The UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Department of Sociology are hosting an event on Thursday, April 11 at 5pm during which leading units from the White Helmets terrorist organization will speak on their experience during the Syrian War. While the White Helmets claim to be ‘unarmed’, ‘impartial’, and ‘neutral’ ‘humanitarian relief’ volunteers for the Syrian War, a closer examination of their history will prove the precise opposite.
In their active years in Syria, the White Helmets are documented to have been:
- founded by the British military
- receiving funding from the United States
- operating solely in areas held by terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda
- evacuated by Israel after having been defeated in Southwest Syria
Founded by UK Intelligence, funded by US Government
A key question that a citizen must ask about an organization that self-describes as ‘neutral’ and ‘impartial’ is: where do the finances of the organization originate from? Can an organization operating in Syria, yet founded by the British military and funded by the US and UK government, be called ‘neutral’ or ‘impartial’ in regards to the Syrian conflict?
For start, the White Helmets were founded in 2013 by a British army officer and a consultant at the British foreign office named James Le Mesurier. The Globe and Mail reported:
…. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [got] Israel to open its border and allow the transit of the White Helmets to Jordan.
“Three countries took the lead: Canada, the U.K. and Germany. But the drive, the galvanization, came from Canada,” said James Le Mesurier, a former British officer who helped co-found the White Helmets in 2014. He and other sources singled out Ms. Wettlaufer for praise. “Robin has been absolutely extraordinary.” (How Canada’s woman in Istanbul began the daring rescue of Syria’s White Helmets, The Globe and Mail, July 24, 2018, bold added)
Here is another report, this time by The Guardian:
The White Helmets and their families were evacuated by Israeli defence forces on Saturday night, crossing from northern Israel into Jordan at three points. The Israelis had initially put the numbers evacuated at 800, but later the figure was revised downwards by James Le Mesurier, a former British Army officer who is considered to have founded the group in Turkey in 2013. (UK agrees to take in some White Helmets evacuated from Syria by Israel, The Guardian, Patrick Wintour, July 22, 2018, bold added)
In addition to being founded by the British military, the ‘humanitarian relief’ organization is funded by the US government – the very same hypocritical government that has confessed to bombing Syrian civilians with white phosphorus, a chemical weapon.
Wall Street Journal reported:
The U.S. reversed a decision to suspend funding for Syria’s nongovernmental “White Helmets,” …. (U.S., Relenting, Releases Funding for Syrian ‘White Helmets’, Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2018)
On April 27th, 2016, US Deputy Spokesperson for the US Department of State revealed that through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the White Helmets received $23 million in aid. Watch minute 4:06 of the video here. Even the USAID website itself has proudly admitted:
The President has authorized the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to release approximately $6.25 million for the continuation of life-saving operations of the Syrian Civil Defense, more commonly known as the “White Helmets” – an internationally renowned non-governmental organization composed of over 3,000 volunteer first-responders.
These funds will provide the White Helmets with critical equipment, vehicles, and other assistance needed to continue their work to save lives. USAID has provided over $33 million in financial assistance to the White Helmets since 2013.
Operate in ISIS-held Territory and are helped by Al-Qaeda
France 24 reported that the White Helmets:
insist that they are neutral despite only being able to operate in areas of Syria that are outside the control of Damascus.
“On the ground, we don’t make distinctions between people,” Saleh told FRANCE 24’s Observers website in 2014. “We will save anyone’s life. In practice, however, we mainly operate in areas that have been liberated or that are under the control of the Islamic State group, because that’s where there are bombings.
“In Idlib, there have been times when fighters from the al-Nusra Front [Al-Qaeda of Syria] have helped us by carrying wounded people to our ambulances,” he added. “However, we have been saddened to see that the Syrian regime does not respect our neutrality. They have dropped bombs near our centres. They target our volunteers.
The leader of the White Helmets has admitted that the organization is ‘helped’ by Al-Qaeda, and that they worked in ISIS territory.
Numerous videos prove the further collusion of the organization with the terrorist groups. Multiple photos and videos indicate very clearly the complicity of the White Helmets with the crimes committed by Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria) and ISIS.
When the city of Idlib was overrun by Al-Nusra and ISIS terrorists, the White Helmets took a video of themselves celebrating with the victory of the mentioned terrorist groups. In the city center of Idlib, they even released a video of themselves waving the Al-Qaeda flag.
Click here and here for the videos.
Warning: images and videos may contain graphic imagery
Here are photos of the group fanatically shouting and standing beside men who wave the Al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda) flag. The photos were released by the terrorist organization
Lastly, the leader of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is a powerful newly rebranded al-Qaeda-led terrorist organization in Syria, praised the White Helmets. Here is a video of the organization’s leader Abu Jaber in a video message honoring the White Helmets as the ‘hidden soldiers of the revolution’.
Unarmed and Neutral?
The White Helmets claim to be unarmed. Here are videos and pictures of them carrying weapons and participating in the executions and the looting of Syrian bodies.
Here’s a video released by members of the white helmets as they take the bodies of Syrians killed by Al-Qaeda terrorist groups in Hardatineen, North Aleppo.
Title: “‘White Helmets’ celebrate as they take the bodies of #SAA killed fighting Al Qaeda in Hardatineen, N #Aleppo #Syria”
Assisting in Executions
While the White Helmets claim that they save civilians, they are on the record for, on multiple occasions, assisting in the executions and looting of bodies of Syrians Warning: images & videos may contain graphic imagery.
Israel Welcomes White Helmets
Members of the White Helmets approached the Syrian-Israeli border and were evacuated through the Israeli occupied Golan heights by Israeli army:
Under the cover of darkness three weeks later, in the culmination of a highly secret operation—and just as Syria’s southwestern governorates were being wholly overrun by Assad’s troops and Russian soldiers—106 White Helmets and more than 300 of their family members crossed into the Israeli-held Golan Heights. From there, they were put on buses and transported to a “high-security location” in Jordan, where they were to await resettlement in Canada, Britain, Germany, France and Sweden. (‘It’s now or never’: The untold story of the dramatic, Canadian-led rescue of Syria’s White Helmets, MacLeans, Terry Glavin, September 25, 2018)
Meet the Organizer of the Event at UBC
Amira Halperin is the organizer of the event on White Helmets. She recently wrote a book titled ‘The Use of New Media by the Palestinian Diaspora in the United Kingdom’. According to the description of her recent book:
Amira Halperin is a pioneer in the study of old and new media in the life of Palestinians, both in the Middle East and in the Diaspora. She is a Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her current research explores immigrants’ integration and governments’ policy. She obtained her PhD in Communication and Media from the Communication and Media Research Institute at the University of Westminster, UK, and has worked as an investigative journalist and reporter. She is a regular media commentator, and has appeared on the BBC, i24 News, and Israeli media. (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Google Books, About the Author, bold added)
Research fellows get paid by their universities. As a research fellow in the Israeli state-funded Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, Amira got paid by the Israeli government for her research.
Meet a Presenter/Speaker in the Event
A speaker from the White Helmets is Maysoon Al-Masri. The Guardian reported:
Under cover of darkness, Maysoon al-Masri and her husband began their march towards the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. (Syrian White Helmets try to rebuild lives in Canadian exile, December 30, 2018, bold added)
CBC provides further details:
As Maysoon al-Masri struck out for the Israeli border with Syria on a pitch-black night last summer, she struggled with second thoughts — and with the kind of homesick remorse that is impossible to shake.
The former journalist and her husband slipped through the dark, ruined streets of Daraa in southwestern Syria toward a pre-arranged meeting point on the border, where — with the help of the Israeli military — they became exiles, travelling west in the hope of a new, peaceful life. (Former Syrian White Helmet rescuers, reluctantly resettled, embrace their new lives in Canada, CBC, Murray Brewster, October 28, 2018, bold added)
Israel has been occupying the Syrian territory of the Golan Heights for decades and the Trump Administration recently recognized Israel’s sovereignty over these stolen lands in violation of international law. Israel has also carried out a genocide against the Palestinian population and has aggressed Arab territory numerous times. Maysoon Al-Masri was welcomed in Israel by the Israeli military and was subsequently evacuated to the West.
Concluding Remarks
The White Helmets are an organization with numerous links to terrorism and the imperialist aggressors in Syria. It is truly shameful that, in light of all of the above facts, the White Helmets units have been invited to UBC to spread their propaganda.
Screenshots of the Articles/Websites Cited
