Syria dusts off maps of Golan Heights battlefields following Israeli attac

[Aidoneus]

Syria dusts off maps of Golan Heights battlefields following Israeli attack
Brian Whitaker hears talk in Damascus of a strategy to put the focus on a dangerous area
Monday November 10, 2003
The Guardian

They call it Shouting Valley - a remote spot in the Golan Heights where Syrians go to meet their relatives on the opposite side. Across the valley they can see each other and wave, but it is not easy to talk.

Those with strong voices shout, while others use loudhailers, because they are kept apart by coils of razor wire, a 300-metre minefield, and an electrified fence.

The Syrians on the other side - who nowadays number about 24,000 - have been living under Israeli occupation since 1967. Thousands more were driven out when Israeli forces swept through the hills, and now live in camps dotted around Syria where their numbers have swelled to more than 400,000.

For the past 36 years recovering the Golan Heights - 460 square miles of fertile volcanic soil stretching down to the Sea of Galilee - has been the prime goal of Syria's foreign policy, but keeping the issue in the spotlight has often proved difficult.

Since the collapse of peace talks between the late President Hafez al-Assad and the Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in 2000, the Palestinian uprising has diverted attention; the current road map for peace, sponsored by the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, hints at an eventual Israeli-Syrian settlement almost as an afterthought.

But in the eyes of many Syrians - as well as foreign diplomats in Damascus - the Golan is back on the agenda again. The change came on October 5, when Israel bombed an apparently abandoned building 15 miles from Damascus which it said was a training centre for Palestinian militants.

President George Bush gave the attack his public blessing, saying that Israel had a right to defend itself - though there is still no evidence that the target had any real connection with the suicide bombing in Israel that prompted the raid.

--snip--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1081641,00.html

[Muddleoftheroad]

1. I love the Guardian

It is such a yellow sheet.

Only they could try to make Israel look bad for keeping the Golan Heights and denying them to an enemy that used them to shell Israel.

I especially love:

* That there are supposed to be 400,000 Golan refugees. Damn that would be more crowded than Gaza I think.
* The thousands who were "driven out" by Israelis daring to defend themselves.
* They could have focused on the land returned to Egypt for example and point to the idea that Syria could consider peace to get the land back.

[bluesoul]

2. Living in

denial. I guess JPost, Cox&Corkum and Foxnews say the truth, just THe Guardian, Independent and the likes all lie and are not to be trusted...

[Muddleoftheroad]

3. I only see those posted here

I don't watch Fox, though it sure seems like a bunch of folks here do. I've only been to Cox&Corkum once and only because we discussed it here. I know the JPost has its bias, but it is nowhere near as extreme as those who seek to destroy Israel.

[bluesoul]

5. CP

seeks to destroy Israel? LOL, like Uri Avnery and all those Israelis and Jews writing for it, right? Please Muddle...

[Muddleoftheroad]

6. No, it merely serves as the voice of those who do

nt

[bluesoul]

7. Oh

my...

[Aidoneus]

4. my apologies..

Perhaps I should first clear all sources by the Israeli Embassy before presenting them. :eyes:

In response to the 3 points that you especially love:--

* That there are supposed to be 400,000 Golan refugees. Damn that would be more crowded than Gaza I think.

Read a bit closer, particularly to numbers have swelled to more than 400,000... now, consider what is implied by specifically "have-swelled-to":--most populations tend to grow a great deal over a period of three and a half decades.

Gaza has well over a million inhabitants in a very small space, while the occupied-Golan region is considerably larger with better natural resources (specifically water and farmland, which is why the Israelis seized it in the '67 aggression).

* The thousands who were "driven out" by Israelis daring to defend themselves.

Judging by your statement, I'll assume that you're not toofamiliar with the June war. Would you like me to write up something about that, or will that fatally disturb the "Israel is always right" mantra recital?

* They could have focused on the land returned to Egypt for example and point to the idea that Syria could consider peace to get the land back.

In 1971 Sadat offered peace in exchange for Sinai to be returned--it was rejected in a fit of arrogance by the Israeli government (as before, Nasser offered Israel peace if it would not conspire against the Arabs alongside the French & British imperialists--again the Israelis chose war and collobration with the European aggressors). It was only considered to be returned after the Egyptians were able to break the defensive line of the Israelis in occupied Sinai in the war that followed that refused offer of peace. That sobering experience and Sadat's cowering subordination to Washington led Begin to feel comfortable about freeing up the military occupying Sinai, so that the IDF could better kill and pillage in Lebanon shortly afterwards.

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. Israel

Israel must be a magical place. It's certainly the only place in the world where refugees NEVER find homes -- unless of course Israel takes them in. Somehow the refugees from Golan have swelled to this massive number -- living in camps in Syria. Of course, those numbers couldn't be inflated from intermarriage and such over 35 years. No, can't be.

The use of the term "driven out" implies Israel had no cause to want to stop the bombardment from that area. It places the blame clearly on Israel instead of clearly on Syria, as it should.

So, if Israel rejects a peace settlement, it can't be because, at the time, it didn't trust Sadat. No, never.

[Aidoneus]

9. Resettlement

That would be a criminal collaboration in league with the very source of the refugees. The better path is to reverse what caused it.

Exact numbers, as always, are in conflict. Before the invasion, there existed some 250 villages in the area, but now a handful remain in addition to the dozens of Israeli colonies erected in their place. An estimated 70,000(non-official Israeli figure)->130,000(low end Syrian figures) Arabs were driven from their homes in the Golan--this in addition to the thousands more Arabs to flee the further occupation of Palestine and the thousands of Palestinians driven from the western Jordan valley by the next year, which was transformed into a permanent unrestricted combat zone.

Have you read what General Moshe Dayan has to say about how the Golan conflicts began? It is most interesting. I don't have it on hand, but could find it if you would like. I ran across a bit of it while re-searching a couple particular Rabin & Begin quotes in writing up yesterday's ignored reply to "IndependentThinker", and a suitable reference to it should not be difficult to track down if you would wish to read it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. So, not 400,000

The number is probably around 100,000+.

It is important, because in the rest of the world refugees get viewed differently. Hell, Jewish refugees from Arab tyranny lost THEIR refugee status because they settled in Israel. Syrian refugees from Golan remain refugees even though they settle in their own nation?

Give me a break.

Yes, I've also read Dayan's book and have it around here somewhere in the clutter.

[Aidoneus]

11. You speak of Israel as being assumed to be some magickal place,

yet suggest that Syria is some land where time has no effect. :shrug:

I misspoke, technically they are IDPs. At any rate, why should Syria aid & abet the criminal circumstances that led to their displacing?

As a limited example, do the words "Lavon Affair" have any meaning?