OPINION:
Abraham Wagner urges the Trump administration to seek a treaty between Israel and Syria (“Next steps in the Middle East after historic Abraham Accords peace agreement,” Web, Sept. 21). He claims that “Israel and Syria were close to a real peace agreement before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war” in 2011.
That hardly seems plausible. After all, less than four years before the civil war began, Syria was in the process of developing nuclear weapons, which Israel understandably perceived as a threat to its existence and proceeded to destroy with air strikes in the autumn of 2007. If the Syrians were making weapons to annihilate Israel in 2007, what is the likelihood that the Syrian dictatorship suddenly had a change of heart and in 2011 was ready to make peace with the Jewish state?
Even more striking, however, are the implications of Wagner’s 2011 scenario. In accordance with Syria’s long-standing demand, any Israel-Syria agreement would require the Israeli surrender of the strategically crucially Golan Heights, the plateau from which Syria terrorized Israeli border towns in the Galilee from 1949 to 1967 by firing artillery shells. Thus Israel would have handed over vital territory in exchange for a Syrian promise of peace. Then, a short time later, the government with which Israel signed the agreement was plunged into a massive civil war, the outcome of which has still not been resolved.
All this means Israel would be left holding a worthless piece of paper, while the Golan Heights would be in the hands of whichever extremist faction emerges victorious from the current civil strife. The Islamic State? Some Iranian surrogate or Russian puppet? Or the Assad regime, which continues to use chemical weapons on civilians despite its promises to give them up? That hardly seems like a recipe for a meaningful or durable peace agreement.
MOSHE PHILLIPS
National director
Herut North America, U.S. Division - The Jabotinsky Movement
Philadelphia
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