President Assad’s decision to shoot protesters in 2011, sparking the civil war that continues to ravage his country, “solidified Israel’s grip” on the Golan Heights, a former top Syrian expert at the State Department wrote on Thursday.
In a blistering critique of US President Barack Obama’s Syrian policy titled “I got Syria so wrong,” Fred Hof – former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s special representative on Syria – wrote in Politico that in early 2011 it seemed possible to pull Syria out of Iran’s orbit by getting Israel to give up the Golan Heights.
“Much of my State Department time during the two years preceding Syria’s undoing [that began in 2011] was thus spent shuttling back and forth between Damascus and Jerusalem, trying to build a foundation for a treaty of peace that would separate Syria from Iran and Hezbollah on the issue of Israel,” he wrote.
“Peace between Israel and Syria would require Damascus to cut all military ties to Hezbollah. It would require Syria to stop facilitating Iran’s support to Hezbollah. It would set the stage for a Lebanon-Israel peace that would further marginalize Lebanon’s ‘murder incorporated’ [Hezbollah],” he wrote.
Hof wrote that Assad told him in February 2011 that he “would sever all anti-Israel relationships with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and abstain from all behavior posing threats to the State of Israel, provided all land lost by Syria to Israel in the 1967 war – all of it – was returned.”
Hof said that he had in-depth conversations with Assad on the matter, and he “did not equivocate,” and said that he had told the Iranians that getting the Golan Heights and “pieces of the Jordan River Valley” was a “matter of paramount Syrian national interest.”
“He knew the price that would have to be paid to retrieve the real estate. He implied that Iran was OK with it. He said very directly he would pay the price in return for a treaty recovering everything,” Hof recalled.
According to Hof, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “interested” in the deal, and that although he was “not at all eager to return real estate to Syria,” he found “fascinating” the idea of “prying Syria” out of Iran’s hands.
“Although there were still details to define about the meaning of ‘all’ in the context of the real estate to be returned, Netanyahu, too, knew the price that would ultimately have to be paid to achieve what he wanted.”
Two months later, after Assad fired on peaceful protesters in the southern city of Dera sparking the civil war, Hof said the deal was “off the table.
“Before the shooting began the United States and Israel were willing to assume Assad had sufficient standing within Syria to sign a peace treaty and – with American-Israeli safeguards in place – make good on his security commitments before taking title to demilitarized territories,” he wrote. “But when he decided to try to shoot his way out of a challenge that he and his first lady could have resolved personally, peacefully and honorably, it was clear he could no longer speak for Syria on matters of war and peace.”
Fred Hof is another example of the idiocy of our politicians. Peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors can be accomplished, like with the wave of a wand, by Israel simply giving more of its territories to the Arabs. Facts mean nothing to them. Only their wet dreams.
The Golan has now been part of Israel longer than the short time it was part of Syria. It is a vital part of Israel. No one is giving it to any of our enemies who used to, use as a platform to shoot at the farmers below near the Kinneret (Sea of Galillee).
I lived there in the late 70s for a while on Kibbutz Afiq. I did not like Afiq but I really love the Golan. If I can ever find the right place in Katzrin to buy I would move there.
There is the mindset that imperils Israeli survival.
Excellent analysis. Netanyahu knows exactly what he is doing, and you have just identified it. He is damaging Israel for personal gain. The Muzzies now have a terror stronghold on Israel’s border, but Netanyahu has regained power so from his perspective all is well. He views endangering Israelis as the acceptable cost of promoting his selfish interests. His political career represents a triumph of ambition over patriotism.
This article is interesting to me because it shows how has been public people attempt to remain relevant by making public their recollections of obsolete events. Hof makes it sound as if Bibi Netan-yahoo was actually seriously considering giving up THE Golan Heights. There’s not a shred of evidence for that. Nor is there any evidence that Netanyahu would create an enemy state within Israel’s pericardial sac. On the other hand I do believe Netanyahu became convinced that Israel needed to withdraw from Gaza as a counter move to the pressures from the goyim and the repugnant UN-Jews, worldwide, including Israel, to withdraw from swaths of The Shomron. He resigned at the last moment to maintain some credibility with his base, but made damn sure it would pass prior to his clumsy exit along with his clown Ya’alon. I guess he knew what he was doing politically, obviously because of his return to the PM’s office.