It is not often that a comprehensive, carefully researched and readable book appears smack in the midst of events, destined to lead to radical changes in the history of a whole region and in future relations between its peoples. Syria and Israel is just such a work, and to say that it is a timely and highly topical work almost amounts to an understatement.
Nothing is missing here. Professor Moshe Ma'oz, a noted authority on modern Syria, and the author of several books and studies on various aspects of its history and political structure, has managed to cover the ground fully and meticulously. He opens with a brief but adequate sketch of the historical setting, in which the 100-year dispute between Arab nationalists and Zionists is perceived as alternately dialogue and conflict between two nationalist movements.
Where Syria itself as part of this dispute was concerned, a slight chance can be said to have existed for an accord between the two parties during the French Mandate. However, when the Mandate was terminated and Syria became an independent republic in 1946, the Pan-Arabs there gained the upper hand, as did the view that Palestine, Arab Palestine, should be an inseparable part of an all-Arab unity. Thus ended whatever measure of dialogue had gone on between the Syrians and the Zionists - who in the meantime had unwittingly helped to complete the circle by publicly set¬ting themselves what appeared to be new goals, "not only of pursuing free Jewish immigration to Palestine, but also of the establishment of a 'Jewish commonwealth' there."
And so, by the mid-1940s, the respective positions of the two parties tended to harden, and chances for any kind of meaningful dialogue reced¬ed completely. The 1948 war, too, ended in a standstill, and all subsequent efforts to reach a peace agreement failed for reasons for which both sides were to blame in equal measure, though some observers, including Israelis in key positions, put much of the blame on the Israeli side. All of this resulted inevitably in what Ma'oz calls a zero-sum conflict between Jerusalem and Damascus.
The domestic, regional and global factors at play in this conflict are bared in what for this reviewer are the most instructive and enlightening chapters of the book. For, after all is said and done, it was in the first few years that followed the final failure of peace negotiations, in May 1953, that the Syrian-Israeli conflict crystallized into the impasse that was to continue for four long decades and more. As the author puts it, "While the Ben-Gurion-Dayan hard line towards Syria (and other Arab states) con¬tinued to predominate .. .Syria's attitudes towards Israel became, after 1954, more militant, owing to significant domestic political changes, as well as to regional and global factors."
As far as Israel and Israeli attitudes are concerned, the domestic political factors analyzed by the author are largely focused on differences of approach between Ben-Gurion and his foreign minister, Moshe Sharett. While he takes fully into account the Syrian - and Egyptian ¬growing hostility toward Israel, Ma'oz considers as "no less crucial" what he terms "the predominance of Ben-Gurion's activist, hawkish approach over Sharett's moderate, diplomatic line." "Whereas Sharett considered [peace with the Arabs] Israel's first priority and advocated the use of diplomacy, Ben-Gurion relegated it to a secondary position while continuing to employ force against the Arabs."
The global factors at play in this zero-sum conflict - the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Arab Republic (Egypt) - are dealt with in a separate chapter, after which we come to the establishment of a radi¬cal Ba'ath party regime in Damascus in March 1963, by means of a military coup. From there on it was, in the words of the title of one of the book's chapters, "Ba'athist Extremism and Israeli Activism," and the all-but unstoppable march toward the Six-Day War was started. According to the author, the major cause for the Syrian-Israeli escalation into that war was the diversion of the River Jordan, "which Israel was determined to pursue and Syria to arrest." When the issue was subsequently compounded by Syrian-sponsored guerilla operations inside Israel, Israeli retaliatory raids against Syria, Egyptian threats and Soviet accusations, war became almost inevitable, and hostilities duly broke out on June 5 of 1967.
With the defeat suffered by Syria in this war, the Syrian-Israeli conflict reached'its highest point. This is because, as Ma'oz puts it, "in addition to its ideological antagonism, its commitment to the Palestinian plight, and its search for domestic legitimacy, the Syrian regime now had other crucial motives for its conflict with Israel: the painful defeat of the army, the loss of the Golan Heights, and the deployment of Israeli troops 40 miles from the Syrian capital."
From there, just a little more than six years after the victory of the six days came the Yom Kippur War of 1973, dubbed by General Dayan as "an earthquake." The consequences of that war, at least as far as Hafez al¬Assad of Syria was concerned, can best be described as a paradox. On the face of it, the Syrians definitely were the losers in that war on the battle¬field, their advancing forces swiftly and effectively pushed back and the capital, Damascus, coming within easy reach of the Israel Defense Forces.
And yet, Assad ultimately managed to turn this military reverse into a substantial victory, at least in the eyes of the majority of Syrians and many Arabs. This is attributed by the author to Assad's "bold conduct of the fighting, his decision to carryon without Egypt in a war of attrition against Israel, his tough and skillful negotiations with Kissinger." Assad indeed left such an impression on the outside world that many Syrians and other Arabs now considered him the new Pan-Arab leader and Gamal Abdul Nasser's worthy successor, "while several Arab states offered Syria military, diplomatic, and financial support, and various Western leaders, including Nixon, acknowledged his influential position in the Middle East." In contrast - and to make the paradox complete - Israel, despite its sweeping military victory, "emerged from the war ... deeply shaken and hurt."
It was thus that a brand-new chapter was opened in the history of the conflict between the two countries. Following Golda Meir's resignation from the premiership in April 1974, Yitzhak Rabin as the new prime minister seemed in many ways a perfect match to Assad. The two had at least one thing in common: "Both ... were former military leaders and war heroes - Rabin in 1967 and Assad in 1973. Assad's achievements in 1973 gave him the status of an unchallenged leader with all-Arab prestige. Rabin, the first Israeli-born prime minister, owed his ascendancy to his able conduct of the 1967 victory."
Strange as it may now sound, the peace-making process between Israel and Syria got under way almost immediately after Rabin appeared on the stage. "If we are to achieve further progress with Egypt," Rabin declared in his first speech as prime minister, "it will be necessary to examine whether Syria is ready to sign a peace treaty with Israel" This was said 22 years ago almost to the day, and it is a somber thought to reflect that throughout those long years the question as to whether Syria did want to sign a peace treaty, and if so what kind of peace that treaty would envis¬age, was asked abnormally frequently. Assad kept his cool and refused adamantly to join a peace process which seemed to pass him over, leaving him alone in the arena with Israel.
However, as Ma'oz reminds us, right at the opening sentence of his Preface, "No Arab-Israeli war is possible without Egypt, and no Arab-¬Israeli peace is possible without Syria." Now that a peace treaty between Syria and Israel seems to be in full sight, Ma'oz in his concluding remarks refers to "the major historic task and challenge still ahead" for both Jerusalem and Damascus to face - namely, "to transform a political agreement...into genuine peace and normalization between the two peoples by shattering the psychological barrier of mistrust, hate, and fear through education, cultural exchange, and economic cooperation."
These, obviously, are not easy tasks to set, especially where the Syrians are concerned. But they are not impossible to perform - given the will.