Israel Drafts Principles for a Syria Peace Treaty : Diplomacy: Negotiators taking proposal to talks in Washington. Plan would entail return of at least some of Golan Heights.

Israel, determined to maintain the momentum of the renewed talks with its Arab neighbors, sent its chief negotiators back to Washington on Saturday with a draft statement of principles to propose to Syria as the basis for concluding a peace treaty.

The Israeli proposal proceeds from the premise that Jerusalem will return at least some--how much would be negotiated--of the Golan Heights that it seized from Syria 25 years ago in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, recognizing Syrian sovereignty over the territory despite its annexation by Israel.

The Israeli negotiators also were instructed, officials said Saturday, to explore further what interim arrangements interest Syria, what security measures, such as demilitarization, it might accept and how it envisions future relations developing between the two countries.

“We are responding to a Syrian position paper from earlier this month, but taking it several big steps forward,” a senior Israeli official commented as the negotiators left. “Our people will have more than a reply--they will have questions to ask and things to say.”

Israel is proposing, according to officials here, that the two countries’ negotiators focus on the conclusion this month of a joint declaration of principles, asserting that they both want peace and recognize each other’s security needs.

This declaration may be accompanied by separate statements outlining their differences as the issues for further talks.

Tactically, Israel hopes to draw Syria so deeply into negotiations that the movement toward peace becomes irreversible, officials here acknowledge, as the commitment of each side grows both to the agreements they have reached and to the process itself.

“The more they are willing to talk about, the more we will be willing to talk about--that’s just common sense,” another Israeli official commented. “If they will talk about full peace, real peace, then we’ll talk about the maximum withdrawal we can make (from the Golan Heights). If they hold back, we will, too. . . . Really, though, we are ready to go, go, go.”

But the Israeli initiative, approved Saturday by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, faces considerable criticism from the opposition Likud Party, still recovering from its June election defeat; from dozens of retired generals and colonels who warn of the military risk in withdrawing from the Golan Heights, and from the 12,500 Israelis, mostly farmers, living there.

About 3,000 Golan settlers, accompanied by right-wing members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, protested the Israeli initiative as the negotiators left for Washington from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

“Rabin is a traitor,” the demonstrators chanted as hundreds of border police, normally deployed to maintain order in occupied Arab territories, barred them from the airport.

“Today the Golan, tomorrow Jerusalem,” one protest banner said. Another sign declared, “Israel cannot have peace without the Golan.”

“We . . . want to remind the Israeli government and its delegates they do not have any mandate to commit Israel to withdraw from the territories,” Likud Parliament member Michael Eitan said.

Opposition also came from Rabin’s own Cabinet. Rabin’s agriculture minister, Yaacov Tsur, told Golan farmers earlier Saturday that, while the return of some territory is necessary for a peace treaty with Syria, he would oppose the removal of any of the 32 Israeli settlements, which are largely collective farms.

Rabin has spoken almost daily about the negotiations with Syria, no doubt preparing the country for the likely retreat, but he has said nothing to disclose what he expects to come from the talks.

“I am not convinced that the Syrians have shown all their cards yet, as we have not shown ours,” he commented in a television interview.

Talks between Israel and Syria, as well as between Israel and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation and with Lebanon, resume Monday in Washington after a 10-day recess that allowed negotiators to return to their capitals for consultations.

Israel and Syria exchanged documents earlier this month in Washington. The Syrian paper--itself a first--reportedly proposed a phased Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for its recognition of Syrian sovereignty over the territory.

Usually quick to discount Arab initiatives, Israel took the Syrian position paper seriously and interpreted it as an indication of changing thinking in Damascus.

Israeli strategists and political commentators are now discussing more than a dozen ways in which Jerusalem could return at least sovereignty over the Golan Heights region to Syria but still ensure its own security.

A recent public opinion poll showed that 45% of those Israelis questioned were ready to return the Golan Heights if Syria signed a peace treaty; five years ago, only 5% would agree to its return.

The Golan Heights, a sloping plateau, is about 14 miles wide and 40 miles long; most of it is 2,000 to 3,000 feet high and looks straight down into Israel and Syria, giving it considerable military importance. It also controls about a third of Israel’s water supply.