After 1974 secular left anti-imperialist groups in Syria became
increasingly critical of the policies of Hafez Assad’s Baath regime. As Alan
George’s Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom recalled, in 1974 Syrian
communists, for example, “strongly opposed a decision to allow foreign oil
companies to enter the Syrian market and in 1976 they criticized President
Assad’s military intervention in Lebanon” to prevent the victory in the
Lebanese Civil War of an anti-imperialist alliance between Lebanon’s leftist
Front of Progressive and Patriotic Parties (which included both Muslims and
Christians) and leftist Palestinian liberation movement groups, an intervention
that “was deeply unpopular in Syria.” In an essay, titled “The Crisis of 1986
and Syria’s Plan for Reform,” that appeared in the Contemporary Syria book
that Eberhard Kienle edited, Nabil Sukkar also observed:
“…The Syrian Communist Party [SCP]…protested against the
granting of a concession to an oil company from the USA in 1975…Disappointment
with the [Baath] regime started to become apparent in the period 1976-78 as
wages and agricultural procurement prices were affected by inflation;
corruption, nepotism and the illegal enrichment of the regime elite became more
obvious. Syria’s regional policies, particularly its intervention in Lebanon,
became unpopular; and complaints over the unlimited power of the security force
increased…”
According to the Palestinian Book Project’s 1977 book Our Roots Are Still Alive: The Story of the
Palestinian People, “[Hafez] Assad did not want to see a strong and
independent Palestinian movement or a radical Lebanon on his western border”
and “in Lebanon, he wanted to see a `moderate’ government and a humbled
Palestinian movement that he could control.” So in the spring of 1976, “Assad
decided to send his army into Lebanon—once he had American permission;” and,
according to the same book, the following events happened:
“…In March [1976] King Hussein of Jordan visited Washington
D.C., and told [then-U.S. President Gerald] Ford and [then-Secretary of State
Henry] Kissinger that Assad was ready to intervene on the side of the rightists
in Lebanon…The United States agreed to restrain Israel from any counterattack.
On May 31 [1976], tens of thousands of Syrian troops and hundreds of tanks
crossed the border into Lebanon…
“…At Sidon, Aley and Sofar, united Lebanese and Palestinian
troops stopped the Syrian tanks and drove back the infantry…With his troops
stalled…Assad sanctioned increasingly brutal attacks on Palestinian camps by
the [Lebanese] rightists. The Syrians themselves began shelling camps in June
[1976].
“Finally Syria approved an all-out rightist assault on the
refugee camp of Tal al Zaatar…in the rightist section of Beirut…The rightists
laid siege to the camp on June 21, 1976. During the next 53 days, they poured
thousands of artillery shells and rockets into Tal al Zaatar…
“On August 13 [1976]…the defenders of the camp let down
their guard as the first Red Cross vehicles approached Tal al Zaatar with the
permission of the rightists…As the inhabitants of the camp began to leave their
shelters, they saw they had been betrayed: behind the Red Cross vehicles were
the rightist troops! As soldiers overran the camp, they unleashed a bloody
massacre, gunning down defenseless civilians, including medical personnel. The
rightists deliberately killed every Palestinian male between the ages of 14 and
40…Over 2,000 people were killed…
“…Syria…expanded its occupation of Lebanon, under the cover
of an `Arab peacekeeping force’…They oversaw the installation of a pro-Syrian
Lebanese government led by Elias Sarkis. The government began censoring all
pro-Palestinian and anti-government publications and closed down [Palestinian
liberation movement] guerrilla offices…”
According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, in the early
1970s “approximately 4,000” Syrians of Jewish religious background still
“remained in Syria, of whom 2,500 were in Damascus, 1,200 in Aleppo, and 300 in
Qamishli.” But by the end of the 1980s the population of Syrians of Jewish
religious background “had declined from about 4,000 in 1983 to about 1,400:
1,180 in Damascus, 150 in Aleppo, and 125 in Qamishli,” according to the same
book.
The Encyclopedia Judaica also noted that
under Hafez Assad’s Baath regime the “mail, telephone and telegrams” of Syrians
of Jewish religious background “were monitored by the Jewish Division of the
Secret Police” of the regime, “which kept them under constant surveillance,
subjecting them to search and arrest without warrant;” yet “nevertheless, the
Jewish community believed that if the Assad regime was deposed, their treatment
by any successor would be even harsher.” But between 1990 and 1994, 3,565
Syrians of Jewish religious background were allowed to immigrate to the United
States; and by 2005 “fewer than 250” Syrians of Jewish religious background
still lived in Syria, according to the same book.
(end of part 20)
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