A new era for Syria

It is a sign of a new era. A new era starts with getting rid of a regime which destroyed any civilised aspect of its own nation. What happened in the Yarmouk refugee camp, a suburb of Damascus, is by all means symbolic. It symbolises the Syrian regime’s practices for over four decades towards the Palestinians. Using air force to bomb the camp means that the Syrian regime has lost control over the camp. Every Palestinian living in the Yarmouk camp is entitled to say that he is not a commodity to be traded by the Syrian regime internally, regionally, and internationally. In Syria or Lebanon, the Palestinian refugees have been subjected to brutal attacks by Assad’s regime. It is important to know that the Yarmouk refugee camp also shelters Syrians who left the countryside. The Syrians live in slums, a sign of a deep economical crisis to which the regime cannot find a solution.   Too busy to “export terrorism” to Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey and the Gulf states, Assad’s regime has not paid attention to the growing phenomenon of slums, where religious extremism is spreading quickly. The regime’s inability to reduce the amount of slums can be associated with the fact that Syria never understood that encouraging Hezbollah and sectarian extremism in Lebanon would eventually have consequences on the Syrian regime itself. Ahmed Jibril was an integral part of the Syrian security regime. The former officer in the Syrian army represents the latent hatred of this system towards everything that is Palestinian. The Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people were nothing but a tool used to blackmail the Arab or international parties. Ahmed Jibril’s practices in Lebanon represent the role required from every Palestinian, from the standpoint of the Syrian regime. Jibril, for the Lebanese, carried out all the dirty tasks the Syrian regime did not want blood on their hands, including assassinations. He helped implicating the Palestinians in the Lebanese war.He forced Yasser Arafat to get involved in the Lebanese quagmire. Arafat fell in the trap set by late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who took advantage of the armed Palestinian presence in Lebanon to present himself to the world as the only one capable, thanks to his army, to control the PLO militants. This was the excuse the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger used to justify allowing Assad to send his troops to Lebanon. From 1975 to 1977, Ahmed Jibril was in charge of getting Arafat more involved in the Lebanese war.Perhaps his greatest achievement at that time was to destroy Lebanese hotels located on the shore of Beirut. Maybe just to satisfy Hafez al-Assad’s hatred of every Lebanese – or even Syrian – success! After the Palestinian forces left Lebanon, Ahmed Jibril returned to his homeland to set Syrian bases, including a base in Naameh, south of Beirut. No one objected that, since he became an ally of Hezbollah when Gaddafi abandoned him. Jibril targeted Jordan during the reigns of King Hussein and King Abdullah II, because Jordan played an important role in helping the Palestinians find realistic solutions to regain their rights. Expelling Ahmed Jibril out of Yarmouk refugee camp is not just a blow to him, it’s a blow to Shabihas [armed men in civilian clothing who assault anti-Assad protesters]. Jibril paved the way for the creation of Shabihas, employed by the regime to confront its own people. Expelling him is a new beginning for Syria: the country might finally recognise that trading the Palestinian cause is a national shame, not a regional role. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.