Syria dusts off maps of Golan Heights battlefields following Israeli attackBrian Whitaker hears talk in Damascus of a strategy to put the focus on a dangerous areaMonday November 10, 2003
The GuardianThey 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.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1081641,00.html