Samir Ghattas reviews a decade and a half of Syrian-Israeli negotiations Contrary to the common impression, 2008 brought major developments in the Turkish-brokered Syrian-Israeli negotiations. Such was the progress that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad declared to La Republica that Syria and Israel were a hair's breadth away from a peace agreement. The Syrian president's statement to the Italian newspaper confirmed remarks by the then Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert on 19 December 2008, during the annual conference of the Israeli National Security Research Institute, that "a peace agreement with Syria is achievable". "There is a real and realistic possibility to reach an agreement between Israel and Syria very soon," said Olmert. The horizon soon darkened. Olmert, himself, was on his way out of office under a gathering cloud of corruption allegations. Al-Assad was insisting the Americans be brought into the negotiations. Bush was not enthusiastic. He, too, was soon to leave the White House to the immense relief of the majority of the world. Whatever had been a hair's breadth away was once again a mile off. Many argue it is not in Israel's interest to make a peace agreement with Syria if that means handing back the Golan Heights, occupied in 1967. Israel regards the Golan as vital to its national security. Topographically, it dominates a vast track of Israeli territory. It is also a primary source for Israel's ever increasing water needs. Israel would only relinquish the strategic heights under two conditions. The first is coercion, ie under an overwhelming force of arms. The second is through an agreement that offers Israel significant compensation for relinquishing the Heights and, the greatest possible guarantees for Israel's safety and security. Unlike Bush, the new Obama administration seems more disposed to the "Syrian track first" option. Several developments point in this direction. One is Obama's decision to send a US ambassador back to Damascus. Another is the intensification of activity on this track by George Mitchell and his assistant Fredrick Hoff, a specialist in Syrian-Israeli affairs. There has also been a marked and steady improvement in Syrian-Saudi relations, lending impetus in the same direction. Obama's preference for dealing with the Syrian track first reflects the position of the Baker-Hamilton report which, in points 8 to 17, strongly recommended engaging with Syria. It is also consistent with a report by US strategy expert Richard Hass, published in Foreign Affairs. According to this report, there are many reasons why Syria's first option is in US interests. One aim of a deal with Syria would be to wean Damascus away from Tehran. Severing the Syria-Iran alliance is an Israeli demand, but it would also weaken Iran's negotiating position in its talks with the US. A deal would oblige Syria to close its borders with Iraq and prevent the smuggling of persons and arms, helping safeguard a peaceful US withdrawal and to promoting stability inside Iraq. It would also help leverage Damascus into halting arms supplies to Hizbullah in Lebanon and lessen or weaken Damascus's support for the Palestinian factions residing in Damascus. Clearly, the Syrian track is less difficult and complicated than the Palestinian one. It is not laden with sensitive and intricate ideological and religious issues, such as the status of Jerusalem and the rights of the Palestinian refugees. It makes sense to deal with the Syrian track first. Given Olmert and Al-Assad's statements, all it would take is an American twist of the arm here and a little bait there in order to strike a deal. The indirect Syrian-Israeli negotiations sponsored by Turkey in 2008 were not the first. There is a lengthy record of backchannel talks between the two sides. The US initiated the process on 29 July 1994 with the so-called "ambassadorial channel", which brought together Itamar Rabinovich, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, with Walid Al-Muallim, then his Syrian counterpart and now Syria's foreign minister. Within months the backchannel was stepped up to the level of the Israeli and Syrian chiefs-of-staff. On 21 December, 1994 Washington arranged a secret meeting between Ehud Barak and General Hikmat Al-Shihabi, which president Bill Clinton attended. Apparently Barak insisted on conditions that so infuriated the late president Hafez Al-Assad that he cancelled the channel, though he was persuaded to keep the ambassadorial link open. Clinton then placed the negotiations in the hands of ambassadors Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross, who succeeded in nudging the two sides towards a memorandum of understanding. That, in turn, revived the chiefs-of-staff contact. On 26 June, 1995, General Al-Shihabi met with his new Israeli counterpart, Amnon Shahak. The meeting took place at Fort McNair, under the direct sponsorship of US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who succeeded in securing from Rabin a pledge to withdraw completely from the Golan Heights in exchange for a Syrian commitment to meet Israel's security needs. The pledge has since become known as the "Rabin deposit". Once again talks broke down over Israeli conditions for security arrangements. Yet a few months after the negotiations were suspended Indyk and Ross suddenly appeared in Israel to notify Rabin that Al-Assad was ready to strike a deal. Rabin asked to defer the matter until after he obtained the Knesset's approval of the budgetary bill in January 1996. Under Israeli law his government would have fallen had parliament refused to ratify its budget. Fate intervened in the form of the bullets fired on 24 November 1995 by the Israeli extremist, Yigal Amir, motivated by an ultra-right hate campaign that had portrayed Rabin wearing an Arafat-style kafiya. The Syrian-Israeli track did not end with the assassination of Rabin. Shimon Peres broached Syria again in January 1996. As is his wont, he sought to push economic agreements first. Syria suspended the negotiations. When Netanyahu succeeded in beating Peres and forming a government in June 1996 Israel adopted a two-pronged tactic. While sustaining his customary hardline rhetoric he resumed backchannel negotiations with Damascus, but this time via his American billionaire friend Ronald Lauder and others. The connection was broken off after Netanyahu was defeated at the polls by Barak, who then gave a renewed and more powerful push to Washington-brokered negotiations with Syria. Clinton, who arranged a meeting between Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa, was particularly optimistic. In the hope of settling a deal, he arranged a meeting with president Hafez Al-Assad in Geneva on 26 March, 2000. The meeting was a failure. Israeli sources attribute this to Damascus's insistence upon linking any settlement with Israel with American support for the first hereditary succession process in an Arab republican system. After Hafez Al-Assad died in June that year the Syrian constitution was amended to pave the way for his son, Bashar Al-Assad, to assume the presidency. The subsequent resumption of Syrian-Israeli negotiations in Turkey last year followed several incidents. In October 2002, in a display of arrogance, an Israeli warplane circled over the presidential palace in the heart of Damascus and then repeated the act over the Syrian president's house in his home town. In July 2006, following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Damascus remained conspicuously silent throughout the course of the war. Then, on 15 August, the day after a ceasefire came into effect, the Syrian president, much to everyone's surprise, broke his silence, berating other Arab leaders as "not real men". A few months later the Syrian Ministry of Interior proclaimed Bashar Al-Assad's victory in a national presidential referendum, claiming he had secured 99 per cent of the popular vote and with it a second term, due to end in 2014. On 6 September 2007 Israel bombed an installation deep in the Syrian interior on the pretext it was a nuclear facility. At the time Al-Assad told the BBC: "If we replied to Israel militarily we would be working in accordance with the Israeli agenda. We have other means, such as the political response." He had conveniently forgotten his earlier belligerence towards Arab leaders in the wake of Israel's war against Lebanon. Damascus then announced it would take part in the Annapolis meeting scheduled for 27 November 2007 and the Syrian authorities prohibited a rally called for by Hamas to protest against Abu Mazen's decision to attend Annapolis. None of which deterred Israel from further bullying. On 12 February 2008, Israel assassinated Hizbullah leader Imad Mughniyah in Damascus. Six weeks later, on 29 March 2008, Damascus hosted the Arab summit, during which Al-Assad lashed out at participants for clinging to the Arab peace initiative. Within less than a month he then announced Syria was engaged in negotiations with Israel in Turkey. In a press conference on 24 April 2008 he said that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan had given him a letter from Israeli Prime Minister Olmert pledging to abide by the "Rabin deposit". The following day the Israeli police announced that Olmert was being investigated for financial corruption. Olmert was ousted as head of the Kadima Party only, like other lame duck leaders, to pursue his policies with greater resolve. He continued negotiations with Syria until his final days in office, at which point Al-Assad announced they were a hair's breadth away from an agreement. It was Syria that proposed moving to direct negotiations, although it insisted the US take part in sponsoring them. In an interview on Al-Jazeera on 14 July 2008 Al-Assad was asked what shape he thought the relationship between his country and Israel would take after a settlement. "Relations would be normal, like any other relationship between two states that have agreements and exchange embassies," he replied. Observers of the Syrian-Israeli negotiating process agree that it bears the seeds of an agreement similar to the Camp David accord with Egypt, albeit three decades on. Some Israeli commentators, speaking on a Turkish television station, said that Syria's concession of the province of Alexandretta to Turkey had not prevented Damascus and Ankara from developing close relations. The implication is that the Netanyahu government might harp on the same tune with respect to the Golan Heights in order to block Obama's bid to revive the Syria first option. Indeed, the gambit may already be in progress. On 15 July George Mitchell's aide, Frederick Hoff, arrived in Israel bearing a "peace map between Syria and Israel". Netanhayu's immediate response was to revive the Golan Heights bill, which states that any agreement regarding withdrawal from the Golan would have to be put to a public referendum. Such a prospect would be extremely awkward for Obama. Syria's first option may well depend on who backs down first, Netanyahu or Obama.
