Word: golan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Still, Israel's security chiefs have been pushing its political leaders toward the negotiating table. They recognize that Syria is the one hostile party on the Arab side of the peace process that could possibly keep its end of a bargain and prevent the Golan from being turned into a rocket-launching pad into Israel. There will also never be anyone better in Syria for Israel to deal with than the secular Assad government. Syria may only get weaker as time passes: its economy is in bad shape; it has a history of problems with Islamist insurgent groups...
...disputed border crossing between two warring nations, the snowy hillside town of Majdal Shams is pretty quiet. There have been no major battles in the Golan Heights since the 1973 October War, when the Syrian army nearly recaptured the town from Israel, which had occupied the territory in the 1967 war. Instead of hostile fire, all that passes across the border these days are apple harvests and the occasional bride. Every few years, a Druze Arab woman passes through a United Nations checkpoint, leaving the Israeli-occupied Golan for the arms of her future husband in Syria, unlikely to ever...
...After 60 years of Syrian-Israeli conflict, the contours of a solution are generally clear: Israel would have to withdraw from the Golan Heights, while Syria would have to maintain a demilitarized zone in the territory. Previous rounds of talks faltered over the exact route of the border and concerns over how Israel could protect itself from a surprise Syrian attack - calculations now rendered moot by modern satellite surveillance technology and the capabilities of Israel's arsenal...
...Easier said than done, however, because the only basis for bringing Syria into the U.S.-led camp is a peace agreement with Israel, and the Israeli public and leaders appear to be in no mood to give up the Golan Heights. The "land for peace" paradigm of the Oslo accords has long fallen into disrepute in Israel, where skeptics point out that Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005 only to face rocket fire from Hamas and Hizballah. After the failure of major Israeli military operations - the 2006 war in Lebanon and this year's Gaza...
Netanyahu's stated agenda would put him at odds with the new Obama Administration in Washington. While Barack Obama has called for negotiations with Iran and Syria, Netanyahu would choose confrontation with both. Netanyahu is against trading the Golan Heights - which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 - in return for a peace treaty with Syria. And instead of talking to Iran about its nuclear program (which Iran insists is for civilian purposes), Netanyahu has said he will prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons by any means necessary, including military strikes...