JERUSALEM, 15 July 2007 — While inviting new negotiations with Syria, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gives no sign that he is prepared to withdraw from the Golan Heights — a prerequisite for such talks to succeed.
Through intermediaries he has assured Syria that Israel has no aggressive intentions toward its neighbor, but as recently as the beginning of July the Jewish state still staged extensive military exercises on the Golan.
The plateau was seized by Israeli troops during the 1967 Six Day War, and was later annexed unilaterally in 1981.
“This policy of hot and cold has a double aim — to reduce the chance of war, which is perfectly justified, but also to give the impression of a relaunch of the peace process with Syria, which is all just for show,” said Israeli analyst Eyal Zisser.
According to Zisser, a Syria and Lebanon expert at Tel Aviv University, “neither Israel nor Syria is in a position to take essential steps toward making peace.”
Zisser believes that Olmert must announce that Israel is ready to cede the Golan, which is “out of the question because his government is so weak and because of the strength of the settlers lobby.”
And Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad should “make a spectacular gesture toward future normalization, such as coming to Jerusalem,” which the expert also rules out.
Nevertheless the Israeli daily Maariv on Friday said substantial progress had been made recently toward a resumption of direct negotiations, which were suspended in 2000, through contacts by intermediaries. The newspaper said the UN envoy on the peace process, Michael Williams, had told Israel that Damascus was disposed to distancing itself from the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militia, the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas and Iran if peace talks were to resume.
But Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisin was circumspect on that score. “This may be the impression Mr. Williams gained from his contacts,” she said.
Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported on June 8 that Olmert had secretly sent messages to Assad offering a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights in exchange for Syria abandoning its quarter-century alliance with Israeli archfoe Iran and expelling Lebanese and Palestinian militants.
Olmert on Wednesday reportedly paid a secret visit to Jordan, where Maariv said he discussed with King Abdallah II the chances of resuming Israel-Syria talks.
At the same time the Israeli premier has also criticized Assad for wanting to negotiate only with the United States.
“Assad claims that he wants talks, but in reality what he means by that is negotiations with the United States and George W. Bush and not with Israel,” Olmert told ambassadors of the European Union on Thursday. “Syria doesn’t want a war and Israel doesn’t want one either, but that still doesn’t mean a return to the negotiating table,” he said.
Saying that the US president had no wish to act as an intermediary between himself and Assad, Olmert in an interview with the satellite channel Al-Arabiya on July 9 invited the Syrian president to negotiate directly with him “wherever he wants.”
He said Israel was ready to begin talks with Syria with no preconditions after Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Damascus was willing to resume negotiations “in accordance with what has been achieved” during previous talks.
Before January 2000, when US-brokered talks broke down over disagreements over the Golan, Israel had inclined toward accepting a withdrawal to the “international frontier” of the British mandate in Palestine, but not to its pre-1967 war borders.
Territorially the difference is small, but a pullback to the “international frontier” would guarantee Israel exclusive control over Lake Galilee, its major source of fresh water.
No agreement was signed at the time that Israel no longer considered itself bound to a withdrawal to this “international frontier,” which would imply possible dismantling of Israeli settlements on the Golan.
Today 15,000 settlers live in the Golan Heights, according to various estimates by anti-settlement groups.
