COMMENTARY: Will Israel and Syria get serious?

While the talks may be well-intentioned, there will be no escaping Syria's eventual assumption as the advocate for the Palestinians. WANT TRACTION? LEVERAGE WATER FOR PEACE: BRING POTABLE WATER TO THE PALESTINIANS. Survival's not all about oil. When you follow the money in that area, it may be found in desalinization and the 10 Billion project to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. Their Arab brethren will continue to ask, "Have you ever wondered what it's like to own land with no water?" Commonsense is often the uncommon virtue. S/F

The real problem surrounding any return of the Golan Heights to Syrian control is strategic and this far outweighs the settlements issue. Israel's very existence would be directly threatened if the Golan were returned to hostile Syrian hands. Since Assad's word cannot be trusted -- just ask the Lebanese -- the peace-building measures Mr. Salhani suggests as part of any such agreement would necessarily have to PRECEDE return of the Golan, which could only be the final stage of a careful process. For this to be a realistic hope, Damascus would have to foreswear not only its so far beneficial relationship with an increasingly powerful Iran but also its vaulting ambitions in Lebanon as well as the terrorist groups and tactics it routinely relies on to advance its policies. Then there is the small matter of believing that the Syrians will ever really put aside their genocidal hatred of the Jewish state; again, Mr. Assad's signature on same paper agreements simply will not do. Nor will framing return of the Golan as restoration of rightful Syrian territory and therefore a peace-building measure in itself, since it was occupied by Israel by right of conquest in a war of self-defense. However, in his article Mr. Salhani amazingly never even mentions these complicated strategic dimensions of the Golan question, much less address them. Why not? Perhaps it is Mr. Salhani who needs to get serious.

Exactly why should the EU, US and Japan compensate the settlers when they are forced out of the Golan? It is against the Geneva Conventions to install settlers on occupied land. If it costs $17 billion to compensate these illegal settlers then presumably it would cost $442 billion to get the 650 000 illegal settlers out of the West Bank. Or, put another way, these settlers have stolen Palestinian land, and water, worth $442 billion. This is the land covered with settlements that in 2004 President Bush agreed that Israel could keep on the grounds "that it would be unrealistic to expect them to be removed". This from the leader of a law abiding democracy!