Peace is high on the agenda for 2000. Adel Darwish reports on the American-brokered Syrian-Israeli talks in West Virginia, the reaction of a concerned Israeli public and the prospects of a breakthrough in the near future.

The long awaited, much hyped, top level Syrian-Israeli peace talks at Shepherdstown, West Virginia started on a high note, yet closed, without a breakthrough, on 11 January and remain delayed indefinitely.

America tried to introduce a positive spin on things by claiming progress was made. The progress appeared to be that the two sides had agreed to meet again at some - yet to be decided - point. They went home, State Department officials said, to study pages and pages of "a detailed working paper", put forward by President Bill Clinton.

In reality, it was America's idea of how a peace deal should be structured. Neither the Syrians nor the Israelis liked it. Or that is what they say.

From the start it all seemed, in the words of a retired Arab diplomat, "yawningly familiar". Arab-Israeli talks, under American sponsorship/pressure/bribe, were stymied as the two sides each postured to their home audience, squabbling over minor issues.

This time, like many times before, the squabble was about the agenda of the talks and how to start. Hence the idea of a framework paper, orchestrated by President Clinton, who attended the talks on five different occasions.

The Syrians grumbled saying Israel should first agree to withdraw to the lines of 4 June 1967, bringing Syria to the shores of the Galilee, before discussing the rest.

No, said Israeli officials, all issues, including normalisation, should be discussed on one agenda.

Even before reaching home, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's party leaked details to journalists, saying Barak was concerned about the change in America's position. He was reportedly disappointed that some remarks, regarding certain "red lines Israel cannot go beyond in giving up the Golan", discussed during confidential meetings with top American officials, had been leaked to the Syrians.

Washington is putting increasing pressure on Israel to settle for a straight exchange - the strategic Golan Heights for a peace treaty - instead of full normalisation of relations.

Israeli officials complain they expect it will be Israel, not Syria, that bears the brunt of American pressure to come to a settlement over the next few weeks. President Clinton has set a two-month deadline for the end of the negotiations.

"We have two different positions on many issues," said Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy, "on shared borders, water and other issues. There are many details that need long discussion and negotiation."

Neutral observers tend to agree that America is likely to put more pressure on Israel than Syria. "Syria has only one demand," said a Damascus-based Western diplomat, "the return of their land".

The Israeli public, however, sees no point in returning the Golan, without securing long-lasting peace by full normalisation, open borders and trade. "President Hafez Al Assad will sit there, and wait for America to kick the Israelis, or sweeten them, into accepting withdrawal," the diplomat added.

President Assad was quite happy to leave things as they were. It was Mr Barak who made public pledges to pull the Israeli army out of south Lebanon in the next few months. This cannot be achieved without some agreement with Syria, which controls the Lebanese decision.

The Israeli public, and the country's journalists, who still remember the warm atmosphere that surrounded the late President Anwar Sadat's peace-making visit to Israel, the friendly handshakes, followed years later by Jordanian and Palestinian close encounters, were dismayed by the lack of Syrian warmth. There was even visible hostility.

Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk Al Shara, who held talks with Mr Barak, refused to shake hands or exchange any friendly comments with Israeli officials. Even Syrian journalists refused to respond to greetings or questions from Israeli reporters.

"True, Mr Shara might be afraid to lose his hand to President Assad's sword if it shook an Israeli hand," said one Israeli official in Shepherdstown, "but body-language and other such gestures - or the lack of them - have been reported as snubs for Prime Minister Barak in the Israeli media".

Mr Barak returned home to a rather disturbing scene in contrast to those which followed his election victory only a few months ago. An estimated 200,000 Israelis packed Yitzhak Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to protest about any withdrawal from the Golan Heights that would be a likely component of a peace deal with Syria.

The square in central Tel Aviv has been historically associated with Israel's peace camp. The protest following Mr Barak's return from Shepherdstown was the biggest since it was packed with 400,000 protesters in 1982 demonstrating against Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

Scores of busloads of yeshiva students, Golan residents and retired Russian immigrants jammed the heart of secular, dovish Tel Aviv to send Mr Barak and President Clinton a few messages.

"The Golan stays, Barak goes," read many banners in Hebrew, English and Russian that fluttered as old-fashioned Zionist rallying songs reverberated through an unusually cold wet night.

The danger for Barak was that most protesters were not the usual right-wing Brooklyn-grown fanatic settlers, but young, secular, business-like Westernised residents from the Golan. The same modern Labor voters that brought him to power.

Mr Barak has stuck to the commitment made by the late Yitzhak Rabin and he has repeated it: to hold a referendum on the withdrawal from the Golan. Given Syria's position and its hostility, the outcome of the vote, at present, is almost certain to be against a deal.

Reading Syrian, and many other Arabic newspapers, even in countries supposed to have 'normal' ties with Israel, such as Jordan or Egypt, one concludes they are not in favour of a 'normalised' peace. It is evident that Arab opinion makers see a deal with Israel as a way to return occupied land, which the Arabs cannot achieve by force. Few - if any - decision makers advocate normalisation via economic and regional cooperation as a realistic method of securing future peace and prosperity.

The trouble is that the Israeli public, which is smart enough to notice this Arab trend, is convinced the Arabs, and Syrians in particular, do not want peace, but the absence of war which will give them time to become strong again to fight and destroy Israel. Right or wrong, they are likely to vote against a deal unless they are convinced otherwise.

Unlike Israel, Syria doesn't face a referendum or a voting problem, but it has gigantic economic problems that might help President Assad to soften his attitude (see page 18).

Syria's gross domestic product in 1998 amounted to $15 billion, a sixth of the size of Israel's economy, and Israel has only six million people. Syria's economy cannot provide sufficient employment for the population of 15 million, growing at a rate of 2.4 per cent a year. Between 150,000 and 200,000 new job seekers arrive on the labour market each year.

If economics controlled the outcome of the American-sponsored talks, there is little question a deal would come together. President Assad has so far shown more interest in regional politics, security for his regime and securing a succession to power for his son, than in the economic welfare of his nation. He rarely intervenes in running the economy - only during a crisis.

Congressmen have warned Israel it should not expect massive economic aid as the price for a peace deal. There was also a warning to Syria as US congressmen checked out the country's human rights situation. However, President Clinton is likely to find enough support to underwrite a peace deal. The framework of an Israeli-Syrian deal is straightforward and could, at least in theory, be settled in weeks: the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized for security reasons in 1967 but over which it has no time-honoured claims, in exchange for stringent security guarantees and an embassy in Damascus. Such problems are nothing compared to the historic, religious, ideological and nationalistic problems which loom over any Israeli-Palestinian settlement. However, it has taken Syria and Israel 33 years to approach discussion of this simple equation.

Syria has had no wish for normal relations with Israel. President Assad was prepared to postpone getting back his land in order to continue to lead the anti-Israel, anti-compromise, front.

The secular nationalists who had settled the occupied Golan and prospered with their farms and their vines, have built up a strong lobby in Israel that cuts across political and religious lines.

Despite obstacles in the first round, there is a chance of a breakthrough. There is a strong trend in Israel to pull out of Lebanon as its position there becomes ever more intolerable.

Mr Assad, meanwhile, is growing old, his health is poor. His son, Bashar, needs his path smoothed if the dynasty is to continue: the Golan returned, the cold war with Israel ended, Syria's relations with the West re-established. There was a breakthrough, American diplomats say, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Damascus in December and with the subsequent dispatch of Farouq Shara, Syria's foreign minister, to Washington for talks.

As The Middle East went to print before the resumption of the talks, we expect delays and considerable agitation, but the will is there. It is just likely to take longer than President Clinton might have wished. The 'undisclosed' location in Maryland where follow-up talks are scheduled to take place is going to be like a Middle East souq, with both parties seeking a good bargain. And as in any old-fashioned souq, a lot of haggling will go on. Both vendor and buyer often return for more heated haggling the next day and sometimes for days after that, but eventually they cut a deal before the gendarmes order the souq to be cleared.