Word: golan
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...late one night this fall, and the soldiers were sleeping. Suddenly alarms began to sound across their bases on the Golan Heights. By the hundreds, members of the Israel Defense Forces spilled out of their barracks, speeding toward their assigned tanks. Engines roared to life, maps were unfurled, and within minutes two full tank brigades were rolling out. The armored leviathans rumbled to the Syrian front and onto ramps built long ago as battle stations, many of which were overgrown with weeds from disuse. Once there, the troops parked and waited, peering anxiously into the night for the Syrian attackers...
This time they didn't come. Nor did the Syrian army appear during a repeat exercise weeks later. But the full-dress rehearsals on the Golan, unprecedented in recent years, show just how nervous Israeli commanders have become about the possibility of a genuine Syrian assault. That danger had been more or less dismissed in the previous five years as the two countries engaged in serious, if fitful, peace talks. Today, once again, Israel sees war as an immediate threat...
Concerns about Syria began to escalate in August, when officials in Damascus started threatening to use force to reclaim the Golan, the Syrian plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 war. Syrian President Hafez Assad was plainly frustrated by the policies of the new Israeli government of Netanyahu, who, unlike his two immediate predecessors, rules out a return of the strategic high land in exchange for a comprehensive peace treaty...
JERUSALEM: Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made a secret promise to President Clinton that Israel would return the entire Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace, a prominent Israeli journalist said Wednesday. Rabin even kept the pledge secret from then-foreign minister Shimon Peres, Orly Azulai-Katz wrote in a new book about Peres, excerpts of which were printed in the Yediot Ahronot daily on Wednesday. Azulai-Katz says Peres was upset when he found out about the deal after he took office. "Look at what Rabin did to me, and people say I'm not trustworthy...
...peace talks with Syria, in part through a continuation of Secretary of State Christopher's shuttle diplomacy, Netanyahu appealed to Damascus Monday to remain flexible. While Netanyahu's predecessor Peres had indicated a willingness to go along with Syria's demand that Israel commit itself to withdrawing from the Golan Heights as part of any peace agreement, the new Prime Minister has firmly rejected the idea, but still seeks a path toward peace. "Like us, the United States wants the talks resumed," Netanyahu said in Washington. "I don't know if Syria wants it. We are looking for a solution...