Report: Arafat and the Golan's al-Hemmah district
Regional-Palestine, Politics, 4/3/2000

The Lebanese daily al-Lewa stated that Arab diplomatic reports from Washington revealed a serious secret which was coincided with the US - Israeli position on stealing the waters of the Tiberies Lake, saying that the secret speaks of an attempt to undermine the Syrian rights in favor of Israel, where Palestinian President Yasser Arafat sent a memorandum to the US and Israeli governments in the wake of the Syrian- Israeli negotiations in Washington in which he announced that the eastern coast of Tiberies lake, which is under conflict between Syria and Israel, is a Palestinian territory, according to the British- French mandate agreement of 1923, and that both Damascus and Tel Aviv have no right to the waters along this strip.

In this official document Arafat announces that he is ready to sell the rights (the Palestinian right) to these waters to Israel as far as the borders of the independent Palestinian state will not include the strip (because the promised Palestinian state includes only the West Bank and Gaza strip).

The reports added that despite the fact that there is official information saying that President Clinton has raised this issue in front of the Syrian delegation, sources close to the Geneva summit did not rule out that there was an attempt made by Clinton to invest Arafat's claims and pressure in Syria to give more flexibility to reach "a middle solution towards the international border crisis concerning Syria."

The Lebanese paper al-Lewa also quoted well-informed diplomatic sources as saying that the Arab arena will witness during the coming days and weeks a vast diplomatic move in order to withstand attempts made to contain Syria and single it out, adding that contacts are being made on the highest levels between influential Arab states and Syria to materialize the decisions adopted by the recent Arab foreign ministers meeting held recently in Beirut.

Previous Stories:
  The aim behind escalation in Lebanon   (2/21/2000)
  Syrian source stresses realization of progress in first day of negotiations   (12/17/1999)
  Seven issues in meeting between al-Sharaa and Barak   (12/15/1999)

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