Six reasons to return the occupied Golan Heights

1) Syria attacked Israel in 1967 and it deserves to pay a price (The Golan)

There are numerous reliable sources that explain what really happened in 1967. Syria was part of the Arab world that was led by Gamal Abdul Nasser’s Egypt. If we put Arab politics and public rhetoric aside, it would be clear that Syria was not posing an existential threat to Israel at the time. Despite all popular claims, here is what Defense Minister Moshe Dayan admitted in a 1976 interview: “The Syrians were not threatening us at the time. The attack proceeded not because Israel was threatened but because of pressure from land-hungry farmers and army commanders in northern Israel. Of course [war with Syria] was not necessary … “at least 80 percent” of two decades of border clashes were initiated by Israel.” So, Syria does not really deserve the “punishment” of Israel’s “capture” of the Golan in an unprovoked aggression.

Syria is not much different in that sense from the rest of the Middle East. Israelis signed peace treaties with Egypt and then with Jordan. And today, their prime minister is quite eager to sign anything with the rich Arab countries.

This is the fantastical approach that was first made popular by the current American administration which is, so far, not known for its experience, wisdom or achievements in the Middle East. On his first visit to Damascus, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Syrian president that from now on there will be no negotiations with Syria until it agrees to and meets a number of American demands. Then? …Maybe. The fact is, you can only dictate stern terms like these to a country you just invaded and destroyed in a totally one-sided war. Whoever came up with this new Syria policy either did not know much about international relations, or wanted an excuse for avoiding an in-evitable settlement with Syria.

Why does Syria have relations with these organizations? For various reasons. One of them is that they are very popular organizations in the Arab street. Hamas scored a landslide victory in the latest free elections in Palestinian territories. Hizbullah is highly popular among Lebanon’s Shiite community, and also among many others in the Arab world. If Israel does not understand the need to interact with these popular Palestinian and Lebanese forces, Syria is not obliged to make the same mistake.

4) How can we be sure that the Syrian government is solidly in power? Can they deliver? Can they respect a signed peace deal?

Syrian politics have been stable since 1970. It is the Syrian President who should be worried about Ehud Olmert’s popularity which these days falls with-in the margin of error. How can Syria take the risk of making commitments to an Israeli government that has a very high chance of collapsing anytime soon? Syria is taking a big chance by offering to engage the Olmert government with all its internal fighting and highly incompatible members. Syria never violated a signed agreement that it negotiated carefully without outside pressure. There is a difference when Israel withdraws from Arab occupied lands after a negotiated agreement, compared to withdrawing unilaterally such as Israel’s non effective unilateral withdrawals from Gaza or from the south of Lebanon. Don’t expect “the Arabs” to respect a solution you forced on them, but remember that Syria, Egypt and Jordan all respected their negotiated agreements with Israel for decades.

5) Why should I give away the Golan back to a ‘weak’ and ‘harmless’ Syria? We can keep it for ever, can’t we?

No, you can not. With the exception of one Neocon favorite, Farid Ghadry (who did not set foot in Syria for de-cades), all Syrians want the whole Golan back. They want their land back and they will not allow any Syrian leader to sign on anything less than the full return. If you want the Syrians to respect their signed agreement and to have a warm peace with Israel, try not to support your government’s at-tempts to sign anything less than a full withdrawal from the Golan. If Prime Minister Ehud Barak did not try to keep part of the Golan in 1999 then we would have had seven years of peace and normal relations by now. There would have been no Lebanon war, and it is quite possible that the Middle East would have been in a much better shape. If you decide to try to maintain the status quo, managing the ongoing conflicts will not be anymore within the compass of your attainment. The same way Hamas and Hizbullah appeared on the scene at some point in the past, new players and new conflicts will periodically emerge until the scene is over crowded with frustrated competing players. At some point, the Middle East’s pressure cooker will finally ex-plode.

6) How will the Syrian people react to visiting Jews?

Despite the atrocities of the Iraq war, which was started by the United States, Syrians have been exceptionally hospitable to visiting Americans, including many visiting Jewish American re-porters and guests, the types that you would normally expect Syrians to dislike because of their widely perceived bias towards Israel. Have you heard how pleased Syrian Jews living in Brooklyn are with the way Syrians treated them when they used to live in Syria? They are among the biggest supporters of peace talks with Syria. Did you also hear of how Syria opened its doors unconditionally to millions of refugees from all neighboring countries no matter what religion or ethnic background they had? Starting with the tens of thousands of Armenian refugees in 1915, to the Palestinians of 1948, the Lebanese who escaped the civil war in the 1970s, the Iraqis who escaped Saddam, the Kurds who escaped the Turkish army, and the 1.3 million Iraqis who escaped the killing in Iraq today. Can you match that? Is there really any need for more proof that Syria is the most generous and hospitable of honorable nations a peaceful and good neighbor can hope for? Return Syria’s occupied Golan, respect its dignity and the dignity of the Palestinian people under your country’s occupation, and your “painful concessions” will be quickly forgotten the first time you drive up to Damascus for lunch, and from there to wherever you feel like it… just like a citizen from any peaceful country can easily do.