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JCSS Study no. 24

Israel and Syria: Peace and Security on the Golan

Aryeh Shalev

First published 1994 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1994 by Tel Aviv University, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shaley, Aryeh, 1926
[Shalom u-vitahon ba-Golan. English]
Israel and Syria: peace and security on the Golan / by Aryeh
Shale.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8133-2222-7
1. IsraelForeign relationsSyria. 2. SyriaForeign relations
Israel. 3. Golan HeightsInternational status. 4. Israel
Politics and government. I. Title.
DS119.8.S95S513 1994 94-22074
327 .569405691dc20 CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00926-7 (hbk)

This book is dedicated to BERNARD DENBURG of blessed memory

Contents

1. viii

Guide

Tables

Maps

Figure

This book had its genesis a few years before the Madrid Conference, which ushered in peace talks between Israel and its neighbors, including of course Syria. Guided by the assumption that the differences between Syria and Israel could be bridged only by political negotiations, I felt that issues such as the strategic importance of the Golan Heights and possible security arrangements within a peace treaty framework were already then relevant.

The negotiations with Syria and on the future of the Golan Heights are basically political in character. So it is politicians, rather than army officers, who will make the final decisions. Security considerations, though, will be of major importance.

For some years I was directly involved in events concerning the security relations between Israel and Syria. From 1949 until the end of 1952 I represented Israel in the Syria-Israel Mixed Armistice Commission. During that period we held direct talks on security affairs with Syrian officers representing their country. Later (1957-1959) I served as chief intelligence officer in the Northern Command, which was responsible for the Syrian front. These experiences undoubtedly served me in writing this book as they did with a previous study, The Israel-Syria Armistice Regime 1949-1955 (JCSS Study no. 21, 1993), which drew primarily on archival material and dealt with relations between the two countries in the first half of the 1950s.

The present book consists of five parts. arrangements, and offers a proposal for ensuring that security is preserved and consolidated along with the peace.

I drew upon a wide range of sources in preparing this book:

• * Books and documents dealing with Syria and other Arab countries and their security arrangements with Israel in the past, e.g., the Israeli-Syrian separation of forces agreement and the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.
• * Statements by Israeli, Syrian and American leaders formulating their interests and positions on peace negotiations, a potential agreement and security arrangements.
• * Conversations with Israeli politicians, IDF (Israel Defense Forces) senior officers (regular army and reserves), experts on the Middle East in Israel and abroad, including Syrian experts, western diplomats who were stationed in Syria, representatives of the Jewish settlements on the Golan Heights, and others.

One of the most difficult problems I had to contend with was an assessment of the two principal parties' probable stands at the end of the negotiating process. While opening positions are easily enough known, final positions are an unknown--indeed, it is unlikely that even the leaders of the two states themselves know in advance what these will be. This is a topic for which the sources offer no clear answers; an appraisal has to be based on knowledge of the basic interests of each country, an assessment of possible developments and a sense of the drift of the Israel-Arab dynamic.

Certainly one crucial factor, particularly with respect to Syria, will be the identity of the country's leader at the time--yet another imponderable. Even the position that President Hafez al-Assad adopts at the end of the negotiating process (assuming that it is concluded during the period of his leadership) is a riddle: as far as we know, Assad does not disclose his strategy regarding Israel and peace talks even to his confidants. Obviously, the position of a post-Assad regime in Syria cannot even be guessed at. Still, experts believe that if peace is achieved and its practical implementation begun during Assad's period of rule, his successor will probably pursue the same course, albeit cautiously.

In short, then, an assessment of final positions must be grounded in a large number of unknowns and uncertainties. Similarly, although an attempt has been made here to address the question of whether Syria would be willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel before a full Israeli-Palestinian agreement is reached, a definitive answer is problematic. It is difficult to predict what the international, regional and internal Syrian situation will be when the time comes to make a decision; nor do we know how Damascus will view its possible alternatives at that time. Meanwhile, the advent of an Israeli-PLO interim agreement in September 1993 has not clarified the issue: Damascus' initial attitude toward the agreement was ambivalent.

In any event a book dealing with future situations leaves the author no choice but to make certain basic assumptions, which are described according to the subjects under discussion. This, I hope, will facilitate the reader's ability to follow the arguments that are adduced. Certainly the inability to predict final positions does not seriously affect the core of the book, namely the bottom-line security arrangements which Israel will have to insist on during negotiations with Syria. Those arrangements will have to ensure security for Israel, the development of normalization between the two countries, and the upholding of the agreement itself.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to my colleagues in the senior research team at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, whose comments were on-target and very beneficial; to Ralph Mandel for his adept translation; and to JCSS Director Joseph Alpher for his efforts in producing this updated and adapted English edition.

Aryeh Shalev
Tel Aviv University
January 1994

Until October 1991 there were no direct peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. The issue had been moribund since the two states signed an armistice agreement in July 1949 in the aftermath of Israel's War of Independence. However, there were several occasions when Syria considered the possibility of making peace with Israel:

In 1919-1920, when King Faisal still ruled in Syria, the Arab and Jewish national movements cooperated in Damascus. The prime agent of that cooperation was Eliahu Sasson, who was active in both movements. There was even a newspaper dedicated to promoting partnership between the two groups. Cooperation was based on political support given by the Jewish national movement to the Syrians in their struggle to throw off French rule and, in a complementary fashion, on the Syrians' political support for the Jews in their dealings with British rule in Palestine.

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