Syria's Three Noes

You can read the whole article here but the writer does make one wonder why any idiot in the Israeli government would consider giving the Golan Heights to Syria in light of The Chinless One's most recent pronouncement on the subject. Peace clearly isn't one of the reasons. At least, not as normal people envision peace. Normal is used deliberately here.

"In a recent interview with the Emirati newspaper Al-Khaleej, Assad made a remarkable – and indeed unprecedented – comment about what his concept of “peace” with Israel was. “A peace agreement,” he said, “is a piece of paper you sign. This does not mean trade and normal relations, or borders, or otherwise.”

The long-held view among people dealing with the negotiating track between Syria and Israel is that a peace deal will lead to a normalization of relations between the two countries. That was the purported basis of their talks during the 1990s. In recent years, another element was added to the argument, namely that a peace deal would distance Syria from Iran and allied militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, so that Damascus might even put pressure on Hamas itself to accept peace talks with Israel. This ambitious theory was dubbed “strategic reorientation”, and it has become the basis for conceptualizing engagement of Syria today.

However, the implications of Assad’s statement to Al-Khaleej should lead to a reassessment of the Syrian-Israeli track. Assad has now articulated what he had strongly implied for years.

In 2002, at the Arab League summit in Beirut, Assad led a strenuous effort to torpedo the formula put forward by Saudi Arabia’s then-crown prince, Abdullah, which offered Israel “full normalization for full withdrawal.” Assad rejected the term “normalization” and in the end a compromise was reached on watered-down language proposing only “normal ties”.

Then last July, Assad went further, telling the Qatari satellite station Al-Jazeera that from the Syrian point of view, “the word ‘normalization’ does not exist.” He insisted that it was a Western concoction that Syria rejected. Instead, Assad used an even more downgraded term, namely “average relations”, whose Arabic root removes any link to the word “normal.” The late Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad, also told interlocutors during the 1990s that he did not accept the word “normalization.” Now, with his son’s declarations, the regime’s position can be summarized in three No’s: No normalization, no trade and no borders, by which Assad presumably meant no open borders."

In other words, give us back the Golan which we stole from mandatory Palestine through the agency of our French and British colonial masters in the first place, used as an artillery platform for decades and launch point for two invasions, and we'll give Israel -- nothing.

No, thanks. Keep your stinking worthless piece of paper, we'll keep the Golan. If you decide to get serious, call us. You know the number. If you don't, I'm sure Ankara has it.