Just as I told you: Syria doesn’t want peace. Syria wants the Golan. And that’s about it.
Syria said on Thursday it had received guarantees from Israel via Turkey for a full withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights and rejected conditions put by the Jewish state for concluding a peace deal.
Israel and Syria on Wednesday announced that they had begun indirect talks in Turkey, the first of their kind in eight years. But Israeli officials on Thursday said Damascus must distance itself from Iran and stop supporting Palestinian and Lebanese militants.
“We received commitments and messages from the Israeli government and the Israeli prime minister that guarantee, via the Turks, that he knows what the Syrians want,” Syrian Information Minister Muhsin Bilal told al-Jazeera television.
“He knows that the whole of the Golan Heights will be returned to Syria and that Israel will withdraw to the lines of June 4, 1967.”
Shyeah. Right. They’re called the 1949 Armistice Lines, and that ain’t happening. Because Syria refuses to give up on trying to destroy Israel by proxy (since they’ve failed every time they’ve tried themselves).
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, echoing US comments, said Syria should distance itself from groups such as Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, some of whose leaders it hosts, as well as Lebanon’s Hizbullah terror group.
“When they make these demands, they are setting conditions and the issue of peace, the peace process does not require prior conditions,” Bilal said.
And get this:
“These conditions have already been rejected as is the phrase ‘painful concessions’ since what the Syrians are demanding is their right.”
Bilal said there was no painful concession involved in Israel returning land that belongs to Syria anyway.
Not anymore it doesn’t. And it may never again. That’s what happens when you use the land to bombard civilians.
Nah, I’m with the Syrians on this one. There are clear rules that govern these sort of negotiations and the Israelis are violating them. From the Israelis, deeds. From the Arabs, words. Israel is supposed to hand over land for promises and so far they’re not doing so, although I am getting the feeling that Olmert eventually will.
So exactly when the HELL did the “right of conquest” go out of vogue?
If a country is attacked, and kicks the attackers ASS, isn’t it due what land it got it the process?
OR vise versa? If a country attacks and wins aren’t they due land won as well?