What went wrong? : the Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations 1991-2000

Abstract

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, Syria and Israel has been in a technical state of war. After the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the following 1973-war, the border between the two states has been more or less calm, although tension has sometimes reached an alarming level. In 1991 Syrian and Israeli officials met for the first time during the International Peace Conference in Madrid. The conference led to peace negotiations between the two states, a process which endured the next 4 years and was reopened in 1999/2000, though without succeeding to produce a peace treaty. The aim with this thesis is to examine causes of the failing negotiations. Why were the parties unable to reach agreement, what went wrong? My hypothesis is that internal opposition to the negotiations in Israel prevented the talks both from moving forwards and in the end, brought about the impasse. The background for the strong Israeli opposition was not first and foremost antagonism against Syria; rather it was related to regional factors. It consisted of radical Palestinian and Hezbollah violence which with their multiple attacks aimed at civilians disillusioned the Israeli public. Opposition to the peace process with Syria was thus not directly linked to Syria. In order to confirm this, I have used the acknowledged theory of “two-level games” by Robert Putnam. However, where Putnam asserts that international negotiations consist of a national and an international level, I have expanded the theory. My claim is that the Syrian-Israeli case was in fact a three-level game, and that a third factor in the form of a regional aspect proved to be the most important element.