The bullet and the pulpit
Syria will not take Sharon's bait, writes Sami Moubayed*
Earlier this summer, I spoke informally with a US ambassador in the Middle East on American policy vis-à-vis Syria and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. I told him that in Syria, support for the resistance in Palestine is dictated by the people on their government more so than by the government on its people. It is a popular demand that the Syrian government has been unable to ignore, from the days of former President Shukri Al-Quwatli to President Bashar Al-Assad. Palestine is part of the Syrian conciousness, and all of its popular movements, from the first Intifada that began in 1936 to the current one, have received overwhelming support from the Syrians.
I asked the American diplomat: "What do you expect us to do with the Palestinians [based in Syria], throw them in the ocean?" He cynically replied, "No, in the Jordanian Desert where they belong!" Syria cannot, and will not, disassociate itself from the resistance in Palestine.
Rather than respond to this week's Israeli attack with force, as Ariel Sharon wants Syria to do, President Al-Assad decided to deal with the matter diplomatically, as civilised states do. If anything, however, the attack will motivate Al- Assad and the Syrians to be more supportive of the resistance in Palestine.
The Israeli attack on Ein Al-Saheb, a village 22 kilometres from Damascus, was a rude reminder for the Syrian people that the wolf is prowling at the door. Syrians have accustomed themselves to tranquility and peace, since the last time they faced an Israeli attack on their territory was during the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, the 6 October anniversary of which ironically came 24 hours after the latest Israeli air raid.
The aftershocks of the latest attack resonated through the outrage of Syrians and the Palestinian community in Lebanon. Security was increased around Palestinian refugee camps and 27 anti-aircraft positions were set up around the Bedawi and Nahr Al-Bared Camps in Lebanon. Damascus swiftly took the matter to the UN, to secure international condemnation of Israel. Rather than respond with bullets, as Sharon wanted, Syria responded from the UN pulpit to preach the truth of Israel's state terrorism. Sharon wants a hot-tempered Syria that can be enticed to expand the war against the Palestinians into a regional conflict that will bring the Middle East crashing into chaos. Tough luck for the Israeli prime minister: Syria won't take the bait.
If anything, the attack shows how desperate Sharon is to force the Arabs to stop fighting the Zionist State. The suicide bombing in Haifa on 4 October, carried out by a female attorney from Islamic Jihad, cornered the Israeli prime minister into yet another tight spot. His promises of security for the Israeli people were once again dashed by Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Rather than the customary strike at the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Sharon hit Syria.
He wanted to show his people, generals and government that he was in fact going the extra mile to fight terrorism, claiming that Islamic Jihad has a military training camp in Ein Al- Saheb. This is untrue. Everybody in Syria knows that the village is a civilian refugee camp for Palestinians, 100 per cent free from militants. It had, however, previously been a training camp for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Sharon used Syria as the scapegoat for his failure to end the resistance in the occupied territories, and mistakenly believed that his strike against Syria would help stop the violence in Palestine. The Israeli prime minister, however, underestimated the will of the Palestinians, overestimated the presence of Islamic Jihad in Syria, and failed to see that Syria is not Lebanon in 1982. He cannot attack a regional power in the Middle East and get away with it so easily.
Syria will invest in the Israeli attack to embarrass Sharon before the international community, since it cannot go to war against the military might of the Zionist State. It can, however, use its influence to destabilise the Middle East and let it explode in the face of Washington and Tel Aviv. The resistance in the occupied territories has already promised to respond violently to the attack on Syria, and the resistance in Iraq, unable to strike at the Israelis, will gladly strike against US forces in Baghdad. This is a sweet, suitable -- if not 100 per cent satisfying -- alternative.
Syria can also, if it so wishes, unleash hell on Israel from South Lebanon through Hizbullah. Radical Islamist groups like Al-Qa'eda can wreak havoc in the Middle East, unleashing more trouble for the US on its own territory, at its embassies across the world and in Afghanistan. Combined, this would open a multi-sided war on the Middle Eastern American-Israeli alliance in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Given the rising death toll of US troops in Iraq and the inability to justify the Anglo-American War on weapons of mass destruction grounds, the US cannot allow the situation to explode. This would affect its already precarious status in the Middle East. Washington cannot afford chaos, especially with US presidential elections just around the corner.
America and Israel know that Syria cannot go to war, but it can destabilise the Middle East. Damascus is the gateway to any comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict and this is why President George Bush Sr insisted that Syria be part of his alliance against Iraq in 1991. He could not go to war against Iraq without Syria. It also explains why he insisted that Syria attend the Madrid Peace Conference, also in 1991. He could not bring peace to the region without Syria. As much as he would have wished to punish Syria for its committed resistance to Israel, Bush Sr knew that he needed Syria to prevent this same kind of resistance against Israel. The same situation applies today, 12 years later, with President George W Bush.
* The writer is a Syrian political analyst
