Word: assad
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Arab world last week. On hand were the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, assembled for the first meeting of their National Council in almost two years. Hardly had those meetings opened when reports began to circulate throughout the city that the long feuding governments of Syrian President Hafez Assad and Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan Bakr were about to take a tentative step toward merger. With all that going on, Jordan's King Hussein abruptly decided he had better fly to Damascus too to get in on things. The result was something of a three-ring circus...
...Egypt's Arab neighbors: The situation is serious. On my western border, I have [Libyan Strongman Muammar] Gaddafi and the Soviets. In Algeria, whoever is chosen President, I think there will be ten years of instability. [As for Syrian President Hafez Assad], I wonder what would happen to him if he applied what I am applying here: shutting down the concentration camps, bringing in a permanent constitution, a parliamentary system, a multiparty system. The Syrian leaders would not survive one hour...
...more important than this modest support were the signs of growing cohesion among the Arab states that oppose Sadat. As a prelude to this week's Arab summit in Baghdad called by Iraq to counter the Camp David accords, Syrian President Hafez Assad flew to the Iraqi capital for a reconciliation with President Ahmed Hassan Bakr. Syria and Iraq have been enemies for years, largely because their governments are run by feuding branches of the Baath (resurrection) party, a pan-Arab movement founded some 40 years ago. Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council holds the hard-line view that...
...peace keepers ordered the Maronites to lay down their arms, while making no similar demands on the Palestinians. Chamoun and Gemayel began laying the groundwork for partitioning Lebanon and creating a pro-Israeli Maronite state along Syria's border. When Gemayel's Phalangists murdered the son of Assad's friend Franjieh and more than 35 other pro-Syrian Christians in June, Syria became convinced that the plot was already in motion. Assad was further alarmed when the Camp David talks foreshadowed a separate Israeli-Egyptian peace, thereby tipping the military balance between Israel and "rejectionist" Arab states...
...that point, Assad began a methodical campaign of attrition against the Christians. So far, the campaign has had mixed results. About 300,000 Maronites have become refugees; their schools, businesses and other institutions have been destroyed. The vast majority of wealthy Christians have fled the country, leaving behind only the fighters and those too poor to buy a ticket to safety...