In Damascus, Syria's official news agency quoted Assad as restating Syria's long-standing position that peace talks must resume from the point they broke off in 2000.

Syria, only three years after the Holocaust, invaded the State of Israel the day it was born in order to complete the work of the deadly foe. When it did not succeed, there came the second attempt, that of the Six-Day War. And in this attempt it lost the Golan. Afterward came the aggression of the Yom Kippur War. These three major acts of aggression, in addition to the other exploits of Syria - for instance, the instigation of the Hezbollah against Israel - are sufficient reason to apply to it the same tenet that the world applied to Germany and Japan: the aggressor pays, mainly in the coin of territory, the cost of his aggression.
Alsace-Lorraine was taken from Germany, and is now France. No one says a word. Eupen-Malmedy is now Belgium. And East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania, which once belonged to sovereign Germany, are now part of Poland. Danzig is a Polish city. The Oder-Neisse border is the border, and some 15 million Germans were transferred - heaven forbid we follow this example - from the territories that were expropriated from the Germans. The world viewed these expropriations and this transfer as a worthy punishment because the deportees had put their lot in with their people, the Germans, in the attack on their country - in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, the Baltic states, etc...
A few years ago, the German parliament passed a resolution, with barely any opposition, saying Germany had no territorial demands whatsoever from its neighbors, and that its condensed borders are its final borders. The enlightened world was beside itself with joy. To sum it up, modern-day Germany understands that these are suitable punishments for the aggression of the previous generation, even though the current generation did not commit the crimes.
The reason that there is one rule for the aggression of Germany and another, diametrically opposite, rule for Syria, Jordan and Egypt has not only to do with the evil of the nations of the world, although this does exist, or their own interests... Arab propaganda, which is often assisted by left-wing Israelis, presents to those who reached adulthood or were born after these events that Israel is an aggressor. And this sector, people under the age of 50, now constitutes the majority of the world's population.

Egypt will deploy 700 heavily armed soldiers along the Egyptian-Israeli border to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza and enhance security... The introduction of these forces, which is precluded under the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979, will necessitate an exchange of letters between the sides stipulating agreement that this can take place. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, after meeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit, said these letters should be exchanged in the near future.