10 Friday, December 25, 1981 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Syrian Intransigence, Years of Shelling, Led to Golan Annexation By VICTOR BIENSTOCK Fences make good neighbors, the poet said, THE KOSHER GLATT as always ULL Incl ON THE OCEAN NATIONAL KASHRUTH For PASSOVER Cantor SHIMON BERRIS CALL TOLL FREE 1- 800-327-4523 On The Ocean at 21st St ',Cam; Beach and good boundaries make for good relations between states, the historians tell us. But Israel never had good boundaries with Syria until it captured the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War of 1967 and while this gave Israel a safe and secure bor- der, it only intensified the Syrian lust to destroy the Jewish state. CLUB_MED.r Elkin Travel Offers FREE Club Med membership when you book your Club Med thru our office. ASK ABOUT SPECIAL AEROBICS WEEK AT CLUB MED, PUNTA CANA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Snorkeling is only one of the hidden extras you get free at Club Med, Punta Cana. 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PalmSprings.CA92262 • NAME: ADDRESS: CITY: PHONE: (OR Call) 714-327-8351 Ask for Margie ZIP: ■ ■ ■ JN 12/18 =I IMAM NMI MIM III HMI MI MII=11 An IOW 1=1=1 ■ One of the few certainties about the future borders of Israel after the 1967 war was that the Golan Heights, or at least the extremity occupied by Israel, would remain forever in Israeli hands. That doughty old warrior, David Ben-Gurion, who was in favor of return- ing the captured territories to their former Arab oc- cupiers in the interests of peace, always insisted, however, that two areas must never be given up — East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights — the former because it was the soul of the Jewish people and the latter because as long as the plateau was in alien hands, peace and security could not be assured for the people in the valleys below. Not so long after the capture of the Golan Heights, we jeeped up the rough road that had been cut into the steep slope and visited a Nahal set- tlement being estab- lished less than a mile from the new border. Living conditions were primitive; a raw, chill wind penetrated the improvised workshop where babies crawled around the floor at their young mothers' feet as they worked, making san- dals on a sub-contract from Dafna, the "mother-kibutz" in Israel. The men not on guard duty were digging the deep shelters in which they expected to spend so many hours. When I asked the Jewish National Fund director of the Golan settlement pro- gram why the youngsters were being placed so close to the boundary, he tersely re- plied: "If we don't go to the borders, the borders will come to us." We gingerly stepped through a partially cleared minefield to reach a magni- ficent vantage point over- looking miles and miles of one of the most beautiful areas of Israel. I wrote then: No one who has ever stood on the ruins of a Sy- rian gun emplacement there and looked out over the plains and villages of the Huleh Valley which the guns dominated could ever agree that this Rave a FROM THE STAFF OF Greatways Travel Corporation 26711 Northwestern Hwy., Southfield, Michigan 48034 (313) 352-4873 Mon.-Thurs. 9:00-5:30 p.m., Fri. 9:00-5:00 ■ ■ 41 111011•11111 11P natural fortress should ever be placed in alien hands and permitted to threaten the Jewish far- mers in the valley below . . . the recovered Jerusalem area and the heights are now and forever part of Israel." The Golan Heights rise 2,000 feet, huge and forbid- ding, at the edge of the Galilee. From 1948 to 1967, the Syrian gunners there had made the plateau into what they thought was an impregnable fortress with concrete bunkers, miles of barbed wire, mine fields and permanent artillery emplacements almost im- mune to return fire from the plains below. And for 19 years, despite truces and armistices, they had done their best to make life for the Jewish settlers below a hell on earth. Not until Israeli troops, at heavy cost, scaled the heights, smashed through the barbed wire, the emplacements and the minefields and silenced the Syrian guns did the Jewish settlers below first know the great pleasure of being able to sleep in their own beds without waiting for the alert signal to send them rushing to the shelters. There was never any doubt from the first day that the Golan would remain forever Israeli. In hostile Syrian hands the heights were a staging point for in- vasion, a constant threat to the lives of Israelis and a de- terrent to the development of the most fertile area of the Jewish state. In the Golan Heights were two of the three sources of the Jor- dan River, Israel's principal source of water, without which it could not exist. There is an historical precedent for inclusion of the Golan Heights in a Jewish state. The Golan Heights and Mount Her- mon lay within the bor- ders of King Solomon's realm in ancient times. They are shown there in the maps of Solomon's kingdom in the superb Atlas of Israel pub- lished in 1970 by the Sur- vey of Israel and the Elsevier Publishing Co. of Amsterdam. Remains of Jewish set- tlements in the Golan in the Second Century BCE have been uncovered and there are signs of a substantial Jewish population having been expelled from the Golan by its Byzantine con- querers. When captured by the Is- raelis in 1967, the Golan Heights plateau was sparsely populated, mostly by Circassians and Druze. Only a small area was culti- vated and the major activity was cattle-raising- by the Circassians. Most of the Arab Moslems in the area were the families of Syrian officers commanding the Syrian garrison. The Golan plateau is flat and unprepossessing. Neg- lect over the centuries de- stroyed most of the fertility which Israeli settlers are not trying to restore, but there are spots of incredible beauty such as the oasis at the headwaters of the Banyas River, which may be developed into tourist at- tractions. Some 6,000 Israel settlers in about 30 set- tlements are developing the Israeli end of the plateau with farms, or- chards and light man- ufacturing. Their results are impressive but the most breathtaking aspect of Golan is the view from the escarpment overlook- ing the green fields of the plains below, the blue- green fishponds shim- mering in the bright sun- light surrounded by miles and miles of green farmlands and orchards, interspersed here and there by Israeli settle- ments, toylike in the dis- tance. There was never the least thought then that some day the Golan would be re- turned to Syria as part of a peace settlement the way the Sinai Peninsula was re- turned to Egypt. The Sinai was a vast protective land barrier, but the Golan, in enemy hands, would be an invasion route and a con- stant threat to the Israeli settlements in the valleys. Syria has always been the most intransigent of Israel's neighbors, the one least in- I clined to accept the fact of Israel's existence. Possession of the Golan reduced Israel's vulnerabil- ity and has reversed roles, putting Syria on the defen- sive since Damascus lies at the end of a 60-mile road from the Israeli-held section of the Golan — with no natural barriers to slow down armored forces. Re- tention of the Golan would be the only way Israel could be assured of secure bound- aries as conditioned by t' Security Council's Reso tion 242. There has been no pressure on Israel from any source to return or even to discuss the return of the Golan to Syria. Is- rael holds about 500 square miles in a strip about 15 miles deep at its widest, separated from Syrian-held territory by a narrow buffer strip patrolled by a United Na- tions force. The most likely reason for Began's dramatic action was the possibility that the morale of the Israeli settlers in the Golan had been af- fected by the situation in teh Sinai where Jewish settlers will have to aban- don their homes. Begin's action, a virtual annexation of the Golan, is reassurance to the Israelis in the Golan that the Sinai story will not be repeated at their expense. 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