Middle East Information Resource
Political Entities - Syrian Social Nationalist Party
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party is descended from a group founded in Lebanon in 1932 by the Greek-Orthodox Christian Antoun Sa`adeh (1902-1949). He visualized a distinctive Syrian nation as an alternative to both Syria`s Arab and Pan-Arab nationalism and Lebanon`s separate nationalism. The Party agitated for the creation of a "Natural, Greater Syria" to include Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and ultimately Iraq, Kuwait and Cyprus. It stood for a totalitarian regime and had pro-Fascist tendencies, but racism was not prominent in its political philosophy.
Antoun Sa`adeh, the son of a Lebanese doctor who had emigrated to Brazil, returned to Lebanon in 1930 and taught German in the American University of Beirut. He gathered around him a group of students, mainly Greek-Orthodox Christians, and formed his party, al-hizb al-qawmi al-suri, between 1932 and 1934. He was the first leader and agitated for the immediate end of the French Mandate. The SSNP was banned in the late 1930`s and Sa`adeh was subjected to harassment by the authorities. He left Lebanon, reportedly first to Italy and Germany, and then to South America.
When Syria and Lebanon became independent, the Party became local. The Lebanese Party worked for its objectives in Lebanon only and other branches in "Greater Syria" did the same. It was legalized in Lebanon in 1944, but was suspected and harassed in both Syria and Lebanon. Sa`adeh returned to Lebanon in 1947. He resumed his political activity, adding the word "social" to the name of his Party and temporarily dropping the controversial word "Syrian." He continued to be suspected by the authorities and was he was kept under surveillance and was arrested on several occasions.
In 1949, after the "Jummaizeh incident," there was violence between the SSNP and its arch enemy, the Phalanges. The SSNP was accused of a plot against the Lebanese state and was outlawed. Sa`adeh was summarily tried and executed. He failed to win support from Syria`s dictator, Husni Za`im, who betrayed him and extradited him to Lebanon. Sixty-eight other members were tried; twelve were sentenced to death and six of them were executed. Sa`adeh became a martyr to his followers; in revenge, an assination squad killed Riyad al-Sulh, who was Prime Minister at the time of Sa`adeh`s execution, in July 1951. Another member, a Syrian officer, killed Za`im in August 1949 during his deposition in a coup. By the 1950`s, the Party began to go underground. It had never been strong or influential, but was now illegal and without leadership. In the absence of leadership, it was further weakened by internal splits.
However, it managed to send one deputy to the Lebanese Parliament in 1957. In this period it was regarded as right-wing and pro-West and even connected with the Hashemite dynasty and Jordan. Its original Greater Syria conception had been anti-Hashemite. In Syria, several of its members were purged and were tried as plotters against the leftist regime. In 1958, the Party supported Lebanon`s President Chamoun against the Nasserist rebels and contributed fighters in the Civil War. As a reward, the outgoing President allowed it to operate legally, but late in 1961 it was accused of a new plot to seize power through a military coup. Its leaders were arrested or fled or went underground. Seventy-nine were sentenced to death, most of them in absentia. Those in detention had their sentences commuted. The Party was again legalized in Lebanon in 1970.
The Civil War brought about a realignment of power and in 1975. This was a crisis for the SSNP which forced it changed its basic orientation and enter into an unlikely partnership. It joined the Muslim led "leftist" camp and contributed a fighting militia. Nevertheless, it maintained a separate identity. It was an uneasy cooperation with occasional fighting within the camp, for example, with Druze fighters or Franjiyyeh`s "Marada" militia. The alliance`s main leaders accepted it as an aberration to be allied with a mainly Christian entity, but assumed that they could not fully trust it.
The SSNP leaders, Asad Ashqar, Georges Abdel-Massih, In`aam Ra`d and Issam al-Maha`iri, reacted to the crisis in conflicting ways. Following the shift in Syria`s position in the civil war in 1976, the SSNP split into two factions, one led by Georges Abdel-Massih and the other, emerging as the main one, led by In`aam R`ad (born 1929), a Greek-Orthodox Christian from Ayn Zhalta. This last faction regarded Syria`s President Hafez al-Asad as a leader capable of advancing the Party`s goals. It was reported that some of the people close to him were followers of the Party. The SSNP thus moved closer to Syria and became its proxy. After the Israeli invasion in 1982, a member of the SSNP assassinated President-elect Bashir Jumayyil. The Party`s military wing implemented military operations against the Israeli army in Lebanon, including suicide carbombings and assassination attempts. After 1985, it continued to occasionally attack Israel`s self-proclaimed "Security Zone" in South Lebanon.
In December 1990, for the first time in Lebanon`s history, a member of the SSNP, Asa`d Marwan, became a member of the National Unity government formed after the end of the Civil War. It was created with a view to implement the Ta`if Agreement and disband the various Lebanese militias, including that of the SSNP. In 1992, In`aam R`ad was elected President of the Party. In recent years, the SSNP remained a Syrian proxy on the one hand, and an almost-exclusive club for Greek-Orthodox Christians on the other. Despite its dogmatic ideals and the considerable devotion of its members, it is considered a small, marginal, and perhaps obsolete political group.