Hezbollah will turn its attention to resisting normal relations with Israel if Syria and Lebanon reach a peace settlement with the Jewish state, according to the Shi\’ite group\’s leader.
Bennett Zimmerman, a buttoned-down investment fund manager by day, stood up at the end of an evening\’s conversation and removed his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with bold Hebrew letters spelling out Ha\’am im HaGolan — The People are with the Golan.
Ehud Barak is going to have a hard time persuading the Israeli voters to endorse any deal with Syria that entails a withdrawal from most or all of the Golan Heights. The public is drifting away from the prime minister. So far.
The revived Syrian-Israeli talks, which began this week in Washington, could be yet another false start on the twisting road to peace. Or the two countries could move with blinding speed to conclude an agreement that will transfer the Golan Heights back to Syrian control.
At first blush it seemed like a done deal. If Syria and Israel were returning to the negotiating table, and President Bill Clinton was leading them, then it was surely just a matter of time until the two sides reached agreement and declared peace. American, Syrian and Israeli officials sounded confident to a fault, saying a deal might be just a short distance away.
Emotions ranging from hope to uncertainty to anger fill the 16,000 Golan Heights residents as their fate is again the topic of Israeli-Syrian peace talks.
Negotiations resumed Wednesday in Washington, and residents here know that the price for peace with Syria is likely to be the return of all or most of the Golan, the strategic plateau Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright\’s Middle East shuttle mission has paid off with the announcement that Israeli-Syrian negotiations will resume next week.
King Hussein\’s latest medical crisis — and his abrupt replacement last month of Prince Hassan with his eldest son, 37-year-old Prince Abdullah, as heir to the Hashemite throne — worry Israelis more than they like to admit.
The attacks marked the heaviest cross-border violence since a cease-fire in 1996 ended with Operation Grapes of Wrath, Israel\’s 16-day campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
At the height of the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was rushing all available combat troops to the Syrian and Egyptian fronts, an Israeli official was asked who was defending the eastern border. \”King Hussein,\” he replied, \”as usual.\”
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.