Look and Listen to Sharaa
Syrian Foreign Minister Sharaa made an important statement yesterday in the White House Rose Garden and it would be wise to understand it. He said, “Peace for Syria means the return of all it’s occupied land, while for Israel, peace will mean the end of the psychological fear which the Israelis have been living in as a result of the existence of occupation, which is undoubtedly the source of all adversities and wars.”
Syrian Foreign Minister Sharaa made an important statement yesterday in the White House Rose Garden and it would be wise to understand it. He said, “Peace for Syria means the return of all it’s occupied land, while for Israel, peace will mean the end of the psychological fear which the Israelis have been living in as a result of the existence of occupation, which is undoubtedly the source of all adversities and wars.”
“Those who reject to return (sic) the occupied territories to their original owners in the framework of international legitimacy, send a message to the Arabs that the conflict between Israel and the Arabs is a conflict of existence in which bloodshed can never stop and not a conflict about borders…”
1. Syria historically considers all of Lebanon and parts of Turkey, Jordan and ISRAEL PROPER – NOT ONLY THE GOLAN HEIGHTS to be Syrian. The second line clarifies that even the whole Golan Heights may not assuage Syria. Furthermore, if Israel doesn’t return the undefined “occupied territories” to Arab control, Israel will be responsible for a “conflict of existence” not a “conflict about borders.”
2. Israel will receive an end to “psychological fear.” From the Syrian point of view, this should be sufficient for Israel, since, after all, the wars are Israel’s fault for occupying other people’s land.
Mr. Sharaa’s history lesson is equally instructive:
“The image formulated in the minds of Western people, and formulated in public opinion, was that Syria was the aggressor and Syria was the one who shelled settlements from the Golan prior to the 1967 war. These claims carry no grain of truth in them…” and
“We have witnessed during the last four days of attempts to muster international sympathy with a few thousand of settlers in the Golan, ignoring totally more than half a million Syrian people who were uprooted from tens of villages on the Golan, where their forefathers lived for thousands of years and their villages were totally wiped out from existence.”
He spoke only to President Clinton, not to Mr. Barak. The President listened politely to a revisionist polemic designed for Syrian consumption – no doubt the Syrian public watched TV with pride last night as their Foreign Minister stood at the White House and presented Syria’s demands. The American public watched, too.
We believe Americans hope fervently that a peace will come to the Middle East because justice demands that Israel be secure in its place among the nations. They will expect their government to listen carefully to Mr. Sharaa and understand the impediment to peace that Syria historically has been and remains today.