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Israeli cabinet splits over dealing with Syria's ailing Assad

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, March 8, 2000

JERUSALEM -- A dispute has divided the cabinet of Prime Minister Ehud Barak over the prospects of negotiating a peace treaty with the ailing Syrian President Hafez Assad.

For the first time, ministers have expressed to Barak their objection to completing a peace treaty with Assad amid intelligence reports from Israel and the United States that the Syrian leader is barely functioning and his health is rapidly deteriorating. The ministers warned Barak that no successor to Assad will honor a treaty that was said to have been signed by a man struck with dementia.

The dispute has emerged as the United States is working to conclude a peace treaty between Israel and Syria within several weeks. Officials said that currently Israel -- which has agreed to a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights -- is considering U.S. proposals to bridge the gap with Damascus over a range of issues.

The ministers cited intelligence reports that described Assad as suffering from an acute stage of leukemia as well as dementia. They said the reports indicate that the post-Assad period will be marked by a violent power struggle and that the president's son, Bashar, does not appear likely to succeed.

So far, at least five ministers are urging Barak to wait until Assad's successor is appointed and functioning until a peace treaty is signed. Other ministers, however, are said to agree with this position although they have not expressed this.

But Barak and at least four other ministers are urging that a peace treaty be signed now when Assad is weak and is battling the clock. They assert that any deal signed by Assad will be observed by his predecessors, intent on receiving U.S. and Western aid.

"With this puzzle, many people here and in every other place have been dealing with for a long time," Foreign Minister David Levy said. "This should not be what stands in front of us, but whether Syria wants peace."

Levy said the key question is not whether Assad's health is fading, but whether the president agrees to Israel's terms for peace. This includes such issues as borders, normalization, security arrangements and water rights.

"It Syria's face is toward peace, it knows what to do," Levy said.

But so far, ministers said, Assad has failed to respond to Israel's demands for an early-warning station on Mount Hermon, normalization and security arrangements. The ministers said at this point Syria has fallen far short of what Egypt was prepared to give Israel in their 1979 peace treaty.

Wednesday, March 8, 2000


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