Reacting to the ongoing massacres taking place in Syria over the past year, President Shimon Peres said that Syrian President Bashar Assad did not inherit his father´s wisdom but did inherit his father´s evil and his penchant for wholesale slaughter.

Peres who traveled to Nahariya to address the conference for the development of the Galilee, said that in recent months it had become increasingly important to focus not only on Tehran but on what is happening in Syria, where day after day Assad is killing women and children.

There is a decisive battle going on in Syria, the outcome of which will determine the future of the region said Peres. Then striking a more optimistic note, Peres said that he doubted whether Assad had much of a future in the final analysis. "He´s bound to fall," Peres predicted. "Assad is a cold blooded leader who inherited his father´s evil and desire to kill but not his wisdom. Peres was convinced that the Syrian people will not allow this cruel tyrant to remain as leader. "Because today the people of Syria are much more aware of what he is".

Peres, who has subtly urged the population of Iran to go out in the streets and to topple the regime, sent a similar subtle message to the Syrians when he said that he believes that the Syrian people whose lives are constantly at risk have the capacity to go out into the streets day after day and to rise up against the oppressive regime.

Israel identifies with the victims and with the Syrian people who are fighting for freedom and equality, declared Peres who also noted the unprecedented action by the Arab League in asking for help from the United Nations in settling the Syrian crisis in the most humanitarian way.

Peres commented that Assad is threatened not only by opposing forces but also by the state of Syria´s faltering economy. His financial reservoirs are fast diminishing, said Peres, but did not spell out exactly what Israel should do in the face of Syrian realities, other than to say that Israel must act in a carefully weighed and well thought out manner, but must act quickly because Syria is part of the aggressive religiously extreme terror coalition of Iran.

In light of the rapid changes and uncertainly in the region, Peres stressed the urgency of strengthening and developing the Galilee.

Security concerns aside, he said that the Galilee deserves greater development and investment with a sophisticated high tech park that would provide training and employment for the whole demographic mosaic of the Galilee – Jews and Arabs alike. There are many areas that still have to be significantly upgraded said Peres, citing housing, education, culture and leisure.

As always, Peres forecasted the dramatic development of scientific discovery and inventiveness in the upcoming decade, and underscored that the Galilee must be part of that development. "Today we have to attract scientists to the Galilee, not just tourists," he said. (© 1995-2011, The Jerusalem Post 03/20/12)