President Hafez Al-Assad’s Struggle for Golan (2)

 The Occupied Syrian Golan Heights was indeed one of the central causes of the late President Hafez Al-Assad. The Syria Times takes honor in publishing some of the golden sayings by the late President about the Golan:

Extract from the President’s Message to the UN Women Conference Nairobi, July 15, 1985

“Thousands of women in the occupied Syrian Golan and Palestinian territories are daily suffering from the arbitrariness of Occupation, the arrest of their husbands, brothers and children who are being tortured in the Israeli occupation jails. In addition to suffering the Enemy’s racial practices applied against the people of the occupied territories.”

Extract from the President’s Speech addressed to the Syrian Physicians residing in USA August 15, 1985

“The Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, standing at the Aqaba Gulf in 1967 and looking towards the Arabian Peninsula, said, ” I smell my ancestors in their homeland which we aspire, and which we must regain”. Moshe Dayan visited the Israeli soldiers after occupying the Golan in 1967 and told them that the Israelis who came before us had founded Israel in 1948, we have founded Israel in 1967 and you have to establish Greater Israel which is from the Nile to the Euphrates. It is unreasonable to displace people from their homeland in order to place another, or to plan for groups of people to be placed there. We are nowadays confronting a false myth which tries by force to came true. The talk about occupying the West bank and other Arab territories, that was going on before 1967, was opposed by the Arabs, the rightful owners of lands, inside and outside Syria. Yet Israel, nevertheless, occupied the whole of Palestine, the Golan and Sinai in 1967. In one of Israel’s expansionist stages that she wants to continue the detriment of the Arabs.”

Extract from the President’s Message to the 12th General Conference Of The World Federation of Democratic Youth November 23, 1986

“This racist expansionist movement, which has in the past closely cooperated with the Apartheid Regime, its ally in South Africa, is still exercising oppression and terrorism against the Arab people in the Golan, the West bank, Gaza Strip an d the south of Lebanon, and receives the support of imperialism and colonialist forces, one campaign after another launched against Syria under the pretext that Syria helps terrorism, the name they use to describe the freedom-fighters who resist aggression and occupation while Israel is full engaged in the worst kind of state terrorism.”

Extract from the President’s speech at the 25th Anniversary of the March 8th Revolution delivered on March 8, 1988

“Our people in the Golan are steadfast in their resistance to the Occupation. Our brothers in occupied Palestine are steadfast in their resistance, and our Arab Lebanese Brothers are steadfast too against the Occupation in South Lebanon. Your brothers and children in the Golan are still confronting the Enemy ever since the occupation, particularly after his attempt to impose the Zionist Nationality upon them. They have vigorously stood against its attempt. They remain steadfast in front of the Israeli pressure. The Enemy has failed and will always fail. Israel wants the Syrians of the Golan to be detached from their people and history and live without roots and heritage. The Zionist racism with its hatred to people in general and to the Arab nation in particular is pushing the Israelis to commit every crime in order to execute their abominable designs. But people can not detach themselves off their roots and histories. Your children and brethren start off from this reality. So, Our Syrian children and brothers in the Golan! can make sure that the Enemy understands that we are not asleep. Today we are here and the forthcoming day is ours with confidence and certainty.”

Extract from the late President’s speech at the dinner banquet given by the President and Mrs. Hafez Al-Assad in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Rajiv Gandhi on June 4, 1988

“The resistance to the Occupation in the Syrian Golan territory, the Intifada of the Palestinian Arab People in its occupied territories and the continuous resistance in South of Lebanon are the natural outcome of the continuity of occupation. This resistance is a national duty practiced by any person whose land is occupied, and is practiced by the Arab people in the Golan, South Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza Strip. Aggressors must understand that brutal methods of subjugation and repression shall not suppress the spirit of resistance in the People and shall not impose surrender on them.”

Extract from the President’s speech to the Armed Forces at the 43rd anniversary of the Syrian Arab Army on August 1st, 1988

“The heroic battles you fought during the October War and then the War of the Golan and Mount Hermon have meant a great change. Through your magnificent performance, sacrifices and the blood of the martyrs, you have shattered the myth of the invincible army and smashed the Enemy’s self-conceit and arrogance. Also, you have proved both to the nation and the world that the Syrian Arab Forces are worthy of both their name and the mission they have assumed. In the name of our People and yours, I greet our kinsfolk in the Golan and assure them that the occupation is destined to disappear.”

Extract from the joint press conference with Lebanese President Elias El-Hrawi on May 22, 1991

Question :

What about Sharon’s declaration claiming that the Israeli government wants to double amount of the settlements in the occupied Golan, and what are the effects of this on the peaceful march in the middle east and the international efforts exerted for this purpose?

President’s answer:

“Nothing because the peace process will either march as a whole or freeze as a whole. Israel is not just building settlements now only, but has been building settlements ever since the early comers of the invaders, It built them many years ago but this will not have any effect. The land is ours and, no one can ever swallow it however strong one’s stomach is, because Arab thorn can never be digested, not even Sharon’s big stomach can.”

Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim