MIDEAST: Talk About Talks Raises New Doubts

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peter Hirschberg

JERUSALEM, Jan 12 2004 (IPS) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not believe Syrian President Bashar Assad when he says he wants to renew peace talks with Israel. He does not appear willing to pay the territorial price of a comprehensive settlement, and does not believe his people are either.

But that does not mean the Israeli leader can play deaf and ignore the calls issuing from Damascus. His attempts to do so have again spurred accusations at home that he is a serial peace spoiler.

Senior ministers in his own right-wing government as well as President Moshe Katsav have been urging him to respond to Assad. President Assad called on Israel to resume talks in an interview last month in the New York Times.

President Katsav invited the Syrian President Monday to visit Jerusalem "to meet with the country’s leaders and conduct serious negotiations." Hours later the Syrians rejected the invitation. They said it was not a serious response to their call for peace talks.

Justice Minister Yosef Lapid of the centrist Shinui party said at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday that the absence of a clear Israeli response to Syrian overtures was painting the Jewish state as a "peace refusenik".

With domestic pressure mounting, Sharon did finally outline his conditions for a return to negotiations: Syria must "stop the help and support for terrorist agents, and if that happens I believe Israel will be ready," he told foreign correspondents in Jerusalem Sunday. He told his cabinet there was no need to "rush to embrace the Syrians."

Israel is angry over what it sees as Syrian support for militant Palestinian groups and its backing of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Late last week Israeli security sources alleged that Syrian planes flying relief aid to the earthquake- stricken Bam in Iran had returned laden with weapons for Hezbollah.

The weapons were loaded into trucks and driven into Lebanon for delivery, the sources said. If the accusations are proven to be true, they would help Sharon rebuff Assad’s call to resume talks.

Syria rejects allegations that it sponsors terror. It insists that members of militant groups only operate information offices in Syria.

At the core of Sharon’s distinct lack of enthusiasm is his reading of Assad’s advances as no more than a ploy to reduce U.S. pressure on Syria over issues of terror and weapons of mass destruction.

But that explanation, and Sharon’s response so far is unlikely to mollify Israelis demanding a closer inspection of Assad’s intentions. Labour Party lawmaker and former deputy defence minister Ephraim Sneh agrees with Sharon that Assad’s overtures are "a tactical move meant to stave off U.S. pressure", but does not believe that is a reason to cold-shoulder him.

"This doesn’t change the fact that Israel should seriously explore Assad’s intentions," Sneh told IPS. "This can be done through reliable third parties. The best way to prevent the impression that we are rejecting peace is to check out this offer."

Some ministers, as well as senior army officers, have been counselling Sharon to do just that. They say it could be to Israel’s advantage to negotiate with a Syrian leader weakened by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes it will even be possible to reach a deal with the Syrians without paying that longstanding price for peace – withdrawal from the entire Golan Heights that Israel captured during the 1967 war.

But few other political leaders, and even fewer Israeli strategic experts and security officials believe Assad will reduce the territorial price for a deal, regardless of how squeezed he may be. "It’s a nice concept," Sneh says of Netanyahu’s reading of the situation, "but it’s simply not valid. The Syrian price for peace remains the whole Golan Heights."

Sharon, it seems, is not prepared to pay that price. He believes the Golan is a strategic asset Israel cannot afford to relinquish. The Golan overlooks northern Israel, and Damascus too can be observed from there. It also overlooks the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s largest reservoir. Atop the Golan is Mt. Hermon, a peak Israelis call "the eyes of the country" because the lookout post there provides a view deep into Syrian territory.

Israelis who are willing to trade the Golan for peace believe it is possible to put in place security arrangements like demilitarised zones on the Syrian side of the border that would compensate loss of strategic high ground. Peace with Syria, they argue, is a crucial step on the road to normalisation with the rest of the Arab world.

Israel annexed the Golan in 1981 by an act of parliament. The step has never been recognised by the international community. Like in the West Bank, successive Israeli governments have built settlements on the Golan, although the drive to populate the strategic 1,158 sq. km plateau has been far less successful. About 20,000 Israeli Jews live there, along with a similar number of Druze, many of whom have Syrian flags in their homes and maintain allegiance to Damascus.

The last time the sides talked was when former Labour prime minister Ehud Barak met Syrian foreign minister Farouk A-Shara in the United States in early 2000. The two got "very, very close" to a deal, a former Barak aide said recently. But negotiations broke down and have not been resumed since.

Sharon believes a majority of Israelis share his skepticism about Syria. He was recently quoted as saying privately that people "would not tolerate" giving back the Golan. That assertion was borne out by an opinion poll published last week in the Hebrew daily Maariv. The poll showed 56 percent of Israelis opposed to relinquishing the Golan, and only 36 percent in favour.

The United States, not particularly enamoured of Assad over his position on Iraq, has not been pressing Sharon to respond. Senior U.S. officials have told their Israeli counterparts that if Assad was serious about pursuing peace, he would have explored the possibility via diplomatic channels rather than in a newspaper interview.

The Israelis and the U.S. officials may be right that Assad is playing diplomatic games. But ignoring the Syrian leader, or building in preconditions to the talks- about-talks phase will not provide the answer whether he is serious about peace or not.