Transcript of the video:

Helena Cobban (00:00:04):

Hi everyone. I'm Helena Cobban. I'm the president of Just World Educational, and I'd like to welcome you to this fifth session of our 10-part webinar series, "Commonsense on Syria," in which I'll have a conversation with Syrian historian Sami Moubayed, about the massive continuing role that Israel has played in Syrian public life since 1948. I'm glad so many people have joined us already. I'll give newcomers just a minute to settle in. And while you do so, I'll remind you of a few things about this Zoom webinar, which is a little different than the Zoom meetings you may have been taking part in recently. The webinar is more like an in-person seminar or a public presentation in that there are the main speakers -- in this case, Dr. Moubayed and I, while most of the people in this room in this virtual room are attendees whom we seek to engage in an orderly way that allows for reason discussion.

Helena Cobban (00:01:06):

The other people in the room here are our Just World elves who work behind the scenes to process your questions and to receive and organize the questions on substance that you may want to ask. Our chief elf is our board member, Dr. Alice Rothchild. Please note that we are not using the q and a capability that some Zoom webinars have. So if you want to ask a question of Dr. Moubayed, can you do so via the chat box that you'll find if you send your cursor down near the bottom of your zoom window? Plus, if you want to have your question, if you want your question to have a chance of being actually asked, word it succinctly and have it be an actual question? Our elves do not have the time to read through long rants and screeds. We also ask you to keep your questions to the topic of today's session.

Helena Cobban (00:02:03):

We have five more sessions coming after today, each on a different aspect of the Syrian conflict. So please keep today's questions to today's topic, which is Israel's role in Syria and keep them brief. Another thing I'll do as we go along is maybe launch one or more little snap polls for you to participate in. Here's one now, by the way, we have 89 participants already. This is pretty exciting. And okay, here is your poll for today. Well, your first poll anyway okay. While you are looking at that you can fill that one out as you listen along. So today I am very happy to welcome to the webinar Dr. Sami Moubayed is speaking to us from the coronavirus lockdown he's undergoing in his home in Damascus. Dr. Sami is the author of nine books on different aspects of Syrian history. Dr. Sami, thanks for being with us today.

Sami Moubayed (00:03:12):

Thank you, Helena. It's great to be here and it's great to see you after so many years. Thank you for having me.

Helena Cobban (00:03:19):

Hello. I'm really delighted to reconnect with you. And here, by the way, is the cover of the book of Dr. Sami's that I urge you to buy and read Under the Black Flag.

Sami Moubayed (00:03:35):

It's a 2015 publication in London. Please drop the doctor. Just call me Sami.

Helena Cobban (00:03:44):

<Laugh>. Ok. Ok. So it's available as an ebook. So even though the market in physical books has collapsed you can get this and download it and read it on your Kindle. It's a history not just of Isis Daesh, but it's a thorough going account of the history of Islamist extremist fighting forces in Syria and Iraq, including Jabhat al-Nusra, which was the precursor to the organization currently controlling Idlib "Under the Black Flag," also has a useful and informative chapter about the tens of thousands of foreign fighters who flocked to the areas that Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra rested control of in Syria, many of whom are still there. But today, Dr. Sami and I will be talking about the role that a different foreign force, Israel, has been playing in Syrian politics. We'll take a quick gallop through the relations the two countries had before 2011, and then spend the latter half of our discussion today talking about the situation since 2011. So first, Dr. Sami, let's look at the period between 1948 and 1967. What would you describe relations between the two countries in those years as being like, by the way, I'm gonna stop that poll now, so, okay. Let's just give our all our attention to Dr. Sami.

Sami Moubayed (00:05:16):

Well it's, it's, it's quite known that many Syrians of the generation that that was around in 1948 had considered Palestine to be part of greater Syria, and they actually called it Southern Syria. There was this tremendous amount of zeal and, and, and and desire to, to, to, to liberate this long before the 1948 creation of the state of Israel. There was this desire to retake Palestine, to liberate Palestine. In 1936, there was a revolt against the British in Palestine, which was funded and supported, and by the Syrians, by both public and government alike. In 1948, there was this tremendous push for, for what was labeled back then as jihad by the way, to fight in Palestine. Many people enlisted for the army of deliverance, that was created by the Arab League defeated in late 1947.

Sami Moubayed (00:06:21):

By mid 1948, when it was quite clear that the state of Israel was going to be announced, Syria began to mobilize for an official entry into that war, knowing perfectly well by the way that they were gonna be defeated, because the army was very ill-equipped, having just emerged from 26 years of French colonialism. Yet they went ahead and they entered the battle, and they were actually defeated. And because of these street pressure, because people were so anti-western, anti-American, anti-Israeli, the Syrians were actually the last country to, to join the Peace Talks. The un mandated ceasefire talks with with Israel. It took a coup in Damascus, the first military coup in Syria, modern history to topple the nationalists who were in power to bring forth a military ruler who was willing to accommodate Western aspirations, and who has been generally accused of being on American payroll, General Housni Zaim.

Sami Moubayed (00:07:26):

He, he started peace Talks. He started, he, he, he, he launched the, the ceasefire talks with Israel, and he went quite far in, in trying to negotiate an agreement which people generally don't talk about. I think that is a very significant chapter and forgotten chapter of the modern history of Syria and Israel, which, which has written about in his book, the Road Not Taken that was a missed opportunity. The Syrians were willing to go for a peace. At the time, it was David Ben Gourion who said, no, from a perspective being, I have just defeated and smashed the Arab armies combined. Why in the world should I negotiate with a, with a crushed army and a defeated nation? So it was Israel that turned down the offer, which was on the table many years before Anwar Sadat showed up in Jerusalem in 1977, after the Housni Zaim interlude, we had we had the chapter of, of support for Palestinian militants, starting with Fatah and running through all other groups that emerged all the way up to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We had the second official Arab-Israeli War in 1967, which added further antagonism and, and, and, and hatred and, and and, and a feeling of, of defeat and anger because of the, the second crushing of the Syrian army and the occupation of the Golan and East Jerusalem and Sinai and the West Bank. A war of attrition followed that.

Helena Cobban (00:09:03):

Hi, Sami, this is amazing. Thank you so much for giving us this much like you did it so fast. I'm going to just break in and share a map that I have of Golan and what happened in 1967 in Golan. In fact, this map also shows what happened in 1948-9, between Syria and Israel. So this map shows, obviously, the occupied Golan are, is in sort of a light tan color. The purple splotch is what the United Nations is supposed to be controlling. Now, the portion that interests me is also what we see, the orange portion. So you can see on this map that the, in 1923 international boundary that was negotiated between Mr. Sykes and Mr. Picot, two obviously European imperialist people that that's the the dashed line. And actually, you talked about the Salvation Army that intervened in 1947-48, and they managed to take a little portion in of, you know, the north of Palestine.

Helena Cobban (00:10:31):

And that, that's really the portion that is orange there. So the armistice line is the one that's to the, to the left of the, the orange portion. So the thing about that is that the orange portion was supposed to be a demilitarized zone. Under those negotiations that you described of 1949, the Syrian government agreed to withdraw the forces back to the international boundary. And what was left, the orange was supposed to be demilitarized, but the Israelis pushed in first of all tractors and then armed tractors. And so the Syrians understandably responded by trying to stop the incursion of the armed tractors. I'm saying this because the way that Zionist historiography in this country, commonly, I want to stop sharing that. The way that Zionist historiography commonly describes what was happening prior to 67 is that these innocent Israeli farmers were trying to farm their lands, and Syrian gunners were, were, you know, just violently shelling them from on top of the Golan Heights.

Helena Cobban (00:11:57):

So it's, it's very useful to, you know, to understand that that's not exactly what was happening. I have actually a reading here, and I'm gonna share this one. Okay. I'm still figuring out how to, by the way, we've got 111 people on the this is great. Impressive. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna share this one. So this is your book, obviously thank you. And then there's a book by somebody called General Odd Bull, who was a Norwegian, who was the commander of the UN Forces in Yes in Syria and Israel, I guess it was the ISMAC. And this is his memoir, and I urge anybody who's interested in this period to go and read General Odd Bull's memoir, which you can find on Amazon. And then there's my book, but my book is later and, and in, by comparison, less important than Odd Bull's or yours. So

Sami Moubayed (00:13:07):

You know, when during those, the armistice talks that took place, there's an entire part of them that was related to day-to-day affairs joint efforts in combating insects on the border, what to do if a ship sails into territorial waters, what to do in terms of medical assistance in if, if there is a plague, or there's a, the, the, there were entire side talks, and some of those talks actually took place inside across the border area. So what you're mentioning is the Lake Huleh incident, where there was the Israelis started drilling, and this was in violation of what the Syrian believe to be the, their understanding of the border agreement. And the Syrians nudged civilians and shepherds to, to open fire as a message to the IDF, to, to stay away. The Israelis never believed that, and they always accused the Syrians of, of triggering those incidents.

Sami Moubayed (00:14:15):

And there's an entire historical debate on who started what, and whether it was a Syrian official that was firing. It was it, it was nudged by the Syrians because nobody could have entered the demilitarized area without the approval of the Syrian government. We're talking the early 1950s here. But this was for a reason. This was to, to, to make a point that we are still committed to, to, to to Palestine. And even when, when the military regime started to unfold in Syria, one after another, the argument that they put forth is that we, we lost one battle with Israel. We did not lose the war. We are just preparing and regrouping and re-arming ourselves for another war, which they lost in 1967 all the way up to 1973. Now, the important thing about 1967, Helena, is the, the borderline that became the basis for all the peace talks that took place from Madrid onwards, which was the Syrian official position was no longer to, to, to to end the state of Israel and no longer to liberate what they called historical Palestine. But just to return to the June 1967 borderline, which also has not been achieved as we, I'm sure we'll be touching upon in upcoming parts of this discussion.

Helena Cobban (00:15:39):

That's right. I mean, from 1991 onward, Madrid, there were several attempts to negotiate a, a final Syrian Israeli peace. Just before we get to that, I'm going to take the liberty here since I've had the chance to actually go to Golan, which I guess, Sami, you have not, and I'll describe it just very, very quickly. So Golan, when you get there, it's a beautiful, elevated, broad elevated plateau that goes up to, and includes the summit of Jabal al-Shaykh, which is the major mountain there, sometimes known as Mount Hermon. And the thing about Mount Hermon and, and that, those summit areas is the overlook, not just Northern Israel, but also great sways of Lebanon, plus large areas of the rest of Syria, including to and far beyond Damascus. So it's a very strategic place that dominates the region dominates a huge chunk of Syria as well as, you know, those other portions I mentioned.

Helena Cobban (00:16:49):

So the plateau is extremely fertile. It has rain-fed agriculture and was always just a bread basket for the whole region. In 1967, most of the Golan’s residents fled with the Syrian army because the rout of the army was so complete and so demoralizing. Only villages in five villages in the North remained in their homes. And this was for historical reasons. So now you have their them and their descendants still living there. Syrian citizens living under total Israeli control in Golan about 25,000 of them. So the Israelis annexed Golan in 1981 and stole most of the land and resources, but you still have these indigenous Syrian citizens living there. And I just really want people to try to connect with some of the human rights issues that those Syrian citizens living under Israeli occupation, some of the human rights issues that they face. So this is the best organization I can send you to. It's called Al-Marsad they have a very robust presence on, on Facebook, and you can get all kinds of great resources if you go to their Facebook page and probably their website as well. So what else?

Sami Moubayed (00:18:29):

That annexation, by the way, is considered null and void by the, by the international community. Nobody recognized it until last year, until President Trump did, but

Helena Cobban (00:18:42):

Yeah. But actually, you know, president Trump doesn't get to determine what is legal and what is illegal under international law.

Sami Moubayed (00:18:50):

Absolutely.

Helena Cobban (00:18:50):

Thank God. So, you know, first of all, Jerusalem, he recognized that annexation, and then Golan, he recognized that annexation. So going back to the broader history of Syrian-Israeli relations, there was this 1973 War as, as Sami mentioned, and then since 1990 basically 1991, you had the sorry, what's happening here? 1991, you had the Madrid Peace Conference, and after that you had direct negotiations between between Syria and Israel. So Sami, can you tell us a little bit about those negotiations that have taken place on and off since 1991?

Sami Moubayed (00:19:42):

Madrid was in direct response to Syria's participation in liberation of Kuwait, and it was, we all know that there was a great desire with the Bush administration to have overwhelming Arab support for that liberation. So, as it not be viewed as an American intervention between two Arab states, and Syria took part in that, it was, quote, unquote rewarded with a US brokered, uh it was actually jointly brokered by the Americans and the Russians, but Madrid was the, was the start of the end of Russian influence in the region as we knew it before that, and the beginning of American presence, which lasted throughout the Bush and Clinton and George W. Bush eras. So they they sponsored those talks, the Syrians attended, and then they went into the other side talks that were called the Washington Talks, that led to a series of meetings between then foreign minister of Syria and and the Israelis all the way up to March, 2000, which was the last summit between Hafez Assad and Bill Clinton which failed to produce a peace treaty.

Sami Moubayed (00:21:04):

Those talks collapsed in the summer of 2000 when President Assad died, and they resumed under Turkish mediation in 2008. 2008 were indirect talks. The 1990s, were direct talks under American auspices. None of them have have succeeded in providing anything fruitful, although there was a, what we call a deposit. It was the Rabin deposit, which was deposited in the in the hands of President Clinton offering a full withdrawal from the Golan, a return to the June, 1967 borderline in exchange for normalization with Israel. Again, that did not happen because of the assassination of the, I think it was November, 1995, assassination of its Yitzhak Rabin. So it's been, those were 10 years of talks that actually led to nowhere they could have produced something very viable because there was a desire for peace in the United States.

Sami Moubayed (00:22:12):

There was a desire for peace in Israel and in Syria, and at the backdrop of the Wadi Araba Jordanian-Israeli Peace treaty of 1994, and Oslo, which was at its peak at the time, September, 1993 it would've been very doable. As time passed, it became more difficult. And at this stage, I think the Syrian people are in a are too consumed with their own economic worries and their own problems to doing, to engage in such in such a process for now. The, the, the golden moment in history was the golden moment in history was the 1990s, and it was a missed opportunity.

Helena Cobban (00:22:59):

Yeah, I mean, what actually killed it in 1996 was when Netanyahu was elected. First of all, Rabin was assassinated, and then Netanyahu was elected, and he pulled out and, and it's gotten worse and worse since then. Definitely.

Sami Moubayed (00:23:17):

Yes. Yes.

Helena Cobban (00:23:18):

It, it is, to me, it's kind of interesting that in the 1990s, it was Washington that was trying to mediate these peace talks, whereas, as you mentioned, by 2008, it had moved to Turkey. So actually the Washington really wasn't interested, it seems, by the, by 2008, and it was Turkey that was much more invested in trying to get something to happen. And I gather from friends who know Turkish leaders better than I do, that actually the failure of the Turks to mediate that Israeli-Syrian peace was one of the major reasons that Turkey's kind of, that President Erdogan threw up his hands and said, you know, can't deal with, with President Bashar al-Assad, let's just join the Regime change project. But and, and that, you know, it all kind of happened roughly at the same time. So now here we are, 2011 <laugh>. What can you tell us about Israel's involvement in Syria since the beginning of the conflict?

Sami Moubayed (00:24:32):

2011, actually on day one, Israel took a very reluctant and wait and see policy allowing regional players to lead the, the anti-regime camp being Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and and Turkey. That, that stance began to change in 2011, when armed groups began appearing on the on the borderline with Israel, and with the withdrawal of of UN forces of UNIFIL Israel suddenly found itself more seriously involved in the Syrian conflict, facing the major risk in as much as it wanted regime change in Damascus, in as much as it it had to think twice because the the, it was clear by then that the most powerful elements in the armed opposition were the radicals and the Islamists and the Al-Qaeda affiliated then called Jabhat al-Nusra, now calledTahrir al-Sham so there was a reluctance here to, to push for a full there were contacts, but there was a reluctance to push for a full regime change agenda, fearing that the alternative for Israel would be very, very serious and dangerous.

Sami Moubayed (00:26:05):

What Israel has concentrated on since 2012 is, is curbing Hezbollah's influence in Syria and keeping the wings of Iran, and through its almost weekly violations of Syrian airspace, it has been striking at positions or held either by the Iranians or by Hezbollah without directly striking at the Syrian army. Until recently, that changed, those rules of engagement changed just last year. I think the Israelis were very much hoping that things would be different in the South, but it was clear by 2015 that the regime was going nowhere, that the Russians were there to stay, and that the powerful elements of the opposition were the Islamic forces. That is why, when in 2018, when the Russians negotiated the, the, the reconciliation agreements in the Syrian South. They made sure that all the militants are shipped off to the north, or that they joined the Russian -ed reconciliation process. However after the return of UNIFIL, what the Russians offered, Israel was a double buffer on the border area where...

Helena Cobban (00:27:26):

Hang on, Wasn't it, isn't it UNDOF, I mean, UNIFIL was in Lebanon. So this,

Sami Moubayed (00:27:31):

Sorry, I'm sorry. It's, it's UNDOF. Yes, yes. I'm sorry. <Laugh>, I'm sorry. Yes, it is. Andf UNIFIL is in Lebanon. What the Russians offered was a double buffer on the border where there would be Israeli troopsUNDOF Russian troops, then the Syrian army, because Israel was saying at the time that they do not trust that the Syrian army returns single-handedly to the border area, that it would be infiltrated with Hezbollah, and there would be a presence for ISIS, which was powerful through the Khalid ibn al-Walid army in the Syrian South. So at this stage, that border has been secured by the Russians at present, there is, there, there are talks to create a similar scenario on the Syrian-Turkish border. We're not there yet. What, what, at present, there is no there is no problem on that border, but at, at the same time, there is no, there is no momentum for peace.

Sami Moubayed (00:28:29):

And the question remains, and this is something that we should think about, have the Russians in, they have taken so many they have taken control of so many elements of the Middle East. Have they been in, are they taking over the peace process at one stage? Are they going to negotiate a peace at one stage between Israel and Syria? They certainly have the leverage in Israel. They're very close and they've got that leverage in Syria. Have they yanked the, the right to negotiate of, of being a peacemaker from the Americans? We're yet to see,

Helena Cobban (00:29:07):

Have they yanked it from the Yanks? Indeed <laugh>?

Sami Moubayed (00:29:11):

Yes.

Helena Cobban (00:29:13):

That's an interesting supposition. So go back a little bit. Prior to 2018 there was this sort of good fence policy that looked very familiar to me from the good fence policy that Israel had in Lebanon that they launched in 1976 in Lebanon, through which they beefed up, you know, their allies in South Lebanon. And

Sami Moubayed (00:29:41):

The South Liberation, the South Lebanon army of Antoine Lahd, they, they did try to create something similar in Syria through Islamic militants in the South, and that that did not work. There were people armed militants in the armed groups of the Syrian South who were willing to play the role of Antoine Lahd, but that did not happen. There are many who are willing to collaborate with Israel in the Syrian opposition. This is a very, very sad reality. And they believe, you know, there is, there is this feeling in the Arab World that if, if Israel supports you, then you fly, you go ahead with flying colors, and nobody will will stop your project, whatever it may be. And there are people who were willing to work publicly with Israel as Antoine Lahd had been to achieve their end results.

Sami Moubayed (00:30:44):

But that did not work. And the Syrian street remains overwhelmingly anti-Israeli, overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian. Although economic woes at present might might give them different priorities, but the, the, the, the anger is still there. The feeling of having been robbed of your land and denied of your rights and subjugated to, to, to a very brutal occupation remains very much intact in Damascus. In as much as many have tried to say that because of their economic woes, Syrians have forgotten the Palestinian cause. That's not, that's not true, by the way.

Helena Cobban (00:31:29):

Interesting. I think now it would be good to actually open things up because we've had a lot of great questions coming in. So could I bring in our Chief Elf or any of the Elfs Dr. Alice Rothchild, and could you tell us what's on people's minds?

Alice Rothchild (00:31:49):

Okay, well, there are a lot of, a lot of good questions coming through. So I'm gonna start with a question from Judy Hilton. Numerous Israeli experts indicate that Israel does not need to retain the occupied Golan for security imperatives or strategic goals. Why does Israel continue to exist? Insist that it must,

Sami Moubayed (00:32:13):

Well, first of all it's a negotiating card for when the peace process launched in Madrid. The Syrians were very clear. Our bottom line is the liberation of the Golan, and the Israelis were saying, we are willing to negotiate on the Golan. And Rabin was saying, we are willing to give up the Golan in exchange for conditions, and those conditions are much more vital for Israel if they are achieved, than the Golan itself, being normalization with Syria being an end of support for Hezbollah. And at the time, prime condition was ending support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad. As far as the Israelis are concerned, if they give up the Golan and they are rewarded with a break between Syria and Hezbollah, or a destruction of Hezbollah and a destruction of Hamas, that certainly would be more rewarding and more beneficial for Israel's security than keeping the Golan.

Sami Moubayed (00:33:15):

I think we've got, again, we've got two camps inside Israel. We've got people who are willing to give up the Golan. We have people like Netanyahu who are saying that the Golan is some, is, is is very strategic territory, very fertile territory, the water reservoir of Israel. And we are not willing to give it up. It depends what kind of government you have inside Israel and where the mood stands on peace, or the overall peace process with the Arabs. Now is not the right moment to talk about any of this, because neither Netanyahu is interested and apparently due to the, what we've seen from the deal of the century, nor is President Trump.

Alice Rothchild (00:33:55):

So this is a question from Peter Ford. Could you expand on what you said about Russia possibly mediating a Syro-Israeli agreement? Surely the chances of Israel ceeding territory are nil.

Sami Moubayed (00:34:07):

Clearly, the Russians are playing a more active role, not only in Syria, but throughout the region, even in Lebanon, and even in Egypt. And the more embedded they become in regional affairs, the more they all have to touch upon this vital issue issue, which is the backbone of of most Middle East politics. This, the Arab Israeli conflict. Now, Russia stands in a very suitable position with excellent terms with Israel and excellent terms with all Arab states, including Syria, which is the only Arab state that really, and Lebanon, who, which has not signed a peace treaty. Is Putin going to go a step further with his Middle East ambitions, and try to position himself as a peacemaker in the Arabis Israeli conflict? Whether he has been given that role by the Americans, or whether he forcefully snatched it away from them because of lack of ability or lack of interest, is something to be debated. Judging by Putin's track record, he will eventually touch on that. Not this year, and not next year, not the year after, but eventually we're gonna get there.

Alice Rothchild (00:35:21):

What is the relationship between the assassination of Rabin and Peace negotiations with Syria?

Sami Moubayed (00:35:32):

Yitzhak Rabin was a man who had plenty of war medals on his uniform. Meaning he could take bold decisions when it came to peace. You always need to be a, an accredited war hero to take bold decisions. And he, and in his peace talks with the Syrians, he was offering to relinquish the Golan in the famous Rabin deposit, which took the peace talks back then to, to new heights. And those heights collapsed with the assassination of Rabin. Peres came next, then it was then it was Netanyahu, who completely distanced himself from the so-called Rabin deposit. And the talks ended on, on that note in 2000.

Helena Cobban (00:36:23):

I can just jump in here, cuz this was what I wrote one of my books about. So this is the book. It's called The Syrian-Israeli Peace Talks of 1991.

Sami Moubayed (00:36:32):

It's a beautiful book.

Helena Cobban (00:36:34):

Oh, thank you. Not as beautiful as yours, Sami <laugh>. But I mean, one of the things that I noticed in the book, and it was the fact there was the way that Rabin played off the Palestinians against the Syrians in the negotiations. Like he would prioritize Oslo and then he would go back and prioritize the Syrian track, and he played them off against each other like a maestro. And if only the Palestinians and the Syrians had been able to get together and coordinate at that time, the position of both of them, I think would've been a lot stronger. That's one thing. Another is that after the assassination of Rabin, Peres, who immediately exceeded to power, had a choice to make between nailing cuz he was very, they were very close. As Sami said, they were very close to having the peace agreement with Syria. Peres made a choice between nailing that down and then going to a, an election, or going to an election, and then proceeding with the negotiations. And he chose the election and he lost. Shimon Peres lost every single election he ever contested, you know, so, I mean, it is, it was a tragedy.

Sami Moubayed (00:37:50):

Yes. And again, the Syrians, even after the Rabin assassination, they were willing to engage that engagement continued. Madeleine Albright came to Damascus in September 1999 to add momentum to the peace talks. Even Netanyahu sent a negotiator to negotiate. It was a track two diplomacy with the Syrians

Helena Cobban (00:38:13):

Ron Lauder. Yeah,

Sami Moubayed (00:38:14):

Ron Lauder, yes. But that also failed, you know, if, am I entitled to ask a question or do I just answer? Because there's something that's always on my mind which I think would be, would be good for, for discussion with participants. The Syrians lost the Alexandretta territory that was occupied by Turkey in 1939 that was ceeded by the French to Turkey,

Helena Cobban (00:38:39):

Now known as Hatay Province,

Sami Moubayed (00:38:42):

Now known as Hatay <laugh>. And there was no, there was no, no disagreement on, on how Syrian that territory was. It was snatched out of Syria's official borders and given to Turkey. Yet after 1939 there was no serious attempt at liberating that area. There were no military groups. There was no support for resistance. Very contrary to how Syria reacted to the occupation of Palestine in 1948, where from day one, it started to support an underground movement and showed a very strong commitment to the liberation of Palestine. This was even before the Golan. I mean, you equate the Golan with the Sanjak, with Alexandretta. You do not equate Alexandretta with Palestine, which was another country that was occupied being right on Syrian borders. And that shows you, that Syrians really feel for the Palestinian issue. Again, you've got Palestinians who live here who've been living here since 1948, who are intermarried with Syrians and who, who have added to the relevance of their cause in Syrian public life.

Helena Cobban (00:39:56):

I'm not sure that we can answer that, but it's a good question to put out there. And we will be discussing the Palestinian refugees in Syria in a later session of this series, which is great. So thanks for setting that one up. Alice, do you have another, another question?

Alice Rothchild (00:40:14):

This is from Peter Larson, and it's on a similar topic. It says, the professor thought that there could be, could have been a peace treaty in 1990, but wouldn't that have meant selling out the Palestinian refugees and their demands?

Sami Moubayed (00:40:27):

No, that was not a that was not a condition by the Israelis. The Israelis were conditioning normalization, and again, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. The issue of the Palestinian refugees was left for the Palestinians to negotiate, and it was Arfat who decided to leave it for later. And it kept on being delayed and delayed -- the right of return. And it kept on being delayed and delayed until, again, it was touched upon and a very mediocre way by the Trump administration earlier this year. But it, the issue of refugees was not on the, was not a condition for the Syrians and the Israelis to reach any agreement. It was the Syrians who were saying, we will support the right of return, and we will not give these refugees Syrian passports so that they do not forget that they belong to a country that they ought to be returning to.

Alice Rothchild (00:41:30):

Okay. Here's a question from Irena. How come you were saying that Israel didn't wanna continue regime change policy because they were seeing it's the Islamists leading the opposition. Israel has been supporting and funding Islamists from the beginning.

Sami Moubayed (00:41:47):

Israel was torn apart. At one point, again, it tried to create something similar to the south Liberation Army,

Helena Cobban (00:41:56):

South Lebanon Army

Sami Moubayed (00:41:57):

Yeah, South Lebanon army through those Islamists. But it, when it became clear that the upper hand was only in the hands of Isis known in the South as the Khalid ibn al-Walid army it started to have second thoughts. It wanted an opposition that it could control, an opposition, that it could manipulate. And ISIS was not as as easy as many people believe. And they believed that a regime change would lead to an ISIS takeover, whether in the Damascus or in the South. So Israel might have supported Islamic groups, but it would not have supported an ISIS takeover or a Al-Qaeda takeover through Jabhat al-Nusra.

Alice Rothchild (00:42:42):

Okay. Here's a question from Eric Resnick. How did it come to be that Syria became fodder in the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union?

Sami Moubayed (00:42:51):

That takes a long Syria's choice was not, I mean, it was forced to side with the Russians because in 1949, as I mentioned at the start of the talk, the the Americans, the it was the Truman administration. They tried to force Syria to go into negotiations with Israel, which the Syrians refused. It tried to force the Syrians to strike out the Communist Party from public life, which the Syrians refused, and it tried to force the Syrians to give passage rights to American oil companies passing through Syrian territory. When all of that failed, they staged the coup, the staging of that coup put Syria squarely into the Cold War. You had one coup after another, and each coup would be supported by one great power or or another. Up to the mid 1950s, the Americans tried to stage a coup in Syria that coup failed. This is 1957, resulting to the expulsion of the American Ambassador, and a full thrust into the hands of the Soviet Union. This was years before the Ba'ath came to power. It was even before the Syrian Egyptian Union of 1958.

Alice Rothchild (00:44:02):

Okay. And from Peter Larson, can the professor say something about the Jews of Syria, both before 48 and after?

Sami Moubayed (00:44:11):

We're talking financial dues?

Alice Rothchild (00:44:13):

No,

Helena Cobban (00:44:13):

No the Jews.

Alice Rothchild (00:44:15):

The Jews, Jewish people,

Sami Moubayed (00:44:16):

Jews. Jews, of course the Jews of Syria were always a very prominent segment of society who played a huge role in, in the in the economic recovery after World War I and after World War II Life became very difficult for them during the first Palestine war of 1948 they were suddenly excluded from the army and excluded from public life, and people began viewing them with scrutiny, which was, which was very unjust, because these were Syrians with, with Syrian nationalism in their heart. Yeah. And they continued to live in Syria all the way till 1994. When, during the Peace talks, the Clinton administration negotiated the exodus of what remained of Syrian Jews. The Syrian government said, yes, they can leave, but there would be one condition that they don't go to Israel. So many of them ended up in the United States and in Canada, you would be surprised.

Sami Moubayed (00:45:24):

Many people say that if there is no official number of how many Jews are left, it's a small number. You would be surprised that the last estimate I heard in Damascus was 70. Now, that's a small number, but it's higher than the estimates that are making the round. They are elderly people but you have to respect them because they stayed, although all countries and the United States were willing to accept them with open arms, and life became unbearable in the middle of the war where there were electricity cuts and where there were mortars landing on their neighborhood, and they refused to leave their homes and the homes of their ancestors and an entire neighborhood of the city, which is called Harat al-Yahud, the Jewish Quarter of Old Damascusthey're still there. Are they going to diminish in the future? Yes, because there are no young people, but I think there are very undercovered topic in Syrian society.

Helena Cobban (00:46:31):

Sami, you were telling me earlier that back in the early years of the 20th century, there was, there were like Hebrew language publications in Damascus.

Sami Moubayed (00:46:43):

There was a newspaper that was established in early 1920 called al-Sharq. It was established by a Jewishinaudible,] who later on became a prominent figure in Israel after he immigrated called Eliyahu Sasson. And it, it, it came out in two languages in Hebrew and in Arabic. It was discontinued when the French invaded Syria in July, 1920. But the Jews were always prominent. They had a position in the chamber of commerce. They they were always present in Parliament. In 1943, the, the, the Jewish deputy in Parliament was on the list of the nationalist President. That only began to change after 1948.

Alice Rothchild (00:47:39):

Interesting. Okay. Here's a question from Eric Resnick. Were it not for Israel's fear of Iran ending their nuclear hegemony. Would Israel still have what they believe is cause to have Syria as an enemy?

Sami Moubayed (00:47:52):

Syria is an enemy for Israel. There's no doubt about that. This is even before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. And the Israelis have a multitude of reasons to believe that Syria supported Fatah at one point, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, GC, Hamas, Hezbollah, every kind of resistance group that you can imagine at one point in time lodged in Damascus. And that's the real reason why there is, there is, there is a great mistrust and animosity between Syria and Israel. This is not about Iran. Even if the Iranian regime would disappear now, the that bad blood would remain between Tel Aviv and Damascus. I think it would be wrong, and we would be midgeting the Syrian Israeli conflict to link it directly or link it solely to the Syrian Iranian access.

Alice Rothchild (00:48:46):

And do Syrians fear an Israeli invasion? I mean,

Sami Moubayed (00:48:52):

I don't think there is going to be an invasion of Syrian territory and occupation of new land. I think that's I think that's behind us more so today than ever before with the Russians with the Russians there and the Iranians and the and the UNDOF back in power I mean, in, in their positions. This could have happened in 2013 and 2014 when chaos was prevailing in the Syrian is on the, as Syrian Israeli border. And Israel did not do that at the time. Why would they invade? Would they invade to occupy new territory, or would they invade to go against to go against Islamic groups? At that point in time, the Islamic groups that were on the border were not posing any threat to Israel. And now UNDOF is back.

Alice Rothchild (00:49:41):

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> and from Pauline Kaufman was the clean break document of the neocons and Israel a factor in this period.

Sami Moubayed (00:49:53):

Let me tell you something. The the Syrians have not prioritized the Israeli problem in recent years. In as much as many people who wanted to believe that Israel was a priority for Syrian decision makers, and there was a fear of Israel, or there was a desire to engage, or there was a serious study of what the Israelis were doing. If you just go through Syrian websites and Syrian media at the time, Israeli news was on the back burner government, opposition, and people alike were all way more interested in, in other stuff. Israel was not as relevant as it wanted to believe, or as many in the West would like to have believed during this during the past 10 years, the relevance is related directly to the to the war between Israel and Iran, if we're gonna call it a war to the conflict between Israel and Iran. But it's not more, it's not as Syrian Israeli as it used to be in the past.

Alice Rothchild (00:51:07):

And here's a question. Lately, there have been alleged Israeli airstrikes, unsuspected, chemical weapons, plants and homes. Is Israel afraid of chemical weapons in Syria?

Sami Moubayed (00:51:18):

Of course it was. And it it's made that clear. This is not an assumption. This is based on Israeli statements. They've always feared chemical weapons, and they were behind many of the statements or the studies that that estimated how big and powerful serious chemical arsenal is.

Alice Rothchild (00:51:45):

Okay. And here's another question. Lastly, no. Is there a possibility of a trade off between Iranian withdrawal from Syria as Israel demands and returning to Syria of the occupied Golan?

Sami Moubayed (00:52:01):

The withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria would have to be a Syrian, Iranian, Russian project. It cannot be officially part of a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement, or it cannot be a put on the table as a negotiating condition, simply because the Syrians alone cannot achieve it. It can, it's not a one, one-way decision that they, in the past, it was you have to distance yourself from Hezbollah. The Syrians could have done that if they were given the Golan back in full. But now getting Iran withdraw requires two people to tangle, requires the Damascus and Tehran to engage. If the Iranians are not interested in a withdraw and if they don't get something in return for that withdrawal in their negotiations with the Americans in the West, it's not gonna happen. So I don't think it's very logical to, to intertwine all these issues into one package. Each has to be unwinded separately.

Alice Rothchild (00:53:12):

And is it true that Lebanon also has something to lose? Shebaa farms in al-Jabal Golan should the Israeli continue its military occupation?

Sami Moubayed (00:53:24):

Shebaa farms are are Lebanese territory and there's a debate on whether they're Syrian or, or Lebanese. But there is occupied territory that needs to be liberated. And we until that happens, there is going to be a military group called Hezbollah in Lebanon, carrying arms being the most powerful player in Lebanon, whether we like it or not. More so today with the collapse of, of everything in that country due to the economic crisis and the financial meltdown that's happening. Unless you have a, a withdrawal from Shebaa Farms, it'll be very difficult to, to negotiate anything on the Lebanon Hezbollah arsenal. And every single cabinet that has been created in Lebanon from the present, one of Hassan Diab, even through the proWestern ones like Saad Harriri and Fouad Siniora have pledged to "support and embrace the arms of Hezbollah." That doesn't mean they like it, it means they have no other option, because Hezbollah is the most powerful player in that country. That's that's a matter of fact.

Helena Cobban (00:54:38):

So I think we have time just for two more questions, Alice. And then we need to wrap things up. But this has been fascinating.

Sami Moubayed (00:54:46):

Thank you.

Alice Rothchild (00:54:47):

Let's see. So here what was, and what still is the role of Saudi Arabia in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and the conflict between Israel and Syria?

Sami Moubayed (00:54:59):

At this stage, you have a huge animosity between Saudi Arabia and Hamas, because Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Saudi Arabia accuses of creating havoc and stirring terrorism in the Arabian Gulf. Historically speaking, Saudi Arabia was on excellent relations with Yasser Arafat, and it supported him generously with funds. Those funds ended because of Arafat's 1990, August 1990, support for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The Saudis came up with a peace initiative in March, 2002, called the Prince Abdallah, later King Abdallah Peace Initiative, which was adopted by the Arab League, which called for collective peace between Arab states and Israel in exchange for collective withdrawal from all occupied territory. At the time, if you recall, Ariel Sharon responded by by refusing to allow Arafat to leave his besieged compound in Ramallah. And raided Ramallah and took the level of violence to unprecedented levels in what then was the second Intifada.

Sami Moubayed (00:56:22):

So that was a clear response from Israel that it is not interested in the Saudi Peace Initiative. At this stage, there is a, at, at one point in time, the Saudis were supporting the Syrian opposition. I think that's now history more so, it started to become history after the 2015 death of King Abdullah and the start of the Saudi-Yemen war, which took Saudi attention to a completely new level. Right now the Gulf is way more interested in rooting out the Muslim Brotherhood, which gives them common ground for, for any rapprochement with Damascus.

Alice Rothchild (00:57:06):

Okay. And I think this is the last question. Can you comment on the arming and supporting of militants and launching raids against Syria from Israel?

Sami Moubayed (00:57:16):

The Israeli arming of militants?

Alice Rothchild (00:57:20):

Right.

Sami Moubayed (00:57:22):

The Israelis, again early on during the Syrian war, took a step back, waiting to see how things would go. Everybody was believing at the time that the regime was going to fall in a matter of weeks, months. And it did support the opposition, and it did support the arming of the opposition, like many countries did, not realizing that this was going to lead to a overwhelmingly jihadi Islamic opposition, even then, they continued to give their support to certain military groups so that the Americans were vetted at the time as quote unquote moderate opposition <laugh>. The real game changer was the emergence of ISIS in 2014, the creation of the caliphate in Mosul, and the famous speech by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which caused all states in the region and abroad to reconsider their positions on Syria. And I think Israel was no exception to that.

Helena Cobban (00:58:32):

So thank you very much indeed. Dr. Sami Boubayed, I hope things go well for you there in your lockdown in Damascus. 

Sami Moubayed (00:58:42):

Thank you, Helena. Thank you, Alice. And thank you all for, for having me. It's been a pleasure. It's actually very healthy to engage in healthy dialogue. For the past two weeks most of my dialogue has been with my two-year-old baby

Helena Cobban (00:58:59):

<Laugh>. So that, that is how lockdowns are. I know from, I mean, my children tell me that their children are a constant presence in their, their lockdown. So I hope things go well for you. Really, it's been an honor to have you with us.

Sami Moubayed (00:59:17):

Thank you very much. It's my pleasure and my honor as well,

Helena Cobban (00:59:20):

<Laugh>. Now I want to remind all the listeners that will be holding these, continuing to hold these webinars on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 1:00 PM New York City time from now through April 25th, next Saturday. Ah, I'm, I'm gonna share this screen. I'm gonna nail this screen sharing thing people. Okay. So next Saturday I'll be talking to two great experts on the regional dynamics of the fighting in Syria, Elijah Magnier and Sharmine Narwani. At the end of today's session, when we close it, or you click on the leave webinar button, don't click on it yet. That's at the bottom right of your screen. Zoom will be sending you a little questionnaire inviting your feedback and evaluation of today's session. Please do fill out and send in those evaluations.

Helena Cobban (01:00:21):

And today's session, like the preceding four, has been recorded for us by Zoom. We're currently building a permanent zone on our website where we're posting the links to all the videos and related materials to be a continuing resource for people going forward. Oops. share screen again. How do I do that? Okay. I'm so this is how you can find the other resources that we have available. The top link there takes you to our resource page. Keep checking back as we load more material onto it, and as we get it better organized. Finally, let me note that we're providing this whole webinar series at no cost to attendees, so that we can win the largest possible audience for it. If you find the project worthwhile, please send us as generous, as generous of a donation as you can. Big thanks to everybody who's already given to us over the past few weeks. Now, you can donate either online or via check by clicking the donate button on our website at www.justworldeducational.org. Thanks for being with us here today. Stay safe and be sure to join us for Saturday's session with Elijah Magnier and Sharmine Narwani. Thank you everybody, and until Saturday. Goodbye, Sami. Bye-Bye.