Word: syrian
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Israeli right-wingers had no doubt that both were hinting at a long- unmentionable idea: giving up part or all of the Golan Heights. Syrian artillery firing from that barren plateau once kept northern Israel under intermittent bombardment. Israel seized the heights during the Six Day War and ever since has insisted that retaining the territory is essential to its security. Jerusalem actually annexed the area...
Israel nonetheless can expect renewed argument from Washington. President Bush and his advisers hope to start a movement toward Middle Eastern peace with an Israeli-Syrian negotiation. Their view is that the heights should be ( returned to Syrian sovereignty and civil administration, but that the area should be demilitarized, patrolled by American troops or an international force...
...agrees that Israel cannot let Syrian tanks and artillery move back into the heights. But otherwise officials argue that possession of territory no longer contributes much to security in a missile-armed age. As the gulf war proved, one serious threat to Israel apart from ground attack is assault by missiles that can whiz right over a buffer zone. Israel, says a Bush adviser, needs "political security as opposed to garrison security," and political security would be achieved by a peace treaty with Syria. The same argument theoretically would apply to the West Bank, but security is only one reason...
...less, essential to security. Without early-warning devices there, they assert, warheads could hit Israel before the civilian population could be warned to head for shelter. Even so, some military men speculate that if Israel kept its early-warning devices and troops in numbers sufficient to thwart a surprise Syrian attack, it could withdraw partially, keeping only a slice of territory running 15.5 miles east from the pre-1967 border...
That may be what Olmert had in mind in an interview with TIME. He insisted that, far from wanting to give up the Golan, he thought Israel should try to negotiate a Syrian relinquishment of its claim. But he added, "I don't want to say what is the fallback position." On the subject of talks, he noted that while Syria, with Iraq out of the picture, has become Israel's most dangerous enemy, its leaders "might now change their position" as a result of participation in the gulf war. "So let's test them...