Word: golan
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...Saturday, many Syrians will celebrate their Independence Day by driving up into the foothills of Mount Hermon and picnicking amid the apple blossoms in that portion of the Golan Heights that remains under Syrian control. In recent years, the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad has used the occasion to call for Israel - which has occupied most of the Golan Heights since the war of 1967 - to return the territory in exchange for an end to the conflict between the two countries, which have officially been at war since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. But the Syrian...
...probably represents frustration in Damascus that the U.S. hasn't brought Israel to the negotiating table, according to Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy. Israel's right-wing Likud Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly vowed that he won't give up the Golan, which he says Israel needs for military reasons, and has proposed that instead of trading "land for peace" - the basic formula for the Middle East peace process, as prescribed by successive U.S. Administrations and by U.N. resolutions - that Syria should simply accept "peace for peace." Damascus may be trying...
...enforcing a halt to rocket fire from Gaza, it has also vowed to avenge the assassination of a top operative in Dubai in January. Israel, for its part, has threatened to attack Iran if diplomatic efforts fail to stop the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. And now the Golan can be added to that list of potential triggers...
...Jerusalem Post, citing Israeli military sources, reported on Tuesday that Syria rebuffed an Israeli overture to have indirect military communications through the U.N. observer force that monitors the demilitarized buffer zone between the two sides in the Golan, whose purpose is solely to prevent an outbreak of violence. So this year's Independence Day picnickers on Mount Hermon will enjoy their hummus under what appears to be a looming storm cloud...
...interest in land-for-peace deals. So not only are Israeli-Palestinian peace talks largely moribund, but the Netanyahu government has dodged Syrian requests for direct talks, calling instead for indirect talks whose goal would be to agree to a cessation of hostilities rather than a return of the Golan Heights. That's a nonstarter for Damascus; no Syrian government could make peace without recovering the Syrian territory Israel occupies...