The Rubik’s Cube of the Middle East: an Axis in the Balance………
There is speculation in Arab media that an interesting meeting ‘may’ occur in Beirut. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the Emir of Qatar are rumored to plan to meet there. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is scheduled to receive the king in Damascus. This has led some observers to speculate that ‘interesting’ things may be about to happen. That alliances may be shifting in the region, that perhaps months of wooing Syria by the West and its Arab allies may be about to bear fruit. A Syrian third base is within sight and, who knows, maybe a home run. It is possible but there are four words that should bring the optimists back o their senses:
West Bank Settlements- East Jerusalem- Golan Heights- Likud
And not necessarily in that order.
The Likud is in power because of smaller parties that are even more extremist. Likud will lose power without these smaller parties. An alliance with Tzipi Livni’s Kadema is problematic and she is probably seen by Netanyahu, rightly, as his main rival. Labor is in disarray, a ghost of what it used to be before the Russian and other right-wing émigrés poured into the occupied territories, swinging Israel sharply and most likely permanently to the far right. Ironically all this was a result of Labor Party and American pressure on the Soviets to allow emigration during its years in power.
The so-called Friedman-Saudi “Arab peace plan” has always been DOA: Israel will never give up all the land, maybe not even most of it, and the “moderate” Arab leaders are unable to bring everyone under the peace umbrella.. Likud is committed to the settlement drive and to a permanent annexation of East Jerusalem, and to keeping at least a large swath of the Golan Heights. No Syrian leader over the horizon is strong enough to accept that, none that expects to survive a military coup, the favorite Syrian way of presidential term limits. The Likud, not exactly secretly, prefers to hold onto the lands and tough it out, hoping for a Palin or a Romney or a Bachmann, or an even worse, administration after 2012. Not that the Obama administration has not caved in repeatedly and given it more than others have.
Syria is the key: if Syria would only bite, then the issue of Lebanon could possibly be resolved, and possibly Iran. As far as the West, meaning Israel, is concerned. That is not to say that Hezbollah will vanish: on the contrary it will continue as a major political force, representing at least a plurality of Lebanese. But perhaps it will not be representing the clerical rulers in Tehran as much, even as its rivals continue to represent Western and Saudi interests.
Yet it is Syria that is the key: how to get Syria to accept only part of the Golan back? That is the Rubik’s Cube of the Arab-Israeli impasse. It is one that will not be solved this year, nor the next, nor the year after.
Cheers
mhg
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