An Arab-American Educator

Syrian Steadfastness Limits Israeli Labor Party Options

By Robert Hazo

It is hardly surprising that, in the aftermath of the signing of the Oslo accord, the current government of Israel reverted to the tactic Israeli governments have always tried to pursue regarding Arab states (or even groups within states, e.g., Lebanon): deal with Arabs separately because of their weakness in isolation, or, better yet, turn them against each other in the tradition of divide and conquer.

That is why the Likud government of Menachem Begin was delighted with the initiative of Egypt's Anwar Sadat which eventually led to the Camp David framework agreements that separated Egypt from the other Arabs. It was in that tradition that the Labor government of Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo agreement. It separated Yasser Arafat's PLO from other Arabs, particularly Syria and Jordan.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak didn't mind because the Arafat-Rabin accord further reduced Egypt's isolation. However, Jordan and Syria were upset at having been kept in the dark, since what Arafat was doing in the final analysis was making a separate peace and thereby compounding the problems of the other Arab countries. Jordan's King Hussein swallowed his indignation and set about making arrangements, particularly economic ones, that would come into play as soon as most of the occupying forces left the West Bank. At that point both Israeli and Jordanian currency and banks would be used to handle commercial transactions.

For its part, Syria went to negotiating sessions with Israel but fashioned no agreements whatsoever. Some were surprised that Syria would even attend separate negotiating sessions with Israel. However, despite the bellicose and intransigent image given to Syria by the media, the public position of Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad on peace negotiations has been in place for years. Syria would negotiate for peace, but only in the context of a collective agreement by the relevant Arab states, preferably under the aegis of an international conference (which, of course, was anathema to the Israelis, especially if it were convened by the United Nations).

Therefore it was not too long before Yitzhak Rabin learned that Assad's acceptance of one-on-one negotiations did not mean he would make a separate agreement or, even more important, allow the Palestinians or the Jordanians to make one. As has often been said, there will be no major Arab-Israeli conflict without Egypt and no Arab-Israeli peace without Syria.

Prime Minister Rabin has staked a great deal on the Oslo accord. He was not particularly surprised when President Assad made clear that he did not like the deal that Chairman Arafat had fashioned. However, as long as Assad would tolerate it, Rabin presumably thought he could deal with Assad later, on Israeli terms. What he could not deal with was Assad's influence on the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, and those living in the diaspora. People tend to forget that when the thousands of PLO fighters left Beirut, a majority of them went to Syria rather than to Tunisia or other Arab countries, and that Abu Musa led a large percentage of them in a genuine revolt against Arafat's rule. That revolt evoked sympathy among many Palestinians everywhere. It is, therefore, not far-fetched to suggest that Palestinians and Arabs in other countries, in addition to the obvious case of Lebanon, still are susceptible to Syrian influence.

Rabin and his negotiating team came to realize that Assad, as the last bulwark of Arab nationalism, meant what he said about not making a peace agreement with Israel until all Arab territorial claims had been settled. The result was the recent and, given the Likud increase in the polls, possibly desperate Israeli offer to return all of the Golan over an eight-year period, an offer that was festooned with all kinds of conditions. Even the United States got excited enough to send Secretary of State Warren Christopher on a Jerusalem-Damascus shuttle mission to encourage the process, He was told in no uncertain terms that Syria would only consider entering negotiations if Israel would abandon the entire Golan and dismantle its settlements there at once. It was calculated as a reply that Rabin could not seriously consider, and Christopher belatedly realized that no deal was in the making.

Assad's reaction had echoes among the Palestinians. Realizing that in standing up to the Israelis the Syrian president had aroused strong support among many who resent Israel, Yasser Arafat found it necessary to call for a "jihad" to liberate Jerusalem (with the explanation that the word "jihad" also covers peaceful struggle) and to compare his struggle with the Israelis to the Arab struggle against the crusaders, whose total tenure in the Holy Land was only one century. Both statements infuriated the Israelis.

The real shift of power with which Rabin must contend, however, is illustrated by comparing the diminished options Israel has today with those Israelis thought they had in 1982.

In 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon implemented a very ambitious plan, supported by Prime Minister Begin. Sharon's "Peace in Galilee" campaign into Lebanon was not an attempt to push the PLO and others beyond shooting range of Israeli villages, as he claimed. In fact, there had not been any shooting across the border into Israel for most of a year.

The plan was to take Lebanon out of the Syrian and Arab orbit and to put into place a compliant Maronite government, and perhaps even place the turncoat Major Haddad (whom the then-Lebanese government had condemned to death) at the head of the Lebanese armed forces.

After the invading Israeli forces had surrounded and pounded Beirut, Prime Minister Begin met with the new Maronite president-elect, Bashir Gemayel, in northern Israel and told him what he wanted Lebanon to become. Gemayel, though he had no love for the Palestinians and their Lebanese Muslim supporters, realized at once that the plan was unrealistic. There were, after all, a well-organized Sunni Muslim militia and an estimated million Lebanese Shi'i Muslims. The Maronites could not dominate all of these and other sectarian groups. Furthermore, Gemayel himself had no desire to see Lebanon become an Israeli client.

Begin did not get a peace treaty with Lebanon, which would have isolated Syria. Instead, once the PLO forces left Beirut, it was Lebanese guerrilla fighters, especially the Shi'i militias, that in time forced the Israeli army out of most of south Lebanon.

The other part of the Sharon-Begin strategy was to force Jordan to become "the Palestinian state, " Indeed, in disagreement with every other nation in the world, including Jordan and the United States, Israel claimed that Jordan already was a Palestinian state because it was briefly part of the original British mandate and because the majority of Jordanian citizens were of Palestinian origin.

Sharon was even said to have offered to overturn the Jordanian monarchy so that Palestinians from Lebanon and Syria could migrate there and seize control. Indeed, in retrospect the massacre at Sabra-Shatila can be viewed as an attempt to panic the Palestinians in Lebanon to flee just as the Palestinians had fled from Palestine because of the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948. The Israeli plan also envisioned a displacement (or "transfer," as the euphemism went) of many Palestinians from the occupied territories as well as from Israel itself into Jordan—to be followed by eventual annexation of the depopulated West Bank.

Since the plan did not work, the options facing the Israelis in the 1990s are much more constricted than those they thought they faced in the 1980s. What happened, in fact, is that Israel lost a great deal of strategic latitude and, therefore, power.

The new plan or strategy is to neutralize the Palestinians in the occupied territories by giving the PLO autonomy and empowering it to subdue the rejectionists, not only Hamas but also the secular left. That is why guns began to appear in Gaza sold to Arabs by Israelis, The stage was being set for internecine war. The Palestinians, especially Hamas and the Palestine police, however, are determined to avoid mutual slaughter. If they succeed, and gain real autonomy, including free elections and a parliament that will limit Arafat's authority, they will be in position to be a major player in what follows, including whatever economic relations Israel tries to establish with the rest of the Arab world, primarily through Jordan but aimed at the oil money from the Gulf.

Right now the situation is no longer under Rabin's control. Even though he says he is concerned about a pan-Arab union between Syria and Iraq as well as a pan-Islamic union among those two and Iran, his real concern is the public opinion gains that the Likud is making.

Should Likud regain power under Netanyahu, or any of his contending rivals, it will be caught in a dilemma. Either it will half-heartedly proceed with the implementation of the Oslo accord while weakening it as much as possible, or it will revoke that accord. The process of autonomy is not irreversible but can only be reversed at great cost. The predictable resistance of the Palestinians, who expect and who have tasted a measure of freedom, would call forth nothing less than a brutal slaughter, "ethnic cleansing," and the most merciless occupation yet, thus alienating world opinion, including even American opinion. Whichever way the peace process goes in the near term, the risks will remain high. Israeli options are limited, however, provided President Assad sticks to his vow to hold out for a comprehensive agreement, and not to sign a separate peace.

Robert Hazo is chairman of the Middle East Policy Association.