Syria’s Overture
As usual, The Times editorial (“Is Syria Somehow Serious?” Feb. 15), which chides Syria for its “third party” diplomatic effort to convey to Israel that Syria is willing to recognize Israel, omits some significant information.
The principal fact that the editorial omits is the Israeli response to the Syrian overture: a deliberately malevolent and malicious rejection. Israeli government response was to inform the Israeli colonists who live in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that Israel would never relinquish control of the territory back to Syria. The government also announced that it would build 12,000 new residences for Jewish-Soviet colonists on Palestinian lands.
Also, recently, former President Jimmy Carter, after a visit with Syrian President Hafez Assad, announced that Assad was willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist. That offer, like this one, elicited the identical Israeli response: rejection. Is the real reason that the present Israeli government is unwilling to begin negotiations with Syria the fact that the government knows it would have to return the Syrian land which Israel has annexed?
ARCH MILLER
Arcadia
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