There's no partner for Syria
By Ze'ev Schiff
Haaretz, January 7 2004
Just as Israel has claimed many times that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is not a partner for peace, the Syrians can claim, and indeed are so doing, that the Israeli government is not a true partner for peace talks. Although there are glimmers of willingness to conduct negotiations, on the whole the Syrians are right.
The Israeli leadership recoils from the price involved in negotiations with Syria. It is clear that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon does not want to negotiate with Syria at present. His responses in the matter range from silence to neutral statements. He had a good opportunity to relate to Syrian proposals during his speech at the Likud convention, but he ignored the issue completely.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has also remained silent, even more so than Sharon. Mofaz's close associates say that he prefers the Palestinian track, but there are no signs that he is ready for a big deal with the Palestinians either. If Sharon's disengagement plan is implemented ("we will prevent them from crossing into our territory"), Mofaz's plans to ease life for Palestinians that are not involved in terror will be stymied.
Unlike Sharon and Mofaz, most senior officials in the security community - in Intelligence, the Israel Defense Forces and the defense establishment - feel that we must not reject the Syrian advances, even if they are no more than a tactical step.
The one exception is Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who has long been known for his extreme political positions regarding the Golan Heights. His argument is that nothing will come of the Syrian proposal, so we should not respond to it.
The silence of Sharon and Mofaz makes the voices of two other Likud ministers sound even louder. On one hand there is the provocative voice of Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz, who has announced a settlement plan for the Golan that is intended to prevent any concessions to the Syrians. Katz and his cronies have turned Channel 1 television into a public service broadcast for "tremendous" settlement in the Golan.
The sole positive voice in the government is that of Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom ("we are ready for direct negotiations without preconditions, and the first topic from our point of view will be terrorism.") This position is contrary to that of Sharon.
One of the excuses used by those trying to avoid facing the Syrian proposal is that the United States is not currently interested in negotiations between Israel and Syria. This is far from being true. The U.S. has a tough dispute with Syria, which recently rose to the fore again due to a law in Congress against Syria. The U.S. is demanding that Syria fulfill the promises it made to Secretary of State Colin Powell regarding activities on the Syrian-Iraqi border (but not the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that may have been hidden in Syria), the expulsion of terrorist leaders from Damascus and the arming of Hezbollah. The U.S. is not planning to ease its pressure on Damascus, it has told Israel explicitly that it ought to check into the Syrian offer for negotiations.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad decided that Mubarak, who will soon be visiting Washington, would offer U.S. President George W. Bush the option of spearheading and sponsoring the negotiations between Israel and Syria. While Washington considers the Palestinian track a tainted subject that must be avoided during an election year, the Syrian-Israeli issue could be viewed as attractive to the White House during this period.
The heads of the security establishment in Israel, who support "examining" the Syrian offer, point to a few encouraging signs in Damascus. (Among other things, they ask why the radical foreign minister, Farouk Shara, was ousted and replaced by Information Minister Bouthaine Shaban.)
Israel must not reject the Syrian offer under the present circumstances. If it is a "tactical" move on Syria's part, this fact must be exposed. Israel cannot be perceived as the rejectionist party in this matter. And if it turns out that this is a serious strategic move, it can include Hezbollah's role in the dispute, the Iranian connection and Lebanon's part in an agreement. Such a move would have clear advantages, despite the heavy price it entails.
