Muhammad Talab Hilal was a Syrian military officer and politician. He was the Minister of Supply in the Ba'athist government of Yusuf Zuayyin[1] and after Zuayyin's resignation in 1968, also under Nureddin al-Atassi.[2] In 1971 Hilal took part in a delegation consisting of Hafez Al Assad and other Syrian Ministers visiting Moscow, Soviet Union.[3] Under Assad, he served as a deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Agrarian Reform[3] and acting Minister of the Interior.[4] at different times. Before he was the governor of Hama[1] and the chief of police in the Governorate of al-Hasakah.[1] While he was the chief of police Hasakah, Hilal wrote a book on Syria's Jazira region[1] which was influential for the Syrian government's "Arab Belt" in the Kurdish populated regions in Syria.[5] He denied an eventual existence of a Kurdish language and ethnicity[6][1][7] and supported the shutting down of Kurdish schools also when they taught in the Arabic language.[5] He deemed the existence of the Kurds in the vicinity of the Arab nation a similar threat as the Jews in Israel.[7]

Hilal completed his study on the National, Political, and Social Study of the Province of Jazira[lower-alpha 1] in November 1963.[8][6][9] In view of the Kurdish uprising in Iraq he warned of a similar situation in Syria[5] and suggested the creation of an Arab populated area in the border region between Syria, Turkey and Iraq.[5]

Hilal produced a twelvefold strategy to achieve the Arabization of the al-Jazira Province. The steps were:[10][11][12][13]

  • (1) eviction and resettlement of Kurds
  • (2) deprivation of all education for Kurds
  • (3) removal of Kurds from employment
  • (4) the reevaluation of the Syrian citizenships of Kurds also holding a Turkish citizenship
  • (5) encouragement of intra-Kurdish factionalism in order to divide and rule
  • (6) Arab settlements in former Kurdish lands
  • (7) colonization – "pure and nationalist Arabs" to be settled in Syrian Kurdistan so Kurds might be "watched until their dispersion"
  • (8) military involvement by divisions stationed in the zone of the cordon would guaranty that the dispersion of the Kurds and the settlement of Arabs would take place according to plans drawn up by the government
  • (9) collective farms are to be established by Arab settlers equipped with "armament and training"
  • (10) prohibition of "anybody ignorant of the Arabic language exercising the right to vote or stand for office"
  • (11) Kurdish religious dignitaries were to be expelled to the south and replaced with Arabs
  • (12) "a vast anti-Kurdish campaign amongst the Arabs" to be undertaken by the state

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Chaliand, Gérard (1993). A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan. Zed Books. p. 199. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5.
  2. ↑ Agency, United States Central Intelligence (1968). Daily Report, Foreign Radio Broadcasts. p. F1.
  3. 1 2 Agency, United States Central Intelligence (1971). Daily Report, Foreign Radio Broadcasts. p. A7.
  4. ↑ "Syria eases bans on civil liberties". The New York Times. 1970-12-16. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Bengio, Ofra (2017). "The Meteoric Rise of Kurdistan in Syria – Rojava". The Kurds in a Volatile Middle East. Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies: 19. JSTOR resrep04759.7 – via JSTOR.
  6. 1 2 Radpey, Loqman (September 2016). "Kurdish Regional Self-rule Administration in Syria: A new Model of Statehood and its Status in International Law Compared to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq". Japanese Journal of Political Science. 17 (3): 468–488. doi:10.1017/S1468109916000190. ISSN 1468-1099. S2CID 157648628.
  7. 1 2 Gunter, Michael (2020-11-23). Babar, Zahra R. (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa. Routledge. p. 302. ISBN 978-0-429-60880-3.
  8. ↑ Paul, James A.; Watch (Organization), Middle East (1990). Human Rights in Syria. Human Rights Watch. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-929692-69-2.
  9. ↑ The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society. Sebastian Maisel. Santa Barbara, California. 2018. ISBN 978-1-4408-4257-3. OCLC 1031040153.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. ↑ Nazdar, Mustafa (1993) [1978]. "The Kurds in Syria". In Chaliand, Gérard (ed.). Les Kurdes et le Kurdistan [A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan]. Translated by Pallis, Michael. London: Zed Books. pp. 199–200. ISBN 978-1-85649-194-5. A zealous nationalist, Hilal proposed a twelve-point plan, which would first be put into operation against the Jezireh Kurds: (1) a batr or "dispossession" policy, involving the transfer and dispersion of the Kurdish people; (2) a tajhil or "obscurantist" policy of depriving Kurds of any education whatsoever, even in Arabic; (3) a tajwii or "famine" policy, depriving those affected of any employment possibilities; (4) an "extradition" policy, which meant turning the survivors of the uprisings in northern Kurdistan over to the Turkish government; (5) a "divide and rule" policy, setting Kurd against Kurd; (6) a hizam or cordon policy similar to the one proposed in 1962; (7) an iskan or "colonization" policy, involving the implementation of "pure and nationalist Arabs" in the Kurdish regions so that the Kurds could be "watched until their dispersion"; (8) a military policy, based on "divisions stationed in the zone of the cordon" who would be charged with "ensuring that the dispersion of the Kurds and the settlement of Arabs would take place according to plans drawn up by the government"; (9) a "socialization" policy, under which "collective forms", mazarii jama'iyya, would be set up for the Arabs implanted in the regions. These new settlers would also be provided with "armament and training"; (10) a ban of "anybody ignorant of the Arabic language exercising the right to vote or stand for office"; (11) sending the Kurdish ulemas to the south and "bringing in Arab ulemas to replace them"; (12) finally, "launching a vast anti-Kurdish campaign amongst the Arabs".
  11. ↑ Hasan, Mohammed (December 2020). "Kurdish Political and Civil Movements in Syria and the Question of Representation" (PDF). London School of Economics. pp. 4–5. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  12. ↑ Maisel, Sebastian (2018-06-21). The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society. ABC-CLIO. pp. 344–345. ISBN 978-1-4408-4257-3.
  13. ↑ Chaliand, Gérard (1993), pp.199–200

Notes

  1. ↑ Other translations are: A Study about the National, Social, and Political Aspects of Al-Jazeera Province, Study of the al-Jezira Province from its Political, National and Social Perspectives, and National, social and political study of the province of Djazireh
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