Today's Situation

Return of the Syrian option Monday, August 21, 2006

Of course, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has silenced Peretz on the subject of Syria, Livni denied her ‘project manager’ is gearing up for talks with Syria and Vice Premier Shimon Peres said this morning on Israel Radio that Israel is already burdened by Lebanon and the Palestinians, and that he doesn’t think ‘a a country like ours can deal with so many issues at a time.’ And, Peres added, if the Syrians ‘are serious they should come and say 'we are interested in holding negotiations … I don't see Assad doing this.’ The Syrian information minister, obviously aware of the flurry of talk about Syria in Israel, was reported by Israel Radio as saying that ‘there’s no point to talk about peace before Israel returns captured lands.’ The Right, of course, attacked Dichter, saying Dichter was trying to divert attention from the government’s failures in the war, and asking how any Israeli could consider making peace with the Syrian dictator who is on the axis of evil, while the Left praised Dichter (perhaps for the first time), saying peace without the Golan is better than having the Golan without peace. Centrists were saying that there was something too transparent about the sudden flurry of talk about examining a deal with Syria and that without U.S. support -- not likely, given President Bush’s position -- nothing can come of it. But it is worth remembering that every significant peace process, from the Dayan-Tohami talks in Morocco that started the Israeli-Egyptian process, the contacts between Ephraim Halevy, acting on behalf of Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein, and the Israeli and Palestinian academics, who started things rolling in Oslo, all began as back channel contacts kept secret from Washington.

The mixed signals from Jerusalem are not limited to the question of Syria. The press is full of complaints about how the UN resolution that was supposed to establish an effective force to help the Lebanese Army take control of south Lebanon, has so far yielded a weak ineffective force. True, said reports here this morning, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was supposed to issue a preliminary report today saying that the UN troops will have the authority and right to fire on anyone they see violating the ceasefire; true, the Lebanese defense minister promised yesterday that anyone caught violating the ceasefire will be treated as ‘an Israeli agent,’ meaning would be treated very harshly; and true, Turkey has grounded Iranian and Syrian planes heading toward Lebanon, as part of the international arms embargo on non-government groups in Lebanon imposed by UNSCR 1701. But the Israeli media has already drawn the conclusion that the international force promised by the UN is a flop, particularly since the French, who had bravely said they would send 2,000 battle-hardened troops, have meanwhile only sent 400, and don’t appear to be preparing to send any others.

Of course, part of the problem might be the press, itself, at least so argued guest after guest on Amnon Nadav’s morning chat show on Israel Radio, with Nadav, a former head of news programming for the state-owned station bringing on guests to argue in favor of stricter censorship. Complaints ranged from reporters identifying in live broadcasts where rockets fell, making it easier for Hizbollah to adjust its sights for the next shot, to commentators predicting where the army would be sending troops, thus foiling plans that the IDF was preparing. Some complained that the media did not warn ahead of time about Hizbollah’s strengths and the army’s weaknesses, and others complained that the press took a negative attitude toward the government and was too critical of the army’s leadership.

The complaints against the press come against the background of what the media is reporting to be an uprising by reservists demanding a judicial commission of inquiry that will demand accountability from the political and military echelons for their ‘hesitancy,’ ‘confusion’ and ‘inconsistency,’ for the lack of logistical preparations and ‘for not knowing what they are doing.’

Backed by the well-financed Movement for Quality Government in Israel, which put up two ‘protest tents’ in Jerusalem so far to collect signatures on a petition, the ‘mass protest movement’ so far consists of a few hundred signatures. According to Israel Radio’s reporter on the scene at noon, there were only two dozen people at the tents, opposite the government complex in Jerusalem. The protestors say they are planning to remain there until the government orders a ‘judicial commission of inquiry,’ with the authority to fire ministers, officers. There were reports of a convoy of cars heading to Jerusalem, and they were demanding that Olmert, Peretz and Halutz resign.

Comparisons being made to the post-73 protests, when thousands of reservists went directly from their demobilization after the war to stand outside the Knesset in the pouring rain demanding Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan and David Elazar resign, are proliferating, without any basis in fact. In 1973, more than 2,700 soldiers were killed in battle in three weeks. In the latest war, about 115 soldiers were killed, over the course of a month. The protesting reservists and their supporters -- mostly from the Right, which anyway was against the government for its plans to withdraw from much of the West Bank -- seem mostly to be complaining that Israel did not win the war. It certainly did not meet the goals announced by Olmert, Peretz, Livni and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz for it -- the unconditional return of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers and the disarmamement of Hizbollah as part of the full implementation of UNSCR 1559. But the war did get Lebanon’s government to finally send its army to south Lebanon, and while those troops aren’t going to clash with Hizbollah in an effort to disarm it, they will try to impose law and order and establish Lebanese government hegemony in the area that has been ruled for years by armed militias, first Palestinian then Shiite. And Hizbollah is keeping its weapons out of sight. For now.

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