For Israel, now is the time and the opportunity to aim for comprehensive peace
Tel Aviv (AsiaNews) - This has been a particularly busy week in a region known for providing almost non-stop drama. The Doha agreement on ending the political crisis in Lebanon; the approaching of the decisive moment in the indirect negotiations (mediated by Egypt) between Israel and Hamas on the bilaterally desired ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas organisation in the Gaza Strip; the intensification of the police investigation related to Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert... and, to cap it all, the long-awaited official disclosure that Syria and Israel are in peace negotiations mediated by Turkey.
This observer has pointed out more than once in past postings on AsiaNews (and elsewhere) that a peace treaty between Israel and Syria is not only indispensable to an Israeli-Palestinian peace, but is also relatively easy to achieve. It was almost signed at Shepherdstown, in the U.S., almost a decade ago, was once more tantalisingly within reach during Netanyahu's premiership in Israel a few years later, and is still available on clear and relatively simple terms. The Syrian government has been insistent in publicly repeating its willingness to enter into such a peace agreement. Essentially it will include Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which it has been holding under the international law rules of "belligerent occupation" since the 1967 Arab-israeli war, as well as certain arrangements concerning demilitarisation of zones close to the border, on both sides, and regulation of the use of water resources, in which both sides have an interest. At least very probably, it will include some sort of (possibly tacit) recognition of Syria's national security interest in Lebanon.
The "cost" of such a treaty for Israel would be modet (compared with the huge costs, political and financial) of a peace treaty with the Palestinians, while the beneifits would be enormous. Peace with Syria would complete the circle of peace along Israel's entire land border: Egypt and Jordan already have peace treaties with Israel, and Lebanon will sign such a treaty as soon as Syria has. There are no real border issues between Israel and Lebanon, and Lebanon will be obliged to sign if Syria tells it to. A peace treaty with Syria will mean - as a consequence, not a pre-condition - a decoupling of Syria from militantly anti-Israeli Iran, including a total transformation of the role of Hizbollah in Lebanon. Hizbollah will be cut off from its Iranian suppliers, and without Syrian support will need to change very quickly into a "normal" Lebanese political party or else be crushed.
Recognising Syria's role in Lebanon will not be a great sacrifice. The Doha agreement ending the long-running Lebanese political crisis, has in effect delivered control over Lebanon to Hizbollah, with the support of the Arab League and the consent of the West. Syria is therefore left as the only wielder of influence capable of rescuing Lebanon from Hizbollah's plans to make it into a branch office of Iran's style of militant Islam. And let there be no mistake about it: Syria'ìs present alliance with Iran and Hizbollah is an unnatural alliance, which can easily be revoked. Essentially the nature and interests of the Syrian régime are antithetical to those of Iran and Hizbollah, if only because Syria's is the only remaining bastion of ideological secularism in the Middle East, and is ruled by the followers of a minority religion (Alawaite) considered heretical by all branches of Islam, by both Sunnis and Shia. Once Syria is brought in out of its isolation, and is strengtehened by its peace treaty with Israel, a stronger alliance with Turkey and, consequently, much closer ties with the West, the link with Iran and its "branch-offices" will practically vanish on its own.
Peace negotiations with Syria, more or less in this perspective, have long been advocated by an influential collection of fomer heads of military intelligence in Israel, other military leaders and certain ministers and other polticians - although their voices have been heard only sporadically in public. Others have objected - for a variety of reasons: There will be some "price" to be paid in terms of internal Israeli poltics - even though the 20,000 or so settlers in the Golan Heights are far fewer than the 400,000 or so in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, who would be affected by an Israeli-Palestinian peace - and there was a strong perception in Israel that the U.S. saw things differently and would object to peace talks with Syria.
Now the question everyone is asking is: how serious are the talks? There is a current of opinion in Israel that dismisses them as not serious, and attributes the announcement this week to just another attempt by Prime Minister Olmert to divert attention from his increasing legal troubles, and from calls for his resignation. The Premier's supporters point out that the talks have been underway for a long time, since long before the police and prosecutors have launched their current, fourth or fifth, investigation into Mr. Olmert's (political and personal) financial conduct while in his previous jobs as Industry Minister, Treasury Minister and Mayor of Jerusalem.
More importantly, it can be questioned whether peace negotiations, and even a peace agreement, with Syria would be fully meaningful outside of the context of a more comprehensive, regional, peace, which would at the same time include the Palestinians. Some would say that a peace treaty with Syria as such would be the "coup de grace" to the Palestinian casue, and therefore a boon for Israel. The Palestinians would find themselves encircled in their homeland by Arab countries at peace with Israel, and therefore forced to reach agreement with Israel on Israel's own terms. Others would argue that leaving the Palestinians in the occupied territories thus isolated, boxed-in and hopeless, would only increase tensions to a level that could no logner be contained. And, of course, there is the question of how could the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon be motivated to accpet being re-settled somewhere permanent except in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, which would provide for their compensation and re-settlement, with the help of outside financing and practically global cooperation. Which is precisely what would be provided for within the Madrid Conference framework.
And so the perennial question comes up again, in the present context too: Why not simply re-convene the 1991 Madrid Conference, and negotiate the remaining elements of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace within that all-encompassing framework? Now that Israel has broken the taboos of recent years, and is in fact negotiating with Syria, at the same time that it is negotiating with the Palestinians (ie. the "Annapolis process"), why not renew the effor to do this all within an organic process?
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