Salah Jadid

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Salah Jadid

Salah Jadid (1926? — August 19, 1993, Arabic: ???? ????) was a Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
n general

General

A General officer is an Officer of high military rank. The term or equivalent is used by nearly every country in the world. General can be used as a generic term for all grades of general officer, or it can specifically refer to a single rank that is just called general....
and political figure in the Baath Party

Baath Party

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was founded in Damascus in the 1940s by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian intellectual, as the original secular Arab nationalist movement, to unify all Arab countries in one State and to combat Western colonial rule that dominated the Arab region at that time....
, and the country's de facto leader between 1966 and 1969/1970.

Rise to power
Salah Jadid, an Alawi from the Lattakia province of Western Syria, rose to prominence within a secret military faction of the Baath Party, which had been formed in the late 1950s, and which led the Baathist takeover in Syria in 1963.

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Salah Jadid (1926? — August 19, 1993, Arabic: ???? ????) was a Syria

Syria

General

Baath Party

Rise to power

Salah Jadid, an Alawi from the Lattakia province of Western Syria, rose to prominence within a secret military faction of the Baath Party, which had been formed in the late 1950s, and which led the Baathist takeover in Syria in 1963. Following a bloody intra-regime coup in February 1966, which purged the traditional leadership of the Baath Party and its military allies (Michel Aflaq

Michel Aflaq

Michel Aflaq was the ideological founder of Baathism, a form of secular Arab nationalism....
, Salah al-Din al-Bitar

Salah al-Din al-Bitar

Salah ad-Din al-Bitar , was a Demographics of Syria politician who, with Michel Aflaq, founded the Ba'ath Party in the early 1940s. During their student days in Paris in the early 1930s, the two worked together to formulate a doctrine that combined aspects of nationalism and socialism....
, Amin al-Hafiz, Mohammed Umran, etc), Gen. Jadid was the de facto

De facto

De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning the fact" or in practice but not necessarily ordained by law. It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or technique that are found in the common experience as created or developed without or contrary to a regulation....
head of government

Head of government

The head of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet . In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled Prime Minister, President of the Government, Premier, etc....
of Syria until he was deposed in 1969-1970.

Strongman of Baathist Syria

While Jadid remained away from public view, as second secretary of the Baath Party, men allied to him filled the top posts in state and army: Nureddin al-Atassi

Nureddin al-Atassi

Noureddin Mustafa al-Atassi was List of Presidents of Syria of Syria from February 1966 to November 1970. Though a long-time ideologue of the powerful Baath Party who became its Secretary General as well as President of the Republic, he was considered to be largely a ceremonial figurehead, with real power vested in the Deputy Secretary Gen...
, as party chairman, state president and later prime minister; Yousuf Zouayyen, as prime minister; Ibrahim Makhous as foreign minister, Hafez al-Assad

Hafez al-Assad

Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule stabilized and consolidated the power of the country's central government after decades of coups and counter-coups....
as defense minister; Abd al-Karim al-Jundi, as security chief. Many of these men were Alawis (eg. all of the above except Atassi, a Sunni, and Jundi, a Druze

Druze

The Druze are a religious community found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and in the Palestinian territories whose traditional religion is said to have begun as an offshoot of Islam, but is unique in its incorporation of Gnosticism, Neoplatonism and other philosophies, similar to other followers of Ismaili Shi'a Islam....
), giving the regime a sectarian character. Several were military men, and all belonged on the the Baath Party's left wing.

Under Jadid's rule, Syria aligned itself with the Soviet bloc and pursued hardline policies towards Israel

Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
and "reactionary" Arab states, calling for the mobilization of a "people's war" against Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is the international Jewish political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine....
rather than inter-Arab military alliances. Domestically, Jadid attempted a socialist transformation of Syrian society at forced pace, creating unrest and economical difficulties. Opponents of the regime were harshly suppressed, while the Baath Party replaced parliament as law-making body and other parties were banned. Public support for his regime, such as it was, declined sharply following Syria's defeat in the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel

Israel

Golan Heights

The Golan Heights is a contested, strategic plateau and mountainous region at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. The term Golan Heights actually has two separate meanings, one geography and one political:...
, and as a result of the troubled internal conditions of the country.

After the war, in particular, tensions began to increase between Jadid's followers and those who argued that the situation called for a more moderate stance on socialism and international relations. This group coalesced around Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad, who protested the "adventurism" of Jadid, and demanded a normalization of the internal situation by adopting a permanent constitution, liberalizing the economy, and mending ties with non-Baathist groups, as well as the external situation, by seeking an alliance with conservative Arab states such as Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is an Arab country in Southwest Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba....
and Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south....
. While Jadid retained the allegiance of most of the civilian Baath apparatus, Assad as defense minister gradually asserted control over the military wing of the party. In 1969, Assad purged several Jadid loyalists, and from that point on Jadid had lost his preeminence in the state.

Downfall

In 1970, when conflict erupted between the Palestine Liberation Organization

Palestine Liberation Organization

The Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization regarded by the Arab League since October 1974 as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."...
(PLO) and the Jordanian army, Jadid sent Syrian-controlled Palestinian troops of the nominally PLO-run Palestinian Liberation Army

Palestinian Liberation Army

The Palestinian Liberation Army was ostensibly set up as the military wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization by Nasser in 1964, with the mission of fighting Israel....
, based in Syria, into Jordan in order to help the PLO. This action was not supported by Assad's more pragmatic Baath faction, and the troops withdrew. The action helped trigger the simmering conflict between Jadid's and Assad's wings of the Baath Part and army. In November 1970, Jadid attempted to fire Assad and his supporter Mustafa Tlass

Mustafa Tlass

Lt. Gen. Mustafa Tlass is a Syrian politician and a long time minister of defense, now retired....
, which in turn caused Assad to launch an intra-party coup against Jadid, dubbed the Corrective Movement. Jadid was arrested, and remained in prison until his death in 1993, while al-Assad would remain in power until his death in 2000.

Salah Jadid

Rise to power

Strongman of Baathist Syria

Downfall

Further reading