Crafting an Israeli-Syrian Deal

On December 4, the Israel Policy Forum held its annual symposium entitled, "A Blueprint for Leadership: How to Achieve Peace and Security in the Middle East." In one of the symposium's breakout sessions, Itamar Rabinovitch, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , and Murhaf Jouejati, professor at National Defense University, discuss the prospects for an Israeli-Syrian peace and the U.S. role in securing it. The session was introduced by Israel Policy Forum consultant, Tom Dine. It was moderated by Tamara Cofman Wittes of the Brookings Institution. The following is a summary of the session.  

Itamar Rabinovitch

The current Israel-Syria indirect negotiations are a victory for process over substance. When the talks began in February 2007, in fact, neither Israel nor Syria believed that an agreement would be concluded quickly. In fact, both parties knew that a real agreement was not yet on the table. For one thing, the table was missing a critical partner-the United States.

Also missing from the talks was the symbolic impact that direct negotiations have had in the past. In every Israeli negotiation, but especially in Israeli-Syrian negotiations, symbols are important.

In the trilateral (Israel-Syria-the United States) and direct negotiations of the 1990s, producing the first handshake and arranging the first shared coffee break were major efforts, because the Syrians held the view that you don't shake hands with the enemy, and you don't drink coffee with the occupiers of your land. Handshakes, their thinking went, offer recognition, something that should not be given for free.

In the 1990s, Syria decided that it was willing to sign a peace treaty and normalize relations with Israel, as Egypt did, in return for a complete withdrawal to the 1967 border, including a return of the Golan Heights. But, as in the Egyptian case, Syria does not consider a deal an end in itself. What Syria really wants is a new relationship with Washington.

Before they collapsed in 2000, the talks were trilateral-they included the United States. Under the Bush administration, however, the United States moved away from the table.

Syria will not conclude any deal without an American dimension. Its negotiators, furthermore, have come to believe that you don't make a deal with an outgoing Israeli Prime Minister or an outgoing U.S. president. You make the deal with incoming leaders. There has not been great effort to conclude a deal therefore.
 
This could change with President Obama. The Obama administration will have a different foreign policy than the Bush administration did. Arab-Israeli diplomacy will undoubtedly become a priority.

The fly in the ointment is Syria's relationship with Iran. For an Israeli government to convince its citizens to give up the Golan-an area that has been a part of Israel for three generations-it has to be able to promise Israelis that Syria will disengage from Iran, removing Iran's immediate threat. Would Syria be willing to break away from Iran and join the main stream of the international community, deepen its relationship with Washington, change course in Lebanon, and make peace with Israel as part of an overall change in policy the way that Anwar Sadat did in the 1970s? The answer to that question can only be found through negotiation-direct and trilateral.

Murhaf Jouejati

Syria and Israel have had nearly a decade of talks. They were extremely close to peace, only a matter of meters in fact. Had peace been made in 1999, there would have now been nine years of Israeli-Syrian peace and all the opportunities that this implies.

It is unfortunate that this historic opportunity was missed, but I am not pessimistic. There is opportunity now. There have already been four Israel-Syria meetings, although indirect, despite a poisonous environment: the Hezbollah-Israel confrontation in the summer of 2006 and the Israeli bombing of a facility in northwestern Syria in September 2007. Those talks continued despite not only a U.S. boycott, but American hints to Israel that it should not engage either.  

In the Syrian psyche, the terms in which it will make peace with Israel are very simple: an Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 border. In return, senior Syrian officials say, "everything is on the table," provided that there is an Israeli commitment to withdraw to the 1967 border, and not a meter less. Total peace means total withdrawal. To Syria, peace also means a normal relationship with everything that that implies-the establishment of diplomatic relations, the free flow of people, goods, services, and trade across the borders.

The good news is that peace between Syria and Israel does not only mean peace between Syria and Israel. Success on the Syria track would bring other Arab countries to the table. Peace between Israel and Syria could lead, in fact, to a strategic realignment in the Middle East. 

Syria is a state, and like other states, it wants to advance its interests. The priority for Syria is the recovery of the Golan, not a friendship with this or that country in the region, or the ability to use this or that organization as a proxy. If the Golan is returned, therefore, it would be in Syria's best interest to protect that deal.

The Iranian-Syrian alliance is the most enduring alliance in the Middle East. Syria, furthermore, is a conduit of Iranian arms to Hezbollah. However, Syria also works to advance its own interests. The same week that Iranian President Ahmadinejad said that he wanted to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons, Syrian President Bashar Assad in an ABC interview said, "we don't want to destroy anyone, we want peace with Israel."

This does not mean that Syria will easily cut off its ties with Iran; rather Syria would like to be a bridge between Iran and the West. If Syria sees that it can recover the Golan and end its political and economic isolation, it could be moved to modify the nature of its relations with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. 

That said, time is of essence, the longer we wait the more difficult this would be.