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The Syrian people are exuberant about the end of the Bashar al-Assad regime. But there is one atrocity by this notorious family that has been described as “one of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world.” That is the 1982 encirclement, starvation and mass execution of the residents of the Syrian city of Hama. This atrocity was committed by Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad. Last Friday, residents of Hama tore down the statue of Hafez al-Assad while the city fell to rebels. While much of the world just saw it as another Syrian city falling, its significance...

Israel paid Syrian President Bashar Assad’s grand-uncle $100 million for the Golan Heights before the Six-Day War in 1967, says a former close friend to assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Dr. Mahmoud Jame’ said Sadat was briefed on the deal, according to the Jordanian-based Albawaba website. Jame’, a member of the first Consultative Council in Egypt, said, “One morning Sadat took me with him in private and without a guard to the (Syrian part of the) Golan Heights, and I swear by the Almighty G-d that he put his hand on my shoulder and as we were standing on the...

Israel paid Assad’s grand-uncle $100 million for the Golan Heights before the Six-Day War in 1967, says a former close friend of Sadat. Israel paid Syrian President Bashar Assad’s grand-uncle $100 million for the Golan Heights before the Six-Day War in 1967, says a former close friend to assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Dr. Mahmoud Jame’ said Sadat was briefed on the deal, according to the Jordanian-based Albawaba website. Jame’, a member of the first Consultative Council in Egypt, said, “One morning Sadat took me with him in private and without a guard to the (Syrian part of the) Golan...

The 1967 Six-Day War by Mitchell Bard -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Israel consistently expressed a desire to negotiate with its neighbors. In an address to the UN General Assembly on October 10, 1960, Foreign Minister Golda Meir challenged Arab leaders to meet with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to negotiate a peace settlement. Nasser answered on October 15, saying that Israel was trying to deceive world opinion, and reiterating that his country would never recognize the Jewish State.(1) The Arabs were equally adamant in their refusal to negotiate a separate settlement for the refugees. As Nasser told the United Arab Republic National Assembly March...

Modern Syria was borne of the French Mandate. Suleiman Assad, the grandfather of Syria's embattled dictator Bashir al Assad warned France of the dangers of a Sunni Islam takeover in 1936: "The spirit of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, whose roots are deep in the heart of the Arab Muslims toward all those who are not Muslim, is the spirit that continually feeds the Islamic religion, and therefore there is no hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is cancelled, the danger of death and destruction will be a threat upon the minorities in Syria, even if the cancellation [of...

<p>Syrian leader Bashar Assad has been handed an opportunity by the United States' victory in Iraq that will decide his place in history. Bashar can follow his father, Hafez Assad, into the pantheon of ruthless tyrants who have killed thousands of their own people and threatened the peace and stability of the Arab world. Or he can decide to cooperate with the United States, turning over fleeing Iraqi officials, eliminating Syria's chemical weapons, and closing down terrorist training camps in Syria and Syrian-controlled Lebanon. If Mr. Assad is smart, he'll learn from Saddam Hussein's mistakes and avoid the wrath of the United States military.</p>

An American war on Iraq looks a good way off. But the shadow-boxing has begunGet article background THE sword suspended over the head of Damocles hung, legend says, by a single horsehair. That hanging over the head of Saddam Hussein is only a little more secure. This is a man on whom the world's pre-eminent power has, in effect, declared war. Indeed, unlike most war declarations, George Bush's fatwa against him is personal. America's stated aim is not only to divest Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but also to change the regime in Baghdad. If he were...