DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH ON THIS,
THERE’S MANY A SLIP TWIXT CUP AND LIP!
April 25, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Article from “The Australian”
Israel to cede Golan for peace: Syria
Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem
April 25, 2008
ISRAELI Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has notified Damascus of his readiness to w ith
draw completely from the Golan Heights in return for peace, a Syrian cabinet minister declared yesterday.
Expatriates Minister Buthaina Shaaban said Mr Olmert had delivered his message to Damascus via Turkish intermediaries.
“Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights in full to Syria,” she declared. Israeli officials declined to confirm or deny the report.
The statement by Ms Shaaban, who frequently serves as spokeswoman for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, was preceded earlier by two Syrian press reports along the same line.
Following Ms Shaaban’s comments, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said in Tehran that if Israel was prepared to return to the pre-Six Day War borders, “there is nothing preventing a renewal of negotiations”. Israel captured 1200sqkm on the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six Day War.
Mr Olmert has in the past declined to respond to reports that secret peace negotiations with the Syrians were under way. However, he indicated “messages” had passed between Jerusalem and Damascus.
“They know what I want from them and I know what they want from us,” Mr Olmert said last week. “What I can say is that I’m very interested in peace with the Syrians and I hope my efforts will ripen into significant progress.”
Previous Israeli prime ministers have negotiated, both directly and indirectly, with Damascus and reportedly come to broad agreement on most issues.
Among the proposals examined were a lease by Israel of the heights, perhaps for 25 years, before final withdrawal and development of a large Golan nature preserve to which Israelis would have access even after it returned to Syrian control.
The Syrians reportedly agreed to a demand by Israel that the heights, which overlook Israeli towns, be demilitarised.
But there was no Israeli agreement to Syria’s demand that it be permitted to return to the northeast corner of Lake Kinneret, the biblical Sea of Galilee, to which it had access before the Six Day War. It is not at all clear that Mr Olmert would be willing to concede to the Syrians what his predecessors had refused.
Apart from the Kinneret issue, Israel is certain to hinge any peace agreement on Syria’s severing of its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah. Complicating the possibility of an Israeli-Syrian accord is Washington’s stern attitude towards Damascus, which it accuses of supporting terrorist organisations.
In Washington, the Senate and house intelligence committees were scheduled to be briefed overnight by the CIA on an Israeli air strike in Syria last September.
Although Israel has declined officially to acknowledge the strike, US intelligence officials would reportedly tell the politicians that Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean nuclear reactor that was being built in northeastern Syria.
Reports yesterday said a video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last year convinced the Israeli Government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
US officials said the video of the remote site showed North Koreans inside.
Sources familiar with the video said it also showed that the Syrian reactor core’s design was the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods.
An Israeli defence official said yesterday public disclosure of the Syrian plan would embarrass Mr Assad and force him, at the least, to desist from pursuing negotiations with Israel.
Right-wing Israeli politicians reacted sharply to the Syrian report and called on Mr Olmert to refute it.
DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH!
Gobs of news releases from a multiplicity of sources have been flooding in giving rise to a possible peace agreement between Israel and Syria. A lot of them make it sound like it is a reasonable possibility, such as the 13 brief excerpts which follow, but in article 14 from the Jerusalem Post, you can see the reason I put in the title of this blog, “DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH!” Naturally, I am hopeful there will be peace between Israel and Syria. My question is this – Is NOW the time, and I cannot be sure it is the time.
Before we get excited about the article from The Australian,
we should read the article which follows the next 14 brief headings from numerous sources. The final full article from the Jerusalem Post lists what Israel is asking Syria to do in order to get back the Golan Heights, and what they are asking is a mighty tall order.
Israel willing to give up Golan – Syrian minister
The Star
DUBAI (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Turkey that Israel is willing to give back Syria’s Golan Heights in return for peace with the Arab state, a Syrian cabinet minister said on…
Syrian minister says Israel willing to give up Golan Heights
International Herald Tribune
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Turkey that Israel is willing to give back Syria’s Golan Heights in return for peace with the Arab state, a Syrian cabinet minister said on Wednesday. “Olmert is…
Israel willing to give up Golan Heights
Yahoo Daily News
11 minutes ago DUBAI (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Turkey that Israel is willing to give back Syria’s Golan Heights in return for peace with the Arab state, a Syrian cabinet…
Israel eases stance over Golan
TVNZ
Apr 24, 2008 6:58 AM Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Turkey that Israel is willing to give back Syria’s Golan Heights in return for peace with the Arab state, a Syrian cabinet minister said….
Israeli Premier Willing to Give Back Golan Heights: Syrian Cabinet Minister
Arab News
Reuters DUBAI, 24 April 2008 — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Turkey that Israel is willing to give back Syria’s Golan Heights in return for peace with the Arab state, a Syrian Cabinet minister…
Israel “ready for peace” with Syria
Al Jazeera
Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, has reportedly offered to withdraw from Syria’s Golan Heights in exchange for a peace deal with Damascus. Buthaina Shaaban, Syria’s minister for expatriate affairs,…
Hints of progress toward a deal on the Golan Heights
International Herald Tribune
Peace overtures between Israel and Syria moved up a gear on Wednesday when a Syrian cabinet minister said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel had sent a message to President Bashar al-Assad to the…
Syrian minister says Israel passes messaging saying it would give back Golan for peace accord
Star Tribune
BEIRUT, Lebanon – A Cabinet minister said Wednesday that Israel has passed a message to Syria saying it is prepared to return the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace treaty. Israeli officials declined to…
Syria says Israel ready to return Golan for peace accord
The News & Observer
BEIRUT, Lebanon – A Cabinet minister said Wednesday that Israel has passed a message to Syria saying it is prepared to return the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace treaty. Israeli officials declined to…
Syria: Israel ready to return Golan
USA Today
BEIRUT (AP) — A Cabinet minister said Wednesday that Israel has passed a message to Syria saying it is prepared to return the Golan Heights in…
Israel Willing to Return Golan Heights to Syria
?
ABC News
Reporter’s Notebook By SIMON MCGREGOR-WOOD JERUSALEM April 23, 2008 FONT SIZE Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel is willing to give up all of the Golan Heights…
Israel ready to give back Golan to Syria for peace: reports
Dawn
BEIRUT, April 23: Two independent Syrian publications reported on Wednesday that Israel has passed a message to Damascus through Turkey’s prime minister that it is prepared to return the Golan Heights to Syria…
Erdogan ‘to relay Israeli pledge to vacate Golan’
Daily Star Lebanon
By Agence France Presse (AFP) Thursday, April 24, 2008
DAMASCUS: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has assured Syria that Israel is ready to return all of the Golan Heights, reports said on Wednesday…
‘Israel will return Golan if Syria cuts ties with terror’
Herb Keinon, THE JERUSALEM POST
April 23, 2008
Western diplomatic officials said Wednesday that reports in Syrian publications that Israel had passed a message to Damascus expressing a willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights as part of a peace deal missed a major part of the story: what the Syrians would have to do.
According to the officials, who confirmed that messages from Jerusalem to Damascus and vice versa have been going through Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office for months, Israel made clear that any peace agreement would necessitate Syria ending its support for Hamas and throwing Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal out of Damascus; ceasing support for Hizbullah; and distancing itself from Iran.
Erdogan is scheduled to hold a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Saturday.
The reports Wednesday appeared in Champress, an on-line Syrian news Web site, and in the Syrian newspaper Al-Watan, which is independent but close to Assad’s government.
The Champress report quoted unnamed diplomatic sources as saying that Turkish mediation had succeeded and that Erdogan had informed Damascus that he’d won Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s acceptance of a full withdrawal from the Golan in return for a peace treaty with Syria.
Al-Watan quoted “informed sources” as saying Erdogan had contacted Assad on Tuesday morning to relay the same news.
Neither report specified how much of the Golan Israel was prepared to return.
The Syrian government on Wednesday evening reportedly confirmed the reports.
Expatriates Minister Buthaina Shaaban told Al-Jazeera television that Olmert had informed Turkey Israel was willing to give back the Golan in return for peace.
“Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the grounds of international conditions; on the grounds of the return of the Golan Heights in full to Syria,” she said.
Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev did not categorically deny the reports, saying instead that “we don’t make it our practice to comment on every report in the press or on an Internet site.
“Our position is clear and was articulated by the prime minister when he was interviewed before [Pessah],” Regev said. “We want peace with the Syrians, and they know what we expect from them.”
In an interview to Yediot Aharonot over the weekend, Olmert was asked whether he was willing to stand by the “deposit” given by former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak to Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, that Israel would eventually withdraw from the Golan in return for peace.
“What I can say is that I’m very interested in peace with the Syrians, I’m working on it, and I hope my efforts will ripen into significant progress. I promise that in issues between us and Syria, they know what I want from them, and I know well what they want from us,” Olmert said.
One Israeli diplomatic official said that in a country where the press is very tightly controlled, it was necessary to ask why the Syrians had an interest in letting the story out now.
The official speculated that the reason may be linked to the congressional hearings in Washington scheduled for tomorrow, in which US Intelligence officials are widely expected to testify that North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-fueled reactor prior to Israel’s strike on Syria on September 6.
According to this official, Syria – by raising expectations of some kind of possible deal with Israel – was trying to divert attention from that testimony, which is likely to harden congressional attitudes even further against Damascus.
AP contributed to this report.
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