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Without upsetting the president By Akiva Eldar Tags: United States, Peace Talks  It all began on January 6, 2004, when President Bashar Assad arrived in snowy Turkey for a historic visit - the first by a Syrian leader since that country won its independence in 1946. Officials in Jerusalem were apprehensive that a rapprochement with Damascus would distance Ankara from Israel. At the time, despite substantial support among the upper echelons of the Israel Defense Forces and the Foreign Ministry for the "Syria first" idea - that is, giving peace with Damascus priority over seeking an agreement with the Palestinians - no one was holding his breath about resumption of the dormant Israeli-Syrian talks. The young Assad was considered something of an oddball, who was a tool in the hands of the Syrian old guard of conservative generals and advisers. Furthermore, the Prime Minister's Bureau under Ariel Sharon was already beginning to devise its plan for "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip. Surprisingly, Assad suggested to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he take advantage of his good relations with Israel to renew the diplomatic process between Syria and Israel, which had been broken off following the spring 2000 meeting between his father, Hafez Assad, and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Erdogan promised to give it a try. From the advent of the peace process with Israel until it was frozen, Hafez Assad did not make a move without an American middleman. Israeli intelligence experts said his son would undoubtedly expect the same U.S. involvement. Farouk Shara, Syrian foreign minister at the time, stated that "Turkey is not engaged in mediating between the two countries," adding immediately, "We are only engaged in questions about the subject." Advertisement The Turkish ambassador to Israel, Feridun Sinirlioglu, met with his friend Dr. Alon Liel, the former director general of the Foreign Ministry who had been head of the Israeli mission in Ankara. Sinirlioglu asked Liel to check discreetly among those high-ranking friends whom the diplomat had known in Israel whether the policy-making echelon in Jerusalem had an interest in the initiative. Liel asked Shalom Turgeman, the prime minister's diplomatic adviser, to pass the message on to Ariel Sharon. It's not that the prime minister is against peace with Syria, Liel was told, "but, you know, the Americans wouldn't like it." At that time Turgeman's boss, Dov Weissglas, was busy in Washington, trying to extract a letter from President George W. Bush that would soften opposition to the Gaza evacuation. That was all Sharon needed: for Bush to hear that the Israelis were spoiling the "axis of evil" for him. Liel's search for some kind of official Israeli representative led him to the diplomatic adviser of then president Moshe Katsav, Avi Granot. Katsav agreed to let Granot take part in the Syrian process in which Liel was involved - provided it had the prime minister's authorization. Sharon suggested that Katsav go on dealing with the important business of the President's Residence. At the end of March 2004, following a series of suicide bombings, Sharon instructed the IDF to assassinate Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Within less than a month, Hamas' No. 2, Abdel Aziz Rantissi, was also liquidated. The Islamic leadership in Turkey made no secret of its displeasure at the blows dealt to the religious-political leadership in the territories. Even though Assad wanted the Turks to launch talks with official Israeli figures, Liel persuaded them to try a secondary channel and looked for a liaison to represent the Syrian side. At the time, a U.S. citizen of Syrian origin named Ibrahim Suleiman was in Damascus on a visit. An Alawi in his 70s, Suleiman was well known to all the Israelis who were involved in the Syrian channel. Suleiman had enjoyed the good life during the prolonged rule of his fellow villager, Hafez Assad. Limo treatment The Turkish ambassador to Damascus met with Suleiman to form a first-hand impression of the candidate. Suleiman arrived for the meeting in a presidential limo. After a talk lasting nearly three hours, the ambassador reported to Ankara that there was someone to talk to on the Syrian side. Uzi Arad - the founder of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, and former diplomatic adviser to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu - was privy to the secret of the contacts with Syria, and acceded to Liel's request to join the initiative. In September 2004, after a few futile meetings between Arad and Suleiman in the residence of the Turkish ambassador to Israel, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara announced that Turkey was washing its hands of the matter. Shortly afterward, Liel was invited to deliver a talk at a conference of the European Parliament in Brussels. Afterward he was approached by a Swiss diplomat who had heard his speech, and who suggested that Liel meet with his colleague, Nicholas Lang, the Swiss special envoy to the Middle East, who was about to visit Israel. The meeting took place a few days later in a Jerusalem hotel. Lang, a former Swiss consul general in Jerusalem, was Switzerland's moving force with respect to the Geneva Initiative, and was active in the Syrian process for almost two years, beginning at the end of 2004. Hearing that the Turks had abandoned the arena, Lang suggested examining the possibility of Switzerland stepping in instead. The Swiss diplomats insisted that everything be done, if not with authorization, then at least with the full permission of the authorities in Jerusalem and Damascus. Liel met with the director general of the Foreign Ministry at the time, Ron Prosor, and with Turgeman, to get their agreement and to promise to brief them fully on the progress of the talks. Prosor informed the foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, who did not object to the move. Major General (res.) Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, then the director of Military Intelligence, later received the impression that Sharon, too, had known and had not raised objections. The general mentioned the Swiss channel in a meeting in the Prime Minister's Bureau. "How do you know about that?" Sharon asked, emphasizing the word "you." Farkash replied, "If I didn't know, you would have had to fire me." Sharon changed the subject. Lang went to Damascus to check out Suleiman's status vis-a-vis the Syrian hierarchy. The Swiss diplomat also received the presidential limo treatment. From the airport he was taken to a meeting with Shara and a retired general, Mohammed Nasif, who was in charge of Israeli affairs on behalf of Assad. He made five or six additional trips to the Syrian capital up until August 2006. After each round of talks, Lang checked that every clause in the memorandum of understandings that was being worked out was acceptable to the policy-makers in Damascus. Nicholas Lang also raised the subject of the Syrians' ties with Iran. He was told that the Alawi regime in Syria was part of the Sunni world, and that the American boycott of Damascus was forcing Syria into the arms of a radical Shi'ite regime that was meddling in Iraq and Lebanon. A peace agreement that would lead to reconciliation with the United States, the Syrian interlocutors said, would enable Syria to slip out of Tehran's bear hug. Swiss president and foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey accepted Lang's recommendation and decided to shift the talks under her auspices. Suleiman's neighbor in Washington, Jeff Aronson, from the Foundation for Middle East Peace, joined the group and recruited a generous American donor. Every few months, Liel and Arad flew to Switzerland and closeted themselves with Suleiman and Lang. Defeatist approach Arad, however, considered Liel's approach excessively defeatist and left in a huff. Arad was particularly incensed at the "surrender" to the Syrians on the issue of future borders. In fact, Liel reiterated the position of late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, and did not depart from the views taken by Rabin's successors Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. Shlomo Ben-Ami, who was foreign minister toward the end of Barak's tenure, insists, despite denials by Arad and Netanyahu, that a 1998 document deposited in the safe of the Prime Minister's Bureau, states that Netanyahu sent his friend, the American tycoon Ron Lauder, to Damascus with the same position. Major General (res.) Uri Saguy, a former director of Military Intelligence, who headed Barak's team to the negotiations with Syria, still says today that the sides agreed to an Israeli withdrawal to the lines of June 4, 1967, in return for full peace and the complete demilitarization of the Golan Heights. According to Saguy, the question that preoccupies everyone at present is the exact location of the 1967 boundaries, as to this day there is no authorized map on a scale that can clarify a disparity of 400 meters. In the end, the climatic conditions that have lowered the level of Lake Kinneret sharply in recent years will make it possible for Israel to maintain that it did not surrender to the Syrian demand for its citizens to be able to "dip their toes in the water," while the Syrians will be able to maintain that they got more from Israel in the North than the Egyptians did in Sinai. The idea suggested a few years ago of creating a park for joint Syrian-Israeli use in the buffer zone along Lake Kinneret is intended to assuage Syrian concerns about sovereignty and to leave Israel with some control over the lake's eastern shore. To preserve a certain balance, it was decided that the territories on the Israeli side - and not just on the Syrian side - would be demilitarized (although the Syrians would be required to delineate four kilometers of demilitarized area to Israel's one kilometer). Along with the boundary marking, the Swiss document left the official representatives to agree on a timetable for Israeli withdrawal and the evacuation of the Golan settlements. However, not all Israeli officials agreed to jump on the Syrian bandwagon. Lang came to Jerusalem in August 2006, in the midst of the Second Lebanon War, and was received by Yoram Turbowicz, chief of staff of the bureau of the then new prime minister, Ehud Olmert. Turbowicz listened patiently to the report by the Swiss diplomat. Two informed sources say that Lang also brought a proposal concerning the two soldiers whose abduction set off the war, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser. The Prime Minister's Bureau denies this. Turbowicz promised Lang that he would find out whether Olmert was willing to ignore Israel's policy of not upsetting President Bush, and send an official Israeli representative to a continued round of talks. The Syrians also asked Israel to persuade the Americans to send a senior official. The negative reply arrived a few days later via e-mail. The Swiss story was published in Haaretz in mid-January 2007, accompanied by the document of understandings. Olmert reacted with typical disdain, and mocked Liel for "conducting negotiations with himself." He also reprimanded ministers Amir Peretz, Tzipi Livni, Yuli Tamir and Meir Sheetrit for telling the media that the government must allow the process to run its course. Ze'evi-Farkash met with Olmert and suggested to him that he treat the matter more seriously. It turned out that Sharon had not briefed his vice premier, later his successor, about the activity in the Syrian channel. The retired general suggested that Olmert not hide behind the tired excuse that "the Americans won't let us." A month later, exactly three years after the visit to Ankara by Assad, Olmert sat in the same chair in Erdogan's office. The Turkish leader, who knew about the critical condition of the Swiss initiative, again offered Turkey's good offices. Olmert asked Turbowicz to put out cautious feelers. Nothing that would rankle the Americans. The quiet contacts, orchestrated by the veteran Syrian jurist Riad Daoudi, a veteran of negotiations with Israel, have not revealed substantive changes in the Syrians' positions. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Scuba SMS Ultrasonic sound wave technology revolutionizes underwater communication. 'Hip-hop violinist' Israeli violinist participates in New York event, celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary.   1.   I don`t believe a word I read here any more 11:57  |  Rowan 23/05/08   2.   America: We`re all about war, not peace 12:38  |  Natallie Durson 23/05/08   3.   Israel independent from USA? 16:17  |  petra 23/05/08   4.   The Western Interference 21:05  |  EZ 23/05/08   5.   No surprise 22:07  |  William 23/05/08   6.   Cut to the chase! 08:19  |  Michael N 24/05/08

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