The Homs Declaration: The External Danger is at the Door. Unlike the Damascus Declaration that I did not like, and which dealt with matters from the right-flank of the regime, and which contained language of the Syrian Muslim Brothers, and which avoided the crucial issues of foreign policy, a group of Syrian intellectuals just issued the Homs (or Hums--not Hummus before Lebanonese nationalists get too excited) Declaration. What is different about this declaration is that it put pressures on the regime from the left, and it stressed support for the Palestinians and affirmed the "right to resist" Israeli occupation in the Golan heights--in a clear swipe at the regime's passivity there. It also rejected any form of racial, ethnic or sectarian discrimination, and called, among other things, for the lifting of the state of emergency which the Ba`th imposed on Syria in the name of a battle for Palestine that never materialized. So Syrians lost their rights, and did not gain Palestine. Worse. We lost more lands. Fortunately, this declaration did not have the signature of Michel Kilogram, the darling of Lebanonese right-wingers, and who says different things depending on the time of the day, and on the nationality of his audience. The statement ended with a warning about an "external danger personified in American Zionist savagery which is at the door."