The progression of the Middle East peace process under Washington’s prodding since the end of the Persian Gulf war has confronted the Israeli government with a need to make fateful decisions it would have preferred to postpone under present circumstances.
One event greeted with caution and even trepidation in government circles here was the extensive talks in Cairo this week between two erstwhile rivals for leadership of the Arab world, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and President Hafez Assad of Syria.
Their meeting had the effect of focusing expectations on Israel to cooperate more substantively in the U.S.-led peace initiative.
Reports and commentaries from Cairo after Assad left said the two Arab leaders sought a common position vis-a-vis Israel in order to encourage U.S. diplomatic activity.
“We shall have to brace ourselves for new demands now that we join a peace process based on territory for peace,” a senior Israeli government official said here Monday, obviously without relish.
Egypt has had full diplomatic relations with Israel since their formal peace treaty in 1979. Syria, which angrily severed relations with Cairo because of it, has been Israel’s bitter enemy, viewed in Jerusalem as the intransigent leader of the Arab rejectionist camp with ambitions for military parity with the Jewish state.
But at the Cairo talks, Assad seemed to project a new, peaceful intent, which has put Israel less at case than on guard.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and his policy-makers are still smarting from the public upbraiding they received from the Bush administration last month for Shamir’s assertion that his government does not consider the Golan Heights to be a subject for “territorial negotiations.”
ASSAD NOT SHOWING TRUE COLORS
If the Israelis were dismayed, the Syrians were buoyed by Washington’s recent pointed clarification of its view that the Golan Heights must be on the negotiating agenda.
Damascus therefore is seeking to project uncharacteristic moderation. The Syrians support the principle of land for peace, provided they get back all of their lost territory, as Egypt did 10 years ago when Israel returned Sinai.
Another condition is that the Palestinian problem be given top priority in the negotiations.
In exchange, there has been a significant softening of the Syrian line, Israeli academic experts say. For the first time in more than 40 years, Damascus is ready to apply the word “peace” to Israel — not merely a cessation of the state of war but formal peace with what it has called the “Zionist entity.”
But government circles here are wary, and Israeli intelligence assessments of the Cairo talks are not encouraging. The consensus is that Assad is hiding his true colors.
Syria’s purported shift toward peace is entirely cosmetic, the intelligence experts say. Assad’s Baath Party has not yet abandoned its basic goal of “strategic parity” with Israel.
As evidence, they cite Syria’s recent purchase of advanced Scud missiles from North Korea, said to be a considerable improvement over the much-less-sophisticated Scuds that Iraq hurled at Israel.
President Mubarak, trying to be solicitous of Israeli sensitivities after Assad departed, indicated that while Egypt and Syria both would like to see an international peace conference for the Middle East, it need not take place immediately or even in the near future.
ISRAEL FEELING PRESSURED
Presumably, both would agree to a “regional conference” co-sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union, an idea currently being floated at various chanceries.
Presumably as well, neither Egypt nor Syria would shed tears if the Palestine Liberation Organization’s discredited chief, Yasir Arafat, bowed off the diplomatic stage.
Arafat is considered to have disgraced himself and brought ridicule on the Palestinian movement by his support of Saddam Hussein.
One might think that Israel would be at least mildly encouraged by these developments.
The reality is that Israel feels it is being pushed by its American allies into responding to Arab peace feelers by offering “confidence-building measures” to the Palestinians.
Israeli-Palestinian relations are at one of their lowest ebbs since the start of the intifada because of the spate of attacks on Jews by Arabs.
Shamir therefore is insisting on far-reaching “confidence-building measures” from the other side before he sets off on his two-track journey to peace.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
