Haaretz reported on Tuesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad sent President Barack Obama a secret proposal for peace with Israel in 2010, which was also shared with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, according to the new memoirs of former secretary of state John Kerry which are being published today.
In the letter, Assad asked Obama to support renewed peace talks with Israel and stated “Syria’s willingness to take a number of steps in exchange for the return of the Golan from Israel.” Kerry notes that “Assad’s father had tried and failed to get the Golan back, so he was willing to do a lot in return.” The letter was given to Kerry at the end of a meeting in Damascus. When Kerry showed Netanyahu the letter the next day, “He was surprised that Assad was willing to go that far, significantly further than he’d been willing to go.”