The issues Syria and Israel face are challenging. Below are a list of the topics that will be on the table in Sheperdstown, and debated among the Israeli and Syrian public.

The Golan Heights: The fundamental issue in Israeli-Syrian negotiations is the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights, a narrow mountain plateau on Israel’s northeastern border, rises east of the Sea of the Galilee, dominating the Huleh Valley and the entire Galilee region. The 400 plus mile strategic plateau is 7.5-12.5 miles wide and is characterized by steep escarpments overlooking much of northern Israel. The headwaters of the Jordan River and Sea of Galilee are located in the Golan. In December 1981 the Israeli government extended Israeli law to the Golan Heights and Israeli law was extended to the Arab residents who had remained.

Between 1948-1967, Syria used the Golan Heights as a launch pad for sniper attacks and shelling of Israeli towns below the Heights. Besides being long considered of key strategic importance militarily, the Golan is Israel’s key source of water. Israel’s northern water sources lie largely in the Golan, providing Israel with one-third of its water supply. Before 1967, Syria interfered with this crucial water supply.

Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 Six Day War and gained an additional strip in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As part of the disengagement agreement negotiated by U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 1,300 United Nations peacekeeping forces monitor the cease fire lines in the 220-yard-wide no man’s land which separates Syrian and Israeli checkpoints.

Land for Peace: The accepted basis of an Israel-Syria agreement is land for peace. The sticking points is how much land (partial or full withdrawal) for how much peace (fully normalized relations – including economic relations, or a ‘cold peace’ of cordial diplomatic relations).

Syria has always demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from all of the Golan Heights, to the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee (the pre-1967 border). Successive Israeli governments have expressed support for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan without specifying the extent of this withdrawal. In return for this withdrawal, Israel demands that the area of the Golan falling under Syrian control become demilitarized and that other security measures are implemented to prevent a potential surprise Syrian attack.

Israel has always insisted that any agreement with Syria must include fully normalized diplomatic and economic relations. Syria has resisted such relations, and has instead promoted a more limited diplomatic arrangement. Reportedly, President Assad fears that trade with the more developed Israel will be detrimental to Syria’s economy.

Golan Settlements: There are approximately 32 Israeli communities on the Golan, with a population of as much as 17,000. Any Israeli withdrawal will entail the removal or relocation of some or all of these communities and possibly financial compensation to those settlers affected.

The "Starting Point" for the Negotiations: In announcing the resumption of Syria-Israel negotiations, President Clinton said they would begin "from the point where they left off." Israel and Syria have very different perceptions of what that point was.

Syria, long one of Israel’s most intransigent enemies, entered face-to-face negotiations with Israel at the 1991 Madrid Conference. Subsequent bi-lateral negotiations held at the State Department in Washington were considered notable more for the negotiators’ posturing to the media than for any progress made towards an agreement. The negotiations at the Wye Plantation were a little more informal and amicable, and although broad principles were discussed, no agreement was reached. Chief Israeli negotiator, Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, characterized the talks in Washington and at Wye as important as "pre-negotiations." He claims that Israel and Syria were closest to a "breakthrough" in August 1993 (with the "non-paper") and at Wye in late 1995.

Throughout these negotiations, both Israel and the U.S. urged Assad to conduct "public diplomacy," such as that embraced by President Sadat, in which he would publicly express his desire for peace with Israel, and begin to prepare the Syrian public for a peace agreement. After assuring Secretary Chistopher and President Clinton that he would make such gestures, Assad’s statements on peace were generally ambivalent and were considered insufficient by Israel and the U.S. Assad similarly refused requests for a face-to-face meeting with Rabin and Peres.

Israel-Syria negotiations stalled in February 1996, following the final round of negotiations at the Wye Plantation in Maryland. Since that time, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad has asserted that he would resume negotiations with Israel only if the governments of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak honored the "understanding" that the Rabin and Peres governments had reached with Syria. Syria claimed that in the so-called "non-paper" drawn up by Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s staff in August 1993 and in the Wye negotiations in late 1995, Rabin and Peres agreed to a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights as the basis of any peace agreement with Syria.

According to Israeli officials in the Netanyahu and Barak governments, as well as former Israeli and American officials intimately involved in the negotiations with Syria (notably Ambassador Rabinovich) there was no such "understanding" primarily because Syria refused the Israeli condition of normalized relations. According to Rabinovich, Prime Minister Rabin did agree hypothetically to a withdrawal from the Golan Heights, but only in phases and in conjunction with full normalized relations with Syria. Assad rejected these terms. Rabinovich also states that Rabin was insistent that any withdrawal would have to be approved by the Israeli public through a referendum. (According to Israeli law, any agreement with Syria must be approved by referendum.) In September 1996, Christopher sent a letter to Israel reiterating that the United States did not recognize the "non-paper" as binding.

There are reports that in secret talks conducted under the Netanyahu administration (through U.S. businessman Ronald Lauder) Assad agreed to an "early warning" station on the Golan. Talks, however, broke down over disagreements on normalization.

Lebanon: It has long been conventional wisdom that should a breakthrough be reached in Israel-Syria negotiations, an agreement between Israel and Lebanon will soon follow. Syria effectively dominates all of Lebanon, with the exception of Israel’s Security Zone and small areas patrolled by United Nations forces and the South Lebanon Army. Syria maintains a significant number of troops in Lebanon’s Beka’a Valley area – home base to numerous Palestinian and other terrorist groups, and the breeding ground for Syria’s lucrative international trade in narcotics. Since coming into office, Prime Minister Ehud Barak has pledged to unilaterally remove Israeli forces from southern Lebanon by summer 2000.

U.S. Role: During President Clinton’s first term, he and Secretary of State Christopher made more than 20 trips to the Middle East and Damascus. Since mid-1996 the Administration stepped back from this intensive effort. The announcement by President Clinton of a resumption of negotiations signals a strong U.S. involved in facilitating direct Syrian-Israeli negotiations.

Besides facilitating these negotiations, the U.S. will undoubtedly be involved in financially supporting any peace agreement. The economically-ailing Syria will be looking for significant financial aid from the U.S. Israel will also seek financial assistance for redeployment costs, the expense of new security measures, and compensation payments to uprooted Golan residents.

Under the Rabin administration, there was speculation about the role that the U.S. military might be play either as monitors as peacekeepers on the Golan Heights.

Domestic Israeli Politics: Any withdrawal from the Golan Heights will be extremely controversial among the Israeli public. Under the Rabin government there was a massive public effort opposing any Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. The "am im hagolan" (the people are with the Golan) campaign was extremely successful, with banners and bumper stickers blanketing the country. While there are indications that some of the politically moderate Golan settlers (who are known to be less ideological than those in the West Bank) may accept an agreement with Syria, there is great cynicism among the general Israeli public regarding President Assad’s commitment to peace.

Domestic Syrian Politics: Because of the closed nature of Syrian society there is no real indication of how peace with Israel will be received. President Assad is known to be in ill health and his chosen successor, son Bashar, is far from a popular choice among Assad’s few political rivals. Analysts are divided on whether an agreement with Syria will strengthen Assad and Bashar, or make his regime more vulnerable.

Terrorism: Syria continues to be on the U.S. Government’s list of countries engaging in and supporting terrorism. According to the 1997 State Department Patterns of Global Terrorism: "There is no evidence that Syrian officials have been directly involved in planning or executing international terrorist attacks since 1986." However, Syria "continues to provide safehaven and support for several groups that engage in such attacks."

According to the State Department, terrorist groups maintaining training camps or other facilities on Syrian territory include Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), who have their headquarters in Damascus. PIJ claimed responsibility for the November 7 suicide bombing of the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. In addition, Syria grants terrorist groups basing privileges or refuge in areas of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley under Syrian control, including HAMAS, the PFLP-GC, and the PIJ. Syria also acts as a conduit for the flow of weapons and supplies from Iran to Hezbollah bases in the Bekaa Valley. The Kurdish terrorist group, the PKK, also continues to train in Syrian-controlled areas of Lebanon, and its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has resided at least part-time in Syria. In November 1998, following intense pressure from Turkey, Syria expelled Ocalan.

There are reports that in the past few months Syria expelled a number of Palestinian rejectionist terrorists or restricted their activities.

Anti-Semitism: There are frequent anti-Semitic articles in the Syrian media, including Holocaust denial. Roger Garaudy, the French Holocaust denier, was invited to Damascus by the Ministry of Information. The government-owned newspaper Tishrin praised Garaudy for "exposing the lies of the Zionist movement which exaggerated what happened to Jews during the Second World War for political purposes." Anti-Semitic books are also widely available in Syria including "The Matza of Zion" by Syrian Minister of Defense Mustafa Tlass which attempts to prove the 1840 blood libel against the Jews of Damascus.

It is not unusual for government officials to make anti-Semitic comments. In August 1998, Defense Minister Tlass commented on the Lewinsky affair, saying "it is a plot fabricated by worldwide Zionism." Tlass claimed a "Jewish lawyer" told Kenneth Starr about the Lewinsky Affair, concluding "all this definitely proves that worldwide Zionism and particularly American Jews are in the service of Israel." (See ADL’s 1999 Report "Anti-Semitism in the Syrian Media")

Israeli MIA’s/POW’s: As the key power broker in Lebanon, Syria is believe to have knowledge, or access to knowledge of the status of four missing Israeli soldiers, Capt. Ron Arad , Zachary Baumel, Tzvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz, who all went missing-in-action or were taken prisoner-of-war in Lebanon in the 1980’s. Israel will undoubtedly be seeking Syrian assistance on determining the whereabouts of these men.

Capt. Arad was shot down in southern Lebanon in 1986. It is widely believed that after his capture by members of the Lebanese Shi’ite organization, Amal, Arad was bartered and sold over the years to different Lebanese factions and moved back and forth between Lebanon and Iran (most likely via Syria). His last known captor was the terror group Hizbollah, which claims that Arad disappeared from its hands when his guards left their posts. The other three soldiers disappeared in 1982 after a tank battle in Lebanon’s Syrian controlled Bekaa Valley. It was reported that they were paraded in the streets of Damascus on the day of their capture. Their whereabouts have remained a mystery since that day.

Eli Cohen: In one of the most infamous stories in the history of Israeli intelligence, Mossad agent Eli Cohen managed to infiltrate the Syrian Ba’ath Party in the early 1960’s and pass information to Israel on Syrian military strategy and positions. In January 1965 Cohen was discovered and was publicly hanged that May. Cohen’s family in Israel, his wife, three children and brother, have long requested the return of his remains and have recently initiated a world-wide petition calling on President Assad to make this humanitarian gesture.

Alois Brunner: Alois Brunner, chief lieutenant to Adolf Eichmann has long believed to be living in Damascus using the alias Dr. Georg Fischer. An Austrian native, Brunner joined the SS a week after Kristallnacht and became director of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, the agency set up by Eichmann to coordinate the transfer of Jews from the Third Reich. In 1995, Germany issued an arrest warrant for Brunner, on the charge of "cruel and malicious killing of innocent human beings." He is wanted for the murder of at least 100,000 Jews following their deportation from Germany, France, Austria, Greece and Slovakia to Auschwitz, from 1941-1944. In December 1999, there were unconfirmed reports that Brunner had died in 1996 and was buried in a Damascus cemetery.