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"For the first time in years, the possibility of Israel returning the Golan Heights to its arch-enemy, Syria, has made an unexpected comeback," The Globe's Patrick Martin wrote Saturday in his essay All quiet on the Golan Heights

"Syrian President Bashar Assad announced last week that he had received from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert an assurance that Israel was willing to withdraw from the occupied plateau, in exchange for a peace treaty with Syria.

"Coming on the heels of Israel's military assault on an apparent nuclear reactor in northeastern Syria in September and the assassination of a leading Hezbollah figure in the streets of Damascus in February, many were surprised that the confrontational attitude of the two countries had so quickly changed.

"They shouldn't have been," Mr. Martin argued. "The makings of a deal have been in place for more than a decade . . . "

"A peace agreement between Israel and Syria would be nothing to sneeze at," he continued.

"To Israel, it means a recognized peaceful border with the last two Arab states on its frontier (for as Syria goes, Lebanon is sure to follow). It means overland passage to Europe for trucks and tourists, as well as the likely normalization with most, if not all, of the Arab world.

"And while the hope of some Israelis is to pry Syria away from its patron, Iran, and away from its client, Hezbollah, neither is likely to happen as a result of a peace treaty. That, however, might actually be to Israel's advantage. Having Syria wield influence with Hezbollah could be a good way to keep the group in line.

"To Syria, a treaty means, first and foremost, the return of its territory and national pride. But it also means unprecedented economic opportunity, both with Israel and as a conduit for regional trade. And it means that longed-for acceptance by the United States, which has blown hot and cold in its attitude toward Damascus."

Whether you agree or not, it's a provocative thesis, so we're glad that Mr. Martin was online earlier today to take your questions on his essay and other Mideast issues.

Your questions and Mr. Martin's answers appear at the bottom of this page.

Mr. Martin was The Globe and Mail's Middle East correspondent from 1991-95, and Foreign Editor from 1995-99.

He has travelled widely throughout the Middle East, beginning in 1971, on various assignments throughout the 1980s and, most recently, on assignment in Lebanon in 2006.

Born in Toronto, Mr. Martin joined The Globe in 1984 after three years as host of CBC Radio's Sunday Morning program. He has a law degree from the University of Western Ontario, and spent the 1989-90 academic year as a Thomson Fellow studying modern Arab history and Islam at the University of Toronto. He is the co-author of Contenders: The Tory Quest for Power (1983).

Mr. Martin is also a regular member of TVOntario's foreign affairs panels.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Welcome, Patrick, and thanks for joining us today to take questions from our readers. We've got a lot of them.

Patrick Martin, Comment Editor, The Globe and Mail: It's good to be here, Jim.

There's lots to talk about in a week in which Israel is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and Palestinians are marking their naqba or "catastrophe," and talk of negotiations between Israel and Syria is in the news.

Job of The Book: This has "bad idea" written all over it.

Last time Syria had the Golan Heights, they just shelled Israeli towns and villages and farms from there, making life unbearable for the Israelis in the north. It was very similar to what Hamas is doing to the Israelis in Sderot right now, only it was with military grade shells.

Also, this just seems stupid. I mean what incentive is there for these countries to stop attacking Israel if they're just going to get all their land back no matter what? I mean that's the one thing that makes countries want to stop doing these stupid things.

If the other country has to give back the land in a defensive war if it wins, then there is no incentive to stop the attacks. It becomes insurance. "Oh, we lost ... well, let's reset and try this again in a few years once we've rearmed."

I don't know why Israel keeps allowing its enemies to dictate terms to them. Maybe they should demand that Syria allow freedom of speech and assembly within Syria as part of the deal. That might score points with the Syrian population that will eventually over throw the authoritarian regime there.

I'm sure Israel could just take the damn thing back if they needed to. but at such a cost of life.

This is yet just another example of Israel doing all the bending and compromising for a faint hope of peace.

Patrick Martin: Well, Job, you make a pretty good case. But I think we need to cast our mind back to two historic dates: 1948 and 1967.

Sixty years ago, modern Israel was the new state on the block, a product of large-scale immigration of Jews from Europe, a determination by Jews to revive their historic homeland, and collective Western guilt over a long period of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.

The United Nations recognized the need for such a homeland, but the long-time residents of the place, the Arab populations, didn't agree.

The fighting that lasted a year settled the case for Israel's presence, showing the Arabs that it was there to stay, and Syria retreated to its 1923 border (the one created when the League of Nations carved up the old Ottoman empire.) That border was respected by Israel and largely adhered to ever since the ceasefire agreement in 1949.

No one then, and few people now, see the Golan Heights as anything but Syrian territory.

In 1967, when war broke out between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel's minister of defence, the renowned Moshe Dayan, did not want to try to capture the Heights. He said if Israel did take it, there would never be rest from Syria's determination to get it back.

He was finally persuaded to capture it in the last couple days of the war, but only as a bargaining chip to be used in negotaitions of a peace treaty. Peace, it was reasoned, was more important than capturing another's territory.

Yes, Syrians forces used the Heights to shell and fire on Israel (though Israel, like Syria, was also guilty of provocative acts to capture some of the no-mans land between the countries).

But today, the arguement of it being necessary for defence has been overtaken by modern technology. With the range and accuracy of missiles these days, neither side really needs the Heights for its defence or offence.

The bottom line, Job, is that if Israel ever hopes to achieve full peace for itself, it will have to make a deal with Syria.

I think that's something Prime Minister Olmert may have come to realize and accept.

And as for safeguards against using the Heights for shelling Israel, any treaty would include a demilitarized zone along both sides of the border.

Cheryl Norrad, Fredericton: Hi, Patrick. I hope you and your family are well.

Do you think that Israel and Syria will make peace as has happened in the past with Egypt and Jordan? What about the Jewish settlers in the Golan? What will happen to them if the land is returned to Syria? Do you think Iran will interfere if Israel and Syria attempt to negotiate a peace?

Patrick Martin: Thank you, Cheryl. We're all well. I hope things are going fruitfully at STU (that's St. Thomas University in Fredericton, where I spent two months last fall as a visiting chair in journalism).

Cheryl, I think there is a very realistic chance of Israel and Syria making peace.

Certainly that was the view of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister in the 90s when I was based there. He and others since then, and add to that Bill Clinton, then U.S. president, believed it was necessary for real regional peace.

The nature of the an agreement is already set down in talks that were last held in 2000, when Ehud Barak was prime minister, and it calls for full peace for full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

This is very similar to the deal Israel and Egypt concluded in 1979, when Israel returned the captured Sinai to Egypt in exchange for the treaty.

The peace with Jordan was a different matter, with that country wanting to confirm a trend in the region toward acceptance of Israel, based on the expectation that the Palestinians were on the verge of an agreement of their own with Israel. (A little premature, to say the least.)

That treaty was not based so much on land for peace as it was based on Jordan yielding the west bank of the Jordan River to a future Palestinian state.

The Jewish settlers on the Golan Heights number about 25,000, I believe, and many have known since the time of Rabin that they may have to move back to Israel proper, for which they would be financially compensated.

There also is the prospect, very seriously raised in discussion, that some of the land could be leased back from Syria permitting some people and companies to remain if they wished.

Iran may well attempt to interfere behind the scenes through powers of persuasion. But ultimately, it has its hands full dealing with its situation as an international outcast and with its own issues closer to home such as digesting the eventual situation of a new government in Iraq.

GlynnMor of Skywall: In the past, Syria has been reluctant to make a separate peace with Israel without resolution of the thorny Palestinian problem.

Does this represent a change in opinion from Damascus? Or is it predicated on the establishment of a Palestinian State?

Patrick Martin: You're quite right, GlynnMor.

Syria has always said a negotiation of peace with Israel would only come as part of a negotiated package that restored all Arab lands captured by Israel in 1967. This particularly pertains to the Palestinians, whose land (for an eventual state) was captured from Jordan (the West Bank) and Egypt (the Gaza Strip).

Egypt said much the same thing but made a treaty that proved unenforceable in getting Israel to negotiate a homeland for the Palestinians.

Jordan, too settled for a treaty with Israel in the expectation of a Palestinian-Israli deal.

Syria has been much more emphatic about not going alone, and any deal with Israel would have to follow, or accompany, a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

As I said in the Saturday essay, this isn't necessarily a complete impediment to peace. Rather, it could end up being an incentive for both Israel and Syria to push along a Palestinian deal.

Syria could apply pressure to its friends among Palestinian militants, and Israel and its talking partner, Mahmoud Abbas, might find a way to meet with the outcast Hamas politicians.

Ian B.: You talk about a "likely normalization with most, if not all, of the Arab world."

What do you think Arab world means by "normalization" and why are they afraid of using word "recognition?"

Patrick Martin: Ian, I think "normalization" includes recognition, by its very nature. It includes diplomatic and commercial engagement as well as a recognition of borders and a state of peace between parties. In the best sense, it might mean encouraging travel between the countries, and joint ventures.

To those who have not yet made treaties or other agreements with Israel (and only Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinain Authority have) the hesitancy on the part of many, including Hamas to not "recognize" Israel, is part of their negotiating strategy.

Why, they reason, should we give Israel what it most wants until we get something in return?

When Egypt, and later Jordan, signed treaties with Israel, they recognized the state and its legitimate borders. It was part of the negotiations.

In 1993, when Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, to launch a peace process, both sides recognized the legitimacy of the other. The exchange of recognitions was carefully orchestrated.

Barnabe Geisweiller, Toronto: Mr. Martin, you seem to believe that if Israel and Syria were able to reach a peace agreement, this would include or at least aid a Palestinian peace agreement as well.

But isn't it quite possible that Israel's objective and hence the timing of its reaching out to Damascus is exactly the opposite?

I have spent a good deal of time in the Occupied Territories recently and the facts on the ground indicate that Israel has very little intention of giving the West Bank and Gaza back to the Palestinians.

Current road and Jewish settlement construction is truncating the Palestinian territory to ensure that the parts strategically important for their resources and East Jerusalem remain in Israeli control.

The house demolitions and IDF military operations which I witnessed even in areas where the PA had imposed law and order at Israel's behest were all signs that little on the ground is changing for the better.

It seems to me that Israel is likely doing what it has done with Egypt and Jordan. If Tel Aviv can make peace with Damascus and Beirut, then it will have effectively cut off the Palestinians from any Arab allies and support.

The annexation of the Palestinian territories and the trend of pushing Palestinians into smaller and more isolated pockets resembling Bantustans will be quick to follow.

Patrick Martin: Hi, Barnabe, I'm glad you wrote, and see that your point also is made in a letter to the editor today. It's a very astute point.

The Palestinians have been overlooked in the past, both by Israel, which has conducted a massive settlement program in the occupied territories, and by Arab states which sometimes refused them citizenship and decent lives in the Arab countries to which many fled in 1948, and which at other times made deal with Israel that left Palestinians in the lurch.

The West Bank Israeli settlements are certainly consistent with an agenda to keep hold of all the territories, but they also are consistent with a plan that would see most of the territory ceded to a Palestinain state, with Israel retaining sovereignty only over the largest blocs of settlements in exchange ceding other land, now in Israel, to a "Palestine."

The Beilin-Abu Mazen plan, named for Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli cabinet minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, now head of the Palestinian Authority (using his more popular name), calls for just that.

Yes, it would take goodwill on both sides, and yes, it would take some creative legal and territorial arrangements, but it can be done.

If there ever is to be a end to occupation, house demolitions and the like, it will have to be done.

Leslie Tobias, Toronto: I believe that peace in the Middle East will never happen as long as Israel is under threat against from all Arab and Islamic nations. I believe the territories belong to Israel and should remain with Israel.

The Arabs have never negotiated in good faith and never will. Their agenda is simply to destroy Israel.

Do you agree?

Patrick Martin: I don't completely agree, Leslie. I could well imagine conflict in the Middle East even if there was full peace with Israel.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq and the subsequent conflict there had little if anything to do with Israel and could even have taken place if all Israel's neigbours had signed peace treaties with it and all Islamic countries had indicated their acceptance of the (largely) Jewish state.

I think that Iran, and its own tense relationship with Arab states, could trigger a dispute that would bring the region into conflict, and I think that the people in many Arab states, feeling a sense of powerlessness in their countries could rise against their dictatorial leadership, creating region-wide conflict.

None of which would have much if anythig to do with Israel.

But as to your point, Leslie, that Israel will know no peace until all Arab and Islamic states cease being a threat, I would say this: Peace will only come in stages, when countries see the benefit of peace outweighing the benefit of war.

Both Israelis and Syrians I have spoken to see the possible benefit of peace with each other, they simply distrust the other side to carry it out.

Proof of that will only come over time.

And I don't agree that Arabs have never negotiated in good faith.

Egypt certainly did, and had to stand by as Israel invaded soon after another Arab country (Lebanon) and greatly expanded its settlements in the occupied territories (something Egypt believed would not happen according to the terms of a letter between Israel and Egypt that accompanied their peace treaty.)

And I believe that Jordan negotiated in good faith when it reached a treaty with Israel, dropping its historic claim to the West Bank so that that land could form the basis of a future Palestinian state, and agreeing to respect Israel's borders and live in mutual peace.

I even think the Palestinian leadership negotiated in good faith when it signed the Oslo Accords in 1993.

True, the Palestinian Authority would prove to be inefficient and corrupt, as well as unable to put down militant forces, but it also had to endure Israel's continued operations and expansion in the West Bank.

To this day, there are Palestinains who still believe in making a deal with Israel. They are not all determined to destroy the country.

Better to light a small candle than sit and curse the darkness: I believe there also cannot be peace until Israel gives up its quest for a "greater Israel" and gives up all the conquered territory and assures the Palestinians that it will stop interfering in their internal affairs.

Also, the Palestinians must have a viable state with a capital in Jerusalem and all the Israeli immigrants in the West Bank must return to Israel proper behind the 1967 borders.

Only a complete lack of selfishness on both sides will assure peace.

Do you agree?

Patrick Martin: I'm not sure quite how to address you. Is it Better, or Mr. or Ms. Darkness?

In any case, you make a reasonable point but I don't agree with most of it. I think that only a matter of selfishness, not selflessness, will assure peace.

As I said to another reader, only when people on both sides see the benefits to them will there be lasting peace. The good has to outweigh the bad.

And I think it can, though trust at getting started is the hard part, hence the use of and continued need for outside parties such as the US, Europe and Canada to oversee things.

I do agree that there won't be a chance of peace, any greater than exists now, if Israel continues to rule over the West Bank.

Having said that, I think that the vast majority of Israelis do not hold a dream of a "greater Israel." They would happily trade all the occupied territories for a real peace agreement.

Marvin Rotman, Toronto: How can there be peace between Israel and Syria when Syria refused to recognize the existence of the State of Israel even prior to Israel's taking over the Golan Heights.

What has Syria done or said or what signals have they given to indicate they are ready for peace?

Patrick Martin: Thanks, Marvin, I can relate to your sense of frustration. But as I said to another questioner, recognition is part of the negotiations. It wasn't until they finalized their treaties that both Jordan and Egypt, offically recognized Israel. (The same for the Palestinians when they signed their agreements in 1993 to pursue peace.)

Of course, what both Egypt and Jordan did prior to that was convey their willingness to recognize Israel.

Syria has done the same, as long ago as 1991 when it agreed to sit across the table from Israel at the Madrid conference, and in subsequent direct negotiations between the two countries (see Itamar Rabinovich's book, The Brink of Peace). The prospective deal Israel and Syria had hammered out by 1995 would have involved official recognition of Israel.

Unfortunately, it was never given a chance to be implemented.

Many hope that Mr. Olmert and Syrian President Bashar Assad will be able to do so now.

Jasmine Francis, Halifax: How does the situation in Lebanon play in the prospect of a deal between Syria and Israel?

Would it be dealt with directly as part of any peace treaty between Damascus and Tel Aviv? Or would it be treated as a separate issue?

Patrick Martin: Hi, Jasmine. You've hit on one of the most interesting areas.

There's no denying Syria's great influence in Lebanon. As such, there never was a chance for Lebanon to make its own deal with Israel ahead of Syria (witness the tragic and brief attempt by the Christian Phalange political leaders to install a president in Lebanon and make peace with Israel.)

So I think any deal between Israel and Lebanon would have to follow or accompany a treaty between Israel and Syria.

But the two issues are compatible. Israel wants to ensure that Hezbollah does not pose a threat, and Syria has influence over Hezbollah. Hezbollah, and Lebanon, want the return of a small portion of land still held by Israel (the Shebaa Farms) and want an end to Israeli overflights and blockades. All could be accommodated in a three-way peace accord.

Jim Sheppard: Thanks again, Patrick. I'm sure our readers appreciated your insight and analysis. Any last thoughts?

Patrick Martin: It was a pleasure, Jim. It's good to get to a chance to air these issues.

My only last thought is that while my analysis is seen by some as overly optimistic, I do believe, as one of our questioners styled himself, It is better to light a candle, than curse the darkness.

Of course, the wind will blow out the candle unless it is shielded by other powerful forces — by that I mean the United States, Europe, Russia and, I would include, Canada — which can offer protection for those putting themselves at risk, incentives for giving things up, and creative ideas for solving this puzzle.