Peace gets a real chance after 50 yrs of conflict

Earlier, he won Parliament’s support on Monday for the resumption of talks after warning that failure of the peace process could lead to bloodshed. “This is a crucial moment that cannot be missed. Missing it, God forbid, could cost us blood,” he told the Knesset (Parliament) on Monday. “Before us lie very difficult negotiations, the results of which have certainly not been determined in advance. Our top priority is Israel’s security.”After his speech, the motion for resumption of peace talks with Syria, after negotiations were interrupted four years ago, was approved by 47 votes to 31, with 24 abstentions.

But Barak must win over an Israeli public which is sharply divided over any return to Syria of the occupied Golan Heights. He assured both Parliament and his Cabinet that Israel has made no commitments, nor agreed to any preconditions to the talks. He said he was certain that the Israeli public would give a strong thumbs up in a future referendum on a peace accord. His office said a referendum could take place in six months.

However, as Barak was speaking, thousands of angry settlers demonstrated outside Parliament demanding that Israel should never relinquish the Golan Heights, which it captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. “We’ll keep the Golan, you keep the $15 billion,” one banner said, referring to the cost of moving the 17,000 Jews living there.

The peace talks have been frozen since early 1996, bogged down over Syria’sinsistence that before these could resume, Israel had to agree to withdraw from the Golan. Now too, Syria has said the resumption of the talks hinged on Israel’s commitment to pull out both from the Golan and from the buffer zone it occupies in South Lebanon.

But US President Bill Clinton said he believed Barak and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad shared a sense of urgency going into the talks. “Both leaders, for different reasons, finally have this sense of urgency and I think they should have a sense of urgency,” Clinton said in an interview with CBS radio.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Minister for Relations with Parliament Haim Ramon claimed on Monday that Barak’s predecessor, right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu, had previously offered to withdraw from the Golan Heights. The claim drew an immediate denial by a spokesman for Netanyahu’s Likud Party.

Ramon told AFP that Netanyahu had got as far as setting the internationally agreed border of 1923 as a withdrawal line, and had sent the proposal to Syria throughbusinessman Ron Lauder. In parliamentary debate on Monday, Ariel Sharon, current leader of the Likud Opposition party, described the Barak administration as “a spineless bunch, a danger to Israel”. He said the Likud would have been capable of negotiating a peace with Syria that allowed Israel to keep the Golan Heights.