The Golan Heights were formally annexed by Israel in 1981. Sorry. Israel will not carve a part of itself for a false promise of peace. We've got better ways of dealing with Syria which have always proven quite effective. Assad's just running scared because he's lost influence in Lebanon, Turkey scares the heck out of him and he's about to lose his strongest supporter (i.e., Iran). Oh well. If running a country doesn't work out, he can always go back to practicing ophthalmology ....

You're squatters on illegally annexed land. Just because your beloved Knesset made an announcement in 1981 doesn't mean the world recognizes this illegal action. First, ask the local Druze population and they'll tell you they've proudly rejected Israeli citizenship. The ID's given slipped under their doorsteps were also piled up and burned. Second, the world laughs at your pathetic attempts at expansion. Do you read the news Sarah? The UK pulled some Israeli ads in the tube lately because they cowardly presented the Golan as Israel. In any case, people on both sides of the border know that the Golan's return to Syria is just a matter of time so stop your fantasies, Sarah. Get with the program, otherwise you'll be had for lunch. Just look at the map. Oh wait, you cowardly hide in an armchair in Noo York.

This is not an agreement to negotiate, this is an agreement that if Israel admits defeat then Syria will be happy to negotiate terms - after Syria lost the war. More of the regions "negotiations" via blackmail and media arm twisting.

Tommy Lapid would love the eye Dr. tyrant of the newly found country legitimized by the Jew hating nations united.He still hasn't had his innoculation of anti=Semitism at Yad Vashem and then, as soon as they step out of the place, condemn Jews for existing in their historic homeland. But why do we reminise, we have Yair Lapid to hate living Jews in the land of their own name. Superficidal, superficial, suicidal (superficidal) Yehudi run from any self-respect. Woody Allen, Perske, Rubitzov come to mind. Suicide artists who would pay the ransom to genocidal, mass-murdering, extortionists who should have their right of return enforced back to the homicidal, Hamite peninsular homeland of their own name. The way the eye dotors would not have to be killed when they come to (G-d forbid) come to kill you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamla so that would be nop and nop againe. Assad is holding on straw, the Syrian need water so badly but they r not aware that the amount of water in the Golan is minimal, most of the areas r dry as a bone.

Maybe he is worried he will be without his main backer soon - Iran

Cat got your tongue?

Syria attacked Israel, Israel took the land in a victory, and could of marched right to Damascus. The Land isint up for discussion.

Terrorist syria had temporary possession of it when it stupidly attacked Israel. Life is not a game of let me try to kill you and if I fail, let me win anyway." Lovers of terrorism such as nour "live" in a dream world where anything desired by any fake cult is theirs for the asking if only they complain long enough. No doubt there will be another war with syria and no doubt Israel will take more territory and they will come back and say, "Thats not fair, thats not approved by the UN, we are losers and we should get subsidies and all our land back." syria is just another way of spelling loser.

The Golan heights were formally annexed by Israel in 1981 and will be formally UN-annexed by Israel in 2009.

JUST PASS THE CHOCOLATES ,CIGARS HASHISH,POT,ETC AROUND THE TABLE AND FIND MUTUAL PLEASURE FOR STARTERS.JUST START TALKING AND FIND COMMON GROUND FOR THE SAKE OF BOTH COMMUNITIES,SO THAT NOBODY HAS TO GO TO WAR !

I would advice you and your government to keep your mouths shut about this matter. It is not because your Georges CLEMENCEAU has been fooled by the Brit Lloyd GEORGES about the oil fields of Mossul, that Britain had the right to cede the Golan Heights to France, the Mandatory of Syria, who had no right to accept it. All this has been made surreptitiously in a capricious and arbitrary fashion by breaching Article 5 of the League of Nations resolutions called the "Mandate for Palestine". This Mandate (voted the 24th o July 1922) gave the Jewish People on a golden plate an embryo of a State and the right to settle anywhere in the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, INCLUDING THE GOLAN HEIGHTS, a right unaltered in INTERNATIONAL LAW, and valid to this day due to Article 80 of the Charter of the UNITED NATIONS. Israel's decision to impose its Laws on the Golan Heights on December 14, 1981, RIGHTED the WRONG committed by the British and the French in March 1923. Syria cannot make a standing claim in an International Court of Law,because the "Golan Heights" as they are known today were NEVER part of Syrian Real Estate ! ! !

For Israel Holding the Golan is more important than peace with the Assad family. If Syria would ask Israel for peace and in exchange abandon any claim for the Golan, peace would become a reality and the benefit for Syria would be tremendous. That will not happen, so, there is no reason for Israel to be generous with the Mafia regime of Assad. The Assad family has established a hereditary dynasty shored up by repression within, and confrontation and terror abroad. The rule of the Assads is not aimed at improving the lot of their people or forwarding a particular ideology. They changed ideology from secular Arabism to a seemingly impossible confection of pan-Arabism and Islamist extremism. It is pointless to “engage” Syria in dialogue except insofar as it is possible to confront them with their violations and insist that they mend their ways as explained at : http://xrl.us/bjcsd

Look at the facts-there has been peace on the golan border for 40 years. Give it back and you'll get terror. Retrun of gaza led to more terror especially under the quizling olmert. Return of some of west bank led to greater terror than occurred under the first rock throwing intifadeh. The architects of these policies belin, ben ami, peres, livni, olmert, turgeman and turbowicz are full of crap. You negotiate arabs with strength and steadiness and they have to do something in return.Olmert who has no hard experience in his life played with israeli security like he was playing a game of monopoly. Livni was not far behing. Syria can be negotiated peace for peace and golan is off the table.In any case, they will never change their spots as they are the origin country for arab terror via the palestinians.

How much land is Syria willing to give for a peace treaty? We have defacto peace already.

border with syria and israel has been safe and quiet for the past decades. golan was empty prior to 1967, except for a single village or two of druze. most of the land was used by the syrian army to attack and bomb jewish villages down below in the valley. it was a syrian army base and ammunition depot as well as bunkers spread on all this golan land. nothing was ever developed there, not farmed there. barren land used to terrorise israel down below. period. also, syria attacked israel in an annihilation war in 1967 and lost the golan because of military aggression which they innitiated. they ended up defeated and disappointed. too bad! the jews arrived and made this part of land bloom with tourism, traffic, farming, a thriving wine and cherry industry and a thriving agricultural beautiful land. jews used it for peace and prosperity. syrians used it for aggression and terrorism and war. israel changed the facts on the ground and will always keep the golan. it is part of our jewish past where many jewish artifacts were found on this land, ancient and old. when you use a piece of property to terrorise and kill your neighbors from, you are never entitled to be trusted in the future, nor get this property back. peace for peace, not for a piece of land that didin't matter to syria in the least and was mostly if not all of it uninhabitted except for syrian tanks and military targets against israelis below. israel will never allow the golan to be given back because of its strategic value militarily and because israel and almost everyone knows the syrians will never keep their word and will create an iranian hizbullah and hamas military terrorist base on this land which will endanger israel even more than the present status quo. hameed aboughaze

Not even one inch less!!!! Failure to do so will pressure us to turn Hezbollah into a franchise!

Syria is only asking for the Israeli government to withdraw not the Israeli people or businesses quit being afraid Imagine what an ideal peace would be like, and pursue that.