An exiled Syrian dissident urged Israel not to make peace with the Bashar Assad regime. “Don’t make peace with a dictator or you will convince the Syrian people that you don’t care for their liberties and don’t care for their well-being,” Farid Ghadry, who from the United States leads the Syrian opposition Reform Party, told a conference in Jerusalem on Sunday. Ghadry, who is scheduled to address the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said the recent peace overtures made by Syrian President Assad toward Israel are insincere, as a normalization would deprive him of the excuse to maintain totalitarian rule over his people. Ghadry called for Western powers to help bring about democratic reform in Syria, chiefly through appealing to the country’s young generation.
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