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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - September 22, 2008

Q's re: Tzipi Livni's victory in the Kadima primaries and prospects; Syrian regime and the dynamics of the region and quest for peace...

Q. Now that Tzipi Livni has narrowly won victory in the Kadima primaries, what sort of interaction between Israeli politics, Palestinian politics and the peace process awaits us in the months ahead?

A. An interaction so complex that we can only discuss the dynamics and the variables and must be careful to limit speculation.

First, PM Ehud Olmert may be resigning, but he remains caretaker prime minister until a new government is sworn in. He shows little inclination to declare himself unable to fulfill his office--a gentlemanly step that would enable Livni to step in right away. Given that Livni's success in forming a new government is not assured, Olmert may remain in office for a period somewhere between weeks and months. He has vowed to continue negotiating with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during this interval, with the objective of reaching some sort of framework Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Meanwhile, indirect talks in Turkey between Israel and Syria may continue. Hence, by the by, it is too early to summarize Olmert's premiership: there are still lots of opportunities for him to succeed or fail at leading the country.

Livni now has to define her attitude toward these ongoing Olmert peace endeavors, even as she busies herself with receiving a mandate from President Shimon Peres, followed by complicated haggling with potential coalition partners over their conditions for joining her government. Obviously she would rather replace Olmert in the talks with Abbas and does not wish to be presented by Olmert with a fait accompli that could affect her efforts to build a coalition.

Nor is her attitude toward the talks with Syria clear. As foreign minister, she has not been privy to their details and has been relatively reserved in her public attitude to them. The Israeli negotiators, Shalom Turgeman and Yoram Turbovich, are very much Olmert's men. At what point will Olmert deliver this file to her? How will she balance this enterprise with her efforts at coalition-building and keeping the Palestinian talks alive but under her aegis. Syria is already signaling that it would welcome talks with Israel under Livni's leadership; Tishrin, the government daily, couldn't resist calling her the "beauty from the Mossad", but did solicit peace talks with her.

Enter Abbas and Palestinian politics. With Olmert resigning, Abbas may feel compelled to suspend their private peace talks and wait for Livni. Many of his aides are advising him to take his distance from the disgraced Olmert, arguing that a peace framework agreement with Olmert, which in any case will be controversial at the level of substance, will be worth nothing in view of Olmert's departure and consequently will draw heavy criticism from fellow Palestinians.

Alternatively, Abbas may still assess that a peace agreement with Olmert is something he could take to elections in January or use to justify a decision to postpone those elections. His recent Wall Street Journal op-ed appeared designed to put Israel on notice that a lot remains to be negotiated. One way or another, unrest and indecision among the Palestinians can only disrupt Livni's peace agenda, with Abbas' uncertain election decision and the possible end of the ceasefire with Hamas in December (it was agreed in June for six months) looming large. Indeed, the upcoming attempt by Livni to build a new coalition and, if she succeeds, the early days of her new government, are liable to be perceived by Israel's enemies as an opportunity to test its defenses under a relatively untried leader.

Then too, on November 5 Livni will confront a new American president, with whom she will wish to touch base on peace process and other issues at an early date. Once she is officially prime minister, she will likely seek an early meeting with the American president-elect in order to coordinate priorities regarding the Palestinian and Syrian tracks.

Yet the conventional wisdom on the Israeli political scene at this stage holds that Livni will in any case probably fail to form a coalition. After all, this is an extremely challenging task in Israeli politics, one she has never engaged in in the course of a mere nine-year political career. I believe the political establishment is underestimating Livni's skills, but the going will not be easy.

Already her efforts to form a coalition are exposing her to pressures from the Shas  and Labor parties, both of which are so far taking a not surprising "hard to get" pose. Shas will want Livni to modify her dovish approach to negotiations with the Palestinians and the Syrians and commit to relatively conservative constraints such as, following in Olmert's footsteps, avoiding discussion of Jerusalem.

Labor, potentially Kadima's main coalition partner, is likely to push in the opposite direction; assuming he remains defense minister, party leader Ehud Barak will pressure to put more emphasis on successful confidence-building in the Palestinian security sphere, for example in Jenin where initial efforts are deemed highly successful, and less on peace talks. Meanwhile he is also calling for a national unity government (a ritual demand and not a likely outcome) or new elections--some say for fear that if the popular Livni succeeds in forming a government this will strengthen her and weaken Barak politically, but most likely as a negotiating ploy. Meretz, which Livni is trying to bring into her coalition, will undoubtedly present demands regarding peace negotiations and human rights that are anathema to Shas.

Yet Livni will even be hard put to rally her own party. The sour-grapes decision by Shaul Mofaz, whose near-victory in the primary crowned him ostensibly as an important number two in Kadima, to take a vacation from politics highlights heavy attrition in the party's senior ranks: Mofaz follows upon the ill Ariel Sharon, Olmert, Shimon Peres (elected president), finance minister Avraham Hirschson (convicted of embezzlement) and at least three additional MKs in leaving the young party or abandoning party activity.

Livni may ultimately conclude that only a victory in new Knesset elections will strengthen her negotiating position both within Kadima and vis-a-vis Israel's neighbors. But that, of course, is a very risky proposition.

Q. Syria, with its non-Sunni regime and alliance with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, is very much the odd-man out in the Arab world. Yet it has been negotiating peace with Israel and (see above) appears to be interested in continuing to do so. At the conceptual level, how does this very closed (some would say mafia-style) regime view the dynamics of the region and justify its quest for peace?

A. I recently had the opportunity to discuss this with a prominent Syrian intellectual who is close to the leadership and has been influential in formulating Syria's negotiating points and guiding its negotiating team. His reconstruction of regional events of recent years is very different from that of the Arab mainstream--not to mention Israel and the United States. Yet it is coherent and in some ways compelling. Hence it merits our attention.

According to this Syrian narrative, in 2001 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon received from US President George W. Bush carte blanche--later ratified by the Quartet--to pretend that Israel has no Arab interlocutor. This explains the following Israeli unilateral steps: the Gaza withdrawal, the "wall" (security fence), the attempt two years ago to disarm Hezbollah, and Sharon's systematic drive to destroy the Palestinian Authority.

Syria decided to challenge this direction of events, just as it sought to challenge the concomitant American occupation of Iraq, based as it was on a US belief that Iraq could serve as a platform to spread democracy and rebuild the region's collapsed political structure along lines congenial to Washington. In recent years the Syrians have counted no fewer than eight "collapsed" states in the wider region, from Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east to Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia and Sudan in the center and south of the region (I was unable to determine the identity of the eighth state).

Moreover, the "traditional" Arab leadership triangle of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria is now meaningless--a process that began as far back as Camp David I in 1978 and the Iraqi attack on Iran in 1980. Equally alarming to Damascus was the implication for the Arab-Israel sphere of the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah: that the Arab-Israel conflict could be "closed down" without resolving it (by dint of broad Arab state support for Israel in this conflict). Since 2006 it has been obvious to Syria that, under these circumstances, it is non-state actors (presumably referring to Hamas and Hezbollah) that can defend Arab interests. All this, with Syria feeling surrounded by hostile or unfriendly states following the US occupation of Iraq and the success (which increasingly looks temporary) of the March 14 movement in expelling its forces from Lebanon.

The current regional chaos worries Syria. No fewer than four crises overlap in the region: Lebanon, where a mere four-day hiatus without mediation led to the civil war-like explosion a few months ago that ushered in successful Qatari mediation and a new unity government; Gaza; Iraq; and Iran. Syria perceives a parallel European concern in its contacts with the European Union (presumably a reference to the recent Assad-Sarkozy talks). Indeed, in Damascus' view the four leaders (of Syria, France, Turkey and Qatar) who met a few weeks ago in the Syrian capital are the real moderates--not the Saudis and their allies.

Syria wants Israel, too, to understand that chaos is not in its interest and that peace can only be provided by powerful neighbors like itself. This is a reason for accelerating the current Syrian-Israeli peace process.

As noted, this is not the way most of us look at events and dynamics in the region. It is vaguely reminiscent of emerging Third World regimes in the 1970s (one wonders what role the regime in Damascus reserves for a resurgent Russia). But the Syrian approach is nothing if not instructive.

Most important, whatever the rationale, Syria wants peace with Israel. The latter has not hesitated to sign peace treaties with un-democratic regimes when this serves its strategic interest. And peace with Syria certainly does serve Israel's interest.