Old Netanyahu Land for Peace with Syria document released

Yedioth Ahronoth reported this morning that the "Lauder document," a paper from Netanyahu's first term as Prime Minister that contains an Israeli commitment to withdraw completely from the Golan Heights, is being published for the first time.

Netanyahu has denied that he agreed to withdraw to the 1967 borders, but in the document passed on to President Clinton by Ron Lauder, who had served as Netanyahu's emissary to the Syrians, this commitment is stated in return for Syria permitting an American-French early warning station on Mt. Hermon.

The Lauder document reads: "Israel will withdraw from the Syrian land taken in 1967, in accordance with Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which established the right of all states to secure and recognized borders in the "land for peace" formula, to a commonly agreed border based on the line of June 4, 1967. The withdrawal will be effected in three stages and completed over a period of 18 months with the normalization implemented in the third stage and declaring an end to the state of war during the first phase of the withdrawal."

Danny Yatom, who served as Mossad director at the time, is leading the claim that Netanyahu agreed to a full withdrawal and is publishing the document in a new book.

Yedioth Ahronoth continues:

"What's important about this document," says Danny Yatom, who served as the Mossad director during Netanyahu's previous term as prime minister and as the director of the political-security staff under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, "is that Lauder wrote explicitly that all of the eight points he cites here are points about which an agreement had been reached between Israel and Syria, and that there remained other points that still needed to be completed by defining security zones for both sides. At issue are agreements, not the fanciful creations of Lauder's imagination." Yatom, who was interviewed by Yedioth Ahronoth's magazine [this article is a teaser for the larger version, which is to be published tomorrow in the paper's weekend magazine] said: "According to Lauder, this was an understanding that was achieved between Assad and Netanyahu through his agency, by means of his meetings with Assad."

Though this does not commit Netanyahu to withdrawing from the Golan Heights now, it is interesting to note that Syrian President Bashar Assad reportedly told Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos that he is "optimistic about restarting the Israel-Syria peace process."