Posted on 10/10/2006 12:17:59 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
JERUSALEM - Israel has brushed off the Syrian president's recent calls to restart peace talks as a ploy by Bashar Assad to deflect international pressure from his increasingly isolated regime. But some in Israel say that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may be making a major mistake in ignoring even a slim chance to pursue peace with one of his country's most implacable enemies.
"Olmert could have gone down in history as Menachem Begin, who gave Sinai back to Egypt," journalist Tom Segev wrote in the Haaretz daily Tuesday. "Instead, he is reacting to Syria's offers of peace with contempt, loathing and threats."
Israeli-Syrian peace talks broke down in 2000, with Syria demanding assurances it would get back all of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War and later annexed. Israel wanted slight modifications to the pre-1967 line, conforming to the international frontier, and insisted that issues of security and normalization be spelled out first.
Assad has sporadically called for new talks, but his appeals grew more intense following this summer's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, which Syria backed. The fighting increased international criticism of Assad's regime, already hit by accusations it was involved in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and was letting militants use Syria as a transit point into neighboring Iraq.
"We want to make peace — peace with Israel," Assad told the German magazine Der Spiegel last month. In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. broadcast Monday, Assad said it remained to be seen whether Israel had the will to make peace.
Olmert has rejected talks with Syria, accusing it of harboring terrorists and saying he will not relinquish the Golan.
"As long as I am prime minister, the Golan Heights will remain in our hands," he was quoted as telling the ultra-Orthodox weekly Mishpaha last month.
Syria's support for Hezbollah and its refusal to force top Palestinian militants to close their offices in Damascus has also angered Israel.
Assad has hoped to use those issues to strengthen his position in future peace talks, but Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Tuesday that they are obstacles to even starting those talks.
"Israel would love to start peace talks with a Syrian government that doesn't arm Hezbollah, that doesn't have a foreign minister who sides with Hezbollah, with a government that doesn't promote and provide a sanctuary for the head terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and others," she said.
Israeli analysts say Assad is using the possibility of peace with Israel to blunt international criticism.
"He is isolated. He is beleaguered. He is controversial, internationally speaking. He hopes to reap dividends from adopting a peaceful posture," said Itamar Rabinovich, Israel's former chief negotiator with Syria.
Those imputed motives wouldn't mean that Assad is not serious about pursuing new talks to get back the Golan — a perennial Syrian demand that would strengthen Assad domestically — in exchange for a peace deal that would benefit him internationally, Israeli analysts said.
But Olmert has less incentive to head into negotiations. He is already under fire for his government's conduct of the Lebanon war, and talks with Syria would fan the flames, adding the media-savvy Israelis living in the Golan to his list of critics.
"I think that Olmert either doesn't want to pay the price — and the price is known to everyone, the price is the Golan Heights — or he thinks that he is too weak to pay the price," said Shlomo Brom, a Syria expert at Tel Aviv University.
Gilad Sher, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said Syria's continuing support of terrorism should not close off diplomatic channels to solving the conflict.
"Israel must not reject Assad's hints outright, but rather it must begin a cautious, measured and pragmatic process in which Assad's willingness is analyzed," he wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily. "If it is all merely a ruse, we will know as much very quickly. If not, and negotiations over a peace arrangement are begun, that will do nothing to detract from Israel's power of deterrence."
"After all, one can always say, 'no,'" he wrote.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert listens to Israeli immigrant soldiers who visit him on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot Monday, Oct. 9, 2006. Olmert met the soldiers in his Sukka, or ritual booth, on the terrace of his Jerusalem residence. Sukkot celebrates one of Judaism's three great pilgrimage festivals and is considered a time to celebrate the harvest and pray for rains for the coming season. (AP Photo/Jim Hollander, Pool)
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (R) stands beside a Chabad Rabbi as he holds the four species, used in rituals during the upcoming Jewish holiday of Sukkot, in his official residence in Jerusalem October 6, 2006 in this picture released by the Israeli Government Press Office. The week-long Jewish holiday begins Friday at sundown. ISRAEL OUT REUTERS/Avi Ohayon/Handout/GPO (ISRAEL)
He "negotiated" on Ehud Barak's team, 1999-2000. 'NUFF SAID!
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
"Instead, he is reacting to Syria's offers of peace with contempt, loathing and threats."
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Duh, I wonder why he would do that? I mean come on, EVERYONE knows Muslims want nothing but peace.
Dang, I almost got that out without a smile.
""We want to make peace — peace with Israel," Assad told the German magazine Der Spiegel last month.""
I propose this trade. Israel gives back the Golan Heights in exchange for all Palestinians in Gaza and the WB given citizenship and passage to Syria.
I can understand Olmerts anger at Syria, they cost Israeli lives recently. However, I am not sure that foreign policies of neglecting diplomacy is sound policy. Our foreign policy is a mess. I am not saying we need to be like Carter, but at the same token why wouldn't we sit down with Kim Jong or Almahejid? They are nut balls and we probably wouldn't settle much but it would tell the world we are not the enemy and we give diplomacy a chance first.
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