Comments on: Syria calling, Israel screening its calls

By: Meranda Johnson

Meranda Johnson — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Agreed, good analysis Jeff. I felt like Seymour had this rambling urgency with this piece that I couldn't understand what he was getting to with Israel's position. Maybe I should just blame it on Israel's manipulative ambiguity.

But Hersh readers must realize that you could also cut every one of his pieces by at least 50% and lose exactly nothing. And I'm not picking on Hersh, he's great.

By: Rowan

Rowan — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

well, it's very simple: no Israeli government that seriously proposed to return the Golan Heights to Syria would survive for more than about four hours.

By: delia

delia — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

In thrall or not, nothing is going to happen until Term 2–if he gets one. Obama's problem is how to keep the lid on things till then while looking like he's actually doing something.

By: Rowan

Rowan — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

alert: "await term 2" meme, seen this before,

By: morris

morris — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Israel is screening everyone's calls

By: bar_kochba132

bar_kochba132 — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Do you seriously expect Israel to give up the Golan Heights in anticipation of seeing whether Syria (1) distances itself from Iran, (2) cozies up to the US, (3) breaks relations with HIZBULLAH, (4) Allows Lebanon to function as a truly independent country, (5) Breaks with HAMAS, (6) Encourages the Palestinians to make peace with Israel?

Bush had big dreams about remaking the Middle East. You all curse him endlessly for doing so, saying it would never work. Now, St Obama has big plans and you are suddenly big believers. As the British say: you are all in cloud-cuckoo land.

By: stevieb

stevieb — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

You can't be referring to this blog when your talking about 'dreamers'.

Nobody here is under any illusions about Obama and the peace process.

The only thing Syria should be doing is upgrading their air defenses and trying to procure more advanced weaponry. You don't negotiate with Israel until you've blown a few holes in it's side.

Otherwise you know they'll do and say anything to avoid peace.

By: Rowan

Rowan — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

stevie, Russia is not going to provide effective anti-F16 systems to Syria or Iran.

By: Madrid

Madrid — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Rowan-- what Russia does depends to a large extent about what the US and Nato do in Eastern Europe. Russia can make things very difficult for us in the Middle East.

I've read that its new missle tech is simpler, cheaper and more effective than anything the US has in the works.

By: Rowan

Rowan — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Russia will put state of the art missiles in Belarus, which has reverted to being a dependency. But it will not arm the mid east with state of the art systems, only with systems that are a generation out of date. I shall not burden the thread with the serial numbers of the various systems and their respective F16 antagonists.