JERUSALEM, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Monday called for peace talks with Lebanon but set conditions for accepting Syria's calls to negotiate peace that could prove an insurmountable hurdle.
"Israel could be a natural and serious partner to a peace-seeking government in Lebanon," Olmert declared. However Syrian President Bashar Assad belongs to a different camp. He has aligned with Iran, which calls for Israel's destruction and so his peace overtures therefore ring hollow, Olmert indicated.
The Israeli prime minister discussed these points at the opening of the Knesset's winter session in Jerusalem.
He invited Siniora, "To meet me directly, and not through intermediaries, to conclude peace." Right after the war, Siniora rejected a similar call.
"There will be no agreement with Israel until a just and comprehensive peace settlement is reached in the region ... Lebanon will be the last Arab country to sign peace with Israel," Siniora said on Aug. 30.
Olmert suggested the Lebanese prime minister has a good reason to reconsider that rejection.
Sunday the head of the Military Intelligence Research Directorate, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, told the Cabinet the Syrians are trying to undermine implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 that seeks to help the Lebanese government assert its control throughout the country. Syria and Hezbollah are working hand in hand, Baidatz said according to a highly well informed source who spoke on condition he not be identified.
In his Knesset address Olmert noted Siniora is in a "difficult situation" because of Hezbollah's attempts to weaken him and the Syrian efforts to topple him.
"Israel can be a natural and serious partner to a peace-seeking government in Lebanon," he offered. "Many voices in the Arab world are talking of cooperation to achieve a political arrangement."
Alluding to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States Olmert talked of "an axis of moderate states in the Arab world that wants to take part in blocking Iran's negative influence in the region." Israel has concluded peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has accepted an invitation to a U.N.-sponsored conference in Qatar at the end of October.
Siniora, too, has been suffering from Tehran's influence. Iran has armed, trained and financed Hezbollah.
On the other hand Olmert has been cold-shouldering the Syrian president's repeated calls for peace talks.
Assad recently told the British Broadcasting Corporation, "It is the time ... After war, you talk about peace." In an interview with the German Der Spiegel he stressed, "Syria is so determined to achieve a comprehensive peaceful solution." The reporters sounded skeptical so Assad noted that in an address to his people he used the word 'peace' 57 times. He told the Spanish journal El Pais an agreement could be reached within six months.
Baidatz told the ministers Assad talks of his strategic decision for peace but is also preparing for a confrontation. His army has changed its pre-war deployment though his troops are in a defensive setup fearing an Israeli attack.
At the Cabinet meeting Olmert labeled the talks Assad advocates "hallucinatory negotiations over peace."
Olmert told the Knesset Israel is interested in a peace agreement with Syria but "peace is concluded with one who renounces terror and does not host terror organization's headquarters."
Several Palestinian organizations, including the Islamic Hamas, are headquartered in Damascus. Baidatz told the Cabinet the Syrian authorities are again involved in arms transfers to Hezbollah despite the U.N. embargo on such shipments.
"Israel will agree to make peace with the Syrian president if he will make a real strategic decision to renounce terror and not with a leader who talks of peace (but for whom that is) a tactic to divert international attention from other issues," Olmert said. He was alluding to Syrian aid to Hezbollah, Iraqi insurgents, and its involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Israeli analysts believe there are two other reasons for Olmert negative attitude: Assad's price for peace is a complete Israeli withdrawal from the strategic Golan Heights that Israel occupied in the 1967 war. Olmert has said that as long as he is prime minister Israel will not leave the Golan. Moreover, the United States opposes talks with Syria now, Vice Premier Shimon Peres confirmed.
Israeli doves are urging Olmert to probe Assad's sincerity.
"Nothing good" followed Israeli rejections of Arab leaders hints or statements of readiness for peace, argued Gilad Sher, who played a key role in peace talks with the Palestinians six years ago. If Assad is conjuring, "We'll find out very fast," he wrote in Yediot Aharonot.
Israeli public opinion is not yet ready for concessions to Syria.
Only 19 percent of the respondents to a recent public opinion poll believed Assad's call for peace is genuine. Only 48 percent consider peace with Syria vital. The Golan border has been quiet for more than 30 years.
However a former director of Military Intelligence, retired Maj. Gen. Uri Saguy, said that though Syria is militarily weak it could use force to jump-start a political process.
The Lebanon War reminded Israelis there is a limit to what power can do and "the price of war is much more painful" than cost of relinquishing the Golan, Saguy argued.
