TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The month-long war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas has emboldened Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"Israel... was defeated... from the very beginning," he declared.
In an interview broadcast Thursday on Dubai Satellite TV, Assad turned to threaten Israel. Syria has always talked of peace as a strategic option for settling disputes but, he indicated, it might change track. "The next few months will determine war or peace," he said.
The Israelis move only when they are in pain, "and Israel is never in pain except when we have power... We say to them... 'Your weapons, warplanes, rockets and even your atomic bombs will not protect you in the future," he told the Syrian Journalists Union.
Some Israelis are advocating peace talks with Syria, now.
An agreement would help stabilize the situation in Lebanon, they say. Since 1973 Syria has not dared attack Israel directly across the Golan Heights, but it has been fighting Israel by proxy, arming Hezbollah so that it should attack Israel in southern Lebanon.
Once there is peace with Syria, Hezbollah would be in a tougher situation, the argument goes. Moreover, peace would prevent deterioration to war, and might help isolate Iran, some analysts maintained.
The Golan Heights, which Israel occupied during the 1967 war, "are not worth the deaths" of another war, Israeli Brigadier in the reserves Amal Assad said Thursday.
Israel and Syria could reach agreements on demilitarizing the area and arrange mutual deterrents so that no one would want to violate the agreement, he added. Israel should not wait for the balance of power to shift back to its advantage because "an agreement that would be ideal for us would not be good for the Syrians," he told Channel 1 TV.
The director of the National Security Studies' Center at Haifa University, Prof. Gabriel Ben-Dor, favors talks now only if a third party initiates them.
As long as the Syrians think Israel lost the war against Hezbollah, any Israeli call for peace talks would lead to "very high Syrian demands and a very small Syrian give," Ben-Dor told United Press International.
"Syria is important. We should negotiate with it some time, and it's a pity we missed (earlier opportunities), but this moment is not suitable," he said.
In the government, too, there was scant support for talks now. Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said this week that peace talks with Syria would be "legitimate if it will transpire there is whom to talk to and what to talk about, (though) Israel cannot initiate it."
However, Israel should accept a third party's call for talks and should agree to withdraw to the international border providing there is an agreement on setting demilitarized areas.
Dichter's statement became the topic of a public opinion poll which showed that 64 percent of Israelis oppose such negotiations.
Israelis realize that peace with Syria now means giving up the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau towering over northeastern Israel, and possibly a bit more. Syria wants access to the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel's second most important water reservoir. Israelis don't want the Syrians maintaining the old boundary line, which ran 10 meters from the water.
So in considering talks with Syria Israelis must ask themselves: Are we ready to give up those strategic heights? What is the rush when the Golan has been Israel's quietest border for decades? Why focus on Syria, now, when the Palestinian issue is much more pressing?
Analysts doubt Assad really wants peace and suspect his overtures are merely designed to help Damascus break through diplomatic isolation.
Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, who recently stepped down as head of the Military Intelligence Production Division, swept aside suggestions that Israel talk to Syria.
Assad believed he could play a double game, that he could "talk of peace and support terrorism," Kuperwasser said.
Messages from Syria come in the form of 302mm and 220mm rockets, rocket propelled grenades, Kornet and other anti-tank missiles it provides Hezbollah. Hezbollah then fires them at Israel. Some of the weapons used arrived from Russia; the Syrians did not even open the boxes before transferring them to the Lebanese militia, Kuperwasser added.
Uzi Arad, who was responsible for research in the Mossad and now heads the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya noted that in all the written material, information and signals from Iran there "is no sign" Assad is ready to break his strategic alliance with Tehran in exchange for the Golan.
"Now is the time to isolate Syria and not enter negotiations with it when it can only win," said Maj. Gen. in the reserves Uzi Dayan. Dayan had been military deputy chief of general staff and then headed Israel's National Security Council.
Israel should concentrate on preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear operational capability, stop Iran from arming Hezbollah, prevent Hezbollah from becoming a second al-Qaida, and fight Hamas terror, he said.
Such moves would further weaken Syria, "and in the future it would be possible to reach an agreement... (when it) is in a weak position," he said.
Negotiating with it now would also undermine the U.S. effort to isolate Syria, he added.
Officially Israel does not reject peace talks with Syria but says Syria must first change.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spelled it out this week on a visit to northern Israel: "When Syria stops its support for terror, when Syria stops supplying missiles which are aimed at Israel's cities, when Syria stops supplying weapons that are used against Israeli civilians and Israeli soldiers, we shall certainly be happy to negotiate with them," he said.
"Syria is a committed, aggressive member of the axis of evil and the terrorist organizations who daily plant bombs in an attempt to wound and kill and maim citizens... in our towns get their orders from Damascusm," Olmert said. "The center for most of the terrorist organizations that are fighting us is in Damascus.
"I am the last person to say I wouldn't like, in time, to reach some kind of understanding or some kind of dialogue with our neighbors, including Syria. But gentleman, before we negotiate with Syria, they should stop financing terror, before we negotiate with Bashar Assad, let him stop launching missiles by means of Hezbollah onto the heads of innocent Israelis. And before we sit down to negotiate, let them stop funding Hamas murder, sabotage and terror. If they meet all these tests we shall negotiate with them."
