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The View from Damascus
Emad S. Mekay
(March 20, 1997)While officials in Syria are actively seeking the resumption of peace negotiations, to most ordinary people in the country the image of Israel remains that of a bloodthirsty terrorist state
To a Syrian reading his country's daily papers, the Israelis must seem unspeakably cruel. Front-page articles in the state-controlled press tell of the frequent arrest, torture and kidnapping of Arabs in the Golan Heights. One recent story hailed the bravery of the Golan Arabs who "resist the Israeli occupation by throwing explosives at Israeli patrols." Another report in the popular Tishrin daily stated that "the arrests began after the sons of the occupied Golan hoisted the Syrian flag instead of the Israeli flag." To boost the impact of their message, the Syrian papers embellish their news stories with comments on the "brutality" and "beastly character" of the Israelis, who will stop at nothing to maintain their hold over the plateau that was captured from Syria in 1967. (In fact, a peaceful demonstration of thousands of Druse took place on the Golan in mid-February, during which Syrian flags were indeed displayed, but the event did not result in arrests. The Israeli police say that, since the beginning of the year, they have arrested one cell of five Druse suspected of throwing Molotov cocktails. But in general the area sees little active resistance.) By all accounts, the Damascus leadership is extremely eager to get peace negotiations with Israel, which have been stalled for a year, restarted. But in the local media, no concessions are made; the Israelis are blamed for everything. On New Year's Eve, a mysterious explosion rocked the capital as a bomb ripped apart a passenger bus at the Old Beirut Garage, the main Damascus bus station, killing 11 civilians and wounding 41. Weeks later, the incident was still being trumpeted in Damascus as "the evil work of the Israeli Mossad." Taking his cue from the press, the father of the bus driver swears that the Israelis must have been behind the terrorist attack. "If I see any Israelis right now, I will suck their blood," the 60-year-old retired driver was quoted as saying. "Their rabbis teach them that the one who kills an Arab goes to paradise, right?" The bus bombing gave rise to a slew of articles about "the terrorist history of the Mossad," treating readers to gory chronicles of how Israel was set up through "paths of blood." The official Al-Baath newspaper, organ of the ruling party, recently ran a front-page report quoting an Argentinian writer who said that the bombing of the Israeli Embassy and Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, in which some 130 were killed, were both "the work of the Mossad." The Mossad carries out such operations, it said, whenever Israel feels the heat of international pressure, or the need to divert attention from internal crisis. Neither Syria's intellectuals nor its ordinary citizens question these reports. Twenty-six years of repression by President Hafiz al-Asad's military regime have produced a population that is totally passive, and highly unlikely to offer its own interpretation of events. "It was the Mossad," says Muhammad Aziz, the dean of the law school of Damascus University, of the New Year's Eve bus bombing, repeating the official line. "They were targeting the Syrian people and the Syrian political position. Whoever did it was obsessed with the strong position the Syrian people are taking" on peace negotiations with Israel. A young waiter in a five-star hotel reflects a widespread view when he characterizes Israelis in general and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in particular as "crazy extremists who cannot be trusted." For a while in the early 1990s, there were indications that the Syrian regime had begun reeducating its people to believe that peace with Israel was not only possible, but desirable. Soon after the 1991 Madrid peace conference, law professor Aziz, one of the country's most prominent intellectuals, was even telling foreign journalists that Syrians were fed up with the Arab-Israel conflict, and were far more interested in a stable economy. Government propaganda billboards adorned Damascus airport and the freeway into town with exhortations such as "We want peace with dignity," "We won't settle for anything less than complete peace," and "Peace is a noble aim and a precious goal." Now, the peace talks have been stalled for a year, and all the pro-peace rhetoric seems like a distant memory. In the thousands of signs that now cover the old city's walls, the word "peace" is conspicuously absent. "We went to war in honor and we want to negotiate in honor," is about as good as it gets. Many Syrians also recall a quote from former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, who let it be known after his 1992 election defeat that he would happily have negotiated with the Syrians for 10 years or more, without intending to give them anything. Still, there's a subtle difference from the days before Madrid: At least now Israel, which had never officially existed in the Syrian mind during the four decades preceding the Madrid conference, is recognized, if not accepted. It now gets called by its proper name in the media, instead of being referred to as the unmentionable "Zionist entity," or "the enemy" for short. And there is no outright talk of war. Referring to themselves as "crafty traders," the Syrian people have scrutinized the peace deals Israel has struck with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians and determined what they should be getting and how to go about getting it. "Things should take time," says an engineer living in Damascus. "Our Egyptian brothers would not buy eggs if they knew they had come from Israel, and the Jordanians are the same. We have to be just as careful as our brothers." In addition to being brainwashed into hating and fearing Israel by the state-controlled media, Syrians are discouraged from forming independent opinions by the autocratic nature of the regime. Young women joke about how many potential boyfriends they have to reject due to the slightest suspicion that the suitors may be working for the powerful Mukhabarat or any other internal intelligence apparatus. One student at a computer institute, when asked to comment on the internal atmosphere in Syria, clutches her neck with her hand. "If I answer I will lose this," she says. If they are asked about the peace process, Syrians will usually answer, "It is up to the state to decide," or "The leadership knows best," or "Asad is very clever."
Meanwhile, Damascus is sticking to its position that talks with Israel, which broke off in March 1996, should pick up from the point at which they stopped. And it has been lobbying the other Arab governments to adopt this stance too. It is based on the claim, recently stated by Syria's ambassador in Washington, Walid al-Muallem, that Syria had an unwritten commitment from the late Yitzhak Rabin, deposited with the United States, for Israeli withdrawal from all of the Golan Heights, up to the June 4, 1967, border, in return for peace. Other officials interviewed in Damascus add that Israel and Syria had already got beyond the stage of initial commitments and were strenuously discussing security arrangements. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who takes a tough stance on giving the Golan back, has confirmed that such a commitment was given, but insists that Israel will not be bound by it in any future negotiations. Those few who are authorized to speak with foreigners - such as Damascus University's Aziz, to whom the Syrian Information Ministry frequently refers visiting journalists - reemphasize the official position. "Netanyahu managed to keep 20 percent of Hebron, although the Jews number just about 400 compared to 120,000 Palestinians," he says. "On the same lines he may think he can keep a big part of the Golan, since he has some 14,000 settlers there. In Hebron, he could argue that he has a historical right. But the fact is that he has no historical right in the Golan." Upbeat statements by Israeli and American officials in the wake of the Hebron deal, about renewed hopes for restarting negotiations on the Syrian-Israeli track, met with a pointed lack of enthusiasm in Damascus. A recent editorial in Al-Baath concluded that "the only thing that characterizes the new statements from the right-wing Likud government and its generals and rabbis is that nothing is new." Indeed, the Hebron deal proved positively disturbing to the leadership in Damascus, as a development that could break the anti-Netanyahu mood in other Arab countries. Al-Baath admitted as much, griping peevishly that "there should be a swift Arab action to counter the Likud obstinacy that is trying to utilize the Hebron deal to beautify its image and appear as a peacemaker." One of the last bastions of pan-Arabism in the Middle East, Damascus firmly believes in the benefits of Arab solidarity, a view widely held by the Syrian public. "We are zero without the Arabs and they are zeroes without us," says a 30-year-old Syrian photographer. "The only way we can face up to the Israeli obstinacy is through Arab coordination." Syrian Vice President Abd al-Halim Khaddam and Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara have both been in Cairo recently to meet with President Hosni Mubarak. They have also been dispatched to every country in the Gulf with the exception of Iraq to drum up support for the Syrian position. As he arrived in Muscat, Oman, Khaddam summed up the purpose of his mission as "resistance" - to pressure Israel into "abiding by agreements reached in past negotiations." Still, the Syrians have less to fall back on since the Hebron deal was signed. Arab fury, previously given expression by threats to cut off the normalization process with Israel, has largely subsided. In particular the official Egyptian media, which is very carefully monitored in Damascus, has dramatically modified its tone. Once more, Damascus is beset by the negative image of the naysayer. And in Muhammad Aziz's view, Syria has not been doing its public relations homework in order to defend its cause, especially in the United States. "We do not speak the language Americans do," he says. "I do not mean English, but the language that makes them understand our concerns." However, there is no doubt that Syria is keen to resume the negotiations. A Syrian Information Ministry official comments that "the climate now seems convenient" for the Israeli-Syrian track to "get some attention" from the United States, the main sponsor of the peace process, and particularly new Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Syrian officials, snatching at statements by Albright that the Middle East peace process remains a priority for her department, say they hope she will visit the region soon. Russia, the co-sponsor of the Madrid process and Syria's former patron, seems to have faded completely from the political landscape. Now, all hopes in Damascus are pinned on the United States, perceived here as the only party that can truly put pressure on Israel. Many analysts in the Middle East believe that a main Syrian goal is to nurture an American understanding of Damascus's position. Some prominent Syrians and diplomats in Damascus, however, warn that American pressure, if it is directed anywhere, might actually work against Damascus itself. There are already signs of increasing strain in U.S.-Syrian relations. The Syrian government and its official media have sharply criticized Washington's opposition to Syria's $650-million arms deal with South Africa. The press spoke furiously of "certain quarters in the Clinton administration who do not wish to see better ties between Washington and Damascus." Early in January, the United States firmly warned Syria against making "wild and irresponsible" accusations after Damascus blamed Israel for the New Year's Eve bus bombing. Syrians protested State Department spokesman Nicolas Burns's statement, which contained no condemnation of the blast. A day later, Burns issued another statement condemning the bombing and offering condolences to the families of the victims. That same month, Albright told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that her government supported a new formula of "secure, comprehensive and lasting" peace, instead of the usual formula favored by the Arab countries of a "just, comprehensive and lasting" peace. The semantic change was not lost on the Syrians.
In other Arab countries, editors of official newspapers make a custom of reserving the top left-hand corner of the front page for the words of the prophets and wise men of Islam. In Syria, the space is devoted to the words of President Asad. Examples of the sage's wisdom include: "We reject a peace that is based on aggression and injustice," or "Not implementing U.N. resolutions is a violation of legitimacy that the world should face up to." The streets of Damascus are festooned with slogans praising Asad, put up by organizations and committees of the Baathist party. "That nation whose leader is Hafiz al-Asad will never kneel," declares one. "Our sun, you have our love and faithfulness," says another. Also decorating the streets of the city are portraits of Asad himself and of his former heir-apparent, his son Basil, who died three years ago in a car accident at the age of 33. The most recent addition to the display of posters is a composite photo of Asad standing between Basil and his younger son, 31-year-old Bashar, an ophthalmologist who was recalled to Damascus from his ongoing studies in London shortly after his brother's death. The caption beneath the picture reads: "Our leader, our ideal, our hope." On the anniversary of Basil's death, one Syrian paper declared: "Out of the lion's den comes Bashar, the banner of hope." Bashar, reportedly a thoughtful, academic type who had shown little interest in politics or the Syrian military, seems to be quickly assuming the mantle. Diplomats say that Bashar is now busy building a power base, appointing young allies in the influential Mukhabarat and the army. They add that while the elder Asad remains in full control of the country, Bashar is clearly being groomed to succeed his 66-year-old ailing father, who recently underwent surgery for a prostate problem and has a history of heart trouble and diabetes. In the Syrian press, the emphasis is on Bashar's clean reputation. He is depicted as one who stands up to Syria's most troublesome problem, after the Israelis - corruption. It was Bashar who recently saw off his 64-year-old uncle Jamil, one of Asad's brothers, who is now residing in Paris. Jamil was said to have been harming the Asad family name by taking fat commissions on business deals in the northern port cities of Tartous and Latakia, the capital of Asad's native province. Much as Bashar is concentrating for now on cleaning up at home, there may come a day when he also has to deal with problem No. 1. His views on Israel are not well known, but given the education the Syrian population has received over the last two decades, his personal opinions about peace and the Golan Heights may well turn out to be irrelevant. For whoever deals with the Israelis from Damascus also has to deal with Syrian pride, which, for now, demands all or nothing. As an engineer who lives in the upper-middle-class area of Al-Malki in Damascus puts it: "The Israelis do not want to even partially withdraw from the Golan. We cannot accept that. It would be like sharing your wife with another man. They will never understand."
1997
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