Israel woos Syria away from Iran

Israel, Syria resumed negotiations through the good offices of Turkey. Syrians announced Israeli government accepted full withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Olmert’s office said essentially the same, but in weasel words: that it understands what should be done for peace with Syria.
Israel is represented by Olmert’s chief of staff, a decidedly unofficial position.
Just days ago, Turkey announced failure of the negotiations. The current spike of activity is probably an Israel’s attempt to neutralize Syria during the attack on Iran. Bound by the promising peace talks, Syria is not expected to unleash its hundreds of missiles on Israel as part of its mutual defense with Iran.
It remains unclear why do we need peace with Syria or expect normalization even if we have a peace treaty. Suppose Syria would promise to abandon Hamas and Hezbollah, sign a peace treaty with Israel, and then resume its support of terrorists. Israel won’t break the peace over this little issue, just as she now refrains from canceling peace treaty with Egypt over its support of Hamas. With Egypt and Jordan’s peace treaties, the US sort of guaranteed their relatively decent behavior. In the absence of such guarantor for Syria, peace is unlikely.