Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed on Sunday that Israel has indeed been conducting secret peace talks with Syria, via Turkey, for more than a year. These talks are centered around the status of the Golan Heights—a strategic plateau that was conquered by Israel in 1967 during a war that started as a unified Arab attack against Israel. Syria is demanding the return of this plateau as a prerequisite to peace with Israel.

The mere fact that Syria is willing to negotiate with Israel on any terms has sparked outrage in Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described Syria’s attempts to negotiate with Israel as a “flagrant violation” of the mutual commitments that exist between Syria and Iran. In order to maintain its relationship with Iran, the Syrian government had to dispatch an envoy of Syrian officials to Tehran to further explain its position and to reaffirm its support for Iran’s cause.

Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Hassan Turkmani arrived with his delegation in Tehran on May 24. In a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Turkmani worked to consolidate defense cooperation between the Syrian and Iranian regimes.

“Our cooperation with the Iranians against Israeli threats is nothing secret, and we regularly consult about this with our friends,” Turkmani reaffirmed to the Iranian Defense Minister.

In another meeting, Turkmani met with Iranian Gen. Yahya Rahim Safawi, a trusted military adviser of Ali Khamenei, saying that, “Iran and Syria share the same viewpoint regarding regional issues and efforts will be made to strengthen our shared interests and bilateral relations.”

The Iranians deny Israel’s right to exist and claim that the Golan Heights is an integral part of Syria. Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki summed up the Iranian position on Saturday when he told Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, “The Golan belongs to Syria and must be returned to its control. The Zionist regime must withdraw from the Golan, and we support Syrian efforts to repossess the Heights.”

The very fact that Syria is boosting its military cooperation and strengthening its alliance with Iran shows the Damascus regime is not interested in achieving peace with Israel, but is instead interested in annexing the Golan Heights. If the Iranian mullahs are happy with the arrangement, you can be sure once Syria gets the plateau, it won’t be over for Israel.

The most shocking part of all of this is that Prime Minister Olmert is going on with his Syrian negotiations as if nothing has happened. He seems to be ignoring the fact that his negotiation partner is still strengthening its military alliance with the nation that is unabashedly calling for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Israel’s peace process is acting like a cancer that has already consumed the Gaza Strip and is even now consuming both the West Bank and the Golan Heights. The end result of Israel’s appeasement policy can only be conquest by a hostile power. For more information on the cancerous peace process, read chapter two of Jerusalem in Prophecy, “Israel’s Deadly ‘Wound,’” by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry.