Tanya Reinhart
[Background:
Following the Shepherdstown’s Syria-Israel talks, the US issued a concealed
document summarizing the positions of the two sides. The Arab (London) paper
‘Al Hayat’ printed a summary draft of this document, based on Syrian sources.
Israeli sources denied the authenticity of this version, and exposed the full
document, which appeared in the Israeli papers on January 13. A comparison of
these two drafts is extremely revealing.]
For
many in Israel, it is already difficult to remember the joy and relief in which
they received the news about the forthcoming peace with Syria, about a month
ago. What was this joy about?
From
the Israeli perspective, it appeared that some sort of a cold status-quo has
been maintained with Syria for years: Israel received the Golan Heights, and
Syria is just sitting still. But in practice, it has been impossible to forget
for a minute that this is not peace. Without the Golan Heights, Syria will not
lift a finger against the Hizbolla guerilla forces that fight the Israeli army
in Lebanon, and if Israel withdraws from Lebanon without peace with Syria, there
is no guarantee that the Hizbolla will not direct fire to the Northern- Galilee
parts of Israel.
What
appeared as great hope a month ago, was peace with Syria, with peace for the
Galilee. Peace as with Egypt: Israelis can visit the Red Sea or eat humus in
Cairo, but it needs to be done as customary between two neighboring countries –
with visas and borders control in Eilat.
If
we examine the Syrian version of the Shepherdstown document, printed in ‘Al
Haiat’ on January 9th, it appears that those who rejoiced were right, and peace
is within reach. First, it seems that a solution could be found to the borders
dispute: It has been often claimed in the Israeli media (though not attributed
directly to Barak) that the debate remaining between the Israeli and Syrian
negotiators regards a small strip of land between the international border
(Israel’s position) and the border at the time of the 67 war (the ‘June 4’ line
– Syria’s position). The importance of this strip is that it contains valuable
water sources. The news in the Syrian version of the document is the clause that
"Syria acknowledges that the June 4th line is not a border and is not
drawn, and therefore is willing to cooperate in drawing the lines".
(Section A.) Interpreters in Israel view this clause as signalling that Syria
may be willing to compromise on this issue, and perhaps will agree to symbolic
water gestures, as was the case with Jordan.
Another
claimed area of dispute has been the nature of the peace relations. On this,
Syria proposes now "to constitute regular peace relations, as between two
neighboring countries" (Section B), that is, peace like with Egypt.
As
for the security concerns of Israel, Syria "welcomes the presence of
international forces under the US command in the Golan Heights" (Section
C). Even more significant, in this respect, is what’s behind the screen: Syria
is committed to make sure that the Hizbolla will not operate against civilians
in the Israeli North, and has already passed a painful test, when Lebanese
children were bombarded in the Southern Lebanon village Arab Salim. Syria
prevented retaliations against Israeli civilians (which are permitted in case
civilians are targeted in Southern Lebanon, according to the terms of the
agreement reached between Israel and the Hizbolla following the 1996 ‘Grapes of
Wrath’ war).
So,
Syria is signalling readiness for peace, and the rest is a matter of taste. I
personally actually find A-Shara more sympathetic than Barak and Clinton, but
this, indeed, is not something that must be agreed upon. There is room for joy
over the chance of peace.
But
the joy cools off when one looks at the Israeli version of the same
Shepherdstown document. Contrary to the common belief, Barak himself has never
declared readiness to withdraw to the international border or to any specific
line, but rather insisted, like Rabin before, that the borders will be decided
only at the end of the negotiations. This is confirmed in the document, which
specifies Israel position to be that "the border will be determined by
security considerations and other considerations…" (Section I). More
peculiar is the Israeli view regarding what this future border may mean:
Throughout the whole document the Israeli side stresses that after the peace
treaty there will be no ‘withdrawal’ of the Israeli army, but only a ‘deployment
of forces’. The distinction between withdrawal and deployment was made clear
since the Oslo accords, which specify only deployment in the areas of the West
Bank. Withdrawal entails complete evacuation, including civilian settlements,
and shifting sovereignty, while redeployment means only moving the forces
outside certain areas, thus maintaining control of the occupying side. Indeed,
Israel insists that only military forces, but no citizens of Israel, will be
redeployed in the Golan Heights, namely the settlements will not be evacuated.
To make things clearer, Israel does not accept the Syrian stand that (after the
moving of forces) "Each side will exercise its sovereignty in its side of
the border" (Section I). So, whatever line will be eventually declared as
‘border’, the sovereignty over the Golan Height will remain Israeli. It seems
that Israel is proposing to Asad the same plan it forced on Arafat.
And
in the meanwhile, our days are filled with double messages, which emanate from
above: We want peace, but with Syria it is simply impossible. They are
dishonest, they are rude, they are primitive, they are not democratic and, on
top of all, they are totally insensitive to Israeli public opinion. Every day
that passes, Asad is perceived more by the media as a demonic tyrant whose
crimes we cannot forgive. We start hearing even that ‘the Syrians understand
only power’. That’s not how one prepares people for peace. That’s how one
prepares them to war.
Against
the scenario of peace, there has always existed the script of power to guarantee
peace and quiet to the Galilee. In 1982, the then Colonel Barak pressed Sharon
to extend the war being prepared in Lebanon also to a smashing confrontation
with Syria (1). He proposed to prepare this secretly, with a series of
"ordinary" military exercises, whose real goal should be concealed
from the government (where "it would be difficult to discuss this
explicitly and with clear identification of the targets"), as well as from
the army’s chain of command "except for five or six officers who know the
extent of intentions". Then it turned out impossible to execute this
without heavy losses to the Israeli army, but today, with the sophisticated
military machinery that we witnessed in the Iraq and Kosovo wars, it seems a bit
more realistic. This is the equipment which Israel requests now from the US, for
tens of milliards if dollars. As the Shepherdstown talks were taking place, the
Israeli army performed a grand maneuver exercising war with Syria – the fifth of
a series of ‘ordinary exercises’ of this sort. What would Israel say had Syria
done the same in the midst of negotiations?
Peace
is indeed reachable, but it is not where Barak is taking us.
Tanya
Reinhart is a professor of linguistics and cultural studies at Tel Aviv
University.
=========
(1)
The full memorandum that Barak sent to Sharon in 1982 was exposed in Haaretz,
January 8, 1999 by Amir Oren, and ‘not denied’ by Barak.
This
commentary appeared as a column in the Hebrew daily ‘Yediot Axaronot’, January
16, 2000.