Word: assad
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bitter Feud. Assad does not want another Middle East war so soon after 1973 (see box), and is testing diplomatic alternatives while keeping up his military guard. His brinkmanship act over the U.N. mandate last week was in part intended to show the world that Syria plans to regain all of the Golan Heights. Syria has refused to rebuild the ruined city of Quneitra, the ancient Golan capital given up by Israel in the 1974 disengagement agreement. Syrian officials delight in showing foreign visitors the remains of buildings bulldozed by the Israelis before they left...
Some observers suspect that Assad has other motives in supporting the fedayeen, who are closely watched and restricted within Syria. The Syrians are also discreetly involved in trying to maintain peace in battered Lebanon (see following story) and they have renewed ties with King Hussein, whom Damascus has denounced at times as an "heir of treason" for his expulsion of the fedayeen from Jordan in the "Black September" of 1970. Jordan, Lebanon and parts of Palestine make up what was known as Greater Syria. Israelis, at least, wonder whether Assad, in his attempts to form an Eastern military front against...
Others argue that Assad is merely asserting Syria's role as the traditional defender of pan-Arab nationalism. As spokesman for this cause, Assad attacked Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for making the separate Sinai agreements with Israel that have, for the moment, shattered the Arab confrontation front. Since the second accord, Cairo and Damascus have been engaged in a bitter rhetorical feud. Egypt has taunted Syria for having sought a private agreement with Israel by begging for a cease-fire only 24 hours after the fighting commenced in 1973. Cairo newspapers have charged that Syrian "prisons and concentration camps...
...Freedoms. In the past, Damascus' uncertain rulers carried on their domestic and international politicking from behind the battlements of a "fortress Syria" that was often hostile to non-Arabs. One of Assad's major achievements has been to open up his country to outsiders as it has not been in 20 years. Moreover, he now feels secure enough in his power to grant new freedoms to his 7.3 million people even while preserving the essential socialist character of the country...
...meld Marxist socialism with Arab nationalism. Much like early Communism, the movement is organized upward from haliah (cells) of three to seven people; above the cells is a network of companies, divisions, branches and regions. In Syria the regional command is composed of a 21-member elite, with Assad as Secretary-General...