Barak hints to Syria about Golan deal
By Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM (Reuters): Faced with a Lebanon pullout deadline he can't afford to miss, Prime Minister Ehud Barak has started hinting to powerbroker Syria it can expect Israeli flexibility over the Golan Heights if peace talks resume.
Barak's muted initiative coincides with a crisis in peacemaking with the Palestinians. Israel and the United States are struggling to reach at least a deal with Syria before President Bill Clinton leaves office in January.
Arab diplomats in Jordan said on Tuesday Syria and Israel would resume negotiations in late March under a U.S.-sponsored formula to open talks on all outstanding issues at once. Barak's office had no immediate comment.
"An announcement is expected to that effect in the next 10 days or so," a senior Arab diplomatic source said in Amman.
U.S.-hosted Syrian-Israeli talks broke off in January and Syria demanded an Israeli commitment to a total pullout from the occupied Golan Heights as a condition for resuming negotiations.
Looming in the distance is the July 7 deadline that Barak has set for an Israeli pullout from an occupation zone in south Lebanon, which he wants to make with a peace agreement with powerbroker Syria already in hand.
Public opinion polls in Israel show mounting pressure on Barak to make good on his bedrock campaign pledge in last May's election to bring the troops home from Lebanon.
The heavy hinting about Israeli flexibility towards Syria began on Sunday when Barak's cabinet held its first comprehensive debate on the Lebanon withdrawal. Seven Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon this year.
Word leaked out after the session that Barak had stressed that past Israeli prime ministers had set the stage for a total pullout from the Golan, captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.
Then on Monday, Danny Yatom, a close aide to both Barak and slain Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin said Rabin told Washington in 1993 he would be willing to return the Golan to Syria in exchange for full peace.
The official Syrian daily Tishreen said on Tuesday Yatom's confirmation of Rabin's comments was "very important (but it) does not open the way for revival of the peace talks".
"Peace requires actions on the ground regarding full withdrawal from the Golan and the demarcation of (the June 4, 1967) line," it said, referring to a frontier that would put Syria back on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Barak's indirect signals to Syria were greeted with derision by Israel's biggest newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, which predicted that Damascus would turn a blind eye towards them.
"The prime minister said it -- it's a shame he chose such a crooked way to go about it," the daily said in an editorial.
"If Barak is in fact prepared to agree with the Syrians on the June 4, 1967, lines, he should have taken the credit himself ...instead of hiding behind the backs of four previous Israeli prime ministers," the newspaper said.
Israeli commentators have said Syrian access to the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest reservoir, would make it nearly impossible for Barak to win approval for a peace deal with Damascus which he has pledged to put to a national referendum.
Barak is under fire in the Israeli media for what critics call his arrogant leadership style and failure to meet a self-imposed Feb. 13 deadline for a framework peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Peace talks with the Palestinians are on hold in a dispute over the transfer of another 6.1 percent of the occupied West Bank to their control under an interim peace deal.
Dennis Ross, Clinton's Middle East envoy, failed in a week of shuttling between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Barak to end the month-long deadlock.
Palestinian officials have accused Barak of high-handed behavior reminiscent of his right-wing predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The first question that Rip Van Winkle would ask if he woke up this morning after a brief three-year slumber ... would be: "What? You mean Bibi (Netanyahu) is still in power?", columnist Yoel Marcus wrote in the Ha'aretz newspaper on Tuesday.