Bashar al-Assad

Iyad Hayatleh, a Palestinian poet raised in Damascus and now living in Britain, teamed up with Scottish literary figure Tessa Ransford.

In the worst-case scenario, the fate of the Palestinians in Syria could echo some facets of the fate of the approximately 30,000 Palestinian refugees from Iraq following the US occupation of that country.

For Washington, the Arab Spring presented opportunities as well as threats, and these are being keenly exploited.

The Israeli government and its supporters now feel justified in exploiting the Syrian people’s suffering and resistance in order to further their own political agenda, depicting Israel as a “vibrant democracy” in comparison to Syria.