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Dr. Aaron Lerner is co-founder of , Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
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By Dr. Aaron Lerner
June 7, 2007
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It isn't "land for peace" -- it's land for a piece of paper.
And it isn't the "price of peace" -- it's the price of the paper.
That's not to say that there isn't a value in such paper. Just that the paper must be recognized for what it is and what it is not.
Pieces of paper cannot guarantee peace. They can provide a framework for relations.
But if a party to a piece of paper determines its interests would be best served by violating the piece of paper, then that's exactly what they will do.
That's the paradox of "land for piece of paper": the greater the Israeli security concessions for a piece of paper, the greater the chances that the Arabs ultimately turn their backs on the deal.
"Peace treaties", "peace agreements" and even "peace arrangements" all have a place in policy discussions. But policy arguments that posit "peace" as the pay-off are not just intellectually dishonest, they are dangerously deceptive.
And that's exactly what some participants in the debate over policy vis-a-vis Syria are doing.
Some, like former head of head of military intelligence Gen. Uri Saguy, simply hold as an article of faith that if every millimeter of the Golan is handed over to Assad the Syrians will never come back for more. Never. For people like Saguy, the exercise of discussing security arrangements is just to convince the unwashed Israeli masses who are not a party to the true faith. They don't examine the question to study the true efficacy and durability of possible security arrangements -- their goal is to explain, a priori, why arrangements are workable.
For years the retreat supporters bent over backwards explaining that various gizmos would give Israel a permanent edge, arguing that Syria could never manage to acquire new military equipment and of course making best case assumptions according to which that the IDF would always be completely prepared to respond in the case of a challenge.
But for every gizmo is eventually a counter gizmo.
And it turns out that despite owing billions of dollars to Russia for old arms deals, Syria manages to acquire (with considerable help of some friends) an impressive array of advanced equipment when it wants to.
Add to that the stark reminder last Summer that the human beings involved in managing the IDF can make terrible mistakes that impact combat readiness -- a mistake that may not be repeated soon but could easily recur a decade from now when the Second Lebanon War might already be deep in the collective memory hole.
Top this all off with the simple observation that we have absolutely no idea as to what kind of regimes will rule in our immediate neighborhood a few years from now -- let alone for generations to come -- and the cards are heavily stacked against land for paper on the Golan.
Does this mean that the only thing we can look forward to is a contiuing stand-off?
Possibly.
Then again, a few years ago no one expected that Syria would ever forgo "Turkish occupied" Alexandretta.
But they have.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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