Word: hafez
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...York Times last week, Syrian President HAFEZ ASSAD courted American investors and tourists, touting his country as "a land of castles, citadels and colonnades." Trouble is, some of the locals have grisly tales to tell. Most notable is the story of the ancient city of Hama, whose spectacular ancient waterwheels are pictured in the ad. Just nine years ago, Assad quashed dissent in the town. His army slaughtered as many as 25,000 townspeople and razed most of the picturesque old quarter Assad urges the world to visit...
SYRIA: The toughest guys at the talks. Although English-speaking Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa is the front man, make no mistake: President Hafez Assad will be calling the shots -- and the other Arabs will listen...
...conquered in 1967. The next day he directed a ferocious personal diatribe at Shamir. The Syrians came across as bellicose tough guys who seemed to have no idea how to play to a worldwide audience -- and maybe didn't care. They only had to please an audience of one: Hafez Assad...
...good will, and good will is strikingly absent from this gathering. Fourteen years ago, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made Israelis believe that his attitude toward them had changed by flying to Jerusalem and shaking hands with Israelis, smiling all the time. In contrast, rumors now fly that Syrian President Hafez al-Assad will refuse to shake Shamir's hand, (in Madrid--forget Jerusalem) and such a refusal is unlikely to evoke sympathy from Shamir, who has promised his electorate that he will not cede real estate for promises of peace...
Syria, however, objected to such talks for fear that Israel would pocket any concessions it made without giving ground toward returning the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the 1967 war. If President Hafez Assad is really backing out now, the other Arabs might follow suit. But he appeared primarily to be laying down a marker -- no agreement on anything without a return of the Golan -- and building pressure on the U.S. to push Israel...