Arab Belt project

Arab Belt
الحزام العربي
	Al-Hasakah Governorate highlighted in red
Date	1973–1976
Location	Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria
Type	Forced deportations
Motive	Arab nationalism, Ba'athification
Perpetrator	Ba'athist Syria
Organized by	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party; Syrian Arab Armed Forces
Outcome	120,000 Kurds deprived of Syrian citizenship in 1962; Hilal report internal memo issued in 1963; Ba'ath party adopts the proposals of Hilal report in 1965; Hafez al-Assad orders the launch of Arab Belt programme in 1973; Deportation of 140,000 Kurds and replacement with Arab settlers from Raqqa; 4,000 Arab families settled in new villages in 1973; Tabqa Dam built by the Syrian government in 1973;
Target	Syrian Kurds

The Arab Belt (Arabic: الحزام العربي, al-hizām al-ʿarabī; Kurdish: Kembera Erebî, که‌مبه‌را عه‌ره‌بی) was the Syrian Ba'athist government's project of Arabization of the north of the Al-Hasakah Governorate to change its ethnic composition of the population in favor of Arabs to the detriment of other ethnic groups, particularly Kurds.

It involved the seizure of land which was then settled with Arabs displaced by the creation of Lake Assad. The programme was implemented in 1973; forcibly deporting around 140,000 Kurds and confiscating their lands around a 180-mile strip. Thousands of Arab settlers coming from Raqqa were then granted these lands to establish settlements.