US holds key to Syria-Israel peace

Why should Israel defer her own lofty national interest, ie peace with its neighbours, for its relations with a foreign country?" asks Amos Uz in Yediot Aharnot, summing up the position of the Israeli government on the present relations between Damascus and Washington.

And unlike the stance of the Ehud Olmert government, Israeli newspapers are replete with articles positively responding to repeated Syrian calls for the resumption of negotiations with Israel.

Their authors emphatically blame their government, and the prime minister in particular.

Yariel Marcus, Ha'aretz's chief commentator, wrote that "in no phase should Israel put herself in a position of rejecting negotiation offered by any Arab state, neither should she be passive in her attitude towards peace, and should say yes even if the offer came from her archenemy".

He added that "Olmert's firm opposition to Syria's initiative is imprudent ... President [George W.] Bush will go back to his ranch, but we will stay here. If our government lacks an agenda, then the Syrian challenge is the kind that requires courage and reason which Olmert disdains".

Both Uz and Marcus warned against Israel's rejection of the Syrian proposal. They even put President Bashar Al Assad's recent proposal to resume negotiations on the same level as that of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's initiative.

Contradictory views

However, peace with Syria continues to ebb and flow in Israel, with contradictory views among the military and politicians.

The Mossad chief, for example, views Bashar's proposal as a mere trick, and a manoeuvre aimed at getting Syria out of its political hardship inflicted by the United States. But the military intelligence chief thinks that Bashar is really willing to conclude peace with Israel.

According to their statements, many protagonists of reviving negotiations with Syria argue that it is time for Israel to decisively give priority to the Syrian track over the Palestinian one, as that would break up the alliance between Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran on the one hand, and Syria on the other.

Thus Iran would be weakened and further isolated. The failed war against Lebanon last summer bolstered this notion.

Hence these protagonists see the resumption of negotiations with Syria without preconditions as incentive for achieving actual political gains which Israel didn't manage to realise through its aggressive war against Lebanon.

Syrian-Israeli peace talks came to a halt in Wye River in 2000. US neo-conservatives gained control over the White House then, and furthered their disasters in the Middle East.

In spite of that, Syria persisted in its calls for peace, most outstanding of which was Bashar's statement to the New York Times in late 2003, in which he said for the first time that Syria didn't have preconditions for restarting talks with Israel.

By contrast, the incumbent Israeli government didn't stop labelling Syria as "a terrorist state not wanting peace, and strengthening its army with Iranian financing".

Apart from this, the Israeli government reiterated its intentions to intensify construction of colonies in the occupied Golan Heights.

Still, divergence in the stance of Israeli officials continues to manifest itself. Defence minister Amir Peretz said: "We hear cries from Syria for peace, but [they] meanwhile prepare for war. We should carefully examine each step, prepare ourselves for a possible confrontation, while keeping the door open for negotiations".

Minister of Strategic Affairs Avidgor Liberman pointed out that "all options with Syria" remain open, underlying that "it is a hostile country and part of the axis of evil". This is indicative of a problem on the Israeli side - if the Israelis are not prepared for peace with the Palestinians, how can they be prepared for peace with Syria?

Washington seems to be Israel's "dilemma", when it comes to reviving the Syrian peace track. All concerned have predicted a real relaxation in the peace process between Syria and Israel in 2007.

It is evident now that Israel does not want to annoy the United States for the sake of Syria, especially as US-Israeli bilateral talks on US military assistance for the next decade have started.

Moreover, for Israel it has become unthinkable, under the prevailing regional and international situation, to start peace talks with Syria, as the Jewish state has realised that Washington has willingly eschewed its role as the "sponsor of the peace process", and has in fact become an obstacle to peace.

The issue was revealed by Ha'aretz when it reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Israeli officials not to respond to Syrian calls for the resumption of peace talks.

The paper's military commentator Zev Sheev wrote that when Israeli officials asked Rice (during her recent visit to Israel) about how serious the Syrians were on reviving peace negotiations, she resolutely said, "Don't even think of it".

The paper also reminded us all of the Bush administration's pressure on Olmert to go ahead with its aggression against Lebanon, irrespective of world community's appeals to stop it.

Indeed, the hostile US stance against the resumption of talks that might bring peace between Syria and Israel will not help move this track.

Much of the future development depends on the ultimate outcome of the "conference of neighbouring countries on Iraq" (due to be held in Turkey) where both Iran and Syria will be participating. We need to wait and see!

Professor As'ad Abdul Rahman is the Chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopedia.