On November 26 Israel’s Jerusalem Post reported a sensational offer from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Israel’s Netanyahu conveyed via Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the Israeli paper, Assad is ready to agree to a demilitarized zone of up to 40 kilometers from the Israeli border in the Golan Heights as part of a comprehensive agreement between the two countries in return for an Israeli guarantee it will not continue to try to remove Assad's regime from power. The discussion took place in the recent surprise meeting in Sochi between Assad and Putin, just prior to Putin’s meeting with the leaders of Turkey and Iran to discuss Syria.[1]
The report also claims that Putin then called Netanyahu to relay the message, and that the Israeli prime minister said he would be willing to accept the deal, but that Israel's goal of eradicating Iran and Hezbollah from the country would remain in place, suggesting a typical Netanyahu ploy to have his cake and eat it too.[2] The problem to date with the report of a possible Assad offer to demilitarize the zone around the Golan Heights is that it is not confirmed independently by any Syrian government sources nor Russian, only by an “unnamed Israeli source” quoted in the Kuwait newspaper Al Jarida and later carried in Israeli media.
A more reliable indicator of Netanyahu policy towards Syria in the Golan region is a statement he made on November 13 when he declared that Israel will continue to take whatever military action inside Syria it deems necessary: “I have also informed our friends, firstly in Washington and also our friends in Moscow, that Israel will act in Syria, including in southern Syria, according to our understanding and according to our security needs.” [3]
In April 2016, at the first-ever Israeli Cabinet meeting held in the illegally-occupied Golan Heights, Netanyahu declared defiantly that the occupied Golan Heights, “will remain under Israel’s sovereignty permanently.” [4]
Unspoken Agenda
The real issue around the region of the Golan Heights however, is not so much any security threat to Israel, rather it comes from the unspoken Netanyahu agenda in the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights is a part of Syria Israel has illegally occupied since the 1967 war, and one which various Israeli governments earlier appeared ready to give up in return for legal recognition of the State of Israel by Syria. [5] [READ MORE]
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