The Perils of Israeli-Syrian Diplomatic Stalemate

1 Since the Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah's attacks have been waged only in the Shab'a Farms, held by the UN as part of the Syrian Golan, on grounds that this is part of Lebanon's sovereign territory.

2 See Ha'aretz, 25, 26, 29 May 2000; `Israel Warns Syrians of Lebanon War Risk', International Herald Tribune, 2-3 December 2000.

3 Patrick Seale, `The Syria-Israel Negotiations: Who Is Telling the Truth?', Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 29, no. 2, Winter 2000, pp. 65-77; Itamar Rabinovich, Saf HaShalom: Israel ve-Suria 1992-1996 [The Threshold of Peace: Israel and Syria 1992-1996] (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 1998); Sadik J. Al-Azm, `The View from Damascus', New York Review of Books, 15 June 2000, pp. 70-77.

4 Avraham Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Middle East Politics and the Quest for Regional Order (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1998), pp. 263-272.

5 Economist Intelligence Unit, Syria 1997-98 (October 2000), pp. 10-15; Steven Plaut, `The Collapsing Syrian Economy', Middle East Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 3, 1999, pp. 3-14. See also Ha'aretz, 4 April 1999, quoting `official reports in Washington' about the deep crisis and disintegration of Syria's economy.

6 Al-Azm (note 3 above), p. 73.

7 Karim Bakraduni, Al-Salam al-Mafqud: `Ahd Ilias Sarkis, 1976-1982 [The Missed Peace: The Era of Elias Sarkis, 1976-1982] (Beirut: `Abra al-Sharq lil-Manshurat, 1984), p. 140; Al-Azm (note 3 above), particularly p. 73. See also `Fresh Light on the Syrian-Israeli Peace Negotiations: An Interview with Ambassador Walid Al-Moualem', Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, Winter 1997, p. 85. (Moualem served as the Syrian chief negotiator and ambassador to Washington.)

8 The armistice agreements with Egypt and Lebanon (and partly with Jordan) recognized the colonial borders.

9 Al-Azm (note 3 above), p. 77.

10 Tishrin (Damascus), 17 September 1993. For King Hussein's response, see the interview with him in al-Ra'i (Amman), 26 October 1994.

11 Rabinovich (note 3 above), p. 101; see also the section on Assad's talk to a delegation of the Golan Druze in September 1992, pp. 105-106.

12 Seale (note 3 above), p. 70.

13 Shara` explained that as long as there was no peace agreement with Israel, Syria was in a state of war with Israel; see al-Safir (Lebanon), 11 February 2000. On the divided Israeli public opinion on peace with Syria, see Ze'ev Schiff, `Failure in the Negotiations or in the Referendum', Ha'aretz, 31 March 2000; Thomas Friedman, `Waiting for Assad', New York Times, 26 December 1999.

14 Seale (note 3 above), pp. 69-71; Rabinovich (note 3 above), pp. 17-27; and Moualem (note 7 above), pp. 82-83.

15 Rabinovich (note 3 above), p. 164.

16 Articles in Ha'aretz, 23 August, 24 September, 8, 10, 26 November 2000. See also al-Istiqlal (Lebanon), 23 September 2000.

17 Syria still owes Russia about $11-12 billion for its arms procurements during the heydays of Soviet-Syrian friendship. Since 1993, Syria has neither procured major military platforms nor changed its order of battle; see Shlomo Brom & Yiftah Shafir, eds, The Middle East Military Balance 1999-2000 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 27, 89. See also Ephraim Kam, `Syria's National Security Concept in the Wake of a Peace Treaty with Israel', Strategic Assessment (Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University), vol. 2, no. 4, February 2000, pp. 5-6.

18 Yitzhak Rabin's interviews on Israel's TV, 3 June 1975. See also Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's statement `The Golan is part of the State of Israel just as Jerusalem is part of Israel', Jerusalem Post, 19 September 1990.

19 Statement in the Knesset, 26 October 1992.

20 On the Rabin-Christopher meeting of 3 August 1993, see Rabinovich (note 3 above), pp. 139-140.

21 Estimated at 17,000 people in 30 rural settlements and 1 town; Ha'aretz, 17 December 1999.

22 Tishrin (Syria), 17 March 2000; Al-Azm (note 3 above), p. 73; Moualem (note 7 above), p. 86.

23 Rabinovich (note 3 above), pp. 134-136.

24 Moualem (note 7 above), p. 87, quoted also in Al-Azm (note 3 above), p. 73.

25 Ha'aretz, 27 April 2000.

26 Ha'aretz, 12 June 2000.

27 Michael Jansen, `Ministerial Messages', Middle East International, no. 621, 24 March 2000, pp. 5-7. See also interview with Farouq al-Shara', al-Safir (Lebanon), 29 April 2000.

28 Danny Rubinstein, `No Point in a New Target Date', Ha'aretz, 14 February 2000; Gideon Sammet, `Is There a Magician?', Ha'aretz, 16 February 2000.

29 Ha'aretz, 26-27, 30 December 1999. For a critique of Barak's approach, see interview with Avraham Sela, Globbs (Tel Aviv), 6 January 2000.

30 See interview with Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Hezbollah, al-Safir (Lebanon), 28 June 2000.

31 The contention over this area was apparent even before Israel's final withdrawal from south Lebanon. See al-Safir (Lebanon), 9 May 2000, in FBIS-NES, Daily Report, 12 May 2000.

32 Al-Safir (Lebanon), 12 October 2000 and 11 November 2000, in FBIS-NES, Daily Report, 12 October and 20 November 2000, respectively. The Lebanese responses followed the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers on 7 October and the killing of an Israeli soldier on 26 November 2000 by a side charge.

33 See Amir Oren, `Between the Origins of Fire and the Origins of Power', Ha'aretz, 27 November 2000.

34 Nicholas Blanford, `Norton: Lebanese New Resistance Has Miscalculated', Daily Star, 25 November 2000.

35 Jim Quilty, `Withdrawal Symptoms', Middle East International, no. 624, 5 May 2000, pp. 16-17; Jubran Tuwaini's editorial in al-Nahar (Lebanon), 8 June 2000, p. 1; Danny Sobelman, `In Lebanon, Voices for the Syrians' Exodus Strengthen', Ha'aretz, 24 September 2000 (quoting al-Istiqlal [Beirut], 23 September 2000); Tzvi Bar'el, `The Lebanese Intifada Against Syria', Ha'aretz, 10 November 2000.

36 Thomas Friedman, `To Bashar, From Bill', New York Times, 1 December 2000. Israel may also require the inclusion of Lebanon on the list of states sponsoring terrorism; Ha'aretz, 5 December 2000.

37 Amir Oren, `The Warrior's Confusion', Ha'aretz, 3 November 2000; Friedman (note 36 above). On the IDF's General Staff's opposition to a unilateral withdrawal, see Ha'aretz, 12 March 2000.

38 Yehuda Ben-Meir, `The Withdrawal from Lebanon and Israel's Domestic Arena', Strategic Assessment (Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University), vol. 3, no. 1, June 2000, p. 17.