Word: syria
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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...
...more than two years, calls for peace by Syria's President Bashar Assad had been ignored by the Bush Administration because of Syria's support for militants in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and - the U.S. alleged - Iraq. Hoping that isolation would change Syrian behavior, Washington encouraged Israel to ignore the Syrian charm offensive. But since the Obama Administration took office with the intention of repairing America's frayed relations in the region, the much discussed - but rarely traveled - road to Damascus has suddenly been busy with American emissaries, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, who visited Syria last...
...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...
...major difficulty in thawing relations is that militant groups such as Hizballah and Hamas, backed by Syria (and Iran), have grown into significant threats to Israel. And then there's the matter of Syria's alliance with Iran, which gives Damascus strategic depth. Moreover, some Israeli and U.S. analysts say, the state of war with Israel has helped justify the repressive security state that keeps Assad in power. But the Obama people seem to believe they can bring Syria in from the cold, possibly in exchange for a full package of aid and first-class membership in the country club...
...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...