Word: syrians
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...were going on. And yet in its crisis Israel behaved with stoic endurance. Golda, who had bitterly fought every concession, sent Dinitz to my suite to reaffirm her deep commitment to the success of the negotiations. She knew I was frustrated by the endless Talmudic quibbling by which the Syrian recovery of Quneitra was being established in increments of 100 meters. Her gesture toward peace while she was anguishing about the children was more meaningful to me than all the rhetoric of the previous weeks...
...insecurity. The demarcation line on the Golan had been established where it was in 1967 precisely because it was the most easily defensible position?in some spots the sole defensible one. I told Dinitz that if and when the negotiations resumed, Israel had to show more understanding of Syrian pride. It had to widen the Syrian territory around Quneitra; it must, within the limits of its security, attempt an act of grace. I in turn would try to head off Assad's demand that Israel give up its defense line on the western hills Thus the agony of Ma'alot...
After Ma 'alot, Israel felt an agreement had to mention terrorism. But the Syrians could not dissociate themselves publicly from the Palestinians. So it was not Sisco but Kissinger on the shuttle to Damascus the next day. There Assad made the crucial point. As Kissinger writes, "The absence of guerrilla activity in the past had been no accident. The Golan would not be guerrilla country because of Syria's chosen policy, not because of Israeli threats or non-binding Syrian promises." Kissinger decided to omit mention of terrorism from the agreements but to offer Israel a U.S. assurance that...
That evening Golda gave a reception in her office. Golda, who was to step down as Prime Minister on May 31, was almost too tired to speak. But what she said was imbued with the dream of a people who had only known war: a dream that "Syrian mothers, Israeli mothers, Syrian young wives, Israeli young wives, children on both sides of the border can go to sleep at night without terror. We pray that this is a beginning for a real and lasting peace with all our neighbors and all our borders." I kissed Golda on the cheek...
...trouble," Golda told Keating. Egyptian and Syrian troop movements, assumed to be simply military exercises, had suddenly taken a threatening turn. The Israelis were now persuaded that a coordinated Egyptian and Syrian attack would be launched late that afternoon. Since the Arabs were certain to be defeated, she suggested, the crisis must result from their misunderstanding of Israeli intentions. Would the U.S. urgently convey to the Soviet Union and to Israel's Arab neighbors that Israel had no intention of attacking...