David Kimche, writing in the Jerusalem Post:
Anwar Sadat, just like Bashar Assad, offered to enter into peace negotiations with us. More than a year before the Yom Kippur War exploded on us, he told us “peace in exchange for Sinai.” We turned him down, and the result was – eventually – that we did agree to peace in exchange for Sinai, but only after a war in which more than 2,000 Israeli soldiers were killed and many more thousands wounded…
How many will die if fighting flares in the Golan this summer? Every single loss of life will have been in vain, for eventually we will be negotiating with the Syrians, and we will reach an agreement with Damascus on a solution in the Golan, just as Menachem Begin did with Egypt over the Sinai…
Nobody wants a war with Syria (at least, nobody I know). Certainly not me; if war comes, my son will be fighting in it.
But Kimche’s argument can be carried even further. Eventually we’ll be negotiating with Hamas over Tel Aviv, so why not get it over with and avoid war?
The real question is this: if war with Syria comes, would it be best to fight with or without the Golan?