Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Israeli is ramping up it’s armed forces and engaging in war games in preparation for an impending war with Syria. Syria has laid careful plans to eject the U.N. from Southern Lebanon and invade Lebanon. It has also been secretly sending thousands of rockets and armaments and vehicles and fighters into that country, all in preparation for an impending war with Israel. But throughout all of this, they’ve been engaged in a peace dance. The lamest thing about the peace proposal seems to be a fatal flaw that Israel is quite in denial of: Syria gets back the Golan Heights in exchange for the vaguery of, and I quote the Israeli government here, “changing the nature of its relationship with Iran.” There is no way to satisfactorily monitor what these two countries will continue to plot together, and what arms and men they will ship to each other and their proxy armies around the world. The stupidity of the arrangement is so stunnning that it bears repeating: Israel gives up a tangible strategic asset, the Golan Heights, for nothing more than a promise from Assad that Israel cannot reasonably expect him to keep ( based on past behavior ) and has no way of monitoring whether or not he keeps it.

And what if they find Syria breaking it - they discover Basher in his bedroom whispering sweet nothings on the phone to Ahmadinejad like a parent who picks up the living room phone and hears his teenage daughter talking to the “forbidden” bad boy? What is their only recourse: stamp their feet in the press and the U.N. to no avail? No, the only effective recourse will be to invade the Golan Heights again. In other words, Israel is only setting themselves up to be more vulnerable to Syria and its allies unrelenting desire to crush them. This current Peace Plan is nothing but an appeasement deal. Assad is jerking Olmert’s chain, and making an idiot out of him. To secure the Golan Heights, he needs to offer nothing more than his word. Absurd.

Syrian President Assad Seeks Concessions Before Talks

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad told the Syrian parliament Tuesday that he is ready for peace talks with Israel; however, he conditioned such talks on a prior formal commitment by Israel to evacuate and concede all of the Golan Heights.

“They must provide us with guarantees that all of the Golan will be returned,” Assad declared in a speech after being sworn in as Syria’s president for a second seven-year term. “We cannot enter negotiations without knowing what they’re going to be about.” He said that he expected Israel to “at least make a ‘deposit,’ as Rabin did, or [provide] something in writing to make sure that the talks will not be about the land, because the land will be completely restored. …Talks should be on security measures and [bilateral] relations, as has been the case during the last decade.”

For Syrians, Assad continued, “peace is tied to the word ‘land.’” Talks with Israel would only be conducted, therefore, “to achieve the main principle of land for peace and the return of the whole Golan.”

Israel must do more than “send messengers,” Assad chided, as “this is not serious.” He also revealed that a third country is mediating between Israel and Syria. Observers said he might be referring to Turkey.

Livni rejected such talks as long as Syria continues its support for the Lebanese Hizbullah.

On Monday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offered the services of his office to facilitate negotiations between Israel and Syria. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rejected such talks as long as Syria continues its support for the Lebanese Hizbullah and other terrorist organizations.

On the other hand, in an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television station last week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for immediate and direct Syria-Israel negotiations.

“I turn to you, Mr. Assad, and call for direct peace negotiations,” the Prime Minister said, “but you… prefer American go-betweens. The American president says: ‘I don’t want to stand between Bashar Assad and Ehud Olmert. If you want to talk, sit down and talk.’”

Prime Minister Olmert went on to state that Israel has “no hostile intentions towards Syria.” When asked where he and Assad could meet, Olmert said that he is willing to meet the Syrian leader “anywhere he’d like.”