Syrian, Israeli backdoor talks now emerging

"The war clearly was mismanaged, and when a war is clearly mismanaged, there is no doubt the chief of staff is responsible," said opposition lawmaker Ran Cohen, a former high-ranking military officer. "The responsibility is shared by him, the prime minister and the defense minister, and sooner or later, they, too, will have to leave."

Some of the specifics of the talks between Israelis and Syrians, as reported in Haaretz, indicated a willingness of Israel to withdraw entirely from the Golan Heights, which it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel later settled the territory, which now has about 16,000 Israelis living on it along with some 18,000 Syrian Druze, and officially annexed the land. The move never received international recognition, but is seen in Israel as part of the national "consensus."

The would-be deal, according to the report, includes the establishment of a large "buffer zone" near the Sea of Galilee, which would be converted into a park for use by Israelis and Syrians.

In opinion surveys, only a minority of Israelis have indicated a willingness to withdraw fully from the Golan Heights. And following the disengagement plan of 2005, the public appears keen to have peace but reluctant to repeat the uprooting of settlers for questionable returns.

Although the Haaretz report indicated that senior officials here had full knowledge of the talks that broke off last summer, Israeli government officials have sharply denied the report.

"We're not questioning that these talks took place," says Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for the prime minister's office. "But there was no official sanctioning or knowledge of these meetings. This was not a back channel that was sanctioned in any way by this prime minister or the last prime minister [Ariel Sharon].

"It's sort of academic, and there are lots of meetings like that," Ms. Eisin adds. "I can list all kinds of academics that have all kind of meetings and can solve all kinds of world problems. But it doesn't have anything to do with officials."

Although Israeli officials have gone to lengths to deny that the contacts were sanctioned at the highest levels, Haaretz is not the only major Israeli paper to suggest that the Israeli-Syrian track may have yet have some electricity running through it.

The Maariv newspaper reported earlier this week that Uzi Arad, the director of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, has floated a plan for an Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese peace that would not require Israel to withdraw fully from the Golan Heights. The concept, dubbed the "Arad Plan," would allow Israel to keep a 150-square-mile strip of the western Golan Heights in exchange for an equivalent piece of land elsewhere.

Mohammed Musleh, a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Long Island University in Brookville, N.Y., says that would be totally unacceptable to the Syrians.

"For there to be a public park that will be used by the Israelis with or without Syrian approval, in violation of Syrian sovereignty, will not be. And Israel has insisted since the start that it must have total control," says Dr. Musleh, a Palestinian academic, during a visit to Jerusalem.

"It's a nonstarter," he says. "This plan also showed that Israel will control sources of the Jordan [River]. But the dispute between Israel on the one hand, and Syrian, Jordan, and Egypt [on the other] over the sources of Jordan, were one of the underlying causes of the war in 1967, because Israel succeeded in diverting the sources of the Jordan River."

Moreover, he says, the demands placed on Syria to come to the table would come at a premium that he doubts Mr. Assad would be willing to pay.

"Syria should distance itself from Iran, on one hand, and Hamas on the other hand. But why should Syria do that in return for nothing? Syria is very much interested in renewing the peace talks with Israel, but neither Washington nor Tel Aviv is interested in peace talks with Syria. The Bush Administration is against any kind of engagement with Syria, and it doesn't want Israel to have any engagement, either."

• Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Page: 1 | 2