OLMERT WILLING TO GIVE GOLAN TO SYRIA?

Right wing blasts PM over Syria report (JPOST)
Right-wingers were seething on Friday afternoon after a report that a recent flurry of secret messages from Israel to Syria signaled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's willingness to give up the Golan Heights in return for a peace agreement.

Effi Eitam (NU-NRP) said: "The Olmert government that failed in Lebanon, is behaving as failed regimes have acted throughout history, and in an attempt to hide his responsibility for the failure he is embarking on a dangerous political adventure."

Eitam's party colleague MK Zevulun Orlev said that Olmert was "ready to sell the Golan for his chair," adding that in his opinion, Olmert was attempting to save his skin by means of a declaration of his willingness to cede the Golan.

Likud faction chairman Gideon Sa'ar called on Israel Beiteinu and Shas to withdraw for the coalition.

"The prime minister has no legitimacy to withdraw for the Golan," Sa'ar went on to say, adding that Olmert's continued leadership endangered Israel's security, Israel Radio reported.

According to the report in Yediot, quoting officials close to Olmert, the prime minister sent messages with German and Turkish diplomats to Syrian President Bashar Assad indicating that Israel was willing to hold direct peace negotiations and give up the Golan.

According to Yediot, Olmert repeatedly said he would be prepared to negotiate with Syria only if Assad's regime cut ties with Iran and Hizbullah and ceased its support for terror.

US President George Bush gave Olmert the green light for negotiations with Syria in an hour-long phone conversation last month, according to the report, and the two leaders will further discuss the possibility of talks during their scheduled meeting at the White House on June 19.

The Prime Minister's Office neither confirmed nor denied the report.

Israel Radio quoted a senior political official as saying that the details of negotiations with the Syrians must not be talked about but that Israel was willing to pay the agreed price for peace.