Encyclopedia
Syria , officially the
Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in the
Middle East. It borders
Lebanon to the west,
Israel to the southwest,
Jordan to the south,
Iraq to the east, and
Turkey to the north. Israel
occupies the
Golan Heights in the southwest of the country; a dispute with
Turkey over the
Hatay Province now seems to have subsided. Historically, Syria, or
The Levant as the region has sometimes been called in
English, has often been taken to include the territories of
Lebanon,
Israel and the
Palestinian Territories, and parts of
Jordan, but excluding the Jazira region in the north-east of the modern Syrian state. In this historic sense, the region is also known as
Greater Syria or by the Arabic name
Bilad al-Sham .
Name
The name
Syria comes from the ancient Greek name for the land of Aram at the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea between
Egypt and
Arabia to the south and
Cilicia to the north, stretching inland to include
Mesopotamia, and having an uncertain border to the northeast that
Pliny the Elder describes as including from west to east
Commagene,
Sophene, and
Adiabene, "formerly known as
Assyria" . By Pliny's time, however, this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the Roman Empire :
Judaea in the extreme southwest,
Phoenicia corresponding to Lebanon, with Damascena to the inland side of Phoenicia,
Coele-Syria south of the Eleutheris river, and Yugoslavia.
History
Ancient Syria
Syria holds the imprints of the world's oldest civilizations, some dating back to the fourth millennium BC. The names of sites evoke the story of humankind at its beginnings: Mari, Ebla, Ugarit, Amrit, Apamea, Doura-Europos, Palmyra, Bosra, Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Latakia…
Agriculture first appeared in Syria thousands of years ago, when man discovered the possibility of growing hundreds of new plants from seed. This discovery made it possible for civilization, as we know it, to begin. Men abandoned their caves and began building houses, and establishing settled communities. They embarked on journeys of self-discovery, observing the heavens and singing the earliest-known hymns. They tried their hand at painting and sculpture.
In ancient Syria, the secrets of metallurgy were also discovered, the possibility of hammering bronze and copper into shapes that would serve domestic, military and aesthetic uses.
Archaeologists have demonstrated that Syria was the center of one of the most
ancient civilizations on earth. Around the excavated city of
Ebla in north-eastern Syria, discovered in 1975, a great
Semitic empire spread from the Red Sea north to Turkey and east to
Mesopotamia from 2500 to 2400
B.C. Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be the oldest recorded Semitic language. At Ebla , a royal palace was discovered containing one of the largest and most comprehensive archives of the ancient world. Ebla's archive consists of more than 17,000 clay tablets dealing with matters of industry, diplomacy, trade, art and agriculture. Ebla became world-famous for two industries- the manufacture of silk cloth of gold, and that of finely carved wood, inlaid with ivory and mother of pearls. Today these industries still prosper, with Syrian brocade and mosaics fashioned according to the artisan tradition of ancient Ebla.
Other notable cities excavated include
Mari,
Ugarit and
Dura Europos. At Mari numerous palaces, temples and murals were found that reflect advanced cultural and commercial activity. The kingdom of
Ugarit offered humankind its first alphabet.
Syria was occupied successively by Canaanites, Hebrews,
Arameans,
Assyrians, Babylonians,
Persians,
Greeks,
Armenians,
Romans,
Nabataeans,
Byzantines, Arabs, and, in part,
Crusaders before finally coming under the control of the Ottoman Turks. Syria is significant in the history of
Christianity;
Paul was converted on the Road to Damascus and joined the first organized Christian Church in
Antioch in ancient Syria , from which he left on many of his missionary journeys.
Islamic Era
Damascus, a city that has been inhabited as early as 3,000 BC, is known to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world . It came under
Muslim rule in
A.D. 636. Immediately thereafter, the city's power and prestige reached its peak, and it became the capital of the Umayyad Empire, which extended from
Spain to the borders of
Central Asia from A.D. 661 to A.D. 750. Syria acted as cultural hub that took in influences from many sources and sent them out to other parts of the empire and Damascus achieved a glory unrivaled among cities of the eighth century. The Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasid dynasty in A.D. 750. Abbasid
caliphate was established at
Baghdad,
Iraq.
Damascus became a provincial capital of the
Mameluke Empire around 1260. It was largely destroyed in 1400 by
Tamerlane, the
Mongol conqueror, who removed many of its craftsmen to
Samarkand. Rebuilt, it continued to serve as a capital until 1516. In 1517, it fell under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans remained for the next 400 years, except for a brief occupation by Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt from 1832 to 1840.
French mandate
Ottoman control ended when the forces of the
Arab revolt entered Damascus in 1918 towards the end of the
First World War. An independent Arab Kingdom of Syria was established under
King Faisal of the
Hashemite family, who later became King of Iraq. However, his rule over Syria ended in July 1920 when French forces entered Syria to impose their
League of Nations mandate. Following the Battle of Maysalun of 23 July between the Syrian army under
Yusuf al-Azmeh and the
French, the French army entered Damascus and Faisal was exiled. The period of the Mandate was marked by increasing nationalist sentiment and a number of brutally repressed revolts, but also by infrastructural modernisation and economic development.
With the fall of France in 1940, Syria came under the control of the
Vichy Government until the
United Kingdom and
Free French occupied the country in July 1941. Continuing pressure from Syrian nationalist groups forced the French to evacuate their troops in April 1946, leaving the country in the hands of a republican government that had been formed during the mandate.
Independence
Syria first negotiated a treaty of independence with France in September of 1936.
Hashim al-Atassi was the first president to be elected under a post-French minded constitution, effectively the first incarnation of the modern republic of Syria. However, France reneged on the treaty and refused to ratify it, and continued its presence in Syria until 1946.
Shukri al-Quwatli was elected President when Syria was granted independence from Vichy France jointly with Lebanon in 1943. Although rapid economic development followed the second declaration of independence of April 17 1946, Syrian politics from independence through the late 1960s were marked by upheaval.
The Syrian army played a limited role in the war. Historians believe that the Arab armies planned and intended “to destroy the infant Jewish State, through occupation of its entire area by force” and allowing thousands of displaced
Palestinian refugees a safe return to their homes.
Prominent Arab leaders at the time, however, had much less ambitious goals. From
British and
American documents of the time, it is clear that
King Abdullah I of
Jordan and
King Abdul Aziz of
Saudi Arabia had already made it clear to the British government that sending symbolic ineffective troops is the least of evils to quiet their enraged masses while not disturbing the imperial plans for the region. One notable exception would be
King Farouk of
Egypt. While working under pressure from public reactions, he too had an internal agenda to appeal more to his people. The young governments of Syria,
Lebanon, and
Iraq had genuine interest in restoring Arab claims to the area but largely lacked the means to do so.
The small number of troops that Syria deployed at the Palestinian border speaks for its limited goals. In May 1948, just before Syria sent its troops into Palestine, British intelligence estimated that Syria had no more than 4,500 men available to fight in Israel. Glubb Pasha estimated the number of Syrian troops available for duty in Palestine did not exceed 3,000; the CIA in late June counted a “total of 2,500 effective men” stationed near the Syrian border, 1000 deployed in Palestine and 1,500 near it on the Syrian side.
Quwatli pursued a cautious policy in Palestine.
Syria experienced defeat, the first of many, during its initial thrust into Palestine six days after the beginning of official hostilities on May 15. Its forces were repulsed at the village of Samakh and the kibbutzim Degania A and B at the border region just south of Lake Tiberias. Three hundred Syrian soldiers were killed or wounded, largely by Israeli machine-gunners and artillery.
In the Syrian press and parliament, the reaction to this defeat was immediate. No one hesitated to point the finger at the government and its failure to adequately arm or prepare the military. In response President
Quwatli dismissed his Chief of Staff, General `Atfah, his second in command, `Abd al-Wahhab al- Hakim, and all the officers of the First Brigade which had been defeated. He also dismissed Defense Minister Ahmad Sharabati, giving Prime Minister Mardam the defense portfolio.
Quwatli elevated the tough talking and combative Colonel Husni al-Za`im, the head of the Gendarmerie, to become Chief of Staff.
Despite Syria’s initial losses, its forces quickly were able to occupy a thin strip of Palestinian land running the length of its border during the first two months of the war. Much of this territory was easily taken for the border had been originally drawn by the British in 1923 with water in mind, not its defense. The Palestine-Syrian border was drawn so that all of the Jordan River, Lake Tiberius, and the Hula swamp would be included in Palestinian territory. To ensure the Syrians would not have access to the water, the British had also included a strip of land on the Syrian side: 10-meters wide at Lake Tiberius and ranging from 50 to 400 meters wide along the Jordan River right up to Hula. Palestine also received a thin salient of land stretching east between the Syrian and Jordanian border along the Yarmouk River, the Jordan’s largest tributary, out to the town of al-Hamma – today’s Hamat-Gader. All of this territory east of the Jordan River and Lake Tiberius was indefensible and easily taken by Syrian troops. The Syrian army also managed to cross the Jordan River just south of Lake Hula to occupy Kibbutz Mishmar Hayarden and defend it against several Israeli counter-attacks.
Syrian forces also established a foothold in the extreme northeastern corner of Palestine, just east of the Jewish settlement of Dan. Thus, Syria occupied three distinct enclaves within Palestine in the northern, central, and southern regions of the 1923 border. These three enclaves added to the thin strip of land stretching along the eastern perimeter of the Jordan and Tiberius added up to 66.5 square kilometers of land. It would become part of the demilitarized zone following the 1949 armistice signed between Syria and Israel and remains contested between the two sides to this day.
Other than the two offensive operations to grab villages across the Jordan River, the Syrian army remained largely inactive during the 1948 war. The ALA survived in the northern Galilee until November 1948, when it was driven into Lebanon by Jewish forces that were moved up from the south. The Syrian government persisted in denying assistance to the ALA during the summer of 1948, effectively “condemning them to death,” in the words of `Adil Arslan.
Linked to President
Quwatli’s fate was that of Syria’s republican form of government. Quwatli had become the main champion and symbol of Syrian republicanism. His battle against the notion of a monarchist Greater Syria forced him to sharpen his defense of republicanism. He insisted that it was the true expression of the people’s will and the natural order of things in Syria. All the same, he could not tell the Syrian public that he was for Syria first, or that Syria was too weak to rescue Palestine. Above all, he could not say that the Arab nation was a mirage or that in reality the Arabs belonged to a collection of states that were bitterly divided. Quwatli was caught between his newfound Syrianism and his life-long dedication to Arab nationalism. Although he was known as the “hero of Syrian independence,” he had also sworn never to raise the Syrian flag above that of the Arab nation.” These conflicting loyalties forced Quwatli to dissemble during the war. In his effort to champion both, he succeeded in defending neither.
Quwatli helped turn the 1948 war into an Arab civil war, which Israeli forces ably exploited to gain control of more territory. Although the Arab armies did not openly fight each other, their actions were mutually destructive. By refusing to cooperate with each other and by willfully standing by as Israeli forces destroyed one Palestinian militia and Arab army after the next, the Arab governments forfeited any chance of saving Palestine. Their inability to agree on what they wanted in Palestine precluded the establishment of a common battle plan and quickly led to the demoralization of their military commanders and troops in the field. Not surprisingly, the anger and disappointment that grew out of this bitter experience quickly turned back on the Arab rulers themselves. The assassination of Egypt’s Prime Minister Nuqrashi Pasha in 1948 by a Muslim Brother, King Abdullah’s assassination in 1951 by a vengeful Palestinian, and the overthrow of Egypt’s monarch in 1952 by the Free Officers all have their roots in 1948. But Syria, the country that pushed hardest for war, considered itself the beating heart of Arabism, and was the last to sign an armistice with Israel, was perhaps hardest hit by the pervasive sense of popular disappointment and the belief among the military that its leadership had failed and let them down.
Military coups
A series of
military coups, begun in 1949, undermined civilian rule and led to army colonel Adib Shishakli's seizure of power in December 1949. He had himself elected President in 1951 and dissolved parliament.
Shishakli and the Palestine Problem
Both the United States and Britain took considerable interest in Adib Shishakli. The British hoped to draw him into their plans for Middle East Defence. The Americans offered him considerable foreign aid in the hope that he would accept a deal to end the conflict in Palestine. During the first four years following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the United States attempted to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict by settling Palestinian refugees in Syria. At the height of U.S. - Syrian negotiations during the summer of 1952, the U.S. contemplated paying the Syrian government $400,000,000 dollars in exchange for settling up to 500,000 Palestinians in the fertile plains of the Jazira that lie between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Syria's North-east. Leftist forces in Syria, spearheaded by Akram Hourani's Arab Socialist Party and the Ba'ath Party, were vociferous opponents of such a deal, which they claimed was nothing but a sell out of the Palestinian right of return. With the unification of Hourani's Socialist Party with the Ba'ath in December 1952 and their vain attempt to overthrow the Syrian regime, Shishakli was forced to shelve any notion of accepting either a western defense alliance or settling Palestinian refugees in Syria.
Civilian rule: 1954–1958
After the overthrow of President Shishakli in a 1954 coup, continued political maneuvering supported by competing factions in the military eventually brought Arab nationalist and socialist elements to power.
Syria's political instability during the years following the 1954 coup, the parallelism of Syrian and Egyptian policies, and the appeal of
Egyptian President
Gamal Abdel Nasser's leadership in the wake of the 1956
Suez crisis created support in Syria for union with Egypt. On February 1, 1958, the two countries merged to create the
United Arab Republic, and all Syrian political parties ceased overt activities.
United Arab Republic
The union was not a success, however. Following a military coup on September 28, 1961, Syria seceded, reestablishing itself as the Syrian Arab Republic. Instability characterized the next 18 months, with various coups culminating on March 8, 1963, in the installation by leftist Syrian Army officers of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command , a group of military and civilian officials who assumed control of all executive and legislative authority. The takeover was engineered by members of the Arab Socialist Resurrection Party , which had been active in Syria and other Arab countries since the late 1940s. The new cabinet was dominated by Ba'ath members.
Ba'ath takeover
The Ba'ath takeover in Syria followed a Ba'ath coup in Iraq the previous month. The new Syrian Government explored the possibility of federation with Egypt and Ba'ath–controlled Iraq. An agreement was concluded in
Cairo on April 17, 1963, for a referendum on unity to be held in September 1963. However, serious disagreements among the parties soon developed, and the tripartite federation failed to materialize. Thereafter, the Ba'ath regimes in Syria and Iraq began to work for bilateral unity. These plans floundered in November 1963, when the Ba'ath regime in Iraq was overthrown. In May 1964, President Amin Hafiz of the NCRC promulgated a provisional constitution providing for a National Council of the Revolution , an appointed legislature composed of representatives of mass organizations — labor, peasant, and professional unions —, a presidential council, in which executive power was vested, and a cabinet. On February 23, 1966, a group of army officers carried out a successful, intra-party coup, imprisoned President Hafiz, dissolved the cabinet and the NCR, abrogated the provisional constitution, and designated a regionalist, civilian Ba'ath government. The coup leaders described it as a "rectification" of Ba'ath Party principles. The defeat of the Syrians and Egyptians in the June 1967
war with Israel weakened the radical socialist regime established by the 1966 coup. Israel had captured the
Golan Heights from Syria and the
Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. Conflict developed between a moderate military wing and a more extremist civilian wing of the Ba'ath Party. The 1970 retreat of Syrian forces sent to aid the
PLO during the Black September hostilities with Jordan reflected this political disagreement within the ruling Ba'ath leadership. On November 13, 1970, Minister of Defense Hafez al-Assad effected a
bloodless military coup called the Corrective Revolution, ousting the civilian party leadership and assuming the role of prime minister.
1970–2000
Consolidation of power
Upon assuming power, Hafez al-Assad moved quickly to create an organizational infrastructure for his government and to consolidate control. The Provisional Regional Command of Assad's Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party nominated a 173-member legislature, the People's Council, in which the Ba'ath Party took 87 seats. The remaining seats were divided among "popular organizations" and other minor parties. In March 1971, the party held its regional congress and elected a new 21-member Regional Command headed by Assad. In the same month, a national referendum was held to confirm Assad as President for a 7-year term. In March 1972, to broaden the base of his government, Assad formed the National Progressive Front, a coalition of parties led by the Ba'ath Party, and elections were held to establish local councils in each of Syria's 14 governorates. In March 1973, a new Syrian constitution went into effect followed shortly thereafter by parliamentary elections for the People's Council, the first such elections since 1962.
October war
Later in 1973, the
Yom Kippur War broke out, with "Syria mounted air attacks and heavy artillery shelling, and moved three divisions with some 1,400 tanks into the"
Golan Heights to try and reclaim them from
Israel. Despite some initial successes, Syria's military was once again crushed by IDF. Incidentally, Israel still held the military advantage over Syria at the end of the Yom Kippur war. Subsequent shuttle negotiations by
Henry Kissinger resulted in Syria regaining control of part of the Golan, which the government portrayed as proof of victory. Since 1974, the Syrian-Israeli front has been quiet, with few disturbances of the
cease-fire.
Involvement in Lebanon
In early 1976, Syrian troops entered
Lebanon to stop the
civil war. Syria sent troops that later became the main core of the Arab Deterrent Force established by the
Arab League in October 1976. Syria brought the warring factions together in the Taif Agreement to end the civil war. The civil war was declared over on October 13, 1990. Syria helped the Lebanese government reestablishes control over much of the country. In April 26, 2005, Syria withdrew all of its troops from Lebanon.
About one million Syrian workers came into Lebanon after the civil war ended, to find employment and pursue business opportunities. In 1994, the Lebanese government controversially granted citizenship to over 200,000 Syrians resident in the country.
Opposition and repression
The authoritarian regime was not without its critics, though most were quickly dealt with. A serious challenge arose in the late 1970s, however, from Sunni Muslims called the
Muslim Brotherhood who reject the basic values of the secular Ba'ath program and object to rule by the Alawis, whom they consider heretical. From 1976 until its suppression in 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood led an armed insurgency against the regime. In response to an attempted uprising by the brotherhood in February 1982, the government crushed the opposition centered in the city of Hama, leveling parts of the city with artillery fire and causing many thousands of dead and wounded. Since then, public manifestations of anti-regime activity have been very limited. A challenge from within the regime came in 1984, when Hafez was hospitalized after a heart attack. His brother Rifaat then attempted to seize power using internal security forces under his control. Despite his poor health, Hafez managed to assert control and sent Rifaat into exile.
Gulf War
Syria's 1991 participation in the
U.S.-led multinational coalition aligned against Saddam Hussein marked a dramatic watershed in Syria's relations both with other Arab states and with the West. Syria participated in the multilateral Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid in October 1991, and during the 1990s engaged in direct, face-to-face negotiations with Israel. These negotiations failed, and there have been no further Syrian-Israeli talks since President Hafez Al-Assad's meeting with then US President
Bill Clinton in
Geneva in March 2000.
Death and succession of Hafez al-Assad
Hafez Al-Assad died on June 10, 2000, after 30 years in power. Within a few hours following Al-Assad's death, the Parliament amended the constitution, reducing the mandatory minimum age of the President from 40 to 34 years old, which allowed his son,
