The Jewish community in Syria has virtually ceased to exist since restrictions on travel were lifted in 1995, and insecurity undoubtedly reigns among the last remaining Jews.
Despite minor shifts in its foreign policy, Syria's attitude towards Israel remains deeply hostile, and the tightly controlled media continue to feature antisemitic representations of Israelis, and to claim that Israel, through Jewish communities worldwide, exercises extensive and perverse influence over the western media, particularly in the USA.
Demographic data
Total population: 16.1 million
Jewish population: 200 (mainly in Damascus)
Other minorities: Kurds (9 per cent of the population), Armenians
Refugees: 350,000 registered Palestinian refugees; 37,000 refugees of Iraqi, Libyan, Somali and Sudanese origin
Political data
President Asad's autocratic regime, which has dominated Syrian politics for over two decades, continues to rule with the support of the military and the secret services, controlled mainly by the president's religious sect, the Alawites. Limited political openness enables the regime to contain demands for political reforms and democracy.
Economic data
GDP 1997: c. US$1200
Inflation 1997: 10 per cent
Unemployment 1997: c. 9 per cent
Following the Ottoman conquest in 1516 the Jewish community, which dates back to the third century BCE, prospered in cultural, political and economic terms. In 1840, however, the Jews were accused of murdering a Capuchin friar and using his blood for the manufacture of Passover bread; this so-called 'Damascus affair' may represent the first use of doctrinaire Christian European antisemitism in the Muslim Arab world.
A series of reforms at the end of the nineteenth century, known as the Tanzimat, granted legal equality to Jews; nonetheless, many started to emigrate for economic reasons.
In 1947 there were about 30,000 Jews in Syria. Hostility towards Israel led to officially orchestrated riots in Aleppo and Damascus, which destroyed hundreds of Jewish homes and several synagogues. Many Jews were killed and 15,000 fled; a further 10,000 left during periods when emigration restrictions were temporarily lifted.
During the 1960s the Ba'ath regime subjected Syrian Jews to strict supervision. They were denied most civil rights, economically harassed and often threatened with violence. Their situation gradually improved after Asad assumed power in 1970. Nevertheless, Jews were still prevented from emigrating and their mobility within the country was restricted. Among those attempting to leave Syria illegally were several Jewish women, some of whom were detained and killed.
In 1992 the Ba'ath regime announced that Jews could leave Syria provided their destination was not Israel and that the purpose of their trip was study, tourism or business. Towards the end of 1992, however, emigration again was halted, apparently owing to the Syrian government's dissatisfaction with the slow pace of the development of Syrian-US relations. In December 1993, when US Secretary of State Warren Christopher visited Damascus, Syria issued 200 exit visas to Jews and agreed to allow further emigration. By the end of 1995 virtually all Jews who wished to leave had done so.
Discrimination persists against the Kurdish minority, which constitutes 9 per cent of the population. The use and teaching of the Kurdish language is restricted and about 120,000 Kurds, stripped of their Syrian citizenship before the 1960s, are prevented from voting, owning land, enrolling children in school or seeking employment in government jobs.
Some of the estimated 350,000 Palestinian refugees registered in Syria reportedly encounter difficulties obtaining travel documents and re-entering Syria after leaving the country.
Islamist groupings
In recent years the Syrian regime has improved its relations with the Islamist movement that was, in the 1970s and 1980s, regarded as the main threat to its stability.
A series of antisemitic texts published in Damascus from the late 1980s onwards accuse Jews of using blood for ceremonial purposes and of promoting hatred towards other religions. Among the most prominent antisemitic publications are 'The Matza of Zion' by the Syrian minister of defence, Mustafa Tlass, published by his Dar al-Tlass publishing company, which attempts to prove the 1840 blood libel against the Jews of Damascus.
On 6 February 1997 the daily newspaper, al Ba'ath, repeated allegations published the same day in the Egyptian newspaper al-Wafd concerning links between American Jews and satanic sects in Cairo intending to implement the 'protocols of the elders of Zion' (see Egypt).
On 22 February 1997 the establishment daily Tishrin declared that Jews do not respect other religions and claimed that it was customary for Jews to spit when passing a cross or a church.
The Arabic translation of Les Mythes fondateurs de la politique israelienne (Founding Myths of Israeli Politics) by Roger Garaudy, the French Holocaust-denier who converted to Islam, is widely available in Syria (see France). Garaudy received a warm welcome when he visited Damascus in July 1997 at the invitation of the Syrian ministry of information and delivered a number of public lectures. The Syrian bar association announced its intention to send seven lawyers to France to support the defence in Garaudy's trial. The association published a statement in January 1997 declaring its full support for Garaudy 'in his struggle with the Zionist organizations which are trying, by a political trial, to silence the voices which aim to discover the truth behind the Zionist racial thinking'.
Since the end of the Cold War Syria has attempted to improve relations with the West, particularly with the USA. Syria supported the anti-Iraq coalition during the Gulf War, and in October 1991 joined the Middle East peace process by engaging in peace negotiations with Israel. During the last seven years, some progress has been made in Israeli-Syrian relations but no breakthrough has been achieved. Following the election of the Netanyahu government in Israel in 1996, relations between Israel and Syria deteriorated and both sides faced the threat of an escalation of hostilities along their common border. Syria remains on the US State Department's list of countries sponsoring terrorism (but was removed in October 1997 from its list of countries involved in cultivation or traffic of drugs).
Ten Palestinian factions that reject any form of normalization with Israel maintain offices in Damascus and training bases in Syria and Lebanon. These include: Islamic Jihad; Hamas; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by George Habash; and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by Nayef Hawatmeh. Syria also maintains close relations with the Hizbullah Islamist movement in Lebanon, encouraging its military activity against the Israeli-controlled so-called 'secuity zone' in South Lebanon.
The Syrian media, which is largely government-controlled, frequently condemns Israeli settlement policy in Jerusalem and the West Bank by drawing comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany. In November 1997, for example, the English-language daily Syria Times claimed that the Israeli government had authorized Israeli pharmaceutical companies to conduct tests of harmful medicines on Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. The article asserted: 'The Israeli jails have become a field for carrying out deadly scientific experiments on Arab prisoners, to serve the racist goals of Israeli racist supremacy and to realize their dream of the "Chosen People".'
As in other Middle Eastern states, derogatory statements about Jews appeared in 1997 in response to the publication by an Israeli settler of a leaflet that depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a pig. In August, for example, the establishment daily al-Thawra stated: 'Psychological barriers on the other side [i.e. among Israelis] are more deeply rooted because of their very high opinion of themselves. This is a historical hostility based on Jewish hatred of the Arab. If this hatred was characterized in the past by tricks and schemes, it is manifest today in insolent and cruel murder with no remorse or word of sorrow.'
Caricatures in publications such as the daily al-Thawra continue to depict those directing US foreign policy in the Middle East and the UN as stereotypical antisemitic figures.
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Institute for Jewish Policy Research © JPR 1999
