Peace with Syria

Baruch Kimmerling, writing in Haaretz, makes the case for peace between Israel and Syria;

[While] Ehud Barak, and even Benjamin Netanyahu, tried to further peace with Syria, Hafez Assad, the xenophobe, got cold feet as the talks moved toward the concluding stage. However, a great deal has changed, both in terms of Syria's geopolitics and in the condition of the ruling party, which relies on the Alawite minority. The end of Syria's hold over Lebanon not only undermined its prestige and its ability to maneuver politically vis-a-vis Israel but also the economic strength of the ruling sect, which relies on Lebanon's being a center of international drug trade.

The collapse of Iraq strengthened Iran, whose fundamentalist worldview is contrary to the secular inclination of the Syrian regime. Iran is becoming increasingly more powerful as a result of America's colossal strategic failure, which once more proved its utter lack of understanding of the essence of relations in the region. Proof of this is tagging Syria as part of the "axis of evil," instead of making the effort to encourage a Syrian-Israeli reconciliation as a counter to the rise of Islamic extremism.

Syria today lacks a real military option against Israel, but it can cause serious damage with its missile arsenal. To date, Syria has regarded this arsenal as serving a deterrent function, but could use the missiles out of desperation to break a status quo that has become unbearable, in a similar fashion to what Sadat did in 1973.

Bashar Assad knows that the only way he can stabilize his regime and take Syria forward is by an agreement with Israel, along the lines of the Egyptian model. Anyone who read the interview to Der Spiegel of August 29, 2005, in which Assad described Syrian society as "secular," could get a sense of his anxiety over Syria's possible deterioration into an Algerian-style civil war.

A peace accord with Syria will completely alter Israel's standing in the region and the world and will also influence the progress of reaching a solution with the Palestinians.

The way to get to that point is not through propagandist rhetoric, like the invitation Shimon Peres extended to Assad to visit Jerusalem. Someone like Peres knows full well that such a visit must be arranged in advance through [private talks], and that the invitation must come from the prime minister. Otherwise, we may find ourselves surprised once more.