http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1191/9111023.htm
Washington Report On Middle East Affairs
The Golan Heights: A History of Israeli Aggression
By Sheldon L. Richman , November 1991, Page 23
As the prospects of a Middle East
peace conference inched toward
realization and the "land-for-peace"
principle moved to center stage,
Israel's apologists in the United
States launched an effort to persuade
the American public that asking Israel
to give up the occupied territories
was like asking it to commit suicide.
The territories, we are told
repeatedly, were taken in self-defense
after the Arabs launched an aggressive
war in 1967. Therefore, Israel has no
obligation to return them, since its
very survival is at stake.
This argument is pressed most
vigorously in the case of the Golan
Heights, which until the Six-Day War
of June 1967 were part of Syria.
William Safire of The New York Times
took the standard Israeli line when he
wrote in July that the Golan Heights
were I I so often used as the
launching site of attacks on Israel,
and won from Syria after its 1967
aggression. " Other examples could be
given. According to this line, the
peaceful farmers of nonthreatening
low-lying kibbutzim were continually
shelled by bloodthirsty Syrians from
the Golan's strategic vantage point.
Israel had no choice but to seize the
property. Returning it would only
invite future repetition of the
aggression.
What Preceded the Shelling?
Just as one is apt to get a distorted
view of a movie plot if one walks in
after the show has started, so one is
bound to misconstrue events involving
the Golan Heights if one looks no
further than the standard version of
this story. Yes, there was shelling
from the Heights. But an important
question is, what preceded the
shelling? The answer is: much.
We have to go back to the aftermath of
the 1948 war between the new state of
Israel and the Arab countries. In that
war, fighting occurred between Israel
and Syria along their border. Although
the Israeli side of the border was
part of the land allocated to the
Zionists by the 1947 UN partition
resolution, it contained fertile
farmland and villages long occupied by
Palestinians. Syria occupied a small
part of this land during the war, but
withdrew under an armistice agreement,
which also required the
demilitarization of the territory by
both sides. Under the agreement, the
Jewish and Arab villages were to
coexist, protected by police forces
drawn from their respective
communities. The armistice agreement
was to be temporary, pending a peace
treaty. Syrian President Hosni Zaim
offered a full peace agreement in
return for concessions on Palestinian
land, but Prime Minister David
Ben-Gurion turned him down.
Instead of negotiating for peace,
Israel declared sovereignty over the
demilitarized zone. To carry this out,
it violated the prohibitions on having
military forces and fortifications in
the zone by disguising soldiers as
police. It also aggressively developed
the area, draining water from Arab
farms, leveling Arab villages, driving
out residents, building roads and
transplanting trees in
order to move the frontier eastward to
the old Palestine border. Israel
refused to let the protests of the UN
observers stand in the way. Swedish
General Carl von Horn, of the UN
peacekeeping forces, observed that I
'gradually, beneath the glowering eyes
of the Syrians, who held the high
ground overlooking Zion, the area had
become a network of Israeli canals and
irrigation channels edging up against
and always encroaching on Arab-owned
property."
This policy continued well into the
1950s. Most of the 2,000 Arabs living
in the zone had been forced out by
1956. Many moved to the sloping land
below the Golan Heights. In response
to the expulsion of Arabs from the
zone, the otherwise helpless Syrian
forces on the Heights began firing on
Israelis, particularly when, each
year, their tractors plowed further
into the demilitarized zone. General
von Horn was convinced the instances
of firing would not have occurred
without the specific Israeli
provocations.
This finds some concurrence with
former Israeli General Matityahu
Peled, who said that more than half of
the border clashes before the 1967 war
"were a result of our security policy
of maximum settlement in the
demilitarized area. " Israel
retaliated for the shelling. In April
1967, after an incident that began
with an Israeli tractor incursion,
Israel launched a big air attack that
cost Syria six planes, one of them
shot down over Damascus. One hundred
Syrians were killed. This was the
direct prelude to the Six-Day War.
Israel was able to cast itself in the
role of victim by pointing to Syria's
bellicose rhetoric, its (modest) plan
to divert the Jordan River's
headwaters, and its support for
Palestinian guerrillas. But these were
more than offset by Israel's own
water-diversion plan, its own
bellicosity, and its own expansionist
designs.
Settlements or Security
Israel of course took the Golan
Heights in the Six-Day War-in an
attack launched more than a day after
Syria had agreed to a cease-fire. What
the Israeli government did after that
is instructive. Contrary to its claim
that it needs the Golan as a safety
buffer, Israel began settling
residents in that territory, which it
annexed in 1981. So far 11,500
Israelis have settled in 32 towns,
kibbutzim, and agricultural
cooperatives in the 500-square-mile
territory. Obviously, settled
territory cannot be a buffer against a
hostile neighbor. As General Peled
observed, "The very act of populating
the territories is an act which
contradicts the concept of secure
borders. " Had Israel actually been
seeking a depth of defense, it would
not have moved population up to its
new border with Syria.
The history of the dispute involving
the Golan Heights belies Israel's
argument that it must retain the
territory for its security. That is
not what the facts demonstrate.
Israel's leaders see the Golan Heights
as part of Eretz Israel, and thus the
property of the Jewish people.
Security is not the issue. On the
contrary, Israel's security depends on
a just settlement with the
Palestinians and its neighbors. But
that is precisely what is undermined
by Israel's expansionist land policy.
Sheldon L. Richman is the senior
editor at the Cato Institute in
Washington, DC
(c) Copyright 1995-1999, American
Educational Trust. All Rights
Reserved.
