MIDEAST: Former Israeli diplomat says Syria would have to change its Mideast policy before Israel could relinquish the Golan Heights

Record ID: 396332

  • Title: MIDEAST: Former Israeli diplomat says Syria would have to change its Mideast policy before Israel could relinquish the Golan Heights
  • Date: 25th April 2008
  • Summary: SEA OF GALILEE FROM THE GOLAN FARM BENEATH A HILLSIDE FARM
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA5NB85FZNN9O7OLX4Q027ESTU5
  • Story Text: Dr. Alon Liel, a former Israeli diplomat and current chairman of the Israel-Syria Peace Society - an organisation formed to promote a peace process between the two rival neighbours - said on Thursday (April 24) that both Syria and Israel would need to make difficult sacrifices if they were to forge a peace agreement.
    Syrian officials say it received word from Turkey that Israel was willing to give back the occupied Golan Heights in full in return for peace with the Arab state -- one of the issues that led decade-long negotiations to falter in 2000.
    As well as strategic high ground, the fertile Golan Heights ensure Israeli control of important water resources in the arid region, as well as land for vineyards, orchards and cattle-grazing.
    Liel says Israelis have become emotionally attached to the territory Israel has controlled since the 1967 war. Giving it back to Syria would be difficult for the Israeli public to accept, Liel said.
    "The Israelis are in love with the Golan Heights. It has become our Tuscany with the wine and the tourism and the culture and it's very difficult emotionally to withdraw," he said.
    But Liel says a peace deal would also force Syria to make difficult decisions about its alliances in the Middle East, including Syria's close relationship with Iran, and militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
    "Israel will not withdraw from the Golan Heights if Ahmadinejad can come the following day and swim in the Sea of Galilee, so a major change will have to occur in the Middle Eastern policy of Syria before they get the Golan Heights, and this will have to include the expulsion of the leadership of Hamas from Damascus, especially Khaled Meshaal," Liel said referring to the Hamas leader currently residing in Syria.
    Syria is ready to negotiate with Israel through Turkey to "find common ground" for peace, but any direct talks must wait until a new U.S.
    president is elected, President Bashar al-Assad said in remarks published in Qatar's al-Watan newspaper on Thursday.
    Liel agreed that a new American administration was important in pushing any peace process forward.
    "I think we first have to have quiet meetings of officials, they don't have to be very senior officials, to set up the terms and to speak on official results of negotiations. And then, we have to have the discussion themselves and, by the time we are ready on the bilateral level, we'll have a new administration in the United States and we'll have to convince the Americans, the new American leaders, that they should join the room and, if this all will happen, then we can start talking," Liel said.
    Syrian-Israeli talks collapsed in 2000 over the scope of an Israeli withdrawal from the Heights, occupied since 1967. Israel annexed the Heights in 1981 in a move condemned internationally.
    Olmert, who has been vacationing in the Golan Heights during the week-long Passover holiday, told the daily Yedioth Ahronoth last week, in answer to a question on pulling out of the Golan, that he was working to achieve a "significant move" for peace with Syria.
    Around 18,000 Israeli settlers live in the Heights along with 22,000 Druze who consider themselves Syrians.
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