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Syria and the Peace: A Good Chance Missed
SYRIA AND THE PEACE:
A GOOD CHANCE MISSED
Helena Cobban
July 7, 1997
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FOREWORD
One of the more dismaying aspects of the current peace
process has been the failure of Syria and Israel to make a deal.
According to Christian Science Monitor correspondent Helena
Cobban, these two long-standing foes came very close to composing
their decades-old quarrel. The Syrian and Israeli leaders
persevered to overcome extraordinary obstacles, but in the end
failed. A terrible setback, says Cobban, because so much hard
negotiating work had been done up to the very last moment when
the whole carefully constructed edifice of peace drifted away.
This is one of a series of papers presented at a conference
on the peace process sponsored by the U.S. Army War College s
Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) in cooperation with Villanova
University, which was held at Villanova in December 1996. The
conference was arranged by Dr. Ann Lesch of Villanova, this study
was edited by Dr. Stephen Pelletiere of SSI. We offer this report
as a contribution to the informed debate on important issues
within the overall peace process.
RICHARD H. WITHERSPOON
Colonel, U.S. Army
Director, Strategic Studies Institute
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR
HELENA COBBAN is a writer and columnist who contributes regular
columns on global issues to the Christian Science Monitor. Ms.
Cobban received a B.A. (Hons.) from Oxford University in 1973 and
her M.A. in 1981. From 1974 through 1981, she worked as a
journalist in the Middle East, including 5 years as a Beirut-
based regional correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor
and the Sunday Times (London). Since 1982 she has been based in
Washington, DC. Her articles on Middle Eastern and other global
topics have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles
Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, the Economist
(London), and elsewhere. She has appeared on Good Morning
America, the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, CNN, and NPR. Ms. Cobban
has published three books: The Palestinian Liberation
Organisation: People, Power and Politics (Cambridge University
Press, 1984), The Making of Modern Lebanon (Hutchinsons and
Westview, 1985), and The Superpowers and the Syrian-Israeli
Conflict (Praeger, 1991).
SYRIA AND THE PEACE: A GOOD CHANCE MISSED
Introduction.
In late October 1991, Syrian and Israeli leaders sat down at
the Middle East peace conference in Madrid and committed
themselves to holding face-to-face talks to conclude a final
resolution of the 43-year conflict between them. The promised
bilateral negotiation opened that December: It was the first
negotiation to be conducted directly between representatives of
the two states.1
In the 50 months of discussions that ensued, the Israelis
and Syrians surmounted some quite extraordinary difficulties.
They were able to overcome (indeed, they drew vital strength
from) a change of government in Israel in June 1992. They
survived the November 1995 assassination of Israeli Premier
Yitzhak Rabin, numerous setbacks in the overall climate of
Israeli-Arab peace-making,2 and several changes in the format of
the talks themselves. In addition, while much of value was
accomplished in the face-to-face negotiations in Washington, a
parallel high-level track was kept constantly in operation,
undertaken by Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who made
over a dozen visits to the Middle East during the first Clinton
administration, and also through summit meetings and frequent
letters and phone calls to the two leaders from the White House.
According to several authoritative accounts, among the
contentious issues that the negotiators were able to resolve were
the depth of the projected Israeli withdrawal from the Golan and
the nature of the envisaged peace. The talks also resulted in
agreement on the text of the all important "Aims and Principles"
document (full title "the Aims and Principles of the Security
Arrangement"). After Shimon Peres favored negotiator, Uri Savir,
had completed his first round in the negotiations with Syria in
early 1996, officials from Israel, the United States, and Syria
all expressed confidence that 1996 would see agreement on the
final text of the Israel-Syria agreement.
But in early March 1996, after the Israeli population
suffered 79 losses from bombs set off by Palestinian extremists,
the Peres government suspended its participation in the talks
with Syria. Immediately thereafter, the Israeli-Syrian
relationship plunged into a rapid downward spiral of mutual
recriminations and hostility which neither Israel, nor Syria--nor
the United States--appeared to do anything to brake. The rhetoric
of the Middle Easterners shifted quickly from expressions of
optimism regarding the peace talks to increasingly gloomy
prognostications. With dread inevitability, this descent into
political and rhetorical confrontation between the two states
became transformed (as had occurred so often in the past) into an
actual confrontation in Lebanon. On the night of April 10-11,
1996, the Peres government launched a much-expanded version of an
earlier (July 1993) bombing campaign against its neighbor, which
this time included intensive attacks from air, ground, and sea on
facilities throughout the south of the country and up to, and
including, Beirut.
Also unlike 1993, the Syrian leadership seemed in no hurry
to use its influence to rein in Hizballah. And when the
continuing, massive Israeli bombardment of Lebanon targetted
large numbers of civilians--as any bombardment so massive,
conducted in an area so heavily populated, almost inevitably must
do--it rapidly became clear that with this campaign Peres had
over-reached himself.
The ultimate outcome of Peres deadly adventure in Lebanon
was, from the point of view of many Israelis, very disappointing.
It took the Israeli leader and Secretary of State Christopher
until April 26 to persuade the Syrians and Lebanese to conclude a
new cease-fire. They were able to achieve only a new (though now
written) version of the status quo ante in Lebanon: under this
agreement, the Lebanese resistance fighters retain their right to
strike at Israeli military targets inside Lebanon; any disputes
concerning this confrontation will henceforth be judged by a
committee that will include Syria and France along with Israel,
Lebanon, and the United States. Meanwhile if (as was widely
supposed throughout Israel) Peres had also sought electoral
advantage through the bombing of Lebanon, his results on this
score were disappointing: Shimon Peres and Labor lost the
elections of May 1996.
The Likud Bloc (under whose auspices the negotiations with
Syria had been totally stalemated prior to June 1992) returned to
power, this time under the youthful but no more flexible
leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu. The Syrian regime of President
Hafez al-Asad, which just months earlier may have felt itself
tantalizingly close to final conclusion of its negotiation with
Israel, now faced a 180-degree turnabout in the position of its
former negotiating partner. Starting from a position where he
reiterated campaign promises to undertake no withdrawal at all
from the Golan, Netanyahu shifted only far enough to say that he
would negotiate "without preconditions" on the Golan. When
pressed to spell out what this meant, he declared that he would
not be bound by any of the verbal commitments undertaken by his
predecessors. Meanwhile, he and his ministers announced new plans
to house additional Jewish-Israeli settlers in the occupied Golan
Heights.3
The experience of the years 1991-96 provides considerable
new material for those interested in the ill-starred interactions
between Israel and Syria, and between Israel and Lebanon. How can
we explain the fact that the initially so-successful Israeli-
Syrian negotiation resulted, in the end, in failure? What can we
learn about what a "concludable" Syrian-Israeli peace agreement
may eventually look like? Can the incremental-style of
negotiation pursued throughout these talks be efficacious in
later negotiations--assuming meaningful talks are ever resumed?
What can we learn about the effectiveness of the styles of
intervention adopted by the two U.S. administrations involved?
Can we learn anything significant about the possibility of
disaggregating the Israeli-Lebanese negotiation from that between
Israel and Syria?
But first, the main developments within the 50-month
negotiation will be recapitulated.
Phase I: Getting through Shamir s inflexibility, and the
negotiating achievements of Rabin s first three years (August
1992 -July 1995).
The first Israeli team to enter the bilateral talks with
Syria in December 1991 was headed by Yossi Ben Aharon, the
gruffly ideological head of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir s
personal office. The Syrian team was headed by Walid al-Muallim,
his country s Ambassador to the United States. By all accounts,
these negotiations made no appreciable headway: It was reported
that both sides merely stated and re-stated their well-known
public positions regarding the terms of a settlement and made no
attempt to engage in any serious exploration of other options or
compromises.
It was only after Shamir s Likud Party lost the elections of
June 1992 to a Labor-led coalition headed by Yitzhak Rabin that
the two sides started engaging in earnest. As leader of his
negotiating team with Syria, Rabin chose the experienced academic
specialist on Syria and other Arab countries, Itamar Rabinovich,
whom he also named as his Ambassador to Washington.
When Rabinovich entered his first round of negotiation, he
was met with an encouraging sign from his Syrian counterpart:
Muallim presented a Syrian document outlining the items that
would need to be discussed, as well the principles which Syria
would bring to bear on these matters. Rabinovich agreed to adopt
the Syrian document as a working paper for the negotiations.
In November 1992, President George Bush, who along with his
Secretary of State James Baker had devoted considerable effort to
launching and sustaining the Madrid-based peace process, was
defeated in the national elections by Democratic challenger
William Clinton. American engagement on all of the ongoing tracks
of the peace talks diminished considerably between September 1992
and January 1993; first, because Baker and his principal aide for
Middle East affairs, Dennis Ross, decamped from the State
Department to the White House to help Bush run his failing
campaign, and second, during the normal lame duck/inauguration
period the old administration exited and the new one found its
feet.
Then in December 1992 Prime Minister Rabin took the summary
step of expelling 400 alleged Hamas activists from the occupied
territories. This action aroused memories for many Palestinians
and other Arabs of numerous previous expulsions at the hands of
Israel; as a result, it soured the atmosphere for all Arab
participants in the peace talks. Rabin tried to shove the
expellees over the Lebanese border and into territory controlled
by the Lebanese government, but he failed, as the Lebanese
government was able to block this attempt. The expellees became
stranded in a no-man s land in South Lebanon, where they served
as a rallying point for those Arabs and Muslims who wanted to
continue protesting against claimed Israeli iniquities.
The Syrian government did not visibly use any of its
influence in Lebanon to try to find a rapid resolution to this
issue. In addition, along with all the other negotiating teams,
it suspended its participation in the talks in protest at the
Israeli action and did not return to them until May 1993. By
August 1993, however, informed Syrian sources report that their
team had succeeded in winning from the Israelis a general
agreement to the principle that Israel would, in return for a
full peace agreement with Syria, undertake a withdrawal from
occupied Syrian territory that would be a "full" withdrawal--
though there remained disagreement about exactly which line this
would take them to. (The two major lines referred to in this
connection are the old international border drawn up in 1923
between French-ruled Syria and British-ruled Palestine, and the
line existing on June 4, 1967, immediately prior to the 1967
Arab-Israeli war, which lies a few square kilometers west of the
old international border, and would bring Syria close to the Sea
of Galilee.)
The ability of the two parties to reach some kind of
positive outcome in the negotiations in this period was all the
more remarkable because June and July had seen a gradual
escalation of the conflict in south Lebanon, where local militias
backed by Syria and Iran had been attempting since Israel s
partial pullback from Lebanon in 1985 to oust the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF) from a 10-mile-wide band of Lebanese territory along
Israel s northern border.4 On July 25, 1993, the Rabin government
launched a punishing air and artillery bombardment against
Lebanon: over the next 6 days, Israeli forces launched 22,000
artillery shells and 1,000 air-to-ground rockets against Lebanon,
resulting in widespread terror and destruction, and the deaths of
1 Lebanese soldier, 8 fighters from the Hizballah militia, and
118 Lebanese civilians. In that same period, Hizballah launched
151 Katyusha rockets against northern Israel, killing two Israeli
civilians.5
In response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the
bombing, Secretary of State Christopher launched an urgent round
of phone diplomacy. On July 31, he was able to secure the
agreement of all the parties concerned--who included the
governments of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran, as well as the
leadership of Hizballah--to a series of unwritten "rules of
engagement" which would, it was hoped, prevent further civilian
casualties. This feat of diplomacy was impressive, since the
United States had relations with neither the Iranian government
nor Hizballah. However, Syria played an important role through
the close working relationships it enjoyed with both these
parties, its political influence over the Lebanese government and
Hizballah, and its role as a conduit for Iranian aid to
Hizballah. One Israeli official was quoted at the time as saying,
"I think Christopher had to make only one call--to Damascus."6
After conclusion of the agreement over South Lebanon, the
larger-scale negotiation between Israel and Syria over their own
bilateral issues of peacemaking resumed on its generally
productive course.
Throughout the spring and summer of 1993, however, Israeli
government emissaries had also been carrying out intense but
clandestine negotiations in Norway with the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO). At the beginning of September
1993, the resulting agreement was finally unveiled, and on
September 13, the two sides signed their historic "Oslo" accords,
under American auspices, on the White House lawn.
This development almost certainly came as a shock to
President Asad, who, despite (or because of) his deep animosity
towards PLO leader Yasser Arafat, had long advocated close
coordination among all Arab parties to the peace talks with
Israel to be carried on under his auspices. Nevertheless, Asad
was restrained in his public response to announcement of the Oslo
agreement. Syrian spokesmen said they were "neither opposed to
nor supportive of" the Oslo accords, and that it was clearly up
to the PLO leadership to bear responsibility for them. Ambassador
Muallim even put in an appearance at the accords White House
signing ceremony.
Syrian sources recall that after that ceremony their
negotiators were informed by the Americans that the Israeli
leadership had said it could not expect the Israeli public to
"digest" both an agreement with the PLO and an agreement with
Syria at the same time. Israel and the United States thus asked
the Syrians to go slow on continuing their negotiation, and the
Syrians reportedly agreed to this.
In January 1994, the Syrian-Israeli talks resumed in
response to a request made by President Clinton during a summit
meeting held with President Asad in Geneva that month--the first
Asad had had with a sitting American President since his meeting
with President Carter in Geneva in 1977. During the post-summit
news conference, Asad said,
. . . we want the peace of the brave, a real peace that
thrives, continues, guarantees the interests of all,
and gives rights to their owners. If the leaders of
Israel have enough courage to respond to such a peace,
a new era of security and stability and normal peaceful
relations among all will emerge in the region.
He also said, "We are ready to sign peace now."7
This latter statement seems, in retrospect, to have involved
some hyperbole; at the time, though, it seemed clearly to be
expressing the high degree of optimism with which Asad regarded
the outcome of the peace talks. Within less than 24 hours,
however, such optimism seemed out of place, as Rabin s deputy,
Defense Minister Mordechai Gur, announced that, "in the event the
territorial price demanded from us on the Golan Heights is
significant, the government will put the issue to a referendum."8
And over the weeks that followed, President Asad s world changed
further: on January 21, his eldest son, Basil, who had clearly
been groomed for a leadership position for a number of years, was
killed in car accident in Syria; and on February 25, Israel-Arab
tensions rose again after Jewish-Israeli extremist Baruch
Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians in Hebron s Ibrahimi Mosque.
Despite these setbacks, the momentum provided by President
Clinton s direct involvement was such that the talks continued.
Informed Syrian sources have reported that in July 1994 they
received "agreement" from the Israeli negotiators that the
Israeli withdrawal would be to the line of June 4, 1967.9 (It
should be noted that even on the Syrian side, some doubt over
this seemed to remain. In June 1995, a commentator in the
official Syrian daily, Al-Thawra, wrote that, "the Israeli side
has not yet committed itself to a total withdrawal from the Golan
Heights and Lebanon, and equal and symmetrical security
arrangements."10) For his part, Ambassador Rabinovich has
described the Israeli position on a full withdrawal as having
been that, "Rabin, quite artfully, 'dangled the carrot' without
'promise, commitment or agreement'."11 Orli Azulay-Katz, an
Israeli writer with seemingly excellent access to Shimon Peres,
has written that,
Rabin agreed to a full withdrawal from the Golan after
the Americans brought him an oral message from Syrian
President al-Asad in which for the first time he
expressed a readiness to accept all the security
arrangements Rabin demanded, something he had refused
to do before.12
Throughout this period, the Israelis were also making
considerable progress in their negotiations with Jordan.13 On
July 25, Israeli and Jordanian negotiators in Washington signed a
declaration laying out the principles according to which their
governments would conclude a full peace within the next 2 months.
The peace treaty that resulted was signed in Jordan on October 26
by King Hussein and Prime Minister Rabin, with President Clinton
and many other world leaders--but not President Asad--in
attendance.
By July 1994 the Syrians had evidently made up their minds
to proceed to a discussion of other issues involved in the
negotiation. On September 4, 1994, Muallim presented Rabinovich
with another Syrian document reportedly detailing his
government's views on such topics as the stages in which the
withdrawal would be undertaken (of which there would be two),
timing, the elements of peace, the type of normalization, the
types of security agreements, and each side's obligations at each
of the two envisioned stages. After presiding over the Jordan-
Israel treaty signing in Jordan at the end of October, President
Clinton made a short side-visit to Damascus--the first by any
sitting American President since President Nixon. There, he
reportedly informed President Asad of a suggestion from Prime
Minister Rabin that it was now time for the military chiefs of
their two countries to start discussing the details of a security
arrangement.
Talks between the two Chiefs of Staff duly opened in
Washington in late December. Almost immediately, the new formula
ran into a snag. As Rabinovich was later to tell a press
interviewer, "we failed to carefully prepare for the meeting,
which was held almost spontaneously."14 The analysis given by
some Syrian sources of what occurred was that the Israeli Chief
of Staff, General Ehud Barak, was given only 4 days to prepare
for the December meeting; and that, in addition, he brought to it
some of his own agenda and ambitions for the move that he would
shortly make into the political sphere in Israel.
These Syrian sources recalled that the two sides learned
from this incident that they needed to negotiate a political
framework for the security agreement before talks could return to
the technical-military level. These negotiations began in March
1995. During May Prime Minister Rabin and Syrian Foreign Minister
Farouq Shara made separate visits to Washington; and on May 22,
the two negotiating teams reached agreement on a document titled,
"Aims and Principles of the Security Arrangement." This was
deposited with the Americans, though its terms and even its
existence as a text agreed to by both sides at the highest level
(though still only "verbally") were still, by mutual agreement,
kept secret.
It was on the basis of this document that Israel's newly-
appointed Chief of Staff, General Amnon Shahaq, and a small
accompanying team traveled to Washington at the end of June to
meet with General Shihabi. According to senior Syrian sources who
were present at these negotiations, the two sides agreed to
discuss the security arrangements in three categories.
The first of these was the security/demilitarization regime
within what the "Aims and Principles" document had described as
the "relevant areas." The Syrian sources explained that this
latter was a term Premier Rabin himself had coined in order to
refer to "the areas where battles had taken place" between the
two sides. The sources reported that the two sides agreed at the
June talks that there would be security arrangements on both
sides of the ultimate border, and that these would include
demilitarized zones and zones of reduced armament.
The second category that the Chiefs of Staff addressed was
early warning systems, including--according to the Syrian
sources--the use of satellites and airplanes, and the role of
"international technical help" in this field. But these sources
reported that the Israeli side insisted on retaining the manned
ground early-warning system that they had maintained on Mount
Hermon (Jebel al-Shaikh) ever since 1967. The Syrian sources
described their side's reaction to this as being, "We refused
this totally. We consider it against our sovereignty, and a type
of spying on us after the peace. We are sure the Israelis can do
it with satellites and planes."15 As for the position on this
issue of the U.S. Government, the well-connected Israeli
commentator Ze'ev Schiff would report shortly after their
conclusion that,
The United States has asked Israel and Syria to examine
the possibility of Israel's evacuating the early
warning station on Mount Hermon, which is currently
manned by the IDF. Instead, Israel would maintain
sophisticated electronic early warning equipment in the
place without keeping any Israeli teams there. In such
an eventuality, Israelis would receive the early
warning pictures in distant stations within the Green
Line, to where the information will be relayed from
Mount Hermon via optic fibers . . .
This alternative will obviously be more palatable to
Syria than the others. Israeli experts say that the new
electronic equipment guarantees the reception of
distant information. They add, however, that this
information will be less incontestable than the
information obtained at present . . . They emphasize
that . . . the electronic equipment cannot serve as a
satisfactory substitute for the human element,
especially in the initial period of several years after
a peace agreement is signed, during which the fear of
the agreement's being violated will be high.16
The third category of security arrangements that the second
Chiefs of Staff meeting was due to address was the role of
international forces. Syrian sources explained that this
discussion never started because of the deadlock over the ground
early-warning stations. They noted, however, that there was a
disagreement over the format of these forces, with the Syrian
side preferring that peacekeepers be deployed under U.N.
auspices, with the Israelis preferring an American or American-
led force, as in Sinai.
But even while the two Chiefs of Staff were at their work in
Washington, two internal IDF documents, which referred frequently
and at length to the text of the "Aims and Principles" document,
and which both reportedly bore the signature of the head of the
IDF's Strategic Planning Branch, General Tzvi Stauber (who was
accompanying General Shahaq in the talks in Washington), were
being leaked to Likud Chairman Netanyahu and selected figures in
the Israeli media. On June 28, Netanyahu made an outraged
reference to one of these negotiating papers in the Knesset and
entered its five-page-long text into the Knesset record, from
where Israel's usually vigilant censors were unable to prevent
its broad re-publication in the media.17 The following day, a
second document, which was titled "An Analysis of the Document of
Understandings," was leaked to journalists including a well-
connected reporter for Ha'aretz, Aluf Ben. Ha'aretz printed what
it claimed was the text of this second document on June 30.18
The text published in Ha'aretz presented a fairly clear
analysis of the "Aims and Principles" document agreed to the
previous month (though in the process of translation and re-
translation, the word "Aims" had become "Objectives"). "The
document," Stauber reportedly wrote,
is made up of two parts: the objectives of the security
arrangements, phrased in a manner serving Israel's
interests; and the principles of the security
arrangements, phrased in a way that favors the well
known Syrian position and imposing restrictions on the
first part.
The document is an acknowledged basis for the
discussions, but it allows for different and even
contradictory interpretations and harbors a potential
for arguments and differences of opinion regarding the
correct interpretation.19
This document includes, in what seem to be General Stauber's
direct quotations from the original text of the "Aims and
Principles," a listing of three aims (or "objectives") and three
principles that had been agreed to in it. According to the
Stauber/Ben text, the aims (objectives) were, in the order
listed:
"to reduce, if not to almost totally /eliminate/ the
danger of a surprise attack,"
"preventing or limiting daily friction along the
border," and
"to reduce the danger of a large scale offensive,
invasion, or comprehensive war."20
According to this text, the agreed principles were as
follows:
1. "The legitimate need of each of the parties is that
the security of one party or the guarantees thereof
should not be achieved at the expense of the other." .
. .
2. "[T]he security arrangements will be /equal, mutual,
and reciprocal on both sides/ . . . [and] if in the
course of the negotiations, it transpires that the
implementation of equality, from the geographic
dimension, proves impossible with regard to specific
arrangements, then experts from both sides will discuss
the problematic aspects of the specific arrangement and
solve them--whether through /modification/ (including
additions or subtractions) or through some other agreed
upon and acceptable solution with a single variable." .
. .
3. "Security arrangements must coincide with each
party's sovereignty and territorial integrity;" "the
arrangements will be confined to the relevant areas on
both sides of the border."21
In addition, in its discussion of the first "objective," the
text presents an additional, and very important, sentence that
purports to have been taken from the "principles" part of the
document: "The purpose of the security arrangements--to ensure
equality in overall security in the context of peace between the
two countries."22
General Stauber's analysis of the "Aims and Principles"
document, as reported in this text, is revealing. Commenting on
the second of the "principles" as listed above, he reportedly
wrote that:
The formulations are supposed to help support our
positions; however, it is very likely that the Syrians
will exploit them with regard to Damascus.
The principle of geographic inequality is central to
our concept of the security arrangements and is crucial
for us. Should we succeed in securing this principle,
then equality in the scope of the order of battle in
the security strips is not necessarily to our
disadvantage, especially if we can prevent the
inclusion of reserve troops in the calculations . . .23
Most controversial within the Israeli political elite,
however, were the implications, as reportedly spelled out by
General Stauber, of the third of the principles listed: "This is
a problematic contention as far as Israel is concerned . . . This
seems to lead to a claim that the zero line is the border
(whether the international border or the 4 June 1967 borders),
according to which Israel will carry out a full withdrawal."24
The other document, whose text Netanyahu had revealed in the
Knesset on June 28, appeared to be the the talking-points that
General Stauber prepared for the Israeli team's presentation in
the Washington talks. Building on and making reference to many of
the concepts listed fairly systematically in the Stauber/Ben
text, the Stauber/ Netanyahu text consists of 17 numbered
talking-points that develop many ideas and proposals for
implementation of the "Aims and Principles." Inter alia, the
Stauber/Netanyahu text says:
2. Our concept of the components of the security
arrangements is based on several tiers:
a. The objectives and principles of the security
arrangement as formulated to date.
b. An analysis of the military possibilities of both
sides, and the threats and military answers that each
side can present . . .
c. The need to have the security arrangements
contribute to a solid sense of security and to the
conduct of normal life both in Syria and in Israel, and
to help create relations of confidence between the two
sides. . . .
5. . . . [O]ur aim is to create a reality where the two
sides have equal security margins with a lesser outlay
of military resources. . . .
7. Our goal in the security arrangements is to create a
situation where preparations for war by any side would
require clear and overt steps lasting a significant
period of time, and would therefore give the other side
time to detect them, mobilize its troops, and deploy
defensively . . . Therefore, the security arrangements
should include the following elements:
a. A demilitarized buffer zone between the two armies:
the IDF will withdraw and cede an excellent defense
line which provides it with adequate answers to meet
Israel's defense needs. We do not think that such a
withdrawal should be used to improve the positions of
the Syrian Army. Therefore, our first principle is that
any area vacated by us should be demilitarized and
remain clear of any military infrastructure and
presence. To avert the fear of the sides about the
creation of a vacuum and a possible violation of the
demilitarization, we will have to discuss several
measures, including a foreign presence. Other
demilitarized areas may also be discussed, but only as
a supplement to this principle.
b. The purpose of the foreign presence that will deploy
in this area is to put yet another obstacle, basically
a political one, before a decision is made to move
military forces to the Golan Heights . . . It is very
important that this force should include a conspicuous
American element.
c. The role of the foreign presence will not be to
fight . . . [I]t is imperative to set up thinned-out
areas on both sides of the demilitarized zone. The
principles on which these areas will be based are as
follows: . . . .
3) The thinned-out areas should enable the
establishment of a defense alignment meeting the key
interests of the two sides. We are aware of the
importance our Syrian counterparts attach to the
defense of Damascus. For us, it is important to ensure
a good defense of our population centers and
infrastructure in northern Israel, and to keep our
ability to maintain the necessary routine security
against terrorist threats . . . .
9. It is important to mention . . . the centrality of
Mount Hermon. Due to the special topography of the
Golan Heights, Mount Hermon provides unique and
irreplaceable early warning. These sites, in which vast
resources were invested, enable us (sic) continuous
coverage and provide an overall solution devoid of the
limitations of other intelligence sources. Our position
is that the IDF should continue to receive information
which can only be obtained by a presence on Mount
Hermon. (We will have to discuss the various
possibilities to exercise this ability.)25
The Stauber/Netanyahu text refers to a number of other
topics, including the need to reduce the potential for friction
in Lebanon, and the need to build trust and engage in "social
conditioning for peace in both armies." In the latter context,
the text stated that,
We are hereby inviting Syrian officers to join U.N.
officers in the check-up patrols they conduct on the
Golan Heights. I also think that agreement to cooperate
in searching for MIA's will largely contribute to
creating a positive climate in the negotiations.26
Netanyahu's revelation of this first Stauber document on
June 28 spurred a storm of outrage from many Israelis--including
many Labor Members of the Knesset, and even some members of
Rabin's cabinet. The second Stauber document was even more
controversial, with its judgment that the text of the "Aims and
Principles" document, "seems to lead to a claim that . . . Israel
will carry out a full withdrawal."
Despite this storm of disapproval, General Shahak continued
the talks in Washington with General Shihabi until June 29. While
still in the American capital, Shahak told an interviewer for IDF
Radio that, "I can say that we established a dialogue and
exchanged views. But parties clarified their positions and it was
very clearly understood--and this is also important--that there
remains [a] very wide gap between both parties' positions . . .
"27
The interviewer asked the Chief of Staff if he could
explain, "how one conducts a dialogue on security arrangements
without withdrawal lines or without the borders that Israel will
pull back to on the Golan Heights?" In his reply, Shahak seemed
clearly to be distancing himself from expressing any judgment
that an agreement on "full" withdrawal might already have been
reached:
We refrained from going into detail this time and only
discussed the principles and fundamental issues that--
if and when we achieve agreement on the points you
raised, as well as on other aspects, such as the
timetable and the nature of normalization between the
two countries--will have to be translated into details
. . .28
On the Syrian side, meanwhile, government officials, and
commentators closely linked to them, evinced their own reactions
to the furor erupting in Israel over the contents of these leaked
documents. Apparently responding to Shahak's remarks as quoted
above, a commentator in the nearly-official Damascus daily, Al-
Thawra, wrote that,
If the declarations made do not give the impression of
optimism and instead stress wide and basic
disagreements and differences, that is because the
Israeli party has not yet committed itself to a total
withdrawal from the Golan and south Lebanon, and equal
and symmetrical security arrangements . . .
If Israel thinks of returning to its shilly-shallying,
that will mean the final destruction of any hopes of
peace.29
For his part, General Shahak made a report on the talks to
the Israeli cabinet at its regular Sunday morning session on July
2. According to an article published the next day by journalist
Aluf Ben, Shahak during this meeting mentioned several hypotheses
about the location of the withdrawal line, and Prime Minister
Rabin told the ministers that, "The chiefs of staff [meeting]
could not discuss a withdrawal line, but it has to do with the
content of the security arrangements." Ben also wrote that Shahak
had come away from the Washington talks with the impression that
Shihabi was, "a very businesslike person well-versed in the
material."30
The Israeli Chief of Staff had a negotiating coup to report,
too. He apparently told the cabinet that Shihabi had proposed
that, "Israel demilitarize territory on both sides of the peace
border between the two countries at a ratio of 10 to 6; namely,
for each kilometer demilitarized by Syria, Israel would
demilitarize 600 meters."31
Hours after the publication of Ben's report, Israeli
television announced that the government there had turned down
this Syrian proposal. However, Channel 1 political correspondent
Gadi Sukenik judged that, "Israeli officials are pleased with
Syria's very readiness to accept the principle of geographical
disparity in the security arrangements." He noted that, "Israel
is demanding that Syria demilitarize a far larger area than that
demilitarized by Israel."32
The next day, Aluf Ben gave further details of the Syrian
offer on asymmetrical arrangements. He wrote that, according to
Shahak, Shihabi had suggested that the 10:6 formula apply to the
"thinned-out areas" as well as the totally demilitarized areas.
According to Ben, Shihabi had presented this formula at the
beginning of his talks with Shahak. Ben quoted unnamed political
sources in Israel as saying that the 10:6 offer was "an opening
stand, and the Syrians are also aware of the fact that they will
have to compromise on a different ratio." Ben's sources told him
that Shihabi's early enunciation of this offer, "was a pleasant
surprise. It could have been worse." Shihabi's offer, these
sources said, "indicates that the Syrians have waived their old
demand for full symmetry in security arrangements on both sides
of the border." (Previously, according to Ben, Israel had
demanded that the security arrangements be based on a 9:1 ratio,
"which is proportionate to the difference in size between Israel
and Syria.")33
There is, of course, a large difference between 10:6 and 9:1
as principles for building down force levels. But Syria's
insistence on absolute parity had been breached for the first
time. Chief U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross was eager to visit Israel
and Syria to see whether he could help make headway in narrowing
the gap that remained, and Generals Shihabi and Shahak were due
to return to Washington within 2 weeks in order to continue their
face-to-face talks.
But this never happened: Why? What, one must ask, occurred
in either or both of the capitals concerned to make the two
leaders turn away from what seemed like the very brink of an
agreement?
The greatest evidence about what happened is available from
Israel. Specifically, the account of the negotiations included in
the book published by reporter Orli Azulay-Katz in September 1996
claimed that, "at a certain stage Rabin decided to moderate the
pace to achieve an arrangement with Syria. He thought that it
would be wise to let Israelis first get used to the Oslo
arrangements with the Palestinians and only then to start the
arrangement with Syria--perhaps hold a meeting before the
elections and sign a document of principles, but no more."34
Given that Rabin knew he could call national elections in Israel
at any time up to October 1996, this would give him a lot of
time--as he may have thought--to get back to the Syrian track of
his negotiations at a later date.
In addition, as July progressed, Rabin's government was once
again becoming preoccupied with completing a new agreement on the
Palestinian track. By the end of September 1995, the Israeli-
Palestinian talks had resulted in the conclusion of the "Oslo-2"
agreement. And while the Israeli public was still getting used to
the implementation of this agreement, the ultra-nationalist
zealot Yigal Amir shot Yitzhak Rabin dead.
Phase II: Shimon Peres and beyond: November 1995-December 1996.
According to Ms. Azulay-Katz's account (which seems strongly
informed by the interviews she conducted with Peres), it was not
until after Rabin's assassination that his successor, Shimon
Peres, learned the details of the negotiations that Rabin and
Rabinovich had been conducting with the Syrians. Indeed, although
Peres had been Rabin's Foreign Minister throughout all his time
in office, there is some indication that he had not been kept
abreast of the details of the negotiations. During the crisis of
late June 1995, for example, Peres was asked by an interviewer
for IDF Radio whether he had been aware of the existence of the
Stauber/Ben document, which had been published in Ha'aretz that
morning, and he explicitly stated that he had not, and confirmed
that he was now hearing about it for the first time.35
At the same time, Ms. Azulay-Katz's account does not delve
into the nuances of how closely Rabin had "dangled the carrot" of
a promise of a full withdrawal before the noses of his Syrian
interlocutors. According to the newspaper's digest of her book,
what Peres learned after Rabin's death was that Rabin had given
the Americans an explicit verbal promise that, in return for
Syrian compliance with a satisfactory security arrangement and
with other political terms of a peace treaty, his government
would pull back to "some line between the international border
and the June 4 line . . . [I]t definitely referred to a full
retreat from the entire Golan Heights." Ms. Azulay-Katz wrote
that,
When President Clinton came to [Rabin's] funeral he
turned to Peres and wanted to know whether the new
government would uphold the commitment made by Rabin.
Clinton made it clear to Peres that he viewed Rabin's
commitment as valid even after the establishment of the
Peres government.36
Peres, according to this account, "was very agitated," and called
in Israel's senior military leaders for confirmation of what had
been agreed on the territorial and security issues. Then he
decided to try to continue the talks. What is not clear from the
newspaper digest of the Azulay-Katz account is precisely why
Peres decided to continue the talks, since Rabin had apparently
decided in the summer of 1995 to put them on hold. But it appears
from Ms. Azulay-Katz's account that he was optimistic: "Peres was
sure that he would be campaigning in the elections with a Syrian
peace accord in his pocket. 'We will have peace with Syria within
6 months,' he said."37
Senior Syrian sources have said that when Secretary of State
Christopher arrived in Damascus on yet another shuttle-diplomacy
mission later in November 1995, he told President Asad of Peres'
desire to continue with the negotiations, based on a commitment
to full withdrawal and the "Aims and Principles of the Security
Arrangement." These sources said that Asad explicitly sought
confirmation from Christopher on whether Peres wanted to push
ahead and complete the negotiations before the elections in
Israel, and that he informed the Secretary that he would be
prepared to wait until after the Israeli elections to resume. The
message that the Syrians got back from Peres was that he
"preferred peace to elections," and that he would commit to
concluding a peace agreement during 1996. After the Syrians also
received a commitment from President Clinton that he, too, was
committed to seeing the conclusion of a Syrian-Israeli peace in
1996, these sources said, President Asad added his commitment to
the same goal.38
The new set of talks that opened in the last week of
December 1995 marked the introduction of yet another new format.
This time, the talks were returned to the political echelon.
Ambassador Muallim was once again the head of the Syrian team,
while the Israeli team was now headed by Uri Savir, a close
political protege of Shimon Peres who had been his chief official
shepherding the secret Oslo talks with the PLO to a successful
conclusion. (Rabinovich stayed on the Israeli team, but was no
longer its leader.) This time, too, the talks moved out of the
dry corridors of the State Department into the more relaxed
country-house setting of the Aspen Institute's "Wye Plantation"
conference facility on Maryland's Eastern Shore: it was planned
that the negotiators would go there for two back-to-back, 3-day-
long sessions per month until the negotiations were concluded.
At the first Wye Plantation session, which bracketed the New
Year, all the issues involved in the negotiations were reportedly
aired, including normalization of political relations, water, and
the timetable for implementation, as well as the territorial and
security questions.
The second Wye Plantation session opened at the end of
January 1996. This time, there was more emphasis on the security
issues. But by the end of January, too, evidence was accumulating
that Peres' belief that an agreement was possible within 6 months
was over-optimistic, due to escalating criticism within his own
cabinet. On January 26, for example, his Foreign Minister Ehud
Barak--the previous Chief of Staff whose intervention in the
December 1994 session had been so undistinguished--was openly
expressing doubts about the prospects of the Wye Plantation
talks. He told Israeli television viewers that, "I do not expect
these talks to solve all the problems between us and Syria.
Therefore, it does not stand to reason that the talks will end in
an agreement."39 On January 28, Israel's Channel 2 television
network was reporting that major clashes over the Wye Plantation
talks had erupted in that morning's Sunday cabinet meeting, with
some ministers and the head of the IDF intelligence branch's
Research Division strongly criticizing Peres' optimism regarding
them. The network's correspondent reported that,
ministers did not share Peres' optimism today. Their
outlook was that there is no chance for an agreement
with Syria before the elections. The usually cautious
chief of staff, Lieutenant General Amnon Shahaq, told
them: I do not see how the negotiations with the
Syrians can be finished within six months . . . The
time factor worries Shim'on Peres, too:
[Begin Peres recording] These are not mere negotiations
with a neighbor; this is also a race against time. [end
recording]40
Three days later, Peres was telling Israeli television
viewers that the just-concluded Wye session had been "very
constructive." Nevertheless, talk in Israel about the possibility
of early elections (as an alternative to seeking conclusion of
the talks with Syria before the election deadline of the
following October) continued apace. Peres told television viewers
on January 31 that,
I assume that I will reach my decision this month,
during February. Even if we hold early elections, the
negotiations will continue before as well as after the
balloting. And even if the elections are held as
scheduled, there is no guarantee that we will conclude
the negotiations before then. Therefore, absolutely no
linkage should be made between the election process and
the negotiations.41
By February 11, Peres had made his mind up, and made a
lengthy announcement of his decision to opt for elections in May.
In this announcement, he said,
We decided that the negotiations with Syria must not be
conducted under the pressure of elections.
Christopher's successful visit to Damascus determined
that the negotiations can continue to be conducted
independent of the elections. Therefore, we reiterate
that the agreement with Syria will be brought to a
national referendum.42
He also admitted that, "the negotiations with Syria will last
longer than I thought."
While electioneering got boisterously underway in Israel,
Mr. Savir and his team prepared to return to the United States
for the third Wye Plantation session scheduled to start on
February 28. (Savir would also be discussing with his American
hosts the terms for a new strategic Memorandum of Understanding
regarding American aid, especially in intelligence matters, that
would supplement the signing of a future peace agreement with
Syria.) One Israeli political source was quoted in Ma'ariv as
saying that the goal during the Wye session, "is to get through
the months left until the elections in relative peace and quiet,
without harming the negotiations."43
From the Syrian perspective, the first week of this session
"was very productive." Senior Syrian sources reported that the
two sides and the Americans present started to discuss "very deep
details" of the security arrangements, including details of the
regime in the "relevant areas." These sources added that shortly
before the end of the first week of talks, Ambassador Mu'allim
had a small meeting with Savir and U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross,
at which Savir urged continuous negotiations in order to finish
the skeleton of an agreement as soon as possible, with the aim
that in June the parties could start drafting the final text of
the agreement. Mu'allim and Savir met again, according to these
sources, on Saturday, March 2, in order to prepare the agenda for
the following week.
The next day, Palestinian suicide bombers struck in
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, killing many Israeli civilians. Ross then
informed Mu'allim that Savir had instructions to return
immediately to Israel. On March 4, the IDF Radio received word
that the Israeli government had decided to suspend the
negotiations with Syria.44 Two days later, the radio station
reported that,
Rabinovich was again disappointed--although not
surprised--yesterday when Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq
al-Shar' refused to accede to Secretary of State
Christopher's request that Syria operate against the
terror organizations or at least denounce the attacks.
Referring to the negotiations with Syria, Ambassador
Rabinovich foresees a long period of freeze; however,
he is not worried about this.
[Rabinovich] At this point, none of us are speaking
about a precise date in the near future for the
resumption of the talks. There have already been breaks
in these negotiations that went on for months, and when
they were resumed, it was usually possible to pick them
up from the point where they left off rather than
regress in the talks.45
Later that day, Peres spelled out that, "This is one of the
reasons we have now stopped the negotiations. There was no
denunciation [of the terror bombs], and there is the totally
unacceptable fact that in Damascus there are people who incite
the Palestinians to pursue acts of terror."46
For his part, President Asad kept to his customary practice
of saying little in public. On March 8, however, Abdallah al-
Ahmar, a veteran boss in Asad's ruling Ba'th Party, told a party
rally that the blame for the escalation of tensions lay with
Israel's policy:
Had Israel responded to the foundations of the peace
process and committed itself to providing its
requirements, primarily withdrawal from the occupied
territory, obstacles would not have emerged in the way
of the peace process to an extent that threatens to
bring about its collapse. In addition, the region would
not have continued to suffer from tension and a cycle
of violence . . . Israel has continued its occupation
of Arab territory and denial of Arab rights. This is
the source of tension that denies the region security,
peace, and stability. Throughout this period, Israel
continued to escalate its aggressive practices against
Arab citizens in the occupied land. These practices
reached the extent of collective punishments in all
forms. This led to a state of frustration in the entire
region.
. . . While reiterating its commitment to the peace
process and to continuing the efforts to make it
succeed, Syria repeats its clear and unambiguous stand-
-which it expressed through the negotiations and to the
two sponsors of the peace process and the whole world--
that it will not give up any inch of its territory
[applause] and will not relinquish Arab rights.47
This rhetorical exchange was just a foretaste of a
propaganda war between the two capitals which escalated rapidly
over the 5 weeks that followed. Israeli officials (including
Prime Minister Peres) continued to blast away with accusations
that Syria was "soft" on terrorism and harbored terrorists in
areas under their control in both Syria and Lebanon. For their
part, officials in Syria (but not President Asad) launched bitter
criticisms that the Israeli government was non-compliant and
laggardly in the peace process, and that Israel sought to
"encircle" Syria through its new military alliance with Turkey
and relationship with Jordan, and through the international
"anti-terrorism" summit that Israel rapidly helped Egypt and the
United States to pull together in Sharm al-Shaikh, Egypt, in the
middle of March.
Meanwhile, the situation in south Lebanon, which had only
been partially stabilized in July 1993, remained a cause of
continuing political embarrassment to Israel's Labor rulers. From
January 1995 to mid-March 1996, 64 soldiers from the IDF and its
allied proxy militia were killed as a result of Hizballah's
increasingly effective operations in South Lebanon.48 During
March 1996 alone, seven IDF soldiers along with two of their
proxy fighters were reported killed.49 The losses that the IDF
was taking there--along with the sense of threat in northern
Israel, where Hizballah fired two salvoes of Katyushas on March
30 in retaliation for civilian losses on their side of the line--
put great pressure on Peres in the midst of the election
campaign. And this time, unlike in July 1993, Syria did nothing
to rein in the Lebanese resistance fighters. Indeed, Israeli
spokesmen claimed that Syria was actively helping to channel
Iranian arms to Hizballah camps in Lebanon.
By April 10, with many residents of northern Israel now
spending time in air-raid shelters and voicing considerable
hostility to the Prime Minister, Peres decided to launch another
large-scale bombing campaign against Lebanon.50 This bombing
started early on April 11.
This campaign, given the unabashedly appropriate name of
"Operation Grapes of Wrath," had a wider scale even than the July
1993 bombing--though strong memories inside Israel of the debacle
they ended up suffering in Lebanon in the wake of the large-scale
ground incursion of 1982 meant that this time, as in 1993, the
campaign was restricted to the use of stand-off weapons.
Operation Grapes of Wrath targeted cities, towns, villages,
and infrastructural facilities throughout southern Lebanon, as
well as targets all along the main coastal route up to Beirut,
and some targets in and around the Lebanese capital itself,
including a power station. The radio station run by the Israeli
proxy forces warned residents of 44 villages and towns in the
south, as well as the city of Nabatiyteh, to leave their homes by
2:30 p.m. on April 12.51 Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak told
Israeli television on the evening of the 12th that,
We have seen televised reports of large numbers of
people--possibly over 100,000--moving toward Beirut,
and the Lebanese government is accountable for the
price, which we regret, in the form of the Lebanese
population's suffering and for any other suffering and
damage that may be caused. The Lebanese government . .
. will have either to disband Hizballah or to find
another way to quell its activities.52
But if Peres and his top advisers were hoping that the
suffering they were inflicting on Lebanon would result on the
Lebanese government crying "Uncle," then they made a terrible
misjudgment. For as in many other cases of widespread terror
bombing against civilians, the scale of the assault served only
to consolidate a considerable proportion of the Lebanese
population around Hizballah, an organization deeply rooted in the
majority Shi-ite communities of South Lebanon. (Hizballah also
enjoyed representation in Lebanon's parliament and government.
Hence, the idea that it could easily be marginalized and then
repudiated by the rest of the Lebanese political elite was quite
ill-founded.) Moreover, by addressing themselves solely to
Lebanon's ever-fragile internal government while pointedly
failing to involve the Syrians in their political efforts in
those early days, Israel's leaders more or less ensured the non-
cooperation of a Syrian regime which saw the campaign as yet
another attempt by Israel to cut a separate deal with an Arab
interlocutor and thus further to isolate Damascus.
A combination of internal Lebanese and Lebanese-Syrian
factors thus ensured that no-one in the Lebanese government came
forward to offer to "disband" Hizballah; and since, during the
early days of Operation Grapes of Wrath, this was the sole and
unnegotiable demand of the Peres government, the operation
continued in its blind and murderous way day after day after day.
And day after day, Peres' announced goal of ending Hizballah's
sporadic attacks against northern Israel was proven unrealized,
adding to the political pressure on him at home.
News of the destruction being caused in Lebanon created a
furor among the Arabs, in Europe, and in much of the rest of the
world. Many governments, including those of France, Russia,
Egypt, and Jordan, offered to help mediate a resolution of the
crisis. But Peres was sensitive to political signals from only
one foreign capital, Washington, and from there he continued to
receive carte blanche to act as he liked against Lebanon. By
April 15--with the bombing continuing from air, sea, and ground
platforms--he evidently concluded that the approaches earlier
made to the Lebanese government were hopeless, and that now it
was time to try to win Syria's support to resolve the crisis.
Israeli television reported that evening that Israeli officials
were starting to draw up possible drafts of an agreement under
which Israel would demand a Syrian commitment to enforce any
understandings reached with Hizballah. Peres' chief negotiator
Uri Savir had reportedly told foreign ambassadors in Israel that
day that the new political contacts--conducted through
Washington--"may achieve results within hours or days."53
One of the unintended consequences of Operation Grapes of
Wrath was that Syria's relative isolation in the Arab world,
which had been underlined by its refusal to attend the Sharm al-
Shaikh summit, was dramatically reversed.54 Sentiment on the part
of the Arab political elite, which had earlier been prepared to
allow Israel some sympathy for the losses suffered during the
suicide bombings of February and March, now expressed outrage at
the widespread destruction caused against Arab civilians at the
orders of none other than Israel's "Mr. Peace" (Prime Minister
Peres). On April 17, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Shar'a
traveled to Egypt to attend an emergency meeting called by the
Arab League Council to discuss the crisis in Lebanon. Armed with
this important new support in the Arab world, Asad's government
seemed in no hurry to respond favorably to the new Israeli
overture.
On April 18, Israeli gunners involved in the campaign fired
five or six heavy anti-personnel rounds against the camp of a
U.N. contingent near Qana, Lebanon, killing 107 Lebanese
civilians who had sought shelter there. Israel first reported
that the firing had been a technical mistake, though on-the-spot
investigations by U.N. military observers cast doubt on that
explanation.55 International reaction to this mass killing--
including, for the first time, some signs of official ill ease on
this score from Washington--further increased the pressure on
Peres to find a speedy resolution.
It took a further 8 days--days in which Israel kept up the
pace and scale of its bombardments in Lebanon--before a new
agreement could be concluded and Operation Grapes of Wrath was
eventually halted. The new agreement was similar to the unwritten
1993 understanding under which "all parties" in south Lebanon
undertook not to target civilians, with the following changes:
the new agreement was written;
Syria was formally included in the diplomacy leading up to
the agreement, and among the signatories to it;
allegations of violations of the not-targeting-civilians
rule would be investigated by a 5-party committee composed of
representatives from Lebanon, Israel, Syria, the United States,
and France; and,
the parties formally undertook not to use populated areas,
industrial regions, or electric establishments as starting points
for military attacks.56
As was gleefully noted by official Syrian and pro-Hizballah
media, the new agreement notably did not include any prohibition
against Hizballah targeting IDF or proxy forces inside Lebanon.
And Syrian television noted--at the joint press conference U.S.
Secretary of State Christopher held with Prime Minister Peres to
announce the new agreement --that the American called for an
early resumption of the bilateral Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-
Lebanese negotiations.57 Syrian TV commentator Yusuf Maqdisi
commented that:
Anyone who works for peace does not commit crimes and
operations of annihilation. . . . He does not always
opt for war, trick the world into believing that
implementing U.N. resolutions is futile, and create
pretexts to abandon the peace process. Israel has been
doing this since the Madrid conference 5 years ago.
"Syria," Maqdisi said, "supports the U.S. sponsor's efforts to
resume the peace process on the principles from which it started,
because . . . [t]here is no alternative except the continuation
of tension, which drags the region into danger."58
Within Israel, the agreement that Peres finally ended up
signing over Lebanon was attacked bitterly by Likud opponent
Benjamin Netanyahu. "I would have acted differently," he vowed to
a television interviewer, "I would have disbanded Hizballah's
infrastructure in South Lebanon." Asked how he would have done
this, Netanyahu replied, "In a military action."59 Many members
of the Israeli elite remembered, of course, the pains their
country had suffered during and after the earlier, Likud-launched
ground incursion into Lebanon in 1982. But Netanyahu's criticism
of Peres probably played well among many residents of the
northern Israeli "development towns"--while there were doubtless
also some Jewish Israeli voters who were pleased to see Peres'
use of force in Lebanon.
Opinion polls taken after the May 19 election indicated
that, on balance, Operation Grapes of Wrath resulted in no
appreciable change in the level of support Peres enjoyed from
Israel's majority of Jewish voters. But among the 15-17 percent
of voters who are Palestinian Israelis, the ferocity of Peres'
campaign against fellow Arabs was a significant factor that
dented their willingness to turn out at the polls in support of
the man previously dubbed by many Arabs as "Mr. Peace." It was by
a slim margin of fewer than 30,000 votes that, in Israel's first-
ever direct election to the Premiership, Mr. Peres lost out to
Mr. Netanyahu.60
Netanyahu's election caused a flurry of high-level
diplomatic activity within the Arab world. In the days that
followed, President Asad and Foreign Minister Shara played a
large role, along with the Egyptians, in the contacts that led to
the convening of an Arab summit in late June. What startled many
Arab leaders was the harsh tone with which, even after his
election, Netanyahu continued to criticize the very foundations
on which the Madrid process had been built over the past half-
decade. In draft government guidelines drawn up on June 7,
Netanyahu reportedly wrote that,
The Golan Heights is an area essential to the existence
of Israel. The Golan is an important Zionist settlement
region of the state, that is essential for its security
and for the preservation of its water resources. The
government will insist on Israel's sovereignty over the
Golan in any peace arrange-ment, and will bolster
settlement enterprises on the Golan.
Three days later, these terms were reportedly "softened" to the
following: "The government considers the Golan Heights a vital
area for the security of the state and for the preservation of
its water resources and should insist on preserving it under
Israeli sovereignty." In addition, the new guidelines reportedly
stated that, "The Israeli Government will hold negotiations with
Syria without any preconditions."61
Talk of "negotiations without preconditions," or--another
old Likud favorite trotted out by Netanyahu--"peace for peace"
(instead of "land for peace"), was extremely disappointing to the
Syrian leaders. So was another Likud trial balloon that Netanyahu
and his foreign policy "advisor," Dore Gold, tried out as well:
"Lebanon first." For their part, the Syrians continued in the
latter half of 1996 to insist that any return to the peace table
be based on the original principles of the Madrid peace
conference, and on the agreements that had been negotiated
already with the Government of Israel in the years since then. By
the end of 1996, the relationship among Israel, Syria, and
Lebanon looked very similar to what had existed under the
previous Likud government, with the Israelis once again
announcing the construction of new settlement housing units in
the occupied Golan, and a continuation of low-intensity conflict
in south Lebanon. The only things that had changed were the
creaky activation of the Monitoring Group for South Lebanon,
which sporadically brought Israeli and Syrian representatives
face-to-face with the representatives of the three other
governments concerned,62 and the existence of dusty files full of
agreements tentatively concluded by Rabin but never pulled
together into a consummated whole.
Conclusions.
This survey of the 5 years of Syrian-Israeli interaction
that followed the late-1991 convening of the Madrid peace
conference indicates clearly that by the end of 1996, the
Israeli-Palestinian track was by no means the only portion of the
negotiations that was in serious trouble. The Syrian-Israeli
negotiation had likewise, during 1996, spun completely off a
course which, up to mid-1995--and even as late as February 1996--
appeared to its participants to be on its way to a successful
conclusion.
For those concerned with the long-term stability of the
Middle East, the successive downturns that occurred in the
Syrian-Israeli relationship during late 1995 and 1996 were
particularly frustrating both because of the importance of this
element of the peace process, and because the hard negotiating
work done between August 1992 and June 1995 had brought the two
parties so tantalizingly close to reaching the outlines of a
final-status peace agreement. This agreement had been based fair
and square on the principles for peacemaking supported by the
international community--but notably not by Israel's Likud party-
-since 1967: that is, on the principles of the inadmissibility of
the acquisition of territory by force and the consequent need for
an exchange of land for peace between the parties.
What lessons does the experience of 1991-96 have for
planners trying to strategize for future rounds of a Syrian-
Israeli negotiation? A first and important lesson is that
President Asad's regime showed in this period, as in earlier
years, that it was not willing to settle for anything less than
the complete return of all Syrian lands occupied by Israel in
1967, and similarly, that it had no interest at all in concluding
a second interim agreement, to be added to the disengagement-of-
forces agreement concluded with Israel in 1974. In both these
respects, Asad's negotiating stance differed considerably from
that of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Evidently, President
Asad considered his position vis-.-vis Israel to be considerably
stronger than Arafat's. And by the end of 1996, nothing had
occurred that disproved this judgment.
As an important corollary to the above, it should be noted,
however, that once assured by the Israeli leaders that they would
consider a full withdrawal from Syrian lands, Asad then declared
that he would consider acceding to a broad range of Israeli
counter-demands, in both the political and the important security
spheres. By June 1995, it seemed that the outline of a do-able
deal had been found by the negotiators: a total Israel withdrawal
in return for full political relations and a security regime
which would be to some degree, yet to be determined, asymmetrical
in Israel's favor. In other words, a deal that would look like
the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in many important
respects.
A student of history may ask why it took the parties this
long--28 years after the passage of Security Council resolution
242 in 1967--to reach this point. The laggard-liness of the
parties prior to 1991 need not concern us here. But what did seem
to emerge only in 1991 was the readiness in that year of the
Syrian leadership and of a broad consensus within the Israeli
political leadership to at least explore whether a 242-based deal
was possible--as well as, equally importantly, a new commitment
from the ruling forces in the international community (that is,
by that point, the U.S. leadership) to nail down this crucial
plank of the Israeli-Arab confrontation into a formal peace
agreement.
Over the years that followed 1991, some of these factors
changed. The Israeli leadership's readiness to engage in the
tough diplomacy needed for a deal with Damascus increased with
the 1992 election of Labor, but was dented when Premier Rabin's
calculations shifted towards focussing on the Palestinians. When
he put the Syrian negotiations on a back burner in June/July
1995, he may have thought he could revive them later on, before
his next election campaign. But history proved that hope false.
Shimon Peres' stewardship of the Syrian question during his ill-
fated premiership then proved sloppy and disastrous, and his act
of withdrawing from the talks paved the way both for a serious
deterioration in the security situation in the region and for his
(Likud) successor's abstention from any participation in the
bilateral talks. And one of the biggest mistakes of both Rabin
and Peres was their failure to try to actively and publicly re-
frame the whole issue of Israel's security vis-.-vis its
neighbors as being a question of security interdependence rather
than zero-sum-gaming and constant threat.
The ever-crucial factor of American commitment to the talks'
successful conclusion also changed during the period under study.
True, Secretary Christopher made 20 or more shuttle trips between
Syria and Israel during his tenure, and President Clinton
relatively frequently became personally engaged in jollying along
this track. But there was an aimlessness to all this engagement,
and a willingness not to move one step beyond what the Israeli
leadership itself wanted, that contrasted strongly with the
engagement that President Bush had shown. The Clinton
administration's engagement also contrasted strongly with, for
example, the engagement of President Carter in the diplomacy of
the Camp David Accords, or that of Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger in even earlier rounds of Israeli-Arab diplomacy. In
President Carter's case, he showed that once he had committed
himself personally to the negotiation, he would stick with it,
and with America's commitments to the deal's signatories, as a
full and guiding participant until it was successfully concluded-
-or there would be a price for the dissenting party to pay.
Secretary Kissinger's diplomacy, similarly, was very different
from the role of tentative message-carrier that Secretary
Christopher and even President Clinton seemed to see for
themselves.
The Syrian leadership's commitment to concluding a deal--
provided it was based on a full Israeli withdrawal--did not seem
to vary as much during the period under question as did that of
the Israelis or Americans. Was there more that President Asad
could have done to bring earlier success to the negotiations?
Undoubtedly there was. He could have revealed more of his
negotiating hand to the Israelis earlier. He could have taken
action to brake or end the activities of groups committed to
violence inside Israel, or against Israeli targets within
Lebanon. But all these actions would, in Asad's ever-cautious
view, have involved some political costs; and these he considered
not worth paying in the absence of any clearly visible dividend
from Israel or the United States.
If there is to be an Israeli-Syrian agreement, this will
have consequences for the good throughout the Middle East. But
with the return to power of Likud in 1996, and the re-election of
President Clinton five months later, such an agreement seems
considerably more distant than it appeared in 1991.
ENDNOTES
1. The 1974 agreement under which the two states agreed to
disengage their forces on the Golan was signed by military
representatives of the two states at the same ceremony. But it
had been negotiated entirely through the shuttle diplomacy of
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
2. These included Israel's attempted expulsion of 400
alleged Hamas activists in December 1992 (which led to a short
Syrian suspension of participation in the bilaterals); its July
1993 bombing campaign in Lebanon which killed some 120 Lebanese
civilians along with a small number of military personnel; and
the killing of 29 Palestinian civilians in the Ibrahimi Mosque in
Hebron by a Jewish-Israeli extremist (February 1994).
3. In October 1996, the Israeli National Oil Company even
announced plans to drill for oil in the Golan. These plans were
reported as canceled two days later, on account of new plans to
privatize the oil company.
4. Israel first established an IDF presence in that zone
when it launched a large-scale ground incursion into Lebanon in
March 1978. U.N. Security Council resolution 425, passed in June
1978, called on Israel to make an unconditional withdrawal from
Lebanon. In this sense, it was distinct from resolutions 242 and
338, which called for the Arab parties concerned to conclude a
formal peace agreement with Israel in return for withdrawal. But
Lebanon did not take part in the wars of 1967 or 1973, and was
not a party to 242 or 338. Regardless of the distinction between
these resolutions, by late 1996 Israel still had not complied
with 425, and did not appear to be about to.
5. These figures are quoted in Human Rights Watch, Civilian
Pawns: Laws of War Violations and the Use of Weapons on the
Israel-Lebanon Border, New York and London: Human Rights Watch,
1996, p. 68. Pages 68-116 give a detailed account of this
campaign, as well as of the fighting that continued between these
parties in South Lebanon between July 1993 and April 1996.
6. David Hoffman, "Israel Halts Bombardment of Lebanon,"
Washington Post, August 1, 1993, as quoted in Civilian Pawns, p.
38n.
7. "Leaders hold news conference," Damascus: Syrian Arab
Television Network in Arabic, 1513 GMT, January 16, 1994; as
translated in FBIS-NES-94-011, January 18, 1994, pp. 55, 56.
8. "Gur: Referendum if peace price significant," Tel Aviv:
IDF Radio in Hebrew, 1400 GMT, January 17, 1994; translated in
FBIS-NES-94-011, January 18, 1994, p. 39.
9. Interview with senior Syrian participant, November 1996.
10. See "Israel Blamed for Lack of Progress," Agence France-
Presse in English, June 30, 1995, as reproduced in FBIS-NES-95-
128, July 5, 1995, p. 9.
11. Letter from Ambassador Rabinovich, November 11, 1996.
12. "Book Claims Rabin Promised al-Asad Full Golan
Withdrawal," Yedi'ot Aharonot, September 11, 1996, pp. 1, 19; in
FBIS-NES-96-178.
13. This negotiation presented few of the difficulties of
disentanglement involved in Israel's bilaterals with either Syria
or the Palestinians. Since 1988, when the Jordanian king
disavowed any responsibility for the outcome in the West Bank,
Jordan retained only a tiny territorial claim against Israel; and
for many years had presented no military threat to Israel. Still,
the relative speed with which Jordan concluded its negotiation
came as yet another blow to any hopes Asad may have had for
coordination of the Arab parties' diplomatic efforts.
14. "Rabinovich on Shahaq-al-Shihabi Meeting," Tel Aviv:
Davar, June 30, 1995, p. 5; in FBIS-NES-95-127, July 3, 1995, p.
47.
15. This was not, reportedly, the first time that this issue
has come up in almost exactly this same way. In May 1995, Israeli
journalists reported that the issue of Israel retaining a manned
early-warning station on Mount Hermon had also resulted in a
deadlock at the first Chiefs of Staff meeting, the previous
December--and that the Syrians had also at that time rejected an
Israeli offer that, in return for their keeping the Mount Hermon
station, the Syrians could be allowed to establish one in
northern Israel, "either in Zefat or on Mount Meron." But still
the Syrians had refused, basing their arguments, then as later,
on the issue of their national sovereignty over the non-Lebanese
slopes of Mount Hermon. See "Al-Asad Rejects Proposal on Early-
Warning Station," in Ma'ariv, 29 May 95, p.3; in FBIS-NES-95-103,
May 29, 1995.
16. Ze'ev Schiff, "U.S. Compromise Being Considered,"
Ha'aretz, July 2, 1995, pp. A1, A2, in FBIS-NES-95-127, July 3,
1995, p. 42.
17. See "'Text' of IDF Planning Document on Golan Security,"
Yedi'ot Aharonot, June 29, 1995, pp. 4-5, FBIS-NES-95-126, June
30, 1995, pp. 36-38, hereafter, Stauber/Netanyahu text.
18. "IDF Views Understandings Paper," Ha'aretz, June 30,
1995, p. A2, in FBIS-NES-95-127, July 3, 1995, pp. 48-50,
hereafter, Stauber/ Ben text.
19. Stauber/Ben text, op.cit., pp. 48-49.
20. Ibid., p. 49. Words presented within slantlines in the
FBIS translation of the Stauber/Ben text were published in the
original Ha'aretz text, and presumably also in the leaked Stauber
text, in English rather than Hebrew.
21. Ibid., pp. 49-50, passim.
22. Ibid., p. 49.
23. Loc. cit.
24. Op. cit., p. 50.
25. Stauber/Netanyahu text, pp. 36-37, passim.
26. Loc. cit., p.38.
27. "Shahaq on 'Dialogue' With Syrians," IDF Radio in
Hebrew, 0400 GMT, June 30, 1995, in FBIS-NES-95-127, July 3,
1995, p. 43.
28. Ibid.
29. "Israel Blamed . . ." See note 7 above.
30. Aluf Ben, "Syria Proposes 10:6 Demilitarization Ratio,"
Ha'aretz, July 3, 1995, pp. A1, A8, in FBIS-NES-95-127, July 3,
1995, p. 41.
31. Ibid.
32. "Israel Rejects Offer for 10:6 Demilitarization,"
Israel; Television Channel 1 in Hebrew, 1700 GMT, July 3, 1995,
in FBIS-NES-95-128, July 5, 1995, p. 8.
33. Aluf Ben, "Israeli Sources: Syrian Offer 'Pleasant
Surprise'," in Ha'aretz, July 4, 1995, p. A3, in FBIS-NES-95-128,
July 5, 1995, p. 8.
34. "Book Claims Rabin Promised . . ." See note 9 above.
35. "Peres Comments on 2d Army Document," Tel Aviv: IDF
Radio in Hebrew, 0400 GMT, June 30, 1995, in FBIS-NES-95-127, p.
45.
36. "Book Claims Rabin Promised . . .," op.cit.
37. Ibid.
38. In retrospect, this commitment to conclude a Syrian-
Israeli peace agreement in the course of a year in which both
Israel and the United States would see national leadership
elections may--given the political dynamics involved in these
campaigns--be seen as quixotic, at best.
39. "Baraq Doubts Results of Wye Plantation Talks,"
Jerusalem: Israel Television Channel 1 in Hebrew, 1800 GMT,
January 26, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-019. The reporter of this news
story also quoted Barak as referring to Israel's Arab negotiators
as, "20 guys wearing yellow jellabas."
40. "Peres Clashes With Expert, Criticizes 'Pessimism' on
Syria," Jerusalem: Channel 2 Television Network in Hebrew, 1800
GMT, January 28, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-019. This FBIS report also
notes that a radio program one hour later reported that Peres
denied that Shahak said that an agreement with Syria could be
reached in 1996.
41. "Peres Comments on Progress of Syria Talks, Elections,"
Jerusalem: Israel Television Channel 1 in Hebrew, 1800 GMT,
January 31, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-022.
42. "Peres Announces Early Elections," Jerusalem: Israel
Television Channel 1 in Hebrew, 1805 GMT, February 11, 1996; as
translated in FBIS-NES-96-029. Later in this announcement, Peres
seems to be spelling out that he delayed making a firm decision
on the elections until after he had learned from his
interlocutors in the peace talks that the talks could continue
even during the election period.
43. "Deliberations on Memo of Understanding with U.S.
Begin," Ma'ariv, February 25, 1996, p. 14, in FBIS-NES-96-040.
44. "Cabinet Decides to Suspend Talks with Syria," Tel Aviv:
IDF Radio in Hebrew, 1858 GMT, March 4, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-044,
March 6, 1996.
45. "Rabinovich Foresees 'Indefinite' Freeze in Syrian
Talks," Tel Aviv: IDF Radio in Hebrew, 0500 GMT, March 6, 1996,
in FBIS-NES-96-045, March 3, 1996.
46. "Peres Interviewed on Bombings, Elections, Syria,"
Jerusalem: Israel Television Channel 1 in Hebrew, 1825 GMT, March
6, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-046 of March 8, 1996.
47. "Party Official on Terrorism Charge, Peace," Damascus:
Syrian Arab Television in Arabic, 1023 GMT, March 8, 1996, in
FBIS-NES-96-048, March 12, 1996.
48. Quoted in Civilian Pawns . . ., op.cit., p. 48.
49. Figures collated from Civilian Pawns . . ., op.cit., p.
115.
50. See "'Change' in Peres Stance on Hizballah; Or Discusses
Options," Jerusalem: Channel 2 Television in Hebrew, 1700 GMT,
April 10, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-071, April 12, 1996. In this
report, the well-connected Israeli commentator Ehud Ya'ari noted
that, "[O]fficial U.S. administration reactions have not called
for restraint. This means that there is a feeling that the United
States is currently clearing the way for whatever means Israel
chooses to use and has not yet pursued."
51. "Israel Steps Up Lebanese Attacks," The Washington
Post, April 13, 1996, p. A23; as cited in Civilian Pawns . . .,
p. 59. By April 14, the number of Lebanese "villages," including
presumably also towns and cities ordered evacuated by the
Israelis had risen to 95; see "Chief of Staff Explains Lebanon
Operation," Jerusalem: Israel television channel 1 in Hebrew,
1635 GMT, April 14, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-073, April 16, 1996. Of
course, Israel's summary and totally illegal order to residents
of a neighboring country to leave their homes under threat of
bombardment could not possibly be complied with by many,
including old people, women with newborn babies, etc. Nor did the
Israeli forces allow free transport northwards along the main
coastal artery. Thus, Israeli claims that their orders to
evacuate Lebanese villages showed them to be acting humanely seem
bizarre at best.
52. "Baraq--Nothing to Discuss with Lebanon if Hizballah
Active," Jerusalem: Israel Television Channel 1 in Hebrew, 1725
GMT, April 12, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-073.
53. "Syria to Disarm Hizballah Under Political Accord,"
Jerusalem: Channel 2 Television in Hebrew, 1630 GMT, April 15,
1996, in FBIS-NES-96-074, April 17, 1996. This report, and its
title, represented a degree of wishful thinking regarding the
success of the new overture. See also "Peres Ready to Consider
'Serious' Proposals to End Fighting," Tel Aviv: IDF Radio in
Hebrew, 1400 GMT, April 15, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-074, April 17,
1996.
54. In fact, Syria's isolation had never been as great as
presumed in Israel or the United States. On April 2, for example,
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had made the significant gesture
of traveling to Damascus for a summit meeting with his Syrian
counterpart.
55. See "Peres, Shahaq Brief Media on Lebanon Events,"
Jerusalem: Channel 2 Television in Hebrew, 1716 GMT, April 18,
1996, in FBIS-NES-96-077. But even if the placing of that
particular salvo was a mistake, there is no contesting the fact
that IDF gunners caused it. And indeed, if a political leadership
orders a bombing campaign as vast, lengthy, and multifaceted as
Grapes of Wrath, it must take responsibility for consequences of
the "fog of war" that inevitably will be involved.
56. For the terms of the agreement, see "Text of Lebanese-
Israeli Cease-fire 'Understanding'," Kfar Killa: Voice of the
South in Arabic, 1610 GMT, April 26, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-083,
April 30, 1996.
57. "Christopher Cited on Resumption of Negotiations
'Soon'," Damascus: Syrian Arab Television in Arabic, 1730 GMT,
April 26, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-083, April 30, 1996.
58. "Main Points of Lebanon-Israel Cease-Fire Agreement
Viewed," Damascus: Syrian Arab Television in Arabic, 1800 GMT,
April 26, 1996, in FBIS-NES-96-083, April 30, 1996. President
Asad himself had remained very quiet in public throughout the
whole Lebanon crisis, so in selecting quotes from his leader,
Maqdisi had to rely on quotes from Asad's joint press conference
with President Mubarak on April 2.
59. "Likud Chairman Netanyahu Attacks Lebanon Accord,"
Jerusalem: Channel 2 Television in Hebrew, 1700 GMT, April 26,
1996, in FBIS-NES-96-083, April 30, 1996.
60. In a telephone conversation in November 1996, Ze'ev
Schiff estimated that the swing away from Mr. Peres among the
Palestinian-Israeli voters that was provoked by Operation Grapes
of Wrath was about 10 percent. This would more than account for
Mr. Peres' loss.
61. See Arye Bender and Menahem Rahat, "Likud Drafts
'Softer' Government Guidelines," Ma'ariv, June 11, 1996, p. 16,
in FBIS-NES-96-113, June 12, 1996.
62. On December 12, 1996, Reuter reported that the Group had
found the IDF responsible for recently shelling two Lebanese
villages, using deadly "flechette" shells that injured six
civilians. "It was the third successive case in which the group
has held Israel responsible for shelling a southern Lebanese
village." Washington Post, December 13, 1996, p. A47.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE
Major General Richard A. Chilcoat
Commandant
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