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Lauren Sucher
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lsucher@usip.org

A new report by Frederic C. Hof commissioned by the United States Institute of Peace's Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, provides groundbreaking ideas on facilitating a Syrian-Israel Peace.

"Mapping Peace Between Syria and Israel" comes out at a critical time in the Arab-Israeli peace process as a new U.S. administration is looking for ways to move the process forward despite the recent violence in Gaza. The report also comes out during a period of renewed interest in Syria when many delegations, including one co-sponsored by the United States of Peace, are going to Damascus.

In the report, Fred Hof, who directed the field operations of the Sharm El-Sheikh (Mitchell) Fact-Finding Committee in 2001, lays out a roadmap for how to resolve the thorny issues separating Syria and Israel over the Golan Heights plateau and small tracts in the Jordan River Valley.  Hof's study focuses on creative ways and means to reconcile Syria's boundary demand with legitimate Israeli concerns. A key element is elaboration on the concept of a Jordan Valley-Golan Heights Environmental Preserve, which attracted attention during earlier peace talks.

The issue has been known to be highly complex but Hof describes his approach as "modest, minimalist, and relatively uncomplicated."  "There are already some two-dozen parks and reserves that have been established by Israel on land that would, in accordance with the boundary under discussion, be returned to Syria," says Hof.  "As a matter of sound environmental stewardship one might hope that Syria would maintain and even expand all of these facilities, which range from Susita Nature Reserve in the south to the Hermon Reserve in the north.

Hof argues that such a preserve could help to protect sensitive and stressed water resources in the valley and on the heights and could facilitate easy access by civilians from Israel to the full circumference of the Sea of Galilee and perhaps up into those parts of the Golan Heights covered by the preserve. "In addition to mitigating Israeli concerns about the return of sensitive territories and providing a venue for informal people-to-people contacts, the Jordan Valley-Golan Heights Environmental Preserve approach would give the parties a good platform for practical bilateral cooperation even as the ink on a peace treaty is drying, allowing for a constructive, confidence-building start to the implementation phase of the withdrawal process," the report says.

"Hof's detailed study provides a 'win-win' solution for a problem that is too often viewed as a zero-sum dynamic" says Scott Lasensky, co-author with former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt, Daniel Kurtzer, of "Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace."  "Hof reminds us at this critical juncture that Syrian requirements for a peace settlement can be squared with Israeli needs.  This can have ramifications for the overall peace process in the Middle East."

If the parties could reach agreement on purely bilateral issues- boundary, water, frontier security regime, and normalization and sign a treaty of peace that each side would have the needed time to measure the performance and gauge the intentions of the other," writes Hof in "Mapping Peace Between Syria and Israel." For the new Obama administration, the challenge is to determine whether a different American approach to Syria can encourage Damascus to consider a strategic orientation different from the one it has pursued for many years," adds Hof.

The United States Institute of Peace has a number of efforts underway as part of its work on Syria and the broader issues around negotiating an Arab-Israeli peace.  Recently the Institute co-sponsored at trip with the Stimson Center to Syria and Saudi Arabia.  This month the Institute held a public panel on prospects for an Israeli-Syrian peace process and early choices for the new US Administration in facilitating it.  Last year, USIP's Study Group on Arab-Israeli Peacemaking published a guidebook on how to broker peace in the Middle East.