VERY bad news. But thanks for the ping.
Israel’s Olmert rejects Syria conditions for talks
Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:14 PM ET (excerpted)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Syria was setting an “impossible threshold” for peace talks by demanding Israel commit to withdraw fully from the occupied Golan Heights before negotiations resume. In remarks broadcast on Saturday by Israel’s Channel 10 television, Olmert responded to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s call in a speech on Tuesday for Israel to guarantee a full pullback from the land it captured in a 1967 war.
Olmert said Israel was ready to withdraw from the Golan. “Certainly we will also have to make concessions,” he said at a collective farm in northern Israel. But Assad’s demand for a guarantee to remove Jewish settlers and troops from the entire territory before talks resumed “creates conditions that set an impossible threshold for the start of negotiations,” Olmert said. Israeli leaders have agreed in the past to withdraw from the Golan in exchange for a peace treaty with Syria. But the last negotiations between the sides broke down in 2000 over a dispute about the terms of such an Israeli pullout. . .
21/07/07 16h03 GMT+1
AFP News brief
Israel rejects Golan pullout before peace talks: report (excerpted)
Israel has rejected a Syrian demand that it withdraw from the Golan Heights it has occupied since 1967 before peace talks can resume between the two countries, public radio reported on Saturday. “When the Syrian president says that Israel must commit to pulling back to the lines of June 4, 1967 he is imposing a prior condition” that is unacceptable, it quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as saying on Friday. “I cannot accept this before negotiations even begin,” the radio quoted Olmert as saying during a visit to northern Israel.
It said he reiterated the Israeli position that any talks with Syria must be direct, which Damascus rejects. “I want to make peace with all Arab states and I want to do so through direct negotiations, as was the case with Egypt and Jordan,” Olmert said. On Tuesday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called on Israeli leaders “to state in a clear and official manner their desire for peace” and “to give guarantees that all of our land will be returned.” He was speaking in parliament in Damascus after being sworn in for a second seven-year presidential term. . .
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3428012,00.html
Axis of evil increasing, MK says
Knesset members censure military deal between Iran and Syria, with some, including Lieberman, calling for emergency national government
Amnon Meranda
The strengthening ties between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar Assad “require Israel to prepare itself anew from a governmental, military and political perspective,” said Strategic Affair Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in response to reports of a military deal between Iran and Syria.
“The Iranian threat lies outside the realm of political argument. As such, I call on the government and the head of the opposition (MK Benjamin Netanyahu) to reconsider the possibility of an national emergency government,” the Yisrael Beiteinu chairman, added. According to a Saturday report in the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, Tehran will help Syria fund future arms deals with North Korea and Russia, set up military plants in there and back Syria on the Lebanon issue. In return, Assad promised Ahmadinejad to refrain from entering peace talks with Israel.
The deal had a number of Knesset up in arms. In light of the situation, Kadima member Isaac Ben-Israel also called for the establishment of a national emergency emergency government. “Iran openly supported Hizbullah during the war against Israel last summer and came out unscathed. Now the Iranian president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) is trying to broaden the axis of evil to include Syria. Israel’s silence will only encourage Tehran to become even more extreme and even transfer nuclear technology to Syria,” he said.
Fellow party member Tzachi Hanegbi called the international community’s apathy to the growing strength of this ‘axis of evil’ troubling. Iran is becoming an increased threat not only to Israel but to the region’s stability, the pragmatic Arab regimes and the hegemony of the realist and sane West,” said Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. The MK added “the fact that Syria joined Iran is indicative of the adventurous and hasty nature of President Bashar Assad... Unlike his father Hafez, Bashar is taking unnecessary risks that are jeopardizing his regime.”
Knesset Member Arieh Eldad (National Union-NRP) said the agreement between Iran and Syria is “reminiscent of the pacts that were signed on the eve of the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars”. “The Iranian decision will lead to the launching of an attack on Israel from Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Iran,” he stated. “For some reason, the government of Israel, chooses to ignore not only intelligence information, but even information that is published for all to see,” he said.
On the other side of the spectrum, Knesset member Yossi Beilin agreed that the deal was troubling, but interpreted it as an indication that direct talks with Syria were needed. “The threat from the north is growing right before our eyes, and our government is responding only by rejecting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s statements,” the Meretz party chairman said. “Those who today are refusing to enter direct or indirect talks with Syria instead of acting in Israel’s interests may find themselves responsible for another round of unnecessary bloodshed in the region,” he added.