Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt: Peace with Israel Will Mean the End for the Syrian Regime

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on November 8, 2007.

Interviewer: Is it true that when Dennis Ross asked you what should be done, you said: "If you have car bombs, send them to Syria"?

Walid Jumblatt: Correct. I said this for a simple reason. Dennis Ross asked me: "What would you think if we engaged Syria?" I said: "I would have no objection. You were a negotiator back then, and you almost reached an agreement about the Golan in Geneva." There was a disagreement with regard to a few meters on the border – not the border of the French and British mandates from 1933-34, but the status quo border from 1948. Hafez Al-Assad almost got to swim in the Sea of Galilee, but he rejected [the agreement], because the principle of peace according to U.N. Resolution 242 means the end of the Syrian regime. What does the Syrian regime do, except operate through Lebanon and Palestine, and send terrorists to Iraq? They do nothing else, but the moment they accept peace, this regime is finished. Just for your information, I once heard from a senior Syrian official, whose name I won't mention, that high-ranking officers had approached Hafez Al-Assad and said to him: Where are you leading us? We can't bear peace. When we sign peace, we are finished."