Israel Offers Hope For Compromise

As Arab leaders gathered Friday for a summit in Cairo, Israel’s new foreign minister said he would not rule out territorial compromise on the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria.

David Levy said Israel’s new government would also meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and insisted that peace remained Israel’s highest priority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during his campaign that he would not consider returning any of the Golan to Syria, a break from the previous government of Shimon Peres. Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 Mideast War.

But on Friday, Levy told Israel’s Channel Two television, “If the peace serves both sides and it is in their supreme interests, then they will speak and they will meet in the middle.”

Asked if he was leaving open the possibility of territorial compromise on the Golan, Levy said, “To some extent and on the condition that we achieve peace.”