Word: syrians
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...Matzliach peace would likely mean once again uprooting himself and his family - he nows runs a falafel shop in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967, and whose return to its Syrian owners remains a basic requirement for peace with that country and normalization of ties with the wider Arab world (as Arab League envoys visiting Jerusalem last week reiterated...
...Life on this grassy plateau of cattle ranches and apple orchards moves at a different pace than in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, just a few hours drive away. Israel once viewed the Golan's strategic cliffs as a safeguard against a Syrian armored invasion, but they appear to have as effectively deterred a different kind of invasion - one of Israel's sprawling suburbs, fast food chains and traffic jams...
...unlike their previous situation in Gaza, Israelis like Matzliach feel little pressure to leave from the Golan's Arab inhabitants - unlike the huge Palestinian majorities in the West Bank and Gaza, there are now just four Arab towns in the Golan. Their Syrian inhabitants are mostly Druze Muslims, who speak Arabic and Hebrew, run apparently prosperous businesses and farms, and mingle easily on the streets with Israeli soldiers. "I've got many Israeli friends," says Yahyah Abu Shaheen, a 51-year-old contractor in the town of Buq'ata. "We've grown up together and we're human beings...
...concern that they might be seen as traitors if the territory is returned to Syria. Abu Shaheen and his neighbors also chafe under the restrictions of a closed border that cuts them off from family, friends and country. One of Abu Shaheen's daughters married a Syrian cousin and moved to the suburbs of Damascus earlier this year, and he doesn't know when he'll see her again...
...convention of Iraqi insurgents was scheduled to take place Monday at the resort-like Sahara Hotel outside Damascus but, within hours of the plenary session actually starting, the Syrian government suddenly canceled the summit. However, high-level representatives of much of the Iraqi nationalist insurgency, remained at the venue informally negotiating and laying out a framework for what a post-U.S. Iraq would look like...