The Trap Behind the Syrian "Peace": Refusing to Give Up a Valuable Asset

With characteristic sweetness, Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara announced this week, ahead of the UN Secretary-General's visit to Damascus, that he is looking toward a peace settlement with Israel. In the same statement, he emphasized that Syria is not giving up the Golan Heights, which are occupied by Israel. Secretary-General António Guterres joined him with a statement that the UN recognizes the Golan Heights as occupied Syrian territory.

If for several years there was a tendency in Israel to believe that with US President Donald Trump's recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan, the danger of Syrian and international claims for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan had faded — it is time to wake up.

From Damascus, the UN Secretary-General moved on to visit the Turkish part of Cyprus, a territory occupied by the Turks in 1974 and which has since divided the island into two states. The Secretary-General also arrived there with the hope of promoting understandings between Greek Cyprus and Turkish Cyprus.

In comparison to Cyprus, where the Turks took over half the island out of an interest in expansion in the Mediterranean, the Golan Heights were captured by the State of Israel out of the right to self-defense against Syria, which launched a war against Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973. In relation to the total territory of Syria, the area of the Golan Heights held by Israel is completely marginal — less than 3%.

A counter-proposal — without withdrawals

Meanwhile, Syrian President Ahmad al-Shara has managed to appear as one reaching out for peace, and Israel is presented as standing in its refusal. However, in the same way, Israel can also offer a full peace, accompanied by the statement that the Golan is not up for negotiation.

The sincerity of al-Shara's offer of readiness for peace is best understood according to the tradition of deception in Islam. It was wittily represented by Sheikh al-Qaradawi during his visit to London in 2004. He was recognized as the teacher of the arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden, and his entry into the US was banned. His invitation to London sparked public criticism, and at a press conference, he answered his critics that he was arriving with the message of tolerant Islam.

Many sought to clarify what he really was: a representative of terror or a representative of tolerance. But according to the tradition of Islam — he can be both together, depending on the context. So too is Syrian President al-Shara. In his speech before the American administration and the European Union, he excels in the message of peace.

At the same time, he and his people continue to carry the mission of Jihad, as they expressed it in the massacre of minorities in Syria — the Alawites, Druze, Christians, and Kurds. Certainly, it is worth recognizing the accelerated processes that al-Shara is leading, under Turkish direction, for the rebuilding of the Syrian army with offensive capabilities.

Who will agree to withdraw?

In the dozens of years that I served on the Golan, I accompanied dozens of delegations of senior officers from the world's armies, including Chinese and Russians. All of them noted that Israel must not come down from the Golan. In 2000, when Prime Minister Ehud Barak reached almost the end of negotiations on a peace agreement with Syria, I, as a division commander, accompanied the editor of Time magazine on a one-day tour of the Golan — on behalf of the IDF Spokesperson.

At the end of the tour, while observing from the cliffs of Kfar Haruv toward the Sea of Galilee, he expressed the simplest bewilderment: you turned this place into a paradise. You paved, you built, you planted — who can agree to destroy all this and withdraw?

Something basic in the Israeli yearning for peace needs healing. Peace is certainly desirable, but not at any price. The precedent of a peace agreement involving withdrawal and the uprooting of settlements was created by Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the peace agreement with Egypt.

It is worth mentioning that most members of the Labor Party, and not just Yigal Allon, opposed the full withdrawal from Sinai at the time, which involved the uprooting of Israeli settlements. Yitzhak Rabin said then that it was better to settle for a non-aggression agreement that did not involve the uprooting of settlements.

After almost 60 years of settlement on the Golan, the State of Israel must learn how to offer peace in a redemptive separation from the destruction formula of "territories for peace."