Word: syrians
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Iraqi) town of Takrit, Islam was a confusion of squabbling warlords living under a Christian shadow. A generation before, European Crusaders had conquered Jerusalem, massacring its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. The Franks, as they were called, then occupied four militarily aggressive states in the Holy Land. The great Syrian leader Nur al-Din predicted that expelling the invaders would require a holy war of the sort that had propelled Islam's first great wave half a millennium earlier, but given the treacherous regional crosscurrents, such a united front seemed unlikely...
...walked into an ornate conference room in Hafez Assad's Damascus palace last week, Madeleine Albright stole a quick glance at the door to a nearby bathroom. The only excitement during her previous meeting with the Syrian President had been getting locked in that bathroom until a security agent pried open the door. She'd avoid the room this time, but Albright expected the same demands from Assad that had so far blocked talks with Israel on returning the Golan Heights to Syria. Twenty minutes into the meeting, however, the Secretary of State and her Middle East aide, Dennis Ross...
...long-stalled Israeli-Syrian peace track, this counted as a major breakthrough and one that three men--Assad, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton--were eager to exploit. The ailing Assad, 69, seems eager to seize this chance to get back the Golan Heights, which Israel appropriated in the 1967 Six-Day War. Barak came to power pledging to entice Syria back to the negotiating table. And Clinton, who quickly arranged for Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara to start the talks in Washington this week, was hungry for a foreign policy triumph after the disastrous...
...secret go-between for Barak and Assad, working to restart the Golan Heights talks, which broke off four months after the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. But until last week, Assad had refused to come to the table unless Barak first agreed to a promise the Syrian leader claims Rabin made: to withdraw Israeli forces to the line separating the armies of the two countries just before the Six-Day War. That line would put Syria on the cusp of the Sea of Galilee, a valuable water source for Israel. Barak insists Rabin never made such...
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...