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Inside Israel

Israelis open to giving up the Golan?


By Stan Goodenough
December 19, 2006

Syria says it wants to talk peace with Israel, and Israelis say they want to talk peace with Syria, even though they know Damascus is determined to take the Golan Heights away from the Jews.

Numerous reports this past week indicate that Syria, which still considers itself to be at war with Israel, is suddenly serious about negotiating an end to the conflict.

Analysts believe, however, that Syrian dictator Bashar el-Assad is trying to encourage US President George W. Bush to implement the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group which, inter alia, call for offering Damascus the Golan Heights in exchange for Syrian assistance in Iraq.

Tuesday saw claims and denials run riot in the Israeli press, after unidentified “western diplomats” announced that Assad had sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offering to renew negotiations with the Jewish state.

Olmert’s office denied that it had received any letter from Assad.

On Sunday Olmert said he was not prepared to talk with Syria, not because he was against such talks in principle but because he did not want to take a position on that terrorist-sponsoring state that was contrary to the position held by the United States.

Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu told a gathering of diplomats Tuesday that he would be willing to negotiate with Syria but on condition Assad was prepared to disengage from Iran.

The former prime minister insisted, however, that Israel would remain in the Golan Heights after any such negotiations had taken place.

Leftist Israelis, meanwhile, leaped to welcome the letter and insisted that the government seize the opportunity to dialogue with Assad.

The treacherous ‘Peace Now’ group announced its intention to demonstrate on the Golan this coming Friday and publicly demand that talks be opened with Syria.

And self-hating Meretz MK Ran Cohen declared that “Israel must answer the Syrian cries, so as not to remain the most stubborn peace refuser in the Middle East.”

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