fugitive peace

It’s official. They’ve failed. A poll today from Khalil Shikaki’s polling outfit, PSR, says that Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh would beat Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas in a Palestinian presidential election.

This is the same Hamas that America, Europe and Israel have been variously boycotting, bombing and generally trying to exterminate for the past two years. The Annapolis peace process was meant to make Abbas popular; the economic stranglehold on Gaza was supposed to make Hamas hated. Failed, failed, failed.

Maybe this is why Olmert has said not once but twice this month that he wants to talk to Syria. Whenever the “Palestinian track” looks like it’s on the rocks, Israel revives the idea of peace talks with the one neighbouring country that it has had almost no actual friction with since 1973.

Could Olmert be serious this time? For a while this week I thought so. This month, Israel’s security services gave the cabinet their annual intelligence estimate. According to the reports, the Mossad and military intelligence agree that if America and Israel offer Syria a good enough deal, it would be ready to cut ties with the people Israel and America don’t like — Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran.

Why this is interesting is because the Mossad used to think otherwise. Perhaps it now believes that after Israel’s mysterious air strike on Syria in September, and after the assassination of Hizbullah’s man Imad Mughniyeh there last month — which Israel denies, but everyone assumes it did — the Syrians are now more scared and readier to talk. Last month Israel seemed to make use of that momentum by warning Damascus that if Hizbullah attacks Israel again, Israel will strike Syria.

In other words, with your eyes half-closed it could look like Israel is threatening Syria with consequences for bad behaviour while offering it a carrot for good behaviour — trying to lower Syria’s price.

And if you really read into the subtle nuances, Olmert seems to be lowering Israel’s price. Alon Liel, an Israeli diplomat who held back-channel talks with a Syrian expat from 2004 to 2006 (and who leaps on any sign of an Israeli-Syrian thaw), pointed out to me that Olmert has floated Syria talks about 10 or 15 times in the past 10 months. Often, he’s added the condition that Syria break its “Axis of Evil” ties first. But the last couple of times he’s said that negotiations could “lead to” Syria’s breaking those ties, a hint that he’s not so concerned about the preconditions any more.

The trouble is, a lot of senior Israelis are sceptical that Syria will simply turn its back on its old allies even if it gets back the Golan Heights and peace with Israel in return.

And outside Israel there’s even more scepticism. Recently various Western high-ups have been saying how disappointed they are with Syria. We heard it from a senior British official who came to Jerusalem last week; Angela Merkel said it today (German); Nicolas Sarkozy said it in December; George Bush says it every Monday and Thursday. Syria policy, Josh Landis says, is “the last red meat for the ‘freedom agenda’ crowd in the Republican Party” and is run by the last remaining neocons in the administration.

And Olmert, even if he wants to, can’t go against the American administration.

So don’t expect the talk of peace with Syria to come true. Take it, instead, as a sign of just how hopeless the Annapolis process has truly become.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 12:05 am and is filed under Annapolis, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian politics, Syria, spin, talks.