Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - In a bid to consolidate his regime, Syrian President Bashar Assad has chosen to take his people back to the days of fierce anti-Zionism rather than lead them into the modern era, in the view of some analysts here.
Much of the Western world had great hopes that the British-educated, Internet-savvy Assad, who took over when his father Hafez died suddenly last year, would be more moderate and forward-looking.
Many believed he may be the one to finally make peace with Israel. Instead, he has embraced the same anti-Israel, anti-Semitic rhetoric displayed by his father, experts say.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar of the Arabic Studies department at Bar-Ilan University said the academic community was "rather disappointed" with Assad's performance.
"We had huge hopes from him," but he was going the wrong way down a one-way street, he said in a telephone interview on Friday.
The younger Assad was reverting to a time may thought had passed. By reciting allegations against the Jews, he was pouring "religious oil on the national fire," he said.
During Pope John Paul's visit to Syria earlier this week, Assad said in a welcoming speech that the Jews "try to kill all the principles of divine faiths with the same mentality of betraying Jesus Christ and torturing him."
He said he expected the pope to be on the side of the people of Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Palestine who "are tormented and ... suffer from suppression and persecution."
'Trying to outdo his father'
Last month Assad said the Israelis were more racist than the Nazis.
"He's trying to outdo his father [with rhetoric]," said Morris Amitay, vice-chairman of the Washington-based Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs.
"Just because he's acquainted with the Internet [doesn't mean] he's going to bring his people into the modern age," he added.
Nonetheless, Dr. Eyal Zisser of Tel Aviv University said he still had hope for Assad, who the though needed time to prove himself.
Assad had been in power for less than a year, and lacked the experience his father had, he said.
Although Zisser believes that Assad's comments do accurately reflect his thinking, he blames this on inexperience and lack of maturity, a lack of realization that pragmatism in needed in leadership.
Both Kedar and Amitay agreed that Assad was merely trying to please Syria's power brokers, trying to keep the "old timers" happy, in Amitay's words.
"Assad is like a marionette in the hands of the old guard of this father," said Kedar. In the beginning, he tried to inject new blood into the system, but quickly gave up.
The political old guard has the wealth and the power, and Assad cannot function without their support, he added.
Hafez Assad came to power in a bloodless coup in 1970, and managed to govern a country that had been highly unstable politically since it was established in 1946.
Assad senior made war on his enemies, supported and hosted international terror groups, and viciously crushed resistance in his own country. Around ten security agencies were set up to keep tabs on everything from the phone and mail service to the military, to maintain his grip on power.
Legitimization
The Assads are Alawites, members of a sect considered heretical to Muslims. Kedar said Alawites are held in even lower esteem in mainstream Islam than Christians and Jews. Alawites are expected to convert to Islam, or die.
As such, Assad - like his father - has to look for domestic "legitimization."
Kedar said he could do this in one of two ways - push toward modernity and become part of the world community, or sink to a level of angry rhetoric in order to rally the people.
The first way takes "a lot of time, effort and investment," while the second was the easy option which Assad appears to have chosen.
But times are changing. Kedar maintains that Assad will not be able to continue in this way for long as Syrians have, since Assad's death, experienced rare freedom, including a movement toward civil society.
"He's under tremendous domestic pressure," said Zisser. "There are great expectations for political and economic change." Assad was caught between those who want to maintain the status quo and those who want progress.
Nevertheless, almost every Syrian does have access to satellite television. They know how the outside world lives and they are eager for freedom.
Kedar said Assad was resisting change, scared of what happened to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when he began to modernize his society.