Doc's Talk: High Anxiety On The Golan

Thursday, May 29, 2008

High Anxiety On The Golan

Joshua Mitnick
Israel Correspondent

Katzrin, Golan Heights — When Ramona Bar Lev first heard that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed the renewal of negotiations with the Syrian government to swap the Golan Heights for a peace deal, she felt sick.

“I became depressed for half the day,” said Bar Lev, a 38-year resident of the strategic plateau captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. “Then we got down to work.”Starting with the talks led by former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, the 20,000 Israelis living in the Golan Heights have grown accustomed to reports every few years about peace talks that involve giving the highlands back to Damascus. Even though more Israelis support keeping the Golan than East Jerusalem, every Israeli prime minister save for Ariel Sharon has discussed such a deal with the Syrians.

Indeed, Bar Lev, 57, head of public affairs for the Golan Settlements Council, was so immersed in the anti-government campaigns that she ticks off slogans from the campaigns of the 1990s: “Peace with the Golan,” “The People Are with the Golan,” and “Not Budging from the Golan.”

Stretching from the towering snow-capped Hermon Mountain range in the north to the Hamat Gader hot springs in the south, the Golan slope rises from the banks of the Sea of Galilee to offer a commanding view of Israel’s Hula Valley. The territory that is Israel’s northern security blanket combines cattle ranges, minefields, cherry picking and wine tasting.

This time around, the Golan residents start their battle against the government from an even stronger position. Thanks to its alliance with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, Syria is perceived in Israel as a rogue state. And given Israelis’ growing dissatisfaction with the fallout from concessions to Israel’s Arab neighbors, drumming up public support for such a deal will likely be difficult. In a Channel 2 poll conducted last week, only 22 percent of respondents said they’d give back the Golan in exchange for peace, while 70 percent opposed the swap.

“Look at the peace treaty with Egypt. We gave back all of the Sinai and that didn’t create normal relations,” she said. “It’s clear who Bashar Assad is and what he wants to do,” Bar Lev said, referring to the Syrian president.

As she spoke from her office in the sleepy commercial center of Katzrin, a delegation of Golan Heights leaders had traveled to Jerusalem to shore up the parliamentary lobby against giving back the Golan.

Members of the delegation said that members of Olmert’s coalition promised that they would block any agreement that involves returning the Golan Heights. The coalition opponents include the Sephardic fervently Orthodox Shas Party, as well as members of Olmert’s Kadima Party and the Labor Party.

The Golan settlers are hoping their lobby can pass a new Knesset law requiring a special majority of 70 or 80 lawmakers to ratify any peace treaty with the Syrians that requires territorial compromise on the Golan. They’d also like the parliament to pass a referendum law, which would create the legal basis for a national vote on a peace treaty.

“The Golan is sovereign territory,” said Shalom Ariel, a member of the Golan Settlements Council who visited Jerusalem on Tuesday. “The sovereignty can’t be under a question mark any more. Because no country gives up on its territory so easily.”

(Still, Ariel acknowledged that for all the public sentiment against giving back the Golan Heights, there aren’t enough parliament members who would support a resolution banning the government from cutting a land swap with the Syrians.)

Bar Lev first moved to the Golan in the years immediately after the 1967 war, for romance. She and Sami Bar Lev, who today is the mayor of Katrin, became the only Israelis to move into the Syrian town of Queneitra.

“We were Zionists,” she said. “We believed that we could build a new town in Queneitra.”

Unlike the religious nationalists who settled in the West Bank and Gaza, the Israelis who moved up to the Golan were heavily influenced by the Labor Zionism of the kibbutz movement.

The kibbutz movement eventually became a core Israeli constituency backing the concept of trading land for peace. Perhaps that’s the reason why the settler population in the Golan is only a fraction of the West Bank.

It also explains why many Golan residents describe themselves as peaceniks at heart who have grown disillusioned over the years.

Bar Lev’s arguments against giving back the Golan Heights challenge Syria’s legal and moral claim to ownership while asserting Israel’s historical and emotional ties to the territory.

While Syria forfeited its claim to the Golan by using the territory as a base to launch attacks on Israel, she said, the Jewish state has cultivated the wide-open stretch of land by encouraging tourism.

“This is the most beautiful part of the country from every category,” she said. “Beautiful people are living here.”

Underlying much of Israelis’ enthusiasm for holding on to the Golan is something that’s missing: a large Arab population. With only about 18,000 Druze who have the option to get Israeli ID cards, there is less angst about remaining in the Golan.

“What is special about the Golan Heights,” explained Yoni Dolev, a St. Paul, Minn., native who moved here 15 years ago, “is that it’s all Jewish. There are no Arab villages.”
Dolev, who directs the Golan Archeological Museum in Katzrin, reminisced about how the last serious effort at negotiations — the 2000 talks in Shepherdstown, W.Va. — actually spurred a boomlet of Israeli tourists who visited to express solidarity.
Withdrawal “is always a possibility, but we don’t want to think of that possibility,” he said, adding that he is “not worried at all right now,” because Olmert is too weak to give back the Golan.

Just a few miles up the road from the Katzrin town center, a combination tourist center-strip mall has sprung up against the backdrop of the Golan’s virgin plains. A 13-minute movie with surround sound presents the Golan as a Garden of Eden. Next door there’s a microbrew pub and a souvenir shop, with Golan apples retailing in a gift shop for 90 cents each.

Real estate developer Haim Ohayon said he’s betting the $5 million mall will be a gateway to the region for tourists. He’s also got several dozen housing units in Katzrin under construction.

Unlike most residents, he’s not opposed to talking to the Syrians, and expresses hope that Israel can lease the territory for 200 years while helping the Syrians develop on the other side of the border. But he quickly concedes it’s not a very realistic scenario.

“With the way the Syrians are behaving now? I wouldn’t give one meter back,” he said. “For peace with Syria there has to be a new world order.”

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

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