| Syria had the chance to talk it back from Olmert and didn't take it. |
Netanyahu the leader of the Likud party and the front-runner in polls ahead of Israel's Tuesday parliament elections, affirmed Sunday that if his party wins the elections, the strategic Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 war, 'will not be returned' under any conditions. The United Nations has demanded Israel withdraw from the occupied territory and hand it over to Syria. Damascus is also demanding the return of the strategic Heights as a prerequisite for peace in the Middle East.
But Netanyahu, the former Israeli prime minister, has very emphatically said: "The Golan will never again be divided, the Golan will never fall again, the Golan will remain in our hands."
Netanyahu and his party consider the strategic value of the plateau as more important than a peace treaty. On Sunday, the 59-year-old former Israeli prime minister traveled to the Golan Heights, as a campaign stop, to emphasize his policies and the differences he has with other candidates with the sole aim to toughen his right-wing credentials.
The government of outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had engaged in indirect talks mediated by Turkey over the return of the territory as part of a peace deal with Damascus.
Meanwhile, the announced policies of Netanyahu are contradicting with that of Washington. It seems he could be setting up a confrontation with the Obama administration if he becomes Israel's leader.
Netanyahu opposes talks on a peace treaty with the Palestinians and favors allowing Israeli settlements in the West Bank to expand, two points that are likely to clash with Washington's policy.