Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to full withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights in exchange for a peace agreement with Syria, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported Friday. The report, based on classified American documents, said that indirect talks between Netanyahu and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad took place in the fall of 2010 and ended with the outbreak of the conflict in January 2011. The report said that the Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak launched secret indirect negotiations with Assad through American mediator Frederick Hoff, a special US envoy to the Middle East. According to the report, US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were aware of the negotiations, as were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and Dennis Ross. Syria's representative to the talks was Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, but Hoff also met Assad, the report said. The report said that Netanyahu was willing to return to the June 4, 1967 lines, giving Damascus full control of the entire Golan Heights, a strategic plateau Israel seized in 1967 and annexed in 1981 with no recognition of the international community, in return for a peace treaty with Syria. The peace agreement would also include an exchange of ambassadors between the two countries, Yediot Ahronot said. An American source quoted by the paper said the American negotiating team was surprised at how much Netanyahu was ready to give up in exchange for a full peace. Meanwhile, Netanyahu's office denied the report, saying the initiative in question was one of many offered to Israel in recent years. “Israel did not accept this initiative at any point. This initiative is old and irrelevant, and the fact it is being released now derives from political interests,” the PM's office said. Peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000 after Damascus declined an Israeli offer to withdraw from the territory, saying the Israeli offer did not encompass the full territory it occupied in the June 1967 War. Israel wanted to withdraw to the international border, keeping a small strip around Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) to ensure its control of vital water supplies, but Syria wanted to advance to the lake. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert renewed indirect talks with Syria in 2008 via Turkish mediation. But the talks have been frozen due to political turmoil in Israel.
