Myth: Syria is an anti-Semitic nation which has indulged in ethnic cleansing of its Jewish population

- Syria is an unapologetically secular state, with a large number of ethnic and religious minorities, including Jews. It has strong anti-discrimination laws and its constitution provides for freedom of religion. The US-produced International Religious Freedom Report confirms this:

www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35508.htm

“The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom…” Despite Syria and Israel being officially still at war, Syria realises that anti-Zionism is never an excuse for anti-Semitism. The report continues: “The press…is careful to avoid publishing anti-Semitic remarks in their anti-Israeli articles.”

- Life for the Jews in the Middle East after Israel’s creation, and also after the wars of 1967 and 1973, was undoubtedly difficult, but Syria’s record on this issue is much better than most of its neighbours. Jews were banned from emigrating to Israel, but this was because they were Syrian citizens, not Jews. In 1992, the late president al-Asad granted Jews the right emigrate from Syria, whose once-substantial Jewish population dwindled substantially, but not due to Syrian ethnic cleansing.

- Many Jews wished to emigrate to the US and thence to Israel when this option was granted to them in the 1990s, but there is much evidence that financial incentives were used to entice them out of Syria. See author Bridgit Keenan in The Guardian, 9 March 2005: “… the Jewish community was not ‘ethnically cleansed’ from Syria. Many left in the early 90s because pressure was put on them to do so by Jewish groups in the US. Financial incentives were offered (one community leader told me that each family was promised $400-600 per month) and visas and green cards were facilitated by the US. Any average Syrian would have found these lures almost irresistible and most of the 5,000-strong Jewish community in Damascus and Aleppo, departed - to the dismay of many in the Syrian government and the diplomatic community.”

www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1433396,00.html

- When they discovered that life in the US was not so rosy, many Jews in fact returned to Syria. See the article ‘Disillusioned Syrian Jews are trickling home’, The Los Angeles Times, 22 November 1994, available at:

http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-news-0056.html

- There are still small communities of Jews in Syria, including in the Hayy al Yahud (Quarter of the Jews) of Damascus, where there are two functioning synagogues. The government has taken strict measures to protect the remaining Jews, including arresting any potential assailants and guarding the remaining synagogues.