Will Israel be Blessed with Peace?
June 17, 2000

A verse from today's torah reading takes on special relevance in light of this week's events. The verse states: "this is how you shall bless the children of Israel" - ko t'varecho et B'nai Yisrael. What follows is a three fold blessing that culminates in a hope for peace - v'yashem lecyha shalom.

The question today's children of Israel are asking is: does the change of regimes in Syria hold forth the blessings of peace? The truth is that in this situation the future is particularly hard to predict. Firstly, Bashar Assad is a political unknown. In Syria there is no election campaign in which the candidate has to spell out his position on the vital issues facing his country including peace with Israel. Since Bashar has not had to articulate a position in public, his ideas are largely unknown.

Secondly, we don't know how long Bashar will last as President. His political backing comes from the Alawite religious community and from Syria's rubber stamp parliament. But the Alawites are a small minority in a country which is mostly Sunni Moslem. The Sunnis, who dominate business and the professions and who own the large estates, have long felt slighted. Now that the strong man, Hafez Assad, is gone, will the Sunnis rise up in rebellion? Will they now try to wrest power from the Alawites. And what about those Alawites who held high positions under Hafez Assad, including his brother, Rafaat, and were skipped over in favor of the son? Will they give up control or will they seek to undermine Bashar and take over themselves? It is worthy recalling that before Hafez Assad took the reigns of power in 1970, there had been twenty changes in regimes in two and a half decades. Will that instability return to Syria once again? As one pundit aptly remarked, "Bashar is the heir apparent. But is he the heir permanent?"

Most political analyst predict that if Bashar lasts or perhaps in order to last, he will not do anything dramatic regarding the peace process with Israel for a long time. He first has to establish his legitimacy in the eyes of the Syrian people which would hardly be accomplished by quickly signing a peace treaty with Israel. Analysts feel he cannot go where his father refused to go. Besides Bashar's focus will primarily be on the situation at home. Syria today has almost the lowest income per capita in the Arab world, even lower than Egypt. Second, the infrastructure is in shambles. Water supply, electricity, roads, communications and housing are way behind the needs of the rapidly growing population. Bashar will have to give speedy attention to these problems.

But despite these domestic distractions, the death of Hafez Assad may have moved the peace process forward simply because it was Hafez Assad's own personal stubbornness that kept a peace treaty with Israel from happening. The fact is that all that divided Assad from coming to terms with Israel was but a few hundred disputed yards on the Sea of Galilee at the foot of the Golan Heights. As former Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, said, Assad was always short a finger of two in reaching out to touch peace. His successor may find it easier - if not immediately - then eventually - to extend the whole hand.

Hafez Assad was a bitter enemy of Israel who cast a shadow over the entire Middle East. His son, Bashar, represents a new generation that would like to see Syria modernized and less isolated. Bashar was educated in England. He has seen what the west can offer. He speaks English well, unlike his father. After being back to Syria from England by his father, he became the spirit behind attempts to rejuvenate the decaying Syrian state. He sought to bring about long overdue government reforms and he declared war on the endemic corruption. He wasn't terribly successful in these endeavors, but his efforts indicate that his regime will be different from his father's.

However, there is possible worrisome scenario from the stand point of peace with Israel. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon left Syria without a trump card. Hafez Assad had hoped to force Israel into giving up more of the Golan heights than it wished by using his proxies in Lebanon to attack Israel's troops there. Israel's citizens were increasingly unwilling to accept casualties in Lebanon, and Assad thought he could use the weakness in Israel's resolve to wring concessions from Barak. Now Syria has lost that leverage. To help create new leverage, Israel's intelligence agencies report that Assad Senior was training Palestinians for attacks on the Galilee in the north of Israel. The volatile situation that would result from such political games would test even an experienced leader. Bashar Assad is hardly that. He has never before held a government post and though he is now Syria's commander-in-chief, he possess scant military training. A wrong move by this political and military novice in this unstable part of the world could cause the next Mideast conflict.

Still and all, there is hope that with the demise of Hafez Assad, eventually a new spirit will envelop Syria and that one of consequences will be a new attitude toward Israel. And as the giant shadow cast by Hafetz Assad is slowly dispelled, perhaps Israel and Syria will agree on terms that will bring about a peace that has been elusive for so many years.