Israel confirms talks with Syria

[Jedburgh]

CSIS, 25 Nov 08: The Israeli and Syrian Conventional Military Balance

There are significant uncertainties in the force counts of Israeli and Syrian forces available from unclassified sources. Any assessment of the Israel-Syrian military balance must also address the fact that strength measured in force numbers can be very different from strength measured in terms of force quality. Force size has only limited meaning as a measure of military capability or merit, unless it can be related to force quality. Leadership, the ability to conduct joint and combined operations, morale, and the ability to sustain complex cycles of rapid maneuver warfare are just a few of the aspects of force quality that can overcome superiority in force quantity.....

Complete 33 page paper at the link.

Edit to add: CSIS, 25 Nov 08: Israeli-Syrian Air and SAM Strength Analysis: Working Estimates of Force Numbers and Location

[Jedburgh]

USIP, Mar 09: Mapping Peace Between Syria and Israel

Summary

• Syrian-Israeli “proximity” peace talks orchestrated by Turkey in 2008 revived a long-dormant track of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Although the talks were suspended because of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, Israeli-Syrian peace might well facilitate a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.

• Syria’s “bottom line” for peace with Israel is the return of all the land seized from it by Israel in June 1967. This includes the Golan Heights plateau and small tracts in the Jordan River Valley—acreage that adjoins bodies of water vitally important to Israel’s economy and of marginal use to Syria.

• Israel’s “bottom line” for peace with Syria is the strategic reorientation of Damascus away from Iran, Hezbollah, and certain Palestinian organizations, most notably Hamas.

• Rejecting the argument that peace with Israel obliges it to break relations with others, Damascus has indicated that an American presence at the peace talks would produce direct Syrian-Israeli interactions and that a drastically improved Syria-U.S. bilateral relationship must be a by-product of Syrian-Israeli peace.

• Because the withdrawal process itself could take several years, the implementation phase of the treaty will be just as important (if not more so) than the drafting of it.

• If the parties could reach agreement on purely bilateral issues—boundary, water, frontier security regime, and normalization—and sign a treaty of peace, each side would have the needed time to measure the performance and gauge the intentions of the other.

• It will not be easy for any Israeli government to rally the requisite public and Knesset support to give Syria its sine qua non for peace. Among other things, withdrawal to the June 4, 1967, line would give Syria beachfront property on the northeastern quadrant of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s national reservoir.

• Beyond treaty provisions dealing specifically with water and demilitarization, one treaty-related gesture Damascus might consider making to ameliorate Israeli concerns about a new boundary in the Jordan Valley would be to create a Jordan Valley–Golan Heights Environmental Preserve under Syrian sovereignty.

• Such a preserve could help to protect sensitive and stressed water resources in the valley and on the heights. It could also facilitate easy access by civilians from Israel to the full circumference of the Sea of Galilee and perhaps up into those parts of the Golan Heights covered by the preserve.

• While there are many approaches to the creation, size, purpose, and functioning of such a preserve, the one suggested in this report would be based on existing parks and reserves created by Israel during the occupation, which would be transferred to and administered by Syria.

• In addition to mitigating Israeli concerns about the return of sensitive territories and providing a venue for informal people-to-people contacts, the Jordan Valley–Golan Heights Environmental Preserve approach would give the parties a good platform for practical bilateral cooperation even as the ink on a peace treaty is drying, allowing for a constructive, confidence-building start to the implementation phase of the withdrawal process.

Complete 20-page paper at the link.

[William F. Owen]

Well this is another pitch from the US "peace industry," that just ignores, or underplays, some real world realities.

a.) Peace with Syria, (especially the current regime) is neither required or likely. Nice to have but far from essential.

b.) While I and many others support the idea of a two Palestinian states, within Gaza and the West bank respectively, virtually no one in Israel wants to see the Golan give back, and to do so is suicide. Syria is unstable, and politically un-predictable, so peace now, does not mean peace next year.

[George L. Singleton]

Thank you William F. Owen for your targeted remarks about Syria.

I might add that the UN has publicly noted their detection of radiation found at the site in Syria which Israel destroyed during 2008...and Syria is now, newly building "something" at and over/covering that site whose purpose is as yet unclear, at least to me.

Nuclear power is economical and a benefit to any nation which can limit it's nuclear purposes in an open, easily viewed by the free world manner to assure and reassure mankind that they are now reprocessing uranium or developing plutonium at the weapons grade level or purity.

This is the same problem we have with Iran, which rightly fears an Israeli air strike against their nuclear sites under development with Russian assistance in building Iran's new nuclear facilities today.

To keep it short and let others comment it is a convoluted nuclear mess. Lest any idiot Islamic terrorist ideologue(s) misunderstand, Russia's disaster at Chernoble in Belarussia was and continues to be so awful and disasterous that my denomination, United Methodist, continues to bring early teenage to 20s age Belarussians boys and girls at church expense to the University of Alabama School of Medicine and University Hospital here who now suffer from long term radiaiton sickness, illness and still be found out medical issues directly caused by the nuclear melt down at Cherynoble. These Belarussia youth are getting totally free of chage all transportation, housing, meals, even clothing, free of charge, for a long term medical treatment and epidimeological program meant to help them survive medically as best as one can.

*Our singular local Methodist Church here places these Belarussia youth in local church members family homes to obviate the housing and meals costs for these young outpatients while here. The denomination, nationally, pays for the medical care costs above the individual MD waived costs and fees our medical community here, regardless of their denomination or belief system, continue to donate, free of charge.

[Rex Brynen]

Well this is another pitch from the US "peace industry," that just ignores, or underplays, some real world realities.

a.) Peace with Syria, (especially the current regime) is neither required or likely. Nice to have but far from essential.

b.) While I and many others support the idea of a two Palestinian states, within Gaza and the West bank respectively, virtually no one in Israel wants to see the Golan give back, and to do so is suicide. Syria is unstable, and politically un-predictable, so peace now, does not mean peace next year.

I too am a little doubtful that peace with Syria will materialize, but I don't think it is fair to label it a pitch from the US peace industry.

Both the past and current negotiations were very detailed and serious affairs, and it many cases the strongest advocacy of an agreement comes from the upper ranks of the Israeli national security establishment (some of whom see considerable value in both neutralizing the Syrian threat and weaning Damascus from its alliance-of-convenience with Iran).

[William F. Owen]

Both the past and current negotiations were very detailed and serious affairs, and it many cases the strongest advocacy of an agreement comes from the upper ranks of the Israeli national security establishment (some of whom see considerable value in both neutralizing the Syrian threat and weaning Damascus from its alliance-of-convenience with Iran).

Rex, well aware. It's good to have peace with all the Arabs, so as an aspiration I support it, but the Golan and Hermon are a case where the solutions come no way close matching the benefits. Talking about peace with Syria, in respect to the Golan, is slightly Titanic deck-chair sorting in my view. If talks can take the Golan off the table, then I'm more interested, but that will never happen.

[Jedburgh]

NDC, Sep 11: Planning Ahead for a Peacekeeping Mission on the Golan Heights: A Role for NATO?

This paper aims at examining whether NATO could be the provider of an international force to supervise the implementation of an Israeli-Syrian peace treaty and outlines the main characteristics of the peacekeeping mission needed for that task, based on the likely provisions of the future Israeli-Syrian peace treaty....