Assad allows the Jews of Syria to emigrate.
New York Times –
“Syria informed the United States over the weekend that is was lifting a travel ban on its 4,500 Jewish citizens, the State Department announced today.
Most of them are expected to leave. If they do, there will be no more significant Jewish populations left in the Arab world, outside of Morocco. The once flourishing Jewish populations of Baghdad, Cairo, Alexandria, Tunis and Algiers have either been evicted or fled since 1948, as a spillover from the Arab–Israel conflict.
The move by Syria constitutes a fundamental shift in policy toward its Jewish citizens, and appears to be part of an effort by President Hafez–al–Assad to make his country more acceptable to the United States now that Damascus has lost its longtime Soviet patron. Peace Talks Resume.
The Syrian decision came as Israel and its Arab neighbors – Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinians – resumed peace negotiations, their fifth round since the Madrid peace conference in October. Israel used the opportunity to broach a very general proposal today for municipal elections for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip…
Jews in Syria suffer everything from arbitrary arrests and discrimination to limits on what jobs and business they can enter…
Lifting travel restrictions for the Syrian Jews, therefore, may be seen as part of Mr. Assad’s general reaching out to the West, which began last October with his participation in direct American–sponsored peace talks with Israel – something he had also opposed his whole political career…”
New York Times Online, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/28/world/syria–giving–jews–freedom–to–leave.html (accessed April 28, 1992).