Security Forces Kill Dozens in Uprisings Around Syria – NYTimes.com.

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A picture taken by a mobile phone shows anti-government protesters in Banias in northeastern Syria on Friday.

By ANTHONY SHADID

Published: April 22, 2011

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Security forces in Syria met thousands of demonstrators with fusillades of live ammunition after noon prayers on Friday, killing at least 81 people in the bloodiest day of the five-week-old Syrian uprising, according to protesters, witnesses and accounts on social networking sites.

From the Mediterranean coast and Kurdish east to the steppe of the Houran in southern Syria, protesters gathered in at least 20 cities and towns, including in the outskirts of the capital, Damascus. Cries for vengeance intersected with calls for the government’s fall, marking a potentially dangerous new dynamic in the revolt.

“We want revenge, and we want blood,” said Abu Mohamed, a protester in Azra, a southern town that had the highest death toll Friday. “Blood for blood.”

The breadth of the protests — and people’s willingness to defy security forces who were deployed en masse — painted a picture of turmoil in one of the Arab world’s most authoritarian countries. In scenes unprecedented only weeks ago, protesters tore down pictures of President Bashar al-Assad and toppled statues of his father, Hafez, in two towns on the capital’s outskirts, according to witnesses and video footage.

But despite the bloodshed, which promised to unleash another day of unrest as the dead are buried Saturday, the scale of the protests, so far, seemed to fall short of the popular upheaval of revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Organizers said the movement was still in its infancy, and the government, building on 40 years of institutional inertia, still commanded the loyalty of the military, economic elite and sizable minorities of Christian and heterodox Muslim sects who fear the state’s collapse.

Coming a day after Mr. Assad endorsed the lifting of draconian emergency rule, the killings represented another chapter in the government’s strategy of alternating promises of concessions with a grim crackdown that has left it staggering but still entrenched.

“There are indications the regime is scared, and this is adding to the momentum, but this is still the beginning,” said Wissam Tarif, the executive director of Insan, a Syrian human rights group. “Definitely, we haven’t seen the millions we saw in Egypt or Tunisia. The numbers are still humble, and it’s a reality we have to acknowledge.”

The images of carnage marked one of the deadliest days of the so-called Arab Spring, and the coming days may be replete with its lessons. In other places in the Middle East, violence has led to funerals where many more are often killed. The government’s belated attempts at reform, meanwhile, have often simply escalated protesters’ demands.

In that, the government faces perhaps its greatest challenge: to maintain its bastions of support with promises for the future and threats that its collapse means chaos, against the momentum that the vivid symbols of martyrdom have so often encouraged.

“We are not scared anymore,” said Abu Nadim, a protester in Douma, a town on the outskirts of Damascus. “We are sad and we are disappointed at this regime and at the president. Protests, demonstrations and death are now part of the daily routine.”

In a sharply worded statement, President Obama said the “outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now.” The statement also said President Assad was seeking Iranian help in repressing his people, but did not provide details.

In the capital, a city that underlines the very authority of the Assad family’s decades of rule, hundreds gathered after Friday Prayer at the al-Hassan Mosque. Some of them chanted, “The people want the fall of the government,” a slogan made famous in both Egypt and Tunisia. But security forces quickly dispersed the protests with tear gas, witnesses said. Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, appeared to remain relatively quiet.

The government’s determination to keep larger cities somewhat subdued may have led to some of the highest death tolls. Protesters in some towns on Damascus’s outskirts said security forces fired at them to prevent them from marching toward the capital. And in Azra, protesters said, government forces were intent on keeping them from Dara’a, a poor town 20 miles away that helped unleash the revolt in March.

A protester in Azra who gave his name as Abu Ahmad said he brought three of those killed to the mosque — one shot in the head, one in the chest and one in the back — the oldest of whom was 20 years old. Video that was posted on social networking sites showed a man carrying the bloodied corpse of a young boy, apparently shot by the police.

Taken together, most of the victims died in protests in the towns around Damascus, where demonstrators have sought to occupy a city landmark in a replay of Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Both sides seemed to understand the significance of the capital: Mass protests there would serve as a devastating blow to the government’s prestige.

Mr. Nadim, the protester in Douma, said plainclothes security forces carrying machine guns were omnipresent in the town. He said snipers were also stationed on top of two hospital buildings. Protesters left the mosque after noon prayers, their numbers growing to 5,000, he said. They met a force of 3,000 security men, he said.

“The minute they saw us they started shooting at us,” he said.

Protesters retreated, then surged again. “Peaceful! Peaceful!” he said they shouted as the gunfire continued.

Organizers said at least some dissent was reported in every province, and the protesters’ calls were far more sweeping than in the uprising’s earliest days, when demonstrators were seeking democratic changes rather than regime change.

In Baniyas, a coastal city, a banner denounced Mr. Assad and his ruling Baath Party: “No Baath, No Assad, we want to free the country.” Another banner, referring to Mr. Assad’s medical training abroad, read, “A doctor in London, a butcher in Syria.”

Razan Zeitouneh, an activist with the Syrian Human Rights Information Link in Damascus, basing her account on witnesses, said 88 people had been killed — 20 in Azra; 1 in Dara’a; 22 near Homs; 39 in the suburbs of Damascus; 1 in Latakia; 3 in Hama and 2 elsewhere. Mr. Tarif’s group, Insan, said 81 people were killed.

In Homs, where major protests erupted this week, activists said security forces and plainclothes police officers flooded the city, setting up checkpoints and preventing all but a few dozen people from gathering. By afternoon, one resident said the streets were deserted, the silence punctuated every 15 minutes or so by gunfire.

“We closed the windows and the curtains and hid at home,” one woman said via Skype. “The gunfire was so loud and close.” She added, “God save us.”

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Katherine Zoepf from New York, and employees of The New York Times from Beirut and Damascus, Syria.

At least 88 protesters killed in deadliest day of Syria unrest – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Syrian security forces fire live bullets and tear gas at the tens of thousands of people across the country chanting ‘the people want the downfall of the regime.’

By Avi Issacharoff and News Agencies

At least 88 protesters were killed in demonstrations across Syria on Friday, the highest death toll in a single day since protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad erupted last month.

An official in the Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah founded by jailed human rights lawyer Mohannad al-Hassani, told Reuters the killings of civilians occurred in the Damascus district of Barzeh, its suburbs Zamalka, Harasta, Douma, Muadamiya, Qaboun and Hajar al-Asswad, as well as in the cities of Hama, Latakia
and Homs, and in the southern town of Izra’a.

	Protestors gather during a demonstration in the Syrian port city of Banias April 22, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

Syrian security forces fired live bullets and tear gas at the tens of thousands of people shouting for freedom and democracy.

Most of the protesters were killed in suburbs and towns surrounding Damascus, with several in the central city of Homs and in the southern town of Izra’a, Reuters reported.

A large number of the dead were in the city of Azraa, near Daraa, while at lease seven were killed in the capital of Damascus, an activist requesting anonymity told the German Press Agency DPA.

“Snipers were positioned on buildings and shot at the demonstrators killing 18 people in Azraa, among them a toddler,” the activist said, quoting hospital sources in Daraa.

“This regime is committing a massacre against its own people,” he said, adding that most of the dead received direct bullets in the head.

“The people want the downfall of the regime!” shouted protesters in Douma, a Damascus suburb where some 40,000 people took to the streets, witnesses said.

It is the same rallying cry that was heard during the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

The White House deplored Assad following the deadly protests and called on the Syrian government to “cease and desist in the use of violence against protesters” and to follow through on promised reforms.

	A Syrian protestor shouts slogans as he burns a poster of Syrian President Bashar Assad during a demonstration in front of the Syrian embassy, in Nicosia, Cyprus Friday, April 22, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

The uprising in Syria has posed the biggest challenge to the 40-year ruling dynasty of Assad and his father before him. Assad has been trying to defuse the protests by launching a bloody crackdown along with a series of concessions, most recently lifting emergency laws that gave authorities almost boundless powers of surveillance and arrest.

He also has fulfilled a decades-old demand by granting citizenship to thousands among Syria’s long-ostracized Kurdish minority, fired local officials, released detainees and formed a new government.

But many protesters said the concessions have come too late – and that Assad does not deserve the credit.

“The state of emergency was brought down, not lifted,” prominent Syrian activist Suhair Atassi, who was arrested several times in the past, wrote on her Twitter page. “It is a victory as a result of demonstrations, protests and the blood of martyrs who called for Syria’s freedom.”

At least 200 people have been killed in the government crackdown since the protests erupted, human rights groups say.

Earlier Friday, witnesses said security forces in uniform and plainclothes set up checkpoints around Douma, checking peoples identity cards and preventing nonresidents from going in.

Syria stands in the middle of the most volatile conflicts in region because of its alliances with militant groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and with Shiite powerhouse Iran. That has given Damascus a pivotal role in most of the flashpoint issues of the region, from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran’s widening influence.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile  Exclusive Report  April 23, 2011, 12:39 AM (GMT+02:00)

Massacre in Syria

After the bloodiest day in the month-long uuprising against his regime on Friday, April 22 – with at least 75 dead and hundreds wounded by live gunshots, as well as scores of people missing – Saturday threatens even greater violence. debkafile‘s reports exclusively that Bashar Assad plans to send his entire army out to stamp hard on the fury accompanying the funerals.

The eleven Syrian army divisions are Assad’s last card in his fight for survival. Until now, he kept most of them back, sending out to the streets only his trusted security services and 4th Division – both commanded by his younger brother Gen. Maher Assad.

But when Friday’s bloodbath failed to keep the rising tide of protest from igniting 16 towns from north to south – Hama, Homs, Deir al-Zur, Banias, Daraa and the three Kurdish towns – and encroaching on Damascus, the capital, and second largest Syrian city, Aleppo, the Syrian president decided to go all the way. He ordered his army chiefs to assume control of security in Syria’s main towns and districts and divide the country up into thee military regions.

The die was cast by the time the White House issued a statement urging the Syrian government “to cease and desist” its violence against demonstrators and follow through on promised reforms. Assad’s orders to the army had already gone out by the time the White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking to reporters as President Barack Obama flew back to Washington from California, said, “We deplore the use of violence” against the demonstrators.
In any case, US President Barack Obama’s tardy statement still refrained from addressing Bashar Assad’s responsibility for the violence, least of all calling on him to step down to meet the people’s demands.

In Daraa, epicenter of the movement in the south, the crowds hoped to reach Washington’s ears with slogans shouted in English: “Assad: The game is over! ” and “Go and open an eye clinic!”

Friday night, our sources report, Syrian army units were already sighted heading towards the cities, joined for the first time by troops normally on duty on at the Syrian-Israel border.
debkafile‘s military sources disclose their assignments:

Corps No. 1 was given responsibility for the capital Damascus and its outlying towns and districts;

Corps No. 2 took charge of central Syria and the towns of Aleppo, Homs and Hama;

Corps No. 3 spread out in the south and on Jebel Druze.

It was the last straw for Assad when Friday, the strategic town of Katana west of Damascus was drawn into the protest movement and rallied against his regime. Katana houses the main bases of the Syrian armored corps, which is part of the 7th Division, and serves as divisional logistical administration center. Its population is made up mostly of the officers, men and civilian personnel serving at those bases.  Having Katana turn against the regime finally persuaded its leaders to throw every resource it had into crushing the uprising.

For the Syrian ruler, deploying the entire army is a wild gamble because more than 75 percent of Syria’s 220,000-strong rank and file are Sunni Muslims, Kurds and Druzes and therefore drawn from ethnic and religious groups long repressed by the Alawite-dominated regime.  Saturday could see uniformed troops flouting orders to shoot live rounds into crowds of protesters who are members of their community or even family. It would start the break-up of the Syrian army amid large-scale defections of officers and men.

Obama says Syria seeking Iran’s help to quell protests.

(Has Obama woken from his long sleep?  If Assad falls with US support, it’s very possible the Green movement in Iran will try again.  This represents a potential solution to all the Islamic terrorism around the world.  Crossing my fingers…  JW)

  WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama told Syria on Friday that its bloody crackdown on protesters “must come to an end now” and accused Damascus of seeking Iranian help to repress its people.

Obama issued a toughly worded statement on a day when Syrian security forces shot to death almost 90 protesters in the bloodiest day in a month of escalating demonstrations against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Obama condemned the violence but did not refer to any potential US consequences should Assad refuse to heed his demands.

US forces are already assisting a NATO military campaign against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and Americans are cautious about further military involvement in a region where US troops have fought long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now,” Obama said.

Obama dismissed as “not serious” Assad’s lifting of a decades-old emergency law in Syria this week and accused him of seeking help from Iran.

“Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria’s citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies,” he said.

The United States has responded in different ways to the uprisings sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. In Egypt, Obama maintained a policy of peaceful pressure on Hosni Mubarak to transfer power, while in Libya he joined a NATO air campaign to protect Libyan civilians.

In the case of Syria, Obama has sought to maintain pressure on Syria’s government to respond positively to the uprising, to little avail at this juncture.

“We strongly oppose the Syrian government’s treatment of its citizens and we continue to oppose its continued destabilizing behavior more generally, including support for terrorism and terrorist groups,” Obama said.

He said the United States will continue to stand up for democracy and the universal rights that “all human beings deserve, in Syria and around the world.”

At least 49 killed in deadliest day of Syrian protests.

  Security forces shot dead at least 49 pro-democracy protesters in Syria on Friday, including one boy, a prominent activist said, making it the deadliest day since anti-government protests began last month.

They were killed in suburbs and towns surrounding Damascus, in the central city of Homs and in the southern town of Izra’a, two established Syrian human rights organizations keeping a tally of civilian deaths told Reuters.

“At least 49 people were killed. There are a lot of wounded and many people are missing. We believe there are at least 20 people missing, some believe they are dead,” activist Ammar Qurabi said. He said most of the dead had been shot, and a few died after inhaling teargas. The Associated Press reported a boy among those killed.

Witnesses reported dozens injured in the deadly clashes.

Protesters in Damascus neighborhoods, Homs, and Douma and other Syrian towns continued their call for democracy and the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A witness told Dubai based Arabic news channel Al-Arabiya that at least five had fallen wounded in Douma, 3 in Homs, and at least two others in Deraa, a city that has seen sustained clashes between anti-government protesters and police for weeks.

The witness added that security forces had opened fire on protesters in the Al-Hajar Al-Aswad neighborhood in Damascus, Al-Arabiya reported.

Forces also fired at protesters in the city of Hama to prevent them from reaching a ruling Baath Party headquarters.

“We saw two snipers on the building. None of us had weapons. There are casualties, possibly two dead,” a witness said, a human rights campaigner who was at the protest.

Activists also reported demonstrations in the eastern towns of Deir al-Zor and Qamishli, despite Assad’s decision on Thursday to lift emergency law, a central demand of the month-long protests.

A witness told Reuters by phone that security forces fired tear gas from a flyover overlooking Midan, a district just outside the walls of Old Damascus.

“There were over 2,000 protesters and now hundreds have re-grouped,” the witness said. Chants of “the people want the overthrow of the regime”, the rallying cry of Arab uprisings from Tunisia to Yemen, were audible in the background.

More than 220 protesters have been killed since protests erupted on March 18 in Deraa, rights campaigners say, including 21 protesters killed this week in the central city of Homs.

Ahead of the main weekly prayers on Friday, which have often proved the launching pads for major demonstrations, the army deployed in Homs and police put up checkpoints across Damascus, apparently trying to prevent protests sweeping in from suburbs.

After prayers finished in Deraa, several thousand protesters gathered chanting anti-Assad slogans. “The Syrian people will not be subjugated. Go away doctor (Assad), we will trample on you and your slaughterous regime”, they shouted.

A decree Assad signed on Thursday that lifted emergency law, imposed by his Baath Party when it took power in a coup 48 years ago, was seen by the opposition as largely symbolic, since other laws still give security forces wide powers.

In the first joint statement since protests erupted five weeks ago, activists coordinating the mass protests demanded on Friday the abolition of Baath Party monopoly on power and the establishment of a democratic political system.

“All prisoners of conscience must be freed. The existing security apparatus has to be dismantled and replaced by one with with specific jurisdiction and which operates according to law,” they said in the statement, which was sent to Reuters.

Human Right Watch said Assad “has the opportunity to prove his intentions by allowing (Friday’s) protests to proceed without violent repression.

“The reforms will only be meaningful if Syria’s security services stop shooting, detaining, and torturing protesters,” said Joe Stork, the group’s deputy Middle East director.

Assad’s conciliatory move to lift the state of emergency followed a familiar pattern since the unrest began a month ago: pledges of reform are made before Friday when demonstrations are the strongest, and are usually followed by an intense crackdow

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report April 21, 2011, 11:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Rare photo of Hassan Nasrallah and the late Imad Mughniyeh

For the first time in Israel’s 63-year old battle against terror, its external security agency Mossad Thursday night, April 21, issued a strong warning to travelling Israelis to beware of a major terrorist attack which Hizballah had already set in motion at some undisclosed location. The only information attached to the warning was that Hizballah had consigned a high-profile team for an operation to avenge the slaying of its top commander Imad Mughniyeh three years ago for which it blames Israel.

The warning was not issued as an official notice but leaked through mainstream media and marked red alert. As one source put it, “The wedding has begun.” debkafile‘s counter-terror sources interpreted this extraordinary communication to the public as meaning that Hizballah’s plot is too advanced for Israel’s counter-terror agencies to preempt at source and a hectic race is afoot for them to beat Hizballah to its target or at least limit the damage.
No Israeli intelligence would disclose the location or country where the attack was to take place, only that the timeline was “immediate.” Many thousands of Israelis are spending the long Passover festival vacation outside the country.
The only information released was as unusual as the rest of the notice: it was the identities of the Hizballah masterminds who set up, prepared and are running the operation.

This is the first time any Western or Middle East intelligence agency has ever released the names of terrorist masterminds before an attack. It normally takes months or even years for their identities to be discovered and even longer for their disclosure.
The Mossad may have put their names in the public domain in the hope of somehow stalling the Hizballah operation in the nick of time:
The five top Hizballah terrorist operatives named are:

Talal Hamiyah, head of Hizballah’s External Security Organization – ESO. Deputy of the late Moughniyeh for many years, Hamiyah stepped into the slain terror-master’s shoes as commander of overseas operations. Hizballah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has entrusted him with avenging the death of his late boss.
Ahmed Al-Fayd, Hamiyah’s operations officer and right hand.
Najem a-Din,  Hizballah’s bomb expert.
Naim Haris.  In the guise of a Lebanese businessman, he is responsible for recruiting collaborators in different countries for Hizballah’s overseas hits.
Mehmet Taharawrlu, a Turkish national who recruites local talent to assist in Hizballah attacks in Turkey.

The desire for war in Iran.

Syria’s Secrets | The New Republic.

Latest Iranian threat routine, Israeli expert says.

  Recent comments by the commander of Iran’s ground forces, Brig.-Gen. Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, who said on Tuesday that any military action against his country would result in “suicide” for the attacker, were part of a long-standing pattern of threats made by Iranian officials, an Israeli defense expert told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, Pourdastan said, “Today no enemy has the requirements and the desire to carry out a military attack against the powerful Iran,” adding, “military aggression against Iran is highly unlikely and even impossible and is synonymous with the suicide of the aggressor.” Pourdastan made the remarks during a conference of foreign military attaches in Tehran.

“There have been dozens of similar threatening statements issued by various Iranian military and political personnel over the past years, with regard to the option of the US or Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. They threaten ‘crushing’ responses, have referred to the many thousands of missiles they can and will fire, and that they will [set] ‘alight’ US forces and Israel,” said Emily Landau, a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, where she directs the Arms Control and Regional Security Program.

“They regularly make reference to the vast and overwhelming strength of their military forces – this boasting is sometimes with reference to what they will do in case of attack, and sometimes just routine.

Often the deterrent statements have come after something (either a statement or event) that raises their fears of possible attack, and the context is deterrence of both the US and Israel,” Landau added.

Due to the high frequency of such remarks, Landau said, “it’s difficult to know exactly what, if anything, they are responding to in this case.” Tehran may have concluded that the chances of an attack on its nuclear program have risen due to the lack of any movement in international efforts to confront the nuclear issue, and after the two failed rounds of negotiations in December and January, Landau said.

Iran may fear that “something is being secretly planned. Maybe they are responding to a possible Israeli sense of lowered vulnerability to Iranian retaliation due to the success of Iron Dome. But this is highly speculative, and hard to know at this point,” Landau added.

During his statement on Tuesday, the Iranian commander claimed that Iran’s current military power was superior to any other time period in the country’s history.

He emphasized the “defensive nature” of his country’s armed forces and weapon programs, saying that they serve the stability and security of the region and Iran’s national interests.

Jpost Staff contributed to this report.

Ahmadinejad’s nightmare.

  As in previous years, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his country’s celebration of Army Day on Monday to bash Israel and the US. April 18, the date of the establishment of Iran’s armed forces – which have effectively been sidelined by the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard – is commonly commemorated with jingoistic processions of missiles, tanks and legions of uniformed soldiers; and it has become customary for Ahmadinejad to utter threats against the Jewish state and epithets against the bulwark of freedom and democracy, America.

“A new Middle East will emerge without the presence of the United States and the Zionist regime and their allies in the near future,” Ahmadinejad declared, claiming that the US and Israel were plotting to “spark an Iranian-Arabian Shia-Sunni conflict.” The Iranian leader also denounced “US imperialism” in the region, saying, “Regional governments and nations should remain vigilant to overcome US plots.” According to Ahmadinejad, the Iranian people and regional nations are unhappy with the existence of Israel and will continue their fight “until the defeat of the US and Zionist regime in the region.”

The Iranian dictator’s statements were made as millions of Jews in Israel, America and elsewhere in the world – including in Iran – prepared to sit down to their Pessah Seder. His speech was literally a confirmation of what is written in the Haggada: “…in every generation there are those who rise against us to annihilate us.”

Thankfully, unlike in previous generations, what stands between the Jewish people and its enemies is not only religious faith that “the Holy One… saves us from their hand,” but also a Jewish army and Jewish political sovereignty supported by Western nations that value the ideal of freedom first introduced to humanity in the biblical story of Exodus.

UNFORTUNATELY, AHMADINEJAD’S prediction that the current revolutionary changes sweeping the region will lead to greater antagonism against Israel and the US and, therefore, to more of the same repressive, backward and/or fundamentalist leadership is no less valid than more optimistic views that see the Arab Spring as a harbinger of a bright new future for the Arab world.

Contradictory messages are being conveyed from Egypt, for instance, regarding the future of the Camp David peace agreement with Israel. And the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood will become a dominant force in Egypt is very real. Such a development would further strengthen Hamas-controlled Gaza.

In Libya, the little that is known about the rebels presently receiving Western backing to fight Muammar Gaddafi’s regime is not reassuring. The Libyan Islamic Movement for Change, one of the rebel groups, was formed by Islamists, and the Transitional National Council, the group formed by the anti-Gaddafi rebels during the uprising of 2011, was endorsed by Abu Yahya, a Libyanborn al-Qaida official who broadcast a video message urging the Benghazi rebels to continue the fight for the establishment of an Islamic regime.

In Syria, too, the future is uncertain. But that very uncertainty, in a regime that had, until recently, appeared relatively stable, underlines the risks involved for Israel in pinning hopes for security and stability too heavily upon peace agreements. Had Israel signed an agreement with the Assad regime and ceded the Golan Heights, it would now not only be without an important strategic geographical asset after a painful evacuation of thousands of peaceful Jews, it would also be without any assurance of future peaceful relations with the regime that might replace the present Alawite minority leadership. Many of the same concerns apply to the negotiating process with the Palestinians.

That is not to say no such accords can be concluded; it is to underline the ongoing imperative, such accords notwithstanding, for Israel to be able to protect itself, come what may, against shifts and changes in this unstable region.

While Ahmadinejad will doubtless do all in his power to bring his bleak predictions to fruition, it is incumbent on those who support genuine freedoms to do what they can to ensure the Arab Spring leads to the increasing realization of Western ideals such as liberty and equality, as well as a decrease in antagonism toward America and Israel, representatives of these ideals. The upsurge in popular discontent with corrupt hereditary autocracies has the potential to lead to a better life for the roughly 350 million inhabitants of the Arab world, one-third of whom are illiterate, according to the Arab League Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization.

Instead of bringing more repression and hardship, the opportunity is there for the Arab Spring to come to resemble the Exodus, humanity’s very first “Spring of Freedom.” The portents, it must be said, are not good. But this outcome – Ahmadinejad’s nightmare – would, in turn, open the way for true peace and stability in the region.