Assad: Crackdown on pro-Palestine protests exposes West’s state of panic

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the violent crackdown on pro-Palestine student demonstrations in Western universities, particularly in the United States, exposes the Western system’s “state of panic.”

During a meeting of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in Damascus on Saturday, Assad highlighted that the “image of a wonderful and amazing West” has now started to “deteriorate” among Western citizens.

“Today, [Western citizens] have discovered that the principles upon which this system was based […] are lying, hypocrisy, and deception,” he added.

“Therefore, we see the brutal repression that we have not seen before in the universities. […] The truth is that this unprecedented brutal repression that we see expresses a state of panic for the Western system in general.”

Over the past few weeks, US campuses have become the battleground for demonstrations against the Israel war on Gaza, resulting in a series of tense and occasionally violent encounters.

The students are calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and demanding schools divest from companies that support the Israeli regime.

Protests are sweeping college campuses nationwide after police at Columbia University - the epicenter of student protests – attempted to clear a pro-Palestine encampment, resulting in the arrest of hundreds of students.

Brutal tactics are being used by the police, who also received training from the Israeli regime, specifically on repression, to stifle the student movement.

US police have arrested about 2,400 people during pro-Palestinian protests at 47 college campuses across the country since April 18, according to the Associated Press.

US capitalizing on Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza: Assad

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the United States and the West benefit from Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip by supplying arms and weapons to the occupying regime to prolong its aggression against the besieged Palestinian territory.

Assad also denounced the Western governments’ blind support for the Zionist regime, emphasizing that his country will not make any compromise as core issues remain unresolved and the usurping entity has not changed its behavior.

Elsewhere, Assad underscored Syria’s wholehearted support for the Palestinian cause ever since it emerged in 1948, stressing that his country’s stance has not altered despite all the miseries it has gone through for more than a decade.

He noted that Syria will use every means at its disposal to serve Palestinians and anti-Israel resistance factions without any hesitation.

“Damascus’ position on resistance will not change; but will rather become more firmly entrenched. Latest developments have proven that those who do not make their own decisions will have no hope for future. Those who do not possess authority and do not resist in defense of their homeland do not deserve a place in the first place,” the Syrian president added.

Israel launched its war on Gaza on October 7 in the aftermath of the Hamas-led operation Al-Aqsa Strom into the occupied territories. The regime has so far killed at least 34,654 Gazans, two-thirds of whom are women and children.

The Israeli regime has been enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory into a trickle, driving the Strip’s 2.3 million displaced population to the verge of imminent famine.

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