I have been asked to write about the reasons why Israel should engage in negotiations with Syria, which would result in the return of the Golan Heights to Syria. In thinking about this subject what came to mind was an article written a few months ago by Giora Eiland for the journal Strategic Assessment that was republished on the Syria Comment website. This article was a shrewd and cynical analysis of all the reasons that Israel should absolutely not engage in peace agreements that would return the Golan Heights. As I read this article, I had a strong negative reaction to many of the assumptions embedded in the analysis that I believe are part of a deeply flawed general mentality concerning relations between Syria and Israel. In fact, my criticism of Eiland’s piece is not based on any mistakes in the particular points in the strategic assessment, but rather it is based on a critique of the choice of using strategic thinking and rationales in the first place to answer the question of what Israel should do about the Golan. I would posit that these strategic descriptions of the relations between the two states are a large part of the problem itself, and that, in fact, determining what both countries should be striving for requires different premises and the privileging of humanistic modes of valuation rather than military ones.

It is through my own response to Eiland’s article that I would like to suggest from where we should derive a counter argument to the Israelis of like mind to Giora Eiland. For the sake of clarity, I will first outline what are the main focus points and notions presented in Eiland’s article, and then I will address why I think this perspective is problematic and why it creates a misguided basis for answering the question of what is in Israel’s best interest regarding the Golan.

Eiland begins the article by asserting that peace agreements with Syria are more likely to lead to war than to a stable peace. The entire body of the article is his evidence for this provocative assertion. The first section outlines four major problems that Israel confronts that cannot be solved by peace negotiations with Syria. These are in sum: that peace agreements will not get rid of the threat of Iran, they will not solve the problem of the Palestinians, they will not resolve the Israeli problems with Lebanon, and finally, they will not solve the larger Arab-Israeli conflict.
It is possible that these statements could prove to be true. But where I take exception is with the conclusion Eiland is drawing that, therefore, negotiating with Syria is a waste of time. Apparently, Eiland assumes, unfairly I would say, that a peace with Syria should be expected to be able to generally impact all these gigantic problems, and if it cannot, then it cannot be deemed valuable in itself or as a stepping stone towards addressing these other problems.

Eiland presents four more arguments as reasons to reject peace agreements with Syria as follows: that such agreements would require challenging American foreign policy; that there is an inability to ensure that treaties with the Alawi dominated government will be honored by a successor government or different ruling party, and therefore treaties will unlikely to be lasting; that peace agreements requiring giving up the Golan – necessarily erode deterrence factors and the strategic military advantages (currently held by Israel) in capability; and finally, (but to my mind most shockingly) that relinquishing the Golan takes away part of the “Ethos” belonging to Israel.

Eiland places his emphasis on the security issues and the immense strategic advantages that Israel would be giving up if it were to relinquish the Golan to Syria. My own initial response will therefore focus on this aspect too. It seems that the points that Eiland details are likely correct. For example, indeed, it is highly unlikely that Syria would completely demilitarize the Golan Heights once it took control over the area, and that even if the government agreed to that there may be some militarized elements present. (However, it begs to be pointed out that nobody would ever expect or demand that Israel would demilitarize its own border zone.) It is also true that as a result of relinquishing the Golan in the case of a renewed conflict, Israel would be forced to lead its offensive or defend itself from its own territory rather than beginning from its favorite position of remaining constantly over its own border and occupying its neighbors land as a deterrent. As well, under Syrian control, the Golan would likely become populated with more Syrian people, naturally, and therefore if Israel chose to attempt to reoccupy the territory, it would be a much bigger challenge and a potential human catastrophe.

Again, none of these suggestions by Eiland are wrong. However, they do presume a lot of realities that I would like to highlight and question. The largest of these presumptions is that Israel must remain utterly prepared at all times to go to war and do so from an offensive position. This idea is based, in this case, on an assumption that Syria and the Syrian people are interested primarily in attacking Israel at the first opportunity. The belief seems to be held as if the Syrian sentiment had no rational motivation that relates to Israel’s own actions and policies. Eiland gives no concession at all to the possibility that the giant risk he maintains Israel would be making in giving up the Golan might be diminished by the action of this giving back of the territory. He speaks only of the resulting military imbalance (what is a rebalancing actually) but not of the change in political reality that would potentially have a much greater impact on the danger level facing Israel. Why should Israelis be unable to imagine that the Syrians would be motivated in a much more positive way toward Israel and be in the mood for peace as a result of the return of the Golan? This possibility is entirely absent from Eiland’s equations.

Of course, Eiland’s argument is a pure cost-benefit analysis, a strategic one, based only on an assessment of geography and movement of troops, and the relative positions of military control and placement of forces such that there is the ability to threaten Damascus. But to hold up this type of assessment as the basis for concluding whether it is wise or unwise to give up the Golan simply ignores all the non- strategic factors affecting the outcome of such a political action. It ignores all other valuations of what is gained and lost by such a decision.

In addition, such thinking furthers the dilemma of the paranoid approach to measuring safety, that is, that what we as individuals or as nations project into the world as our fears and threats ironically, we end up creating. In essence, the longer Israel approaches Syria as enemy and attacker, Syria will be that. The longer there is no respect or trust afforded the other, the longer the other has no chance to decide to be trustworthy. The longer Israel holds the Golan as a tangible symbol of this mistrust and disrespect, there will be no space or opportunity for some other dynamic to evolve and replace what has been. And of course, this works in reverse for how Syria perceives and contributes to what Israel has become in relation to Syria. The risk that Eiland so strongly warns against is, in fact, totally necessary for anything new in this arena to become possible.

Let me move to another point that comes to mind for me after reading George Ajjan’s essay. George brings up the issue of what Syria needs in order to attain normalcy and a return of dignity such that peace can be maintained. The return of the Golan is held as a key factor in attaining this peace of mind for Syrians. George rightly argues that without this attainment, there will always remain a discontentment and hence a threat by Syria to Israel. He reminds his imaginary Israeli audience that this unaddressed situation will mean the continuation of Israeli sons having the necessity of serving as soldiers.

George is, of course, correct about all this. But the appeal still leaves me with the ill at ease feeling that to Israelis with the logic of Giora Eiland or of the general “Might Makes Right” mindset, this appeal simply will not be compelling. The reason is that one can always argue that military power and enough deterrence can keep the Syrians in check. There is no need to be concerned with the needs of the Syrian people or their dissatisfactions or dignity. The “or else” equation only works on those who feel weak, and the Israelis, thus far, have gone on feeling that they can be endlessly strong. Who knows when their convictions will change. My guess is that it would be a long wait. And if it did change by counter- aggression, one has only succeeded in humiliating another set of people and restarting a cycle of revenge.

One might make a humanitarian appeal to the Israelis, an ethical one of justice for justice’s sake. The return of the Golan is an ethically sound and just act. But it is not clear that this appeal can be persuasive when so many Israelis still feel justified in their possession and control of land. Unfortunately, justice is judged so often in the eye of the beholder, as they say. Moreover, justice seems to always lose out as a source of motivation if acting on it is judged to be in conflict with one’s own needs. Camille-Alexandre Otrakji has suggested that this self-justified sentiment is born out of greed. Perhaps it is greed at the heart of the matter, however, for the sake of peacemaking, it is probably better to assume that Israelis do not have some special greed chromosome and that they have pretty much the same level of greed as the rest of the human race.

But, there is a most important point here that leads me in the direction I would finally like to move in my own appeal to my imaginary Israeli holding tightly to the Golan Heights. Without waxing too philosophical here, I would concede that, certainly, greed is an intrinsic human motivation, a flaw if you will, and one of our seven deadly sins. However, greed is only in the forefront of human motivation when we have no sense of empathy for the other. Unfortunately, empathy disappears the moment humans feel threatened by and alienated from one another, and once this occurs, it is extremely difficult for empathy to remerge. It can only remerge in the face of a renewed recognition of ‘the other’ as being connected to one’s self and of our sameness, rather than difference and otherness. The reemergence of empathy seems to me the key ingredient of possible peace.

I want to argue that ultimately, the appeal that makes sense to me about why Israelis should care about the needs of the Syrian people and of the nation Syria for dignity, wholeness, security and satisfaction is not one born out of an expected generosity prevailing over greed, or one of fear of the Syrian threat. No, on the contrary, I would make this humanistic appeal based on the supposition that in reality these two people’s fortunes and interests at bottom lie together. I would like to suggest that their ships are tied together, and their benefits and interests rely on mutual gain and thriving as two brotherly people. This may seem like a shocking idea to some Israelis and Syrians who are married to their hatreds or to their deep beliefs in their attributional human differences.

The presumptions of Giora Eiland’s article are devoid of any recognition that these two peoples might actually be dependent on one another. There is no awareness that the ever divisive ‘us verse them’ mentality , the pure strategic planning against an ‘other’, in which one’s own interest is presumed to have absolutely nothing in common with the other – even if that other is one’s geographic, cultural, and historical, and above all environmental neighbor – is utterly self-destructive. Does Eiland really believe that Israel lives in such an impenetrable bubble? This false belief is the most dangerous in a long-run picture of certain global and environmental interdependence. It is far more dangerous than any “strategically vulnerable” position that Israel can believe itself to be in. For both Syria and Israel the exercise of trust forged around the agreement of a return of the Golan is a step in the right direction of bursting this fictitious bubble of independence.

And finally here, I will mention the outrageous comments by Eiland about the Golan being a part of the “ethos” of Israel, a statement that seems so bizarre that I wasn’t sure I even understood what the writer was suggesting. I am still unclear, actually, about the meaning of the statement that with the return of the Golan, Israel would be subjecting itself to a future of concrete walls, although I am guessing that he meant that this is what the Golan would become under Syria’s care and what the border area in Israel would have to become.

My main retort is that it totally astounds me that Eiland so narrow mindedly does not even allow himself the thought that, perhaps, water, air, open spaces, views, agriculture, preserved history, and land with something other than concrete on it – are not actually unique aspects of Israeli culture, but rather, amazingly(!) they are aspects of universal human need including Syrian’s needs. Could Eiland imagine that Syrians might dream of, if not require these satisfactions and joys as well, that their needs are the same as Israelis? If he and other Israelis could imagine this, then it is the beginning of empathy and the possibility of acting justly.

No doubt, the fear of scarcity throughout the Middle- East fosters greed and a convenient denial of what is in fact a deep connectedness and dependence between all its people. However, recognition leads the way to acceptance of commonality of needs and the possibility of generosity. Eiland asks of Israelis – from the start: “What do we want?” I should hope that what Israel wants ultimately is to come out of her self-made cage and to be a true part of the whole of the lands that she claims to be born from.