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Who Says the Golan is Syrian?

(Yediot Ahronot/IMRA) Yoav Gelber - Ever since the establishment of the Syrian state, that country has lost more significant segments of its land than the Golan. In 1920 Mosul was given to Iraq and Tripoli to Lebanon, and in 1937 the Turks took Alexandretta. Yet Syria has maintained correct relations with all three of those annexing neighbors. In the original division between French Syria and British [Mandatory] Palestine [after World War I], most of the Golan Heights was within the borders of Palestine. There is no need today to hand the Syrians a border that they rejected in the1940s and 1950s. The Golan has been under Israeli rule longer than under the rule of independent Syria (36 years as against 21 years). The only real Syrian threat against Israel is the threat of missiles aimed at Israel's center. Security arrangements in the Golan would provide no answer to the threat of these missiles. The sole constraint on the implementation of this threat is the IDF's proximity to Damascus, Israel's withdrawal from which would abandon Israel's coastal cities to Syrian missiles. The writer is a professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies at the University of Haifa.
2004-01-16 00:00:00
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