Yedioth Ahronoth and diplomatic correspondent Shimon Shiffer deserve all possible praise for their sensational story on Friday. Israel and Syria conducted peace negotiations in 2010 and 2011.
But the way the story was presented in some media outlets was unfair. These reporters made it sound as if they were criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who despite his views and declarations, was willing to give up the Golan Heights and return Israel to the Lake Kinneret coast. That's not really true.
The truth is that two years ago, Netanyahu conducted a complex negotiating process with Syrian President Bashar Assad - wisely, courageously and creatively. He achieved successes that no prime minister before him achieved. If it weren't for the Arab Spring, it is very likely Netanyahu would have been the one to sign the hoped-for peace agreement between Israel and Syria.
The following is the true story. In early 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama and Netanyahu decided to move forward toward peace in both the Palestinian and Syrian tracks. The Palestinian track received priority: Netanyahu's speech at Bar-Ilan University, a freeze on construction in the settlements, and a peace summit in Washington. But in September 2010 it turned out that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had led Netanyahu on, and the peace process with the Palestinians collapsed. As a result, Obama and Netanyahu began working together on a breakthrough with the Syrians.
Dennis Ross was the architect of the process on the American side, and Brig. Gen. (res. ) Michael Herzog, the former head of the Israel Defense Forces' strategic planning division and Defense Minister Ehud Barak's military secretary, was his Israeli counterpart. Frederic Hof, the U.S. State Department's special coordinator for the Middle East, was the chief operator on the American side, and Isaac Molho, Netanyahu's adviser and attorney, worked opposite him on the Israeli side. Barak, former National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, Netanyahu aide Ron Dermer and current National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror all made significant contributions.
But in the end, the person managing the affair was Netanyahu. In the final months of 2010 and the opening months of 2011, Netanyahu ran an impressive peace process. This peace process was different from previous peace negotiations in many ways: It was kept completely secret; it was designed as a joint Israeli-American initiative; and it was not based on an Israeli proposal or a Syrian offer, but on the gradual preparation of a joint peace treaty. As a result, Netanyahu could achieve results that his predecessors never could.
This time the Syrians were not given a unilateral Israeli promise as Yitzhak Rabin gave, and there was no dragging out of the process as happened under Shimon Peres and Barak. This time there was no prior commitment by Israel to withdraw to the June 4, 1967 lines, as with Ehud Olmert. The fertile and close cooperation between the Obama administration and Netanyahu's government defined a peace process that was leading the Syrians to a strategic divorce from Iran and Hezbollah - even before they received an explicit Israeli commitment to withdraw completely from the Golan Heights.
When Netanyahu became prime minister, this newspaper and this writer demanded that he try to make peace. In recent years, this paper and this writer criticized him, claiming he did not try to make peace. Now the picture has shifted 180 degrees. True, Netanyahu did not do enough vis-a-vis the Palestinians, but with the Syrians he took a major step. Obama too. The peace process of 2010-11 proves that the Israeli prime minister and American president worked together honestly and wisely to bring peace to the region.
There will be no peace with Syria in the next decade because the Arab Spring has sentenced it to death. As I wrote here a few months ago, looking back, it's not at all clear there was any chance of peace with Syria. But the affair exposed by Yedioth Ahronoth on Friday puts everything that went on here in the past three years in a different light. It also sheds new light on Benjamin Netanyahu. Actually, as far as the peace process is concerned, Israel's reviled prime minister deserves praise.
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