To any reasonable and informed observer, the Israeli president’s invitation to Syria for peace talks, coming only days after the Sharon government had announced plans to vastly expand settlements on the occupied Golan Heights, is a joke and a sick one. However, once again this cynical maneuver by the Israelis will have played well to their principal gallery, the Americans, who when it comes to Israel and Palestine, are neither reasonable nor particularly informed.
Had Sharon been in the least serious about bringing the confrontation with Damascus to an end, he would hardly have stirred up feelings in Syria by preceding his president’s peace initiative with the settlements announcement. Nor should anyone be fooled into thinking that the Israeli establishment is truly at odds. The pretence of serious differences at the top is an old ploy. What differences there are exist only in regard to the degree of extremism that should be applied in the occupied Arab lands and the policy toward Israel’s neighbors.
Of course, there is already an offer of peace on the table — from Syria which has proposed the resumption of peace talks with Israel after a four year moratorium, on the condition that all occupied Arab lands be handed back. President Bashar Assad has also proposed that the issue of the elimination of any Syrian weapons of mass destruction be linked to a similar removal of Israel’s arsenal which probably includes a nuclear stockpile.
Unrealistic though this may be, Assad’s own offer sets out starkly the imbalances and unfairness that Israel would prefer were ignored. Israeli President Katsav spoke of negotiations without preconditions. That proposition would carry value if it included the reversal of Israel’s annexation of the Golan and the slopes of Mount Hermon and the acceptance that the status of Jerusalem was no longer nonnegotiable. What is almost certainly happening is that Israel is trying to buy itself yet more time, until by fair means or foul, it can maneuver Syria into Washington’s gun sights. President Assad clearly appreciates how exposed his country has become with the US-led occupation of Iraq. The claims of continuing infiltration of arms and men from Syria to fuel the still dangerous resistance in Iraq now fit in neatly with Washington’s characterization of Damascus as a sponsor of terrorism. In proposing a phony peace offer that Syria was bound to reject, Israel is trying to further blacken Damascus in American eyes. Syria must now work hard to present its case further afield, not least in Europe where there is growing antipathy to aggressive Israeli polities.
Only honest negotiations will end the tragedy in the occupied territories. One day that end will finally come. But the day of Israeli president’s recent “unconditional” offer was not that day.
