Israeli-Syrian
Talks: Back In a Deep Freeze
Ghassan Bishara
February 1,
2000
Israel's terms
for peace with Syria as revealed in the Israeli-leaked American
document speak of a military redeployment with the settlements remaining
in place. While Syria is responding favorably to Israeli demands
for normalization and security, Israel's ideas are more a road-
map for permanent occupation than a plan for a reasonable peace
agreement.
The current
negotiating process is not Syria's preferred method for resolving
the Arab-Israeli conflict. For more than a decade, Syrian leaders
did their utmost to consolidate the Arab stand before the 1991 Madrid
conference, with the aim of rendering it impossible for any Arab
party to sign a treaty with Israel before the rest were prepared
to follow suit. It was agreed that each of the Arab parties (Lebanon,
Jordan, Syria and the PLO) could pursue whatever means available
to secure the best conditions suitable for their country's interests.
None, however, was supposed to sign a treaty until the rest reached
the same point in coordinated negotiations with Israel. Peace would
be possible, but only when all the Arab parties had arrived at agreements.
Syria's logic
was to deny a strong Israel any chance to use its strength against
isolated and therefore weakened individual Arab countries on the
one hand, and to rein in Arab parties that might elect to go it
alone. In concluding the Oslo agreement secretly in 1993, Yasser
Arafat not only broke ranks, but also this Arab contract, thus facilitating
Israel's longstanding strategy of fracturing and weakening the collective
Arab position. The result was the current Palestinian-Israeli agreement,
which all but Clinton's spin-doctors and some Israelis consider
a dysfunctional and profoundly asymmetrical agreement.
The first harvest
of Israel's post-Oslo success came in the 1994 Israeli peace treaty
with Jordan, which had been willing but unable to conclude one since
the 1950s. King Hussein, a long-time quiet ally of Israel, could
not execute such a peace deal until the Palestinians broke the wobbly
yet standing Arab refusal to recognize Israel until the Palestinian
issue was satisfactorily resolved. Egypt's 1979 unilateral peace
treaty with Israel did not alter that Arab stand, basically because
of the 1968 Baghdad Arab Summit refusing any contact with Israel
and the PLO's total rejection of Sadat's unilateral peace with it.
It was only after Oslo that Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Morocco, Tunisia
and Mauritania established diplomatic contacts with Israel. Now
it becomes Syria's turn to try.
Why Now?
Speculations
about the reasons for the Syrian and Israeli leaders' willingness
to resume the talks include Syria's stagnant economy, the health
of President Asad and issues of succession to the presidency. Israel's
quagmire in Lebanon and the unacceptably high Israeli casualty rate
at the hands of Hizbollah is another; Syria alone is capable of
controlling Hizbollah's anti-Israeli activities. However, by far,
the most important factor for resuming the talks, not withstanding
Clinton's dozens of calls and letters to Asad and Barak, was an
ambiguous Israeli agreement to Syria's bottom-line demand: to restart
negotiations where Rabin had left off in 1996, meaning a tacit Israeli
willingness to relinquish the Golan Heights. Succeeding Israeli
governments, Peres, Netanyahu and now Barak, have denied such a
commitment was ever made by Rabin, and had hoped to return to the
talks without any preconditions.
In the present
negotiations, it was first believed that Israel had accepted the
Syrian demand for withdrawal at least in principle. Negotiations,
therefore, were supposed to be about whether the Israeli withdrawal
will be to the 1923 border, Israel's choice, or to the June 4, 1967
border, Syria's preference, supported by various UN resolutions,
including 242 and 338. Israel's objective is to keep Syria away
from the Sea of Galilee and from other sources of water, a point
that Asad vigorously opposes. Asad is not Arafat and will accept
no less than what Sadat accepted, meaning a full Israeli withdrawal,
but also a readiness to negotiate water issues, just like the oil
issue with Egypt.
Parallel to
the Syrian demand for full Israeli withdrawal, is Israel's insistence
on security guarantees, including monitoring devices to be placed
on Mount Hermon. According to the American leaked working paper,
first in the Al Hayat Arabic daily and then a more complete version
in Israel's Haaretz, Syria appears to have accepted this demand
and agreed that such devices be staffed by US and other international,
not Israeli forces. Security issues were not the reason for occupying
the Heights in the first place according to Moshe Dayan in a 1976
interview with Israeli journalist Rami Tal; it was greed for land
and water, he said. Subsequently, many Israeli generals, active
and retired, have supported returning the Golan in exchange for
a secure peace.
The leaked
document also shows that Syria is ready to cooperate on other fronts,
particularly regarding the emotionally wrenching and costly in human
life issue of south Lebanon. Syria has already exhibited its willingness
and ability to influence Hizbollah fighters against retaliating
for the Israeli shelling and killing of Lebanese civilians during
the Shepherdstown talks. Hizbollah has always retaliated when shelling
by Israeli forces or those of its Lebanese militia allies' (SLA)
killed Lebanese civilians. Without Syrian cooperation, Hizbollah
may continue its war with Israel, possibly even past a settlement
with Lebanon.
The American
working paper disclosed a surprisingly forthcoming Syrian stance
concerning the once very difficult issue of normalization with Israel.
Syria, apparently, agreed to full normalization with Israel, including
exchange of embassies and a two-way open border for the free flow
of tourists and trade. At a point not far in the past, this position
on the part of Syria would have been impossible to even contemplate.
It becomes harder still in light of Syrian knowledge that whatever
agreement is concluded with Barak will have to be ratified by the
Knesset, not a sure thing, and also approved in a national referendum,
where consent is even less certain. In previous rounds of talks,
Syria flatly rejected placing the Heights future in the hands of
the Israeli public. The Golan, according to international law, is
occupied area and a settlement there, should flow from international,
not Israeli law. As of mid January, 60% of the Israeli public stood
in opposition to withdrawal from the Heights.
Barak: Obstinate
and Intransigent
Surprising
as Syria's forthcoming stand may be, Israel's is more so, but in
the opposite direction. It is this openly intransigent Israeli stance,
which so embarrassed the Syrian regime as to make it harden its
position and look for cover to maintain its credibility with the
Syrian and Arab publics. Particularly embarrassing is the Syrian
apparent acknowledgment of all Israel's conditions even before Israel
accedes the basic Syrian point, i.e., withdrawal from the Golan.
Israel's position is that instead of withdrawal, there will be a
deployment of its forces in the Golan, the American working paper
shows. The deployment, it is further stated, would exclude civilians,
meaning that after the agreement -- now unlikely to happen - Israel
will remain the sovereign power in the Heights. So settlements,
settlers and the Israeli army will stay put after a peace agreement
agreement, though the army in a different location. Syria now is
conditioning its return to the talks on a written Israeli consent
to fully depart from the Heights, which Israel immediately rejected;
Syria furthermore, insists that any Syrian-Israeli agreement will
be tied to a similar agreement with Lebanon. It's all back to square
one.
Cost to
Americans
Still on the
US list of countries supporting terrorism, Syria is ineligible to
receive any American assistance, if an agreement is concluded. Not
so Israel, which could count on receiving even more American money
than it already enjoys. After the signing of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli
peace treaty, Israel received $4.8 billion from the United States
and more than $64,267 billion since in total assistance, of which
$57,499 billion are in grants, the Link Magazine, September-October,
1997 reported. Ze'ev Schiff of Israel's leading daily, Haaretz,
wrote on January 7 that an Israeli-Syrian agreement will cost the
US $17.4 billion and that, altogether, Israel will request between
$65 and 70 billion for the Golan and the Palestinian final agreement
to cover various withdrawal expenditures. When these huge sums are
paid, Americans will have paid twice: once when Israel settled occupied
Arab lands with American money in violation of international and
US law, and once more to undo what was illegal and should not have
been done in the first place.
Even though
Israeli leaders know that peace with Syria means peace with most
of the Arab world, they would still rather hold on to the Heights
and guarantee continuation of the conflict than withdraw for a secure
settlement. A member of an Omani delegation in Israel affirmed that
"peace with Syria means peace with 22 Arab states," Haaretz
reported (January 11). But with no effective Arab or, more importantly,
US pressure on Israel to withdraw from the Heights and no repercussions
for keeping them, Israel is left to respond to its home constituency,
which opposes the withdrawal. The stalled negotiations are already
having repercussions for Israel and Lebanon, as four Israeli soldiers,
the deputy commander of the SLA and a number of Lebanese civilians
were killed and hurt by exchange of fire this week. Barak's election
campaign crisis will have repercussions as well, as he may try to
pacify the public by adopting the popular view of no compromise
with Syria.
Reading the
editorials of the mainstream American papers, one can easily conclude
that Syria is all to blame for the setback in the pursuit of Middle
East peace. And the US government assessment is not far behind the
press either. The short-lived euphoria that kicked in with the start
of the talks is now replaced with a more sober and tragic consequence
and no general appreciation of the extent to which Syria moved to
regain its occupied land and come to a rapprochement with Israel.
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