The *FREE ARAB VOICE*
August 22, 1997

In this Special Issue about Syria, the Free Arab Voice includes:

1) Zionist Aggression against South Lebanon as Part of the Campaign
   against Syria
    by Tawfic Abdul-Fattah / The Free Arab Voice

2) Syria Leads the Arab World in Turning the Tables on "Israel's"
   Regional Policies

3) Action Alert: Join the Call to Stop anti-Syrian Legislation
                 by ADC and NAAA

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A Condemnation:

The Free Arab Voice strongly condemns the recent terrorist campaign
against Lebanon, as well as the psychological preamble to the war
against Syria being undertaken by the Western media.

We have to join the efforts against anti-Syrian legislation that have
been going through Congress. We have to make our voices heard on the
atrocities being committed against South Lebanon, to the media and
political representatives. But most importantly we have to BAND
TOGETHER AS ARABS AROUND ONE PROGRAM FOR POLITICAL ACTION in order to
empower ourselves and induce some radical change in the circumstances
of our existence. For otherwise, we would still be complaining again
(liberal style) about the same types of atrocities 50 years from now.

					FAV editors

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1) Zionist Aggression against South Lebanon as Part of the Campaign
   against Syria- by Tawfic Abdul-Fattah / The Free Arab Voice

The newest trend nowadays, in the foreign policy corridors of the
U.S and the policy makers in the Zionist entity, is the psychological
preparation of the American public for a new massive attack on Syria,
and Lebanon.

This is indicated by the news press held by the Israeli foreign
minister, in conjunction with the NY-times, which discussed the
possibility of a Syrian attack on "Israel", coupled with appearances
on CBC, and other Cable broadcasts, parroting the same statements
and playing the role of the victim (as usual).

As a part of the same orchestra, in a May 9, 1997, interview with
Haaretz, IDF Intelligence Corps Chief Moshe Ya'alon pointed to the
growing role of terrorism in Assad's policy !!.

And to give that melody some background tunes, the U.S regularly
gives numerous hints about Syria's defiance of U.S policies, always
referring to its sponsorship of anti-Oslo groups, its buildup of
mass destruction weapons ! ..bla..bla..bla, just as it did with
Iraq for about a year before the onset of the second Gulf war.

One analysis anticipates the possibility of the fighting in south 
Lebanon escalating into a regional war.

Al-'Ahd Weekly notes that "several sources are expressing fears that 
there is a Zionist plan [to escalate the fighting against the 
Hizeb-Allah in south Lebanon] in preparation for pouncing on it through 
a large-scale aggression against the South, especially as the political
climate in the region is overcast and regional moves are pointing to
new military alliances under US political and military cover that are
beating the drums of war [against Syria] and preparing for it".

"The search for an outlet from the political deadlock is a permanent
policy for Israeli governments and the Lebanese arena has remained one
of the places fit for such an outlet, which takes the form of military
escalation, as was the practice in similar circumstances."

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2) Syria Leads the Arab World in Turning the Tables on "Israel's"
   Regional Policies -

When Benjamin Netanyahu announced right before the July 30th 
bombing in Jerusalem, closing the book on the 'Lebanon-first option',
meaning negotiating a separate deal with Lebanon, or even negotiating 
withdrawal from South Lebanon in exchange for a 'peace treaty' with
Syria, that was tantamount to a declaration of failure of the policy to
circumvent an Israeli withdrawal from the Syrian Golan Heights. It also
set the stage for the most recent vengeance to be wreaked on Lebanon.

On the official Arab level, however, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have
moved much closer to the Syrian position in the last few months, 
culminating in a Saudi announcement calling for a boycott of the
al-Douha Economic Summit in Qatar, which aims to continue the process
of insinuating the Zionist entity into the economic structure of the
region, in spite of the halt of the so-called 'peace process'.

       Syrian-Iraqi Rapprochement:

But the recent Syrian moves to open up and resume relations with 
Iraq were definitely the most interesting in view of the fierce rivalry
and animosity that has permeated relations between the two neighboring
Arab states for the last two decades.

Hence, Syrians are again allowed to travel into Iraq, and trade 
between the two countries has begun to flourish. Dozens of Syrian
businessmen traverse across the border into Iraq in search of lucrative
deals.  Before that an Iraqi industrial commission was welcomed into
Damascus.

The Iraqi delegation's visit to Damascus concurred with two events
protesting the Turkish invasion of northern Iraq: one was held by
Palestinian opposition groups in the Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus,
and the other which was heavily attended by Syrian citizens and took
place in the quarters of the Arab Writers Union.  

Iraq had first shut down an anti-Syrian regime radio station 
which was broadcasting from Bagdad since the seventies. Then Thanaa
Imam, a correspondent for Radio Monte Carlo in Damascus, relayed that
recently the leadership of the Baath party in Syria has been
contemplating a reciprocal shut-down of an anti-Iraqi regime radio
station in Damascus which has probably taken place by now.

Moreover, Saddam Hussein announced that the Baath party in Iraq
was proposing a dialogue with the Iraqi opposition leading to
power-sharing, and the incorporation of the latter into the government.

Subsequently Saddam met with an envoy of the Kurdish leader 
At-Talbani, and approached Majed Abdul-Ridda, a former member of the
Central Committee of the Iraqi Communist Party and a political science
professor at Bagdad university, regarding inclusion in the government.

More importantly, two separate delegations, one Russian, and another
Chinese, held a series of meetings with several parties from the 
Iraqi opposition in Damascus to arrange for a comprehensive national
Iraqi dialogue. THAT WOULDN'T HAPPEN ON SYRIAN SOIL WITHOUT THE
IMPLICIT BLESSING OF THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT.

In addition to that, when the United Nations bureaucracy began to
deliberately delay the approval of Syrian shipments of food and medicine
into Iraq because of U.S. and U.K. intervention, under the Oil for Food
plan, Syria went ahead and shipped the perfectly legal and agreed upon
items ANYWAY, thus setting an example for how one Arab country should
act with another. Syria is an independent state.  It gained its
independence from the French in 1946, and it's not about to take orders
from colonialists again, especially when it comes to harming another
Arab country.

        The Background of the Syrian Policy Shift:  

Needless to say, all these developments did not come from vacuum.
The coming of Netanyahu to power in "Israel", the escalation of 
the already ongoing settlement projects, the refusal to withdraw from
South Lebanon, the insistence on holding on to the Golan Heights, the
resumption of attacks against South Lebanon, and Israeli backing-off
from the understanding that supposedly developed behind closed doors to
withdraw from the Golan and South Lebanon, all pushed Syria towards Iraq
and Iran.

And while the threat of an "Israeli" blitzkrieg attack against 
Syria loomed large, American foreign policy became ever more 
pro-Israeli. Examples abound with the U.S. consistently voting with
"Israel" in the U.N. against, not only the Arabs, but also the rest of
the world.

There's also congress voting overwhelmingly, on June 10th, to move
the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The following
week, the Senate passed legislation which, if enacted into law, would
prohibit most financial transactions with Syria, thus adding Syria to
the list of Arab countries suffering from sanctions.

Before that the Syrians noted with alarm that the State 
Department's 'Annual Report on Terrorism' criticized Syria for hosting
several anti-Oslo Agreement Palestinian groups on Syrian soil.

It became perfectly clear that American foreign policy in the
region has become a mere extension of "Israel's" Arab and Islamic
policy. Not only were Madeline Albright and Dennis Ross Zionist Jews,
but practically the whole concept of the New Middle East which has been
marketed as the prosperous outcome of the misnomer 'peace process', was
no more than a veneer for "Israeli" regional hegemony.

Nevertheless, "Israel" can only achieve that hegemony by 
breaking up existing Arab states into smaller units by fostering
internal civil and religious warfare. And so under the deceiving motto
of 'religious freedom', the State Department officially adopted a
malicious plan for the further fragmentation of the Middle East, and
as far as that goes, even the puppet regimes got the point.

        The Turkish-Israeli Unholy Alliance:

The nucleus of this New Middle East is to be based on a Turkish-Israeli
alliance, to include the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at a not-so-distant
stage. And since Turkey lies on the northern borders of Syria, Iraq,
and Iran, alarm bells began to ring especially after the Turkish
excursion into northern Iraq while the international community 
watched gleefully and in total silence.

As a result of this political-military alliance, Israeli jets
undertook airborne maneuvers right next to northern Syrian aerospace.
Israeli gunboats did the same in front of the Syrian coastline.
Surrounded and outnumbered, Syria could have chosen to capitulate as
others have done so easily, but that's not how it's done..!! However,
that second higher road goes right through Baghdad.

Before that, Turkey began taking measures to restrict the water
lifelines of Syria and Iraq as part of a plan to build some 17
dams on the Tigris and Euphrates. That not only sets Syria and Iraq in
a common front, but threatens even Sudan, as the purpose here is to
eventually become the main agricultural supplier of the New Middle East,
and to sell what would have been otherwise Arab water to the Gulf states
and Saudi Arabia. Political leverage generated thereof on the Arabs is
a mere 'coincidence'.

        The Implication for Cyprus:

And not only was this new Turkish-Israeli alliance blessed by 
the U.S. State Department, but several active steps were pursued by
American foreign policy makers to resolve the Greek-Turkish conflict,
and specifically the Cypriot issue, after more than two decades of long
neglect.

This was done purposely to deprive Arab states from Greece as an
anti-Turkish ally. With appropriate American pressure, suddenly Turkey
began to show a new flexibility on Cyprus.  And this strengthened
Israel's hand even against Egypt, which had signed earlier an agreement
for military cooperation with Greece, in response to the Turkish-Israeli
alliance.

        A Syrian-Iraqi-Iranian Axis?

Consequently several voices emerged demanding the formation of a
new Syrian-Iraqi-Iranian axis. Laith Shubailatt, a leading and very
popular opposition figure in Jordan, wrote an open letter of
congratulations to the newly elected Iranian president to encourage the
establishment of a such an axis. The Arab Nationalist Conference, based
in Beirut and representing many prestigious and independent nationalist
intellectuals, endorsed such an axis.  And even the Dr. Ramadan
Abdullah, the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, endorsed such an
axis that would definitely impede neocolonial and Zionist plans to
reabsorb the Arab and Islamic world.

A surprise visit by President Hafez Al-Asaad to Iran followed,
and a series of concomitant moves to open up on the Iraqi neighbor.

But regardless of whether such an axis comes about or not, it
is certain that right now Syria is potentially in the eye of the storm.

It is the most targeted at this moment because of its ability to
tilt the balance in either direction, and because of its refusal to
meekly go along with Zionist plans in the region as others have
shamelessly done.

Therefore Syria is being threatened with sanctions, sieges, and
even direct aggression under this or that pretext. And it is the
national obligation of all decent Arabs to stand in this confrontation
with Syria, and with all Arab states under siege like Iraq, Libya, and
Sudan.

Recognizing the importance of internal cohesion, the Syrian
government took steps to allow the exiled and fleeing members and
leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood back into the country upon
mediation from friendly Arab and Islamic parties especially from Jordan.

Perhaps Saddam Hussein's attempts to start a dialogue with the
Iraqi opposition are part of a similar strategy in Iraq! Either way all
Arab governments under siege should realize the need and importance of
internal reform and democracy as a means to successfully fight Zionist
and colonial plans against them.

What remains is the importance of improving the relationship
between the Arabs and Iran, especially between Iraq and Iran. But
that's a different problem.

Over here in the U.S.A., Arab-Americans are strongly urged to
join the ADC and NAAA in their battle to fight anti-Syrian legislation.

	It's the least we can do.

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3) Action Alert: Join the Call to Rally against anti-Syrian Legislation
                  by ADC and NAAA 

  Please contact H.R. 1757 (anti- Syrian Legislation) Conferees!

Write, email, phone,or fax individually the senators and representatives
listed below who are expected to be on the conference committee for H.R.
1757. Urge them to eliminate Section 1605 from the bill. 

Senators Jesse Helms (R-NC) jesse_helms@helms.senate.gov, 
Paul Coverdell (R-GA)senator_coverdell@coverdell.senate.gov, 
Chuck Hagel (R-NE) (NO EMAIL ADDRESS),
Rod Grams (R-MN) mail_grams@grams.senate.gov, 
Joseph Biden, Jr. (D-DE) senator@biden.senate.gov,
Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) senator@sarbanes.senate.gov, and
Christopher Dodd (D-CT) sen_dodd@dodd.senate.gov 

U.S. Senate
For E-Mail addresses: http://www.infi.net/~bartlett/esenate.htm

Washington DC, 20510
Tel.: 202-244-3121

Representatives Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) (NO EMAIL ADDRESS),
William Goodling (R-PA) (NO EMAIL ADDRESS), 
Henry Hyde (R-IL) (NO EMAIL ADDRESS), 
Jim Leach (R-IA) leachia01@mail.house.gov, 
Doug Bereuter (R-NE) (NO EMAIL ADDRESS), 
Christopher Smith (R-NJ) (NO EMAIL ADDRESS), 
Lee Hamilton (D-IN) hamilton@hr.house.gov, 
Sam Gejdenson (D-CT) bozrah@hr.house.gov,  
Tom Lantos (D-CA) talk2tom@hr.house.gov, and
Howard Berman (D-CA) (NO EMAIL ADDRESS)

U.S. House of Representatives 
For E-Mail addresses:  http://www.infi.net/~bartlett/ehouse.htm

Washington DC 20515
Tel.: 202-255-3121

Sample Letter to Senate/House Conferees on H.R. 1757

Senator ____
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

or

Representative ____
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington D.C. 20515

Dear Senator (Representative) _________: 

I am writing to urge you to eliminate Section 1605 from H.R. 1757, the
State Department Authorization Bill, when it comes up in conference
committee. The policy approach embodied in Section 1605 is unlikely to
accomplish its goals and is certain to undermine U.S. relations with
Syria. 

Section 1605 is opposed by the State Department, which reportedly 
contends that Syria has been progressing in the fight against terrorism. 
It argues convincingly that the measure will be harmful to the ongoing 
negotiations on the Middle East peace process.

The inflexibility of Section 1605 will also undermine the President's
ability to conduct foreign policy and moving it forward. This is
particularly true at this critical juncture, when the support of 
Congress for the Administration's handling of the peace process is 
urgently needed. 

The measure will also cause economic damage to the United States. It 
will severely restrict trade between Syria and the United States and 
cost U.S. workers their jobs. It wil deprive the United States of a 
favorable current trade balance of about $300 million and deny access to 
significant potential markets in the future. In addition it will deprive 
500, 000 Americans of Syrian origin of the ability to conduct normal 
financial transactions with their family and business partners. 

For similar reasons, I urge you to reject the languageof Section 1734 of
the House version of H.R. 1757 as well as the language of H.R. 748, the
"Prohibition On Financial Transactions With Countries Supporting 
Terrorism Acts Of 1997." The declared objective of all three of these 
measures ought to be achieved by diplomatic means rather than through 
threatenting or punitive legislation, which is certain to be 
counterproductive. 

Sincerely

Please cc your letters to ADC <adc@adc.org>

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