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Occupied Arab World

No surprise in Syria’s adoption of US-Israeli definition of terrorism

Crescent International

When Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia issued a declaration to denounce all forms of violence as terrorism at their summit on May 16 at Sharm al-Sheikh, many Muslims were astonished that Damascus could so suddenly and without any warning ditch the Palestinian cause and Hizbullah by agreeing to a definition of terrorism identical to that of the US and Israel. The summit, attended by president Bashar al-Asad, president Husni Mubarak and crown prince Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, condemned all forms of violence as terrorism, failing to draw the usual distinction between acts of resistance to terrorism and occupation, such as those routinely carried out by Palestinian and Hizbullah martyrs.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia are close allies of the US, and no one is surprised at their role in the betrayal of the Islamic resistance to Israel and the US. But Syria’s support for the declaration seems inconsistent with its backing for Hizbullah and its admission of Palestinian resistance groups into its own territory, yet astonishment at its conduct is misplaced. Damascus has always avoided confronting the US over its backing for Israeli occupation of Arab lands, including the Golan Heights, which it has never directly challenged Tel Aviv to liberate, preferring to fight a limited proxy war through Hizbullah and Lebanon. Syria has also been an enthusiastic supporter of the US-led ‘war on terrorism’.

Syrian officials and government-controlled media justify their country’s decision to support the anti-Palestinian summit declaration on the grounds that Arabs must unite against the zionist enemy. According to one Syrian newspaper, al-Tishrin, for instance, “top priority must be given these days to unifying the Arab position and to reactivating Arab solidarity to confront the zionist enemy through combined support for the Palestinian people”. Abdul Halim Khaddam, the vice-president of Syria, called for Arab unity during a speech in Lebanon on May 21 to confront the zionist enemy, whose assault was directed not only against Palestinians but also against all Arabs. Defeating this enemy’s programme would depend on the degree of Arab unity, he added. But the Syrian rulers and media naturally did not explain how, despite the incessant calls for Arab unity since 1967, it has always been the Islamic resistance, rather than government troops, that has taken on the zionist enemy. Declaring that resistance is terrorism is certainly a strange way of confronting the enemy. Nor has anyone explained how Damascus can subscribe to such a declaration within a few days of Tel Aviv’s announcing the establishment of new settlements in the Golan Heights. The declaration also came on the eve of the announcement by the Israeli Likud party of its opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The Egyptian press, however, went straight to the point, attributing the “fundamental change” in the Syrian position to a deal between Washington and Damascus that was secured at the Sharm al-Sheikh summit after a “marathon discussion between the three leaders lasting over three hours”. According to a comment in al-Ahram magazine on May 18, Bashar al-Asad played his hand deftly and showed wisdom by accepting the advice of the Egyptian and Saudi leaders and laying the basis for a US-Syria rapprochement by subscribing to the declaration on terrorism. In return the two leaders promised to put strong pressure on the US government to open a dialogue with Damascus as prelude to the establishment of cordial relations that would make US sanctions against Syria unnecessary, the comment said. Not only would Syria be taken off the US state department’s list of “states sponsoring terrorism”, but it would also not be included in the “axis of evil” as states sponsoring terror and seeking weapons of mass destruction, it added.

According to al-Ahram’s comment, a letter from Bush to Asad, delivered by the Saudi crown prince, was discussed at Sharm al-Sheikh. The letter must have set out the conditions on which the deal brokered by Mubarak and Faisal at the summit was based. An entry in the annual State department terrorist report indirectly supports the line taken by the comment. According to this entry, Syria and Lebanon cooperated with the US in the campaign against al-Qaeda militants but refused to recognise groups operating against Israeli targets, such as Hizbullah and Hamas, as terrorists. This indicates that, although Washington is pleased with Syria for its cooperation in the ‘war on terrorism’, it has also been angry at its failure to declare that Hizbullah and Hamas are terrorist groups. This in turn explains the Egyptian and Saudi leaders’ strong pressure on Asad to comply with Washington’s demands, but without mentioning either Hamas or Hizbullah by name, as that would not be necessary, given the blanket condemnation of all acts of violence as terrorism.

There are clear signs that Washington values Syria’s cooperation at very little cost to itself. Damascus – using its extensive information-gathering network throughout the Arab world and in countries where there are Syrian communities – provides Washington with information on Islamic groups that the US needs for its war on Islam and Muslims. In order to carry on getting this information, the US government wants to avoid punishing Syria too severely. But, on the other hand, it does not want to abandon its strong-arm attitude towards Muslim countries, which it has adopted to please its extreme Christian, zionist and Republican supporters, and it wants to show that the US is the only world superpower left and should be accommodated as such by other states.

The fact that president Bush left Syria out of the “evil axis” he proclaimed on January 29, and the government’s reluctance to exert too much pressure on Damascus to stop importing oil from Iraq, are cited as proof that Washington wants the cooperation to continue. Whatever pressure the US was bringing to bear on the Syrians to end the oil imports seemed to have eased since last September. Iraq earns an estimated one billion dollars a year from oil-exports to Syria, and this could be helping Saddam to stay in power or to fund his alleged nuclear and biochemical programmes. By importing Iraqi oil, Syria is also in violation of UN security council sanctions. Britain, a close ally of the US, calls this “the most serious breach of sanctions on Iraq since 1990”.

But although Syria is allowed to get away with this, it is not permitted to appear to defy Washington publicly, or to support Islamic groups that attack Israeli targets. Hence the US’s insistence that Syria remain on the list of states sponsoring terrorism, and its successful effort to force it to declare resistance operations against “the zionist enemy” terrorist acts. Even Hafez al-Asad, Bashar’s father and predecessor, was spared this humiliation. It was sufficient for Washington at the time that Hafez – a declared and uncompromising opponent of Islamic groups — was not challenging Israel over its occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories. In fact he was cooperating to the extent of actually attending the Madrid Conference on the Middle East ‘peaceprocess’ — a forerunner of the Oslo accords.


Article from

Crescent International Vol. 31, No. 7

Rabi' al-Awwal 19, 14232002-06-01


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