A vision of Syrian-Israeli peace
ISRAELI PRIME Minister Ehud Olmert and some of his colleagues went out of their way Tuesday to deny that there had been any official approval, or even knowledge, of back-channel peace talks among a former d irector g eneral of Israel's foreign ministry, a Syrian-American with connections to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and European and American mediators. The Israeli denials underline the rationale for such back-channel contacts: They can always be denied if they don't bear fruit or if they are made public at a time that is inconvenient.
The talks, which started in January 2004 and continued until July 2006, were outlined in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. The paper reported that after each meeting Alon Liel, the former foreign ministry director general, "gave a full report to a senior foreign ministry official" and that former prime minister Ariel Sharon's bureau "also received a full situation report."
The most significant aspect of the disclosure is not the mere fact that discussions were held, but the contents of an outline for a peace agreement that the participants produced.
The preamble of the document Ha'aretz published describes an effort "to establish normal, peaceful relations between the governments and peoples of Israel and Syria, and to sign a treaty of peace attesting to this achievement." That treaty would resolve the four issues of "security, water, normalization, and borders." And there would be "no agreement on any single one of these issues unless and until all of these issues are resolved."
At the core of the document is a compromise on a crucial strip of land along the eastern border of Lake Tiberias, which Israelis call Lake Kinneret. This had been the sticking point in the official Syrian-Israeli negotiations of 2000, during which former president Bill Clinton came tantalizingly close to mediating a peace agreement between the government of then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and the since-deceased Syrian ruler Hafez Assad.
In the unofficial understandings drafted in August 2005, Syrian sovereignty would be established up to the edge of the lake, in conformity with the borders of June 4, 1967. But a buffer zone in the form of a park open to Israelis, without need of a visa, is envisioned all along the border of the Golan Heights.
This arrangement would help resolve Israeli concerns about water resources. Demilitarized zones and early warning stations would address security concerns. And Syrian officials told the unofficial negotiators that a Syria at peace with Israel would act against terrorism, see to it that Hezbollah becomes purely a Lebanese political party, and take its distance from Iran.
If this was not an officially approved negotiation, it should be.
