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An Israeli minister said on Friday that the Jewish state was trying to revive peace talks with Syria and that the price of a deal was the occupied Golan Heights.
Peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000 over the extent of a proposed Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. Tensions have risen since then with Israel accusing Syria of supporting the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups like Hamas.

Russia has offered to host a Middle East peace conference this year to try to relaunch talks between the two countries.

Olmert on Wednesday appeared to signal reluctance about attending such a summit but said Israel was willing to make peace with Syria and that he hoped the two sides would be able to hold talks.

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St. Paul's Progressive: Israel has a long history of trying to talk with the Palestinians. But often the Palestinian leadership has scuttled these opportunities (notably Arafat when Barak made a very reasonable offer)

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Right. West Bank Palestinian Bantustans, surrounded by armed Israeli settlers, surrender of East Jerusalem, and abandonment of the right to return are all very "reasonable" if you're trying to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, or worse.

But don't just listen to me. Check out Norman Finkelstein getting the former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami to admit that the Palestinians "were correct to reject the Israeli and American "proposed" settlement for the conflict at Camp David in 2000".

Here's the debate - check out from the 49th minute ...'

[ 28 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

The Syrian Threat

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A major, persistent claim is that Israel cannot run peace talks on two fronts at the same time. Very understandable: Israel's military strategy has always been based on the assumption that it should be able to cope with war on all fronts at once: to face a simultaneous attack on both the Egyptian and the so-called Eastern front (i.e. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all joining forces together; an imminent scenario!). But holding peace talks on two fronts at once? That's truly impossible. Just think of two negotiation teams, with their regular flights, fax and phone bills. A small state like Israel can simply not afford it. Even a self-hating Jew like myself understands that it is impossible to launch peace talks on a second front. But I wonder: what is actually the first front? Surely not peace talks with the Palestinians, that exploded more than three years ago and have never been resumed?

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