WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- If Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni succeeds in forming a new Cabinet within the 40-day deadline accorded to her by Israeli law, she will become the next prime minister of Israel. And if she becomes prime minister, current indications are that Livni will opt to move forward in negotiating a peaceful solution between the state of Israel and the Palestinians.
Analysts believe Livni will be willing to move forward with the stagnating peace process with the Palestinians, and that she is in favor of a two-state solution. Indeed, she received immediate and positive feedback from Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat after winning Kadima's nomination to become the next prime minister of Israel.
Livni also has indicated that she would be willing to pursue peace talks with the Syrians. Yet the reality -- and the probability -- of such a deal bearing fruit remains extremely vague at best.
Yet nothing would make greater sense than to finalize a peace treaty with Syria; but when did sense ever get in the way of Middle Eastern politics? If common sense governed the region, its politics and its leaders, then peace would have dictated a settlement decades ago. Indeed, the last few years have provided more than one golden opportunity to finalize talks between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and the Syrians. And ultimately, once a peace treaty between Syria and Israel becomes a reality, no doubt one of the conditions Israel will request will be for Damascus to put a stop to its support of groups Israel calls terrorist organizations but that Syria regards as liberation movements. This includes Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement based in Gaza, but with its military leadership in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Or Ahmad Gebril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General-Command, and last but certainly not least, that Syria ends its support of the Lebanese Shiite organization, Hezbollah.
But that window of opportunity was wasted in a monumental fashion when the Bush administration decided to give Syria the cold shoulder in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, and the administration wasted precious time in failing to propel the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks when all parties were on board.
Until the outbreak of the August war in the Caucasus between Russia and Georgia, Moscow was pretty much on board the Bush administration's Middle East peace train. But much has changed in so little time. Following Israel's and the United States' support of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in his incursion into Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will be only too happy to get back at Israel and the United States. His first move in that direction will be to reconsider the sales of weapons to Syria.
Damascus had sought to obtain from Moscow S-300 air defense systems and short-range Iskander missiles, but pressure from the Bush administration had placed a hold on the Syrian request. That was before the war in the Caucasus. Now Moscow will certainly review the Syrian demands. In the interim the Russians will sell Syria Pantsir surface-to-air missiles and Buk-M12 surface-to-surface missiles. This was agreed to following a meeting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the Black Sea resort of Sochi last August.
As a result, the Middle East cards have been shuffled and redistributed. Now Russia will be tempted to support Syria in an attempt to get back at Israel and the United States.
Additionally, despite overtures from Damascus to engage Israel in direct peace negotiations -- or perhaps through third parties such as Turkey -- Prime Minister Tzipi Livni, assuming she gets the job, might find it is not in Israel's best interest to pursue a peace deal with Syria.
How could peace not work in the country's best interest? Retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former director of the Israeli National Security Council and a major general in the Israeli armed forces, explained the complexity of the Israeli-Syrian relationship, despite its outward simplicity.
"The Israeli-Syrian dispute is simpler," Eiland told a conference in Europe a fortnight ago, when compared with the other conflicts Israel is engaged in -- unlike the Palestinian issue, where border demarcation is a point of contention. Unlike Israel's other disputes, the one with Syria is cut and dry.
"It's a territorial dispute between two countries." The issues are well-known. First, the question of returning the Golan Heights to the Israelis. Second, the question of water and how to share it. The rest, as Eiland pointed out, "We call it the 'Golan.' They call it the Joulan. … "
Then there is the problem of water rights, but one that Eiland believes can be solved. So, is peace between Syria and Israel achievable? "Yes," replies the former army general.
But there's a catch.
First, peace with Syria will not help advance talks with the Palestinians.
Second, a rapprochement with Damascus will not advance the Iran nuclear dossier.
Third, a peace deal with Syria will not help solve the problem of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Fourth, even if the problem with Syria is solved, it is not going to help solve the other problems.
Fifth, peace with Syria means returning the Golan Heights to the Syrians, which ultimately translates into an increased security risk, which means an increase in the risk of war. Therefore, the status quo becomes more appealing.
Sixth is the request from the Bush administration recommending that Israel stay clear of the Syrians; and finally,
Seventh are the facts on the ground. Since the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force first deployed on the Golan Heights at the end of the October War in 1973, not a single bullet was fired across the demarcation line separating Israel from Syria.
At the end of the day, Livni, assuming she becomes prime minister, might not turn out to be the peace advocate she expected to be or that others expected her to be, either.
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(Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.)
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(e-mail: [email protected])
