Word: baathist
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...more or less conservative Arab states of Sudan, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco. Nasser's effort to get Arab backing for his Yemen stand against "the British imperialists and Saudi infiltrators" may be backed by Algeria, Kuwait, and his new-found bosom friend, King Hussein of Jordan. Syria, whose Baathist rulers detest Nasser, and Lebanon, which hates quarrels, will probably stay on the sidelines...
Accordingly, Arab reaction to last week's initial Israeli tapping was notably restrained. But the danger of war has not entirely evaporated. In Syria, the shaky Baathist regime might decide that it could profit from a little external diversion, such as an attack by jet bombers on Israel's main pumping station-which is buried deep underground to guard against such contingencies. But if the Arab nations go ahead with their plans to divert the Jordan's headwaters, Israel has already warned that it would treat any such move as a clear "act of aggression...
High Leaders. When the Baathists seized power in March 1963, they seemed little different from their many predecessors; in 18 years of independence, Syria has had 15 coups, eight of them successful and almost all bloodless. But last July, when there was an uprising by rebels supporting Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, the difference be came clear. Baathist Strongman Hafez smashed the revolt and slew 27 Nasserite leaders - the first such mass execu tion in modern Syrian history. Warned Hafez: "Let them think twice before trying again. And if they try, let them be ready...
...unrest spread, a 15-year-old schoolboy in a classroom in Hama (pop. 110,000) erased the Baathist slogan, "One Single Arab Nation with an Immortal Mission," and wrote instead, "The Atheist Baath Is Against God!" The boy was sentenced to a year's hard labor, and his classmates went on strike. The sheiks and mullahs of Hama's 65 mosques denounced Baathist oppression, and surging Moslem mobs filled the streets. The police opened fire and the battle of Hama began...
...Paris he argued politics with other Afro-Asian students, read Marx, Nietzsche and Jefferson. He says, "I quickly found Marxism inadequate, based on materialism without human and spiritual values, without national consciousness. Nations are only large families, and the Arab family needs more than Marx. Thus we evolved the Baathist doctrine of socialism mingled with nationalism and the human spirit...