Syria offers to talk but warns it may join conflict

While indicating it was willing to help broker a peace in the Hezbollah-Israeli crisis, Syria has fueled fears the fighting in the Middle East could spread, issuing a stark warning on July 23 that it would intervene if Israel invaded Lebanon. It has been the Bush administration's policy to attempt to isolate Syria within the community of Arab nations in order to pressure it to stop arming and funding Hezbollah. The government has denied re-supplying the Lebanese group and officials have vowed to respond to any attack, although they have shown little sign of preparing for war. In a sign that Syria might be feeling the pressure from its Arab neighbors, Faisal al-Meqdad, its deputy foreign minister, said on July 23 that Damascus was willing to have direct talks with the US to resolve the conflict. That reconciliatory tone was countered, however, by Mohsen Bilal, the country's information minister, who said that Syria would enter the conflict if the Israelis invaded Lebanon. "If Israel makes a land invasion of Lebanon and gets near us, Syria will not stand by with arms folded," he told the Spanish newspaper ABC. "It will enter the conflict." "If Israel makes a land entry into Lebanon, they can get to within 20 kilometers [12 miles] of Damascus," Bilal said. He added that Syria would only cooperate with peace negotiations within the framework of a broader Middle East peace initiative that would include the return of the Golan Heights to Syria, which was captured by Israel in 1967. John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, rebuffed Syria's offer to help to broker a peace deal. "Syria doesn't need dialogue to know what they need to do," he said. He repeated US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's assertion that there would be no solution to the conflict until Hezbollah had been disarmed. A large number of Syrians have relatives in Lebanon–the two countries were only carved out into separate states in 1920. Political ties deteriorated after last year's killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri which led to Syria, under strong international pressure, ending its 29-year military presence in Lebanon. But animosities have been side-lined by the Israeli attacks that have killed more than 300 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians. "The Israelis have spared no one. We are in utter shock." said Ghada Al-Shidi, who was donating blood bound for Lebanese hospitals in response to calls by the Red Crescent. Syria has eased border procedures and is hosting tens of thousands of Lebanese who fled the bombardment. At Damascus University, students were fiercely critical of Arab governments that have criticized Hezbollah. "Syria has guts, unlike Egypt and other Arab governments. Our army will respond if attacked. People don't expect anything less, although it is not on par with Israel," said Wala Amer, a first year archaeology student. Bassam al-Sharif, who owns a supermarket in the middle class district of Shalan, did not expect Israel to attack Syria. "The Israelis will not achieve anything by messing with Syria," said Sharif, who used to import most of his merchandise, such as French cheese and yogurt, from Lebanese suppliers. "Commerce is not a priority now," he said. "Our hearts are with the Lebanese and with Hezbollah." The daily Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and the floods of refugees pouring in have set off a wave of anger through Syria. "How can people watch this destruction in Lebanon and do nothing," Hassan Majed Ali, president of the Union of Engineers in Damascus told IPS. "What is happening in Lebanon is opposed by 100 percent of us here in Syria." Ali, who heads a union of 19,000 engineers, said "the Israelis have not complied with any of the UN resolutions since 1949. Why hasn't the world forced Israel to comply with UN resolution 242 which told them to withdraw from Arab lands? And now nobody is forcing them to stop their destruction of Lebanon." This will also be Israel's loss, he said. "The Lebanese, our brothers, have now lost everything. And now the Israelis have lost what friendship they may have had left with the Arab world." Maher Skanderani, a 37-year-old merchant in downtown Damascus said everyone is furious over what is happening in Lebanon. "And everything which is happening illustrates the main problem–which is Israel invading Palestine and taking Palestinian land," he said. Anger is spilling over against the US government–and its citizens. Ola Saleh, a 25-year-old civil rights volunteer from Latakia said: "In Syria people used to differentiate between the Bush regime and the American people. But now not only do Syrians not respect the Bush regime, they no longer respect the American people for allowing this to happen."