“Syria and the Middle East Peace Process,”
by Center staff

 

Overview:

28 September 1999—Syria has been in a state of war with Israel since 1948. While the two countries reportedly came close to a settlement in 1996, no further progress has been achieved since then. Recent statements by Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak have raised expectations of renewed negotiations. At stake are the return of the Golan Heights, captured in the June 1967 war by Israel, and assurances sought by Israel concerning security and the normalization of relations. Other issues include the fate of Israeli settlements in the Golan, built in violation of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, and access to the Golan’s water, constituting some 30 percent of the water consumed by Israel.

 

Historical Background:

Despite a 1949 armistice agreement following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, armed clashes between Syria and Israel continued for a number of years. When Israel attacked Egypt in June 1967, Syria launched ground and air attacks against targets in northern Israel. When Egypt withdrew, Israel attacked Syria, occupying the Golan, razing entire villages, and driving an estimated 100,000 Syrians out of their homes. In executing this campaign, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, an American vessel equipped with electronic surveillance capability. Thirty-four U.S. sailors died, and another 171 were wounded in the attack.

In the 1973 war, Israel captured additional Syrian territory. Following U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy in May 1974, portions of the Golan captured by Israel in 1973 were returned to Syria, including the town of Quneitra, captured by Israel in the 1967 war. With this, Syria accepted the principle of territory for peace, as outlined in UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) 242 and 338. In 1974, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) was deployed on the Golan and remains there today. In December 1981, Israel annexed the Golan. The last direct armed confrontation between Syria and Israel was in 1982 in Lebanon’s Beqa’a Valley.

 

Syrian Goals:

Syria’s aims have shifted over the years. For almost 25 years, Syria struggled to achieve “strategic parity” with Israel by building regional alliances and strengthening Syria’s military forces, primarily with Soviet aid. Syria’s ultimate goals were:

  1. a “comprehensive peace” that included Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 borders and self-determination for the Palestinians; and
  2. the containment of an expanding Israel.

Two factors forced Assad to compromise:

  1. abandonment by the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians—each of whom has worked out bilateral agreements with Israel—of a coordinated Arab strategy; and
  2. Syria’s inability to pose a viable offensive military threat to Israel. With the collapse of the U.S.S.R., a substantial gap in the military capabilities of Syria and Israel has widened as Israel continues to benefit from U.S. military assistance while Syria’s depleted arsenals remain inadequately replenished.


Israel’s Goals:

From 1973 until after the 1991 Gulf War, Israel’s position was reflected in a March 1974 statement by then-PM Golda Meir declaring the Golan an “inseparable” part of Israel. Israel cited security needs when annexing the Golan in 1981, but former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan remembers differently: “They [the settlers] thought about the land of the Golan … They didn’t even try to hide their lust for that soil. That’s what guided them.”

The Golan’s substantial water resources were also critical. In 1992, then-PM Yitzhak Rabin recognized the applicability of UNSCR 242 to the Golan, and, by late 1995, 45 percent of Israelis polled indicated their willingness to relinquish the Golan in exchange for lasting peace with Syria.


Peace Negotiations:

In 1949, then-Syrian President Husni al-Za’im expressed a desire to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel. But no parallel sentiment was evident on the Israeli side, and, as a result, the First Disengagement Agreement was concluded in 1974. This agreement stipulated that Israel return Quneitra and the portion of the Golan it occupied in 1973 to Syria. While this was supposed to be the first step toward peace, Assad declined to accept a U.S.-brokered second disengagement agreement, which he viewed as yet another incremental postponement of a comprehensive peace treaty.

Assad agreed to attend the Madrid Conference in 1991 only after receiving a written pledge from the Bush administration that it did not recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan and would base the talks on UNSCR 242 and 338. By attending, Assad abandoned his opposition to any bilateral negotiations and his insistence that Israel accept the principle of full withdrawal as a precondition for negotiations, thereby inducing Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir to reconsider his refusal to attend the conference.

Assad’s procedural compromises reflected Syria’s failure to achieve a coordinated Arab position on Israel, since Madrid aimed at a final agreement between Israel and Syria but at only an interim agreement on the Israeli-Palestinian track.

Syria was deeply opposed to the September 1993 Declaration of Principles between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) because it did not end the occupation, guarantee the return of the refugees, or resolve the status of Jerusalem. It, and separate agreements later reached by Israel with Jordan and the PLO, forced Syria to abandon its demand for Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories.

Seemingly promising was Rabin’s oral commitment to withdraw from the Golan if Syria implemented security measures and agreed to normalize relations with Israel. But upon taking office in May 1996, PM Binyamin Netanyahu blocked further progress by insisting that all previously agreed-upon issues be re-visited.


The Lebanon Factor:

Syria has dominated Lebanese political life since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990. In 1976, on behalf of the Arab League, 30,000 Syrian troops intervened in that war against the PLO and its radical allies, partly to forestall an Israeli invasion on behalf of Israel’s Lebanese Maronite allies. Today, some 25,000 Syrian troops remain. With the U.S. and Israel tacitly acknowledging its military presence in Lebanon, Syria agreed to maintain its troops north of a “red line” in south Lebanon.

Israel, too, has struggled to bring Lebanon into its sphere of influence. When Israeli troops invaded Lebanon in 1978, Syria refrained from engaging them and avoided military confrontation during a second, more devastating Israeli invasion in 1982. Israel now controls a 1,000-square-kilometer occupation zone in south Lebanon through its mercenary militia, the South Lebanon Army, which it finances, equips, and directs.

 

Future Talks:

Israel will likely insist that any agreement with Syria:

  1. be endorsed by an Israeli national referendum;
  2. reduce Syria’s military force and create a demilitarized zone;
  3. establish an Israeli early warning post inside Syria; and
  4. promote full normalization of relations with Syria, including free movement of people and goods as a prior condition to full withdrawal.

According to British analyst Patrick Seale, “at one of the last [negotiating sessions], the Israelis apparently submitted more than a score of projects for integrating the two economies.” Barak has stepped back from Rabin’s position, indicating his reluctance to return all of the Golan. He may also insist on retention of some of the Golan’s water.

Syria, by contrast, is likely to demand full and complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan and south Lebanon, as well as removal of Israeli settlements in the Golan. It will resist integration of the Syrian and Israeli economies and any normalization prior to Israeli withdrawal. Syria, moreover, is likely to reject the demand for an early warning station, which it views as a violation of Syrian sovereignty, asserting that satellite technology obviates the need for this.

 

This brief was compiled by Center staff.

This information first appeared in Information Brief No. 7, 28 September 1999.