Thank G-d, finally, Shimon Peres has realized the truth. Syria is not interested in peace with Israel. A report was written in August 1992 -- more than two years ago -- by the Republican Reseach Committee on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare in Washington claiming that Syria's act of negotiating the future of the Golan Heights with Israel was in bad faith. Syria, according to this report, is the headstone of a tri-partite alliance in the Middle East, which also includes Iran and Iraq. These two states support Syria's negotiaing posture with the idea in mind that once the Golan Heights are wrested from Israel, they will cross Syria to attack Israel from the cliffs. Now, we see Shimon Peres, much the dove, acknowledging that Syria is likely to attack even without nudging from its partners.
One must in all logic question the actions of the Israeli regime in continuing to negotiate with Syria if this is so patently obvious to Israeli leaders. It is important to note a few things here:
Since Israel gained the Golan Heights, in a war, let us not forget, which Syria started, there has only been one further case of Syrian aggression against Israel. That aggression failed simply and only because Israel controlled the Golan. Without it, Tel Aviv and Haifa would have been gained during the first day of the Yom Kippur War.
The Golan Heights provides Israel with the high ground from which to deter and defend against any attacks by Syria. This high ground includes the summit of Mt. Hermon, the highest mountain in the region. From these heights, Israeli forces can see clear across Lebanon to the Mediterannean caost, and as far into Syria as Damascus itself. There are hi-tech radar installations at the peak which can detect activity much farther away than that. Without these heights, and the security they afford, Israel is liable to be attacked again, in short order, by a country with which it supposedly has reached peace.
It is quite plain to most people, especially in Israel, and especially among those who have been on the Golan Heights -- even for a visit, that for Israel to give up the Golan Heights is the equivalent of strategic suicide. The most obvious compromise answer, then, is for the international community to guarantee Israel's security by inserting a military presence of their own on the Heights. Yet an intelligent analysis of this possibility presents two undeniable problems.
First, the international community has never successfully protected anyone from concerted foreign attack. The American adventure in the Arabian desert against Iraq is a prime example. Only after Kuwait was effectively annihilated did the American-led coalition roll back Iraqi gains. Israel cannot wait that long, for after it is defeated there would be little sense in resurrecting it as a Jewish state. It follows from this that the international community would be even more hesitant to protect the Jewish State. Israel can count on that proposition little more than European Jewry could count on it fifty years ago.
Second, an international presence on the Golan Heights would not give Syria what it wants -- a re-establishment of its sovereignty over the Heights. That is, at least publicly, what Syria's aim is in the current diplomatic process. But international forces are the perfect antithesis of national soverignty. If Syria truly wants to re-establish its own soverignty over the Golan Heights, it will object in the strongest possible terms to the insertion thereupon of international forces.
Yet Syria does not object to this proposition. It is perhaps this silence that proves that Syrian intentions are not exactly what they are supposed to be. So there must be something more, something which can be achieved by Syria even with international forces in the way. This is where Shimon Peres's warning comes in.
Syria can attack Israel, perhaps with greater ease, if international forces are on the Golan Heights. Lebanon proves this. In Lebanon, Israeli security forces are attacked daily by roving gangs of terrorists who are supported by Syria. The presence of the United Nations forces in the area does not prevent these attacks, but it does impede Israeli retaliations and defensive measures. Quite often, these United Nations forces actively assist the terrorist attacks and then act to prevent Israeli defensive reaction. This has led to the deaths of some 700 Israeli soldiers in Lebanon in the past four years.
International forces are a recipe for disaster for Israel -- a disaster that would be severely compounded with the addition of the vast strategic superiority afforded by the high ground of the Golan. Peres knows this. Israeli continuation of negotiations with Syria under these conditions, and Israeli consideration of the inclusion of international forces, leads me to wonder at the degree of loyalty to Israel that this administration possesses.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
