Middle East Intelligence Bulletin
Jointly published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Middle East Forum
  Vol. 2   No. 2

February 2000 


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Barak and Assad Fight for Political Survival En Route to a Final Settlement
by Gary C. Gambill

The recent explosion of violence in south Lebanon has led to countless headlines around the world declaring that the peace process is in grave danger of collapsing. If the "peace process" is measured in terms of ceremonies and photo-ops, than surely it has seen better days. But the ongoing clashes should not be interpreted as a breakdown of communication between Israel and Syria. As one Israeli editorial put it, "Damascus simply shifted the negotiations from Shepherdstown to the war zone in South Lebanon."1

    Through American mediation, Syrian heir-apparent Bashar Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak have already agreed upon the fundamental outline of a final peace settlement, but have encountered unexpectedly fierce resistance from their political opponents at home. Both have simultaneously come to understand that surviving the domestic political ramifications of a final settlement will be more difficult than they had initially expected. The strategic dynamic is essentially a zero-sum game: efforts by the Syrian regime to shore up its stature at home inevitably detract from the Israeli public's confidence in the peace process and vice versa.

Syria's War at Home

Bashar Assad
Bashar Assad
    Overt opposition to the Syrian regime is increasing steadily as Syrian President Hafez Assad's physical and mental capacities slip further away (one reason Assad has not come to the negotiating table himself is that he reportedly cannot even hold a coherent conversation). While Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shar'a can pretend, for the time being, to be negotiating on behalf of the elder Assad, he is really negotiating on behalf of Bashar--who commands nowhere near the kind of authority that his father did. The more time that passes without any public appearances by Assad, the more suspicious the Syrian people are going to get about what's happening.

    Information obtained by MEIB over the last few weeks has confirmed what we've been hearing unofficially from various Syrian opposition sources: 1) that it is not one Sunni Islamist group that is being targeted in recent government crackdowns, but several, and 2) it is not just Islamists that are being arrested, but leftists as well. Add to this the recent anti-regime activities of (predominantly Alawite) supporters of Rifaat Assad in the army and civil administration (who fear the loss of privileges under Bashar's rule) and the necessity for the Syrian regime of obtaining "peace with honor" is clear.

    Bashar and his allies within the Syrian regime were reportedly mortified when the text of a provisional agreement drafted by the Clinton administration was leaked to the public by Israel. Not surprisingly, the Israeli version of the draft agreement omitted Barak's agreement in principle to withdraw from the Golan Heights. The Syrians responded by demanding that Barak give a written pledge to this effect. Although American officials reportedly urged him to do so, Barak felt that such a move would cause his approval ratings (already in decline since December) to freefall.

    Shortly thereafter, the Syrian government suspended the talks and undertook its own efforts at damage control. First, all restrictions on Hezbollah activities in south Lebanon imposed over the last several months were lifted.

    Second, the Syrian regime, which only months ago had praised Barak as a "brave" man sincerely interested in peace, began a vociferous campaign of anti-Semitic rhetoric unprecedented in recent years. The editor of Syria's state-run daily newspaper Tishrin, Muhammad Kheir Al-Wadi, published an editorial accusing Israel of inventing "the myth of the Holocaust" in order "to receive more money from Germany and other Western establishments on the pretext of compensation."2 At the United Nations earlier this month, the Syrian representative shocked observers by launching into a diatribe alleging that Zionism "is based on the concept of ethnic superiority, of occupation and exclusion of others." American officials characterized the speech as "odd" but declined to explicitly condemn it. After some hesitation, Lebanese officials began parroting the Syrian rhetoric. "Israeli criminal activity is inherited from the Nazi school," announced Lebanese President Emile Lahoud. "The Israelis are trying to subject the Arabs and Lebanese to what they claim they have been subjected to in the last world war."3

    The most stunning piece of rhetoric came on January 27, when Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shar'a spoke to the annual convention of the Arab Writers Association and declared that "restoring Palestine in its entirety is a long-term strategic goal that cannot be achieved in one stage . . . the first stage is the stage of restoring the occupied lands [captured by Israel in 1967]."4

Barak's Catch-22

    According to an article last month in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, Barak has already accepted "in principle" Syria's demand that it withdraw to the 1949 armistice line that separated Israeli and Syrian forces prior to the 1967 Six Day war. The problem, the report said, is that Syrian officials want Barak to announce this in public, while Barak insists that he cannot do so until a later stage in the negotiations.5

    Although the official position of Israel (according to the draft agreement released shortly after the Shepherdstown talks last month) is that it will not undertake a full withdrawal to the June 1967 border (in order to deprive Syria of access to the Sea of Galilee), Barak has begun to prepare the Israeli public for the reality of what he has conceded to the Syrians. Earlier this month, he remarked that that "there is no use to be stubborn with President Hafez Assad over hundreds of meters of land."6

    Meanwhile, the Clinton administration is exerting considerable efforts to bolster Barak's chances of winning the national referendum that will vote on the final agreement with Syria later this year. According to a report in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, senior officials at the U.S. Embassy reacted to recent polls predicting a low turnout of Israeli Arabs in the referendum by meeting extensively with Israeli Arab leaders and persuading them to mobilize the participation of their constituents. The report also alleged that the embassy has provided financial assistance for an Arab voter mobilization drive.7 The report caused an uproar among opponents of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan--Likud Knesset Member Uzi Landau condemned what he called "an unprecedented and blatant interference by the embassy of the United States in Israel's internal affairs."8 Officials at the U.S. embassy have not denied the allegations.

  1 Ma'ariv, 2 February 2000.
  2 Tishrin, 31 January 2000.
  3 "Lebanese President Says Israel Imitating Nazis," Reuters, 18 February 2000.
  4 Al-Usbu' Al-Adabi (Syria), 12 February 2000. Translation by Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI).
  5 Yediot Aharonot, 19 January 2000.
  6 Ma'ariv, 16 February 2000.
  7 Yediot Aharonot, 11 February 2000. The report was written by an Israeli Arab journalist.
  8 Voice of Israel Radio, 15 February 2000.

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