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Like Sadat before him, the Syrian dictator insists on
regaining lost land in any Israeli peace deal.
ERIC SILVER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
0
n March 26, 1979, Anwar
Sadat and Menachem Be-
gin signed the Israeli-
Egyptian peace treaty in
Jimmy Carter's White House.
Three years later, the last Israeli
soldier left the Sinai desert. Egypt
had regained "every inch of sa-
cred Arab soil" captured by Israel
in the 1967 war.
Ever since, that has been Pres-
ident Hafez al-Assad's model. If
Israel seeks peace with Syria, he
said again after talks in Damas-
cus Oct. 20 with President Bill
Clinton, it will have to withdraw
from the Golan Heights "to the
line of 1967."
is not likely to submit to the Jor-
danian model," said Moshe Maoz,
a Middle East specialist at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
and author of a biography of the
Syrian leader. "His model is
Sinai, and he's going to be very
adamant."
Mr. Assad, Mr. Maoz pointed
out, lost the Golan twice — as de-
fense minister in 1967 and as
president in the 1973 Yom Kip-
pur War, when Syrian tanks
overran much of the Heights,
then forfeited them again to an
Israeli counter-attack.
But it is not only a matter of
vanity.
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Lawmakers in the Knesset submit a bill placing constraints of withdrawal from
the Golan.
"Assad has to demonstrate
In the peace treaty signed with
Israel in the Arava desert Oct. 19, that he can regain the Golan for
King Hussein of Jordan created the Arabs," Mr. Maoz said. "He
a dangerous precedent for Mr. As- cannot be less Arab than Egypt."
The Golan also has strategic
sad. Israel agreed to restore about
120 square miles of disputed bor- importance for Syria. The sta-
der territory to Jordan. In return, tioning of Israeli troops 30 miles
Jordan agreed to lease some of from Damascus represents a ma-
them back to the Israeli farmers jor threat.
There are credible, but uncon-
who had encroached on them
firmed, reports of a secret un-
over the past three decades.
Mr. Assad condemned the derstanding between Mr. Rabin
treaty as a betrayal of Arab soli- and Mr. Assad under which Is-
darity and angrily dismissed any rael would return all of the
chance of following suit. "Our Heights in exchange for full
land is ours," he said. "We con- peace. Mr. Rabin has lectured the
sider that it would be blasphemy Israeli public often enough on the
for any country to speak of leas- "illusion" that they can have
ing its land. There won't be peace, peace without relinquishing ter-
even if we live tens of hundreds ritory. But even if the reports are
of years, unless the land is re- true, the details still have to be
filled in — and the devil is in the
stored in full."
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak details.
How long would Israel be giv-
Rabin may want to test the idea
through private channels, but in- en to withdraw? Five years, as
dependent experts are inclined to Mr. Rabin has suggested, or the
take Mr. Assad at his word. "He one year the Syrians think is
enough? How would Israel's se-
curity be guaranteed, once it re-
linquished the strategic buffer
from which it has guarded the
towns and villages of Galilee 550
yards below? How would disput-
ed water sources be divided?
On the other side of the peace-
makers' equation, how does Mr.
Assad define "full relations"? He
still declines to talk of "diplo-
matic" relations, a hair-splitting
distinction, but one that matters
to the Israelis who don't want to
be trapped into a mere state of
non-belligerency. Will there be
an Israeli Embassy in Damascus,
a Syrian Embassy in Tel Aviv? If
so, at what stage of the with-
drawal? Will Syria's borders be
open to Israeli travelers and
traders?
Mr. Clinton told reporters af-
ter his return to Jerusalem that
he had made "some progress" but
achieved no breakthrough. All
the signs are that the visit failed
to kick-start the stalled negotia-
tions. Whatever technical or tac-
tical advances the Americans
may have induced, the process
still appears long and grudging.
Mr. Assad knows what he
wants, and is not going to settle
for less, though he is eager to win
the financial and diplomatic re-
wards of American goodwill. On
the Israeli side, Mr. Rabin has to
convince an uneasy public that
he is not exposing it to mortal
danger by evacuating the Golan
without adequate safeguards.
He faces a strong, well-funded
lobby supporting the 13,000 Jew-
ish settlers in 32 Golan towns and
villages. Its champion is Avigdor
Kahalani, a Knesset member in
Mr. Rabin's own Labor Party,
who as a tank commander was
one of the heroes of the Yom Kip-
pur War on the Heights.
"Anyone who thinks that ter-
ritory is no longer important in
an age of missiles," he argued,
"need only remember the Gulf
War to see his mistake. For six
weeks, the U.S. Air Force pound-
ed the Iraqis and nothing hap-
pened. But when the tanks
moved in, the war ended in 100
hours."
Mr. Rabin has agreed to sub-
mit any evacuation plan to a ref-
erendum. In a country where
almost all able-bodied men do
military service, the humblest re-
serve sergeant considers himself
a security expert. 0