By Ryan Jones
Aug 21, 2006
Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter came under intense criticism Monday after suggesting on Army Radio that Israel should surrender the Golan Heights in return for true peace with Syria.
Said the former Israel Security Services (Shin Bet) chief:
"We have paid similar territorial prices for peace with Jordan and Egypt."
Ultra-leftist lawmaker Zahava Gal-On concurred in a comment to Ynet:
"The agreement with Syria will mean the return of the Golan Heights, and it's better to have peace with Syria without the Golan Heights than the Golan without peace."
The apparent rush to treat with Damascus comes after Defense Minister Amir Peretz suggested last week that the war in Lebanon had created an opportunity for talks with Syria that would effectively remove the latter from the "axis of evil."
But Vice Premier Shimon Peres, certainly no opponent of the land-for-peace formula, said Israel should wait for Syria to indicate a willingness for peace before jumping headlong into an initiative doomed to failure.
Peres told Israel Radio:
"The Syrians, if they are serious (about peace talks), should come and say 'we are interested in holding negotiations.' I don't see Assad doing this."
Senior Likud MK Yuval Steinitz went further, insisting it was "folly" to even discuss giving up the Golan:
"The Golan Heights is a part of the state of Israel. It bears critical importance for the security of the state, the peace of the state, its ability to drink [water] and to make the desert bloom in this difficult region."
Speaking to Ynet, National Union MK Aryeh Eldad went on to explain that, despite the absence of hostilities on the Egyptian front since 1979, recent decades had demonstrated that surrendering land to Israel's enemies only encourages violence.
"Who ever doesn't understand that the formula of land for peace has brought only bloodshed, it is best that he doesn't give advice about security issues."
In an address to the Knesset last week marking the end of the month-long Lebanon war, Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu stressed this point:
"We left Lebanon to the last centimeter and still they are firing. We left Gaza to the last centimeter and still they are firing."