Syrian Leader Is Pressured To Fight Israel

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Pressure is mounting on Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian president, to follow Hezbollah’s example and consider force to eject Israel from Syrian land that it has occupied for nearly 40 years.The public appetite for action is just one of the uncomfortable consequences that regional rulers are facing, as Arabs compare their leaders’ performances over Israel with the Lebanese “resistance.”Mr. Assad, who supports Hezbollah, was quick to praise the militia’s “victory” in a post-conflict speech and to bathe in its reflected glory.Their deeds, he said, had “shattered the myth of an invincible army.” But his rhetoric has turned public attention once again to the problem of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967 and annexed in 1981.“There is anger and daily demands by ordinary people to open this front,” a leading Muslim moderate and member of the Syrian parliament, Mohammed Habash said, talking on the al-Arabiya television channel.He proposed peace negotiations with a strict deadline of a year. If these failed, he said, the Syrians should “try to do what the Lebanese did in their own country.”An official government newspaper, Al Thawra, warned Israel this week that Syrians “will not allow our land to be occupied forever … You must understand that our people will fight the way the Lebanese resistance fought you.”But the idea of Mr. Assad going to war with his massively more powerful neighbor has met with laughter in the Arab world. His father, Hafez Al-Assad, liked to be known as the “Lion of Damascus.” His son’s reputation is not as fierce, particularly in pro-western Arab countries, whose leaders he attacked in his speech as “half-men in favor of half-solutions.”Jordan’s Al Ghad newspaper remarked that “the Syrian president spoke as if he had just returned from the front line.” The Saudi-owned Al Sharq Al Shawat said that, since the loss of the Golan Heights, Syria “has not fired a single shot” at Israel.Mr. Assad’s scramble to share Hezbollah’s prestige reflects the standing that the organization has won in 33 days of fighting. Arab nations had an unbroken record of defeat and humiliation at the hands of Israel, and what was no more than a successful defensive action has acquired the luster of a great success.Posters have appeared in Beirut showing the Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and trucks mounted with Katyusha rockets alongside the words “the divine victory,” written in English.The leader of the biggest anti-Syria block in the Lebanese parliament, Saad Hariri, accused Damascus of exploiting the bloodshed and insisted that “the resistance is a product of Lebanon.”Meanwhile, Hezbollah has won praise from unlikely quarters. The liberal English language Daily Star newspaper carried a front-page editorial yesterday entitled: “Love it or hate it, Hezbollah has lessons for all Arabs.”

Syrian Leader Is Pressured To Fight Israel

Syrian Leader Is Pressured To Fight Israel

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