Social and Political Transformations of the Rural Structure in Syria

Social and Political Transformations of the Rural Structure in Syria
Summary of the book: "Syria’s Peasantry" by Hanna BatatuHanna Batatu was a prominent American scholar of Palestinian origin who worked on history, social research, and revolutionary movements in Arab countries, particularly in Iraq and Syria. He was born in Jerusalem in 1926 and lived there until 1948, when he emigrated to the United States. He studied at Georgetown University and received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1960, presenting a dissertation titled "The Sheikh and the Peasant." In it, he studied the Iraqi reality using sociological and academic methods, demonstrating how the Iraqi Bedouin transitioned from a nomadic tribe to a settled tribe, how the clan chief became a landowner, and how the rest of the clansmen became peasants on the land they acquired after the spread of regulations in the Ottoman era. The British Mandate also adopted this approach afterward. He followed his first book with another titled "Old Social Classes and Revolutionary Movements of Iraq" in 1978. However, all the books he authored were aimed at the American´-or-specialized reader because they were written in English, and later some writers translated most of his books into Arabic. Alongside Ali al-Wardi, he formed a duo for studying Iraqi society across all its classes and groups, to the extent that no researcher can study Iraqi´-or-Syrian society without passing through Hanna Batatu. He laid down the academic method for studying Arab societies and those dangerous transformations in social and political movements that hindered any progress. Batatu had Marxist leanings, as he decided to study the conditions of the Soviet -union- after the revolution, but his professor advised him to head to Iraq because he spoke Arabic, and there was an interest in studying and understanding that region due to the emergence of oil in it. He died in 2000 in the United States, leaving behind a massive legacy in political and social issues. He also authored a book about Syria titled "The Social Roots of the Ruling Military Group in Syria and the Causes of Their Dominance." I chose to summarize this book because of its importance in understanding political transformations in Syria from the end of the Ottoman era until the Ba ath period and Hafez al-Assad. It answers important and critical questions, and these answers may help us understand how a man like Hafez al-Assad—who hailed from a mountainous minority and a remote rural background in Syria—seized power. They also help us understand why he and his son destroyed Syria economically, politically, architecturally, and civilizational. We know this through Batatu s analysis of the structure of the Syrian countryside, which he divided into mountainous regions such as the Alawite mountains (or the Nusayri mountains, as they were called in the past) and Jabal al-Druze. He linked the mountainous peasant (especially the minority) to the fighting peasant who lived his whole life in conflict with the Syrian majority, whether the city dweller´-or-the Sunni rural dweller. This hostility and marginalization created a psychology of isolation and historically accumulated grievances in this group, and when the opportunity arose during the Syrian revolution for these grievances to be unleashed, massacres were committed against the people of the cities and the Sunni Arab countryside of Syria. It is not a coincidence and not merely a defense of the regime and power-;- because the massacres committed by the military officer Amjad Youssef answer to these accumulated grievances against the majority of Arab Sunnis in Syria. In any case, I have summarized the book by chapters, headings, and page numbers so that the recipient can read it just as the researcher Hanna Batatu wrote it. The Role of Demographic Factors in Peasants Social and Economic Conditions (p. 15):The population of Syria in 1932 was 1.5 million, and the number jumped to 14 million in 1994, which is nine times higher. A reverse migration from cities to the countryside occurred in 1991 with the improvement of living conditions for peasants, which positively reflected on agricultural work (p. 24). Horticultural Peasants and Agricultural Peasants:We can say that the original model of the horticultural peasant is the peasant of Al-Ghouta, who was nourished by the Barada River. Al-Ghouta had mosques, and its people were religious like the Damascenes, whereas religion is markedly absent in many villages far from cities. In 1971, there were approximately 6,300 villages and 7,700 daskarahs (small villages), and there were only 1,173 rural clergymen, with only 241 receiving religious education. In 1993, there were 6,454 villages and 7,153 daskarahs, and in almost every village, a shrine is built on top of a mountain in the Canaanite fashion, called a "Wali" (saint), considered the protector of the village, and there is usually an oak tree shading the Wali. The peasants of Al-Ghouta were the most skilled peasants in Syria in their method of caring for fruit trees-;- they love agriculture and the land, whereas the peasants in the meadows´-or-the Euphrates hate agriculture, the land, and manual labor (p. 26). The closest peasants to Al-Ghouta are the horticultural peasants of Homs and Hama, who depend on the Orontes River for agriculture (p. 27). As for the plain Alawites, they endure hardship, and large landowners prefer them over peasants of Bedouin origin because they are unrestrained, which explains the Alawite settlements far from the Alawite mountains, especially in the Al-Ghab Valley. As for peasants of Bedouin origin, carrying weapons was part of their daily lives, and their readiness to fight was necessary for survival. Here we know that the peasants of Al-Ghouta, the plain Alawites, and Idlib are among the peaceful peasants. Gertrude Bell wrote in 1907 about the Druze: "The raiding Arab does not raise his hand against women and children, but raiding among the Druze is different-;- they go out to slaughter and leave no one alive, killing every man, woman, and child they encounter, and they do this because they are a historically besieged minority" (p. 28). Religion was a factor of division rather than a unifying force-;- it hindered opportunities for joint action, and efforts did not become unified until the rise of nationalism and socialism. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Yazidis, Druze, and Alawites are among the most insular Syrian religious sects, and these sects possess a sharp sense of their own identity (p. 30). The founder of the Nusayri sect is Abu Shu ayb Muhammad ibn Nusayr al-Bakri al-Numayri, who lived in Basra. The book "Al-Majmu " states that Ali ibn Abi Talib created Muhammad from his essence, Muhammad created Salman al-Farsi from his light, and Salman created the five orphans (p. 33). Their book "Al-Shahada" states: "I bear witness that there is no god but Ali ibn Abi Talib, the bald worshipped one, and no veil except Muhammad the praised" (p. 34). Sami al-Jundi (the Ismaili) once suggested to Salah Jadid—when the sectarian problem became widespread in Syria—that he publish the books of the Alawite sect, to which Jadid firmly replied: "Do you want the sheikhs to crush us?" (p. 28). Tribal Peasants and Non-Tribal Peasants:The peasants of Al-Ghouta, Idlib, the fruit growers between Homs, Hama, and Aleppo, and the Alawites of the Latakia coast and the Baniyas plain are non-tribal peasants. As for the villages of the Euphrates, its tributaries, the Khabur, and the peasants of Al-Baqara and Raqqa, they are tribal peasants. A Ba athist from the tribal region said in 1973: "The peasant in our region is a clan, not an individual-;- if injustice befalls him, his entire tribe supports him" (p. 36). In Houran, the Al-Zoubi family is considered the exemplary tribe, inhabiting 16 villages, and there is also the Al-Hariri tribe with 18 villages. The leader of the Zoubi was linked to the French and the Hariri to the nationalists, and they had strong ties to Saudi Arabia. There is the Rula tribe, whose leader Al-Shaalan allied with Lawrence and owned 50,000 sheep. In As-Suwayda, the Al-Atrash family was dominant (pp. 39–40). Living Conditions (p. 67):There is a difference between the Muzari (tenant farmer) and the Murabi (sharecropper)-;- the tenant farmer takes half the crop from the rented land, while the sharecropper takes a quarter of the crop because he relies solely on his physical strength. The Druze peasant did not suffer like the Hourani peasant during times of destitution, because the Druze received aid, whereas the Sunni in Houran suffered from hunger. A study conducted in 1906 states that the poorest Christian peasant in the Qalaat al-Hosn region earned about 11 British pounds a year. In World War I, the average income of an Alawite peasant reached 5´-or-10 Ottoman gold liras a year, their children were previously captured and sold, and after World War II, Alawite peasants would sell´-or-rent out their daughters for an agreed-upon price (p. 68). The richest Damascene landowner earned an annual average of 700 to 1,000 thousand Ottoman gold liras, land guards were chosen from Circassians, Kurds,´-or-Bedouin, and the Ottoman gold lira was equal to 5.5 Syrian liras´-or-600 dollars (p. 69). The Druze:Religiously, the Al-Hajri, Al-Hinnawi, and Jarbua families provided generations of Sheikhs al-Aql, who are the highest religious leaders in the Druze sect (p. 70). The Status of Dominant Clans in As-Suwayda in 1889:When the peasants—who enjoyed no property rights—mobilized under the leadership of the Al-Atrash clan leader, they revolted against all village sheikhs, banished them, and seized the land. Then the peasant revolution renewed in 1890 against the sheikhs, and here the peasants acquired the right to land ownership, with many turning into landowners. However, they stood united when they launched a revolution against the French between 1925 and 1927, and the slogan of the revolution was "Religion is for God and the homeland is for all" (p. 71). Landowning and Non-Landowning Peasants:Land ownership was little affected by the agrarian reform in provinces such as Latakia, Tartus, As-Suwayda, and Daraa-;- the reforms included 22 percent of the invested land in Syria, while after 1975, the state sold 23 percent of the confiscated lands symbolically to peasants (p. 81). Chapter Three – Living Conditions:The land tenancy system was called "Muzara a" and the sharecropper was called "Muzari ", a form dating back to the era of Hammurabi in Article 46, which states that landowners leave their land to tenants in exchange for half´-or-a third of the crop (p. 90). As for the Murabi peasant, he is a poor peasant who owns no land but only his labor-;- he rents the land from the owner and takes only a quarter of the crop. However, the Druze peasant received more than that and an annual provision of about 400 kg of wheat, so the Druze peasant did not die of hunger due to sectarian solidarity because the guesthouse (Mudaafa) was open in times of scarcity for anyone wanting food and drink, whereas the Hourani peasant suffered in difficult times (p. 91). This was unlike the Ghouta peasant, whose condition was better, receiving two-thirds of the crop due to his meticulous care for fruit trees. In Homs as well, there were irrigated areas where the owner took a third of the crop, and in non-irrigated areas they shared the crop equally, which was called "Hama partnership" (p. 92). Going to Qalaat al-Hosn, the poorest Christian peasant there in 1906 was paid about 11 British pounds a year. In Jableh, income reached between 5 gold liras annually—meaning 9 British pounds—for Alawite peasants, but after World War I, the condition of Alawite peasants worsened, leading them to sell´-or-rent their daughters to wealthy city dwellers (p. 93). The situation differed in Druze regions-;- the average Druze leader earned 875 Ottoman gold liras, while the richest among them was the Al-Atrash family, whose annual earnings reached about 4,350 gold liras. There was the Al-Azm family in Hama, where the income of the rich among them was 6,600 gold liras, and in Damascus, the richest man s income reached 10,000 gold liras. Most feudal writers and record keepers were Christians and Jews, earning 5 gold liras monthly in addition to food, and feudal lords chose land guards from armed Kurds, Circassians,´-or-Bedouin of the Rula tribe (p. 94). After the agrarian reform in 1959 by Nasser, the condition of peasants improved, with per capita income ranging between 40 and 115 Syrian liras (p. 97). Peasant women participated in harvesting and gathering crops, earning between 20 and 25 Syrian liras a day, while men earned 60 liras in 1985 in the city of Aleppo (p. 101). As for the exchange rate of the Syrian lira in 1982, it was 3.9 to the US dollar (p. 110). Contradictory Costs of Agricultural Credit:Merchants dealt in usury with peasants under future contracts forcing peasants to deliver their produce below market prices (p. 115). The Ottoman authorities established the so-called Government Agricultural Bank in 1888, lending peasants at 6%´-or-10% interest, so merchants would borrow from the bank at this rate and lend to peasants at exorbitant interest (p. 116). Moreover, peasants were subjected to raids during Ottoman times and incursions by Bedouin, Kurds, and Turkmen, and the custom of paying so-called "Khuwwah" (protection money) to tribal sheikhs became common, driving peasants to abandon their fields (p. 125). However, some peasants hid grains underground in chambers called sanctuaries until 1920 out of fear of raids and taxes (p. 126). Rapid Rural Electrification:Peasants achieved many gains during the Ba ath period, most importantly rural electrification-;- until 1970, lighting existed in only 218 villages, but by 1992, thanks to the Euphrates Dam, 6,730 villages—or 95% of Syrian villages—were electrified (p. 134). Spread of Safe Water Networks:Before independence, there was no running water network except in a-limit-ed number of villages-;- they had wells´-or-women brought water from distant places like springs, and this was true even in the USA until 1920, where only one in ten farms had running water (p. 138). Healthcare in the Countryside:Before independence, peasants would lie in a corner of the house until they recovered´-or-died because transport on a donkey took a long time to reach a doctor´-or-hospital (p. 139). In the mid-1970s, the number of Syrian doctors abroad was four times those inside Syria (p. 141). Development of Transportation:Peasants benefited from developments in transport and communications, such as the increase in railways, paved roads, and buses connecting the countryside to the city, and the expansion of the telephone network in villages and cities (p. 143). State of Education:After independence, the number of schools in the countryside and city increased, and the goal of education in both was to create a generation submissive to Assad s authority (p. 148). Economic Efficiency:A number of tribal sheikhs in the Syrian Jazira seized lands shortly after independence, but they lacked knowledge of agriculture and crop diversification each year, rendering the land barren and unproductive, and the number of sheep decreased in 1985 due to drought (p. 155). Agricultural Growth Trends and Related Factors:In the first half of the 1980s, Syria was the third-largest producer of cotton in the world (p. 173). Part Two: Patterns of Peasant Consciousness, Organization, and Political Behavior Before the Ba athHow Peasants Were Depicted by Ibn Khaldun, Balzac, Trotsky, and Father Ayrout:Ibn Khaldun says that people who live by agriculture are characterized by submissiveness and a degraded status, citing a prophetic tradition where the Prophet (PBUH) entered the house of an Ansari, saw a plow, and said: "This has never entered the house of a people except that humiliation entered it with it" (p. 185). Balzac says of peasants in his book The Peasants that the peasant is characterized by cunning, and Ibn Khaldun said the same (p. 186). Trotsky says of the Russian peasant after the revolution in 1930, when a peasant speaks to himself about land: "You will not get land by kindness´-or-force, but by cunning" (p. 187). This is unlike the peasants of Syria, who do not fall into a single pattern, but multiple patterns-;- because there is a distinction between horticultural peasants, farming peasants of warrior´-or-mountainous origins, and plain peasants who are characterized by flexibility (p. 189). Looking at peasant organizations, we see that the first organizations were led by horticulturalists from the 17th to the 20th centuries, especially in the Ghouta of Damascus, represented by the Sheikh of Horticulturalists, and similarly by the horticulturalists of Homs and Hama, who had 164 guilds (p. 191). The people of Ghouta excelled in making Qamar al-Din (apricot leather) from apricots, exporting it to parts of Syria and Egypt. Horticultural guilds were free and distinct from official guilds-;- these guilds continued in the city of Homs until 1951 and included 4,000 members, many of whom could read and write (p. 199). When Akram al-Hawrani launched his party, his slogan was: "Bring the basket and the shovel to dig the grave of the Agha and the Bey" (p. 201). Chapter Seven – Sufism Among Peasants – Was It a Source of Political Quietism?Before World War I, Sufism flourished among Sunni peasants in Syria (p. 203). It contributed mainly to the spread of superstition in the countryside and city, especially belief in magic, talismans, miracles, and visiting saints, turning their tombs into sanctified places and pilgrimage centers (p. 204). A Sufi corner (Zawiya), which also served as a prayer hall, spread in every village no matter how small (p. 205). The most famous Sufi orders among peasants were the Rifa i order, founded by Ahmad al-Rifa i in 1183—a native of a village in Basra who worked as a woodcutter and asked disciples to devote themselves to serving the poor—and most of those who spread the Sufi order in Syria were of peasant origin. In addition, there was the Sa diyya´-or-Jabawiyya order, which spread among peasants, founded by Sa d al-Din al-Jabawi (died 1300), from the village of Juba´-or-Jaba in the Golan (Note: Another death date for al-Jabawi is found online as 1180 AD, and I do not know if it is the same person´-or-another Sufi,´-or-perhaps Batatu is speaking of one of his descendants in the Golan since the grandfather was born in Mecca), who was previously a troublemaker and highwayman (p. 206). Perhaps the correct explanation for Syrian peasants adopting Sufism is its proximity to Christianity, which prevailed among peasants before they -convert-ed to Islam-;- because many Sufi supplications originate from Syriac words, and their content revolved around living in humility, patience against adversity and injustice, and belief in miracles (p. 208). However, after World War I and II, Sufism began to fade, especially the Rifa i order (p. 210). Sufi orders contributed to social cohesion among peasants and belief in predestination, which made peasants easy prey for unscrupulous landowners, encouraged loyalty and obedience to unjust rulers, and became partisans of oppressive and absolute rule (p. 212). The Inclination of Mountainous Peasants Toward Rebellion and Plain Peasants Toward In-dir-ect Defense Against Authority:The peasants of the Houran plains were subjected to poverty, plunder, and banditry by Bedouin tribes, and then in 1711 they had to resist the Druze expansion newly settled in the neighboring mountains. In addition to all this, they were subjected to forced con-script-ion from 1831 to 1840 by the Egyptian occupation under Ibrahim Pasha-;- therefore, they built underground sanctuaries to hide´-or-store grain out of fear of authority and Bedouin raids in Houran, and they resorted to migrating from their regions against Druze attacks, sometimes entering into alliances with powerful Arab tribes by sharing herds to protect themselves (p. 215). Mountain peasants were distinguished by their skill in using weapons, especially the Druze and Alawites in the coastal mountains, against the central government-;- the Druze attacked the people of Houran in about eighteen major raids from the 19th century until the outbreak of the Great Syrian Revolt, and they mounted an armed uprising against the rule of Ibrahim Pasha, the Ottomans, and the French, just as the Alawites did in thirteen attacks against the government. However, the plain Alawites differed from the mountain Alawites, becoming less intense, less harsh, and more submissive (p. 219). What explains the Druze love of fighting is their sheikhs teaching that upon death, their souls pass into another body (p. 220). Most Druze and Alawite uprisings were negative in nature, specifically against forced con-script-ion and taxes (p. 221). When the government ordered them to evacuate 17 villages they had seized in 1878, their sheikh al-Hinnawi replied: "We took these villages by the sword from the people of Houran, and if they want them, they (the Hourani peasants) must take them by the sword, and we will fight you with gunpowder." In the Alawite mountains, a man named Ismail emerged in 1854 from the Matawra clan, claiming to be a saint, and established control over Alawite clans. The Ottoman authorities recognized him as a leader, and he began exploiting peasants until he ended up hanging from a gallows in Damascus in 1859. In Jabal al-Druze, a man named Ismail al-Atrash (died 1869), a shepherd, brave man, and highwayman, led a revolt against the Hamdan family (p. 222). Things did not end there-;- Druze peasants revolted against Ibrahim al-Atrash, demanding a reduction of the sheikh s share to an eighth and the rest for the peasants, which resulted in the expulsion of all sheikhs from their regions (p. 225). Their revolt renewed in 1947 when they burned the houses of the Al-Atrash family, especially in the village of al-Qurayya (p. 226). Returning to the Great Syrian Revolt, it was supported by Druze peasants and Ghouta horticulturalists in 1925–1927, led by Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, whose father had previously been executed by the Turks (p. 227). Contributing to the Great Syrian Revolt was the drought that struck in 1923 and the in the exchange rate of the Syrian lira to just 3 dollars (p. 228). As for the leadership of Hasan al-Kharrat in Ghouta, he was a brave man, illiterate orchard guard from al-Shaghour (p. 230). Communists and Peasants:The Communist Party appeared in Syria in 1924 and did not initially target peasants, instead engaging with workers. One of the party leaders was Fuad al-Shamali, of peasant origins from Keserwan, who led the party until 1933 (p. 233). There was also Nasir Hadda, a Syrian of peasant origin who worked as a mathematics teacher in Homs, a Sunni Arab from the village of Yabroud who brought Khaled Bakdash into the party. Khaled was the son of an Ottoman Kurdish official and later assumed the party s general secretary in 1937. Looking at the party leadership, most were from minorities—Kurds, Maronite Christians,´-or-Armenians—with the exception of Nasir Hadda, the Sunni Arab (p. 234). As for the Kurds, they emigrated from Turkey to Qamishli after World War I and worked as peasants, and Communist party activity was strong among them. When the Soviet -union- recognized partition in 1947 and then recognized Israel in 1948, the Syrian government banned the party, and it lost many members-;- membership before 1947 was about 20,000 in Lebanon and 15,000 in Syria, but after recognition, the number dropped to a few hundred, and in 1950 most members joined Akram al-Hawrani s party, which he named the Arab Socialist Party (p. 237). However, Communist activity returned in 1954 when the party became legal, but they suffered another setback after the -union- with Egypt due to their negative stance toward it and nationalization, as Khaled Bakdash stated: "The 1958 agrarian reform law in Syria serves the Egyptian bourgeoisie" (p. 239). Matters did not stop there within the party-;- Riyad al-Turk called for independence from the Soviet -union- in the 1970s, followed in 1981 by the Communist Labour Party, an organization containing a large number of Alawites. However, Riyad al-Turk completely broke away from the Communist Party in 1973 and formed the Communist Party - Political Bureau, which was hostile to Hafez al-Assad s regime. He was followed by Youssef Faisal, who broke away from Bakdash—the son of a pharmacist from Homs who also studied pharmacy—followed by Murad Youssef, head of Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Egypt and a Circassian from Quneitra (p. 241). The number of party members in 1969 was 5,000, 62% of whom were workers and peasants (p. 242). Chapter Ten – Arab Socialists and the First Agrarian Party in Syria:The Arab Socialist Party paved the way for a focus on peasants, transforming them from a loose mass into a cohesive class with clear goals. The party appeared in 1950, previously called the Youth Party in 1939, and turned toward peasants. The Al-Barazi family owned 49 villages, the Al-Azm 25, and the Al-Kilani 24 in Hama, and each family had its gunmen and controlled local and religious institutions. A story told by the people of Hama is that one of the Al-Azms coveted his neighbor s vineyard, but the neighbor refused to give it up for money, prompting the Al-Azm son to kill one of his workers and bury him secretly in the vineyard to frame the owner for the crime, thus acquiring the vineyard as blood-money for free. The Kilani family traces its origins to Persia, bearing the title Effendi, while the Al-Azm family bore the title Bey due to mixed Arab and Turkish origins. The Barazis bear the title Agha and were men of the sword in Ottoman times, of Arab origin, though a family by the same name has Kurdish origins, migrating from Ayn al-Arab and continuing to support Khaled Bakdash because he is Kurdish (p. 245). Colonel Abd al-Hamid al-Sarraj was from Hama and served as head of the military intelligence office during Nasser s time. The Ottomans used to grant villages to anyone serving in the military, which is why Hawrani viewed these families with hatred due to the arrogance of their members-;- Hawrani s origins were from Houran and the village of Izra (p. 247). He previously joined the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in 1937, but left it because the party did not adopt the pan-Arab cause in 1938, and Hawrani was active during the French occupation, participating in expelling the French garrison from Hama in 1945 (p. 250). The base of Hawrani s Arab Socialist Party reached 40,000 people in the countryside, while members reached 10,000 in 1950-;- the movement was active among horticultural farmers in Hama, Idlib, Maarat al-Numan, and Khan Shaykhun—all of whom were Sunnis—along with some Alawites from the Masyaf countryside and Druze peasants in the Shahba region. However, the Al-Atrash family remained with the Ba ath Party (p. 253). After Hawrani s party grew stronger, he formed an armed faction to aid peasants if they were subjected to injustice´-or-threats-;- one of his men, Alaa al-Hariri, owner of a popular café, would take his men and discipline those who attacked´-or-oppressed peasants. Hawrani was elected as a deputy for Hama in 1943, considered the first to raise the peasant issue in the Syrian parliament, and then called for the settlement of Bedouin in 1945 and the abolition of the Tribal Law (Note: The Tribal´-or-Clan Law was enacted by France in 1940 to court Bedouin sheikhs because the desert formed a third of Syria s area, and Nasser abolished the Tribal Law during the -union-). He then attacked the authority of tribal sheikhs to the extent that the sheikh of al-Husayna, Trad al-Mulhim, attacked him with a pistol, but other deputies intervened. He then proposed agrarian reform, which was achieved by Nasser in 1958, granting peasants land ownership (p. 256). He was the one who persuaded officers of rural and minority origins to enter the Military Academy in Homs. After consultations, he merged with the Ba ath Party in 1952 (p. 257). Part Three: Ba athism in Its Rural and Peasant AspectsChapter Eleven – The Old Ba ath and Political Ruralism:There are stages of the Ba ath,´-or-rather three Ba athist parties-;- there was the Ba ath of 1945, which was marginalized and had no popular base until it merged with Hawrani-;- the second Ba ath, formed by the Military Committee in Cairo in 1959-;- and the third Ba ath, which came with Hafez al-Assad s coup and became entrenched after 1970 (p. 261). Among the four members of the Ba ath Party Executive Bureau in 1945, three were from grain-trading families in the Midan neighborhood: Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Midhat al-Bitar. Therefore, from their class perspective, they viewed free trade in the Arab world as an obstacle to unity across Arab countries (p. 262). These merchants saw their markets as narrow, so they sought broad Arab markets without customs duties, which explains the attraction of families like the Al-Samadi, Al-Mardini, and Al-Hajjar families to the Ba ath Party in the 1940s when the Ba ath was non-leftist in orientation, in addition to dissolving the Islamic religion into the pan-Arab issue (p. 263). There was also Jalal al-Sayyid, a merchant from Deir ez-Zor who joined the League of National Action in 1933, then Hawrani s Socialist Party, and later became one of the founders of the Ba ath Party (p. 264). As for Zaki al-Arsuzi, he was the son of a landowner from Antioch, an Alawite whose father was a lawyer, and a Sorbonne graduate. He launched his thought from an ethnic standpoint due to the problem with Atatürk s Turkey, which led to his expulsion from the region. He founded what was called the "Ba ath Party" in 1940 after being a member of the League of National Action, which dissolved after the death of its founder (Abd al-Razzaq al-Dandashi). Aflaq founded the "Arab Revival" party with al-Bitar, then changed the party s name to "Arab Ba ath". By 1944, most of Arsuzi s members drifted away from him because they found racism in his thought and impracticality-;- poverty affected his behavior because the French banned him from teaching in government schools, so he lived with 8 of his students in a house eating one meal a day—mostly chickpeas—and he became a depressed, high-strung man dominated by persecution and paranoia toward those around him. Even Wahib Ghanem left him for Aflaq s party in 1947—Ghanem being a doctor and the son of an Alawite clergyman from Antioch (p. 265). Looking at Aflaq s party, all its Executive Bureau members from its founding in 1945 until its merger with Hawrani in 1952 had urban roots, and peasants formed no interest in Aflaq s thought (p. 266). None of the old Ba athists cared about the peasant issue except Wahib Ghanem. When they held the first Ba ath Party congress in 1947, they had only one participating worker and one peasant, and membership did not exceed 217 members (p. 267). By 1957, an internal crisis swept the party, marked by chaos, indiscipline, and ideological fragmentation, turning it into a socially isolated institution (p. 273). The Transitional Ba ath´-or-the 1960s Ba ath, the Rise of Lesser Rural Notables (the Marginalized), and the Ruralization of the Army:The center of gravity in the Ba ath after the -union- was the Military Committee, born in 1959, and the old party leaders remained ignorant of its existence until 1964. However, this committee did not last-;- one of its founders, Muhammad Umran, was assassinated in 1972, Abd al-Karim al-Jundi committed suicide in 1969, and Salah Jadid remained in prison until he died in 1993, having been the mastermind of the Military Committee. The committee initially included Muhammad Umran, Lt. Col. Mazyad Hunaidi, Lt. Col. Bashir Sadiq, and Major Abd al-Ghani Ayyash, and Hafez al-Assad, Jadid, and Ahmad al-Mir were brought in in 1960. In 1965, the Military Bureau seized the committee, and dual leadership emerged in 1968 between Jadid and Assad-;- Assad seized control of the military organization, while Jadid seized control of intelligence, security, and the civilian wing of the party (p. 273). Between 1960 and 1965, the entire Military Committee came from Syrian villages and the countryside, belonging to minority sects, with rural Sunni officers making up only 20% in 1963 (p. 283). Remarkably, ten out of nineteen were middle and lesser rural notables (p. 284). Social Origins of Military Committee Members:Hamad Ubeid the Druze—commander of the National Guard in 1963–1964 and defense minister in 1965—belonged to a middle-class landowning family in As-Suwayda. Ahmad al-Suwaydani—head of military intelligence between 1963 and 1965 and chief of staff between 1966 and 1968—descended from a Sunni clan from Houran, and his father was a middle-class peasant (p. 293). Mustafa Tlass s family—chief of staff in 1968 and defense minister since 1972—came from the agricultural Farzat clan (p. 294), and Tlass s father was the Mukhtar of the town of Rastan. Abd al-Karim al-Jundi s family—rocket commander in 1963–1964 and head of the National Security Bureau in the Regional Command 1966–1969—was from Salamiyah, and his father was from the village of al-Khawabi north of Tartus, later migrating to Salamiyah, whose population in 1960 was only 23,000 (p. 295). Ahmad al-Mir hailed from Salamiyah and was commander of the Armored Brigade in Al-Kiswah from 1963 to 1966 (p. 296). Muhammad Umran—head of the Military Committee from 1960 to 1962—came from the plain villages, his father was an Alawite notable there from the Khayatin clan, a clergyman from the village of Mukhram al-Fawqani in Hama, and Umran later married one of the daughters of Sulayman al-Murshid, who began his life as a shepherd. However, Salah Jadid s family surpassed Muhammad Umran s in status because his father was an Agha from the Haddadin clan of Jableh (p. 297). Most of Jadid s brothers joined the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, especially Ghassan Jadid, head of the party s secret military organization in 1954 and commander of the Military Academy in Homs, and Salah Jadid was also a member of the SSNP before joining the Ba ath Party (p. 298). The Assad family s importance did not extend beyond the Al-Ayla neighborhood in Qardaha (p. 299). Factors Leading to the Rise of Lesser Rural Notables and Increased Ruralization of the Armed Forces:Members of the Military Committee appeared in state institutions and filled them with their friends and relatives from their sects-;- 104 officers were expelled from service, followed three days later by 150 squadron and battalion commanders, bringing the total to 700 senior officers (mostly Sunnis)—amounting to a third of the officer corps—who were replaced by unqualified´-or-untrained rural students and schoolteachers (p. 301). Reasons for the Strong Influence of Alawite Officers:Alawites were numerous at the soldier level rather than the officer and non-commissioned officer level in 1963, but their numbers increased after the assassination of Adnan al-Malki by a young Alawite, Yunus Abd al-Karim, an SSNP member in 1955. Intelligence chief Abd al-Hamid al-Sarraj discovered that no less than 55% of NCOs were Alawites—a policy pursued by France in recruiting them into the army-;- out of eight special forces battalions under the French mandate, three were Alawites, and out of twelve cavalry squadrons, nine were from minorities: Circassians, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, and Ismailis (p. 303). Another factor explaining the abundance of Alawites in the army was their -dir-e economic situation-;- before 1963, a law allowed Syrians to pay a commutation fee (Badal) of 500 liras to avoid military service, which rose to 2,000 liras in 1964 for university graduates, 1,000 for high school holders, and 600 for ordinary citizens, then increased again in 1968 to 3,000 liras and 5,000 in 1978 (p. 305). Most Alawites in the army were from the same region and sect, and what united them was greater than what divided them, whereas Sunni officers were divided regionally, politically, and class-wise, a situation that persisted among Alawites until the Ba ath coup succeeded. Sunni officers—whether from cities´-or-the countryside—helped liquidate one another´-or-supported Alawite´-or-Druze officers to liquidate Sunni officers from the army (p. 305). Then came the liquidation of senior Druze officers in 1966, especially Salim Hatoum and Fahd al-Sha ar s group, followed by the liquidation of remaining rural Sunni officers in 1968, such as Ahmad al-Suwaydani and Hawrani s group, increasing the sway of Alawite officers (p. 306). Alawites continued planting Ba athists among themselves in secret military organizations between 1961 and 1963 and were aware of others intentions, especially rivals (p. 307). Afterward, Alawites controlled air squadrons, missile units, armored brigades, and intelligence forces in and around the capital (p. 308). Rural Infiltration into State Bureaucracy:The influx of rural elements was heavy in the officer corps and state bureaucracy. Damascus s population increased by about 47% after rural dwellers came to power between 1960 and 1970, dropping to 27% between 1971 and 1980 (p. 309). Reinforcing the Rural Character of the Ba ath Party:The civilian wing did not exceed 400 members, while this number was surpassed in the military organization (p. 310). Salah Jadid stated that the party had very few members in cities. Out of 24 people who reached the Regional Command between 1966 and 1970, only 8% were from major cities, and the rest were from rural areas (p. 312). Agricultural Policies in the 1960s and Their Social Significance:The Ba ath deepened Agrarian Reform Law No. 161 of 1958, then introduced Decree 88 of 1963, reducing private property-limit-s for landowners (p. 313). Abd al-Karim al-Jundi was Minister of Agriculture in 1964, and Ibrahim Makhous was from the Alawite notable class and an ally of Salah Jadid, hailing from the village of Makhous, where his father was an Alawite clergyman and farmer owning 100 dunums (p. 315). The Fall of the Hardline Ba athist Current in the 1960s and Its Causes:The fall of the pre-1967 Ba athist current impacted the catastrophic 1967 war and left the economy unstable, and the party went through crises and shifts in the balance of power, marking this period as a history of party schisms (p. 328). Salah Jadid had no clear stance on these currents within the party, sometimes siding with Marxist Ba athists like Yasin al-Hafiz and other times with others (p. 329). By 1970, the party had completely formed along sectarian, tribal, and familial lines (p. 332). Assad’s Ba’ath in His Personal Mold – Leader of the March:Loyalty to Assad replaced loyalty to the party ever since his coup (p. 337). Party membership in 1992 reached 1.8 million, forming 15 percent of Syria s adult population of about 14 million (p. 339). Alawites began a silent migration to the city of Homs until they formed a third of its population, while Christians made up 10% in Homs (p. 363). Part Four: Hafez al-Assad, the First Ruler of Syria of Peasant and Minority OriginsAssad was an introverted man, as described by PLO leader Abu Iyad, who also said no one knew what was going on inside him (p. 361). He was from the village of Qardaha, located on mountain slopes about 30 km from Latakia, and its population did not exceed 1,500 in 1930 when Hafez al-Assad was born. The sect s sheikhs in Qardaha were from the Al-Khayr family (the Khayatin), while most residents of the family neighborhood belonged to the Kalbiyya clan, led by the Assad family despite father Sulayman al-Assad being a poor man born in 1875. Due to extreme family poverty, Hafez left school to secure a fee of 16 Syrian liras (p. 365). A story proves the family s poverty: it is said that Hafez s older brother, Bahjat, was sent by their father—a tyrannical and extremely poor man—to grind wheat in Jableh with money given to him. The boy spent most of it in the city, and upon his return, his father beat him severely with an iron rein until his skin split, leaving him bleeding in the cattle shed. Unwilling to accept this humiliation, the boy committed suicide in the shed s ceiling (p. 367). Assad learned to read under an Alawite clergyman, Kamil Hamid, and in his youth met Wahib Ghanem, who recruited him into the Ba ath Party (p. 368). Ghanem was older than Assad, born in 1919 to an Alawite clergyman, and served as an elementary school principal in Antioch, supporting Zaki al-Arsuzi. He moved to Damascus after the annexation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta with Arsuzi, obtained a degree in medicine there in 1943, and founded a clinic in Latakia. Upon meeting Hafez, he helped him with his studies and bore some of his educational expenses (p. 369). Chapter Fifteen – Assad s Biography and Military Qualifications:Assad entered the Military Academy in Homs in 1951, graduated as a first lieutenant in the air force in 1955, joined the Military Committee in 1960, and was quickly promoted after the coup to lieutenant colonel, then major general in 1964. When appointed defense minister in 1967, he was still novice in the army, but was more seasoned in political conspiracies against his comrades than in military affairs (p. 373). He lacked the qualifications to manage the armed forces when the 1967 war broke out, and the Syrian army was devoid of competence after repeated purges for which Assad and Jadid were responsible. However, the most dangerous thing Assad did in this war was Communiqué No. 66 on June 10 stating that Israeli forces had captured the city of Quneitra, whereas Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan denied that a single Israeli soldier was in the Golan, even though Yitzhak Rabin had ordered not to occupy Quneitra if Assad was there because the Syrian army fought bravely, yet Communiqué 66 psychologically weakened it (p. 374). Ibrahim Makhous (foreign minister at the time) said it was a wrong decision, and Sami al-Jundi was surprised by the communiqué because no Israeli soldier was in the Golan, as if the plan was pre-arranged, since the first to leave the front was Ghassan Jadid, commander of the 70th Brigade, with Captain Rifaat al-Assad, commander of the tanks in the dark (p. 375). Chapter Sixteen – Diverse Faces in Assad s State:Assad may have followed Frederick the Great s saying without reading about it-;- telling Voltaire that he considered human beings like a herd of deer in the park of nobles and lords, having no -function- other than eating and reproducing to fill the park (p. 386). When Assad took power after his coup, he concentrated four dangerous apparatuses in his hand: security, intelligence, military affairs, and foreign affairs, forming the first tier. Assad formed important apparatuses to protect him, most notably the Republican Guard, Special Forces, the 3rd Armored Division located in Qutayfa in the Damascus countryside, and the Defense Companies before 1984. All these formations were responsible for protecting the Assad regime and were the only ones allowed to enter the capital, Damascus, forming the second tier. The third tier was the Ba ath Party leadership, a nominal institution since he was its General Secretary, and the party issued no decisions in political life (p. 386). Regarding Assad s relationship with Damascus merchants, in 1975 he allowed them to import 1.7 billion liras, and in 1980 he allowed imports worth 4.17 billion liras (p. 389). Chapter Eighteen – Power Organization in the Second Tier of Assad s Regime and Features of Peasant Life:Kinship was the primary pillar upon which peasants relied, especially among Alawites and Druze, extending from family to clan and entire sect (p. 405). As mentioned, Assad relied on the first and second tiers in his rule, while the third tier, such as the regular army, had no actual practical significance (p. 418). Lesser Rural Notables and the Inner Circle in the Regime s Leadership:58% of the nineteen Alawites who held important positions came from the class of lesser rural notables who owned small land plots, such as Ali Duba, head of Military Intelligence, and Ali Haidar, commander of Special Forces (p. 418). Sunnis Who Held Positions in Assad s Regime:They included Naji Jamil, air force commander-;- Subhi Haddad-;- Ali Malahfaji, -dir-ector of civilian General Intelligence-;- Adnan Dabbagh-;- Ali Madani-;- Nazie Zarir-;- Fuad Abbas-;- Majid Said-;- Bashir Al-Najjar-;- Hikmat Shehabi, chief of staff-;- and Mustafa Tlass, defense minister. All of them derived their authority from Assad rather than their official positions and had no actual influence in the armed forces. For example, Naji Jamil dared not fly any aircraft without the knowledge of Alawite operatives like Muhammad al-Kholi, head of Air Force Intelligence, while another Alawite, Abd al-Karim Rizq, controlled the missile corps and air defense forces (p. 419). However, after the Hama massacre, the influence of Sunni officers began to wane, especially high-ranking ones, with the exception of Mustafa Tlass. A friend of Rifaat al-Assad said about Tlass in 1992: "Tlass is in the army but not counted among it, because he neither binds nor loosens, has no role, and is like an animal s tail," and Shehabi could not move anything without the knowledge of his deputy Ali Aslan (p. 421). Mustafa Tlass stated that military housing charged officers only 46,000 liras for a house whose actual price was 200,000 liras (p. 425). Abuse of Power in High Ranks:A large number of officers close to power grew rich through their positions-;- Shafiq Fayyad (Assad s cousin), commander of the 3rd Division since 1978, built a palace worth 56 million liras—equivalent to -$-1.86 million—in Ayn al-Arus, and Ali Duba, head of Military Intelligence, built a palace worth 80 million liras (p. 426). Hawrani recounts that when he was in the People s Assembly in 1956, Kuwatli asked for a new car to replace his old one that constantly broke down, and Hawrani rejected the request (p. 428). Rifaat al-Assad was a symbol of corruption from the start, digging up land owned by President Nureddin al-Atassi s in-laws without permission and against their will (p. 429). The Succession Crisis:Rifaat al-Assad was a controversial figure in the eyes of Alawite officers and was hated in Syrian society due to the behavior of the Defense Companies, numbering 50,000, who were undisciplined on the streets. They had their own prisons, but when the poster war began, Rifaat s group posted his pictures in the streets, and Hafez s group would tear them down and put up his pictures instead (p. 431). The Republican Guard was established in 1979, personally responsible for protecting Assad, commanded by Adnan Khallouf (his wife s cousin), who was promoted to major general, followed by Bassel s promotion to major as head of presidential security, a unit that seized all oil produced from Deir ez-Zor wells (p. 437). When Assad gave great power to his son Bassel and then Bashar, it upset Ali Haidar, commander of the 15,000-strong Special Forces. He said in a 1994 meeting before Chief of Staff Hikmat Shehabi regarding peace talks with Israel: "It is as if we do not exist for Assad-;- he did not consult us," which led to his arrest and replacement by Alawite Ali Habib. Assad then broadcasted to the public that Haidar was corrupt and held -$-51 million in foreign banks (p. 438). Security and Intelligence Networks and Their Figures:After the coup against the National Command in 1966, Salah Jadid s group leaned toward security apparatuses that began threatening public funds and transformed into a privileged class (p. 440). General Intelligence consists of the Palestine Branch, Internal Security Branch, External Security Branch, along with Political Security, Air Force Intelligence, and Military Intelligence, all reporting -dir-ectly to Assad. The most prominent figures in security and intelligence were Ali Duba, Muhammad al-Kholi, and Muhammad Nasif, all generals and Alawites. Duba descended from the Matawra clan-;- his father was a clergyman and owner of a small land plot, born in 1933, and his father was with Saleh al-Ali (who was also a clergyman from the Matawra clan). Duba had alliances with Adnan Badr Hassan, head of Political Security since 1987-;- Majid Said, head of General Intelligence-;- Colonel Muhsin Sulaiman, commander of the 35th Airborne Regiment in Special Forces-;- and his sister s son, Major General Ali Habib, commander of Special Forces and a fellow clansman (p. 442). Muhammad al-Kholi was born in 1937 in the village of Beit Yashut in the Jableh region, had no ties to the Ba ath Party, and suddenly emerged in power in 1970 (p. 445). In the Hindawi affair, he lost favor with Assad in 1986 at Heathrow Airport in London when Britain cut diplomatic ties with Syria. It was a clumsy, failed attempt by Syrian Air Force Intelligence to bomb an Israeli El Al plane in revenge for the treatment of a Syrian delegation returning from Libya to Damascus, which was forced by Israeli fighters to land in Tel Aviv. Some believed Nizar Hindawi was a Mossad double agent and Syrian Air Force Intelligence fell into a trap-;- no one knows if the bombing was Assad s idea, but Kholi took the blame and continued serving as deputy air force commander. Ibrahim Huwayja, head of Air Force Intelligence, was Kholi s protégé from the same clan (Haddadin) (p. 446). Muhammad Nasif, head of the Internal Security Branch, acted like the secret police and was violent against political opponents, descending from the Kalbiyya clan like Assad. Born in the village of al-Qubba in Masyaf in 1939 to an insignificant peasant father who lived by extortion, he was appointed by Assad to monitor telephone lines in the 1960s. The Military Committee was the main overseer of this apparatus, and although five of the six who held this position did not attain Nasif s status, Nasif was a secret partner to Saeb Nahas with an account in West Berlin, and Nahas was a creature of Nasif s Internal Security (p. 447). Chapter Nineteen – The Third Level in Assad s Rule´-or-the Top Elite of the Ba ath PartyThe Regional Command was mostly filled by appointment, and the primary criterion for selecting members was absolute loyalty to Assad. In 1975, Assad leaned toward distributing leadership seats to Alawites at the expense of Sunnis-;- between 1970 and 1997, 46% of the Regional Command members came from peasant origins, but this leadership remained devoid of actual power in the regime (pp. 449–452). Chapter Twenty – The Fourth Level of Power and the Role of the Peasant Federation as a Party AuxiliaryAlthough peasants belonging to the party constituted a sixth, 84% of them were registered in cooperatives in 1974 because it was mandatory for all peasants benefiting from land after the reform to join cooperatives (p. 461). Peasants benefited from cooperatives by obtaining tax-exempt loans and a 5% discount on state-purchased tools, and the Peasant Federation became the primary monopolist for tractor distribution starting in 1977, while the number of agricultural engineers rose to 13,572 by 1991, though only 23% joined cooperatives (p. 462). In 1995, complaints began regarding the management of cooperatives and state dealings with them, such as failure to provide agricultural supplies on time´-or-shortages of sacks, creating a crisis (p. 465). Mustafa al-A id became head of the executive committee of the Peasant Federation after Assad s coup-;- he was a Shawi from the semi-settled Afadila tribe, meaning a peasant and sheep herder simultaneously (p. 467). Assad needed peasants and their support against demonstrations and strikes that erupted in Hama and Aleppo in 1980-;- his regime formed armed peasant battalions numbering 24,000 men, expanding to 46,000 in 1995 to crush any protest (p. 468). Assad s Personality and Rule:Assad was skilled at concealing his true goals, playing behind the scenes, and his decisions came slowly as internal and external events shaped Assad, and he adapted to them (p. 470). When Nixon visited Damascus in 1974 for disengagement with Israel in the Golan Heights, he wrote that Assad was characterized by much ambiguity and endurance, and Nixon s Secretary of State Kissinger found Assad a seasoned negotiator who showed no emotion before visitors (p. 471). Assad moved among his comrades from right to left before his coup and excelled at jumping from a losing trench to a winning one with complete secrecy-;- for example, when Amin al-Hafiz cast all his cards with the old guard (National Command) in 1966 and conflict raged between him and Salah Jadid, Assad approached him and said: "Abu Abdo, we all trust you, just lift your hand from the National Command, they have neither civilians nor military, put your hand in mine as all these are conspiring against you" (p. 474). Through this, Assad tried to project to Amin al-Hafiz that he was with him, proving political cunning. He showed violence toward his comrades by throwing Salah Jadid and Atassi in prison, then assassinating Muhammad Umran in Tripoli in 1972 when he learned he intended to return to Syria, issuing a statement after the assassination to clear himself: "It is abnormal, strange, and unacceptable that we should be the ones to assassinate a citizen because he opposes us," followed by the assassinations of Kamal Jumblatt and Salah al-Din al-Bitar (p. 475). Chapter Twenty-Two – Assad and the Muslim BrotherhoodAssad brought Ahmad Kuftaro (a Kurd) into the People s Assembly as Grand Mufti of the Republic, alongside Ahmad al-Hakim, Mufti of Aleppo. Kuftaro was born in 1910 in the Kurdish neighborhood of Damascus and held the position of Grand Mufti from 1965, supporting Assad throughout his life (p. 481). Brotherhood hatred toward Assad remained muted until the mid-1970s, when they split into three conflicting groups: the Fighting Vanguard, which attracted youth especially in Hama like Marwan Hadid-;- the more cautious Damascus wing represented by Issam al-Attar-;- and Sheikh Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuda s wing from Aleppo representing the international organization of the Brotherhood. The Fighting Vanguard adopted the name "Hezbollah" in 1973, then changed it to the Fighting Vanguard of the Muslim Brotherhood. Marwan Hadid was from a Haman family, born in 1934, whose father was an agricultural contractor investing in rented land in Jazira. He graduated from Ain Shams University in Egypt as an agricultural engineer in 1962 and was influenced by Sayyid Qutb and the Brotherhood (p. 482). Hadid engaged in the 1964 Hama uprising against the Ba ath Party, leading to the shelling of the Sultan Mosque and ending with his imprisonment, then release after mediation by Hama sheikhs. He went to Jordan in 1968, joined Fatah, received fedayeen training, returned to Syria after Assad s coup, and founded the Fighting Vanguard. He called Assad an infidel who did not rule by what God revealed, but his call found no sympathy among Damascus brethren because they had wide connections with Damascus merchants who opposed any violent confrontation with Assad (p. 483). As for Attar, he was from the Amara neighborhood of Damascus, of middle-class origin, an Arabic literature teacher living in Aachen, West Germany, in 1973. The reason was that when he went on Hajj in 1964 and returned to Syria, he was barred from entering, went to Lebanon where he was expelled, and no Arab country accepted him, so he sought asylum in West Germany in 1968, rejecting armed violence. Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuda s group in Aleppo did not reject armed violence and clashed with Attar. Abu Ghuda began his life working a loom, then as a sharia teacher, then a parliament deputy during the secession period. He founded the Aleppo branch of the Brotherhood in 1935 and agreed with Adnan Saad al-Din from Hama—a schoolteacher in Doha in 1962—that Attar was extravagant in authority and consulted no one on decisions (p. 485). Khaled al-Azm wrote in his memoirs: "I have never found a man as mysterious as Attar-;- he speaks in a soft, modest voice, then suddenly rages, shakes his hands, raises his voice, and then returns to smile with a glowing face." Abu Ghuda became General Supervisor instead of Attar until 1975, while the Damascus wing opposed him and remained loyal to Attar (p. 486). The Artillery House Incident in Aleppo, June 16, 1979:The duty officer, Captain Ibrahim al-Yousef, of peasant origin from Aleppo, was at the college when he gave eleven Vanguard fighters military uniforms and the password, led by Hosni Abbo, a French language teacher and son of a wealthy merchant (p. 489). The 300 officers were summoned to the meeting hall, where he read out names of some students and ordered them to leave the hall, then turned to the rest and said: "Death awaits you," opening fire and killing 31 officers while wounding others, all of whom were Alawites. Issam al-Attar denounced the operation from Aachen, but accused the regime of fabricating it, stating the executing officer was a Ba athist and security officer, though Yousef was later killed in 1980. Brotherhood General Supervisor Adnan met Vanguard leader Abd al-Salam al-Za im in Beirut, offering proposals for joint action while Saad al-Din lived in Jordan, condemning the operation as he claimed he knew nothing of it. Strikes began in Aleppo between 1979 and 1980 when Vanguard leader Abd al-Sattar al-Za im was killed. Four led the Brotherhood: Hasan Huwaydi from Deir ez-Zor, from the semi-nomadic Mayadin clan-;- Said Hawwa from Hama, son of a small farmer-;- Ali al-Bayanouni from Aleppo-;- and Adnan Saad al-Din, who became General Deputy Supervisor of the Brotherhood (p. 492). Adnan Uqla was the main representative in the joint leadership, a civil engineer descending from the Golan, son of a policeman, who worked as a baker and became active in Aleppo in 1980 (p. 493). To improve the Vanguard s military capabilities, the joint leadership sought help from Iraq and Jordan-;- three leaders—Saad al-Din, Hawwa, and Uqla—traveled to Baghdad in 1981, met Taha al-Jazrawi and then Saddam Hussein, then met King Hussein s representative, asking both sides for weapons (according to the Syrian regime s narrative), and tried to assassinate Assad in June 1980, but failed (p. 494). The planner of the Hama uprising was Adnan Uqla with Omar Jawad, the local leader in Hama, as it began with calls for total revolution through mosque loudspeakers. When the plan failed, the regime entered and committed massacres there, and the Brotherhood leadership abandoned the operation, accused Uqla of acting on his own impulse, and expelled him from the Brotherhood (p. 495). Most participants in the Vanguard´-or-Brotherhood were youth from the middle and educated classes, either high school´-or-university students, teachers,´-or-professionals (p. 497). When Assad met educated groups in 1979 and asked for their opinions, most denounced the stifling of freedoms, the absence of popular roles, rampant corruption, and bribery-;- Mamdouh Adwan stated in the media at the time: "I am ashamed of this media because it lies even in the weather report and in hiding cholera," -dir-ecting his arrows at the Defense Companies as the sectarian face of authority (p. 497). Shift in Sectarian Composition of Ba ath Leadership and Tilt Toward Sunnis to Win the Street (1980):That year, Assad increased the number of Sunnis in party leadership to 66% and reduced the Alawite share from 34% to 19% (p. 499). Brotherhood Frustration in Exile:When Adnan Uqla failed in 1982, the Brotherhood leadership cut ties with him in April, though reports suggest Adnan made a settlement with the regime through Ali Duba and Iranian mediation (p. 505). Chapter Twenty-Three – Regional Policies, Ends, and MeansWhen Assad joined the Ba ath Party in Latakia in 1946, the party s core there consisted of Alawites, and when he joined the Military Committee founded in 1959, he knew the committee was anti--union- (p. 512). Assad held unity talks with Egypt and Libya, then Jordan in 1975, Egypt and Sudan in 1977, and Iraq in 1979. However, all these talks and agreements were unserious, mere whims, and none of those leaders—including Assad—were willing to sacrifice power. As for Saddam Hussein, he tried to unify the two Ba ath factions, especially after Assad sentenced Michel Aflaq to death (p. 516). Assad and the Iran-Iraq War:When Assad aided Iran against Iraq (an Arab, Ba athist country), Arabs grew suspicious of his pan-Arab slogans. Even Assad s relationship with the Shah had been strong-;- he received a -$-150 million interest-free loan from the Shah in 1974. But after Khomeini came to power, Assad supported him and his war against Iraq, causing Syrian party members to fear the fall of the Ba ath in Iraq and the survival of Khomeinist Iran (p. 520). Assad, Fatah, and the PLO Between 1966 and 1997:After Israel occupied Gaza in the 1956 war and withdrew under international pressure in 1957, Gaza returned to Egyptian rule (p. 525). The Yusuf Urabi Affair:Relations between Fatah and the Syrian Ba ath were severed in 1966 following the shooting of Yusuf Urabi, a Palestinian in the Syrian army, leading to the imprisonment of all Fatah leaders residing in Damascus, including Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir), ordered by Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad (p. 527). Urabi was in the Asifa forces, Fatah s military wing, and Fatah believed it was a conspiracy by Salah Jadid and Assad to control Fatah through Ahmad Jibril, leader of the PFLP-GC, who intended to liquidate Arafat in a military area in Damascus. Arafat did not attend and sent his bodyguard as an envoy, but Palestinian officer Adnan al-Alem, who served in the Syrian army like Urabi, thought Urabi had leaked the secret to Arafat. According to Abu Iyad, Hafez al-Assad said that day that Arafat was a front for Egyptian intelligence, harbored deep hatred for him, and blamed him for Urabi s death (p. 528). The 1967 War and Crisis with Jordan:After the 1967 war, Jadid wanted to build a Syrian army and prevent any factions from waging war against Israel, but Assad changed his stance on Fatah and allowed it to operate, the reason being Jadid s formation of the Palestinian Al-Sa iqa forces, which Assad saw as competition (p. 529). The Battle of Karameh:The Battle of Karameh took place in March 1968 in a refugee town four miles east of the Jordan River, where 300 fedayeen fought Israel assisted by Jordanian artillery for six hours. This served as a warning to King Hussein regarding the threat of the organization and its growing popularity in Jordan to become a state within a state. In September 1970, battle broke out with the PLO, prompting Arafat to ask for help from Syrian forces. Syrian tanks bearing the Palestine Liberation Army insignia crossed the Jordanian border on September 18, captured the city of Irbid, supplied the fedayeen, and withdrew on September 23 after confronting Jordanian armor. When Jadid asked Assad to deploy the air force, the latter refused, and Jadid accused him of evading protection of the resistance because Assad was in contact with Wasfi al-Tall, telling him he disapproved of Syrian forces entering Jordan (p. 530). After Assad s coup, the PLO found itself restricted from political activity in Syria, and Syrians were banned from joining its ranks (p. 533). The Lebanese War:Following the 1969 Cairo Agreement, Fatah moved its operations to Lebanon (p. 535). The initial spark of the Lebanese civil war broke out in April 1975 when gunfire from an un-plated passing car targeted Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Phalange, in front of a Maronite church in eastern Beirut, prompting the Phalange to massacre a bus carrying unarmed Palestinians including women and children (p. 538). That day, Assad invited Pierre Gemayel to Damascus in December 1975, distancing himself from the Lebanese National Movement, then ordered the Amal Movement (Musa al-Sadr s faction) to split from the National Movement led by Sadr (p. 539). He then used Al-Sa iqa to drive a wedge into the PLO by using it to transfer weapons and ammunition to the Phalange, aided by the PLA which was also loyal to Assad. Some Sunni forces broke away from the Lebanese army, like Ahmad al-Khatib, to join the National Movement, followed by the fragmentation of the Lebanese army into sectarian factions. Khatib advanced against the Phalange toward the presidential palace alongside Kamal Jumblatt, whom Assad grew to view as a rebellious and dangerous man (p. 543). In 1976, Assad pushed his forces into Lebanon, occupying key positions in Beirut and Tripoli, disguising themselves in Al-Sa iqa uniforms and intercepting all supplies heading to the National Movement across the coast, per an agreement with Americans allowing his entry into Lebanon to fight the Lebanese National Movement (p. 546). When Maronite forces attacked Tel al-Zaatar and besieged it by starvation, Assad aided them, followed by a massacre against Palestinians claiming 3,000 lives in the camp. Camille Chamoun s forces joined the Phalange, aligning Israeli interests with Assad, who imposed a blockade on weapons supplies to Palestinians, driving the Syrian opposition—including the Brotherhood—to the brink of revolt (p. 550). The Israeli Invasion of Lebanon and Complete Abandonment of Palestinian Resistance:After Israel entered Lebanon, it destroyed Assad s Sam missile network in the Beqaa Valley and targeted the Syrian air force, prompting Assad to withdraw his forces and say: "This war is not my war." Israeli forces numbered about 90,000 with 1,300 tanks facing 8,000 PLO fighters (p. 554). When ships arrived and evacuated Arafat from the shores of Tripoli on December 20, 1983, Arafat met Hosni Mubarak, and facts revealed Mubarak had secretly supplied Arafat with weapons during the Tripoli battle, after which Arafat went to Jordan and met King Hussein in 1984, angering Assad (p. 562). The two agreed on the Israeli peace initiative for Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967 (p. 566). After Assad provided Amal militias with rockets, cannons, and tanks, its fighters besieged refugee camps and waged war against Palestinians, noting Fatah had previously trained them in its camps. At least 3,000 were killed between 1985 and 1988, and the siege of Bourj el-Barajneh camp lasted five months until Palestinians ate grass, dogs, and cats, all with Assad s support. Whenever Palestinians gained the upper hand over Amal, Israeli aviation intervened to support Amal (p. 569). When Palestinians united to fight Amal (the PFLP, Abu Nidal group, and Abu Musa), Assad s response was to close all their offices and confiscate their properties in Syria, quelling all Palestinian demonstrations in Yarmouk and Damascus camps and throwing 2,300 Palestinians in prison. Despite all this, Palestinians defeated Amal, but when Maronites sensed Amal s strength, they helped Arafat s fighters reach the port of Jounieh—especially Lebanese President Amin Gemayel s forces—and ousted Elie Hobeika, who had trained in Israel and was embraced by Hafez al-Assad despite admitting on Israeli radio to leading the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982 (p. 570). The Palestinian Intifada and the 1988 Agreement:Assad met Arafat in April 1988, but when the Intifada broke out, Jordan severed ties with the West Bank (p. 572). An understanding was reached between Michel Aoun—tied to Saddam Hussein—and the PLO in 1989, leading to clashes between Aoun s forces and the Syrian army. However, following the Taif Agreement and the 1990 Gulf War, which emptied the armed Palestinian presence in 1991, Assad leveraged his relationship with Arafat to forge a joint stance at the Madrid Peace Conference, though Assad s rapprochement with Hamas came after the peace initiative to counter Arafat s stance (p. 580). Following talks between Assad and Clinton, Rabin secretly agreed in July 1994 to withdraw from the Golan Heights to the June 1967 lines over 3 years (p. 582). Assad was skilled at dividing opponents and pitting them against each other, as revealed by the Lebanese civil war where he supported rivals and then fought them (p. 586). Chapter Twenty-Five and ConclusionUndoubtedly, differences exist among Syrian peasants economically and spatially-;- there are nomadic tribal peasants and permanent residents, mountainous peasants with a fighting background and vulnerable plain peasants, and peasants with tribal bonds (p. 591). As we saw, Hawrani encouraged his party youth to enter the army, but realized the error of this in 1970 and recanted, stating: "Any military coup is against Syria and democracy." As we know, the Ba ath Party had no relation to peasants, but its -union- with Hawrani s party imposed this trajectory (p. 594). We revealed throughout our book that after the 1966 coup, the Ba ath relied fundamentally on an alliance of Alawites in Latakia, Homs, and Hama-;- Ismailis in Salamiyah and Masyaf-;- Druze-;- and some Sunnis from Houran and Deir ez-Zor, mostly of peasant origins, but the center of gravity always remained in the secret Military Committee which ended with Assad (p. 595). Finally, we state the facts that Assad consolidated an authority consisting of thirty-one officers from 1970 to 1998, nineteen of whom were from the Alawite sect—including eight from his clan and four from his wife s clan—with seven linked to him by blood´-or-marriage kinship (p. 600). End.Syria’s Peasantry - The descendants of its lesser Notables, and their politics - by Hanna Batatu - Translated by Abdullah Fadil and Raed Al-Naqshbandi - 1st ed. - 2014

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