Syria Is Key to Returning Israel's POWs and MIAs How Syria Can Get a Discount Ticket to International Legitimacy

Even as State Department and National Security Council officials were paving a new path to Damascus last week for “preliminary conversations” with the Syrian government, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Gregory Schulte, was warning of “growing evidence of clandestine nuclear activities in Syria."

Recently, some analysts and policymakers expressed the belief that engaging Syria’s President Bashir Assad could almost magically delink Syria from Iran, halt Syria’s assistance to Hamas and Hizbullah, and help bring the dawn of a regional peace in the Middle East. At the same time, however, there was a reminder of why Syria landed on the axis of evil membership list when an international tribunal convened in The Hague on March 1 to deliberate the evidence surrounding the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Top Syrian officials, including some close to President Assad, are believed to be involved in the plot.

Despite all the pollyannish rhetoric and analysis, it is correct and responsible to be skeptical of Syria’s leadership and their activities. And Israeli leaders and voters are very skeptical. After all, Hamas headquarters are located in Damascus, Hizbullah’s thousands of rockets and missiles are manufactured in Syria or transported through Syria from Iran, and Syria maintains an arsenal of long-range Scud missiles, many believed to be armed with poison gas warheads. International experts no longer doubt that a clandestine nuclear facility was under final stages of construction when it was destroyed by Israeli bombers.

But there is one way for President Bashir Assad to dissipate Israel’s mistrust, and it does not require the monumental Sadatian step of journeying to Jerusalem to declare an end of war. Syria can clarify the status of Israeli soldiers who are missing in action and believed by some to be sitting in Syrian prison cells.

Tzvi Feldman, Zachary Baumel and Yehudah Katz (from left to right) were soldiers missing in action after the June 1982 Sultan Yaqub battle with Syrian tanks in Lebanon. Various reports, including some quoting Syrian officials, suggest that they may still be alive 27 years later. Baumel was also an American citizen.

Guy Hever (right)was stationed at an Israeli base on the Golan Heights, near the Syrian frontier. In 1997 he disappeared, and no trace has been found. Did Syrian commandos grab him? Did he wander into Syrian territory?

Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad (pictured left) was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. He was captured by one of the Lebanese militias and reportedly “sold” to the Iranians. In those days, grass didn’t grow in Lebanon without Syrian approval. At some point, Ron Arad passed through Syrian hands and territory.

Gilad Shalit (right) has been held by Gazan militia forces for almost three years. Ostensibly, Hamas – not Syria – is responsible for his fate. But with Hamas headquarters located in Damascus, Syrian security forces have the ability to “encourage” Hamas to release the Israeli soldier.

Is there any chance that Israeli soldiers are still alive 10 or 25 years after their capture? Yes. Dictatorships are notorious for their decades-long imprisonment of POWs. In 1996 the Pentagon was still analyzing reports of American POWs held in North Korea since the Korean War. In 1998 Iran released some 5,600 Iraqis, many held for more than 15 years after their capture in the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war. Iraq released some 380 POWs in exchange, including an Iranian pilot shot down at the start of the war.

If the Israeli MIAs are dead, then Syria could provide details to their families and begin the process of repatriating their bodies for burial. The Israeli nation would immediately take note of these steps. All of the American and French diplomats making pilgrimages to Assad should move the issue of MIAs/POWs higher on their priority list. There is probably no greater confidence-building step that Syria can take at this time.

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