Waiting for Assad

Back in 1996, the New York Times had some surprisingly kind words for President Assad of Syria. In Closing Ranks against Terror the editors of the Times fretted that the senior Assad wouldn’t attend the “Summit of the Peacemakers” but that he was still on the right side of history.

President Hafez al-Assad of Syria was conspicuously absent, as he was last fall at the funeral for the slain Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. But as Prime Minister Shimon Peres noted on Wednesday, at least Syria is engaged in the Middle East peace effort, unlike Iran, Israel’s implacable foe.

“Peace effort?” Please. Assad went to his grave after rejecting 98% of the territory he demanded of Israel, when President Clinton went to Geneva in 2000. As William Safire remembered the elder Assad in “The Rejectionist.’

Wisely, Bill Clinton decided to bypass this chance at wearing his inimitable lip-biting mournful look, and won’t dispatch Vice President Al Gore, his normal substitute, to Damascus. Why? Because three months ago, at a much-touted meeting in Geneva, Clinton presented Assad with the Golan Heights on a silver platter. The Syrian then humiliated the supplicating American by refusing to take yes for an answer, making fresh demands for control of Galilee that embarrassed not only Clinton but even the most appeasement-prone doves in Jerusalem. Assad scuttled negotiations in the most dramatic way possible.

It’s important to remember this bit of history as the editors of the NY Times applaud the inclusion of Syria in …. peace talks.

We welcome President Bush’s decision to include Syria on the list of countries invited to a November Middle East peace meeting. The president’s distaste for such efforts — aides still balk at the term “peace conference” — is only slightly less visceral than his distaste for Syria. We hope this means that Mr. Bush and his aides are finally ready to push all sides to make the compromises essential for moving toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace. If Damascus chooses not to attend the meeting, it would again confirm its role as one of the region’s dangerous spoilers. If it chooses to come, the chances for peace may increase. The invitation will certainly make it easier for Egypt and Saudi Arabia — whose political and economic support for any Israel-Palestinian agreement is crucial — to be there. Mr. Bush will still probably have to twist the arms of the risk-averse Saudis to show up.

“…confirm its role…” How many times does reality have to smack you upside the head before you realize that it’s telling you something? These games have been going on with Syria for more than a decade. It’s the dream of every peace processor to make a comprehensive peace in the Middle East including Syria. But come on, how many times has an Assad rejected importunings to make peace with Israel? How many times has an Assad launched a war against Israel via its proxies? Now that there’s apparent evidence that Syria is up to some greater mischief is not the time to engage the younger Assad (can I call him Dorktator or is that copyrighted?) but to at least consider taking diplomatic action against him. Additionally as Mere Rhetoric points out

When we were taught Israeli-Arab Peace Process 101, it was an ironclad principle that Israel pushes for bilateral talks with each individual Arab enemy and the Arabs push for multilateral talks with Israel. Why? Because when the Arab states combine their negotiating strength they can make demands in unison: “hey Israel, you want this concession from the Palestinians? Well then you’re also going to have to give back the Golan to Syria.” Israel has to give something to every Arab state in order to get anything that it wants. That’s why the Saudis are already setting preconditions for their participation (nice to see major media outlets helping them out with that – teamwork). They understand that the State Department has maneuvered Olmert into an impossible situation, and they’re ready to exploit it after three decades of Israel successfully resisting multilateral talks.

The editorial continues:

As for why this sudden flexibility from the White House? The conventional wisdom is that Mr. Bush’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, wants to try and salvage the president’s legacy — and her own — with a peace deal that could help stabilize the region that Mr. Bush’s war in Iraq has so destructively roiled. It will take a lot more creative diplomacy to make that happen. Indeed, six trips into a too-little, too-late peace effort, Ms. Rice is having as much trouble making progress with Israel, America’s close ally, as with Palestinians.

And how successful was the non-stop peace processing of the Clinton administration? Well, not very. As the editors of the New York Times noted at the time:

Mr. Arafat, regrettably, showed no interest in this proposal, holding out for full control of all areas of the city formerly under Jordanian rule. Talks on Jerusalem cannot usefully resume until Mr. Arafat shows a greater willingness to compromise. Mr. Arafat seems to feel he cannot do so. His rigidity reflects his failure to prepare Palestinian opinion for anything less than full sovereignty over East Jerusalem. But it also reflects the vocal opposition of Arab countries like Saudi Arabia to recognizing any Israeli sovereignty there. This Arab opposition must be defused in the weeks ahead.

It’s not the lack of effort or lack of Israeli concessions. It’s the unwillingness of the Palestinians (and most of the Arab world) to make peace with Israel. The editorial continues:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is insisting that the meeting produce a full declaration on the most sensitive and difficult issues: borders, Jerusalem and when the Palestinians get the independent state that President Bush promised them five years ago. Israel, concerned that Mr. Abbas is too weak to guarantee Israel’s security but unwilling to do more to strengthen him, has made clear it is interested in much smaller steps.

Israel has ceded territory, funded, armed and granted amnesty to Fatah, what hasn’t it done to “strengthen” Abbas? But that’s the crux of the problem Abbas wants everything handed to him and then refuses to live up to his commitments. (Much like Arafat.) Egged on by the likes of the Times he hopes at some point America will diplomatically force Israel to give him what he wants. But that will not bring peace. It will just bring demands for more while chaos likely ensues.

America’s recent record in the Middle East is one of failure — in Iraq, in promoting genuine democracy, in stopping Iran from spreading its brand of militant Islam at odds with the West. The region doesn’t need another failure nor does America’s tattered reputation. All sides need to come away from the November meeting feeling that something concrete has changed in the Middle East — and finally for the better.

This conclusion is simply ludicrous. Do you want blame for the spreading Iranian influence? How about the blind eye turned to Hezbollah from 2000 to 2006? And the importance of doing something concrete? Overrated. Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon and from Gaza and reaped terror in return. Again it’s not what the United States or Israel do or don’t do that matters. It is if the Arab world changes its belief that Israel is illegitimate. No number of summits or peace conferences or one-sided concessions will change that. As Dore Gold argues

When former U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross sought to understand the failure of the Oslo peace process of the 1990s, in which he was an active participant, he zeroed in on the need to bring about a “transformation” of political attitudes that the Palestinian leadership failed to encourage. Ross pointed to the education that Palestinian children received, concluding “that no negotiation is likely to succeed if there is one environment at the negotiating table and another on the street.”

Actually I’d say that the environment at the negotiating table is the same as the one in the streets as the Palestinian leadership has encouraged the latter. Until those attitudes change, there’s no chance for peace. Or as Elder of Ziyon puts it:

History shows, however, that Palestinian Arabs have not the slightest interest in a state. The could declare a state in Gaza today if they wanted to; they could build all the institutions they want and make a model democratic society in a contiguous area where not a single Jew or Zionist lives. When they were offered a state in 2001 they rejected it, as they did in 1947 when they rejected partition and in 1940 when the West Bankers voluntarily chose to be annexed to Jordan and become Jordanian citizens.

Peace conferences without a change of heart are useless.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

israel, peace process.