A flurry of indirect talks between Israel and its closest enemies — Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas — may not bring peace, but it could help the Israelis contain a future war with arch-foe Iran.
Speculation Israel and its United States ally might bomb Tehran’s nuclear sites has generated a region-rattling reprisal scenario: ballistic missiles from Iran and rockets fired by its Islamist allies across the Jewish state’s border, with Syrian support.
That spells a strategic bind for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has vowed to deny Iran the means to make atomic weapons but wants to avoid a reprise of the 2006 Lebanon war, when Hezbollah shelling drove a sixth of Israel’s population into shelters.
Stop-gap rapprochement appears to be one Olmert recourse. In recent weeks he has unveiled Turkish-mediated peace talks with Syria, accepted an Egyptian-brokered truce in Hamas-ruled Gaza and approved a prisoner swap with Hezbollah — giving some ground, de facto, to those Israel condemns as Iranian proxies.
Some deride Olmert’s multiple moves as intended to distract from a graft scandal but many see real diplomatic potential.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak voiced hope the contacts with Syrian President Bashar Assad would ”remove [Damascus] from the circle of belligerence”.
A member of Olmert’s security Cabinet said similar logic could apply to Hamas and Hezbollah.
In any future war with Iran, the security Cabinet official said on condition of anonymity, ”whether its proxies join in depends on us persuading them that they have much more to gain, as well as much less to lose, by keeping out. And that means serious and sincere Israeli engagement of some kind or another”.
Those familiar with the thinking of Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas argue that current contacts with Israel, despite the intercession of major powers like Turkey and Egypt, are nowhere near advanced enough to offset their longtime loyalties to Iran.
Israeli-Syrian disputes over the future of the occupied Golan Heights remain deep, and Hamas and Hezbollah show no sign of forswearing commitments to destroying Israel.
”There is a very strong feeling of partnership among all three,” said Patrick Seale, a British expert on the Middle East who has written extensively on Assad. ”In the event of an attack on Iran, it would be very difficult for them to stay out.”
Michael Oren, an American-Israeli military historian, said that Olmert ”is undoubtedly engaging in multi-dimensional diplomacy in order to isolate Iran and neutralise its allies”. But he added: ”Negotiations are no guarantee of neutrality.”
Principle vs precedent
Though Syria has defence pacts with Iran going back 30 years and Hamas and Hezbollah look to Tehran for material support, lock-step policymaking among them is not a given — especially as divisions and self-interest inevitably arise in wartime.
Assad, who will see Olmert at a multinational summit in Paris this weekend, did not retaliate for Israel’s bombing last September of a Syrian desert facility which the CIA described as a nascent nuclear reactor, amid denials by Damascus.
Hamas held its fire during Israel’s 2006 assault on Hezbollah, as did Hezbollah when Israel intensified its Gaza strikes in February and March.
That latter restraint followed a message secretly passed by the Olmert government to Assad that it would hold Syria responsible for any major aggression by Hezbollah.
Still, the consensus among experts is that Hezbollah would be likely to attack Israel on behalf of — or perhaps even in lieu of — Iran, its Shi’ite patron. Sunni Hamas and secular Syria are seen preferring indirect or deferred retaliation.
”Hamas effectively has a state in Gaza, and that means that, like Syria, it has concerns about national self-preservation,” said Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser to Olmert.
An Arab diplomat close to the Palestinians said the June 19 truce, which gave Israel respite from Hamas rockets and Hamas respite from Israel’s embargo on Gaza, ”helps moderate Hamas”.
But the situation could quickly unravel, the diplomat said, should a marginal Palestinian faction like Islamic Jihad renew attacks in support of Iran, drawing Israeli crackdowns on Gaza.
The impending prisoner swap in which Israel will recover two soldiers whose seizure by Hezbollah triggered the 2006 war may put that conflict to rest, but not Lebanese enmity. A similar 2004 exchange did nothing to prevent the war two years later.
Yet Israel may be on the verge of mollifying a last major Lebanese grievance by agreeing to give up the Shebaa Farms, a small, occupied border zone. Washington last month urged a resolution to that dispute, which also involves Syria.
A Lebanese political source said that while Hezbollah ”would oblige” if Iran wanted to open a second front against Israel, ”eventual withdrawal from Shebaa Farms would place the group under increased pressure, especially internally, regarding the continued presence of its armed wing and its margin to engage Israel in anything other than purely defensive measures”. – Reuters