Barak, Assad May See Window of Opportunity

Israel and Syria have been there before.

The neighboring nations, perhaps the most implacable foes remaining in the once-warring Middle East, have tried and failed to end their conflict twice in recent years. The issues that divide them, from Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights to the establishment of normal diplomatic relations, are still the same.

But what appears to be different this time is that each side--particularly their two tough, pragmatic leaders--may be convinced that conditions will never be better for peace, and that the chance for an agreement might be lost if they do not act now.

Political factors, including President Clinton’s departure from the White House in 13 months, and biological ones, such as Syrian President Hafez Assad’s increasingly fragile health, may have helped push the two sides back to the bargaining table after a hiatus in direct talks of more than 3 1/2 years.

The seriousness of the new effort, which Clinton announced Wednesday at a White House news conference, was underscored by the very senior status of the chief negotiators. Prime Minister Ehud Barak will represent Israel. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh, an Assad confidant, will speak for his nation. The final push was provided by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during a four-day regional peace mission.

“There is no doubt that this put Syrian-Israeli peace talks on a higher level than they have ever been,” said David Makovsky, executive editor of the Jerusalem Post, who has traveled to Syria several times with Albright and previous secretaries of State.

“I do not want to suggest that this means peace in our time,” Makovsky said. “Negotiations will be very rough.”

But does Wednesday’s announcement suggest that an agreement is all but at hand? Many here have long predicted that when Israel and Syria agreed to talk again, it would mean that a deal already had been cut. Or does it mean, as several Israeli analysts suggested late Wednesday, that the broad outlines of an accord may be in place but that each detail will still be fought over tooth and nail?

The answers remain unclear, for now, along with the extent to which each side conceded points to reach Wednesday’s breakthrough. It was not publicly known whether Albright secured verbal understandings over territorial compromise, the transfer of land and the chances for a normalized relationship. Nor was it clear whether one side blinked over who goes first in agreeing to such compromises.

The Israelis insist that they did not, and a senior U.S. official agreed. He said the breakthrough occurred when the two sides simply agreed to resume from the point where their previous negotiations broke off in early 1996, without specifying each side’s view of where things stood at that time.

What is certain is that Barak and Assad have clear goals in mind as they agree to return to negotiations. The question remains, however, whether the motivations that get them talking again can carry them to a satisfactory conclusion.

Paramount for Barak is fulfilling a popular campaign promise that he has repeated time and again since his landslide election victory nearly seven months ago: to quiet Israel’s last active war front, the border with Lebanon. He has vowed to withdraw from southern Lebanon by July 2000, ending a two-decade occupation that has pitted Israel and its Lebanese allies against Syrian-backed militias in a relentless war of attrition. Syria is the main power broker in Lebanon and keeps more than 35,000 troops in the country.

Many Israelis, including those who fervently believe that their nation’s troops should leave Lebanon, had dismissed the July pullout date as empty rhetoric. They argue that peace with Syria cannot be reached by then and that Israel will never withdraw without such an agreement. But late Wednesday, with Israeli television commentators excitedly discussing the resumption of peace talks, several said the pullout date suddenly seemed like a reality.

For the withdrawal to be successful, Barak’s military advisors have cautioned, a comprehensive agreement with Syria is crucial. The Israeli military has drawn up plans for a unilateral withdrawal but would prefer that it come with a formal end to hostilities.

“We have so many other things to do other than to be deployed for another generation or two along the borders and bury our youngsters, and let the other [side] bury theirs,” Barak said earlier Wednesday. “So it’s time to make decisions. I feel, somehow, that the opportunity is clear also to President Assad.”

The 69-year-old Assad is said to be in ill health and eager to leave an uncluttered legacy to his successor, presumably his son Bashar. He is adamant in his desire to regain the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed.

Syria also has seen negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians advance significantly, albeit with problems, and may be afraid of being left behind. The jealous rivalry between Assad and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is legendary. (Arafat publicly welcomed the news of the breakthrough Wednesday, but witnesses spoke of barely concealed shock at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.)

The Palestinians now may seek to end disputes with Israel and accelerate their own peace track. Albright was reassuring in her public statements Wednesday, noting that the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations remained the “core” of the peace process.

Nonetheless, the potential for a normal relationship between Syria and Israel is greater now than at any time in recent history. From the moment he took office last July, Barak let it be known that he would be more flexible than previous Israeli leaders.

After the initial flurry of goodwill and hopeful prospects, however, the two sides became mired over the issue of at what point to restart negotiations. Assad insisted that the Israelis agree, before talks ever started, to withdraw from the Golan Heights back to the 1967 border. This, Assad said, is what former Israeli governments had agreed to in previous talks.

But Barak insisted that any previous discussion of withdrawal lines was hypothetical. In addition to being home now to thousands of Jews, the Golan Heights provides rich farmland, with cattle and vineyards, that supplies drought-stricken Israel with 30% of its water. Many Israelis consider the area an integral part of their nation.

Commentators predicted Wednesday that the next few weeks will see a flurry of demonstrations to protest the decision even to negotiate with Syria, let alone make peace. But Barak seemed unfazed by the potential for protests, as he contemplated the chances for peace, at long last, with Assad.

“There is clearly a unique opportunity based on the experiences in the last decade,” the Israeli leader said. “I think that basically we know all that we can know about [Assad’s] positions, and he knows all that he can know about our positions, short of making the decision.”