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early years of independence were marked by political
instability. In 1948, the Syrian army was sent to
Palestine to fight along with other Arab armies
against the newly created State of Israel. The Arabs
lost the war, and Israel occupied 78 percent of
the area of historical Palestine. In July 1949,
Syria was the last Arab country to sign an armistice
agreement with Israel. However, it was only the
beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 1949, Syria's national
government was overthrown by a military coup d'etat
led by Hussni al-Zaim. Later that year Zaim was
overthrown by his colleague Sami al-Hinnawi. Few
months later, Hinnawi was overthrown by Colonel
Adib al-Sheeshakli. The latter continued to rule
the country until 1954, when growing public opposition
forced him to resign and leave the country. The
national government was restored, but again to
face instability, this time coming from abroad.
In the mid 1950s, Syria's relation with the West
witnessed some tension with the improving Syrian-Soviet
relations. In 1957, Turkey, a close ally of the
US and a member of the NATO, massed its troops
on the Syrian borders threatening to invade the
country. The western threat was also one of the
reasons that helped achieve Syria's union with
Egypt under the United Arab Republic (UAR) in
February 1958, with Egyptian Gamal Abdel Nasser
as president. Nasser's condition to accept union
with Syria was dissolving all Syrian political
parties. This was one of many reasons that led
to the collapse in of the UAR on September 28,
1961, with a bloodless military coup in DamascusIn
8 March 1963, the Baath Arab Socialist Party came
to power in a coup known in Syria as the March
Revolution. The Baathists dissolved the Parliament
and introduced a one-party regime that was destablized
by conflicts within the Baath itself. In February
1966, the right wing of Baath assumed leadership
of the party, establishing radical Salah Jadid
as the strongman of the country.
November 16, 1970; Hafez
al-Assad, then the defense minister, led the Correction
Movement that finally brought Syria long-lasting
stability after years of political disturbance.
Assad, elected president in 1971, started to get
the nation ready to fight for its occupied land.
He mobilized the major political powers in Syria
under the National Progressive Front, and got
the People's Council (Parliament) back to work.
The Syrians did not wait
too long. On October, 6th 1973, Syria and Egypt
launched a surprising attack against the Israeli
forces in the occupied Sinai and Golan Heights.
Within few days, Syrian troops had almost liberated
all the land occupied in 1967, but Israeli forces
managed to recover after a massive US airlift.
Syria soon found itself fighting US and Israel
together; and with the fighting on the Egyptian
front ceased, the Syrians were forced to accepted
the UN call for a cease-fire. The UN Security
Council issued another resolution, 338, calling
for Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories and
for peace talks to achieve a just peace in the
Middle East.
The Arab position was more
weakened when the Palestinians and the Jordanians
signed separate peace agreements with Israel in
1993 and 1994. Syria and Lebanon, however, vowed
to sign peace together or sign not. Syria continued
to support the Lebanese resistance fighters led
by Hizbollah against the Israeli occupation forces
in South Lebanon. In May 2000, Hizbollah succeeded
in driving Israel out of Southern Lebanon after
22 years of occupation.
Syrian-Israeli peace talks
reached a dead end in 1996 with Israel refusing
to discuss the complete withdrawal from the Golan
Heights. But in late 1999, Israel signaled its
will to accept such move, and the talks were resumed
in the US, this time at a high level between Foreign
Minister Farouq al-Sahara'a and Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak. The talks were again stalled
in early 2000 when Barak tried to exclude the
northeastern shore of the Lake Tiberias from the
proposed Israeli withdrawal plan. Syria made it
clear that no single inch of the Syrian soil will
be given away.
On June 10th 2000, President
Assad died of a heart attack. His son, Bashar
al-Assad was elected President on July 10th.
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