Rime Allaf, February 22, 2007

For years, unlike the other thorny issues that form the Arab-Israel conflict, the status of the Golan Heights hasn't triggered a sense of urgency in any party. Strangely, this apparent nonchalance also applies to Syria.

Apart from a brief joint Syrian-Egyptian effort in 1973 to retrieve territories invaded by Israel in 1967, the important battles in the Syrian-Israeli conflict have not been fought on the Golan Heights, but in other arenas and even through proxies. This doesn't mean that its importance has not been recognized or that resolving the issue has not been attempted; numerous interventions by successive American administrations have come and gone, but breakthroughs were always prevented by the changing agendas of the people who could make them happen.

Forty years on, and 15 years after an unprecedented peace process was launched with the Madrid Peace Conference, we seem to have reached an inexplicable impasse again. While Syria has repeatedly indicated it was willing to restart negotiations unconditionally (implying the progress made with the so-called Rabin deposit and the near-agreement with Barak at Wye River could be scratched), Israel has time and again rejected these advances, fully supported by the US, in an erratic and ambiguous attitude serving no long-term purpose.

More recently, any chance of Israeli dedication to the matter has been completely put to rest by the intransigence of the Bush administration, which instructed all its allies to turn a cold shoulder toward Syria, hoping to impose a new isolation. The present administration, in fact, has engineered the most significant change in American policy toward Syria since the 1980s, a change that predates both the Lebanon file beginning with UNSC Resolution 1559 and the invasion of Iraq, the two main current points of contention between the US and Syria. After 9/11, and after having accepted Syrian intelligence cooperation, Washington was transformed from a sponsor of the Syrian-Israeli peace track into a promoter of the Syria Accountability Act.

America's unjustified indifference to the issue of the Golan Heights and its shameless selectiveness in applying international law are neither new nor surprising, given its life-long blind support of Israel. In the circumstances surrounding the Middle East today, however, such behavior is foolish and counter-productive, for a peace settlement with Syria is a prerequisite to comprehensive calm.

The Bush administration has accused the Syrian regime of every possible crime and misdemeanor in the region, blaming Damascus for problems in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, to mention only the most pressing issues. If Washington is simply looking for a scapegoat, one can only wonder about the benefits of such conduct. But if it really believes that Syrian actions are that powerful, then that is all the more reason to "force" Syria to behave according to American parameters. This could be done in one of two ways: threats, pressure and sanctions (the current modus operandi of the Bush administration), or engagement and promises of mutual benefits. In other words, for the US, Syria can either be beaten into submission, which hasn't been effective until now, or it can be enticed somewhat into the American sphere of influence.

It has been suggested that "offering" negotiations on the Golan Heights in return for Syrian assistance on other problematic fronts could help achieve several American goals in the region, including a divorce between Syria and Iran, a distancing from Palestinian radical factions, a relaxation of open interference in Lebanon and, most importantly, a pro-active role in the pacification of Iraq. But simultaneously, there are allegations that the Syrian regime is not serious about peace and only wants to escape isolation by negotiating, which is the line that Washington has chosen as its premise.

Such reasoning, such polarization into "us or them", only serves to perpetuate the deadlock. Syria is being accused of wanting to negotiate for negotiations' sake, but Israel and the US themselves are only talking peace to achieve other goals.

Furthermore, the long-awaited return of the Golan Heights to Syria should not be marketed as a reward offered to Syria for "good behavior" in other arenas. Unless this conflict is resolved to the letter of the international law that clearly defines its ownership and its borders, the US will only be playing with fire. Turning a national right into a potential fringe benefit is bad politics, especially when the peddler has repeatedly proven its bias in the case.

There never was a bad time to rekindle a peace process, especially in a region where lack of peace doesn't merely entail frosty relations, but rather ongoing hostilities. Every possible scenario has already passed: active war, quiet non-belligerence and non-peace, rightist and leftist governments in Israel, on and off American involvement, bilateral and multilateral negotiations, resolutions and peace initiatives. The only thing that hasn't been tried yet is compelling Israel to commit to international law and United Nations resolutions; in the case of Syria, this means UNSC Resolutions 242, 338 and 497, among others.

Sooner or later, Israel must give back the land it has illegally invaded and annexed, an inevitability that the Israeli political class understands full well. Creative solutions to circumvent the obligatory full return of the Golan Heights (such as the dubious non-paper revealed recently by Haaretz) cannot work, and yet Washington seems to object even to that. By needlessly perpetuating the status quo, and by rejecting the sound advice offered by the Iraq Study Group to engage with Syria, isn't Washington foolishly shooting itself in the foot?

- Published 22/2/2007 © bitterlemons-international.org
Rime Allaf is an associate fellow at Chatham House in London.

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