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World
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ria Divide
McCain, Obama take opposite tacks on Syria and P.A; agree on Iran.
Ron Kampeas
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Leesburg, Va.
A
McCain administration would
discourage Israeli-Syrian peace
talks and refrain from actively
engaging in the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process.
That was the collective message deliv-
ered last week by two McCain advis-
ers — Max Boot, a senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations, and Richard
Williamson, the Bush administration's
special envoy to Sudan — during a retreat
hosted by the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy at the Lansdowne Resort
in rural Virginia.
One of Barack Obama's representatives
— Richard Danzig, a Clinton admin-
istration Navy secretary — said the
Democratic presidential candidate would
take the opposite approach on both issues.
In an interview with the Atlantic
magazine over the summer, U.S. Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz., insisted that in his presi-
dency he would serve as the chief negotia-
tor in the peace process. But at the retreat,
Boot said pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian
deal would not be a top priority in a
McCain administration, adding that as
many as 30 crises across the globe require
more urgent attention.
The McCain adviser called the Bush
administration's renewed efforts to pro-
mote Israeli-Palestinian talks a mistake.
He also cast American engagement with
Syria as potentially betraying the stake
that the United States has invested in
Lebanon's fragile democracy.
Boot said the decision over whether to
relinquish the Golan Heights was Israel's
to make, but added, "John McCain is not
going to betray the lawfully elected gov-
ernment of Lebanon!' In an interview with
JTA, Boot said he was skeptical that Israel's
current talks with Syria would succeed
in peeling the country away from Iran's
sphere of influence.
Williamson said it is not the job of the
United States to dictate policy to Israel
when it comes to Syria, but added that a
McCain administration would look to per-
suade officials in Jerusalem.
"Israel should not be dictated to in deal-
ing with Syria or dealing with Lebanon:'
A40 October 2 d 2008
he said, addressing Israeli and some pro-
Israel resentment in recent years at pres-
sure by the Bush administration to stifle
such negotiations. "Hopefully as friends
they will listen to us:'
That Williamson was endorsing such
views at all signified how closely the
McCain campaign has allied itself with
neo-conservatives. A veteran of the
Reagan and first Bush administrations,
Williamson in other circumstances would
be more closely identified with Republican
"realists" who have vociferously eschewed
the grand claims of neo-conservatives to a
new American empire.
Yet here he was echoing their talking
points on several fronts.
Shifting Sands
McCain, until the last year or so, has
kept feet in both the realist and neo-
conservative camps. The session at
Lansdowne appeared to suggest that the
Republican presidential nominee has
chosen sides, opting for policies backed
by the outgoing Bush administration
and its neo-conservative foreign policy
architects.
Both McCain advisers insisted, how-
ever, that their candidate was synthesiz-
ing the two camps as a "realistic ideal-
ist."
McCain would be a "leader who
will press for more liberal democratic
change " and "is realistic about the pros-
pects of diplomacy and just as impor-
tantly its limits:' said Boot, echoing
what has become the twin walking and
talking points of neo-conservatism: a
muscular foreign policy and an affinity
for promoting democracy.
Surrogates for Obama, the Illinois
Democrat, re-emphasized their com-
mitment to stepping up U.S. diplomatic
efforts. Danzig said an Obama adminis-
tration would revive the idea of a special
envoy for pursuing a peace deal.
The "appropriate level of presidential
engagement requires that the United
States designate someone whose ener-
gies are predominantly allocated to this,"
Danzig said. Someone like Tony Blair,
the former British prime minister now
leading efforts to build a Palestinian
civil society, might fit the bill, he added.
Syria Divide on page A42
Israel - Syria Relations
New York/JTA - The following is a timeline of key events in Israel-Syria rela-
tions from 1947 to the present:
November 1947 - Syria opposes the U.N. General Assembly's partition plan
envisioning Jewish and Palestinian states existing side by side.
May 1948 - Syrian and other Arab armies invade when the State of Israel is
proclaimed.
July 1949 - Israel and Syria sign armistice agreement, but sporadic hostilities
continue.
1951-1956 - Syria and other Arab states provide financial aid and refuge to
Palestinian terrorist groups, or fedayeen, which launch repeated raids on Israeli
targets.
June 1967 - Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six-Day
War.
October 1970 - Hafez Assad launches a coup and seizes control of Syria.
October 1973 - Syria is stymied trying to recapture the Golan in Yom Kippur War.
May 1974 - After months of Syria-Israel clashes following the Yom Kippur War,
the two sides agree to a cease-fire mediated by U.S. Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger. A U.N. observer force takes up position in a buffer zone on the Golan.
December 1981 - Israel unilaterally annexes the Golan, though the move is not
internationally recognized.
October 1991 - Israel and Syria attend the U.S.-brokered Madrid conference
aimed at achieving a comprehensive Middle East peace but fail to reach an
accord.
July 1992 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin vows to accelerate peace
moves with Israel's Arab neighbors.
1993-1994 - Israel-Syria negotiations become stuck on the scope of Golan
territory to be returned to Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher
shuttles between Jerusalem and Damascus in an attempt to advance talks.
June 1995 - Israeli and Syrian military negotiators meet in Washington.
December 1995-February 1996 - Israeli and Syrian delegations hold a series
of talks at the Wye Plantation in Maryland.
March 1996 - Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres suspends Israel-Syria nego-
tiations when Assad fails to condemn a series of Hamas terrorist attacks in
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
May-June 1999 - Ehud Barak, a former negotiator in Israel-Syria talks, is
elected Israeli prime minister, and President Assad praises him as a "strong
and honest" leader who wants peace with Syria.
July 1999 - Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discloses that
he had indirect contacts with Assad during his three years in office. He says no
agreement was reached because Israel refused to accede to Syria's demand for
a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan.
Dec. 8, 1999 - After U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright holds separate
meetings with Assad and Barak, U.S. President Bill Clinton announces that
Israel and Syria have agreed to resume peace talks.
December 1999 - Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa meet for
the highest-level talks ever between the two countries.
January 2000 - U.S.-brokered Israel-Syria peace talks in West Virginia col-
lapse over the scope of Golan's return and water access rights to the Kinneret.
June 10, 2000 - Assad dies and is succeeded by his son, Bashar.
February 2007 - Olmert meets with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan in Turkey and lays the groundwork for a Turkish role in mediating with
Syria.
Sept. 6, 2007 - Israeli warplanes bomb a suspected nuclear site in Syria.
May 21, 2008 - Israel and Syria announce they are holding indirect peace
talks via Turkish mediation.