JERUSALEM/DAMASCUS, 14 August 2004 — Israel’s security would not be threatened if it gave up the Golan Heights for peace with Syria, Israel’s army chief said in remarks published yesterday, departing from the military’s traditional view that Israel needs at least part of the plateau as a security buffer.
Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon spoke a day after Vice Premier Ehud Olmert indicated that Israel will have to evacuate more Israeli settlements in the West Bank than the four mentioned in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan of “unilateral disengagement” from the Palestinians. As part of the plan, Israel would withdraw from all of the Gaza Strip and the four West Bank settlements by the end of 2005.
Israel has long argued that giving up the Golan, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981, could leave northern Israel vulnerable to Syrian attack. In failed peace talks with Syria, Sharon’s moderate predecessor, Ehud Barak, offered to withdraw from virtually all of the heights, but insisted on special security arrangements and some border adjustments.
However, Yaalon suggested that from a military point of view, Israel could afford to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, a key Syrian demand. “If you ask me, theoretically, if we can reach an agreement with Syria ... my answer is that from a military standpoint it is possible to reach an agreement by giving up the Golan Heights,” Yaalon told the daily Yediot Ahronot.
“The army is able to defend any border. This is correct for any political decision that is taken in Israel,” he said. The last round of Israeli-Syrian peace talks collapsed in 2000, with Syrians insisting on a complete withdrawal from the Golan, and Israel seeking border adjustments near Israel’s Sea of Galilee, at the foot of the plateau.
Last year, Syria made overtures indicating it wanted to resume talks. However, Israel says Syria must first end its support for Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and Palestinian radicals it hosts in Syria itself.
Syria will not take seriously Israeli offers to pull out of the Golan Heights unless they are backed by moves on the ground or an open commitment to withdraw, an adviser to the Syrian Information Minister Ahmad Haj Ali said yesterday. Haj Ali was not impressed by Yaalon’s comment, telling The Associated Press: “We don’t give such statements any weight unless they are associated with a serious move (toward peace) and with international guarantees.”
“Whoever is willing to make peace should return the land to its owners and withdraw immediately or declare that openly and clearly,” he added.
Other Syrian government officials could not be reached for comment yesterday as it was the Muslim holiday. Haj Ali said he believed Yaalon’s statement was designed to “show Israel was the party seeking peace in order to look good in the upcoming American elections.”
A Syrian political analyst for various Arab newspapers, Imad Fawzi Al-Shueibi, said Yaalon’s statement was “meaningless militarily because it proves an evident truth.” He accused the Israeli general of trying to distract attention from what he claimed was an Israeli plan to strike Iran’s first nuclear reactor, which is close to coming on stream. “What is happening now is preparing for an Israeli military operation to hit the Iranian nuclear reactor as both the United States and Israel are talking about the dangers of Iranian nuclear power,” Shueibi said.
Meanwhile, Sharon’s vice premier, Olmert, indicated that Israel will leave much of the West Bank after it exits Gaza next year. Olmert spoke Thursday during a tour of a section of the separation wall Israel is building along and in the West Bank to keep Palestinian attackers out.
His office quoted him as saying that Israel would have to evacuate more settlements because of international pressure and Israel’s own desire to remain a Jewish state. It was one of the clearest indications yet from an Israeli leader that the disengagement might be only the first phase of a future Israeli pullback from most of the West Bank, to make room for a Palestinian state.
Later, Olmert clarified his remarks by saying further withdrawals would not take place soon. “Certainly it is not on the agenda now,” he told Israel TV. Olmert, a leading member of Sharon’s Likud party, said even the United States, Israel’s main ally, wants an Israeli withdrawal from almost all of the West Bank, and that would mean removing settlements to reduce friction with the international community. “If we don’t do this, we will pay a very tough price,” his office quoted him as saying. While about 8,000 settlers live in Gaza, more than 230,000 live in 150 West Bank settlements.
