The 1962 census was one component of a comprehensive plan to Arabize the Kurdish northeast of Syria along the Turkish-Syrian border. “The government wanted to eliminate 150,000 Kurds and bring in Arab settlers,” a Kurdish political activist in Hasakeh told us. “It wanted to force the Kurds to leave the governorate, which was 70 to 80 percent Kurdish. Beginning in 1973, they moved Arab settlers to the border area with Turkey.” This “Arab belt” (al-hizam al-’arabi, in Arabic) was some ten to fifteen kilometers wide and 375 kilometers long, from Ras al-’Ayn east to Malikiyyah near the Syria-Iraq border. Northeastern Syria is rich in resources, particularly the fertile plain known as the Jazira, bounded on the east and west by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, respectively. “This area produces two sources of hard currency for Syria,” a Kurdish engineer told us. “Petrol, and about 80 percent of the cotton and grains. But the money is spent elsewhere, not here.” Western diplomats have also noted that the state sought to depopulate the area of its Kurdish residents, and have suggested that its oil reserves may have been a contributing factor in this decisionmaking. Another apparent concern was the fact that the Jazira has the largest population of non-Arabs in Syria.

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/SYRIA96.pdf

Every aspect of the ideology of Ba'athism has been about oppressing and dehumanizing the Kurdish people. Anyone denying this is either ignorant, misinformed or in favor of this oppression.