According to the website of the Israeli daily Haaretz, the London-based, Arabic language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported yesterday that Washington has pressed Israel and Syria to put an end to the new tension that appeared between Damascus and Tel Aviv because it could compromise the revival of the peace negotiations.
Sources within the U.S. State Department have assured the Arab-language daily paper that the United States is determined to bring the Hebrew state back to the bargaining table, on both the Palestinian and Syrian fronts. These same sources confirmed that the new American envoy to Syria is exerting enormous efforts to resolve the different problems that could be obstacles to resuming negotiations and that Washington is prepared to do anything to surmount these difficulties.
For the past few days, Israel and Syria have engaged in a war of words by threatening each other with reprisal in the event of a military conflict. “Our message to Assad must be clear: not only will you lose the next war, but you will also lose power, you and your family,” Avigdor Lieberman threatened on Thursday. However, this unprecedented frontal attack by the Israeli chief of diplomacy against President Assad is not unanimous within the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to tone down the rhetoric without, by the same token, repudiating a minister who constitutes a precious political ally. His office stated that “Israel wants peace and negotiations with Syria without pre-conditions,” but “in the meantime, Israel will respond with vigor and determination against any threat.”
On Tuesday, Walid Moallem, the Syrian chief of diplomacy, warned Israel against making any plans to engage in war with Syria, venturing that such a conflict would escalate into a “widespread war.” The Syrian minister was responding to Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, who worried that “in the absence of a peace agreement with Syria, we might find ourselves in a forceful conflict that could lead to an all-out war.”
However, on Thursday, Minister Barak reaffirmed that “peace with Syria is a strategic objective,” repudiating Mr. Lieberman in so many words. “The least I can say is that I am unhappy with the exchanges of the past two days” between Israel and Syria, said Minister Barak.
“All this will calm down in two or three days, for neither Israel nor Syria wish to provoke a war,” reckoned Eyal Zisser, professor at the Institute Moshe Dayan at Tel Aviv University. According to this specialist on Syria, Ehud Barak’s declarations “were poorly formulated and misinterpreted by the Syrians, as they were intended for internal use to convince Benjamin Netanyahu to engage in negotiation with Syria.”
Still, according to the Haaretz website, this analysis was corroborated by a source within the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The Israeli source insisted that Mr. Barak’s comments were intended for Israeli ears to convince them of the necessity of negotiating with Damascus, and it was never a question of attacking Syria. This same source insisted that Israel is doing everything in its power to ensure that the misunderstandings of the past few days do not degenerate into a diplomatic crisis between Tel Aviv and Damascus.
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