Manama: Syrian President Bashar Assad said people currently in charge of Israel paled in comparison with older generation leaders and behaved like children, messing with the country, the New Yorker has reported.
"You need a special dictionary for their terms ... They do not have any of the old generation who used to know what politics means, like Rabin and the others," Assad told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. "That is why I said they are like children fighting each other, messing with the country; they do not know what to do."
According to a report published on Wednesday, Assad said during a discussion with Hersh that "the only thing that can protect Israel is peace, nothing else. No amount of airplanes or weapons could protect Israel, so they have to forget about that."
"The Israelis wanted to destroy Hamas in the war [in December, 2008] and make Abu Mazen strong in the West Bank ... They weakened Abu Mazen and made Hamas stronger. Now they wanted to destroy Hamas. But what is the substitute for Hamas? It is Al Qaeda, and they do not have a leader to talk to, to talk about anything. They are not ready to make dialogue. They [Al Qaeda] only want to die in the field."
Assad stressed that a solution must be found for Palestinian refugees living in Syria.
"I have half a million Palestinians and they have been living here for three generations now. So, if you do not find a solution for them, then what peace are you talking about?" he asked.
"What is the difference between peace and a peace treaty? Peace treaty is what you sign, but peace is when you have normal relations," Assad continued. "So, you start with a peace treaty in order to achieve peace... If they say you can have the entire Golan back, we will have a peace treaty. But they cannot expect me to give them the peace they expect... You start with the land; you do not start with peace."
Assad reportedly told the magazine that he has not received a clear vision from the US about what should happen in the Middle East.
"To be biased and side with the Israelis, this is traditional for the United States; we do not expect them to be in the middle soon. So we can deal with this issue, and we can find a way if you want to talk about the peace process," he said. "But the vision does not seem to be clear on the US side as to what they really want to happen in the Middle East."
The Syrian president said that he was "maybe optimistic" about President Barack Obama, but that did not mean he was optimistic about "other institutions that play negative or paralyzing role[s] to Obama."
"If you talk about four years, you have one year to learn and the last year to work for the next elections. So, you only have two years," he said. "The problem, with these complicated problems around the world, where the United States should play a role to find a solution, is that two years is a very short time... Is it enough for somebody like Obama?"
