Syria has said on several occasions recently that it would like to resume negotiations with Israel, which broke down seven years ago. Olmert has rejected the offers, citing Syria’s support for Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and other militant groups.
“I hope we will be able to arrive at dialogue with Syria at some point if Syria upholds the most basic of commitments, the cessation of violence – the same commitment we demand of anyone we talk to,” Olmert told a meeting of lawmakers from his Kadima party.
“If Syria agrees to stop the violence, stop its support for Hamas, stop its support for Hezbollah, and sever its appalling connection with Iran, then we’ll be able to engage in a diplomatic process,” Olmert added. “I have no doubt that this is something we want to happen.”
In other developments:
- It was mostly Palestinian Christians at Christmas Mass at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, as Mideast unrest kept pilgrims away, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger. In his homily, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the Roman Catholic Church’s highest official in the Holy Land, – offered a blessing to Abbas, appealed to Palestinians to halt their recent “fratricidal struggles” and called for an end to Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.
- Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Monday said he supports the release of some Palestinian prisoners, even without a deal on the return of a captured Israeli soldier held by Palestinian militants. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday urged his Cabinet to consider a prisoner release, backing away from his earlier insistence that the Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, first be released.
- Peretz also said Monday that he has asked the army to dismantle some of the checkpoints that have severely disrupted Palestinian travel in the West Bank, part of a package of goodwill gestures Israel hopes will boost the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Syria hosts headquarters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Palestinian militant groups committed to Israel’s destruction, and offers financial and logistical support to Hezbollah, which battled the Israeli army to a stalemate during a 34-day war last summer.
There was no immediate reaction from Syria to Olmert’s latest comments. The recent Baker-Hamilton report submitted to the White House recommended that Israel resume talks with Syria to help ease Mideast tensions. Olmert has rejected the report’s conclusions.
Israeli officials have been divided over whether Assad’s latest gestures are sincere. A senior military intelligence official said Monday that he believes the Syrian offer is genuine, lawmakers said.
Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of military intelligence’s research decision, told parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Syria is interested in talks to boost its international standing, said committee member Yuval Steinitz.
But the officer stopped short of saying Syria is interested in a peace agreement, committee members said.
Steinitz said he thinks Syria wants to open negotiations to buy itself time to topple the government in neighboring Lebanon. Syria controlled its smaller neighbor for 29 years before being forced to withdraw its troops in 2005.
Last week, Meir Dagan, director of the Mossad spy agency, took the opposite view of Baidatz’s, saying Syria was not prepared to return to the negotiating table, despite its overtures.
Peace talks between Israel and Syria broke down in January 2000 over Syria’s demand for a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Israel captured the plateau, which overlooks northern Israel, in the 1967 Mideast War.
Israel hopes a prisoner release, as well as easing travel restrictions, would convince the Palestinian public that Abbas is able to deliver them benefits that his militantly anti-Israel Hamas rivals, who control the Palestinian parliament and Cabinet, cannot.
At Saturday’s meeting, the first between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in 18 months, Olmert offered to dismantle checkpoints and give Abbas tens of millions of dollars in frozen funds.
The checkpoints have carved up the West Bank into separate blocs, making travel more and more difficult and constraining the local economy.
Lawmakers who attended the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting said Peretz told them 59 checkpoints would come down in two stages.
“We must consider easing roadblocks in places where this does not pose a danger,” the defense minister told reporters after the meeting.
Peretz gave no timetable for taking down the checkpoints. He has asked the army to decide which checkpoints should be taken down in each of the phases, something that could delay the process because of military opposition to easing travel restrictions.
Palestinians welcomed Peretz’s decision. Although hundreds of roadblocks will still remain, “we still consider this a step in lifting the internal closure in the West Bank,” said Saeb Erekat, a top Abbas aide.
Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, Israel’s West Bank commander, has warned in recent internal discussions that dismantling checkpoints would make it harder for the military to prevent suicide bombers from attacking Israeli targets, security officials said.
Olmert, Peretz and top security officials were meeting Monday to discuss possible concessions, including a prisoner release, officials said.
Speaking to reporters at parliament, Peretz said that freeing Palestinians might improve prospects for the Shalit’s release.
“Every year there has been a humanitarian release of prisoners” around the Christmas and (Muslim) Eid al-Adha holidays, and the government should carry out a similar goodwill gesture this year, he said.
A spokesman for one of the three Hamas-allied groups that captured Shalit said Egyptian-brokered talks on a prisoner swap had reached an impasse.
“There are no developments in the prisoner exchange talks. I can go so far as to say talks have reached a deadlock,” said Abu Mujahed of the Popular Resistance Committees.
Shortly after Shalit was captured, Israel rounded up dozens of Hamas lawmakers and Cabinet members in what was widely viewed as an attempt to collect bargaining chips for the soldier’s release.
On Monday, Israel’s Supreme Court began deliberating a petition by four of the arrested lawmakers against Israel’s decision to revoke their Jerusalem residency.
Israel meted out the unprecedented punishment after the officials refused to renounce their membership in Hamas. Lawyers said they expected the court proceedings to take months.
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