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The Syrian National Party was a quasi-fascist party that advocated Syrian dominance over a wide swath of the Middle East. It was founded by Antun Saada, who was executed in 1949 after a failed coup in Lebanon; however, the party was still active in Syria in the mid-1950s.

The party's vision of Greater Syria included Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Cyprus, Jordan and Iraq. Saada believed that Syria's greatness had been tarnished through a series of invasions, mostly referring to those of the Muslims. Saada in his writings often dismissed the Arabic influence on Syria as being "of the East". His Syria was a "Western" nation. These positions largely alienated the vast majorty of Syria's inhabitants who were mostly Sunni Muslim and Arab, though Saada never explicitly decried Arabs or Muslims as being a problem in Syria. He did however try to remove their influence in Syrian history making them "Syrians' as opposed to "Arabs". His writings, mostly either political polemics or historical works are very much works of historical revisionism to an almost extreme degree. His views of an historically unified Syria were never true, Syria and most especially Lebanon had long been divided on the lines of ethnicity and religion, even tribe. The Party sought to govern a Syria that had never existed. It's ideology drew heavily on those of the European fascists of the period, Mussolini was seen as a model to follow. The Party was a product of the widespread uncertainty of the 1930s. Many young men who joined the Party were of the poor working classes from the hill country or of the urban slums looking for a deeper meaning to their lives and for their country.

It drew it's support mainly from Orthodox Christians, Druze and Shia Muslims. Few Maronites and Sunni Muslims were drawn to it's message. Without these two key groups, the Party obviously could not survive for long. The Party's message sounded to many like a revival of a kind of Godless (as in secular) Byzantium Many of the party's followers gravitated towardsArab nationalism, particularly that of the Ba'ath Party and the Egyptian president Nasser.

References

• Irwin, Robert "An Arab Surrealist". The Nation, January 3, 2005, 23–24, 37–38.

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