Solomonia Archive: Caroline Glick: The vision thing

Saturday, January 3, 2004

Caroline Glick has a good run-down on some of the current trends in the region and takes her government to task for failing to recognize and act on them now and in the past. Highly recommended, as always.

Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition - Column One: The vision thing

...So it is strange that while Assad is increasingly viewed as an enemy of the US, our politicians and policymakers are discussing seriously the possibility of renewing negotiations for the transfer of the Golan Heights to the Ba'athists in Damascus in exchange for a peace treaty. Rather than dismissing Bashar Assad's opportunistic declaration to The New York Times that he is interested in negotiating with Israel, our foreign minister and his underlings are acting as though this proposal by a drowning tyrant should be taken seriously. The argument now being sounded in Jerusalem is that Israel should take advantage of Syria's weakness to forge a deal that it wouldn't be making if it were in a better bargaining position with the US.

This is the same rationale used by Yossi Beilin and Shimon Peres in 1993, when they went about secretly negotiating the Oslo accords with the PLO...

As far as negotiations with Syria go, I have to imagine that no one on the Israeli side, particularly in a Likud government, expects it amounts to anything more than show. That's not that I think the Israelis can't be serious, it's just that they have way too much experience to think that there's likely anything to be gained from a negotiation with a regime like Syria's. No more than there would be in cutting deals with Arafat, Kim Jong Il or the former regime of Sadam Hussein. Experience indicates these entities have so littel credibility it is virtually impossible for any but the most gullible to enter into a contractual situation.

Posted by Solomon at 1:12 PM on Saturday, Jan 3, 2004
Click to share this post