According to Ha’aretz, unofficial and secret talks with Syria were going on for two years, even during the Lebanon war.
The document is described as a “non-paper,” a document of understandings that is not signed and lacks legal standing – its nature is political. It was prepared in August 2005 and has been updated during a number of meetings in Europe.
The meetings were carried out with the knowledge of senior officials in the government of former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The last meeting took place during last summer’s war in Lebanon.
Government officials received updates on the meetings via the European mediator and also through Dr. Alon Liel, a former director general at the Foreign Ministry, who took part in all the meetings.
The European mediator and the Syrian representative in the discussions held eight separate meetings with senior Syrian officials, including Vice President Farouk Shara, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, and a Syrian intelligence officer with the rank of “general.”
The contacts ended after the Syrians demanded an end to meetings on an unofficial level and called for a secret meeting at the level of deputy minister, on the Syrian side, with an Israeli official at the rank of a ministry’s director general, including the participation of a senior American official. Israel did not agree to this Syrian request.
The war, which happened in part because Syria has allowed the arming of Hezbullah through its territory, did not stop the talks. Syria’s demand to speak with someone of higher level—who might be able to actually agree to something—is the reason the talks stopped. Are you seeing a pattern here?
Ehud Olmert denies any knowledge whatsoever of these talks.
“It never happened … I knew nothing and no one in the government knows. No one of the government officials was involved in this. That’s a private initiative by a man who spoke with himself, and from what I’ve been reading his conversation partner was a weird figure from the US,” he said.
What is it with Israelis who have no power holding talks with Israel’s enemies? Every time this crap comes out, the world says, “See? You could have peace, you just don’t want to!”
Wait for it. If the AP picks this up, that will be the angle.
I think he’s practicing up on that line. He’s going to need it.
I thought I read that Olmert recently said that since missiles were launched at Israel from two territories it had left (Gaza and So. Lebanon) what is the point of talking about giving up more territory? That he wasn’t going to do any more disengaging.