to my mind is really an issue to reinforce the people that in the free army are more away more under control more organized more able to be correct on human base to respect human rights and so far and asking the same time asking again and again and again the international community to come on the ground with the United Nations forces as peacekeepers separating the people on the ground we have to protect today the Sunnis that are killed by the Shabiha and tomorrow to protect the families of the Shabiha OK we have sorry I'm going to let this gentleman in the blue short asses question and then we'll go to the back very quick I'm a Syrian Christian most of my relatives are in Homs and they tell me first a Muslim church was bombed by the regime a lot of churches were robbed by the regime thanks none of the rebels they touched the demonstrators or the Christians in contrast a lot of Christian fellows my friends my relatives are arrested and tortured brutally by Assad regime I am one of them I arrested 5 years ago back then there were no international conspiracy and also the conspiracy and they arrested us and they severely tortured us just because we are secular we called for a democratic Syria for a pluralistic Syria we can't expect from a regime that Herbert terrorist organization like Hezbollah could be a pro or protecting for the minority my question to Hadil since she was with the rebels do you think that the alternative in Syria would be Islamic when you've met with a lot of activists would you tell us more about that OK before that question we have this woman in the back can you identify yourself please Jennifer Quigley-Janes I'm writing a piece on the role of the torture of children in assessing whether it stimulated further protests and revolutions so I was wondering what impact do you think the torture, detention and killing of about 1,500 children currently has had on the protest movement one more question to the right here this is a question for Father Palo my name is Armin Rosen and I'm a writer for the Atlantic online and you were in Syria fairly recently wondering sort of what your sense is of the military capabilities of the Free Syrian Army whether you think that they do have the ability to overthrow the regime hold territory and whether they can kind of hold out long enough if there is eventually an international intervention OK who's asking you about the strength of the Free Syrian Army yeah I mean let's hear Hadil first about the alternative after Assad regime I would say the alternative could be maybe a Islamic regime but of course it will be moderate Islamic regime because Muslims people in Syria are really moderate people and we have to give them the opportunity to rule Syria we have to try them and now the people are dying it's not the time to talk about that we have now to stop talking about protecting minorities while the minorities are OK in Syria as I said I'm Christian girl and I can tell that we are really safe in Syria we have not killed the majority in Syria who are massacred really in Syria now the majority in the name of protecting minorities that's not fair I would just like to comment that I think that the situation is changing on a daily basis and I think that what may have happened may have been the case when you were in Syria it may be changing and so I think we need to keep in mind that the longer this war protracts the harder it is to maintain that it is self-contained yes so maybe you can address that father you were there you left in June but also this question about the strength of the free Syrian army and its ability to actually win militarily against the regime I think that the Syrian army today the Syrian free army is stronger today not only in number of capacities but also in the capacity to control all of the armed people against the regime today than what it was in winter time I think that today they would be more correct in terms of military behave in a situation like the very difficult one in one that we have today nevertheless I think that is not useless to call for the protection of the civilians the civilians in danger today are the so many people aggressed by the Shabbiha tomorrow the risk is real that the families of the Shabbiha will be in danger the Christians are in a situation that if is not going into a real democracy and if a situation like Iraq will happen to last for a long time then I don't see much room in many regions of Syria for Christians to stay because the infiltration of extremists in the society I will not say in the army in the society the presence of terrorists in the society will have more room to develop because of the lack of international responsibility and so far the minorities will suffer this I think is a matter of fact we have to address the international community now asking for full responsibility and then we have from now to think in terms of constitution we have a Kurdish issue the Kurdish issue is growing quickly as very essential to the unity of Syria tomorrow you come from a very sensitive area in Syria from this point of view and you know as I know the Kurdish in the northeast are divided on the program some of them want to have a splitting and another reality like the one in Iraq we have people working for the agenda of the of the separation of the west of Syria as a separate political reality this will last after the end of the regime so by now we have to fight back all those dangers with a overacting work on constitutional level and political level in order to offer to all Syrians a perspective he can agree upon and engage in okay we've ran over a bit if there is interest we'll take another round of questions and close but I ask you to keep the questions succinct Mohammed I'm going to let you speak because I know that you are quite involved and engaged with people on the ground if you can speak quickly I have a quick comment about the number you said that the protests have subsided actually last Friday we had 756 nonviolent protests an increase from 645 a couple of weeks ago so I just wanted for the record to say thank you okay in the back thank you all for coming if you can elaborate a little bit on the role of any Syrian Jews are they part of the revolution how are they treated how are they treated by the regime and have you noticed any sort of issues that you would care to speak about involving the Syrian Jews the Syrian Jews are a very little community they are not 100 persons because they left Syria in 1993 when on the occasion of the Madrid process Syria agreed on the massive immigration and for Israel and the United States was good not to have a Jewish community trapped in Damascus so they were somehow obliged to leave Syria and this was an incredible loss for the civil society in Syria for the culture of Syrians all together the Jews have always been organically part of the Arabic society of Damascus where Arab Jewish living with the other people in Damascus in radical harmony and we will bring back this we hope to bring back our Jewish to Damascus if they like this will be our proud to have them back because this is our concept of a pluralist society and we hope that our neighbor Israel will understand that a more happy Syria will be for the good of Israel and Palestine as well so I think thanks everyone for coming and for the questions thank you father I know you've been forced to leave your homeland and to deal the same and I know it's not an easy personal experience and I thank you for coming out and talking broadly about issues of Syria when you're facing your own personal trauma thank you for offering to us this great occasion of communication thank you very much