a complete withdrawal from all the land
captured in 1967 — just as Israel with-
drew from all Egyptian territory under
the 1979 Camp David Accords. For
internal political reasons, he said, Syria
wants as good a deal as Egypt got.
For Israel, Hof said, the critical
issue is water. By withdrawing to the
1923 international boundary, Israel
will keep Syria 33 feet away from the
Sea of Galilee instead of allowing Syria
to sit directly on the shores of the
lake, known as the Kinneret.
He said these two factors "form the
bracket between which negotiators
may eventually seek to demarcate a
boundary of peace.
Richard Haass, director of foreign
policy studies at the Brookings
Institution, said the differences over
what each side will accept in terms of
the border is "the biggest question
mark hana b ina b over the talks.
Within Israel, the extent of a with-
drawal is at the center of the debate
on the talks with Syria, which are slat-
ed to resume at a secluded site near
Washington on Jan. 3.
Speaking during a Knesset debate
on the resumption of peace talks with
Damascus, Cabinet Minister Haim
Ramon declared last week that
Netanyahu had offered territorial
compromise in exchange for a peace
accord with Syria.
He revealed what he said was a draft
agreement Netanyahu sent to Assad in
August 1998 via his intermediary,
Ronald Lauder, the current chairman
of the Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish Organizations.
According to Ramon, the draft
agreement stated, among other things,
that Israel would withdraw from lands
captured from Syria in 1967, in accor-
dance with U.N. resolutions 242 and
338, in three phases, and that normal-
ization of ties would be completed
with the conclusion of the final phase.
Netanyahu, who acknowledged the
secret contacts in July, has maintained
that no deal was reached because he
refused to accept Syrian terms for a full
withdrawal from the Golan, saying that
he told Assad that he saw the border
beginning "miles" east of the 1967 line.
The talks between Netanyahu's
Likud-led government and Syria could
make it easier for Barak to strike a
deal with Damascus.
"The fact that so much progress
was made between Israel and Syria,
even under a previous Likud govern-
ment, in some ways protects this
Labor government from attacks from
the domestic political right in Israel,"
Haass said.

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