Syrian Social Nationalist Party
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP; Arabic: الحزب القومي السوري الإجتماعي) is a Syrian nationalist party operating in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. It advocates the establishment of a Greater Syrian nation state spanning the Fertile Crescent, including present-day Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Cyprus, Sinai, Hatay Province, and Cilicia, based on geographical boundaries and the common history people within the boundaries share.[15] It has also been active in the Syrian and Lebanese diaspora, for example in South America,[16] and is the second-largest political party in the pro-Assad National Progressive Front – Syrian Ba'ath Party.[17]
Syrian Social Nationalist Party الحزب السوري القومي الاجتماعي
Founded in Beirut[18] in 1932[16] by the Lebanese intellectual Antoun Saadeh[19] as an anticolonial political organization hostile to French colonial rule, the party played a significant role in Lebanese politics. It launched coups d'état attempts in 1949 and 1961, following which it was repressed in the country. SSNP was active in the fight against Israeli military during the 1982 Lebanon War and subsequent Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon until 2000, while simultaneously supporting the Syrian occupation of Lebanon due to its beliefs in Syrian irredentism.
In Syria, SSNP operated as an ultranationalist movement until the 1950s; advocating armed uprising to establish a one-party state. It participated in the 1949 Syrian coup d'etat, which overthrew the democratically elected government of Shukri al-Quwatli. SSNP continued to engage in violent activities throughout the country; and was banned in 1955 after its assassination of a Syrian Ba'athist military officer Adnan al-Malki. Despite its ban, the party remained organized, and by the late 1990s had allied itself with the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Lebanese Communist Party, despite the ideological differences between them. The SSNP was legalized in Syria in 2005, and joined the Syrian Ba'ath Party-led National Progressive Front. From 2012 to 6 May 2014,[20][21] the party was part of the Popular Front for Change and Liberation.[22] The party would take the side of the Ba'athist government during the Syrian Civil War, where almost 12,000 fighters of its armed branch, the Eagles of the Whirlwind (dismantled in 2019), fought alongside the Syrian Armed Forces against the Syrian opposition and the Islamic State.[23]
Syrian Social Nationalist Party
all Lebanon
10,000 fighters
Criticism[edit]
Ideological criticism[edit]
Arab nationalist thinker Sati' al-Husri considered that Saadeh "misrepresented" Arab nationalism, incorrectly associating it with a Bedouin image of the Arab and with Muslim sectarianism. Palestinian historian Maher Charif sees Saadeh's theory as a response to the religious diversity of Syria, and points to his later extension of his vision of the Syrian nation to include Iraq, a country also noted for its religious diversity, as further evidence for this.[82] The party also accepted that due to "religious and political considerations", the separate existence of Lebanon was necessary for the time being.[76] From 1945 onward, the party adopted a more nuanced stance regarding Arab nationalism, seeing Syrian unity as a potential first step towards an Arab union led by Syria.[76]
Anglo-American journalist Christopher Hitchens and his team were assaulted in February 2009 by SSNP paramilitaries in the streets of Beirut before being rescued by a crowd. The attack left Hitchens with body injuries and a limp in his leg.[83] Reporting to Vanity Fair in May 2009, Hitchens described SSNP as a "suicide-bomber front" that carries out terrorist operations in Lebanon on behalf of Ba'athist Syria. He asserted that SSNP was a violent fascist movement; noting its irredentist ambitions of creating "Greater Syria", a project that sought the annexation or partial conquest of numerous nation-states in the region.[84] Recounting the events of the assault, Hitchens stated: