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The war greets you almost as soon as you arrive in Syria's capital. At perhaps 25,000 ft. over this city of mosques and markets, an Israeli jet, easily visible to the eye, explodes in a tiny flash and a puff of whitish smoke. Seconds later, a dull thump is heard as it crashes to the ground. The fighter plane was the victim of a "Soviet SAM," as Damascenes call their wonder weapon. The successes of the Soviet missiles are a major reason why the almost 900,000 citizens of Damascus seem relatively relaxed and unworried, even though the war is only 23 miles away.
Morale is high in Syria, no doubt about it, and so is a sense of unity and a feeling that the odds can be overcome. Damascenes do not seem to mind the inconveniences of the war: gasoline shortages, bread lines in the ancient covered suqs (markets), closed movie houses, irregular electric and telephone services, sporadic mail delivery and strict censorship. They hardly notice the camouflaged trucks of the Syrian army that continually rumble through the wide, European-like boulevards or the large numbers of their steel-helmeted soldiers carrying AK-47 automatic rifles along narrow, thousand-year-old alleyways. Some lightheartedly boast that when they hear a jet overhead they know whether it is an Israeli Phantom or one of their own Soviet-built MIG-21s. One Damascene explained: "The Phantom sound is softer. When you hear it, it is already gone."
Because of censorship, most Syrians have no idea of the magnitude of their army's losses. In the euphoria of thinking themselves ahead in a game they have never before won, they do not seem to care much. When the fighting stops, they expect a solution that will not only restore the Israeli-occupied lands to the Arabs but will result in a settlement for the Palestinians. One banker told us: "We are strong. We, not Israel, are the Middle East."
Perhaps strongest of all in Damascus is the feeling that even if the Arabs lose, the city will never be surrendered without a bloody struggle. "Even our young boys will fight if the Israelis try to take us," the banker told me. "They will have to kill all of us. Damascus for the Israelis? Never!"