Israel, Syria resume talks SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -A procedural hang-up resolved, President Clinton brought together Israel's prime minister and the foreign minister of Syria for face-to-face negotiations yesterday aimed at setting their countries on a course toward peace. Clinton held a half-hour meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Barak before including Syria's Farouk al-Sharaa in the meeting. A similar three-way session was canceled Monday night in a wrangle over what should be negotiated first. "I think they're both very serious," Clinton said before leaving Washington. "They both want an agreement." Even so, State Department spokesperson James Rubin said it was unlikely an accord can be reached by the end of the week on peace terms, an Israeli pullback on the Golan Heights and new security arrangements on the Israel-Syria border. This is the first time in almost four years that Israel and Syria have met to deal with issues of substance. Having Barak and al-Sharaa talk about them face-to-face, under Clinton's auspices, gives new meaning to the decades-old U.S. drive to gain Arab recognition of the Jewish state in exchange for Israeli-held territory. Rubin would not say how Monday night's dispute was smoothed over during a meeting between Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Barak. "We got a good start (Monday)," Rubin said. "There was a procedural hang-up in the evening. That hang-up has been overcome." With a light rain falling on the oldest town in West Virginia, where talks are being held at a federal center off-limits to reporters, Clinton arrived from Washington in a motorcade for his second consecutive day of mediating with Barak and al-Sharaa. The second day of talks also brought out protesters from Brooklyn, N.Y. - about 40 of them, led by Orthodox Jews who oppose the proposed Israeli turnover of the Golan Heights. "The Golan is our security," said protest leader Levi Huebner. "Peace will be in security and trust in our neighbors." In Israel, 20 rabbis linked to the Jewish settlement movement ruled that the Golan Heights are part of biblical Israel and that Israeli communities cannot be removed from the territory. While Israel's secular majority does not follow rabbinical strictures, the ruling may make it more difficult for Barak to get a land-for-peace agreement approved in a national referendum. It is expected that as part of such an agreement, the 17,000 Israelis living in 33 communities would be forced to leave. In Damascus, meanwhile, the state-run Syria Times said a "deep freeze" could follow if the West Virginia talks are not successful. "Unless there is a breakthrough very soon, the whole process for making peace will come to a dangerous recess," the English-language daily said. "Until the Israelis summon the courage to move forward, no real breakthrough is likely to occur." Originally on page 2A in the 1-5-2000 issue of the Daily.