How well Barak lines up the mainstream Jewish community to counter their efforts will have a direct impact on the success of the talks that began this week. Ironically, American Jews may be more resistant to change on the issue than Israelis, who live in the Golan's shadow, but also have sons and daughters who are at risk because of the ongoing conflict with Syria. Assad is ill, and the battle to succeed him is already underway. With his family at each other's throats, a smooth transition is unlikely. Barak needs to provide American Jews some assurance he has thought about this instability and about what it will mean if he signs a deal with Assad, who could be out of the picture before the ink is dry.
Israeli officials see a Golan deal as the first step in a process of region-wide normalization.
Eventually, they hope the expanding web of relations will reach even into Iran and Iraq, or at least, isolate them. Barak needs to make the case to American Jews that a deal involving the Golan Heights is just one piece of a much broader jigsaw puzzle. Sure, signed treaties are better than endless confrontation, but Jews here have been discouraged by the hostile rhetoric and outright anti-Semitism that still emanates from Egypt. If so, he should make that case to worried Jews here. They need to preemptively deal with the argument that a treaty that requires outside support for its success isn't worth the paper it's written on.