Ex-Israel Leader Urges Peace deal of Israel, Syria

JERUSALEM — A former president of Israel who presided over the country's peace deal with Egypt urged its leaders yesterday to make peace with Syria in order to curb Iranian influence in the Middle East.

As Israel prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary this week, Yitzhak Navon said the 1973 Yom Kippur war with Egypt and subsequent peace treaty offered vital lessons for the government of Ehud Olmert. But he also warned that the growing role of religion, rather than merely land and politics, made peace harder to achieve.

"The emergence of Iran as a very hostile factor changes the situation in the Middle East," he said.

Mr. Navon said that negotiations could be held and agreements arrived at despite the wars fought by Israel and her neighbors in the past.

However, revolutionary Iran, whose leaders have pledged to wipe Israel off the map, was impossible to deal with. Mr. Navon, 87, was Israel's fifth president, between 1978 and 1983.

In the early '70s, he told sceptical Israeli leaders that a war with Egypt was coming, based on the rhetoric of Anwar Sadat, who was president.

"He told his people time and again he would make war, he would close the [Suez] canal, he would conquer the Sinai," he said.