Assad’s offer

Thursday, November 25, 2004

The current government’s refusal to accept Assad’s outstretched hand is based on the premise that Assad is under enormous pressure from the Americans and his diplomatic dancing is meant to reduce that pressure. Besides, say Israeli officials --- off the record, lest it sound particularly undiplomatic – Syria’s military is no threat to Israel, and the Syrian economy is in the pits. In short, why should Israel negotiate with a weak Syria. And, they add, the U.S. administration doesn’t want Israel to give Assad a helping hand. In effect, Jerusalem is now trying to apply the same policy toward Damascus that it applied to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority for the last four years. The difference, of course, is that Assad is a young, presumably healthy man, while Yasser Arafat was already an old and not very healthy man when Israel effectively locked him up in his Muqata offices three years ago.

The Assad overtures, which he has been sounding in one form or another for more than a year, come at a time of stepped up diplomatic activity. Already here this week were the American, Russian and British foreign ministers, each in their own way making sure Israel will not present obstacles to the Palestinian election process – it says it won’t -- each in their own way making sure that Israel is going ahead with the disengagement from Gaza plan – Sharon says he is, but his Likud central committee is making it increasingly difficult for him – and each in their own way making sure Israel is going to follow the roadmap – on that, Sharon is much less forthcoming, saying only that first the Palestinians have to do their part, i.e., fight terrorism. The three top diplomats also visited the Palestinian side – something that Sharon’s ‘boycott the irrelevant Arafat’ policy made impossible for the last two years – reassuring them of international support for the electoral process, and of help on ‘the day after,’ which used to mean the day after Arafat but now means the day after the elections and the day after the disengagement.

For all the ‘days after,’ first the Israeli government has to get through some earlier days – like passing its budget. With a minority government, it cannot be sure it can pass the budget, especially after the Likud central committee keeps ripping holes in Labor’s ‘safety net’ for Sharon’s disengagement plan, but declaring Labor is party non grata in the government – unless Sharon brings in the ultra-Orthodox. Some 65 percent of the public, say the polls, wants a purely secular government of Likud-Labor-Shinui, but the hardline Likud central committee is ever more disconnected from the public’s will, as the central committee wallows in its power over ministers and MKs who need its approval to be renominated for election. And those elections could come sooner than planned; after Labor’s Shimon Peres told Sharon earlier this week that it’s time to decide on either bringing Labor in or going to new elections, Shinui’s Yosef Lapid said this morning that it will not vote in favor of a budget that ‘buys off United Torah Judaism with hundreds of millions of shekels.’

Sharon, in any case, is playing with his cards close to his chest; for one thing, if he calls new elections he may have to face a challenge from his rival-partner Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. For another, he may believe that Labor and Shinui – and even the Likud central committee – are all bluffing. And to make the picture even cloudier, there have been two reports this week that surely are on his mind. One report said that the Income Tax Authority is investigating the accounts of his Sycamore Farm, following the millions of dollars that ostensibly flowed into his son Gilad’s bank accounts both from tycoon David Appel in the so-called Greek Island affair and from Cyril Kern, the old family friend who apparently served as a conduit for illegal foreign funding for Sharon. Income tax wants to make sure taxes were paid on those funds. The second report is that the police have recommended to the prosecution that MK Omri Sharon be prosecuted for his role in establishing the straw companies that served as conduits for illegal campaign financing for past Sharon campaigns. In short, it will be a hot winter.