Syria insists on getting the strategic plateau back, but nearly two generations of Israelis have grown up with the conviction that it is vital to their security.

Syria demands that Israel first commit itself to quit all the strategic plateau before talking about the type of peace.

An estimated 1,000 peacekeepers from Austria, Canada and Poland are currently on the strategic plateau seized by Israel in 1967.

Heavy fighting was reported again today on Grabez, a strategic plateau just east of the enclave where a Bosnian Serb advance has apparently stalled.

Syria says it is ready for full peace with Israel, but insists on first hearing that it will get back all of the strategic plateau.

Until now, the Syrian leader had not budged from his insistence that Israel first remove its armed forces and civilian settlements from the strategic plateau.

The Heights, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel and the southern Syrian plans, are critical both militarily and as a watershed.

Too many people here remember the days when Syria used the strategic plateau to fire rockets and artillery shells down onto the population in Galilee below.

Israel captured the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 war.

Israel captured the strategic plateau in the 1967 war and unilaterally annexed it in 1981.