Secret Talks

The buzz in the air is certainly an infatuation with politics. But as excited as I am about tomorrow’s U.S. presidential election, let’s take a break from the navel-gazing American politics, and talk about politics somewhere else. How about in my backyard? It is not as uni-dimensional as people think, and I am constantly unraveling the byzantine politics of the Middle East.

Last year at this time I was beginning to piece together so much of the roiling politics of the Middle East. I was especially engaged when HMK (that’s the code for His Majesty, the King) lectured here at KA in November about the vagaries of peace in the Middle East. So much Sisyphean hope attached to the then-upcoming Annapolis talks. Let’s consider what has been happening in the last few months in the Middle Eastern stew.

In early June 2008, in a surprise announcement, Israel and Syria revealed that they had been holding secret peace negotiations to return the Golan Heights to the Arab nation! I don’t know if you had your jaw drop at that disclosure—but it should. For the first time since 2000, Israel and Syria met to discuss the status of this disputed territory—a 460- square mile plateau nestled amid the borders of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. The Golan Heights is a strategic plateau that Israel captured during the Six Day War in 1967, and Syria has long wanted it back. (Syria acquired this land as part of its independence from France in 1944.) To make this deal happen, Israel wants Syria to end support for Hamas and Hezbollah and to distance itself from Iran.

Without Syria’s military and financial support, Hezbollah couldn’t pose a threat to Israel from its base in Lebanon. In the longer term, peace between S&I would mean a realignment of the Middle East that would leave Iran without any allies in the region. This is exactly what HMK deemed as the important step so that that hot-box-of-crazy Iran would become less relevant. Hmmm…maybe it is time to give the stick a rest and offer Damascus a carrot or two.

I have a new student named Dana who happily offers a dollop of cynicism anytime we mention the idealism of peace in the world (“like you know it’s impossible, Mr. John) But Dana, even if these negotiations fail, let’s remember that this is a Middle Eastern-generated peace work. That has to count for something.

Let’s look at what the practicalities are behind this plan. Okay, territorial surrender, yes. There are about 18,000 Israelis who live there and this area accounts for mucho tourist dollars…it gives Israel complete control of the Sea of Galilee, and that provides Israel with 35% of its drinking water—an important thing in this arid part of the world. Most of the Golan’s 100,000 Arabs fled during the 1967 war, and have not been allowed to return. If you remember my blog entry from last spring’s Mother’s Day, I was at Um Qais with Anne and Martha, and by dusk hundreds of people had gathered to stare longingly into this former motherland.…The area is less than half the size of Rhode Island.

The biggest reason Israel retains the Golan is its strategic military value: from atop Mount Hermon, Israel can look deep into Syrian territory and pre-empt any surprise attacks. Returning the territory would involve many thorny problems, including compensating Israeli settlers and making up for lost commerce—the Golan provides Israel with beef, and wine and orchards.

Okay, let’s take off our rose-colored glasses (but I like the rose-colored glasses so much!!) Were these “secret talks” (umm, are they still considered “secret” if news magazines and bloggers everywhere have learned of them?) just a distraction from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s corruption scandals? Is it just a peace scare? Is it just posturing? Do both sides simply want to be seen as aspiring to peace so that the other side looks rejectionist?

What would both gain? Is Israel scared of Syria’s massive arms program? Syrian President Assad may be worried about the Syrian economy, and to revive it he needs to renew ties with the US and end Syria’s international isolation. If Assad does this, billions of dollars in aid and loans would come his way. Does peace stand a chance?

Last month Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned, having led what many concede as the worst Israeli government in the 60-year history of the country. Olmert inherited the job in 2006 after a stroke incapacitated then-leader Ariel Sharon. There is a cornucopia of examples of corruptions, incompetence and greed—finally his own party forced him to resign. Olmert successor is Tzipi Livni, a 50-year old whose parents had fought with a guerrilla group for a Jewish state in the 1940s. However, she is going to be very interesting to watch because she has, in the past, been an outspoken advocate for a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict. Oh, my. Now we are getting even more interesting. What is she really like? How radical is she?

I read on-line some editorials from the press in Tel Aviv; one commented that Livni’s is a victory of image over a victory of substance. (We never have that in U.S. politics!! Hmmm…at least going back to the American advertising coup of “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!” that has long been how governments earn a place in the US—oh, I promised to not discuss American politics today—sorry!) I asked a good friend here in Jordan what she thought about Livni’s accession. She replied, ”I guess what it looks like to me is that after the incompetence of Olmert, the Israelis are longing for something good—and she seems to be that good. You know there is a word going around the world these days, and that is hope. I think she won on a platform of hope.” According to the government she has six weeks to put together a functioning, coalition government. If she can do a competent job, she may succeed in transforming the hope she radiates into a real plan of action.

There is more good news emanating from the Middle East. A couple weeks ago Syria announced it would open diplomatic relations with Lebanon. Frankly, I didn’t know they had not exchanged ambassadors—see, I learn something almost every day! The two countries were separated when France and Britain carved up the wheezing Ottoman empire after the First World War. When they became independent in the 1940s, they remained tied by the desire of many Syrians to be one country again, and so each dug in its heels, refusing to recognize the sovereignty of the other country. Is this a turning point? Maybe! Yet mutual suspicions run high, and many players would like to see the reconciliation fail. Will there be mature leadership to guide this rapprochement?


Last week at this time Jordan played a historic football game (let’s remember the translation—football outside of the United States means soccer). Jordan played Palestine. It is the first game Palestine has ever played on its own soil. In a funny twist of history and irony, Palestine is probably the only football nation to have a home game, but no state.

If you know me well, or even a little bit, you know I struggle to enjoy sports. I memorize some sports trivia and call my brother-in-law, hoping for a little validation. But when sports and history collide, oh man, I love the action! This summer I read that great book on the 1960 Olympics and practically drooled. Anyway, I digress.

This soccer match is important in that it adds legitimacy to Palestinians in their quest for independence and freedom. It tugs at the heart to hear the stories and the plea for change we can believe in to see the Occupation end. I read that the international football federation pressured Israel to allow Palestinians to build the stadium, train together, and host this game. It is just a game—but it is a start. People talk of sporting sanctions against Israel, about banning Israel from international competition until its occupation of Palestinian lands ends. Look at how sport affected the transformation of South Africa: sporting sanctions helped collapse the apartheid regime and transform the hope into a real plan of action.

When I mentioned to Dana, that cynical adolescent, that one must be infused with the high ideals of change, she rolled her eyes, and offered a withering, “Please!” That’s okay Dana—let’s have a toast to change, to hope, and offer up the words of 19th century poet, John Keats:

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veiled face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head.