Uncertain times

Israel has occupied Syria's Golan Heights since 1967

Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon has left relations with Syria in flux, and the two countries still technically at war.

Since the Madrid peace process began almost a decade ago, peace between Israel and Lebanon had been tied to a peal deal with Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.

But Damascus refused to sign an agreement unless Israel handed over the Golan Heights, captured by the Israelis in 1967.

Israel's decision to withdraw unilaterally from southern Lebanon has removed Syria's only real bargaining chip.

It has also left a power vaccum in southern Lebanon, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has accused Syria of doing all it can to scuppper the process.

Road to peace

However, Mr Barak has come tantalisingly close to making peace with Israel's traditional arch enemy, after almost 10 years of painful and spasmodic negotiations.

Talks started after the Madrid peace conference in 1991, but were suspended by Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in 1996 and stayed on ice until after Ehud Barak became premier in 1999.

Shara, Clinton and Barak in Shepherdstown

In December, Mr Barak held talks in Washington with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara, the highest ever level of political contact between the two sides.

Mr Barak apparently told the Syrians that talks could resume where they had left off in 1996, something his predecessor Binyamin Netanyahu had refused to do.

That led to a week of US-mediated negotiations in January in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

But although a date was set for more meetings, the process was unexpectedly suspended indefinitely by Syria, although analysts said there were indications the two sides were tantalisingly close to a deal.

"We will be there when the Syrians are there," Mr Barak said after news of the suspension came in late January.

Sticking points

Extent of Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights

Future of Israeli military installations

Timing of withdrawal relative to other peace moves

Building on the achievements of the negotiations before 1996, the two sides are thought to have reached agreement on the fundamental issues: Israel accepts it will withdraw from the occupied Golan Heights and Syria's accepts normalisation with Israel on a similar basis to the 1978 Camp Damp treaty with Egypt.

This represents a much "cleaner" and much more achievable deal than that being negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians, and the only difficulty lies in how to sell the arrangements as a balanced package to constituencies in Israel and Syria.

Indeed, there were indications the suspension came because Mr Barak upset the Syrians by leaking an imbalanced account of Israel's successes at the talks to the Israeli press.

Lebanon erupts

But while the Syrian-Israeli talks were in abeyance, the bloody consequence were - not for the first time - on display in Lebanon.

The Israelis told Syria at the end of January to rein in Lebanese guerrillas fighters who have been waging an increasingly successful campaign against Israeli forces in a zone of southern Lebanon Israel has occupied since 1985.

Instead, the guerrillas - from the fundamentalist Shi'a group Hezbollah - managed to kill seven Israeli soldiers over a fortnight, while Israeli aircraft launched raids against civilian infrastructure deep inside Lebanon.

Fortunately for the talks, no Lebanese civilians were killed in the onslaught and all Hezbollah's operations were limited to attacks on Israeli occupation forces and not on civilians over the border.

Israeli troops: Waiting to pull out of Lebanon

Rather than blowing talks out of the water completely, military funerals in Israel served to add emphasis to the popularity of Mr Barak's pledge to pull out of Lebanon.

Now they have retreated, it remains to be seen whether there will be further cross-border raids form Hezbollah fighters, and if so, whether Israel will retaliate against Syria, as it has threatened to do.