On the occasion of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 8, 2021, Syrian journalist Hassan Al-Asoud compared the Jewish Holocaust to the war that has been raging in Syria for the past decade, which he called the "Syrian Holocaust." He wrote that, while the Zionist movement used the Jewish Holocaust to win the world's sympathy and establish a state at the Palestinians' expense, the Syrians have not gained international sympathy. Rather, the world remains indifferent to the Syrian holocaust, whose consequences are no less devastating than those of the Jewish one. He also compared Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to Hitler, stating that the latter devastated Germany and Europe after winning the elections, Assad, who is devastating Syria, was not even elected to his position. Al-Asoud called on the Syrians in the diaspora, and especially in the U.S., to work together to force the world to end the Syrian Holocaust, which "will forever remain etched in our memory."
Hassan Al-Asoud (Syria-today.org, February 22, 2021)
The following are excerpts from his article:[1]
"The problem posed by the Jews' presence in the societies in which they lived, especially in the Western societies, is known to all… [and led to] massacres. The last of these [massacres] was the Nazi Holocaust, which has been exploited in the recent decades, and one of whose most significant outcomes was the unreserved support for the founding of the state of Israel at the expense of the Arab people of Palestine. The disaster of the Holocaust is not at all a simple matter, even though some people deny it even happened… and although its impact is excessive, to the point where, in most European countries, the law forbids starting a debate on its causes or its victims in order to discover the truth… But [none of that] justifies what the Nazis did to [the Jewish] people who had been living in that part of the world for hundreds of years.
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"I raise the issue of the Holocaust, which took place gradually over 12 years after Hitler's rise to power as chancellor of Germany… in order to compare it to the Syrian Holocaust, which has also been ongoing for 10 years… Adolf Hitler became chancellor after his party won in free parliamentary elections… and brought devastation upon his country as a result of his blind and fanatical Nazism. By contrast, Bashar Al-Assad inherited the Syrian [presidency] from his father in 2000, without any legitimacy or elections. [But] he too gradually transformed [his country] into a hothouse of usurpation and all-pervading corruption, when his father had placed some limits on these [phenomena] and thereby prevented an explosion like the one that happened in 2011 [i.e., the Syrian uprising].
"The paradox is that the first people to whom the Syrian Hitler [i.e., Assad] turned [in 2011] were the leaders of Israel, through his cousin Rami Makhlouf, who said… in the first days of the [Syrian] revolution, that Israel's security depended on Syria's.[2] In this he contrasted with Hitler, who accused Germany's Jewish citizens of causing the mounting crisis that prevailed there at the time with their financial profiteering and monopolies, and made other accusations against them, justified or not, in order to exterminate them.
"The world is still living under the impact of that Holocaust, and the World Zionist Organization exploited this to the fullest to gain unlimited [international] support and establish a Jewish state on Palestinian soil. [Conversely], the world has been witnessing the Syrian tragedy, which the UN has called the greatest humanitarian tragedy since World War II, for a decade [without doing anything about it]. Here are some of the statistics that have been published… about the last decade in Syria: The number of displaced persons inside Syria is 6.9 million; the number of Syrian refugees sheltering in other countries is 6.5 million; the number of children who have dropped out of school is 2.5 million… the loss to the Syrian economy exceeds $500 billion… the number of civilians injured in the war is over 1.8 million… hundreds of thousands are missing or have been forcibly disappeared, and tens of thousands have been killed in the attacks of the Syrian regime and its allies, Iran and Russia…
"The state of Israel now competes with some international industries, and heads the list of countries that manufacture outstanding technological products. Its army has become one of the mightiest in the region, despite [the country's] small area and limited [natural] resources… This contrasts with the consequences of the Syrian Holocaust… whose scope and magnitude is not adequately reflected [even] by the figures quoted above. Need I mention the social, national, religious, sectarian and geographical rifts [Syria is suffering]? Or the devastation of its infrastructure, the nearly total collapse of its industries, the demographic changes and forced migration, or the destruction of its heritage and culture? Or the armies occupying large parts of it? Or the terrorist and secessionist organizations that control or influence some of its regions?
"In fact, the future of Syria and its people is tens or hundreds of times darker than we imagine today, for what we see now is only the tip of the iceberg… Everyone is responsible for the ruin we are facing, [yet] we are all the victims of tyranny… Everyone who exploited the revolution to make a profit now finds himself degraded and humiliated, and everyone who took a neutral position now finds himself between the hammer of hunger and the anvil of degradation.
"It's time for the Syrians to sober up. It's time we shake off the dust of helplessness, submission and reliance on others. This will happen only if we unite the efforts of the [Syrian diaspora] – the loyal men and women of the homeland living around the world – in cooperation with the keepers of the flame of nationalism within Syria. [The Syrians] abroad must force the world to comply with the Syrian interest. We should begin by preparing an inclusive Syrian national conference. The American Syrians must shoulder the greatest responsibility, for they are the community with the greatest influence on the world's leading center of decision-making. They are the Syrian engine of change… It's time to end the [Syrian] Holocaust, which will remain with us and will be etched in our memory forever."
[1] Alsouria.net, April 7, 2021.
[2] A reference to an interview given by Syrian businessman and Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf to the New York Times in May 2011, in which he said, "If there is no stability here [in Syria], there’s no way there will be stability in Israel." The New York Times (U.S.), May 10, 2011.
