The former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam (may he rest in peace) spoke to us in Paris about the secrets of Hafez al-Assad’s refusal to sign a peace agreement with Israel in exchange for Israel’s relinquishment of 98 percent of the Golan Heights. He said:
He asked Assad about the reason for his rejection of this lucrative deal, and Assad told him that a number of his senior officers had asked him the same question. Assad responded decisively to them, saying, “As an Alawite, I cannot bear and cannot let the Alawites in Syria bear the burden of a Syrian-Israeli agreement. Tomorrow, Syrians will say that the Alawites are traitors and that they have made a deal with Israel.”
In a private meeting, the late Egyptian President spoke about his mediation between Hafez al-Assad and Yitzhak Rabin after the latter complained to Mubarak that Assad got everything he wanted and would eventually regain the entire Golan Heights. However, Assad refused to open an Israeli embassy in Damascus. Rabin said, “What? Does he want me to visit Damascus to buy Qamar al-Din from the Hamidiyya Souq? Please tell him that Rabin doesn’t like Qamar al-Din.”
This incident was relayed to Abu Jamal, who laughed at first and then said seriously:
Abu Ali (the nickname he used to call me despite my preference for Abu Ahmad), President Hafez read Anwar Sadat’s experience after signing the Camp David agreement with Israel. He saw how Sadat allowed economic openness and then political openness. He witnessed the establishment of party platforms and the creation of parties, sidelining the Arab Socialist Union. Sadat permitted the establishment of newspapers that had some freedom and became a space for diverse, expressed, and legitimate opinions in Egypt. All of this is not allowed by Hafez and is especially intolerable to him, especially as I grew older, and he could no longer tolerate any criticism or differing opinion.
Khaddam continues: Hafez became captive to reports from his security apparatus, especially those written against each other. This was his favorite pastime; he would read them, laugh, and sometimes read them aloud to me or call me to read while chuckling. He would say, “Listen to what this scoundrel is saying,” referring to one of the security leaders against a colleague who might be the head of another security agency.
President Hafez would delight and laugh when the security reports carried personal, family, or women’s news about anyone. However, if the reports contained news about the opinion of a critic or opponent, criticizing a decision he made, or a statement he issued, or if it was a critique of a member of his family or the Assad family, he would show his other side, frowning and immediately call the relevant security agency to take appropriate action against the critic.
Khaddam, in response to my question, reveals that Hafez used to give a single chance to any opposition figure who criticized him or the regime. An intelligence officer would inform the critic that he should refrain from repeating his criticism. If the person understood the message and stopped, the matter would end there. However, if he resumed his criticism, it would lead to a long prison term, as was the case with the historical opposition figure Riad al-Turk, who was imprisoned for 18 years for repeating his criticism of Hafez after being warned.
Khaddam concludes: President Hafez would not accept any form of openness in Syria similar to what happened in Egypt after the peace agreement with Israel. This is the reason why no agreement was reached with Israel in Syria.