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What Stands Behind The Arab World’s Rapprochement With Assad?

The more liberal countries are now accepting reality, even if they don’t like it

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Bashir Assad's path to becoming president of Syria was ensured by loyalists in the security forces, the military, the ruling Arab Socialist Baath Party and his minority Alawite sect. (Photo: rferl.org)

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According to a recent report in Al Jazeera, many people in the Arab world believe that the Assad regime is not going anywhere, even though the Syrian regime is responsible for a democide that slaughtered thousands and displaced millions.  

From their perspective, Assad weathered the storm utilizing barrel bombing, chemical weapons and waging other crimes against humanity, thus maintaining his iron grip on power at a time when Mubarak, Qaddafi and numerous other Arab regimes fell.

However, these countries are now accepting reality even if they don’t like it. For that reason, they are beginning to normalize relations with the Assad regime. 

Following these developments, Mendi Safadi, who heads the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights, stated: “The West’s abandonment of the Syrian Opposition caused the Arab countries to renew relations with the Assad regime.” In his view, the main losers in this are the Syrian pro-democracy activists.

Safadi believes that Turkey and Qatar backing the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated opposition groups forever charred the reputation of the Syrian Opposition. He claimed that Turkey utilized their control over Northern Syria to weaken the liberal opposition groups and to strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated ones: “Turkey restricted their movements and Qatar restricted their access to the media.   Muslim Brotherhood representatives in contrast were allowed to attend political meetings with international representatives and to air their views on Al Jazeera broadcasts. They were also sent to Turkish organized conferences all over the world and received assistance from the Turkish Foreign Ministry.”

According to Safadi, this lay the groundwork for Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda and ISIS overtaking the Syrian Opposition to the Assad regime. “This is the stage where Western countries withdrew their support from the Syrian Opposition, even though they have not had a rapprochement with the Assad regime,” he explained.

“Assad butchered hundreds of thousands of people, yet they are not in a hurry to remove him because there is no leader who has a consensus among the Syrian people. Essentially, there is no one who can unite the country stably after this chaos.”

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Safadi claims that the Arab countries now seeking a rapprochement with Assad are mainly liberal Arab countries, some of which have diplomatic relations with Israel. Those governments very much want to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from taking over at all costs.

“What happened in Afghanistan has intensified this concern.  For them, Assad staying in power despite the crimes he committed is preferable to the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Syria and spreading it to other countries.”

Interestingly, Safadi claims that Israel also does not seek the replacement of the Assad regime, just like these Arab countries due to their fears that the demise of Assad could lead to the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra Front, ISIS and similar groups taking over the country: “This is first and foremost what stands behind Abu Dhabi’s rapprochement with Jordan in recent weeks,” after Jordan recently opened up their border with Syria following its closure for many years.  

In conclusion, Safadi summed up Israel’s position: “As long as the Syrian people fail to bring out a liberal leader that will unite the people around him and bring about peace and stability in Syria, then it is better for Assad to remain in power over the Muslim Brotherhood taking over.  If there is no Syrian liberal leader that can successfully lead to this, then it is better for Assad to remain in power.”   

Rachel Avraham is a political analyst working at the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights.  She is the author of “Women and Jihad: Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings at the American, Israeli and Arab Media.”  

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Our positioning as a Zionist News Media platform sets us apart from the rest. While other Canadian Jewish media are advocating increasingly biased progressive political and social agendas, TheJ.Ca is providing more and more readers with a welcome alternative and an ideological home.

We revealed the incursion of anti-Israel progressive elements such as IfNotNow into our communities. We have exposed the distorted hateful agenda of the “progressive” left political radicals who brought Linda Sarsour to our cities, and we were first to report on many disturbing incidents of Nazi-based hate towards Jews across Canada.

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