News Analysis: is the Clock Running out for an Israeli-syrian Accord?

In the halls of power in both Jerusalem and Washington, a consensus has emerged that time is running out for Israel and Syria to reach a peace agreement.

The question is: Does Syrian President Hafez Assad see it the same way?

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signaled his own sense of urgency and determination to persevere in negotiations with Syria both in remarks he made at the weekly Cabinet meeting and in a widely reported newspaper interview.

And in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher declared that “this is the critical period” in Syrian-Israeli negotiations.

Christopher’s urgency was reflected in his decision to dispatch his special Middle East coordinator, Dennis Ross, to the region this week a keep up the momentum in the negotiations.

Ross’ immediate task will be to arrange for new talks between top Israeli and Syrian military officers, who had met briefly in December before their talks were abruptly broken off by Assad.

After Christopher’s visit to the region last month, Assad agreed to resume talks with Israel on an ambassadorial level. Since March 20, Israeli Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich and his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, have been meeting on and off, with various degrees of progress reported.

In an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, Rabin disclosed – – though the newspaper did not attribute the comment to the prime minister directly — they the Syrians were prepared to establish a low-level diplomatic mission to be established in damascus after an initial withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Golan Heights.

Although some observers say Syria has made this offer before, it was nonetheless noteworthy that Rabin, even indirectly, referred to the offer.

Christopher, whose visit to the region last month injected new vitality into the Israel-Syrian Process, declined Sunday to confirm the development.

But in upbeat references to the state of the negotiations, Christopher said on the CBS Television news show “Face the Nation” that he was “somewhat encouraged” by progress made “over the last few days and weeks” in the Israeli- Syrian negotiations.

The two sides had successfully “identified issues,” Christopher said. Gaps remained, he said, adding that he believed that they were “bridgeable.”

As the same time, the secretary of state used his television interview to sound a somber warning.

“Now is the time,” he declared. If Syria and Israel did not clinch a deal within “the next few months,” the elections period in Israel would begin, making it harder or even impossible to make further progress.

Rabin’s own concern about the 1996 election has been evident in recent weeks as he has attempted to sharpen the differences between his Labor-led government’s peace policies and what he views as the Likud’s non-alternative approach to peace.

This deliberate attempt to distinguish himself from his rival, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, manifested itself on Sunday during controversial remarks at his Cabinet meeting.

“We have to do everything to bolster the settlements along the Lebanese border,” Rabin said. “That’s where we should put our effort — not in the Golan Heights.”

Rabin’s remarks came in the wake of a difficult weekend for Israelis living near the northern border.

Northern residents spent part of the weekend in shelters after Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon fired Katyusha rockets on Nahariya and Kiryat Shemona last Friday evening.

Benny Yunassi, a 17-year-old youth, was killed while running on the beach in Nahariya.

An escalation of tensions with the fundamentalist Islamic Hezbollah further emphasized the need for negotiations with Syria, which, as the main powerbroker in Lebanon, is widely believed to have the leverage to contain Hezbollah.

The reaction of the Golan settlers to Rabin’s remark was instant and predictable: A chorus of protests immediately went up that Rabin was “setting of one part of the populace against another.”

Rabin was crudely trying to build up public opinion in favor of withdrawal from the Golan by “delegitimizing” the Golan settlers, they maintained, just as he had previously spoken out against settlers in the West Bank.

Golan settlement leaders asserted that when and if the issue came to a referendum, as Rabin has promised it would before any action is taken, the majority of Israelis would vote against withdrawal from the strategic Golan and dismantlement of the settlements there.

On the face of it, they were right, because the polls consistently show strong public support for Israel keeping at least part of the Golan under any circumstance.

But in the view of many pundits here, if Israeli and Syrian negotiators really do hammer out a land-for-peace agreement backed by iron-clad security arrangements, and if Rabin is able to present it as a practical proposition, the majority of Israelis would favor such a deal.

Although Rabin’s grouchiness toward the Golan settlers at the Cabinet meeting was in line with his political concerns, it was also the product of the black weekend on the Lebanon border.

Hezbollah, which fired some 30 to 40 rockets at northern Israel last Friday, launched the attack after the Israel Defense Force killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Rida Mahsoun Yassin, in southern Lebanon earlier the same day.

The killing of Yassin was conducted with surgical accuracy by Apache attack helicopters firing rockets at the Hezbollah commander’s car.

The Israeli air attack was in retaliation for the killing of Staff Sgt. Liron Lang during an earlier ground clash with Hezbollah forces.

For Rabin, the flare-up in Lebanon was especially galling.

Instead of taking the credit for the killing of Yassin, a prime terror target, Rabin was tarnished by criticism — even around the Cabinet table — of the army’s decision not to take early and prompt civil defense measures for the population in northern Israel.

In addition, Rabin had stressed in his interview with Yediot Achronot that only an agreement with Syria would settle the perennial terrorist problem in southern Lebanon. In a package deal with the Syrians, he said, security provisions in southern Lebanon would go into effect at once.

Ultimately, say observers here, the likelihood of an agreement with Syria will depend on Assad’s reading of the Israeli political scene.

Will he, like Christopher, see Rabin’s term, now quickly running out, as his only chance to make a deal?

Will he believe the promises of Netanyahu, who continues to insist that for him control of the Golan is non-negotiable?

Or does he believe, as he reportedly told a visiting German statesman recently, that he will get “the same price from Likud as from Labor” when all is said and done?

The months ahead, as Christopher said Sunday, will prove critical.