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Israel
should accept Syria’s peace offer before it’s too late
Posted By Emma Sabry
Israel should seize the opportunity
to revive peace talks with Syria while there is a real chance
of success, or risk further destabilizing the Middle East,
concluded a new report by the International Crisis Group, an
independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization aimed
at preventing and resolving deadly conflicts.
The report, titled “Restarting Israeli-Syrian
Negotiations”, examined prospects for renewing peace
negotiations between Syria and Israel against the backdrop of
regional developments, including last summer’s conflict
between Israel and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah
and the re-launch of the Arab peace initiative at the Arab
League summit last March.
Although the Israeli-Syrian conflict is not the region’s
costliest, it has maintained tensions in the Middle East and
could lead to another armed conflict between the two
countries, the report states.
Peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000,
mainly over Israeli refusal to return the Golan Heights, a
strategic plateau in southwestern Syria that Israel seized in
the 1967 Middle East War and unilaterally annexed in 1981.
More than 15,000 Israeli settlers are now living in the Golan
along with 16,000 Syrians who remained in a small number of
villages there.
The Israeli government refuses to comply with UN
Resolutions 242 and 338 that call for the complete withdrawal
from occupied Arab territories, as well as Resolution 479
which confirms the illegality of Israel's annexation of the
Golan.
The Crisis Group’s report examines Israel’s possible
reasons for holding on to the Golan – such as the strength
of the settler population and the territory’s role as a
security-buffer. “But the benefits of peace far outweigh
those of continued occupation”, says Nicolas Pelham, Crisis
Group’s Senior Analyst in Israel.
“Recent regional developments have made an Israeli-Syrian
agreement more urgent, more important and more attainable,”
Pelham added.
Syria has repeatedly signaled its readiness to
resume talks with Israel without any preconditions. But the
obstacles to a peace deal appear daunting, including a U.S.
administration intent on isolating Syria and a weak Israeli
government that has conditioned any dialogue on a broad change
in Damascus’ policy: severing ties to Palestinian resistance
group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement and
altering its relationship with Iran.
According to the Crisis Group, Syria’s regional posture
and relationships with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran would
inevitably change following a peace deal. In other words, what
Israel demands could potentially be achieved, but only as part
of a final deal, not as preconditions for it.
While official resistance to negotiations is clear in
Israel, Syria’s appetite for peace talks is diminishing –
a result of repeated Israeli rebuffs.
“Rejecting Syria’s overtures is a mistake which is fast
on its way to becoming a missed opportunity”, warns Peter
Harling, Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst in Damascus. “The
mood in Damascus is turning decidedly skeptical, and the
regime is reverting to its more cautious habits. Mirroring
Israeli doubts on Syria’s seriousness, officials here are
deeply disillusioned with Israel, questioning its ability and
readiness to negotiate in earnest”.
The Crisis Group’s report was released days before Syria
distanced itself from comments made by a Syrian-American
businessman who recently told Israeli MPs that he had been at
the heart of unofficial peace talks with Israel. “The
statements and the ideas of the American-Syrian Ibrahim
Suleiman do not reflect the point of view of Syria, which has
repeated many times its refusal to undertake secret
negotiations" with Israel, a Syrian foreign ministry official
was quoted as saying.
Last Thursday, Suleiman told a top Israeli parliamentary
panel that he and former Israeli foreign ministry director
general Alon Liel headed two years of secret talks between the
two countries during which understandings were reached for a
peace agreement that he said could be struck within six
months.
"Our work is done, now it's up to officials in Israel
and Syria to sit down and iron out their differences,"
Suleiman said. "We gave them a peace map.”
“Syria's President Bashar al-Assad wants peace with
Israel. He wants to make peace and be known as the man of
peace," he stressed.
Despite Syria’s rejection of Suleiman’s comments, one
fact remains clear: Syria is willing to resume official talks
with Israel, which should seize the opportunity before it’s
too late.
The mere fact of Syrians negotiating with Israelis would
have positive effects in a region where popular opinion is
moving away from acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. The
onset of a peace process between the two states could also
make Hamas and Hezbollah adapt their policies in response to
signs of a changing Syrian-Israeli relationship. The same
holds for Iran: Syria would be unlikely to cut ties with
its closest ally for two decades but Tehran would have to
adjust its behavior when there is a prospect of a peace
agreement.
Moreover, resuming talks with Syria would help ongoing
efforts to revive the Arab peace initiative, which calls for
normalization of ties with Israel in exchange for its
withdrawal from Arab land seized in the 1967 war.
The Crisis Group also called on Quartet members to press
for renewed Syrian-Israeli negotiations. While both the U.S.
and Israel may prefer to give precedence to the Palestinian
over the Syrian conflict, lack of movement on the latter
inevitably will hamper the former, the Crisis group said.
A number of recommendations to remove obstacles to the
resumption of Israeli-Syrian peace talks were presented in the
Crisis Group report and restated in the unofficial peace
initiative involving Suleiman and Alon Liel. Under such
conditions, there is little justification for Israel to put
off peace talks – and even less justification for the U.S.
to oppose them.
“Israel-Syria peace negotiations would profoundly alter
regional atmospherics. A peace deal would fundamentally
transform them”, says Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle
East Program Director. “This opportunity may not last
forever. It should not be wasted”.
- Recommendations of the Crisis Group:
To the Israeli government:
1. Respond positively to Syria’s unconditional
offer to resume peace negotiations.
2. Halt efforts to augment settler presence in the
Golan.
3. Facilitate family reunions for Syrian nationals
living in the Golan and lift restrictions on visits to Syria
by Israeli nationals.
To the Syrian government:
4. Support Arab League efforts to explain and market
its peace initiative to Western and Israeli audiences.
5. Engage in public diplomacy by: (a) restating
clearly that Syria is ready to negotiate without any
precondition; (b) giving select Syrian officials a clear
mandate to disseminate both Syria’s version of past
negotiations and its current position; (c) committing to
provide information on Israeli soldiers missing in action and
return the remains of executed Israeli spy Eli Cohen in the
early stages of resumed negotiations; and (d) facilitating
access to Syria for Israeli nationals with relatives or
ancestral roots in Syria, including Israelis of Palestinian
and Syrian origin.
To the members of the Quartet (U.S., UN, EU and Russia):
6. Press for renewed Israeli-Syrian negotiations,
beginning by holding parallel discussions with both sides.
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