At the same time, Baker proposes a stick-and-carrot approach to achieve peace between Israel and Syria. The United States needs this peace in order to draw Syria into its camp. The stick, from the Israeli point of view, would be the return of the Golan Heights. The carrot would be the stationing of American soldiers on the border, so that Israel's security would be guaranteed by the United States. In return, he demands that Syria stop, inter alia, its aid to Hizbullah.
After Gulf War I, Baker-the same Baker-got all the parties to the conflict to come to an international conference in Madrid. For that purpose, he twisted the arm of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, whose entire philosophy consisted of two letters and one exclamation mark: "No!" and whose slogan was: "The Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea"-alluding to the popular Israeli conviction that the Arabs all want to throw Israel into the sea.
Baker brought Shamir to Madrid, his arms and legs in irons, and made sure he did not escape. Shamir was compelled to sit at the table with representatives of the Palestinian people, who had never been allowed to attend an international conference before. The conference itself had no tangible results, but there is no doubt that it was a vital step in the process that brought about the Oslo agreement and, more difficult than anything else, the mutual recognition of the State of Israel and the Palestinian people.
Now Baker is suggesting something similar. He proposes an international conference, and cites Madrid as a model. The conclusion is clear.
However, this baker can only offer a recipe for the cake. The question is whether President Bush will use the recipe and bake the cake.
Since 1967 and the beginning of the occupation, several American Secretaries of State have submitted plans to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All these plans met the same fate: they were torn up and thrown in the trash can.
The same sequence of events has been repeated time after time. In Jerusalem, hysteria sets in. The Foreign Office stands up on its hind legs and swears to defeat the evil design. The media unanimously condemns the wicked plot. The Secretary of State of the day is pilloried as an antiSemite. The Israeli lobby in Washington mobilizes for total war.
Take, for example, the Rogers Plan of Richard Nixon's first Secretary of State, William Rogers. In the early 1970s he submitted a detailed peace plan, the principal point of which was the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders, with, at most, "insubstantial alterations."