Word: syrian
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Israel and Syria wouldn't be talking if they didn't have the basis of a deal. But demons in the details may keep the Jewish state and its most implacable foe 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...
Israel's primary tactical concern is to avoid a repeat of the October 1973 war, when Israel suffered critical losses after being taken by surprise by a Syrian buildup. Israel will therefore insist on demilitarization and extensive monitoring as a precodition for withdrawal. Despite security fears, peace with Syria would mean that all of Israel's immediate Arab neighbors recognize the 51-year-old Jewish state as a permanent reality, and that remains an enticing prospect for Barak - to be pursued with urgency before the ailing Assad leaves the scene, potentially complicating any peace moves. Right now, Israeli opposition...
...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 since then, and satellite and other electronic surveillance gives Israel a detailed picture of Syrian military movements that renders watchtowers on the Heights dispensable...
...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...
Sometimes it is: McCain will often fill his travel time with animated discussions about global hot spots from Chechnya to China. When a local New Hampshire pol asked him a question about Lebanon last month, he unfurled a lengthy answer that included a consideration of whether Syrian President Hafez Assad will be succeeded by his son Bashar or his brother Rifaat. While McCain swipes at Bush's reliance on foreign-policy gurus--"When there is a crisis," he says, "I won't have to consult advisers"--he talks shop with many members of the foreign-policy firmament, including Jeane Kirkpatrick...