Word: golan
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...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 Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer. "The essence of Barak's message to him before the talks would have been that Israel would withdraw from all of the Golan in exchange for security...
...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...
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...
...deal with Syria, first mooted by slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, involves returning the Golan to Syria, but as a demilitarized zone monitored by the U.S. or some other international authority. A deal 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...
...good news is that Barak wants to negotiate by mid-February the outlines of a settlement with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and begin talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad on returning the Golan Heights. The aging Arafat and Assad both realize this is probably their best and last chance to reach agreements. But Arafat and Barak are still haggling over a small parcel of Israeli-occupied territory. Albright wants to stay out of petty real estate disputes and keep Barak and Arafat focused on resolving bigger questions. But the men still distrust one another so much that it's hard...