For decades Prof. Itamar Rabinovich has studied the Middle East, analyzing Israel's complex status in the region and documenting its attempts to achieve peace with its neighbors. For four years (1993-1996) he himself took an active part in the diplomatic efforts as Israel's ambassador to the United States and head of the Israeli delegation to negotiations with Syria, as Yitzhak Rabin's envoy. (After Rabin's assassination, Rabinovich continued as ambassador under Shimon Peres but not as head of the delegation.)
In the epilogue to his new book, "The Lingering Conflict: Israel, the Arabs and the Middle East 1948-2011" (newly published in Hebrew; published in English by Brookings Institution Press in November 2011), Rabinovich writes that in the past year, "Israel's relationship with the Arab world and its strategic position in the Middle East reached a particularly low point."
Rabinovich believes that much of what has occurred in the region recently, and particularly what was initially called the Arab Spring, was not dependent on anything Israel did. From its perspective, the gloomy regional situation began 10 years ago , and Israel in response relied on anchors from the old order, notably the peace treaties and security coordination with the authorities in Egypt and Jordan. Those old props have now been called into serious question. Concurrently, other worrisome developments are unfolding in the region, especially Iran's effort to produce nuclear weapons, the growing hegemony of Turkey - a former strategic partner but now a bitter rival - and the waning influence of the United States.
"The transition to asymmetrical military confrontation, the threat posed by missiles and rockets to the Israeli rear and the collapse of the peace process have come together to create a more difficult situation than Israel faced a decade ago," Rabinovich tells Haaretz. "These are causes for pessimism. On the Palestinian track, I am afraid that the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas], is not ready to sign off on the end of the conflict. That is a function of his personal ideology, his character and his historical location. In the end, he is a 1948 refugee. On the other side, a rigid right-wing government is in power in Israel. One of its key members, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, speaking at a ceremony in which he presented the "Moskowitz Prize for Zionism," called for the renunciation of the two-state vision.
"We have a weak Palestinian side with question marks about its desire and ability to reach a final-status agreement," Rabinovich says. "In the background there is Hamas, which is capable of sabotaging a settlement, if it were achieved. At the moment it is impossible to reach a full settlement with the Palestinians. Two bold moves, by Ehud Barak [in 2000] and Ehud Olmert [in 2008], did not generate a Palestinian quid pro quo. For the time being, in the absence of a partner for a final settlement, with the right-wing government that is in power here and in light of the regional uncertainty, even though I am critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu, I would not advise him to enter into far-reaching territorial compromises. I would wait with that. I can definitely understand the desire to see what is happening around us first."
At the same time, Rabinovich opposes "the creeping Israeli annexation in the West Bank" and regrets "the lack of an effort to reach partial settlements in the Palestinian arena." Israel, he says, should engage in regional diplomacy and not remain a passive bystander. "But we also have to bear in mind that at least until the elections in November, the United States is not a player. And if the Republicans win, it will take them time to get organized afterward. For all these reasons, I do not see any major relevant move being made in the near future."
'Assad will fall'
Rabinovich gained most of his academic prestige, in Israel and abroad, from his research on Syria and Lebanon. Concerning the current situation of Syrian President Bashar Assad, he says, "His fate is sealed. Bashar will fall. I have said that since the first escalation in the fighting with the opposition, at the beginning of last summer. In the meantime, Assad is unable to neutralize the resistance, whereas the weak and divided opposition is not succeeding in toppling him. A prolonged and even more murderous civil war is liable to break out in Syria, together with a large-scale refugee crisis and the spillover of the violence into Lebanon and Iraq. The Syrian government has lost control of large sections of the country. Even after the massacre that Assad's father perpetrated against the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, 30 years ago, he retained legitimacy. But the younger Assad has lost legitimacy completely."
Since leaving diplomacy, including the period in which he served as president of Tel Aviv University (1999-2007), Rabinovich has extensively analyzed the political processes between Israel and its neighbors. In his 1999 book "The Brink of Peace," he documented the failed peace negotiations with Damascus during the period of Rabin and Peres. Another 1999 book, "Waging Peace: Israel and the Arabs at the End of the Century," offered a concise account of the political and diplomatic contacts. "The Lingering Conflict," an expanded and updated revision of "Waging Peace," explains, in the author's characteristically clear and articulate style, everything that went wrong in the long years of negotiations in the various arenas, though not overlooking the lone successes: the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.
Rabinovich also locates the major regional missed opportunity around that same time, namely the failure of the negotiations with Syria during the Rabin period. "The critical turning point was the gambit that Rabin presented to Secretary of State Warren Christopher on August 3, 1993," he says. This took the form of a hypothetical question: outlining the Israeli terms for a future peace settlement, implicit in which was readiness for a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights, based on the expectation of a detailed Syrian reply.
"An opportunity was missed there," Rabinovich says. "The gambit could have been transformed into the basis for an Israeli-Syrian peace treaty, in which case the peace process would have been predicated on a Syrian cornerstone, before progress was made with the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat's centrality would have changed, and with it everything that followed."
And if we had given the Golan Heights back to the Syrians, what would we look like today, in light of the massacres being perpetrated by them?
"If Syria had signed a peace treaty with us, it would not be in the situation in which it now finds itself. One of the reasons Hafez Assad reached the finish line [of an agreement] but did not cross it was his fear that the regime would lose its raison d'etre. How do you justify such a vast military and intelligence machine when the Israeli enemy has ceased to be an enemy? By then, Assad had embarked on the [Anwar] Sadat road, which he had rejected contemptuously in 1977. Sadat came to terms with Israel and drew closer to the United States. The Syrians wanted the same. If Syria had signed an agreement with us, it would not have become a parliamentary democracy, but deep, positive transformations would have taken place in both Syria and Lebanon.
"Rabin asked me to try to find out if it would be possible to reach a peace agreement with the Syrians. He did not tell me explicitly that he would withdraw fully from the Golan Heights, but it was clear he was ready to go very far. In the [1992] election campaign, which he won, he said explicitly that he would not withdraw from the Golan Heights. Afterward, he started to have second thoughts. Rabin did not believe in comprehensive agreements but in a step-by-step approach. He examined both tracks - the Syrian and the Palestinian - concurrently. With the Syrians it was impossible to achieve a true dialogue, not even via the Americans. [Hafez] Assad insisted on an Israeli commitment to withdraw fully from the Golan. Before that, Assad refused to detail exactly how he saw the final agreement.
"In the meantime," Rabinovich continues, "the negotiations with the Palestinians moved on to the Oslo track. In July 1993, Rabin faced a dilemma. On the one hand, the Oslo Accords were ready for signing; on the other, we had made a modicum of progress with the Syrians. The atmosphere had improved, though there was no breakthrough.
"Rabin was very ambivalent about Oslo. He felt an obligation to clarify whether he had a Syrian option, and then he conceived the idea of the gambit [known in Hebrew as the "pikadon" - the deposit]. With it he tried to advance the negotiations.
"Warren Christopher arrived in Israel at the beginning of August. Dennis Ross and I were also both present in the meeting in Rabin's bureau. It was then that Rabin dropped his bombshell and gave Christopher the 'deposit.' 'It is in your pocket,' he said. 'Do not put it on the table [in talks with the Syrians]. If the story leaks, I will withdraw the deposit.'
"I have no proof for this, but my impression is that the Americans did in fact present the gambit to Assad, who immediately said, 'Yes, but...' And then he started the bargaining from the point Rabin had reached. That immediately narrowed the scope of the discussions, because the principle of full withdrawal was already a given.
"Assad was unwilling to invest even an ounce of effort in public diplomacy. In the direct talks, in an informal encounter by the coffee machine, Muwaffaq Allaf, the head of the Syrian delegation, said to me, 'I hope your government understands that Assad cannot receive from you less than Sadat received before him.' I replied that we hoped Assad understood that he had to give in exchange what Sadat offered. One of the things Sadat gave to Menachem Begin was the work he did vis-a-vis the Israeli public - his willingness to speak in the Knesset.
"Assad believed in negotiating only from strength, in applying pressure up to the last minute. He did not want to grasp the fact that by arming Hezbollah and sending it into action against us in southern Lebanon, he was making the Israeli public continue to view him as an enemy. That is why the campaign of 'The nation stands with the Golan' focused on the negative image of the elder Assad - and it succeeded.
"And then, in August 1993, the Americans went on their summer vacation. There was no real follow-up to Rabin's gambit. By the time they got back, the negotiations on the Oslo Accords had become public and the agreement with the Palestinians was concluded. If you had arrived at a moment when Rabin, of all people, was ready to withdraw from the Golan, the right thing to do was to remain in the region and try to finish it off. It was a mistake by Bill Clinton's people to go home. All the parties made mistakes all along the way."
Rabinovich adds that if "Rabin was ambivalent about agreements, Hafez Assad certainly was. In 1995, after the second meeting between the respective army chiefs of staff - Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Hikmat Shihabi - Rabin told me it wouldn't work out with Assad in this way. Only when geopolitical pressure could be exerted on him, from Iraq or via Lebanon, would it be possible to move forward, but this would not be during the present term of office.
"Henry Kissinger spent a month in the region in 1974 to work out the separation-of-forces agreements [with Egypt]. If Christopher had done the same, history might have changed - or, of course, it might not have.
"In 1994, when President Clinton visited Damascus, after the signing of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty in the Arava desert, Assad drove with him in the car to the airport and told him: 'If we sign, I want to get what the Egyptians are getting' - meaning economic and security aid. But Clinton was drowsy and didn't take in what he had heard. The Americans actually wanted to advance the Syrian agreement under their mediation. Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk preferred the Syrian track: Already then, they wanted to distance Syria from Iran, and they thought this would have a positive regional effect. The assumption was that Assad was ripe for signing and also to deliver the goods afterward.
"When Rabin decided to present the gambit, he wanted an agreement with Syria and a gradual process with the Palestinians. After the opportunity was missed, the Syrian pillar did not come through and the process was built on the Palestinian pillar. If the process had been conducted with both pillars, the foundation would have been more solid and Arafat would have lost bargaining chips."
Another failed attempt to reach an agreement with the Syrians was made by Ehud Barak in 2000. "I did not take part in the Shepherdstown talks," Rabinovich says. "There, too, the three parties made mistakes. If the Syrians thought that Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa could refuse to shake Barak's hand even in private, they were wrong. What kind of message was that? What did the Israeli public glean from that behavior?
"It's hard for me to impute responsibility in percentages," Rabinovich says. "The Americans claim we missed an opportunity, but in March 2000, in Geneva, the meeting between Clinton and Assad broke down within seven minutes, when Assad said no. The failure cannot be divorced from his physical and mental state [Assad died three months later]. He had already begun to forget names, and beforehand he had an absolute memory."
I put it to Rabinovich that although he regrets missing the chance for peace with the Syrians, many Israelis, viewing the images of the massacres there, say it's fortunate that we were not lured into signing an agreement with them. Indeed, some people are wondering whether there might be excessive brutality embedded in the Syrian national character, if it can be described in those terms. After all, Hosni Mubarak did not allow his security forces to mow down opponents in this way. For years there were also stories in Israel about how the treatment of the Israeli POWs in the Yom Kippur War was crueler in Syria than in Egypt.
"I don't think there was a difference in the treatment of POWs," Rabinovich replies. "But there is no doubt that the Syrian and Egyptian cultures are radically different. I also saw that in the interaction with them regarding the peace process. When you walk down an Egyptian street, people smile at you. In the Levant they scowl. In Syria, as in Iraq, the culture is more brutal. On the other hand, you can look at it from the opposite perspective and admire the courage of the Syrian citizens who are demonstrating against the regime in the knowledge that it is liable to cost them their life or land them in prison and torture. The fear barrier there has been shattered."
You spoke about the missed opportunity of the gambit, but wasn't Rabin's assassination the major reason for the fading of the talks?
"There is something to that. When [Rabin's assassin] Yigal Amir was allowed to vote in the elections, [New York Times columnist] Tom Friedman called him 'The man who voted twice.' I don't have an answer to the question of whether we would have achieved final-status agreements in the 1990s if Rabin had not been assassinated. I think there was a good prospect of that, because of the force of Rabin's personality, his status as a security authority and his ability to have his way with the public. The Rabin-Peres connection was complex, but helped in this regard."
Rabin wasn't the only one. Ariel Sharon also knew how to get things done.
"Sharon had the same ability, without question. I found it very interesting to write the chapter about Sharon in the book. I was a sharp critic of his approach in Lebanon in 1982. But I saw the transformation he underwent in his years as prime minister. It was Sharon who won the confrontation with the Palestinians in the second intifada and extracted Israel from what looked like its deepest crisis since its establishment. He achieved a status comparable to that of Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion established the state, Sharon gave it back to us. Sharon stopped the intifada and acquired an unprecedented public status. He matured when he reached the position of ultimate responsibility. I do not accept the argument that the disengagement from Gaza was his attempt to get media support in the face of the criminal investigations against him. It went deeper than that."
In the epilogue to the book you describe the Netanyahu government as possessing a nationalist, right-wing, aggressive ideology that abets the thwarting of peace efforts. But this government was not elected by chance: The Israeli public is leaning increasingly to the right. In the eyes of the average voter, the Israeli withdrawals, the Oslo Accords, the withdrawal from Lebanon and the disengagement from Gaza brought more harm than benefit.
"In 2006, Ehud Olmert presented the 'convergence plan,' which derived from the Second Lebanon War. Subsequently, there was only a hair's breadth between Tzipi Livni and the formation of a government. There is a difference between a hypothetical and a concrete situation. If a vote were taken today on a settlement similar to the one that Olmert offered Abu Mazen four years ago, 70 percent of the public would probably oppose it. But if you proposed it with the whole supportive envelope of final-status agreements and their inherent advantages, the balance of forces could be reversed. We need to place great emphasis on the strength of leadership, the kind that Rabin and Sharon possessed, and its ability to achieve agreements."
Front Page Features