No tango in Paris
Jul 16th, 2008 by MESH
From David Schenker
This is a great video. The scene: the end of the Bastille Day festivities following the Mediterranean Union meeting in France last weekend. Syrian President Bashar Asad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stand just meters away. It’s an awkward moment. (Click here if you do not see the embedded clip.)
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Olmert moves toward Asad, but is temporarily thwarted when he is forced to shake hands with dignitaries. Asad senses the impending contact and moves away. But Olmert persists in the quest for the historic handshake. He stops to say hello to Egyptian President Mubarak.
Meanwhile, Asad remains just out of reach, chatting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and Qatari Emir Hamid bin Khalifa bin Thani. Moon breaks himself away from Asad to greet Olmert, perhaps relaying to the Israeli Prime Minister that Asad does not seek contact. Asad is shepherded past Olmert by the Emir. He stands alone, but out of the danger zone.
The scene really seems to capture the dynamic of the Turkish-sponsored Israeli-Syrian negotiations. Israel pursues, Syria plays hard to get. From the video clip, one might reasonably infer that Asad isn’t particularly interested in the peace endeavor. Or maybe Asad just believes that direct engagement now would be premature—some kind of reward for Israel.
We don’t know what Asad was thinking when he was ignoring Olmert. But we do know what he was saying during the meeting about the kind of deal he envisions with Israel. According to the summary of Asad’s interview with Al Jazeera that appeared on the Syrian Government Champress (thanks to Tony Badran of FDD for the link), Asad apparently does not envision “normalization”—‘alaqat tatbi’iya, the formulation in the Arab Initiative—but rather, ‘alaqat ‘adiya, or “routine” relations with Israel.
Although this likely won’t be a deal-breaker, this is already setting the bar pretty low. In any event, it certainly won’t generate confidence that Damascus will meet the Israeli quid pro quo of distancing itself from Tehran. But given the effort in Paris that Olmert was making to just touch Asad, one wonders whether this, too, might be negotiable.
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Asad’s evasiveness is hardly surprising. For the Syrians, since the beginning of the Madrid process every aspect of normal interaction would only be conceded at a price. Handshakes, sharing a cup of coffee or a joint photo had to be extracted. This had a very negative effect on Israeli public opinion. It was difficult for Ehud Barak to mobilize Israeli opinion to support withdrawl from the Golan when Faruq al-Shara refused to shake his hand in public. The efforts invested by us Israeli negotiators and the U.S. peace team in persuading Hafez al-Asad that without public diplomacy there would not be a deal, failed.
His son persists in this line and this has been exacerbated by two other facts:
• Both he and Olmert, when they began this give and take (remember, this is not even a negotiation, these are proximity talks through Turkey), were interested in the process and not necessarily in the substance; both saw tactical advantages accruing to them.
• Olmert is on his way out and Asad does not even try to conceal the change in attitude.
At this point, Asad is the clear beneficiary. Olmert facilitated his rehabilitation and Asad gave him nothing.
Itamar Rabinovich was Israel’s chief negotiator with Syria. He is visiting professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.