Assad’s Grandfather’s 1936 Letter Predicts Muslim Slaughter
of Minorities, Praises Zionists
By: Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Published: September 20th, 2012
I will begin on a personal note. Since the
start of the pogroms in Syria a year and a
half ago, I have written again and again in
my articles on this honorable stage that the
Alawites will behave with cruelty and
severity and with total insensitivity toward
their opposition, because they are aware
that they are fighting not only to keep
control of the regime in their hands but also
- and mainly - in order to keep their heads
connected to their shoulders. My words were
an assessment based on lengthy research on
the Syrian domestic arena, that was
published in the doctoral thesis that I wrote
(1998) and in the book that was based on it
(2005). From time to time I have heard and
read harsh expressions of Muslims toward
the Alawites, but I have never seen proof
that the Alawites indeed fear that the Muslims might slaughter them if they had the opportunity.
In the background is the historical fact that modern Syria was borne on the knees of the French Mandate, which
was imposed on Syria after the First World War, and ended in 1943. As with other Arab states in the Middle East,
many of the genetic illnesses that Syria suffers from stem from errors that were committed by the states charged
with the mandates, France and Great Britain. Italy, which controlled Libya, is responsible to a certain extent for
the chaos in that state. The main mistake of the European states in the Middle East was creating states that
included different ethnic, tribal, religious and sectarian groups that are antagonistic to each other, with the hope
that the day will come when all of them will sit around the campfire and sing patriotic songs in perfect harmony.
This did not happen, this is not happening now and this will also not happen in the foreseeable future.
On August 30th of this year a discussion was held in the UN Security Council on the civil war raging in Syria, that
was responsible for about five thousand deaths in August alone. Two of the spokesmen participating in the
discussion were the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, and the Syrian representative in the UN, Bashar al-
Jafari. The Syrian representative attacked the Western states and primarily France for its support of the rebels.
The French minister responded by saying:
You speak negatively about the French Mandate, and I must remind you that the grandfather of your
president requested France not to depart from Syria and not to award it independence, and this is in
an official document which he signed and is today in the French Foreign Ministry, and if you want I will
give you a copy of it.
Fabius was referring to a document that the Alawite leaders, including Suleiman al-Asad, the grandfather of the
president of Syria, wrote, which is in the archive of the French Foreign Ministry. The document has the date of
receipt - June 15, 1936, and was written shortly prior to that date, to the French prime minister at the time, Leon
Blum.
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At the time, there were contacts that were conducted between the government of Franceand a group of Syrian
intellectuals who believed in the possibility of establishing a greater Syrian state that would include groups that
are different from one another, as in Europe. This document was published in the past in the Lebanese
newspaper al-Nahar and the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, but did not make the headlines. For the benefit of
our dear readers we include here the document in its entirety, which should be read while keeping in mind what
has been happening in Syria for the last year and a half. My comments are in brackets.
Dear Mr. Leon Blum, Prime Minister ofFrance.
In light of the negotiations that are being conducted between France and Syria, we - the Alawite leaders in Syriarespectfully
draw the following points to your attention and to that of your party (the Socialists):
1. The Alawite nation [sic !!] which has maintained its independence over the years by dint of much
zeal and many casualties, is a nation which is different from the Muslim Sunni nation in its religious
faith , in its customs and in its history. It has never happened that the Alawite nation [which lives in
the mountains on the Western coast of Syria] was under the rule of the [Muslims)]who rule the inland
cities of the land.
2. The Alawite nation refuses to be annexed to Muslim Syria, because the Islamic religion is thought of as the
official religion of the country, and the Alawite nation is thought of as heretical by the Islamic religion. Therefore
we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to
Syria, when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be in their power to implement the laws
that stem from its religion. [According to Islam, the idol-worshiping heretic has a choice to convert to Islam or be
slaughtered.]
3. Awarding independence to Syria and cancelling the mandate would be a good example of socialist principles
in Syria, but the meaning of full independence will be the control by a few Muslim families on the Alawite nation
in Cilicia, in Askadron [the Alexandretta Strip that the French cut off from Syria and annexed to Turkey in 1939]
and in the Ansariyya Mountains [the mountains in the western part of Syria, the topographical continuation of
the Lebanon Mountains]. Even having a parliament and a constitutional government will not ensure personal
freedom. This parliamentary control is only a facade, lacking any effective value, and the truth of the matter is
that it will be controlled by religious fanaticism that will target the minorities. Do the leaders ofFrancewant the
Muslims to control the Alawite nation and throw it into the bosom of misery?
4. The spirit of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, whose roots are deep in the heart of the Arab Muslims toward
all those who are not Muslim, is the spirit that continually feeds the Islamic religion, and therefore there is no
hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is cancelled, the danger of death and destruction will be a
threat upon the minorities in Syria, even if the cancellation [of the Mandate] will decree freedom of thought and
freedom of religion. Why, even today we see how the Muslim residents of Damascus force the Jews who live
under their auspices to sign a document in which they are forbidden to send food to their Jewish brothers who
are suffering from the disaster in Palestine [in the days of the great Arab rebellion], the situation of the Jews in
Palestine being the strongest and most concrete proof of the importance of the religious problem among the
Muslim Arabs toward anyone who does not belong to Islam. Those good Jews, who have brought to the Muslim
Arabs civilization and peace, and have spread wealth and prosperity to the land of Palestine, have not hurt
anyone and have not taken anything by force, and nevertheless the Muslims have declared holy war against
them and have not hesitated to slaughter their children and their women despite the fact that England is in
Palestine and France is in Syria. Therefore a black future awaits the Jews and the other minorities if the Mandate
is cancelled and Muslim Syria is unified with Muslim Palestine. This union is the ultimate goal of the Muslim
Arabs.
5. We appreciate your generosity of spirit in defending the Syrian people and your desire to realize their
independence, but Syria at the present time is far from the lofty goal that you aspire for her, because she is still
trapped in the spirit of religious feudalism. We do not think that the French government and the French socialist
Party will agree to the Syrians' independence, since its implementation will cause the subjugation of the Alawite
nation, placing the Alawite minority in danger of death and destruction.
It cannot be that you will agree to the (nationalist) Syrian request to annex the Alawite nation to Syria, because
your lofty principles - if they support the idea of freedom - will not accept the situation in which one nation (the
Muslims) try to stifle the freedom of another (the Alawite) by forcing its annexation.
6. You may see fit to assure the rights of the Alawites and other minorities in the wording of the treaty (The
French-Syrian Treaty, which defines the relationships between the states), but we emphasize to you that
contracts have no value in the Syrian Islamic mentality. We have seen this in the past, with the pact that England
signed with Iraq, which forbade the Iraqis to slaughter the Assyrians and the Yazidis.
The Alawite nation, which we, the undersigned, represent, cries out to the government ofFranceand to the
French Socialist Party, and requests them to ensure its freedom and independence within its small boundaries
[an independent Alawite state!!]. The Alawite nation places its well-being in the hands of the French Socialist
leaders, and is sure that it will find strong and dependable support for the nation which is a faithful friend, who
has rendered toFrancea great service, and now is under the threat of death and destruction.
[Signed by]: Aziz Agha al-Hawash, Mahmud Agha Jadid, Mahmud Bek Jadid, Suleiman Asad [the grandfather of
Hafez], Suleiman al-Murshid, Mahmud Suleiman al-Ahmad.
This concludes the document, which was written 86 years ago, but could have been written yesterday. The
document includes within it all of the ills of the Middle East that the peoples of the region suffer from until
today: religious zealotry of Muslims, violence, marginalization of anyone who does not belong to the dominant
group, stereotypes that determine the group-think and Western ignorance and naiveté about anything regarding
the regional problems and how to solve them.
And with all due respect to the writers of the document, they are not free of problems either. Despite the fact
that they are Arabs and Arabic speakers, they differentiate themselves from the general Arab-Muslim scene and
define themselves as the Alawite "nation", only because they are members of a different religion. It may be that
the way they view themselves is based on the fact that they are separate tribes from the Muslim tribes, and they
see themselves as the original natives of the mountains of western Syria, in contrast to the Arab Muslims who
invaded the area in the seventh century from the Arabian Peninsula under the unsheathed sword of the second
Muslim Caliph, Umar bin al-Khattab, who imposed Islam upon the conquered peoples.
Without doubt, the Alawites made the necessary conclusions from what is written in the document because they
have ruled the Muslims since 1966 with a cruel and blood thirsty iron fist, because they knew well what would
happen if the Muslims ruled over them.
An interesting additional detail in the document is the fact that the Ottoman Empireis not mentioned at all, even
though it tried to Islamize the Alawites and forced them to build mosques in their villages. It could be that the
signatories refrained from relating to the Turks because of the Alawite minority that lived in Turkey, and the fear
that if they openly relate to the Turks in a negative way, the Turks might take revenge on their Alawite brothers
who live in Turkey.
But the most interesting detail in the document is the positive way in which the writers relate to the Jews in the
Land of Israel. Who knows, perhaps in the future after the Alawites are forced to flee for their lives from the
Muslim cities in Syria in order to escape the fate that is described in the document and in order to keep their
heads on their shoulders, they will establish their independent state in their mountains, the Mountains of
Ansariyya, and perhaps then - as a persecuted minority state - in a historical irony, they will try to join hands
with the "Zionist entity", which is still an illegitimate and despised entity in the eyes of the Arabs and the
Muslims.
Visit Dr. Mordechai Kedar's blog, Middle East and Terrorism.
About the Author : Dr. Mordechai Kedar (Ph.D. Bar-Ilan U.) Served for 25 years in IDF Military Intelligence
specializing in Arab political discourse, Arab mass media, Islamic groups and the Syrian domestic arena. A
lecturer in Arabic at Bar-Ilan U., he is also an expert on Israeli Arabs.
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