Subscribe to our daily e-mail newsletter

E-mail:

Israel News Feed Or subscribe to our RSS feed | What is RSS?
Israel News from Jerusalem Newswire
Peace Process

Israeli leftists: Peace with Syria will wean Damascus from Tehran


By Stan Goodenough
June 27, 2008

Israelis have the choice: Either they can agree to give Syria the Golan Heights in exchange for promises of peace, or they can face a future surrounded by an Iranian belt in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip.

This logical-sounding argument was put forward Thursday at a conference sponsored by the Tel Aviv "Peres Center for Peace."

It was made by Alon Liel, a former director-general of Israel’' foreign ministry and sold-out champion of the land-for-peace process.

Syria's President Bashar el-Assad is fearful of the growing Iranian influence over his country and wants out, Liel maintained.

It was Assad, rather then Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was pushing for negotiations towards a peace agreement with Israel.

"I believe the reason for this is that Assad is afraid of Iran," said Liel, according to Ynetnews.

"The Syrians know exactly who the Iranians are, just as we do. They also know how dependent they've become in fields like military strength and their economy. I believe they came to the conclusion that they were under a 'friendly takeover' by Iran, and that Iran may yet do to them what they did in Lebanon."

To Israeli and Middle East realists, Liel's proposition, which was laden with "apparentlys," is so much wishful thinking.

His reasoning held that pulling Damascus out of Tehran's orbit would have "a positive effect" on negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs as some of the obstacles in the way of a Palestinian state - "like the issue of the [Arab] refugees for instance" - would be resolved.

"Syria will apparently agree to grant the refugees citizenship," Liel said.

Such an arrangement would ease the minds of the Lebanese, who "fear that the Palestinian refugees will be settled there as well and alter the country's demographics."

Removing this threat will ostensibly starve Hizb'allah of much of its support, thereby radically reducing Iran's influence to Israel's north.

"What's more," Liel continued, "the Syrians will no longer allow [Hamas leader] Khaled Mashaal to remain in Damascus.

Therefore, if "we reach a stage where Syria stops aiding Hamas and Hizb'allah, the balance of power will shift in Fatah's favor and this will help the peace process."

Liel told the Peres Center gathering that Israelis who wish to live with such a "friendly belt" around their state should support an American brokerage of an agreement that would see Syria normalize relations with Israel and agree to end the conflict.

The Peres Center was founded by Israel's current state president Shimon Peres, architect of the disastrous Oslo Accords and the leading light among anti-Jewish Israeli Jews.

Peres' philosophy, as embraced by leftists like Liel, sees Israel's Jews severing themselves from their biblical and Diaspora history and moving ahead into a "new Middle East" as "modern Israelis."

Like the article?
Help spread the word:
Jnewswire updates
Never miss another story
  • Inbox already too full?
    Subscribe to our
    RSS feed instead!