As U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher was presenting Syrian President Hafez Assad with new Israeli peace proposals, Israeli opposition leaders here condemned the plan as a betrayal of the State of Israel.
After meeting with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Friday, Christopher flew to Damascus, where he met with Assad on Saturday and again Sunday evening.
Christopher, believing that negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization were well on their way to a successful conclusion this week, was eager to take advantage of momentum in the peace process and bring Jerusalem and Damascus closer together.
Israeli-Syrian negotiations have dragged on for months without any headway and were suspended entirely by Assad in the wake of the Feb. 25 massacre in the West Bank city of Hebron.
During his meeting with Assad, Christopher conveyed Rabin’s new proposals for peace with Syria. The proposals reportedly call for a phased Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights over a period of eight years, in exchange for the establishment of a full peace between Israel and Syria, complete with open borders, free trade and the exchange of ambassadors.
Christopher was expected to return to Israel on Monday with Assad’s response to Rabin’s proposals.
But Israeli opposition leaders had their own responses Sunday — and they were far from positive.
Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud party, accused Rabin of having “perpetrated the greatest political fraud ever in the history of our state.”
Rafael Eitan, a former army chief of staff who heads the right-wing opposition Tsomet party, said that no concessions should be made on the Golan.
“Our border with Syria has been peaceful all the time because Syria needs peace as much as we do. We are a two-hour tank ride from Damascus,” said Eitan.
Israel, which captured the Golan in the 1967 Six-Day War, has long considered the strategic plateau as crucial to its security needs, though some Israeli generals have argued more recently that demilitarization of the region would assure Israeli security.
Rabin, countering a barrage of recent right-wing criticism of his efforts to re-establish negotiations with Syria, has said in recent months that he would call for a national referendum before offering to make any major withdrawal from the Golan in exchange for peace with Damascus.
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