Word: baraker
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Israel and Syria wouldn't be talking if they didn't have the basis of a deal. But demons in the details may keep the Jewish state and its most implacable foe from reaching a speedy deal. Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Sharaa settled into a getting-to-know-you session in Washington Wednesday, after the U.S. brought them together despite Israel's refusal of Syria's precondition that it publicly commit to withdrawing from the Golan Heights. "Syria's President Hafez Assad obviously got what he needed to hear to restart talks," says TIME...
While Israel military doctrine has conventionally held that it would be a mistake to surrender the strategic plateau, the shifting forms of modern warfare make it a conceivable step in exchange for enforceable guarantees. "Remember, Ehud Barak is a former chief of the army, and he's still Israel's minister of defense and its most decorated soldier," says Beyer. "Security remains his first priority, and if he deems it permissible to cede the Golan, that carries tremendous weight...
...buildup. Israel will therefore insist on demilitarization and extensive monitoring as a precodition for withdrawal. Despite security fears, peace with Syria would mean that all of Israel's immediate Arab neighbors recognize the 51-year-old Jewish state as a permanent reality, and that remains an enticing prospect for Barak - to be pursued with urgency before the ailing Assad leaves the scene, potentially complicating any peace moves. Right now, Israeli opposition to ceding the Golan actually suits Barak's negotiating strategy by emphasizing the difficulty of Israel's concessions. "Polls may show Israelis divided over handing over the Golan...
Israeli kicking and screaming notwithstanding, Ehud Barak plans to hand the Golan Heights back to Syria - as a price for a comprehensive peace all along Israel's northern frontier. Israel's parliament Tuesday voted 47 to 31 to back Barak's peace talks with Syria, scheduled to begin in Washington Wednesday, in which the prime minister warned Israel would pay a "heavy territorial price." Following the plateau's capture in 1967, Israeli military doctrine held that it afforded Syrian artillery such a range over Israeli flatlands that handing it back to Damascus was strategic suicide. But warfare has changed considerably...
...that treats any movement of Syrian military hardware into that zone as an act of war may be acceptable to Israel's generals. Of course, many Israelis are loath to trust their Arab neighbors, and would just as soon hang on to all the real estate they can. But Barak holds a trump card: Israel continues to pay a heavy price in human life for its occupation of southern Lebanon, and the call for Israeli withdrawal is overwhelmingly popular across party lines. But the only way out is a deal in which Israel's borders are protected from attack...