Jewish World Review April 12, 2000 / 7 Nissan, 5760
PRESIDENT CLINTON is speeding up efforts to
leave behind a major legacy: a
comprehensive Mideast peace settlement.
Accordingly, Clinton meets with Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak today and with Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat on April 20 for private pep talks. But the
White House one-on-ones — especially with Barak — may have
more to do with progress on Israeli-Syrian peace than they do
with Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Clinton journeyed to Geneva last month in an embarrassingly
unsuccessful attempt to drag Syrian President Hafez Assad across
the peace line. Now there are new signs Assad may be relenting
— to the extent he ever relents.
What changed? For one thing, the Syrians are increasingly nervous
about Israel's decision to withdraw its troops from southern
Lebanon by this July. In principle, Syria should be delighted.
Israeli troops have been in Lebanon since 1982 trying to curb
terrorist attacks on Israeli territory. It has been a costly and
unpopular policy in Israel, not to mention the Arab world. The
Syrians have been among the loudest critics.
But the Syrians also know that the unilateral decision to withdraw
leaves Israel a little less inclined to make other concessions to
them.
Moreover, the Syrians — who basically control the rest of
Lebanon — are worried about the vacuum that will be created in
southern Lebanon, a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah
movement. It's one thing for Israel to strike at Hezbollah guerrillas.
It's another for the Syrians to try to keep those terrorists under
wraps.
Besides, Assad and his heir apparent, his son Bashar, are
beginning to worry about their own fundamentalist extremists, the
Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Assad brutally
repressed the brotherhood during an uprising more than 18 years
ago, murdering as many as 20,000. But recently, the brotherhood
has begun reorganizing. And guess who's helping them? Osama
Bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi-born kingpin of global terrorism.
According to senior Mideast intelligence officials, a top officer
from Al-Qaida, Bin Laden's military organization, met recently in
Baghdad with three representatives of the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood. He offered the Syrians military training at Bin Laden
bases in Afghanistan as well as financing, giving them $50,000 to
seal the deal.
Bin Laden's game is clear. By helping the brotherhood, he hopes
to stir up enough trouble to hasten the departure of the ailing
Assad and his clan, which Bin Laden believes eventually will make
peace with the Jewish state. The revived brotherhood already has
carried out assassination attempts in Syria against Assad loyalists.
With this as background the Syrians — with any eye to U.S. aid
— are suddenly sending out new feelers about agreeing to disarm
the Golan Heights if Israel will disarm the adjoining Sea of Galilee.
How should the U.S. and Israel react? While I'm all in favor of a
Mideast peace deal and understand Clinton's desire to leave office
with an agreement as one of his crowning achievements, that's not
enough to justify knuckling under to the Syrians, who still ask for
more than they're ready to give.
The fact is, Assad is in enormous trouble. His economy is a
disaster, and his regime could collapse the moment he dies. No
one wants to see an Islamic takeover in Syria or even a successor
as bad as Assad. But let's play a little poker here.
Until Syria is prepared for a real peace that gives Israel the
security guarantees it deserves, no deal. The worst that could
happen is that Israel remains on the Golan.
Doesn't sound so bad to
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News. His latest book is Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe
Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History.
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