Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect (26 page)

In 2010 both sides tried yet again. Prime Minister Netanyahu's government held secret talks with Syria. Israel saw Syria as a potential weak link in a Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis. It hoped to break off Syria and then move on to a settlement with Lebanon, excluding Hezbollah. Netanyahu offered to return all of the Golan if Assad would break with Iran, according to a report in the Israeli daily
Yedioth Ahronoth
. Netanyahu denied he made such an offer.
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Talks ceased in 2011 with the beginning of the Arab Spring uprisings.

One reason talks never succeeded was that Israel kept shifting the
goalposts. Israeli officials would launch Syrian talks when negotiations with the Palestinians weren't going well, hoping to reach a separate deal with Syria. Later, they added the new condition that Assad break with Iran in order to make progress on Golan. Then Israel argued that it couldn't return the Golan because there's no stable government in Syria. “As a general principal, Israel's permanent preference is to have authoritative decision making bodies on the other side so Israel can carry out a rational, strategic dialogue,” analyst Heller said.
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As the civil war in Syria intensified, Israelis reached an informal consensus not to negotiate about the Golan. Zvi Hauser, Israel's cabinet secretary from 2009 to 2013, wrote an opinion article for
Haaretz
: “Israel will not be capable of dealing with a three-pronged front, consisting of Iran on a nuclear threshold, a failing Palestinian state…and a Syria dangling its feet in the Sea of Galilee.”
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Instability in Syria certainly raised serious problems of how to return the Golan. But it could be resolved. Both sides could agree on borders in principle while postponing implementation until Syria became stable. That solution doesn't appear likely anytime soon.

I had learned the Israeli and Druze views about the civil war, but where did the Palestinians stand? For that I traveled to both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Crossing from West Jerusalem to Ramallah was very easy when I first visited in 1986. I went to one of the main hotels in Arab East Jerusalem and found a collective taxi. They were old-school Mercedes limos with an added bench seat. The car for millionaires became transformed to a nine-seat taxi with several hundred thousand kilometers on the odometer. I'd pay a few shekels, grab an empty seat, and get dropped off anywhere in Ramallah.

The world changed in the 1990s. Under the guise of preparing for two states, Israel created militarized structures that functioned as border crossings between countries, except Israeli soldiers had total control of the border. Combined with the separation wall that cuts the West Bank off from Israel, Palestinians became trapped in an area designated
by Israel, not the result of swapping land for peace. Israeli officials claimed these procedures protected the country from terrorism, but they served only to anger Palestinians and make reaching a peace agreement more difficult.

During a recent trip I drove on a modern four-lane highway from West Jerusalem, past Israeli housing in East Jerusalem, and then dropped off onto a side street that took me to the crossing point. It was traveling from the first to the third world. On the outskirts of the Kalandia checkpoint, dusty lots held a few cars, and there seemed to be no parking rules.

I didn't know where to cross, so I began walking toward some Israeli soldiers. One advanced menacingly toward me, motioning me away. I asked politely in English where I should enter. His mood suddenly brightened, and in excellent English, he pointed to a turnstile. As a foreigner I'm permitted to visit the West Bank. Israeli citizens are not allowed.

Once in the West Bank town of Kalandia, I was welcomed by a vibrant, third-world cacophony. Taxis gunned their engines and seemed to honk their horns in syncopation. The smell of hot olive oil and baking baklava filled the air. Pedestrians had no right of way in front of insistent drivers.

Taxi drivers quickly surrounded me, offering the best deal for the thirty-minute drive to Ramallah. At least, they assured me it was the best deal. I came to interview Hannan Ashrawi, a former spokesperson for the Palestinian peace negotiators, human-rights-group founder, and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee.

I've interviewed Ashrawi numerous times because she's intelligent and capable of giving a straight answer in flawless English. She doesn't always
give
a straight answer, but at least I know it's not a communication problem. Ashrawi has aged, as have we all. She sat calmly behind her desk at the PLO headquarters and asked if the interview was for print or radio. For broadcast interviews, she would give short sound bites. For print, she would provide more elaboration. I was filing
for both print and radio, I explained, causing momentary confusion. “Give me the long version,” I said.

Ashrawi acknowledged that the Syrian uprising remained a controversial question. In general, Palestinians sympathized with people overthrowing dictators, she said, in part because the United States and Israel have a long history of allying with such men. “The United States has been dealing with dictators for years,” she said. “Dealing with dictators is much easier. All you have to do is convince the big man, and generally, they are men.”
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Ashrawi said Palestinian leaders in the West Bank are neutral. “We have Palestinians in every neighboring country that are vulnerable. Any side you take, the Palestinians will pay the price. We are in principle on the side of the people…and of course on the side of human rights, democracy, and rule of law. All we know is that violence won't solve anything.”

Fatah is one of the two major parties in Palestine and the main force in the PLO. Fatah and the Palestinian movement had frequent conflicts with the Assads. In 1976, when Syria was backing the Christian right wing in Lebanon, Syrian troops helped lay siege to the Tel Al-Zaatar refugee camp, resulting in the death of an estimated three thousand Palestinians. Hafez al-Assad tried to take over the PLO and install his own man to replace Yasser Arafat in the 1980s (see
chapter 4
). “There's a long history of problems between Fatah and Assad,” Ashrawi told me. “I remember when Fatah fighters and revolutionaries were in Syrian jails. But you're not supposed to hold a grudge.”

Palestinians were extremely optimistic when the Arab Spring began, according to Ashrawi. “It was a transformational process. It was the will of the young, the reformers, the women, and civil society. We believed it was a defining moment in the history of the Arab world.”

Mustafa Barghouti agreed. He told me Palestinians enthusiastically supported the Arab Spring for the same reason Israeli leaders opposed it. Genuinely popular Arab governments would support the Palestinians and refuse to make backroom deals with Israel. “We thought these movements will improve the Palestinian situation because the public in
general is very supportive. If the public has the right to direct the policy, then this will be a stronger solidarity with Palestine.”
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But Palestinians faced disappointments when the Arab Spring in Egypt and Libya turned to a frigid winter. Ashrawi said in some cases, the polarization between the old, corrupt regime and political Islam “led to the exclusion of the forces of reform and democratization that should have taken over. In other cases,” she said, referring to Egypt, “the people who did rebel and bring down the regime mobilized in cyberspace but couldn't organize on the ground to bring out the vote.”
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In the case of Syria, Palestinians thought Assad would be overthrown quickly, Ashrawi said. “People underestimated that the control of the Assad regime is powerful, not just the apparatus of government but also the private sector and others…. It's not just the Alawites.” Ashrawi remained optimistic about the possibility of progressive change in the Arab world. “By definition transitions are painful, unpredictable, quite often destabilizing. We are still in this period of transition. The cost is exorbitant in human lives particularly in Syria. It's still in a state of flux.”

Getting to Gaza wasn't easy. The Israelis strictly controlled their border, and for many years the Egyptian authorities made it impossible for journalists to enter from their side. That changed for a brief time in 2011. The people had overthrown the Mubarak regime and wanted greater support for the Palestinian cause. Border restrictions eased. That's when I entered Gaza.

I made arrangements through the Egyptian press office in Cairo. At that time no visa was required to enter Gaza. Anyone crazy enough to visit Gaza was apparently welcome. I hired a car and driver and we set out for the five-hour drive from Cairo to the Rafah border crossing. We jumped in the car, buckled our seatbelts, and couldn't leave the parking space for five minutes because the Cairo traffic was so thick.

We started late and got caught in Cairo's morning rush hour. Of course, it's always rush hour in Cairo. This was just worse. Once we got past the airport and onto a four-lane highway, the driver zoomed past cars at about eighty miles per hour. I liked the Cairo congestion better.

The Sinai is lots of desert—and flies. Moses and the Jews wandered here for forty years after outfoxing the pharaoh. I didn't fault them for getting lost. The Sinai stretches for arid miles, the sand only interrupted by an occasional lonely road.

An Egyptian press-office representative met me at the Rafah crossing point and escorted me through customs. I was pleased to have him there. The process of filling out forms and inspecting luggage was complicated, involving numerous lines. I would never have figured things out on my own. Finally, I paid a small fee and boarded a large bus. We drove about thirty yards to enter Gaza. There's no foot traffic or civilian cars, and certainly no commercial trucks. Requiring everyone to ride a bus gives authorities on both sides greater control.

The bus passengers included forty-nine Palestinians and me. When we arrived in Gaza, efficient guards with full beards took our passports:
Let's see: Ahmad, Deeb, Shafi, Erlich—Erlich?
The guard motioned me to wait at the side. Eventually a supervisor who spoke some English came to ask why I wanted to visit Gaza. I explained that I was a journalist, holding my hands in front of my head as if I was operating a movie camera. “CNN,” I said, using the internationally recognized term for crazy American journalist. I explained that I wasn't
with
CNN but was a journalist like those
on
CNN. He smiled, perhaps thinking he would see himself on satellite TV that night.

I gave him the mobile number of a friend who was picking me up. He phoned, we all met, and then I went through an informal entry process. The supervisor asked my friend for the names of his father and brothers. Gaza had a population of about one million, so everyone knew everyone else, or at least someone in the family. My friend was warned that if I did something wrong, he would be held responsible. With that, we sped off as fast as the potholed roads would allow.

I interviewed a number of Hamas officials. They made clear that Hamas stood with the people of Syria against Assad. “We are with the people wherever they are fighting for their political and economic rights,” said Ziad El-Zaza, Gaza's former deputy prime minister. “The blood of Arab martyrs is on the heads of the government leaders in
Syria.”
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That's a huge change for Hamas, which had been close allies of Syria. To understand why they split, let's look at some recent history.

Hamas had won the Palestinian parliamentary elections of 2006. International observers praised the elections as democratic.
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But the United States, Israel, and Fatah wouldn't accept defeat. The long-simmering differences between Hamas and Fatah boiled over and fighting broke out. By 2007 Hamas seized control of Gaza, and Fatah took the West Bank.

The two parties, at that time, also differed in their attitude toward Syria. Fatah had an antagonistic relationship with the Assads dating back decades. The Syrian government prohibited Fatah from organizing among Palestinian refugees living in Syria or Lebanon. Hamas, on the other hand, had allied with Syria. Hamas moved its headquarters to Damascus in 2001. But it was always a marriage of convenience. Syria was a secular state that repressed its own Islamic movements. Hamas was a conservative Sunni organization that opposed secularism. As Khaled Meshal, chair of Hamas's Political Bureau, told me in a Damascus interview, “We and Syria have the Israel issue in common. So we have good relations.”
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When the popular demonstrations began in Syria, however, Hamas criticized the Syrian regime's repression. When armed rebellion broke out, Hamas supported the rebels affiliated with Syria's Muslim Brotherhood. Meshal closed Hamas's Damascus office in January 2012 and moved to Doha, Qatar.

For a time, Hamas seemed to have come down on the right side of history. Conservative Islamists gained influence in Syria. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a close Hamas ally, won the parliamentary and presidential elections. The brotherhood expanded the Egyptian border crossings with Gaza, a policy begun under Mubarak. But Gaza residents still couldn't import goods on a commercial scale, so tunnel smuggling was allowed to increase.

The tide then turned against Hamas. When the Egyptian military overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government in June 2013, Hamas
lost an important ally. The military closed the smuggling tunnels and restricted border crossings through Rafah.

Hamas had also allied with Iran. They agreed on opposition to Israel but had many disagreements on other issues. When Hamas broke with Assad, Iran cut financial aid to Gaza. Iran had reportedly been paying $20 million per month to help provide basic services for Palestinians. But that ended in 2013.
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Hamas officials wouldn't discuss specific figures, but Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister, said, “For supporting the Syrian revolution, we lost very much.” He said military cooperation has stopped as well. Ahmed Yousef, an advisor to the Gaza prime minster, said “We never expected that a country like Iran, which talked about oppressed people and dictatorial regimes, would stand behind a dictator like Assad who is killing his own people.”
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