Word: golan
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...minutes today, Clinton said he would press for even more U.S. money for an Israeli anti-missile defense system. (The president also said he might argue for sending U.S. troops to the Mideast to monitor a possible Israeli-Syrian peace accord in the disputed Golan Heights, but then demurred, saying he'd not yet committed himself.) Incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) has threatened to cut Israeli aid, but today, future Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) promised no aid cuts "at this time of great tension in the Middle East where...
...Jordan. Hussein and Rabin were notably warm to each other and to Clinton, and their heartfelt words bespoke an authentic friendship and respect. That heady afternoon built expectations of more good news; Israel especially hoped the President could find a way to speed up its glacial negotiations over the Golan Heights. But Clinton immediately ran up against Syria's President Hafez Assad...
Assad was referring to the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 war. He had told Clinton, he said, that Syria was ready to establish "peaceful, normal relations with Israel in return for Israel's full withdrawal from the Golan," as spelled out in several U.N. Security Council resolutions. That sounds like a simple swap, but Israel has not agreed to withdraw completely. Rabin wants to pull back in stages over several years, testing in the process whether Syria's idea of peace includes diplomatic relations, open borders, free trade and tourism...
...Clinton headed home by way of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Israeli and American officials were also busy recalibrating their messages about progress in the Golan negotiations. To keep the tone positive, Israel's officials said they were encouraged by Assad's use at one point in his press conference of the formulation "full withdrawal for full peace." Clinton, meanwhile, was worried that he might have oversold his accomplishment. In what one of his aides called an effort to "modulate," Clinton began speaking of the possibility of progress, rather than actual progress...
Whether he can get very far is uncertain. Israel and Syria are stuck in a who-goes-first? impasse: Assad wants the Israelis locked into a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights before he will say precisely what kind of peace he will make, while Israel wants Assad to commit to full normal relations -- exchange of ambassadors, open borders, trade -- before it defines the extent of its withdrawal. Syrian and Israeli ambassadors have been meeting regularly in Washington, but the main contact between the two sides has been Christopher, who has made five trips to the region since April...