Report: Olmert will cede Golan for peace

AP on Yahoo ^ | 6/8/07 | Steve Weizman - ap

[NormsRevenge]

JERUSALEM - Israel has told Syrian leaders it is willing to give up the captured Golan Heights as part of a peace deal that would require Syria to distance itself from Iran's virulently anti-Israel regime, a newspaper reported Friday.

Yediot Ahronot said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently sent messages to Syrian President Bashar Assad through German and Turkish diplomats saying Israel was open to direct peace negotiations and to give up the strategic plateau it seized in the 1967 Mideast war.

The paper said Syria had not responded to the overture, quoting unidentified officials close to Olmert.

Olmert's office would not comment on the report. But an Israeli official said earlier in the week that Israel had been taking soundings on Syria's intentions through an undisclosed third party. That official agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name.

Israel and Syria have held several rounds of peace talks in the past. The last attempt broke down in 2000 over the scope of a proposed Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, which Syrian artillery shelled Israelis before the 1967 war.

Assad has recently urged Israel to return to the negotiating table, but has not publicly addressed Israel's demand that Damascus scale back its ties with Iran, its main ally in the region, and stop backing Lebanese and Palestinian groups committed to Israel's destruction.

Yediot said President Bush gave Olmert the green light for negotiations with Syria in an hourlong phone conversation last month. The two leaders plan further discussions during their scheduled meeting at the White House on June 19, it said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv could not be reached Friday for comment on the newspaper report.

In the past, Israeli and U.S. officials have said privately that Washington didn't want Israel to talk with Syria, because of its ties to militants in Iraq and its meddling in Lebanon. But Bush is under pressure from allies, lawmakers and advisers who think Washington should improve relations with Syria in an effort to isolate Iran.

Syria backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon during their war with Israel last summer, while the political leadership of the Palestinian militant group Hamas is headquartered in Damascus.

After the Lebanon war, Assad offered to open negotiations with Olmert, but Israel dismissed his overture as a tactic to ease his regime's isolation in the West. Last week, however, a senior Israeli official said Olmert was assessing prospects for new talks.

It is not clear what drove the turnaround.

The inconclusive Lebanon war made Olmert too politically weak at home to make headway with his proposed withdrawal from large swaths of the West Bank, and negotiations with Syria could help to dispel the widespread image in Israel that he has no political agenda.

Alternatively, Olmert might have reached the conclusion that Syria is serious about making peace or that Israel should not rebuff peace overtures.

Palestinian analysts have speculated Israeli is trying to undermine Syria's support for Palestinian militants and to divert attention from stagnated Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Returning Golan, which Israel annexed in 1981, is not a popular idea in Israel. The heights dominate much of northern Israel, overlooking the country's largest source of drinking water, and are home to wineries and popular tourism sites.

A poll by the Teleseker company published in the Maariv newspaper Friday said 84 percent of 500 Israelis surveyed oppose a full withdrawal from Golan and 44 percent opposed any pullback. The poll had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

[wagglebee]

IIRC, PM Begin was forced into a similar promise by Carter, look how that turned out.

[NormsRevenge]

In this photo released by the Government Press Office, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert talks With Israeli soldiers during a tour in the Golan Heights in this file photo taken Tuesday, March 27, 2007. Israel sent secret messages to Syria recently signaling willingness to give up the captured Golan Heights in return for a peace deal that would require Syria to distance itself from Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had German and Turkish diplomats relay to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel is willing to hold direct peace negotiations and give up the strategic plateau, seized in the 1967 Mideast war, the Yediot Ahronot daily said, quoting officials close to Olmert. (AP Photo/GPO, Moshe Milner, HO,File)

[boomop1]

Throw this bum out.

[NormsRevenge]

Israeli women from the group 'Women in Black' protest Israel's occupation of the West Bank, at a rally marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War, in Jerusalem, Friday, June 8, 2007. The 40th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war in which Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan, is marked this week. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

[squidly]

I thought the whole reason they kept the Golan Heights is that the northern border is indefensible without them?

[The Blitherer]

If true, we’re gonna see either an uprising or a coup in Israel in the next 24 hours.

[Man50D]

Neville Chamberlain would be proud of Olmert.

[diverteach]

Syria will agree and as soon as they’ve got thier hands on the Golan, the bombings will go deeper into Israel as they scream “SUCKERS”.

[johnny7]

We never learn...

[Brucifer]

I didn’t know Olmert belonged to the Democrat party.

[Enosh]

BIG mistake.

[dsc]

“Olmert will cede Golan for peace”

What an idiot.

He was faced with a choice between dishonor and war. He chose dishonor. He shall have both.

[ulm1]

the beginning of the end for Isreal.

[SolidWood]

COUP! COUP! COUP! I am praying for a military coup d’etat in Israel. Enough treason from the lawyers, socialists and politicians. Israel needs the Military at the helm again. If there are no quick elections or a resignation by Olmert, there is no other way but a military coup.

[FreedomPoster]

Really, really, really bad idea.

Never give up the high ground, that you’ve fought and died for.

Never.

[oneamericanvoice]

Olmert doesn’t understand that the Palestinians will keep whittling away at Israel until their is none. They don’t want peace. They want annihilation!

NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER! NO CEDING OF LAND!

[etradervic]

Olmert = Bush

Will someone please tell Olmert that peace will come when either the Islamist bigots are defeated or when all of Israel is ceded .

[EdArt]

Israel’s new Minister Of Defence- John Edwards

[SolidWood]

It’s worse. Olmert=Carter. Bush at least had the gonads to successfully take out the Taliban and Saddam. Olmert is outright pathetic. A leftist lawyer and a coward.