The election of Binyamin Netanyahu as Israeli prime minister has delayed a regional peace settlement at least until next year. Mr. Netanyahu has formed a right-wing government that included such figures as Ariel Sharon, Rafaël Eytan, Yitzhak Mordechai, and Binyamin Begin. Equally important, the election successes of smaller religious parties forced Mr. Netanyahu to give them a sizable portion of ministerial portfolios. The secular Israeli right-wing and the religious parties have been skeptical of peace negotiations with the Arabs, and Mr. Netanyahu's initial policy statements suggested that progress on the different Arab-Israeli negotiating tracks would be frozen for a time.
In the Likud's program, which was sent to the Knesset on June 17, Mr. Netanyahu laid down the guidelines of his government's policy on the regional negotiations: the government will continue final status negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, but will oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan river; Jerusalem will remain the united and indivisible capital of Israel; settlement will be expanded in the occupied territories and the Golan; and Israel must maintain sovereignty over the Golan.
The Arab states responded to this hardening of the Israeli position by reaffirming that no settlement could be reached unless negotiations took place on the basis of `land for peace.' Anything short of this principle, which formed the basis of the 1991 Madrid conference, was unacceptable. The Syrian regime went further, and accused Mr. Netanyahu of returning the situation in the Middle East to what it was before 1991. In order to coordinate their positions and show a unified front, the Arab states held an Arab League summit in Cairo between June 21 and 23.
The final statement of the Cairo summit was relatively moderate in addressing the Netanyahu government, but clearly sought to put the blame on Israel for any breakdown in the regional negotiations. The Arab states reaffirmed that they considered peace a strategic option, but again insisted on a `land for peace' negotiating framework. The summit's final statement also called on Israel to respect its prior political commitments and demanded that it stop the expansion of settlements in occupied Arab territories. The Arab states warned that "any transgression by Israel of the foundations [...] of the peace process," would "push the region back down into a spiral of tension and would force the Arab states to reconsider the steps taken vis-à-vis Israel in the framework of the peace process. The Israeli government would be entirely responsible for this."
The Israeli reaction to the Arab summit's final statement was cool, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declaring that the peace negotiations could not be "made hostage to prior conditions." However, the Israeli government spoke with many voices. Before the Arab summit's final statement was issued, the Israeli foreign minister, David Levy, suggested that some sort of territorial compromise on the Golan might be possible. This was contradicted, however, by both Mr. Netanyahu and the hard-line agriculture minister, Rafaël Eytan, who stated that he saw "no possibility of territorial compromise on the Golan."
The most pressing question is, given the different (often hostile) currents in the Israeli government, Mr. Netanyahu can achieve any progress in regional terms. Unlike former Likud prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, Mr. Netanyahu is young and evidently ambitious enough to be dissatisfied with perpetrating the status quo. While in strategic terms Israel may be able to block regional negotiations for some time, this will not necessarily play to Mr. Netanyahu's advantage both domestically and internationally. Even regionally, the prime minister will have to face the fact that his predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, succeeded in building bridges to many Arab states that largely broke down a united Arab opposition to Israel.
A second preoccupation of Mr. Netanyahu will be the possibility of renewed violence in the occupied territories, and even Israel. There are few incentives today for Yasir Arafat to continue to collaborate with the Israeli security forces against militant Islamist movements such as Hamas or the Jihad. Indeed the Palestinian leader has been given few options but to oppose the Israeli government. In turn, Mr. Netanyahu's campaign pledge of achieving `peace through security' could lead him to force a confrontation between Israeli forces and the Palestinian authorities in case of a resurgence in bomb attacks against Israel. While this may be popular in the short term, it would raise tension in Israel, and take the country uncomfortably back to the days of the intifadah. It is doubtful that Mr. Netanyahu would be satisfied with such a development in the long term.
Even before the Israeli elections, the balance of power in the Middle East had begun to shift, largely to the detriment of Syria. The Syrian regime has been alarmed at the closer ties between Turkey and Israel following their conclusion of a military cooperation agreement earlier this year. At the same time, the Syrians have watched as Jordanian-Turkish and Jordanian-Israeli ties have improved. These developments, in which the United States played an active role, increased pressure on the Syrians to arrive at a quick settlement with Israel. In response, Syria improved its ties with Iran. Given the mistrust of Iran among the Gulf Arab states, however, this could turn into a liability down the road.
Soon after the Israeli elections, the Syrian-Turkish rivalry was at the center of regional developments. Turkey has been particularly irritated with Syria over its support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) of Abdullah Oçalan. Both countries have also long been in dispute over Hatay (Alexandretta) province, which France separated from Syria and ceded to Turkey in 1939. A third major bone of contention has been Turkey's intention to build a network of dams on the Euphrates, which has limited Syrian exploitation of the river's waters. In April and May these tensions appeared to escalate: several bomb explosions took place in Syria that were suspected to be the work of Turkish intelligence. The explosions were confirmed by U.S. officials, as well as by independent press reports.[1] Syria subsequently sent a reported 30,000 troops to the border area and sought to mobilize Arab political condemnation of Turkey.
Iran sought to take advantage of the growing Turkish-Syrian tensions by calling for the conclusion of a military agreement between Tehran and Damascus. While a rapprochement between Syria and Iran may be inevitable in the coming months, it may have undesirable side-effects for Syria on the Lebanese scene. Under the cover of improved Iranian-Syrian ties, Hizballah may seek to widen its margin of military maneuver against Israel in the south. Syria would be wary of this as it may lead to a Syrian-Israeli confrontation in Lebanon.[2]
With a Netanyahu government in power, there is a widespread feeling that some sort of Israeli military operation in Lebanon is likely in the future, and may target Syria as well as Hizballah. Such an operation, if it indeed occurs, would probably not take place until at least next year, after the U.S. presidential elections. Its objective would be to further isolate Syria regionally and discredit Syrian military capabilities in Lebanon. Moreover, the U.S. would be likely to back such a step in order to break Syrian resistance to a regional peace settlement.
In the coming months, it is unlikely that the United States will push for serious progress on the Syrian-Israeli track. U.S.-Israeli relations must be redefined first, and there is little incentive in Washington to re-engage President Asad in negotiations he is clearly ambiguous toward. The only possibility to help break the deadlock is to activate the monitoring group established by the April understanding, which brought an end to Operation Grapes of Wrath (see below). In the third week of June, the U.S. coordinator for the Middle East negotiations, Dennis Ross, presided over a meeting to negotiate the guidelines governing the group's activities. While the parties reportedly only addressed technical issues, the group will probably be established at some point, if only to maintain contact between Syria and Israel.
If anybody was unhappy with Mr. Netanyahu's victory, it was the Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri. By delaying a regional settlement and increasing the probability of a new conflict in the south, Mr. Netanyahu's election lowered business confidence in Lebanon. The Hariri government will be hard-pressed in the coming months to persuade foreign investors that the situation in Lebanon is stable. Moreover, it remains within Israel's power, and long-term interest, to continue to pressure the Lebanese in the south, and even to modify the rules of engagement there to affect the wider balance of power with Syria.
Lebanon will remain the main battlefield for the Syrian-Israeli rivalry until a regional settlement is reached. Yet, despite virtually complete power over Lebanese affairs, Syria is in an unenviable position: it is left with few regional options vis-à-vis Israel other than to strengthen Hizballah in Lebanon. The Syrians will feel increased pressure from the U.S. and its regional allies to curb Hizballah's activities, which in turn may increase the likelihood of a Syrian-Israeli confrontation. Such a confrontation could well be to Syria's disadvantage.
A second problem for Syria is that its presence in Lebanon is beneficial for only as long as it generates political capital. In the absence of progress in the regional negotiations, Syria's control over Lebanon could become a problem. In the medium term, if no progress is recorded in the Israeli-Syrian talks, the U.S. and Israel, as well as other Arab states, could use Lebanon as a means to militarily and politically pressure Syria. Moreover, at some stage the obvious contradictions between Syrian and Lebanese objectives in the regional negotiations may lead to the adoption of economic policies that provoke a measure of dissatisfaction in Lebanon. This may have an impact on domestic social stability, and could force Syria to loosen the strings somewhat. This may have unforeseen consequences, particularly in the climate of uncertainty that will accompany a delay in a regional settlement.
1. See Suleiman Nimr, "Qussat al-infijaraat al-arb`a al-ghamida fi suriyya (The Story of the Four Obscure Bomb Explosions in Syria)," Al-Hayat, June 15, 1996. According to the article, four bomb explosions took place in Syria, two in Damascus - one of them near Mr. Oçalan's home - and two in Lataqiyyeh. Sources returning from Damascus say that there were in fact five bombs in Syria, the largest a 250 kg device in the Sha`ba quarter of Damascus, which exploded on the the road President Asad was to have taken the following day for a ceremony at a military cemetary. The explosions, which apparently did not cause casualties, could have been warnings from Turkey. However, observers have not ruled out the Muslim Brotherhood lead. Turkish diplomatic sources in Beirut also revealed that in early April small Turkish military units had raided PKK bases located "between fifteen and twenty kilometers inside Syrian territory," and that this had taken place at selected spots along the length of the border, between Hatay (Alexandretta) province and the Iraqi border. The information could not be confirmed, but would not contradict other reported military steps taken by Turkey along the Syrian border.
2. One could go further and suggest that a Syrian-Israeli confrontation may be to Hizballah's advantage since it would remove all controls on the party's activities in the south.