From his seizure of power in 1970 until his death in 2000, Hafez al-Assad’s relations with Palestinians were characterised by suspicion, attempts to infiltrate their national movement, and deadly military actions against them. This continued under his son and successor Bashar al-Assad who bombed and besieged Yarmouk - Syria’s largest Palestinian refugee camp - from 2012 onwards. By April 2018, rights groups estimated that over 60% of that camp had been destroyed.

The ‘Yusuf Urabi affair’ From 1964-1966 there was cooperation between Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and the Syrian Baath. Mainly to embarrass Egypt, Syria allowed the fedayeen (Palestinian guerrillas) to establish training camps and store arms and supplies. It facilitated fedayeen raids from Lebanon and Jordan, but with limitations.

They did not enjoy free rein, being largely denied access to strike into Israel from Syria’s Golan. The major confrontation came on 5 May 1966, when Yusef Urabi, a Palestinian officer in the Syrian army and member of Fatah's armed wing (Al-Asifah), was killed in Yarmouk Camp during an attempt to de-escalate tensions between Arafat and the pro-Baathist Ahmed Jibril. Citing Fatah’s internal files, Palestinian scholar Hanna Batatu describes how Arafat and Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) both believed the Baath leadership had orchestrated the whole incident to gain control of Fatah’s military.

Following the killing, Hafez al-Assad - then Syrian Defence Minister - personally ordered the arrests of all senior Fatah commanders in Damascus, including Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad). Following pressure, Fatah’s leaders were released on condition that they leave Syria. However, Abd al-Majid Zaghmout remained imprisoned for 34 years, until his death.

Abu Iyad later recounted Assad’s hostility during their meeting, being “struck by his intense hatred” for Arafat. Syrian-Palestinian writer Nidal Betare argues that these arrests “almost destroyed the Fatah movement” with hatred between Assad and Arafat mutually felt thereafter, as this incident “may have set the scene for the turbulent relationship between Syria and the Palestinians.” Empty rhetoric and infiltration The Assad regime was one of several which rhetorically supported Palestine but was brutal in its treatment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which already faced relentless Israeli assassination campaigns.

However, there was an important distinction between them. Syria wanted to “bend the PLO to their will,” not destroy it or extinguish the Palestinian cause. Israel, by contrast, was determined to eliminate Palestinian nationalism completely.

After 1969, the now Fatah-dominated PLO had within and around it many different factions, some backed by Arab regimes. For decades, Assad attempted to dominate the resurgent Palestinian movement, including through proxy groups. The two main groups linked to Syria were As-Sa’iqa (‘the thunderbolt’) and Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC).

Egypt’s increased support to the PLO after 1967, prompted Syria to invest more in these factions. In 1976, PLO member Shafiq al-Hout was nearly killed when As-Sa’iqa attacked a Lebanese newspaper he worked at. Afterwards, he saw Syrian minister Abdul Halim Khaddam who confirmed Damascus had ordered the ambush, but that he was not their intended target.

Despite these groups having limited support among Palestinians, the strategic realities of the PLO’s relations with Assad gave the pro-Syrian bloc a degree of leverage within the movement “out of all proportion to the popular support it could actually count on inside it.” As a result, these factions became “effective in creating a rift in Palestinian politics and weakening the PLO” according to Syrian scholar Yasser Munif. Black September Between 1970-71, King Hussein’s Western-backed Jordanian regime unleashed its forces against the Palestinians - events known as Black September. Over 3,000 people, mostly Palestinians, were killed and the PLO was expelled from Jordan.

Syria’s response was instructive. Salah Jadid, from the Baath Party’s left, sent tanks to aid the Palestinians, but Assad - now also commander of the air force - opposed it. Unable to stop the tanks, Assad prevented the air force from providing cover against Jordanian troops. Fearing a US-Israeli intervention, Syrian air support was halted and the Jordanian army held out until its own air force arrived and destroyed most of Syria’s tanks, forcing their withdrawal.