In reading about the Six-Day War, I read that one reason Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria was because the Syrians would use the Heights to shell kibbutzim in Israel.
In the recent past, I read that Israel was ready to negotiate handing back the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace/stability/nonviolence.
Does Israel still need the Golan Heights? If not, what measures has it taken to protect kibbutzim from potentially being shelled again by Syrians or other anti-Israel belligerents, especially seeing how anti-Israel belligerents are hard to control? (I could see the Hizbullah using the Heights. If Syria gives them free reign in southern Lebanon, why not in Syria?)
I’d prefer not to hear anything political, polemical, or whatnot. Just the issues above.
Could we have cite for the claim that “In the recent past … Israel was ready to negotiate handing back the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace/stability/nonviolence”. I’ve heard that one person urged Sharon to approach Syria to come to an agreement about GH, something Sharon flatly rejected. Anyone?
As long as there is any chance of hostilities along the Israel-Syria border, Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights is a strategic must (it isn’t only the kibbutzim that are in artillary range - Tiberias and Safed, at the very least, are too!)
OTOH, the Syrian border has been completely quiet since 1973. Even during the 1982-2000 Israeli presence in South Lebanon. Not one bullet has been shot across that border (incidentally meaning that Syria is fully capable of controlling Hizballah when they want - but you asked not to go into that…)
So, I think that the Golan Heights are, basicly, a two-way negotiation asset - we need it as long as there is no agreement. With a reasonable agreement, it should no longer be necessary, and could be returned to Syria as part of the quid pro quo of said negotiations.
BTW, I am using the word “returned” advisedly here. Unlike the West Bank, I don’t think you will find that many Israelis who will argue the the Golan “belongs” to us - but far more Israelis will agree that we aren’t getting off of it for anything less than a complete and full settlement with Syria. IOW - Unilateral Partition (like, hopefully, in Gaza) just ain’t gonna happen on this end… and rightly so!
Well, giving Hizbollah a free reign in Lebanon is quite a different thing from giving them a free reign in Syria, as I’m sure you can understand. Doing the latter would probably get Syria in all kinds of trouble very quickly.
I forgot to mention that the vista from the Golan over northern Israel is amazingly breathtaking! And rest assured that no-one here misses the military significance of that…
Absent such a settlement (and IIRC, Syria’s never offered one), that’s the one Israeli occupied territory from the 1967 war for which continued occupation is justified, IMHO. No way Israel can let go of that high ground for anything less than a signed peace treaty, complete with full diplomatic recognition.
There are certain portions of it which Israel needs for the sake early-warning radar systems. Other parts Israel has expressed a willingness to negotiate about, but Syria has refused to even enter into negotiations unless the entire Golan Heights was returned first.
So, there are several hundre thousand refugees, most of them who are now living in refugee camps in Syria. Israel has established more than 30 settlements in the area, housing about 15 000 - 20 000 people. (cite 1, cite 2)
About the legal situation:
After Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 497 “stating that Israel’s annexation is null and void and against International Law”. In 1982 “The General Assembly Plenary Session adopts resolution 49, revisiting UNSCR 497 (1981) and demands Israel withdraw from all occupied Syrian lands. The US votes against the resolution.”
And finally, a very interesting article by peace-loving SEARCH:
Does Syria need the Golan Heights? I mean, it seems they want it back purely out of a sense of national pride – it was part of their territory, and it was taken from them in war, and within living memory. Which is understandable, but is there any other reason they’re interested in it? For instance, who actually lived there before 1973? Are there Syrian families that want to return to their old homes in the Golan? And who lives there now? Are there Israeli settlers who would have to leave if the Golan changed hands again? And, apart from being a place to live, and a strategic position from which to shell Galilee, is there any reason the Golan is valuable? Natural resources, good farmland, anything like that?
Face it, the Golan Heights are no longer a strategic defense. The distance is just too small. The only possible strategic advantage for Syria if they held the Golan Heights would be to lob artillery pot shots into Israel, and if they wanted to do that now, they could do it with missiles. The extra 40 miles of ground in an actual war would mean little.
However, I fail to see why Israel should be forced to turn over land that they won in a war. In the real world, victory in battle is generally the way borders are drawn.
I am also astounded that the refugees from Golan are still living in refugee tent cities? What the? Why can’t they move out into real cities, get jobs, be normal Syrians?
I respectfully disagree. In case of a “real” war, you have to move tanks and people, and you have to take over an area physically. The Golan’s western border is half-way up a HUGE escrapment, scaling that in the six-day war was possible only because of the condition the Syrian army was in… I would not want to have to do that again (not that I did the first time… I was 3 Y.O. at the time).
Yup. Unless, of course, Israel is the victor… Anyone care to wager what would happen if Israel lost any land in a war? The good Arabs would return it forthwith…! Right? :rolleyes:
SOP for treatment of citizens by far too many Arab regimes…* I’m quite certain the 1967 refugees inside Syria (Syrian citizens inside Syria, not displaced persons!) are not allowed to leave these camps and start a new life, lest their plight be lost on the video cameras and a PR angle be lost to the regime.
Dani
Note: Not a slur on Arabs. Not all Arab regimes behave this way; many other non-Arab dictatorships do. Basicly just pointing out that too many Arabs - and Arab countries - are run roughshod over by authoritarian dictatorships
First of all, I doubt it’s true. Second, if they left the camps, they’s stop being victims, and being a victim is the best thing in the world: everybody loves you, you can never do anything wrong and you’re not responsible for your own actions.
I would just like to mention a preconceived notion that I have from travels in Israel and the Golan. The fight for the Golan in 1967 and 1973 cost Israel a lot of tanks and boys. IIRC, they had their line broken a few times. Unlike the Sinai, which was taken relatively easily (and was a huge amount of hard-to-defend territory), the Golan (and East Jerusalem) were paid for in blood. This may cause a psychological (not a legal) resistance to just hand that land over in return for a piece of paper backed by a sometimes less-than-rational dictator (although Bashir seems to be better than his father).
Up until 1945, and for some time after, that principle was simply accepted as normal and legitimate – but the modern attitude is more dubious. In 1990, Hussein took Kuwait as a prize of war, but few non-Iraqis defended this as “legitimate.” (A few months ago, in a couple of threads on the CPA occupation of Iraq, we had discussions of whether the occupation was “legitimate,” and whether “right of conquest” is still a relevant principle in the modern world, morally or legally.)
Now, you could make a case that Israel has a better moral claim to territory, such as the Golan (or even the West Bank), which it acquired in a war where it was clearly defending itself from aggression. But remember, Israel also took the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt under the same circumstances, and even so, the international community was always dubious about Israel’s “right” to rule the Sinai, and in the end Israel was willing to hand it back for the sake of peace (and because they had no practical use for it, and the Sinai was not historically Israeli territory by any conceivable standards). So perhaps we can understand the Syrians’ resentment, if Israel won’t hand the Golan back to them.
