From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
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From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
The peace process for Syria was intended to secure and improve their status domestically, regionally, and internationally - it was not intended to conclude a peace agreement with Israel if it required any significant concession. Syria's "strategic choice" for peace was only a choice to explore the possibility of achieving peace, however at no point did Asad decide to make peace. He made no irreversible move, such as Sadat's journey to Jerusalem, and he failed to engage in the bare minimum of public diplomacy. Asad's preference was to adapt to the new challenges presented in the late 1980s and 1990s by adopting strategies that maintained the status quo. This required no significant change in his worldview or dramatic overhaul of his policies. Maintaining the status quo while concluding a peace agreement with Israel was impossible given Israel's red lines and America's expectations. Furthermore, by 2000 Asad's lack of public diplomacy led most Israelis to conclude that Syria's vision of peace was not worth the return of all the Golan.
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
At 57 years old, Labor's Ehud Barak, Israel's most decorated war hero defeated Likud's Netanyahu with 56 percent of the vote in the May 1999 elections. Hope in Israel and Washington rose sharply because he was seen as someone who would continue Rabin's legacy and embrace the path to peace while focusing on Israel's security. During his election campaign, he pledged to remove Israel from their self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon, with or without a deal with Syria. He also promised to reduce America's role in the negotiations. The former pledge he kept, but the role of the U.S. dramatically increased during his prime ministership.Barak's decision to pursue a Syria-first strategy upon assuming office and relegating the Palestinian track to the backburner was against the advice of most of his ministers as well as a significant portion of Israel's foreign policy and security establishment.[220] Robert Malley and Aaron Miller, both key members of America's peace team were also against pursuing Syria first. However, the Syria-first strategy was in line with Rabin's approach, who felt that dealing with the surrounding Arab states would make dealing with the Palestinians (and the threats from the east) easier. This was also inline with U.S. objectives during the first Clinton administration. However, since 1996 - Clinton's re-election and Netanyahu's victory over Peres - Syria sat on America's sidelines.
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
During the three years of Netanyahu's prime ministership, the peace process with Syria was publicly put on ice. Without the process, Asad was unable to pursue any possible benefits from a relationship with Washington. At the same time, he learned that no cost was attached to maintaining the status quo. With neither carrots nor sticks being offered by the West, Syria had more freedom to act in the region. The saber rattling between Syria and Israel, and Syria and Turkey in 1996 and 1998, also affected Syria's decision to look for another defensive axis aside from the largely symbolic Damascus Declaration states (Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia). Syria enhanced their relations with Iran and began a slow path of rapprochement with Iraq. With the peace process stalled, Asad was able to exercise more influence in blocking the Arab world from enhancing their economic relations with Israel, thereby freezing the process of normalization.
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
Rabin's assassination on 4 November 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the peace process dealt a heavy blow to the peace process. It was an obvious moment for Asad to reach out to the Israeli people, however, any gesture, no matter how small proved beyond his notion of making peace. Given Asad's policy and negotiating perspective, it was not surprising that no Syrian official attended the funeral in Israel. Nevertheless, Rabin's assassination and the implications for the peace process prompted a substantial number of Arab leaders to either send condolences or attend the funeral. Asad could not even bring himself to express a personal condolence to Yitzhak Rabin's wife, Leah, after several conversations with Warren Christopher. Asad's only reaction came in a phone call with the U.S. Secretary of State where he said that contrary to what some might think, "there will be no rejoicing in Syria."[139] Rabinovich thought, "Syria's direct response to Rabin's assassination was, at best, heartless."[140]
The Pocket was so secretive in 1995 that Peres was surprised to learn of Rabin's exercise. Rabinovich briefed Peres on the Syrian track and stressed that he should avoid using the term "commitment." He knew Clinton wanted to hear it. It was one thing to commit to continuing Rabin's policies, but quite another if Peres literally committed to withdraw from the Golan to the 4 June 1967 line without Israel's needs being satisfied.[141] When Clinton met Peres, the president assured the new prime minister that he intended to remain involved until July 1996. Clinton would then concentrate on his re-election campaign.
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
Little progress was achieved in the "ambassador's channel" in Maryland that began on 29 July. During these informal meetings away from the State Department and the media, Ambassadors Rabinovich and Mu'allim met together and separately with Ross, Indyk, and later Mark Parris. Syria agreed to allow Israel one year to withdraw - up from their previous demand of six months. In August, Rabin agreed that the timetable for withdrawal could be less than five years and took Barak's four categories of territory in relation to military force deployment off the table.
The two main issues discussed in the ambassador's channel in Maryland was the extent of normalization and security arrangements. If Israel received more assurances on the depth of normalization, they would require less in terms of security arrangements. Syria did not commit to the kind of relations that would have helped Rabin convince the Israeli public that withdrawing from the Golan would prove beneficial. Asad maintained that the security arrangement must be on "equal footing" with both sides mirroring the other in DMZs and force deployment. Mu'allim argued that Damascus was closer to the border than Tel Aviv and therefore, zones of limited deployment were far more threatening to Syria than to Israel. With the focus shifting to security arrangements, Rabinovich suggested meetings between the military leaders but Asad rejected this.
By October, the process again ground to a halt. It was decided that while Clinton was in the Middle East for the signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement, he would meet with Rabin and then travel to Damascus to meet with Asad. Clinton hoped that seeing Asad in Damascus would enable him to press the Syrian leader for a move either on substance or procedure given his desire for closer relations with Washington.
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
With two new administrations in Israel and Washington, the stage was set for progress. Rabin's vision of Israel's future included accommodation with Syria as one of his policy cornerstones. He also saw the rising threat of Islamic fundamentalists and knew that the trend needed to be reversed by engaging on the Palestinian issue. Rabin saw the Islamist threat as something that not only threatened Israel, but also the stability of the secular Arab regimes. His major policy thrust was therefore geared toward reconciliation with all of Israel's old foes in order to create a united front against their common fundamentalist enemy.[68] Regarding Israel's security and the idea of land-for peace, Rabin explained:
I am unwilling to give up a single inch of Israeli security, but I am willing to give up many inches of settlements and territory, as well as 1,700,000 Arab inhabitants, for the sake of peace. We seek a territorial compromise that will bring peace and security; a lot of security.[69]
Shortly after Rabin became prime minister, he replaced Yossi Ben-Aharon as the head of the Israeli delegation with Itamar Rabinovich. Rabin reversed Shamir's policy of offering Syria peace-for-peace and said that 242 did apply to the Golan. This contributed to a slight softening in Syria's stance during the sixth round of talks since Madrid - from 24 August through 2 September 1992. After Syria was unable to extract from Israel a more explicit statement regarding the depth of the withdrawal, they presented Israel with a "Draft Declaration of Principles" on 31 August.
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
The Madrid peace conference was far from conciliatory with no country taking the high road in their remarks. Shamir launched into a lengthy history of Arab rejection of Israel, accusing the Arab states of passing resolutions that "perverted history, paraded fiction as fact, and made a travesty of the UN and its charter." He took credit for the conference saying it was "a result of a sustained American effort based on our own peace plan of May 1989" and labeled the conference "ceremonial" as it was merely an opening to direct, bilateral negotiations. He railed that in Israel there was a consensus to forge peace with differences only in the best way to achieve it while "In most Arab countries, the opposite seems to be true. The only differences are over the ways to push Israel into a defenseless position and, ultimately to destruction." Shamir further admonished the Arab participants: "Above all, we hope you finally realize that you could have been at this table long ago, soon after the Camp David Accords were first concluded, had you chosen dialogue instead of violence, coexistence instead of terrorism." In driving his point home, he made clear that "an examination of the conflict's long history makes clear, its nature is not territorial...the issue is not territory, but our existence. It will be regrettable if the talks focus primarily and exclusively on territory. It is the quickest way to an impasse."[45
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
The Madrid conference that opened on 30 October 1991 was the product of four principal developments:
- The decline and dissolution of the Soviet Union, which left Asad looking for a substitute for aid, namely from Washington
- The arrival of nearly a million Soviet immigrants to Israel, which was seen as a demographic threat in the Arab world as it related to their settling in the West Bank
- The diminished position of the PLO and Arafat in specific, after supporting Iraq in the Gulf War
- The intifada and the 1991 Gulf War's success in affecting the Israeli psyche.
Finding an agreeable framework to convene the conference proved to be a difficult task. Secretary of State James A. Baker III spent months, including nine trips to the Middle East to find an amenable formula. He pursued a two-track approach - the first was negotiations between Israel and Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza; the second was negotiations between Israel and the Arab states. America's goal was a regional meeting or conference cosponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union designed to comprehensively settle the Arab-Israeli dispute based on UNSC resolutions 242 and 338.[26]
From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000
The Syrian Context
Syria suffered several serious foreign policy setbacks in the inter-Arab arena in the late 1980s. In Lebanon, Hafiz al-Asad was unable to force the remnants of the Lebanese government to accept the pro-Syrian candidate for the presidency - despite the presence of some 40,000 Syrian troops in the country. In early 1989 these troops clashed with the decimated Lebanese army, headed by General Michel 'Awn who enjoyed Iraqi support. The focus of the Arab-Israeli conflict again moved away from Syria with the Palestinian intifada and Yasir Arafat's decision to recognize Israel and accept UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 at the end of 1988. Asad saw himself as the natural leader of the Arab world in the quest for a comprehensive settlement with Israel and therefore sought to control the intifada as a means of focusing the region's attention back to the Levant, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Syria's centrality in making any progress. By 1990, this strategy was not realized.
