Israel–Syria peace talks, 1991–2008

The challenge

Since 1974 the armies had been kept apart by the Disengagement Agreement, which is not peace. Syria made any progress conditional on a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.¹

Israel wanted to know what it would get in return — full peace with normalization, and security arrangements — before committing to withdraw.¹

The road there

1. 1991After the Madrid Conference, talks between Israel and Syria begin under American mediation.¹
2. 1992Under Yitzhak Rabin's government, talks are held with American mediation; in the early 1990s the disputed "deposit" is given to the Americans.¹
3. 1998According to Rabinovich, Benjamin Netanyahu sends the American businessman Ronald Lauder as an emissary to Hafez al-Assad; Netanyahu later denied this account.¹
4. 3 January 2000Talks at Shepherdstown, West Virginia, between Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa, sponsored by Bill Clinton; they end on 11 January without agreement.²
5. 26 March 2000Clinton meets Hafez al-Assad in Geneva; the White House says differences remain between the two sides' positions.³
6. 21 May 2008The UN Secretary-General welcomes the start of indirect Syria–Israel talks mediated by Turkey, under Ehud Olmert and Bashar al-Assad.⁴
7. December 2008The Turkish-mediated talks collapse around Olmert's visit to Ankara on 22 December and Israel's military operation in Gaza (Cast Lead).¹

The people

Led

Yitzhak Rabin · Ehud Barak · Ehud Olmert

Negotiated

Ehud Barak

Mediated

Bill Clinton

Hosted

Bill Clinton

What was discussed

• A full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, in phases.¹
• A full peace treaty including normalization of relations between the two states.¹
• Security arrangements on both sides of the future border.¹
• Where the border would run: according to ECF, at Shepherdstown Syria demanded a withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines, while Israel insisted on the 1923 international border, which gives Syria no direct access to the Sea of Galilee.²
• In 2008 Syria sought a formal, binding commitment to withdrawal, and Israel demanded that Syria distance itself from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.¹

The geography

The hard decisions

• For Israel a deal meant giving up the whole of the Golan Heights; for Syria it meant full peace and normalization with Israel.¹
• According to Rabinovich, who headed Israel's delegation to the talks, the main reason the Geneva meeting failed was that Assad, realising he was close to death, gave priority to securing the transfer of power to his son Bashar.¹

Where accounts differ

According to The Israeli account (Itamar Rabinovich, head of the delegation to the talks)

Rabin deposited with the US administration a conditional, hypothetical willingness to withdraw fully from the Golan in return for a package of peace and security acceptable to Israel; it was not a commitment.¹

According to The Syrian account (as described by Patrick Seale; we found no official Syrian document)

Rabin committed himself to a full withdrawal from the Golan to the line of 4 June 1967; according to Seale, US Secretary of State Warren Christopher confirmed this to Assad, provided Israel's needs were met within the peace package.⁵

According to The first Netanyahu government (according to Seale)

Negotiations should resume without preconditions — that is, without endorsing such a commitment.⁵

What remains open

• The question of the border and access to the Sea of Galilee was not settled in any round.²
• Explanations for the failure differ: Rabinovich stresses the succession question in Syria, while the account of the Shepherdstown talks points to the gap over the border line.¹²