Word: golan
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Assad can see that he has little or no chance of forcibly taking back the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 war. The last slight hope for Soviet support for another war was snuffed out by a personal message Assad received from Gorbachev early in July. Its proposals, almost identical with those Bush had made, strongly reinforced U.S. arguments. Soviet officials delicately avoid calling it pressure, but one explains, "Gorbachev just sent a letter expressing our feeling that cooperation with the U.S. would be constructive and important...
...follow through to a comprehensive settlement. Washington's foundations for the settlement, Bush reiterated, are Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which call on Israel to trade land it has occupied since 1967 for security guarantees from the Arab states. In the U.S. view, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem are all negotiable...
That stance will bring Israel under intense pressure from its negotiating partners, the conference co-sponsors and world opinion. The question then would be whether the Israelis can stonewall indefinitely or will be forced to consider such options as demilitarizing the Golan Heights and allowing international supervision in parts of Jerusalem...
...could become the unrivaled leader of Arab radicals -- or he could bid for status among the moderates. Assad decided, as one American diplomat puts it, that "the future is with the U.S. and with the Cairo-Riyadh-Damascus axis" -- and that only the U.S. could help Syria recover the Golan Heights from Israel...
...deeper problem is the government's fear that any kind of peace talks will turn into a gang-up by the U.S. and Arab nations to force Israel to give up the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza. Shamir is determined not to yield a square inch. Thus the talk in Jerusalem is less about how to get talks started than how to fend them off. Currently, Israeli officials are longing for the U.S. presidential campaign to start in earnest. Once the campaign is in full swing, they reason, no candidate will risk putting pressure on Israel to yield...