Israel Army Chief Sees Golan Heights Pullout as Safe Move

JERUSALEM, Aug. 13 — Israel's senior army commander says that his country could safely withdraw from the Golan Heights in any future peace settlement with Syria, without retaining any occupied territory there as a buffer.

Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the army chief of staff, broke with Israel's traditional position in an interview published today with the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, saying: "From the point of view of military requirements, we could reach an agreement with Syria by giving up the Golan Heights. The army could defend Israel's borders wherever they are."

Israel usually argues that a complete withdrawal from the Golan, seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981, would leave northern Israeli towns once again vulnerable to Syrian missile and infantry attacks.

Israeli-Syrian peace talks collapsed in 2000 when Syria insisted on a complete Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders and Israel wanted some border adjustments near the Sea of Galilee.

General Yaalon's comments were published just a day after Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the mistake of warning Israelis that many more settlements in the West Bank would also have to be dismantled before any peace can be reached with the Palestinians and the outside world.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made no secret of his annoyance with his chief deputy, authorizing an aide, Assaf Shariv, to say: "The prime minister was very angry when he heard of Ehud Olmert's comments. His comments were contrary to the positions of Ariel Sharon. The disengagement plan is the only plan on the table."

Mr. Sharon, with Mr. Olmert's prompting, is moving to disengage unilaterally from the entire Gaza Strip, which would involve dismantling Israeli settlements there. In a largely symbolic gesture four settlements in the northern West Bank would also be dismantled.

The White House is demanding that Mr. Sharon include at least these four settlements in what his Likud Party has long insisted is part of Judea and Samaria, the biblical land of Israel, and thus belonging to the Jewish state.

For years, Likud's motto has been, "Not one inch." So Mr. Sharon's willingness to pull back from any part of Judea and Samaria is thus a considerable breaking of a taboo — but Mr. Sharon clearly does not want the Israeli right to become any angrier with him just now than it already is.

Mr. Sharon is busily trying to reshape his coalition so he can get even his own withdrawal plan through his cabinet and Parliament. On Wednesday he faces a tough debate at a Likud convention.

So while the prime minister and his office chose to make no comment today on General Yaalon's thesis about the Golan Heights, Mr. Olmert's remarks were something else again.

Visiting Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank on Thursday, Mr. Olmert told residents that the evacuation of four settlements is "critical to reducing friction with the international community, and we will have to evacuate more settlements for this reason."

There was no justice in it, he said, but it had to be done to preserve Israel as a democratic Jewish state. "The United States is virtually our only friend," he said. "But even the U.S. supports retreat to almost the 1967 borders."

Mr. Olmert has made similar comments as far back as last December, when he spoke of the withdrawal of "tens of thousands" of Israeli settlers. Currently, there are some 245,000 settlers in the occupied territories, including some 8,000 in Gaza — and an additional 200,000 if Israelis who moved into East Jerusalem after the 1967 war are included.

In fact, there are some who see Mr. Olmert as a stalking horse for Mr. Sharon, sending up trial balloons for the prime minister. In the last 18 months, said Shlomo Avineri, a philosopher and former diplomat associated with the Labor Party, "Olmert has been six months ahead of Sharon. He spoke of disengagement in Gaza before Sharon uttered a word."

Mr. Olmert's comment now "makes Sharon uncomfortable, because it opens him to criticism from the right," Mr. Avineri said. "But it also makes him look more accommodating and gives him a road sign to the next step." Mr. Olmert is working to outmaneuver his main rival to succeed Mr. Sharon as leader of Likud, the former prime minister and current finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the West Bank, a Palestinian gunman ambushed and killed a Jewish settler, Shlomo Miller, about 50, who was in his car patrolling the perimeter fence of the settlement of Itamar, on a hill overlooking Nablus. The Palestinian, who used an AK-47, tried to escape with the Israeli's M-16 assault weapon, and was in turn shot to death by settlement security guards. Responsibility for the attack was claimed in Nablus by the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, a part of Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement.

The group identified the Palestinian as a 27-year-old lieutenant in the Palestinian Preventive Security police, which is bound to make Israelis even less willing to provide weapons to the Palestinian police.

In Gaza today, four Palestinians were wounded as Israeli soldiers and tanks escorted two bulldozers into a section of Gaza City to demolish houses belonging to other Palestinians accused of attacking Israelis.

And in Jerusalem, the police announced the arrest of a third Palestinian in connection with a bomb set off near the Kalandia checkpoint on Wednesday, which killed two Palestinian civilians and wounded 18 others, including six Israeli border police. The police then lifted the state of high alert in Jerusalem.

Only an idiot would believe the Arabs want to conclude a genuine peace with Israel. As long as the Jews occupy the land of Israel, the Arabs are going to consider the Jews as occupiers. The Arabs might conclude a temporary truce with the Israelis but will break it at the first and most con-
venient opportunity.
Of course, aircraft and precision weapons render control of the high ground less important in war than previously, but I cannot believe that any soldier would cede willingly such a strategically important position.
And for what? Peace with Syria? Making peace with Egypt
and Jordan, I can understand. I can understand clearing out of Gaza. I can understand building the wall and consolidating of the settlements on the West Bank into more defensible positions.
But peace with Syria isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit.

Fire him, shoot him for treason, then check his bank accounts. In that order.

A-holes like this are the reason why many Jews will NEVER make aliyah.

Israels leadership is perenially stupid.

We may be the only ally Israel has left as Olmert stated, but we are not acting in Israel's best interests when we pressure them to return land gained in a defensive war. The Muslims already control all the land in the ME with the exception of the tiny speck known as Israel. The only solution which will be accepted by the Muzzles and the international community is the complete removal of the state of Israel. Israel needs to tell the international community to suck it up and back off, no more land for peace nonsense. The other guys have already got all the steenkin land.

The Golan Heights has always been considered very important strategically. To openly hear the Israelis talk of surrendering that ground is very bad. It will just make the country that much more difficult to defend in the next war. One less edge the Israelis will have if they do give it up.

Israel's senior army commander says that his country could safely withdraw from the Golan Heights in any future peace settlement with Syria, without retaining any occupied territory there as a buffer.

Because the next Syrian attack will be their last.

Israels leadership is perenially stupid.

Israel hasn't had any decent leaders since Golda Meir and Menachem Begin (and even Begin collapsed when Jimmy Carter forced him to give up the Sinai for nothing tangible from the Egyptians)

There will be no peace with the palestinians or syrians regardless of how much territory Israel gives back. Anyone believing otherwise is a fool. Sharon is getting too old and too soft to lead. Israel needs to keep all conquered territories driving out any muslims that do not wish to live in peace with jewish neighbors.

Olmert sounds like an NWO "butt kisser". What the H... does he know about anything. Israel should stick with what worked in the past...tell the "world community" to kiss their ass.

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