Posted on 06/08/2007 7:24:49 PM PDT by blam
Israel offers the Golan Heights to Syria
By Charles Levinson in Katzrin, Israel
Last Updated: 2:16am BST 09/06/2007
The Israeli prime minister has offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace, the nation's press reported yesterday.
Israelis tour a military bunker in the Golan Heights. The strategic highlands could be returned to Syria in exchange for peace
In a secret communique, Ehud Olmert demanded that in exchange for the return of the strategic highlands, Syria dissolve its alliances with Iran, Hezbollah and Palestinian militant factions who maintain headquarters in Damascus.
Syria, under the regime of Bashar al Assad, is a key supporter of the Lebanese Shia Hizbollah militia, who battled Israel to a standstill last summer. Many of the anti-tank rockets that wreaked havoc on Israeli ground forces originated in Syria, a crucial conduit for the Iranian Katyushas and other rockets that rained down on Israeli cities throughout the 34-day war.
Were Syria to abandon its Shia allies in Lebanon and Iran in exchange for peace with the Jewish state, it would seriously weaken Israel's most potent foes.
"I am your partner for making peace between our countries," Mr Olmert told Damascus through German and Turkish mediators, Israel's Yediot Ahranot newspaper reported. "I know that a peace agreement with Syria requires me to return the Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty. I am willing to fulfil my part in this deal."
Mr Olmert reached out to Syria only after America's president George W Bush gave the green light in an hour-long phone conversation last month. The prime minister's office would neither confirm nor deny the reports.
Israel and Syria participated in arduous peace talks throughout much of the 1990s. But those efforts collapsed in 2000 amid disagreement over sovereignty of a narrow strip of land near the eastern shore of Lake Kinneret.
Olmert seems to fall for the Syrians,like President Bush falls for the Mexicans.
Neither problem will be solved by either of these people.
Okay, that's not going to happen. So what's the purpose of this leaked "secret" communique?
Olmert is as suicidal as the Senate Republican leadership and Jorge Kennedy Bush.
Once again hope triumphs over experience. Bibi Bibi Bibi . . .
you have to be s. me
so in 10 years will they be offering beach front property
Meanwhile, the media is still covering the Paris Hilton story.
This world is getting real scary.
Suicide. I pray that the Israelis run this idiot out of office before it is too late.
Yet another reason to be disappointed in our "great" leader. How he thinks appeasement will really result in peace is beyond me. That goes for Israel and US. Sigh......
Keep giving land away and the Moooslems while have gained their objective, no more Israel.
Making Syria the bad guy (as if they weren't already).
Bashar al Assad believes that the Golan Heights belong to Syria. I don’t think he is going to accept any deal with strings attached.
This will give Israel the justification She seems to think She needs to wipe out the forces Syria is amassing on her border.
But then, I always tend to be an optimist.
Compare the sign to the direction in which the weapons are aimed. Kind of sums it up.
and the Atomic A man from Iran said the Iran will cease to exist
who’d funk it the guy was right
they chipping it apart piece meal
Both Pres. Bush & Olmert have so much in common right now. Both are polling lower among their respective countrymen then any other leader in history. I suggest the reasons why are, 1.) they are allowing military lawyers run the wars instead of the warriors, and 2.) they are giving away the sovereignty of both countries, each in their own way. One to Mexico & SPP & the other with land for peace.
Brutus warned him: “There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their life/ Is bound in shallows and in miseries."
George Bush is destined to grind out the rest of his administration in the shallows and the miseries, and Israel will likewise pay the price.
We’re living an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” I keep hoping that I’m going to wake up from this nightmare.
Gosh … Isn’t Olmert a lawyer … nuff said.
Bad idea — why would anyone trust the Syrians to make good on any deal?
And their job approval numbers are comparable as well.
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