Grand-père [de Bashar Al] Assad : "Les Juifs ont apporté aux musulmans arabes la
civilisation, ils n’ont rien pris par la force. Pourtant les musulmans
leur ont déclaré la guerre sainte."
C’est un document extraordinaire [This is an extraordinary document] [Assad's grandfather's 1936 letter Predicts Muslim Slaughter of Minorities, Praises Zionists],
mais je ne voudrais pas faire l’erreur d’aller au-delà de ce qu’il dit.
Aucun des Assad n’était bon. Le père d’Assad était un monstre. Et le
grand-père d’Assad était prêt à reconnaître avec honnêteté la
situation – dans un communiqué privé au retour d’un chef d’Etat
étranger – à l’époque où il appartenait à une minorité assiégée.
Il n’y a rien d’inhabituel. [cf.] La lecture de livres comme « le rideau
soyeux » de Bartley Crum, livre des réunions de dirigeants arabes prêts
à dire la pure vérité en toute confiance.
La lettre – écrite en 1936 au Premier ministre de la France –
provient d’un certain nombre de dirigeants alaouites, dont le grand-père
d’Assad. J’en ai extrait quelques-unes des sections les plus
intéressantes.
Notamment la lettre distingue clairement entre les alaouites et les
musulmans. Alors que nous faisons couramment un amalgame entre Alaouites
et chiites, par commodité. Les Alaouites sont sans doute beaucoup plus
éloignés de l’islam. Cet écart a été camouflé et recouvert d’une
certaine dose de secret pour convenance politique.
4. "L’esprit de fanatisme et l’étroitesse d’esprit, dont les racines sont profondément ancrées dans le cœur des musulmans arabes envers tous ceux qui ne sont pas musulmans, est l’état d’esprit qui entretient continuellement la religion islamique, et donc il n’y a aucun espoir que la situation change.
Pourquoi , aujourd’hui encore , nous voyons les habitants
musulmans de Damas exiger des Juifs qui vivent sous leurs auspices
qu’ils signent un document dans lequel il leur est interdit d’envoyer de
la nourriture à leurs frères juifs qui souffrent de la situation
catastrophe en Palestine [à l'époque de la grande révolte arabe], la
situation des Juifs en Palestine étant la preuve la plus forte et la
plus concrète de l’importance du problème religieux chez les Arabes
musulmans envers celui qui n’appartient pas à l’islam.
Ces bons Juifs, qui ont apporté à la civilisation et la paix aux
arabes musulmans, et ont répandu richesse et prospérité sur la terre de
Palestine, n’ont fait de mal à personne et n’ont rien pris par la force,
et pourtant les musulmans leur ont déclaré la guerre sainte et n’ont
pas hésité à massacrer leurs enfants et leurs femmes, en dépit de la
présence de l’Angleterre en Palestine et de la France en Syrie.
Par conséquent, un avenir noir attend les juifs et les autres
minorités si le mandat est annulé et si la Syrie musulmane est unifiée à
la Palestine musulmane. Cette union est le but ultime des Arabes
musulmans."
Cette union, également connue sous le nom de califat, c’est ce qui se
dessine derrière la guerre actuelle en Syrie. Fait intéressant, la
lettre, écrite avec la mentalité d’un homme rationnel occidentalisé,
défend le sionisme dans les termes de l’époque, sans utiliser le mot, et
le fait avec précision.
Bien sûr, les alaouites étaient parfaitement conscients d’écrire à un
homme politique juif ayant des sympathies sionistes, mais aussi des
sympathies envers les populations arabes des colonies françaises. Assad,
avec ses co- signataires, définit les Alaouites comme une minorité, qui
comme les Juifs, peut s’attendre à être traités sans pitié aux mains
des musulmans. Mais les Alaouites, comme les Juifs, ont fini par se
tailler un espace qui leur est propre à la dure, parce qu’ils n’avaient
pas d’autre choix.
6. "Vous pouvez trouver des clauses assurant les droits des
Alaouites et des autres minorités dans le texte du traité (le Traité
Franco-syrien, qui définit les relations entre les États), mais nous
vous faisons remarquer avec insistance que les contrats n’ont pas de
valeur dans la mentalité islamique syrienne. Nous l’avons vu dans le
passé, avec le pacte signé entre l’Angleterre et l’Irak, qui interdisait
aux Irakiens de massacrer les Assyriens et les Yézidis."
C’est pourquoi les traités de paix et les garanties des droits des
minorités sont tout à fait inutiles. C’était vrai alors. C’est vrai
maintenant.
Tiré de : Europe-Israël - Le grand-père Assad : "Les Juifs n'ont pris la terre de personne et ont apporté la civilisation aux Arabes musulmans" - Traduction Nancy VERDIER (5 septembre 2013)
Daniel Greenfield est journaliste Fellow Shillman au Freedom Center, écrivain basé à New York, spécialiste de l’islam radical.
La lettre de Suleiman Assad a été publiée le 1er septembre 2013 par Elder of Ziyon suite à un article du Dr Mordechai KEDAR paru le 20 septembre 2012 dans The Jewish Press (cf. ci-dessous)
Source : Frontpagemag - 5 septembre 2013 - par Daniel GREENFIELD
Daniel Greenfield est journaliste Fellow Shillman au Freedom Center, écrivain basé à New York, spécialiste de l’islam radical.
La lettre de Suleiman Assad a été publiée le 1er septembre 2013 par Elder of Ziyon suite à un article du Dr Mordechai KEDAR paru le 20 septembre 2012 dans The Jewish Press (cf. ci-dessous)
I
will begin on a personal note. Since the start of the pogroms in Syria
a year and a half ago, I have written again and again in my articles
on this honorable stage that the Alawites will behave with cruelty and
severity and with total insensitivity toward their opposition, because
they are aware that they are fighting not only to keep control of the
regime in their hands but also – and mainly – in order to keep their
heads connected to their shoulders. My words were an assessment based
on lengthy research on the Syrian domestic arena, that was published in
the doctoral thesis that I wrote (1998) and in the book that was based
on it (2005). From time to time I have heard and read harsh
expressions of Muslims toward the Alawites, but I have never seen proof
that the Alawites indeed fear that the Muslims might slaughter them if
they had the opportunity.
In the background is the historical fact
that modern Syria was borne on the knees of the French Mandate, which
was imposed on Syria after the First World War, and ended in 1943. As
with other Arab states in the Middle East, many of the genetic
illnesses that Syria suffers from stem from errors that were committed
by the states charged with the mandates, France and Great Britain.
Italy, which controlled Libya, is responsible to a certain extent for
the chaos in that state. The main mistake of the European states in the
Middle East was creating states that included different ethnic,
tribal, religious and sectarian groups that are antagonistic to each
other, with the hope that the day will come when all of them will sit
around the campfire and sing patriotic songs in perfect harmony. This
did not happen, this is not happening now and this will also not happen
in the foreseeable future.
On August 30th of this year a discussion
was held in the UN Security Council on the civil war raging in Syria,
that was responsible for about five thousand deaths in August alone.
Two of the spokesmen participating in the discussion were the French
foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, and the Syrian representative in the
UN, Bashar al-Jafari. The Syrian representative attacked the Western
states and primarily France for its support of the rebels. The French
minister responded by saying :
"You speak negatively about the
French Mandate, and I must remind you that the grandfather of your
president requested France not to depart from Syria and not to award it
independence, and this is in an official document which he signed and
is today in the French Foreign Ministry, and if you want I will give
you a copy of it."
Fabius was referring to a document that the Alawite
leaders, including Suleiman al-Asad, the grandfather of the president
of Syria, wrote, which is in the archive of the French Foreign
Ministry. The document has the date of receipt – June 15, 1936, and was
written shortly prior to that date, to the French prime minister at
the time, Leon Blum.
At the time, there were contacts that were
conducted between the government of Franceand a group of Syrian
intellectuals who believed in the possibility of establishing a greater
Syrian state that would include groups that are different from one
another, as in Europe. This document was published in the past in the
Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar and the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, but
did not make the headlines. For the benefit of our dear readers we
include here the document in its entirety, which should be read while
keeping in mind what has been happening in Syria for the last year and a
half. My comments are in brackets.
Dear Mr. Leon Blum, Prime Minister
ofFrance.
In light of the negotiations that are being conducted between France and Syria, we – the Alawite leaders in Syria- respectfully draw the following points to your attention and to that of your party (the Socialists) :
1. The Alawite nation [sic !!] which has maintained its independence over the years by dint of much zeal and many casualties, is a nation which is different from the Muslim Sunni nation in its religious faith , in its customs and in its history. It has never happened that the Alawite nation [which lives in the mountains on the Western coast of Syria] was under the rule of the [Muslims)]who rule the inland cities of the land.
2. The Alawite nation refuses to be annexed to Muslim Syria, because the Islamic religion is thought of as the official religion of the country, and the Alawite nation is thought of as heretical by the Islamic religion. Therefore we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to Syria, when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be in their power to implement the laws that stem from its religion. [According to Islam, the idol-worshiping heretic has a choice to convert to Islam or be slaughtered.]
3. Awarding independence to Syria and cancelling the mandate would be a good example of socialist principles in Syria, but the meaning of full independence will be the control by a few Muslim families on the Alawite nation in Cilicia, in Askadron [the Alexandretta Strip that the French cut off from Syria and annexed to Turkey in 1939] and in the Ansariyya Mountains [the mountains in the western part of Syria, the topographical continuation of the Lebanon Mountains]. Even having a parliament and a constitutional government will not ensure personal freedom. This parliamentary control is only a facade, lacking any effective value, and the truth of the matter is that it will be controlled by religious fanaticism that will target the minorities. Do the leaders ofFrancewant the Muslims to control the Alawite nation and throw it into the bosom of misery?
4. The spirit of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, whose roots are deep in the heart of the Arab Muslims toward all those who are not Muslim, is the spirit that continually feeds the Islamic religion, and therefore there is no hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is cancelled, the danger of death and destruction will be a threat upon the minorities in Syria, even if the cancellation [of the Mandate] will decree freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Why, even today we see how the Muslim residents of Damascus force the Jews who live under their auspices to sign a document in which they are forbidden to send food to their Jewish brothers who are suffering from the disaster in Palestine [in the days of the great Arab rebellion], the situation of the Jews in Palestine being the strongest and most concrete proof of the importance of the religious problem among the Muslim Arabs toward anyone who does not belong to Islam. Those good Jews, who have brought to the Muslim Arabs civilization and peace, and have spread wealth and prosperity to the land of Palestine, have not hurt anyone and have not taken anything by force, and nevertheless the Muslims have declared holy war against them and have not hesitated to slaughter their children and their women despite the fact that England is in Palestine and France is in Syria. Therefore a black future awaits the Jews and the other minorities if the Mandate is cancelled and Muslim Syria is unified with Muslim Palestine. This union is the ultimate goal of the Muslim Arabs.
5. We appreciate your generosity of spirit in defending the Syrian people and your desire to realize their independence, but Syria at the present time is far from the lofty goal that you aspire for her, because she is still trapped in the spirit of religious feudalism. We do not think that the French government and the French socialist Party will agree to the Syrians’ independence, since its implementation will cause the subjugation of the Alawite nation, placing the Alawite minority in danger of death and destruction. It cannot be that you will agree to the (nationalist) Syrian request to annex the Alawite nation to Syria, because your lofty principles – if they support the idea of freedom – will not accept the situation in which one nation (the Muslims) try to stifle the freedom of another (the Alawite) by forcing its annexation.
6. You may see fit to assure the rights of the Alawites and other minorities in the wording of the treaty (The French-Syrian Treaty, which defines the relationships between the states), but we emphasize to you that contracts have no value in the Syrian Islamic mentality. We have seen this in the past, with the pact that England signed with Iraq, which forbade the Iraqis to slaughter the Assyrians and the Yazidis. The Alawite nation, which we, the undersigned, represent, cries out to the government ofFranceand to the French Socialist Party, and requests them to ensure its freedom and independence within its small boundaries [an independent Alawite state!!]. The Alawite nation places its well-being in the hands of the French Socialist leaders, and is sure that it will find strong and dependable support for the nation which is a faithful friend, who has rendered toFrancea great service, and now is under the threat of death and destruction.
[Signed by]: Aziz Agha al-Hawash, Mahmud Agha Jadid, Mahmud Bek Jadid, Suleiman Asad [the grandfather of Hafez], Suleiman al-Murshid, Mahmud Suleiman al-Ahmad.
And with all due respect to the writers of the document, they are not free of problems either. Despite the fact that they are Arabs and Arabic speakers, they differentiate themselves from the general Arab-Muslim scene and define themselves as the Alawite “nation”, only because they are members of a different religion. It may be that the way they view themselves is based on the fact that they are separate tribes from the Muslim tribes, and they see themselves as the original natives of the mountains of western Syria, in contrast to the Arab Muslims who invaded the area in the seventh century from the Arabian Peninsula under the unsheathed sword of the second Muslim Caliph, Umar bin al-Khattab, who imposed Islam upon the conquered peoples.
Without doubt, the Alawites made the necessary conclusions from what is written in the document because they have ruled the Muslims since 1966 with a cruel and blood thirsty iron fist, because they knew well what would happen if the Muslims ruled over them.
An interesting additional detail in the document is the fact that the Ottoman Empireis not mentioned at all, even though it tried to Islamize the Alawites and forced them to build mosques in their villages. It could be that the signatories refrained from relating to the Turks because of the Alawite minority that lived in Turkey, and the fear that if they openly relate to the Turks in a negative way, the Turks might take revenge on their Alawite brothers who live in Turkey.
But the most interesting detail in the document is the positive way in which the writers relate to the Jews in the Land of Israel. Who knows, perhaps in the future after the Alawites are forced to flee for their lives from the Muslim cities in Syria in order to escape the fate that is described in the document and in order to keep their heads on their shoulders, they will establish their independent state in their mountains, the Mountains of Ansariyya, and perhaps then – as a persecuted minority state – in a historical irony, they will try to join hands with the “Zionist entity”, which is still an illegitimate and despised entity in the eyes of the Arabs and the Muslims.
Visit Dr. Mordechai Kedar’s blog, Middle East and Terrorism
In light of the negotiations that are being conducted between France and Syria, we – the Alawite leaders in Syria- respectfully draw the following points to your attention and to that of your party (the Socialists) :
1. The Alawite nation [sic !!] which has maintained its independence over the years by dint of much zeal and many casualties, is a nation which is different from the Muslim Sunni nation in its religious faith , in its customs and in its history. It has never happened that the Alawite nation [which lives in the mountains on the Western coast of Syria] was under the rule of the [Muslims)]who rule the inland cities of the land.
2. The Alawite nation refuses to be annexed to Muslim Syria, because the Islamic religion is thought of as the official religion of the country, and the Alawite nation is thought of as heretical by the Islamic religion. Therefore we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to Syria, when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be in their power to implement the laws that stem from its religion. [According to Islam, the idol-worshiping heretic has a choice to convert to Islam or be slaughtered.]
3. Awarding independence to Syria and cancelling the mandate would be a good example of socialist principles in Syria, but the meaning of full independence will be the control by a few Muslim families on the Alawite nation in Cilicia, in Askadron [the Alexandretta Strip that the French cut off from Syria and annexed to Turkey in 1939] and in the Ansariyya Mountains [the mountains in the western part of Syria, the topographical continuation of the Lebanon Mountains]. Even having a parliament and a constitutional government will not ensure personal freedom. This parliamentary control is only a facade, lacking any effective value, and the truth of the matter is that it will be controlled by religious fanaticism that will target the minorities. Do the leaders ofFrancewant the Muslims to control the Alawite nation and throw it into the bosom of misery?
4. The spirit of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, whose roots are deep in the heart of the Arab Muslims toward all those who are not Muslim, is the spirit that continually feeds the Islamic religion, and therefore there is no hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is cancelled, the danger of death and destruction will be a threat upon the minorities in Syria, even if the cancellation [of the Mandate] will decree freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Why, even today we see how the Muslim residents of Damascus force the Jews who live under their auspices to sign a document in which they are forbidden to send food to their Jewish brothers who are suffering from the disaster in Palestine [in the days of the great Arab rebellion], the situation of the Jews in Palestine being the strongest and most concrete proof of the importance of the religious problem among the Muslim Arabs toward anyone who does not belong to Islam. Those good Jews, who have brought to the Muslim Arabs civilization and peace, and have spread wealth and prosperity to the land of Palestine, have not hurt anyone and have not taken anything by force, and nevertheless the Muslims have declared holy war against them and have not hesitated to slaughter their children and their women despite the fact that England is in Palestine and France is in Syria. Therefore a black future awaits the Jews and the other minorities if the Mandate is cancelled and Muslim Syria is unified with Muslim Palestine. This union is the ultimate goal of the Muslim Arabs.
5. We appreciate your generosity of spirit in defending the Syrian people and your desire to realize their independence, but Syria at the present time is far from the lofty goal that you aspire for her, because she is still trapped in the spirit of religious feudalism. We do not think that the French government and the French socialist Party will agree to the Syrians’ independence, since its implementation will cause the subjugation of the Alawite nation, placing the Alawite minority in danger of death and destruction. It cannot be that you will agree to the (nationalist) Syrian request to annex the Alawite nation to Syria, because your lofty principles – if they support the idea of freedom – will not accept the situation in which one nation (the Muslims) try to stifle the freedom of another (the Alawite) by forcing its annexation.
6. You may see fit to assure the rights of the Alawites and other minorities in the wording of the treaty (The French-Syrian Treaty, which defines the relationships between the states), but we emphasize to you that contracts have no value in the Syrian Islamic mentality. We have seen this in the past, with the pact that England signed with Iraq, which forbade the Iraqis to slaughter the Assyrians and the Yazidis. The Alawite nation, which we, the undersigned, represent, cries out to the government ofFranceand to the French Socialist Party, and requests them to ensure its freedom and independence within its small boundaries [an independent Alawite state!!]. The Alawite nation places its well-being in the hands of the French Socialist leaders, and is sure that it will find strong and dependable support for the nation which is a faithful friend, who has rendered toFrancea great service, and now is under the threat of death and destruction.
[Signed by]: Aziz Agha al-Hawash, Mahmud Agha Jadid, Mahmud Bek Jadid, Suleiman Asad [the grandfather of Hafez], Suleiman al-Murshid, Mahmud Suleiman al-Ahmad.
This concludes the
document, which was written 86 years ago, but could have been written
yesterday. The document includes within it all of the ills of the Middle
East that the peoples of the region suffer from until today: religious
zealotry of Muslims, violence, marginalization of anyone who does not
belong to the dominant group, stereotypes that determine the group-think
and Western ignorance and naiveté about anything regarding the regional
problems and how to solve them.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/dr-mordechai-kedar/assads-grandfathers-1936-letter-predicts-muslim-slaughter-of-minorities-praises-zionists/2012/09/20/0/
This concludes the document, which was written 86 years ago, but could
have been written yesterday. The document includes within it all of the
ills of the Middle East that the peoples of the region suffer from
until today: religious zealotry of Muslims, violence, marginalization
of anyone who does not belong to the dominant group, stereotypes that
determine the group-think and Western ignorance and naiveté about
anything regarding the regional problems and how to solve them.Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/dr-mordechai-kedar/assads-grandfathers-1936-letter-predicts-muslim-slaughter-of-minorities-praises-zionists/2012/09/20/0/
And with all due respect to the writers of the document, they are not free of problems either. Despite the fact that they are Arabs and Arabic speakers, they differentiate themselves from the general Arab-Muslim scene and define themselves as the Alawite “nation”, only because they are members of a different religion. It may be that the way they view themselves is based on the fact that they are separate tribes from the Muslim tribes, and they see themselves as the original natives of the mountains of western Syria, in contrast to the Arab Muslims who invaded the area in the seventh century from the Arabian Peninsula under the unsheathed sword of the second Muslim Caliph, Umar bin al-Khattab, who imposed Islam upon the conquered peoples.
Without doubt, the Alawites made the necessary conclusions from what is written in the document because they have ruled the Muslims since 1966 with a cruel and blood thirsty iron fist, because they knew well what would happen if the Muslims ruled over them.
An interesting additional detail in the document is the fact that the Ottoman Empireis not mentioned at all, even though it tried to Islamize the Alawites and forced them to build mosques in their villages. It could be that the signatories refrained from relating to the Turks because of the Alawite minority that lived in Turkey, and the fear that if they openly relate to the Turks in a negative way, the Turks might take revenge on their Alawite brothers who live in Turkey.
But the most interesting detail in the document is the positive way in which the writers relate to the Jews in the Land of Israel. Who knows, perhaps in the future after the Alawites are forced to flee for their lives from the Muslim cities in Syria in order to escape the fate that is described in the document and in order to keep their heads on their shoulders, they will establish their independent state in their mountains, the Mountains of Ansariyya, and perhaps then – as a persecuted minority state – in a historical irony, they will try to join hands with the “Zionist entity”, which is still an illegitimate and despised entity in the eyes of the Arabs and the Muslims.
Visit Dr. Mordechai Kedar’s blog, Middle East and Terrorism
I will begin on a
personal note. Since the start of the pogroms in Syria a year and a half
ago, I have written again and again in my articles on this honorable
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/dr-mordechai-kedar/assads-grandfathers-1936-letter-predicts-muslim-slaughter-of-minorities-praises-zionists/2012/09/20/0/
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/dr-mordechai-kedar/assads-grandfathers-1936-letter-predicts-muslim-slaughter-of-minorities-praises-zionists/2012/09/20/0/
I will begin on a
personal note. Since the start of the pogroms in Syria a year and a half
ago, I have written again and again in my articles on this honorable
stage that the Alawites will behave with cruelty and severity and with
total insensitivity toward their opposition, because they are aware that
they are fighting not only to keep control of the regime in their hands
but also – and mainly – in order to keep their heads connected to their
shoulders. My words were an assessment based on lengthy research on the
Syrian domestic arena, that was published in the doctoral thesis that I
wrote (1998) and in the book that was based on it (2005). From time to
time I have heard and read harsh expressions of Muslims toward the
Alawites, but I have never seen proof that the Alawites indeed fear that
the Muslims might slaughter them if they had the opportunity.
In the background is the historical fact that modern Syria was borne on
the knees of the French Mandate, which was imposed on Syria after the
First World War, and ended in 1943. As with other Arab states in the
Middle East, many of the genetic illnesses that Syria suffers from stem
from errors that were committed by the states charged with the mandates,
France and Great Britain. Italy, which controlled Libya, is responsible
to a certain extent for the chaos in that state. The main mistake of
the European states in the Middle East was creating states that included
different ethnic, tribal, religious and sectarian groups that are
antagonistic to each other, with the hope that the day will come when
all of them will sit around the campfire and sing patriotic songs in
perfect harmony. This did not happen, this is not happening now and this
will also not happen in the foreseeable future.
On August 30th of this year a discussion was held in the UN Security
Council on the civil war raging in Syria, that was responsible for about
five thousand deaths in August alone. Two of the spokesmen
participating in the discussion were the French foreign minister,
Laurent Fabius, and the Syrian representative in the UN, Bashar
al-Jafari. The Syrian representative attacked the Western states and
primarily France for its support of the rebels. The French minister
responded by saying:
You speak negatively about the French Mandate, and I must remind you
that the grandfather of your president requested France not to depart
from Syria and not to award it independence, and this is in an official
document which he signed and is today in the French Foreign Ministry,
and if you want I will give you a copy of it.
Fabius was referring to a document that the Alawite leaders, including
Suleiman al-Asad, the grandfather of the president of Syria, wrote,
which is in the archive of the French Foreign Ministry. The document has
the date of receipt – June 15, 1936, and was written shortly prior to
that date, to the French prime minister at the time, Leon Blum.
At the time, there were contacts that were conducted between the
government of Franceand a group of Syrian intellectuals who believed in
the possibility of establishing a greater Syrian state that would
include groups that are different from one another, as in Europe. This
document was published in the past in the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar
and the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, but did not make the headlines. For
the benefit of our dear readers we include here the document in its
entirety, which should be read while keeping in mind what has been
happening in Syria for the last year and a half. My comments are in
brackets.
Dear Mr. Leon Blum, Prime Minister ofFrance.
In light of the negotiations that are being conducted between France and
Syria, we – the Alawite leaders in Syria- respectfully draw the
following points to your attention and to that of your party (the
Socialists):
1. The Alawite nation [sic !!] which has maintained its independence
over the years by dint of much zeal and many casualties, is a nation
which is different from the Muslim Sunni nation in its religious faith ,
in its customs and in its history. It has never happened that the
Alawite nation [which lives in the mountains on the Western coast of
Syria] was under the rule of the [Muslims)]who rule the inland cities of
the land.
2. The Alawite nation refuses to be annexed to Muslim Syria, because the
Islamic religion is thought of as the official religion of the country,
and the Alawite nation is thought of as heretical by the Islamic
religion. Therefore we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible
fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to Syria,
when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be
in their power to implement the laws that stem from its religion.
[According to Islam, the idol-worshiping heretic has a choice to convert
to Islam or be slaughtered.]
3. Awarding independence to Syria and cancelling the mandate would be a
good example of socialist principles in Syria, but the meaning of full
independence will be the control by a few Muslim families on the Alawite
nation in Cilicia, in Askadron [the Alexandretta Strip that the French
cut off from Syria and annexed to Turkey in 1939] and in the Ansariyya
Mountains [the mountains in the western part of Syria, the topographical
continuation of the Lebanon Mountains]. Even having a parliament and a
constitutional government will not ensure personal freedom. This
parliamentary control is only a facade, lacking any effective value, and
the truth of the matter is that it will be controlled by religious
fanaticism that will target the minorities. Do the leaders ofFrancewant
the Muslims to control the Alawite nation and throw it into the bosom of
misery?
4. The spirit of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, whose roots are deep
in the heart of the Arab Muslims toward all those who are not Muslim, is
the spirit that continually feeds the Islamic religion, and therefore
there is no hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is
cancelled, the danger of death and destruction will be a threat upon the
minorities in Syria, even if the cancellation [of the Mandate] will
decree freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Why, even today we
see how the Muslim residents of Damascus force the Jews who live under
their auspices to sign a document in which they are forbidden to send
food to their Jewish brothers who are suffering from the disaster in
Palestine [in the days of the great Arab rebellion], the situation of
the Jews in Palestine being the strongest and most concrete proof of the
importance of the religious problem among the Muslim Arabs toward
anyone who does not belong to Islam. Those good Jews, who have brought
to the Muslim Arabs civilization and peace, and have spread wealth and
prosperity to the land of Palestine, have not hurt anyone and have not
taken anything by force, and nevertheless the Muslims have declared holy
war against them and have not hesitated to slaughter their children and
their women despite the fact that England is in Palestine and France is
in Syria. Therefore a black future awaits the Jews and the other
minorities if the Mandate is cancelled and Muslim Syria is unified with
Muslim Palestine. This union is the ultimate goal of the Muslim Arabs.
5. We appreciate your generosity of spirit in defending the Syrian
people and your desire to realize their independence, but Syria at the
present time is far from the lofty goal that you aspire for her, because
she is still trapped in the spirit of religious feudalism. We do not
think that the French government and the French socialist Party will
agree to the Syrians’ independence, since its implementation will cause
the subjugation of the Alawite nation, placing the Alawite minority in
danger of death and destruction.
It cannot be that you will agree to the (nationalist) Syrian request to
annex the Alawite nation to Syria, because your lofty principles – if
they support the idea of freedom – will not accept the situation in
which one nation (the Muslims) try to stifle the freedom of another (the
Alawite) by forcing its annexation.
6. You may see fit to assure the rights of the Alawites and other
minorities in the wording of the treaty (The French-Syrian Treaty, which
defines the relationships between the states), but we emphasize to you
that contracts have no value in the Syrian Islamic mentality. We have
seen this in the past, with the pact that England signed with Iraq,
which forbade the Iraqis to slaughter the Assyrians and the Yazidis.
The Alawite nation, which we, the undersigned, represent, cries out to
the government ofFranceand to the French Socialist Party, and requests
them to ensure its freedom and independence within its small boundaries
[an independent Alawite state!!]. The Alawite nation places its
well-being in the hands of the French Socialist leaders, and is sure
that it will find strong and dependable support for the nation which is a
faithful friend, who has rendered toFrancea great service, and now is
under the threat of death and destruction.
[Signed by]: Aziz Agha al-Hawash, Mahmud Agha Jadid, Mahmud Bek Jadid,
Suleiman Asad [the grandfather of Hafez], Suleiman al-Murshid, Mahmud
Suleiman al-Ahmad.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/dr-mordechai-kedar/assads-grandfathers-1936-letter-predicts-muslim-slaughter-of-minorities-praises-zionists/2012/09/20/0/
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Home » InDepth » Analysis » Dr. Mordechai Kedar »
Assad’s Grandfather’s 1936 Letter Predicts Muslim Slaughter of
Minorities, Praises Zionists
Suleiman Assad, the grandfather of Syria's embattled dictator Bashir al
Assad warned France of the dangers of a Sunni Islam takeover in 1936.
By: Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Published: September 20th, 2012
You are currently on page: 1 2 3 All Pages
print
tell a friend
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's grandfather was fearful of a Muslim
massacre and appreciated Zionism.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's wags his finger - again.
I will begin on a personal note. Since the start of the pogroms in Syria
a year and a half ago, I have written again and again in my articles on
this honorable stage that the Alawites will behave with cruelty and
severity and with total insensitivity toward their opposition, because
they are aware that they are fighting not only to keep control of the
regime in their hands but also – and mainly – in order to keep their
heads connected to their shoulders. My words were an assessment based on
lengthy research on the Syrian domestic arena, that was published in
the doctoral thesis that I wrote (1998) and in the book that was based
on it (2005). From time to time I have heard and read harsh expressions
of Muslims toward the Alawites, but I have never seen proof that the
Alawites indeed fear that the Muslims might slaughter them if they had
the opportunity.
In the background is the historical fact that modern Syria was borne on
the knees of the French Mandate, which was imposed on Syria after the
First World War, and ended in 1943. As with other Arab states in the
Middle East, many of the genetic illnesses that Syria suffers from stem
from errors that were committed by the states charged with the mandates,
France and Great Britain. Italy, which controlled Libya, is responsible
to a certain extent for the chaos in that state. The main mistake of
the European states in the Middle East was creating states that included
different ethnic, tribal, religious and sectarian groups that are
antagonistic to each other, with the hope that the day will come when
all of them will sit around the campfire and sing patriotic songs in
perfect harmony. This did not happen, this is not happening now and this
will also not happen in the foreseeable future.
On August 30th of this year a discussion was held in the UN Security
Council on the civil war raging in Syria, that was responsible for about
five thousand deaths in August alone. Two of the spokesmen
participating in the discussion were the French foreign minister,
Laurent Fabius, and the Syrian representative in the UN, Bashar
al-Jafari. The Syrian representative attacked the Western states and
primarily France for its support of the rebels. The French minister
responded by saying:
You speak negatively about the French Mandate, and I must remind you
that the grandfather of your president requested France not to depart
from Syria and not to award it independence, and this is in an official
document which he signed and is today in the French Foreign Ministry,
and if you want I will give you a copy of it.
Fabius was referring to a document that the Alawite leaders, including
Suleiman al-Asad, the grandfather of the president of Syria, wrote,
which is in the archive of the French Foreign Ministry. The document has
the date of receipt – June 15, 1936, and was written shortly prior to
that date, to the French prime minister at the time, Leon Blum.
At the time, there were contacts that were conducted between the
government of Franceand a group of Syrian intellectuals who believed in
the possibility of establishing a greater Syrian state that would
include groups that are different from one another, as in Europe. This
document was published in the past in the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar
and the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, but did not make the headlines. For
the benefit of our dear readers we include here the document in its
entirety, which should be read while keeping in mind what has been
happening in Syria for the last year and a half. My comments are in
brackets.
Dear Mr. Leon Blum, Prime Minister ofFrance.
In light of the negotiations that are being conducted between France and
Syria, we – the Alawite leaders in Syria- respectfully draw the
following points to your attention and to that of your party (the
Socialists):
1. The Alawite nation [sic !!] which has maintained its independence
over the years by dint of much zeal and many casualties, is a nation
which is different from the Muslim Sunni nation in its religious faith ,
in its customs and in its history. It has never happened that the
Alawite nation [which lives in the mountains on the Western coast of
Syria] was under the rule of the [Muslims)]who rule the inland cities of
the land.
2. The Alawite nation refuses to be annexed to Muslim Syria, because the
Islamic religion is thought of as the official religion of the country,
and the Alawite nation is thought of as heretical by the Islamic
religion. Therefore we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible
fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to Syria,
when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be
in their power to implement the laws that stem from its religion.
[According to Islam, the idol-worshiping heretic has a choice to convert
to Islam or be slaughtered.]
3. Awarding independence to Syria and cancelling the mandate would be a
good example of socialist principles in Syria, but the meaning of full
independence will be the control by a few Muslim families on the Alawite
nation in Cilicia, in Askadron [the Alexandretta Strip that the French
cut off from Syria and annexed to Turkey in 1939] and in the Ansariyya
Mountains [the mountains in the western part of Syria, the topographical
continuation of the Lebanon Mountains]. Even having a parliament and a
constitutional government will not ensure personal freedom. This
parliamentary control is only a facade, lacking any effective value, and
the truth of the matter is that it will be controlled by religious
fanaticism that will target the minorities. Do the leaders ofFrancewant
the Muslims to control the Alawite nation and throw it into the bosom of
misery?
4. The spirit of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, whose roots are deep
in the heart of the Arab Muslims toward all those who are not Muslim, is
the spirit that continually feeds the Islamic religion, and therefore
there is no hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is
cancelled, the danger of death and destruction will be a threat upon the
minorities in Syria, even if the cancellation [of the Mandate] will
decree freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Why, even today we
see how the Muslim residents of Damascus force the Jews who live under
their auspices to sign a document in which they are forbidden to send
food to their Jewish brothers who are suffering from the disaster in
Palestine [in the days of the great Arab rebellion], the situation of
the Jews in Palestine being the strongest and most concrete proof of the
importance of the religious problem among the Muslim Arabs toward
anyone who does not belong to Islam. Those good Jews, who have brought
to the Muslim Arabs civilization and peace, and have spread wealth and
prosperity to the land of Palestine, have not hurt anyone and have not
taken anything by force, and nevertheless the Muslims have declared holy
war against them and have not hesitated to slaughter their children and
their women despite the fact that England is in Palestine and France is
in Syria. Therefore a black future awaits the Jews and the other
minorities if the Mandate is cancelled and Muslim Syria is unified with
Muslim Palestine. This union is the ultimate goal of the Muslim Arabs.
5. We appreciate your generosity of spirit in defending the Syrian
people and your desire to realize their independence, but Syria at the
present time is far from the lofty goal that you aspire for her, because
she is still trapped in the spirit of religious feudalism. We do not
think that the French government and the French socialist Party will
agree to the Syrians’ independence, since its implementation will cause
the subjugation of the Alawite nation, placing the Alawite minority in
danger of death and destruction.
It cannot be that you will agree to the (nationalist) Syrian request to
annex the Alawite nation to Syria, because your lofty principles – if
they support the idea of freedom – will not accept the situation in
which one nation (the Muslims) try to stifle the freedom of another (the
Alawite) by forcing its annexation.
6. You may see fit to assure the rights of the Alawites and other
minorities in the wording of the treaty (The French-Syrian Treaty, which
defines the relationships between the states), but we emphasize to you
that contracts have no value in the Syrian Islamic mentality. We have
seen this in the past, with the pact that England signed with Iraq,
which forbade the Iraqis to slaughter the Assyrians and the Yazidis.
The Alawite nation, which we, the undersigned, represent, cries out to
the government ofFranceand to the French Socialist Party, and requests
them to ensure its freedom and independence within its small boundaries
[an independent Alawite state!!]. The Alawite nation places its
well-being in the hands of the French Socialist leaders, and is sure
that it will find strong and dependable support for the nation which is a
faithful friend, who has rendered toFrancea great service, and now is
under the threat of death and destruction.
[Signed by]: Aziz Agha al-Hawash, Mahmud Agha Jadid, Mahmud Bek Jadid,
Suleiman Asad [the grandfather of Hafez], Suleiman al-Murshid, Mahmud
Suleiman al-Ahmad.
This concludes the document, which was written 86 years ago, but could
have been written yesterday. The document includes within it all of the
ills of the Middle East that the peoples of the region suffer from until
today: religious zealotry of Muslims, violence, marginalization of
anyone who does not belong to the dominant group, stereotypes that
determine the group-think and Western ignorance and naiveté about
anything regarding the regional problems and how to solve them.
And with all due respect to the writers of the document, they are not
free of problems either. Despite the fact that they are Arabs and Arabic
speakers, they differentiate themselves from the general Arab-Muslim
scene and define themselves as the Alawite “nation”, only because they
are members of a different religion. It may be that the way they view
themselves is based on the fact that they are separate tribes from the
Muslim tribes, and they see themselves as the original natives of the
mountains of western Syria, in contrast to the Arab Muslims who invaded
the area in the seventh century from the Arabian Peninsula under the
unsheathed sword of the second Muslim Caliph, Umar bin al-Khattab, who
imposed Islam upon the conquered peoples.
Without doubt, the Alawites made the necessary conclusions from what is
written in the document because they have ruled the Muslims since 1966
with a cruel and blood thirsty iron fist, because they knew well what
would happen if the Muslims ruled over them.
An interesting additional detail in the document is the fact that the
Ottoman Empireis not mentioned at all, even though it tried to Islamize
the Alawites and forced them to build mosques in their villages. It
could be that the signatories refrained from relating to the Turks
because of the Alawite minority that lived in Turkey, and the fear that
if they openly relate to the Turks in a negative way, the Turks might
take revenge on their Alawite brothers who live in Turkey.
But the most interesting detail in the document is the positive way in
which the writers relate to the Jews in the Land of Israel. Who knows,
perhaps in the future after the Alawites are forced to flee for their
lives from the Muslim cities in Syria in order to escape the fate that
is described in the document and in order to keep their heads on their
shoulders, they will establish their independent state in their
mountains, the Mountains of Ansariyya, and perhaps then – as a
persecuted minority state – in a historical irony, they will try to join
hands with the “Zionist entity”, which is still an illegitimate and
despised entity in the eyes of the Arabs and the Muslims.
Visit Dr. Mordechai Kedar’s blog, Middle East and Terrorism.
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/dr-mordechai-kedar/assads-grandfathers-1936-letter-predicts-muslim-slaughter-of-minorities-praises-zionists/2012/09/20/0/
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/dr-mordechai-kedar/assads-grandfathers-1936-letter-predicts-muslim-slaughter-of-minorities-praises-zionists/2012/09/20/0/
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