This new and amended version of the Tharwa Initiative to End the Civil War in Syria reflects feedback from a large number of activists and opposition members from inside and outside the country that Tharwa received since the launch of the preliminary version on June 30, 2015. The next phase seeks to publicize the Initiative on the international level. (Arabic Version)
Continue reading “Initiative to End the Civil War in Syria – An amended version”
No. President Obama is not an idiot, and the deal that he just reached with Iran over its nuclear program will give the United States much more than it has given up, changing the face of the Middle East in the process. Perhaps, Europe will have in Iran another potential source of natural gas, breaking their reliance on Russia. Perhaps the strategic advantages for the U.S. and Europe are much larger that than whatever compromises they had to make in regard to Iranian ambitions.
Originally published on The Jüdische Kulturbund Project.
Ammar was born in Damascus, Syria in 1966. When he was 17, Ammar studied English for three months in the United Kingdom. At 18, he spent a year at Moscow University before moving to Wisconsin in 1986. Two years later, he moved to Los Angeles, California, then, returned to Wisconsin in 1990 to study history. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Steven’s Point in 1992.
Source: The Side of Freedom | The George W. Bush Institute
Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian democracy activist who exchanged radical Islamism for the Federalist Papers after studying in the United States, is featured in the Freedom Collection and recently shared his story with educators from across North Texas. “I don’t know how many people can say the Federalist Papers actually inspired them to quit their fanatical sort of outlook on life,” he says, “but to me … that was really empowering.”… Like Natan Sharansky a generation ago, the stories of men and women like Phyoe Phyoe, Joseph, Ammar, and Dalel keep the skeptics’ view in doubt today. Even in the Middle East, where the democracy deficit is the starkest in the world and the immediate outlook is bleak, there’s no doubt that the universal tug of freedom is present there as well.
Amanda Schnetzer is the director of the Human Freedom Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute.
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 