Word: baathist
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Attack, Attack & Attack." Defeat did not bring disaster to Arab political leaders. The Israeli attack on Syria seemed to have saved, for the time being at least, the wild-eyed Baathist regime of President Noureddin Attassi. Jordan's King Hussein, whose outgunned troops fought the Israelis for every inch of land, became the hero of all the Arabs. A cheering crowd in Amman converged on the King's Cadillac limousine, picked it up and carried it five yards to demonstrate their adulation. Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, a longtime enemy, paid tribute to Hussein's "personal...
Whether King Hussein in Jordan and the Baathist regime in Syria can do as well in the wake of disaster remains to be seen. Hussein, unshaven and haggard in battle dress after three days without sleep, made his own public reckoning. But it was the plain speaking of a candid and courageous man. Israel had won "with overwhelming strength," he said, adding, his eyes glistening, "I hope people all over the world will recognize the efforts this country made to defend its soil...
Throughout the crisis, in fact, the only actual casualties so far have been caused by fighting between the Arab states themselves. Sixteen people were killed when a booby-trapped Syrian car exploded at the Jordanian customs post of Ramtha. Jordan accused the Baathist regime of "premeditated sabotage," ordered Syria to close down its embassy in Amman and recalled its own diplomats from Damascus. In Yemen, Egyptian troops launched a new campaign aimed at driving Yemeni royalists from a stronghold in the northern mountains; in raids during the previous week, Egyptian planes had bombed two Saudi Arabian towns. Forgotten entirely last...
Syria's radical Baathist regime sent its tanks southward to back up troops already massed along the Israeli border, mobilized its untrained "People's Army" to back up the tanks and ordered students to form 150-man "battalions" to back up the army. The armed forces of Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and tiny Kuwait were placed on combat alert. Egypt called up its 100,000-man reserves, drafted half a million students into a civil defense corps and warned all doctors, hospitals and pharmacies to be ready for emergency duties. Israeli cities were strangely empty, just as they...
Reclusive and ramrod-rigid, Jadid has yet to make a major public pronouncement since taking power; indeed, he ranks on the Baathist books as a mere deputy secretary-general of the party. Jadid belongs to the minority Alawite sect of Syrian Mohammedanism, which represents only 10% of the population, and fears that the Sunnite majority-a more orthodox sect-might rebel if he became too publicly outspoken. Actually, he need not say much: the statements of his peers are sufficiently intemperate to embrace his views. Says Premier Zayyen in tones ominously Pekingese: "We are crushing all parasite and opportunist elements...