The controversial Syrian host of Al-Jazeera’s “The Opposite Direction”, Dr. Faisal Al-Qassem, posted a disturbing tweet on Wednesday, inciting sectarian hatred and blame towards the minority Alawite Muslims for allegedly “destroying” Syria for their own personal interests.
In his tweet, Dr. Faisal Al-Qassem asks the Syrian people if they would like avenge the Alawites of Syria for destroying the country; this tweet followed the main topic of his TV program on Tuesday, where he invited a number of guests to discuss the Alawite situation at the Islamist controlled city of Jisr Al-Shughour in Syria.
For over an hour, the tweet was shared by numerous Twitter accounts that not only questioned his professionalism, but also, his motives, as Dr. Qassem pinned blame on this minority religious group as a whole.
Finally, after receiving an unexpected number of tweets condemning his post, Dr. Qassem deleted the tweet; however, this was not before he engaged Dr. Joshua Landis – Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma – in a heated conversation on Twitter, further proving his bias and antipathy for Alawites.
Dr. Qassem is notorious for making comments that have stirred-up controversy in the past (e.g. Lebanese Army comments in 2014), but never to the extent of inciting genocidal thoughts against a Levantine religious group.
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