The Syrian Threat

[Aidoneus]

don't usually post editorials here, and this is a little bit old.. but I like it and it'll due for an exception..

The Syrian Threat

"Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land" (Jer 1:14) is a verse every Israeli pupil learns by heart. This biblical truth has never been more true than these days: the Syrian President, in a major threat to the Jewish state, offers Israel to resume peace talks. A blatant crime against war itself. Israel, understandably, is forced to defend itself.

There are several convincing reasons why Israel should reject the peaceful Syrian hand. First of all, Syria should come to the negotiation table without any preconditions. When Assad proved evil enough to accept this, Israel demanded that Syria stop it alleged support for "terrorism" (and accept the Israeli- American definition of terrorism, to include resistance to occupation). Fair enough: both sides, except the Israeli side, should come to the negotiation table without any preconditions. Imagine Syria demanding that Israel end its occupation, or just dismantle its death squads, as a precondition to resume peace talks.

Then we are told that president Assad is young and inexperienced. A problem indeed. A good solution would be to reject his offer for a few more decades of hostility, when all our "experts for Arab issues" will be able to claim safely that he is too old to change, and/or that his days are counted. Then we can wait for his successor, hopefully a young and inexperienced one.

A clear evidence for Assad "inexperience" are his manners. The Syrian president chose to convey his peaceful message to Israel in public. "There are covert diplomatic channels for such a message," official Israel says triumphantly. Indeed, how irresponsible of Assad. If he had conveyed his message confidentially, Israel could (1) again dismiss it as unserious, because only an open message preparing the Syrian public for the policy change would have proved Assad's real commitment; and/or (2) Leak the secret talks in order to stop them, just like it did recently with Libya. In fact, as even senior mainstream analyst Ze'ev Schiff observes, Israeli leaks are far from haphazard: "In most cases a leak relates to the start of contacts with some Arabs, and after the leak, the contacts are usually broken. There is scarcely any doubt that the leak is aimed at thwarting the contacts and even smearing those Israelis trying to nurture connections with the Arab side.<…> In many cases, this has succeeded. The Arab side is put off." (Ha'aretz, 16.1.04)

--snip--

Israel's military response to the present Syrian peace threat has been clear enough: Brig.-Gen. Eval Giladi, head of planning in the IDF's Planning Branch, said that Israel could occupy Damascus as quickly as the Americans had taken Baghdad (Ha'aretz, 31.12.03), and that Israel should think of a war with Syria in terms of "regime change" (Israeli TV news, the same day). Not a lot of diplomatic nicities on this end.

Along with a $60m plan to build homes for thousands of new settlers on the occupied Golan Heights, indented to increase the population by 50% over three years and unveiled at just the right time, Syria seems to have gotten the message: Assad, we are now told, "does not believe a peace agreement with the present Israeli government can be reached" (Ha'aretz, 18.1). I wonder why.

– Ran HaCohen

http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/

[izzie]

1. I guess the only thing to say is young men can be right and good.

I just do not get into this subject a lot as I do not think what is going on has worked at all. Now we seem to be doing the same. It is the same plan they used in Poland as far as I can see and that also did not work and they finally just moved the Jews out and killed them. We in this country moved the Indians out West when we wanted their land and they gave us trouble. England moved the Scots into Ireland when they wanted to win their fight. It and things like it have been done all of History. It does not work well at all.

[Lithos]

2. This article seems very counterproductive

The tone in this article is that all problems with the peace process are unilaterally Israel's fault - with the Likud practicing active aggression while the Labor party being more passive-aggressive.

While Israel does need to accept the burden of it's share of the responsibility, Syria is equally culpable in the creation of barriers preventing any sort of productive dialogue for peace.

L-

[Muddleoftheroad]

3. Equally

I would say both sides bear some burden, but those burdens are not equal. Syria has opposed Israel's existence for 55 years and continues to do so through legal and illegal means. That does NOT equate to an equal burden.