Yeah, well, I’m not wrong about that.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said during a visit to The United Arab Emirates on Monday that Israel’s agreement to withdraw from the Golan Heights was a prerequisite for the renewed peace negotiations between the two countries.

Speaking to editors of local news outlets in Abu Dhabi, Assad said “Syria conditioned the launching of indirect negotiations with Israel, with Turkey’s mediation, on the (Jewish state’s) agreement to cede the Golan.

Uh-huh. And after that, all the Jews who left Syria after the founding of Israel will trip merrily back into Damascus, singing “La-la-la-la” and bearing flowers, which they will lay at the feet of the dortktator president.

I think Tom Paine is wearing off on me.

The paper reported that according to the source, 85% of the issues standing between the two countries on the way to a peace deal have already been agreed. One of the issues which have yet to be discussed is Israel’s demand that Syria detach itself from Hamas and Hizbullah and break its strategic alliance with Iran.

“I am optimistic,” the source told the newspaper reporter. “This does not mean that Syria will have to sever its ties with Iran and its followers in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, but it will join those influencing them in a positive manner – in accordance with the peace relations between Israel and Syria.

“We have a clear example for that – the relations between Syria and Turkey, just like Damascus withdrew its support for the PKK (Kurdish militant organization fighting for independence from Turkish rule).”

Except that once again, let’s be clear: Syria has no intention of making peace with Israel.

Syrian President Bashar Assad dismissed on Tuesday Israeli demands for Syria to abandon an alliance with Iran as a requirement for a peace deal.

Assad told British MPs that the Baath Party government intended to maintain its “normal relations” with Iran while it conducts indirect talks with Israel to regain the Golan Heights, a source familiar with the meeting told Reuters.

[...] “The president said Syria has normal relations with Iran. He made it clear that any suggestion to drop them was not a reasonable request,” the source said.

“He said if Israel could question Syria’s relations with Iran then Syria could question Israel’s ties with other countries, particularly the United States,” the source added, referring to Israel’s main ally.

Yeah, because American is just like Iran. Oh, wait. We’re the polar opposite. My bad.

Thankfully, Olmert is going to fall soon, and these discussions will be moot.

Syrian Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani said on Tuesday that his country was prepared to increase its military cooperation with Iran.

[...] “Iran and Syria share the same viewpoint regarding regional issues and efforts will be made to strengthen our shared interests and bilateral relations,” said Turkmani, who was dispatched to Tehran to reassure the outraged Iranian leadership following the resumption of negotiations with Israel.

The defense minister confirmed the statement released by the Iranian defense ministry regarding Syria’s intent to increase military cooperation with its chief ally.

The Iranian strategy of surrounding Israel with thousands of rockets continues unabated.

Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin said during the weekly government meeting on Sunday that since the breaching of the Philadelphi Route Hamas has succeeded in smuggling very advanced weapons into the Gaza Strip, and that there are certain indications that the organization now has rockets able to surpass Ashkelon, and possibly even to hit Ashdod and Kiryat Gat.

“There has been cooperation between Hamas and Iran, and the Shin Bet has already recognized Iranian-made rockets that have a range far greater than the Gaza Strip. Time favors Hamas and the rest of the terror organizations, and the threat on the State of Israel is steadily rising,” Diskin warned.

Some in Israel’s Military Intelligence thinks that Syria wants to move forward on the “peace process.”

The head of the research division of Military Intelligence, Brigadier-General Yossi Baidatz, attended the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on Monday, and said that Syria was interested in advancing the peace process with Israel.

“It is our understanding that the Syrians are interested and want to see the diplomatic process move forward,” he told the committee members.

Baidatz noted, however, that Damascus was simultaneously working on bolstering the Hizbullah terror organization in Lebanon.

I’m sorry, but what? You do not want peace if you are simultaneously supplying Hizbullah with weapons to harm Israel. You only want to get your land back.

Ahmadinejad is predicting continued good relations with Syria, and the continued encirclement of Israel.

The FARS news agency reported that Ahmadinejad told Turkmani that he is “confident the Syrian leadership will handle the arena wisely and not desert the front line of the struggle until all the threats of the Zionist regime are completely removed.”

Iran is also promising to keep up its support of Hamas even if Syria were to stop as a result of the truce. (And by the way, how is it that Jimmy Carter can’t acknowledge that Hamas has no intention of ever living in peace with Israel, but he can give away classified information and betray an American ally?

Really, reading these, and all the other articles available, how can anyone pretend that Syria is willing to come to a peace agreement with Israel? There will be no peace, only another piece in the encirclement strategy. Once again, Israel will be fighting an all-front war, only this time, the civilian population will be under as much threat as it was in 1948. No, more. The rockets will make every inch of Israel unsafe.

And meantime, Olmert fiddles while Israel’s enemies build up their weapons.

Israel captured the strategic plateau in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed the area. Many Israelis are reluctant to relinquish the Golan, which overlooks northern Israel and borders the Sea of Galilee, a key source of drinking water.

No, that’s not it.

In the most recent talks, conducted by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Israel reportedly offered to withdraw from the Golan, but the talks broke down because Syria wanted Israel to pull back several hundred yards more to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

No, that’s not it.

Israel and Syria have fought three wars, their forces have clashed in Lebanon, and more recently, Syria has given support to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip. Israel is also concerned about Syria’s close ties to Iran.

No, that’s not it.

The Israeli public opposes giving up the Golan, home to a thriving tourism and wine industry. An opinion poll last week found that only 19 percent of Israelis are willing to cede the entire plateau – even in exchange for peace.

Nope. That’s not it, either. But hey, way to make Israelis look like warmongering, selfish scumbags, AP. No, Israelis don’t want to give back the Golan, even in exchange for peace. And by the way, how is that not an editorial statement? The “even” makes it seem that Israelis want war, no matter what. Nice little bit of yellow journalism there.

Perhaps we can find out why 81 percent of Israelis don’t want to give back the Golan. Maybe we can dig around a bit and see what the AP thinks is not important enough to mention about the Golan when describing why so many Israelis are reluctant to give the Heights back. In fact, we can find it in the AP factbox that was released on May 21st, so we know they had the ability to relay this information only five days ago:

Soldiers shelled northern Israel from the Golan Heights between 1948 and 1967. Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed it in 1981. No country recognized the annexation.

Ohhhhhh. Syria regularly bombarded Israeli communities from the Golan Heights for nineteen years. Say. I wonder if that has anything to do with why 81 percent of Israelis don’t want to give back the Golan.

The AP description above makes it seem like Israelis want to keep the Golan for their own personal pleasure and profit—not because it’s a strategically important plateau used to launch deadly attacks on civilian communities. (Gee, that sounds familiar. The Arab ways have not changed in sixty years.) The shelling stopped on June 10, 1967, when the IDF captured the Golan Heights.

After the 1948-49 War of Independence, the Syrians built extensive fortifications on the Heights, from where they systematically shelled civilian targets in Israel and launched terrorist attacks (in gross violation of Article III of the Israel-Syria Armistice Agreement of 20 July 1949). 140 Israelis were killed and many more were injured in these attacks between 1949 and 1967; heavy property damage was also inflicted. During the 1967 Six-Day War, the IDF captured the Golan Heights — in response to Syrian attacks — in just over 24 hours of intense fighting on 9-10 June. Nearly all of the Golan’s Arab inhabitants fled as a result of the war; four Druze villages remain, three on the slopes of Mt. Hermon and one in the northern Golan.

Funny how you never see mention of Syria being in violation of the Armistice Agreement—for nineteen years—by shelling northern Israel, and yet you always see drek like the AP boilerplate about how no one recognizes Israel’s annexation of the Golan.

Another sterling example of your objective media at work. Another example of why I’ll keep blogging, as long as the media keep on defaming Israel.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni commented Thursday on the renewed negotiations between Israel and Syria and said any peace process hinges on Damascus’ renouncement of its support of terror.

“Israel’s primary goal has always been peace with its neighbors. The Syrians have to understand that it entails giving up their support of terror (elements), namely Hamas, Iran and Hizbullah,” Livni said at the onset of her Jerusalem meeting with French counterpart Bernard Kouchner.

There’s one interesting piece of news I didn’t know: Olmert obviously fears Livni’s chances of taking over his position. Why else would he not have her in the loop on this?

The Israeli FM did not comment on the fact that she was kept in the dark on the renewed peace talks by her fellow “Kitchen Cabinet” members – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who led the initiative. Olmert updated Livni on the joint statement drafted by Jerusalem, Ankara and Damascus just an hour before it was issued.

Remember the last time it looked like Olmert was going to fall, Livni was announcing she was ready to take over Kadima. He bought her silence then. Looks like he’s playing politics with her future as well as Israel’s. Not that I think she’d be much better than Olmert. She’s too ready to give away the farm as well.

Meantime, the Syrians are showing the typical Arab mentality about bargaining with Israel: No concessions, no deals, just give us what we demand and STFU.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told the newspaper “There will not be a situation in which Syria advances even one step (in the peace process) without a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights. This is not a prerequisite; it is our right.”

And oh yeah—we’re talking full withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice lines.

Senior Syrian officials were quoted by London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat as saying that the renewed talks with Israel were aimed, among other things, to set a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 (pre-Six Day War) borders.

Full withdrawal without Syria’s total shutdown of terror operations and breaking off ties with Iran is not going to happen. Even if Olmert wants to agree to it, his country will refuse to follow. Even now, the Golan communities are balking. They point out that every time Olmert has been investigated for corruption and things look extremely serious, he offers up some kind of peace deal to take attention away from his crimes. They’re calling him an “interogee” publicly, a reference to the ongoing investigations.

“The Israeli public will not allow such a strange and irresponsible act that will transfer strategic and settled land to the Arab axis of evil,” he added.

Malka and Katzrin Council head Sammy Bar-Lev issued a combined statement saying that “the Prime Minister’s Office’s declaration which is presently trying in every way possible to pull Olmert away from the prongs of investigation, is a cynical and dangerous act and places personal interests above national ones.”

Meantime, Israeli analysts agree: Olmert can’t possibly pull this one off. It’s a cynical move on both their parts.

Golan residents can relax. The Golan Heights will apparently not be handed over to the Syrians in the coming years, if at all. Syria has no interest in peace with Israel, just like Israel has no interest is handing the Golan over to the Syrians.

Syria cannot deliver the minimal goods required of it; that is, severing its ties with terror organizations and the Iranian influence in favor of normalization with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has no desire to provide the Syrians with military positions on the Golan, which would again threaten Israeli communities, or to allow the Syrians access to the Sea of Galilee.

[...] The question which many Israelis must ask themselves is not how much peace we shall receive in exchange for the Golan, as if the Heights were a tradable commodity with a set price, but rather, does Assad really want peace? Would such peace serve his supreme goal, which is the safeguarding of his regime?

The answer to that is negative of course. The hatred for Israel, the external enemy, enables him to maintain absolute power in his country despite the economic and social repression suffered by the masses. The connection with terror groups, Iran, and the Palestinians enables Assad to get along with the Arab world and with his own citizens under the umbrella of hostility to Israel.

I like this part of the analysis the best:

When Assad’s people say that they are willing to engage in negotiations with Israel without pre-conditions, they only mean no Israeli pre-conditions, of course. The Syrians, on the other hand, are taking the pre-condition of getting the Golan for granted.

Of course, the AP does its best to spin the issue anti-Israel by ignoring the fact that the Syrians don’t really want peace. They just want the Golan back. Witness the headline, and angle, to the latest AP story:

Israelis express skepticism on Syria peace talks
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s dramatic announcement that he is negotiating a peace deal with Syria was greeted Thursday with overwhelming skepticism in Israel.

Many Israelis appear to believe the embattled leader made the declaration to divert attention from the corruption allegations that threaten to end his term in office, and opinion polls showed Israelis remained wary of withdrawing from the strategic Golan Heights — even in return for peace with one of Israel’s most bitter enemies.

Notice the emphasis on Israeli skepticism, rather than insincerity on the part of Syria. You have to read down to the last two or three paragraphs to find this information:

The nations have fought three wars, their forces have clashed in Lebanon, and more recently, Syria has given support to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Palestinian militant groups.

The sides’ demands in any peace deal are well-known. Syria wants a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, and Israel wants Syria to end its support for militants, curb its ties with Iran, and establish full diplomatic relations.

There is not one word about the eighteen years that Syria used the Golan Heights to shell northern Israeli communities. The vague “end its support for militants” supplants facts about Syria hosting and protecting terrorist leaders in Damascus, as well as utterly ignoring the Syrian colonization and subjugation of Lebanon. These are not minor issues. These are what Syria must stop in order to achieve peace with Israel, yet they all fall under the vague phrase “end its support for militants.”

As I said above, the only positive thing about all of this is that I know Olmert can’t carry it off—because the Dorktator dosn’t really want peace. He wants a distraction for his people, and he wants to make it look like the Israelis are the ones refusing to make peace. The AP is already helping him achieve that goal. Count on seeing more of the same from the rest of the non-Israeli media.