SYRIA: Prospects for Peace with Israel [ English | عربي ]
Peace between Israel and Syria revolves around the Golan Heights: Syria lost the Heights in 1967; Israel annexed the Golan in 1981; Syria wants them back, but Israel is reluctant. Water, regional power and international interests will determine the outcome.
Writer: Radwan Ziadeh
The Long Israeli-Syrian Stand-Off
Though right-wing politics in Israel managed to introduce a law proposal obliging the Israeli authorities to carry out a referendum regarding any possible withdrawal from East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights, peace with Syria is currently under great debate in Israel. The aim behind the proposal is to strengthen those opposed to any potential withdrawal from the Golan that Israel occupied from Syria in June 1967 and annexed in 1981, and which a peace treaty with Damascus would inevitably entail. The proposal stipulates that any agreement including withdrawal requires the approval of the absolute majority of the Knesset (61 of 120 votes), and adds that if the withdrawal is approved by the Knesset, it then has to be submitted to referendum within the next 80 days.
However, the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, and the different Israeli intelligence services both support the idea of negotiating with Syria as a far-reaching strategic objective. This objective consists in isolating Syria from Iran, thus reducing the pressure exerted by the Palestinian organizations based in Syria, such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, in addition to completely isolating Hezbollah from Syria, especially after having witnessed the military capacity of the party in the July 2006 War. Dismantling the axis formed by Syria, Hezbollah and Iran would necessarily weaken Iran, and were one to imagine that Lebanon would follow Syria in signing a peace treaty with Israel, Hezbollah would also be weakened for it would no longer have a political excuse to maintain its weapons. But in no case would Lebanon precede Syria in signing peace.
Negotiations with Syria have therefore become a tug-of-war among the Israeli political class and between the right and the left, indicating that inside Israel, the matter is complicated and politically delicate.
On the Syrian side, Damascus is preoccupied with the same matter, and is watching the Golan closely, while its eyes are also set on the United States. Syria is perfectly aware of the fact that for negotiations with Israel to resume, the consent of all three parties is required, for even if Israel and Syria were both convinced of the necessity of resuming negotiations, this would not suffice if the United States did not want them.
This is the reason why Syria turned to Turkey in 2006 to lead indirect talks with its Israeli counterpart. However, the U.S. does not seem in the least interested in supporting these negotiations. This is due to their negative view of the Syrian role and the lack of seriousness with which the Syrians are responding to Washington’s concerns regarding the prohibition of providing weapons to Hezbollah in conformity with UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
For Syria, the continued Israeli occupation and annexation of the Golan and Damascus’ inability to put forward a proposition to recuperate the Heights represents a persistent source of regional embarrassment both for its internal legitimacy and with its Arab neighbors. Perhaps negotiations will help the Syrians regain that, but what is more important is for Washington’s role to shift from international threats against Syria in the form of various UN resolutions to a more supporting role facilitating negotiations. This is no easy matter for any of the sides concerned.
The Israelis thus want to negotiate on the Golan front to ensure the ultimate isolation of the other fronts, whereas the Syrians want to maintain these active in order for the international pressure coming from the Lebanese front to be reduced. In other words, both parties are entering negotiations as a means to open other doors: Israel will open the doors to the Arab world by convincing Syria to resume negotiations, and close the doors to Hezbollah and the Iranian threat, whereas Syria, by merely opening the door to negotiations, could lead to resuming relations with the United States.
Why does the Obama Administration not support resuming negotiations between Israel and Syria? The U.S. sees in the actions of the Syrian Government and its non adoption of any steps toward trust-building and in the direction of peace, a negative factor that does not encourage it to support the Syrian position, especially following the picture of Nejad, Assad and Nasrallah having lunch in Damascus, and the news of Syria providing Hezbollah with heavy weapons and far-reaching rockets. This has made it very difficult for potential U.S.-Syrian rapprochement. Even the return of the U.S. Ambassador there, with which the Obama Administration meant to open up to Syria, now seems very complicated amidst strong Republican opposition to it inside the U.S. Senate.
During his 2008 electoral campaign, Obama promised to start working for peace in the Middle East on the first day of his mandate. The appointment of George Mitchell on the day following the inauguration ceremony confirmed his promise and produced great relief in the Middle East, given the role he has played in the resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict, as well as his deep knowledge of the Israeli settlement reality and his criticism of it during his mission as U.S. peace envoy for the Bush Administration.
As expected, the Obama Administration made great efforts and pushed toward a bigger implication to manage this conflict and reduce its violence, while taking into consideration that its resolution is related to other developments in the region, especially those concerning the relation between Fatah and Hamas. The Israeli side should also realize that without a significant advance on the Palestinian track, it will be difficult for Syrian decision-makers to take steps toward a peace treaty. This is not only due to ideological and nationalistic considerations, but also to internal Syrian sensitivities that affect the regime’s image both internally and externally. Therefore, the track game should not continue if there is no intention to reach a solution based on the land-for-peace principle.
From Madrid to 9/11
The Syrian and Israeli sides went through difficult and complicated negotiations for over ten years, during the first Bush Administration and then under Clinton. These negotiations followed the 1991 Madrid Conference, and it is a mistake to say that they did not go anywhere. It is true that in the end they did not lead to a final peace treaty, but they did define the general bases for an agreement, and at the same time resolved many details. Hence the parameters are clear for both sides, and what is needed for a peace treaty to be signed is a political decision from each of the two sides accepting the demands of the other side. In addition, pressure should be exerted on Israel to accept, especially by rejecting its so-called policy of imposing “facts on the ground” by transforming the geographic and demographic realities in the Golan and complicating things by the introduction of various law proposals in Congress.
The reason that drove Syria to accept the Madrid Conference was Israel’s acceptance of UN Resolution 242 in all its parts and conditions as a basis for peace talks. The negotiations evolved positively, starting with Israel’s recognition of Resolution 242, followed by its readiness to withdraw fully from the Golan. This is known as “Rabin’s deposit”, the deposit implying full withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 line, and became known as the “pocket file”. But during the negotiations the deposit was ambivalent: was full withdrawal from the Golan conditional – as the Israelis insisted; or a commitment – as the Syrians claimed?
The main problem that arose during the bilateral negotiations concerned the degree that the full withdrawal from the Golan would reach, for the Golan has various borders: the international borders that were drawn by the French and British in 1923 and were not recognized by Assad late father, Hafez; the 1948 armistice borders that kept changing due to Israeli penetrations in the weapon-free regions; and the June 4, 1967 line, which itself could imply two things: either a fixed line drawn on the ground or a moving line that touches the waters of Lake Tabariya/Tiberias on its northern coast, retrocedes with the water level and advances when it drops, to continue touching the water.
All this demonstrates that great progress was made during the negotiations, which went into detailed discussions concerning this and other matters. For Rabin, withdrawal to the June 4 line was one of the four legs of the table. The other three were: normalization, security arrangements, and the time plan for withdrawal; these were meant to complement each other and be met simultaneously. There was progress on all four during the three years of Rabin’s premiership between 1993 and 1995, but negotiations always alternated between a truthful quest for peace and actual avoidance for fear of the consequences. Both Rabin and Assad were tough and mistrustful – gambling is a word that did not exist in their dictionaries – and therefore caution prevailed over audacity. Rabin’s assassination in 1995 put an end to the opportunity of reaching peace then.
After that, three governments followed in Israel under Peres, Netanyahu and Barak. When Peres became Prime Minister, he claimed to respect Rabin’s commitments and committed to full withdrawal to the June 4 line under Rabin’s conditions. Observers and researchers have questioned Assad’s hesitation to seize a second opportunity for attaining a peace treaty with Peres, but the problem was in fact more with Peres than Assad: Peres wanted peace but there are doubts as to whether he could actually sign it, which explains why he decided to enter early elections, to obtain the necessary popular support to continue on the peace track. He lost the elections and Netanyahu came to power and refused to commit to the “pocket file” and reverted instead to the “peace for peace” principle. The U.S. Administration did not exert any pressure on him to stick to the commitments of the previous Israeli governments, which Clinton’s Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, came to consider as not binding legally.
The last chapter began with Barak’s victory in the 1999 Israeli elections. During his government, two encounters took place: the first in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, in the presence of Sharaa and Barak; and the second between Assad and Clinton, who met in Geneva. Barak declared that the “only means to build final and global peace in the Middle East is through an agreement with Syria”, but during his visit to Shepherdstown he was unwilling or unable – as he told the Americans – to “approve the agreement that is being negotiated at present”; whereas the Syrians “sincerely wanted to negotiate an agreement when they were in Blair House and after that in Shepherdstown”.
As for the Assad-Clinton summit in Geneva, Switzerland, in March 2000, it was bound to fail because of bad preparations. Everyone knew that Assad would not accept a strip of land that would distance him from the north-eastern shore of Lake Tabariya/Tiberias, and Clinton arrived with a document from Barak that distanced the Syrians by hundreds of meters further from the shore, knowing that Assad would not accept it, and having seen Rabin’s “deposit” which accepted the withdrawal to the June 4 line. Assad was very serious in reaching a peace treaty “whereas Barak was unwilling to reach an agreement and in that way lost a true peace opportunity that may not repeat itself”.
The George Bush Junior Administration chose to not recognize the fruits of the previous peace process and preferred to distance itself from the problems of the Middle East. The bellicose response to the 9/11 attacks would postpone a conducive climate for peace by a decade with the invasions and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Regionally, the electoral victory of Ariel Sharon – responsible for the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacres in Beirut – only complicated matters by further discouraging the Palestinians.
Between War and Peace – Recommendations
All three opportunities to achieve peace between Israel and Syria failed. Generally, when negotiations fail, all the negotiating sides are partly responsible, but not in equal proportions, and this is what happened during the three lost opportunities in the Israeli-Syrian sessions. For the Syrian leadership, it is difficult to accept a peace treaty with Israel in which Syria would obtain less than what Sadat obtained and less than the Rabin’s deposit to withdraw fully to the June 4 line.
The horizon for an Israeli-Syrian peace is more dependent upon the international and regional climate than internal will, for guaranteeing an atmosphere for peace depends mainly on the existence of international efforts, especially emanating from Washington. This is why matters seem complicated: it is both an internal and external challenge for Syria to convince the U.S. of its serious willingness to achieve peace, and Israel that it too has a real interest in peace. Otherwise, the option of war shall remain in theory the most present, though practically and realistically it remains remote. Syria’s strategic choice of no-war/no-peace may remain the most real option if no internal or external challenges arise to shift toward war or peace.
Israel and Syria engaged in difficult and complex negotiations for over a decade, and it is a major mistake to consider that these led nowhere. It is true that a peace agreement was not reached, but these negotiations set the general parameters for an agreement recognized clearly by both sides. For a final peace agreement to be signed, both sides must make a political decision to accept the other’s demands. In conclusion, several recommendations can be advanced to render an agreement possible:
The details agreed upon by the two sides during the ten years of negotiations narrowed the gap considerably between the Israeli and Syrian positions, which makes the adoption of a final peace accord the last thing to be achieved by the respective political leadership at the highest level. The decision must include the conditions set out by each side and the price required to meet them.
The Syrian side continues to insist on not addressing Israeli public opinion, and though this could be understandable given the regime’s internal considerations as well as the sensitivity of the matter on the Arab level, the fact that Syria refuses to acknowledge the existence of deep divisions within Israeli society makes reaching a peace treaty harder. This should therefore necessarily be taken into consideration when entering direct negotiations in the coming phase.
The Israeli side should realize that the Syrian regime will not accept anything less than the full Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 line, which is the only condition in return of which Israeli demands regarding security, water and normalization could be satisfied.
The Israeli side should also realize that without advancing seriously on the Palestinian track, it will be difficult for Syrian decision-makers to take steps toward a peace treaty. This is not only due to ideological and nationalistic considerations, but also to internal Syrian factors that affect the regime’s image both internally and externally.
The Syrian side should change the way in which it manages negotiations in the coming phase, especially by opening up to Syrian civil society and allowing for a space in which the matter may be discussed internally in all its aspects. This will help reach a peace treaty that will be accepted on the general public level, and not imposed from the outside according to the conditions of the international community. This of course cannot be possible unless the Syrian regime begins a process of real democratization that would eventually allow for a peaceful alternation of power. Only then will the continuity of the treaty be guaranteed, and the opposition it entailed elsewhere, such as in Egypt, be avoided.
Finally, greater international implication should be ensured, especially from the United States, for it is the party with the greatest capability of exerting pressure to convince Israel to withdraw from and return the Golan Heights to Syria, as well as to create the necessary regional dynamics for the negotiations to continue and reach their final goal.
Radwan Ziadeh is a visiting researcher and Prins Global Fellow at Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University.
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