Despotism in Syria and Occupation in Palestine..

Despotism and occupation are common phenomena that have prevailed in human societies and still exist to this day. One may be the cause of the other or help in its occurrence. Many despotic regimes in their societies, as a result of their behavior, have led to occupations by foreign powers, ruling those societies directly or through the same regime after stripping it of all its power tools and keeping it in the picture formally, exercising control of those countries through it. This happened in Syria, especially after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011…
Syria now suffers from a despotic regime with foreign occupations…
The despotism of the Assad family’s rule over Syria, which has exceeded half a century, has paralyzed all the potentials and energies of the Syrian people to ensure its continued stay in power, under various claims and slogans. It lost all its military and civilizational battles with the Israeli occupying state and still raises the banner of liberating the occupied Syrian and Arab lands. After Syrian independence, the era of the occupation of lands from Syria began under its rule, starting with the Golan in 1967, to end with the occupation of most of the Syrian territories in our present time…
One of the most important slogans it raised was the slogan of liberation, resilience, and confronting the Zionist enemy. Following that, it formed a huge army, imposed compulsory military service on Syrian youth, and harnessed the state’s limited resources in spending on it, believing it would be a strong barrier for its rule and protection from its people.
This army engaged in mock battles with the Israeli enemy in 1973 in the Golan and in 1982 in Lebanon. It had lost the Golan Heights when its first leader, Hafez al-Assad, was in power in 1967. Assad’s major battles were in the Lebanese Civil War, where he fought and allied with everyone, particularly in his battles against the Palestinian resistance, the most brutal being the massacre at the Tel al-Zaatar refugee camp. Then, in 1983, Assad’s army fought fierce battles in northern Lebanon to expel the remaining Palestinian resistance led by the late Yasser Arafat.
It also fought battles against the Syrian people in the early 1980s, culminating in the Hama massacre. The army fought under the American umbrella in the liberation of Kuwait. Assad’s son continued his father’s policies until the real moment for which the Assad army was built occurred with the first cry for freedom from Syrian youths in mid-March 2011. From day one, the Assad army was an enemy to the people, indulging in firing at unprotected chests.

Similarly, the Israeli occupying army, built for its state, committed all forms of brutality against the Palestinians, the rightful landowners, with most victims being Palestinian civilians.
Like Assad’s regime’s army, it served Western agendas.

Assad’s militia, since the start of the Syrian revolution, aimed to eliminate the civil dimension of the revolution, a key reason for its persistence against it. Assassinating, arresting, or displacing activists, important to their revolution, were top priorities, and it succeeded as no field leadership for the revolutionary movement was formed.
This is a policy practiced by the Israeli enemy since its inception, as peaceful civil uprisings inside historical Palestine were the most threatening, and civilians were killed brutally. Those uprising symbols who survived are still in the occupation’s prisons.

The Israeli army practiced the policy of assassinating dangerous Palestinian cadres abroad, culminating with the assassination of President Yasser Arafat.

Assad’s militia destroyed all civil infrastructure of the Syrian revolution, especially hospitals and medical centers, to undermine the will of resistance and challenge of the revolutionary public.
This approach was also started by the Israeli occupation army by targeting medical hospitals under false pretexts, such as the presence of tunnels, command centers underneath them, and storing weapons in them, considering them as human shields. A priority in the war on Gaza was to destroy these hospitals, with major massacres shaking human conscience at the Al-Ahli Hospital, then the Rantisi Hospital, and not least the Shifa Hospital, where the occupation army failed to present any evidence to support its previous claims and justify its actions.

The policy of a suffocating siege was central to Assad’s militia’s actions against revolutionary areas, under the slogan of hunger or submission, also to undermine the will of the fighters and weaken their resolve.
All Syrian areas recaptured by Assad’s militia suffered from this policy by forcing residents and fighters to accept forced displacement.

This is what the Israeli occupation forces are doing in their war on Gaza, where in addition to the sector being besieged since 2007, they immediately, after Operation Defensive Shield, prevented the arrival of any food or medical aid, cut off water, electricity, and fuel networks, following Assad’s militia’s approach of making the revolutionary areas uninhabitable.

Truthfully, the Israeli occupation state was more merciful to its prisoners, providing them with some freedom to defend themselves, periodic contact with their families, and visits, under much better detention conditions.
We have seen pictures of those recently released from the occupation’s prisons, who spent many years there, and in comparison, those who survived Assad’s prisons after years appeared in a much worse state, often suffering from chronic diseases, permanent disabilities, some losing much of their nervous system and mental capabilities. The released prisoners tell stories that horrify children, and the pictures of martyrs photographed and documented by Caesar in the Sednaya slaughterhouse present an incomparable scene of the fate of his prisoners.

Finally, those released from the prisons of the occupation state, who spent many years there, were in a much better condition compared to those who survived years in Assad’s prisons. The latter often came out in a much worse state, commonly suffering from chronic diseases and permanent disabilities, some losing much of their nervous system and mental capabilities.
The stories told by the released are horrifying, and the pictures of martyrs photographed and documented by Caesar in the Sednaya slaughterhouse present an incomparable scene about the fate of his prisoners.

Assad’s regime had designated a notorious security branch specifically for the Palestinian brothers, where all forms of brutality were practiced. According to the documentation by the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria, there are 3,076 Palestinians detained (forcibly disappeared) in Assad’s prisons, which have witnessed the martyrdom of 643 Palestinians under torture, and thousands are missing in Yarmouk Camp after its siege and destruction…

Certainly, the fate of despotism and occupation is to vanish in our Arab region.
The region has been subjected to all types and forms of occupation throughout history and has overcome them.
Similarly, the Arab Spring in its first wave, which began in 2011, heralds a new era to rid ourselves of historical Eastern despotism.
The Syrian revolution continues to be a beacon for achieving this, and at the same time, the will of the Palestinian people to free themselves from colonialism remains the hope in the region for liberation from despotism and occupation.

The writer and political analyst Dr. Basel Ma’arawi.