A terrorist does not make peace and the Israelis must get rid of Assad to live in peace

When Hafez al-Assad turned against his Baathist comrades in November 1970, it was preceded by steps that facilitated his assumption of power, with the consent of Israel and the West. These steps were exemplified by his three-month “therapeutic” visit to London in the late summer of 1965, accompanied by General Naji Jamil and Military Police Commander Hussein Milhem, at which time Assad visited the British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sir Thompson in his official office.

All the evidence available at the time says that Hafez al-Assad agreed with the British and their Israeli successors that he would prevent any anti-Israeli activity and provide military and security services to it, in exchange for their support for him to take power in Syria.

Hafez al-Assad, who was commander of the air force when he visited London, participated in Salah Jadid’s new coup in February 1966, and then became defense minister and at the same time remained commander of the Syrian air force. This position allowed him to issue orders for a qualitative military withdrawal from the Syrian Golan in the June 1967 war, allowing Israel to occupy the Syrian Golan Heights without a fight.

These circumstances and facts impose hypotheses that leave little space to refute their invalidity and are likely to be difficult to doubt. This price, offered by Hafez Assad, seems to have stood behind his absolute domination of power and prevented the overthrow of his regime. There may be those who believe that Israel, with its influence in the United States and the West, refrained from overthrowing this regime, because it was playing, to some extent, the role of guardian of the borders of the Israelis, and played an aborted role for the Lebanese national movement, specifically in the regime’s invasion of Lebanon under the pretext of preventing internal strife, at a time he was defending the Yemeni hardline forces represented by the political Maronites led by the Lebanese Phalange Party.

This situation has turned Hafez Assad and his regime into a functional system that plays different and multiple roles at the same time. The first function is to prevent any military activity against Israel, whether from the Syrian or Lebanese borders. The second function is to exhaust the Syrian people by severely oppressing them through many terrifying security services (military security, political security, state security, air security). And the third function is to sabotage Syria from within by sabotaging its values, concepts and affiliations, in addition to making financial and economic wealth in the hands of this regime and control his people’s livelihood.

It seems that Israel and the West behind it were aware that this functional system could serve their strategic projects, not only in Syria, but in the entire Middle East, and this was shown by the intervention of the so-called “Arab Deterrence Forces”, whose mission was important in aborting the growth of Lebanese and Palestinian national forces allied with each other. We must also not forget how Hafez Assad helped crush the Syrian forces, which in 1970 wanted to prevent The Black September massacres in Jordan, by preventing the Syrian air forces from flying to protect these forces, which were forced to retreat.

Hafez Assad did not want to defend Lebanon in 1982, in which the Israelis occupied the Lebanese capital Beirut, but he wanted to acquire it completely to turn it into a back garden for him in which he could maneuver and blackmail the Israelis. He, then was warned and prevented from exceeding the limits of control set for him, and his forces were among the forces that were surrounded and withdrew under Israeli guard.

The participation of Hafez Assad’s army with the international coalition led by the United States in 1991 to liberate Kuwait from the occupation of Saddam Hussein’s regime confirms the idea of the function of the Assad regime, which is not governed by national or humanitarian principles or visions, but rather by a role decreed for it to perform tasks in the interest of the guarantor of this rule. The Syrians have come to a deep conviction that the Assad regime cannot liberate an inch of the occupied Syrian Golan, and that a repressive and security regime like it, does not think of creating any economic, political or social development in the country, simply because it contradicts his presence in power as its usurper, and as a corrupt regime.

These facts are crystal clear to Israel, which has often not welcomed the fall of this terrible regime since 2011. We may find those inside Israel who prevent its fall and perhaps in a state of defense for it. Not to forget how some Israeli officials, including the commander of the northern region, said at the beginning of the revolutionary movement, that the Assad regime contributed to keeping the northern front calm, so why get rid of it!.

The peace negotiations that began years before the revolutionary movement with Egyptian and Turkish mediation, which were managed by US Ambassador Frederick Hof, took a long time, because the regime of Bashar Assad feared that a deal would overthrow his regime, because it  required him to get rid of his ally Iran and its arm Hezbollah. These negotiations were stalled in their final stages, according to Ambassador Hof in his book Reaching the Heights, because the Assad regime took the path of violence against civilians opposed to it and not the path of dialogue. According to him, “The Assad’s decision to wage relentless war against his defenseless people and turn peaceful demonstrations into an armed sectarian conflict led to his loss on two levels: he lost his legitimacy in the eyes of his people and the international community, and he lost in the eyes of his people his ability to speak on their behalf to make a recognized peace, and he may have lost the Golan forever. Thus, Assad has betrayed his homeland and his people for destroying his homeland and his future in achieving peace”. Ambassador Hof’s words  are honest and objective and, describe with all honesty and objectivity the reality of Bashar Assad today, as he did not preserve his homeland, his people and their future and, did not preserve his regime, as this regime cannot save itself from his certain deadly fate and cannot make peace.

A regime mired in crimes and massacres against humanity, an outcast and,  lack of legitimacy, in a country occupied by terrorist forces, have no will over it, and is pursued internationally and wanted by the international justice system and still practices terrorism and finances it from networks of manufacturing and smuggling drugs, Captagon and money laundering, will not find anyone to deal or establish normal relations with it, let alone if it comes to concluding peace agreements!.

Many Israelis have recognized  these facts. They now do not mind the departure of this regime, considering that it has become mired in crimes against humanity, war crimes against which two American laws (Caesar  and Captagon)  were issued, in addition to other prohibitive laws and prosecutions in European courts.

It is time for the Israelis not to contribute to maintaining this situation and regime in Syria, and to be encouraged to contribute to its overthrow and contribute to creation of a better future in which Syrians can build a new, free and democratic Syria, whose people desire to live in peace with their neighbors and reject terrorism.

A regime that terrorized its own people and committed crimes against humanity no less horrific than Hitler’s Nazi crimes will not bring peace, it must be defeated and brought to justice, and it must be eliminated just as Hitler himself was eliminated. Moreover, this regime does not have its will, is dependent on Iranian terrorism, unable to disengage from it, and it will not provide any benefit to its neighbors.

The answer is clear and waits the right time for the departure of a regime that has killed and abandoned its own people and harm its neighbors and the world.

A terrorist does not make peace, and the Israelis must realize that and, they must joint to get rid of Assad to live in peace.