"Hello Bashar, Kift-'halak? "

"Alhamdillah, as As-Saida Olmert. How are you?"

"I am good, thank you. But the Zionist police are after me. I need a distraction."

"Really, I don't understand you. Over here we have a much better system. This troublesome Mazuz person should be handled in a more decisive way. The job of the police is to support the government."

"Much to my regret, brother Bashar, we cannot do that here. Over here it is against the law to take money, especially if some bastard rats on you."

"We could arrange for an accident to happen to this Talansky, or to his family."

"It will look too suspicious. Anyhow, they have other evidence. My fool secretary kept the records in a government computer, in an innocuous file marked 'Bribes from Talansky.' The police found the file..."

"A small bomb can eliminate the computer and another can eliminate the secretary."

"Brother Bashar, it would be discovered and I would be in trouble."

"Very well, brother Ehud. Tell me what you have in mind"

"We will announce a peace deal. I will give you the Golan, and in return you will announce that the Jews probably do not slaughter Christian children to make Matzot and also that there probably really are no Elders of Zion, and that the Holocaust really happened."

"Walla Ehud, I am not sure this is a good plan. I do not really want this Golan, and it is a very heavy price we have to pay. My friend Mahmoud in Tehran will be very annoyed if I say the Holocaust happened, and Moustapha Tlass will be insulted, because he wrote a book about the blood libel. Are you sure that giving up the Golan heights will make you so popular in Eesra-eeel?"

"It's the best move I've got."

"Very well. Ana wa inteh Sahiba - You and I are friends. You do me favors, I do you favors. That's what friends are for, right? We will announce that Syria and Eesra-eel are talking about peace and everyone will forget your legal problems, if that is what you want.

"Shukran, brother Bashar, Salamaat."

"Salamaat, brother Ehud. Salam Aleikum wara'hmatulahi."

Of course, it is an absurd tale, but it is what Israeli media spinners would have us believe lies behind the dramatic announcement of Israeli - Syrian peace talks. The preparation for these talks has been going on for many months, and neither Turkey nor Syria have any interest in Ehud Olmert's problems with the law.

The very announcement of such talks, albeit indirect, on Syrian television, represents a fundamental change in Syrian policy. The announcement did not say that Syria is conducting talks to return the Golan, but that Syria and Israel will conduct indirect peace talks based on the principles of the Madrid conference. It did not even mention previous understandings with Prime Minister Rabin!

Most interesting of all was what did not happen. Since the announcement, at least to this hour, there has been no reaction at all from Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who so recently announced the certainty of the imminent demise of Israel, must have some opinion about the Syrian, Israeli and Turkish announcements.

Ami Isseroff