Op-ed By Moshe Maoz

The violent incidents on the Lebanese border further highlight the need to reach a political agreement with Damascus, the main address for all matters related to resolving the south Lebanon problem. Unlike the prevailing conventional wisdom, the Clinton-Assad meeting in Geneva on March 26 did not put an end to the Syrian-Israeli peace process. It did perhaps reflect another Syrian attempt at brinkmanship to pressure Israel into waiving its demand for sovereignty over a 200 to 300-meter strip of land along the northeastern edge of Lake Kinneret, on the Syrian side of the 1923 international border. (It is also possible that in Geneva, Assad did not receive a clear commitment from Clinton regarding U.S. peace aid to Syria).

Since this effort was unsuccessful, Syria is working indirectly to find a compromise formula for the disputed strip of land that will meet its demand for access to Lake Kinneret. Apparently against this background, the journalist and Assad's biographer, Patrick Seale, recently suggested that this strip of shorefront land become an open tourist area with open access to Syrian and Israeli citizens.

If Seale's suggestion was indeed proposed in coordination with Assad, then it should be seriously considered using an unconventional approach devoid of emotions. After all, such an arrangement could serve as a spearhead for meetings between Israelis and Syrians. This could lead to the removal of the psychological barrier and the start of a conciliation process between the two nations, in addition to a formal peace arrangement between governments based on economic and strategic interests.

There is no doubt that Syria and Assad have an interest in a peace treaty with Israel. Such a treaty would give them the Golan Heights back, demilitarized, and eliminate the Israeli threat hovering over Damascus, which is now within the IDF's artillery range. Returning the Golan Heights would also remove the stain blemishing the prestige of Assad, who lost the Golan Heights to Israel.

An agreement with Israel would also enable Syria to continue preserving its strategic and economic interests in Lebanon and would lead to its removal from the American black list of countries that support international terrorism. As a result, Syria is likely to benefit from American, European and Japanese aid packages and investments.

The Syrian middle class and other sectors are longing for an improvement in the economic situation. Despite their ideological and emotional hostility toward Israel, they are unwilling to undergo another war with it, which is liable to inflict a heavy blow on them and cause Syria's economic infrastructure to regress significantly.

This anti-Israel hostility, primarily among extremist Islamic and Ba'athist circles, is blatantly expressed in Syrian media and textbooks, for example, in the analogy drawn between Israel and Nazism recently made in the government news organ, Tishrin.

Unfortunately, such expressions and others also appeared in Egypt and Jordan before they signed peace treaties with Israel. Sadat himself used anti-Jewish expressions before his historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977.

Nevertheless, the significant change in our Arab neighbors is in the strategic decision of their leaders - from Sadat to Assad - to reach peace agreements with Israel in return for territories captured in 1967, while recognizing Israel's existence and establishing diplomatic and economic ties with it.

Based on diplomatic, political and economic ties with the Arab countries, and primarily with the Syrians and Palestinians, it will be possible with patience and effort to gradually progress from a formal peace to an historic acceptance and at the very least, to achieve a normal coexistence between Israel and the Arab world.

Professor Maoz is the author of a political biography, "Assad - The Sphinx of Damascus."