Will the hot sun of the southern Sinai end up by singeing Syria and Lebanon. The Sharm al-Shaykh conference of March 13, called in the wake of suicide bombings in Israel, may have provided Damascus and Beirut with two alternatives: either to make peace with Israel quickly, or be isolated in the future. In bringing together representatives from the United States, Russia, Europe, Israel, Egypt and most other Arab countries, the conference sent a clear message that no state in the region can afford to remain outside a regional settlement.
The final communiqué issued at the end of the conference sought to underline both the support of all the parties for the peace negotiations and their rejection of "acts of terror" which threatened it. The parties also agreed to cooperate against groups seeking to undermine the negotiations and to locate and interrupt their sources of finance. A working group was formed to "prepare recommendations on how best to implement the decisions" of the communique, which would report to the participants within 30 days.
While Sharm al-Shaykh was initially organized as a "conference to combat terrorism," its impact went far beyond as it provided the first major chance to replace the Madrid framework:[1] Madrid forced the Arabs and Israelis to determine whether they would accept or refuse participation in negotiations towards a regional settlement; Sharm al-Shaykh demanded of them a reaffirmation of their participation, and did so in a multilateral framework that permitted no ambiguity. After Sharm al-Shaykh, there appeared little possibility that an Arab-Israeli peace could be "cold." Most significant at Sharm al-Shaykh was the fact that it was primarily an Arab initiative that transformed the conference into a political, as opposed to a security, gathering, as the U.S. And Israel initially seemed to have preferred. It was this that made the conference genuinely significant and which provided the most telling sign of how the regional negotiations have developed in the past five years.
Inching to Closer to Normalization
Among the most notable results of the conference was the meeting between the Israeli prime minister, Shimon Peres, and several leading Arab officials. Mr. Peres met with the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, SaŒud al-Faysal, the first ever official meeting between a Saudi and an Israeli official. Syria can only look with alarm at this new relationship between Israel and a majority of Arab states, particularly as it comes on the heels of an emerging Israeli-Turkish relationship. While most participants at Sharm al-Shaykh underlined that Syria and Lebanon still had time to join their procession, many observers have already concluded that the Syrians may get today a far less advantageous deal than they would have when the negotiations began four years ago.
Sharm al-Shaykh affected two aspects of the Syrian-Israeli negotiating agenda over which Syria thought it had unlimited control: the timing of the negotiations and their scope. While the Syrians had thought that their talks with Israel were open-ended and could be conducted indifferently with either Labor or Likud, Sharm al-Shaykh took the initiative away from Damascus in setting a negotiating timetable in the coming months. If Mr. Peres returns to power, U.S. pressure may be such that Syria will be unable to resist initialing some sort of agreement by November, the date of the U.S. elections. Conversely, if Likud wins Israel's elections, the Israeli government may choose to delay serious negotiations over the Golan indefinitely to isolate Syria as relations improve with other Arabs states.
Syria is also in a far more precarious situation as regards the scope of negotiations. The Syrian president, Hafiz al-Asad, has been very reluctant to conceive of a general normalization of relations with Israel, knowing full well that this could profoundly alter Syrian society and ultimately hurt his regime. This has led observers to conclude that what the Syrians are really interested in through the negotiations is regaining the Golan and improving relations with the U.S., but not normal political and economic relations with Israel. Sharm al-Shaykh, by indicating that future ties between Arab states and Israel can be nothing but warm, has limited Syria's capacity to reject normalization. When negotiations resume, there seems little to prevent Israel and the United States from redoubling their efforts to pressure Syria into defining clearly its vision of peace after a regional settlement.
There were two principle messages which came out of Sharm al-Shaykh: that the peace negotiations must succeed and that Labor must be made to win the Israeli elections. By seeking to undermine these two objectives, the suicide bombings in Jerusalem, Ashkelon, and Tel Aviv, both strengthened U.S.-Israeli ties and made uncertain Washington¹s neutrality in future Arab-Israeli negotiations. Given this, the continuation of attacks against Israeli civilian targets may ultimately prove far more of a liability to the Arabs than anything else.
Lebanese Fears
The results of the Sharm al-Shaykh conference prompted Lebanese officials to prepare for both the possibility of an Israeli retaliation against Hizballah and the expulsion of Palestinian Islamists. Lebanon could suffer far more than Syria from its growing isolation in the Middle East, particularly as the Hariri government's reconstruction program is ultimately dependent on the establishment of a regional free trade zone. Despite this danger, the parliament lauded the government's decision not to send a representative to Sharm al-Shaykh. This misunderstanding of the conference¹s importance could cost the Lebanese down the road, both in terms of regional credibility and economic investment. To be indefinitely a card in Syrian hands is hardly a desirable option for Lebanon, particularly at a time when it needs to capitalize on a regional peace.
For better or worse, good relations with the United States will be necessary in a new Middle East. This did not prevent the Lebanese authorities from showing an especial lack of foresight on the same day as the Sharm al-Shaykh conference when a court released two men involved in the murder of a former U.S. ambassador on the grounds that their crime was covered by a general amnesty. The U.S. embassy in Beirut responded with a harshly-worded communique suggesting that the release was a conscious, if subtle, response to Sharm al-Shaykh. While this does not appear very probable, the episode will encourage the U.S. to continue to refuse lifting the ban on travel to Lebanon. At another level, the U.S. reaction could be interpreted as a warning to Syria that there are conditions for accepting its control over Lebanon; principal among them that Lebanon not be used as an instrument against U.S. interests. The real question, however, is whether the Hariri government can afford to continue paying for the messages it sends to the U.S. on Syria's behalf.
Notes
1. Indeed the conference¹s final name was, significantly, the Summit of Peacemakers.