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SEVENTH HEAVEN
, Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10-6m Thurs. 10-9, Sun. 12-5
32
FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1991
Hunters Square
11 -!1 Orchard Lake at 14 Mile
8553777
1119
fiS
highly developed offensive
missile systems.
President Assad's forces
will play a key role in the
postwar security structure
being constructed in the
Gulf and this strong but poor
state is expected to win
substantial additional
rewards from the weak but
rich Gulf states.
Even given President
Assad's profound antipathy
toward the Jewish state, and
persistent reports that he is
planning a military strike to
seize a foothold on the Golan
Heights, it is considered
unlikely that the current
arms buildup is being under-
taken with the intention of
an imminent attack on
Israel.
Rather, military analysts
expect that President Assad
will use his enhanced
military power to con-
solidate his hold on Lebanon
and prepare to "intervene"
in another vulnerable
neighboring state, Jordan.
If such a scenario does ma-
terialize and Syria repeats
its Lebanon strategy in Jor-
dan, President Assad would
then be in a position to con-
front Israel on three land
fronts.
President Assad and Iraq's
President Saddam Hussein
are leaders of rival wings of
the Ba'ath Party and Israeli
sources perceive the two as
being virtually inter-
changeable.
Hafez Assad is regarded as
a polished Saddam Hussein
whose ambitions and aspira-
tions, masked by a
calculating pragmatism, are
no less ruthless or
dangerous.
He is said to still nurture
dreams of restoring Greater
Syria, which includes Leb-
anon, Jordan, Israel, the
West Bank and Gaza and,
ultimately, Iraq, Kuwait
and Cyprus.
President Assad, a mem-
ber of the minority Alawite
sect who has ruled Syria for
20 years, has demonstrated
patience since Syrian forces
first entered Lebanon in
1976 as the sole member of
an Arab Deterrent Force
created by the Arab League
to separate rival militias
fighting for control of the
fractured country.
Last October, after Syria
agreed to participate in the
anti-Iraq military coalition
being assembled in the Gulf,
the West turned a blind eye
as President Assad moved
his tanks into Beirut to
topple the anti-Syrian
Lebanese Christian leader,
President Michel Aoun.
An estimated 1,000 Chris-
tian civilians were reported
to have been massacred as
Syrian troops installed Elias
Hrawi, most of whose sup-
porters are Muslim, in the
presidential palace.
At home, President Assad
has also shown a measure of
ruthlessness that is unusual
even in the Middle East. In
1982, while international at-
tention was again focused
elsewhere — this time on
Israel's invasion of Lebanon
— his troops sealed off the
town of Hama, a stronghold
of the dissident Muslim
Brotherhood, and killed up
to 30,000, many with
cyanide gas.
Syrian antagonism toward
Israel is so deeply entrench-
ed that Israeli analysts
believe it would be not only
politically unlikely but also
psychologically inconceivable
for President Assad to sign a
peace treaty with the Jewish
state.
During his recent diplo-
matic shuttles through the
region, Mr. Baker discovered
that President Assad was
even more intransigent than
Mr. Shamir on the question
of procedural issues.
The Syrian leader's terms
for embarking on negotia-
tions with Israel are not only
a full-scale international
peace conference under the
auspices of the United
Nations Security Council,
but also an unconditional
Israeli withdrawal from all
the territories occupied in
the 1967 Six Day War.
❑
mmml1.1 NEWS l'immmm
Duty In Jordan
Can Be Boaring
Tel Aviv (JTA) — What is
believed to have been a wild
boar threw the Israel
Defense Force into turmoil
in the Upper Jordan Valley
last week.
For several hours, the re-
gion where the Israeli, Jor-
danian and Syrian borders
converge was placed on high
alert for suspected in-
filtrators, after reports that
an IDF unit had come under
automatic weapons fire
following a loud explosion at
a point south of the Kin-
neret.
The soldiers reported that
they returned the fire.
The searches yielded no
trace of intruders and were
called off in the morning.
According to the Central
Command, the explosion
was caused by an animal,
probably a wild boar, an
animal common to the area,
which detonated a land
mine, drawing automatic
fire from nervous soldiers.