Above: Leah and Avishai
1?avid and their two boys
in their gift. shop in Katzrin.

Right: Adam Montefiore,
international marketing
manager for the Golan
Heights Winery.

Far right: Yigal Kipnis,
head of a nascent Golan
peace group, with his newly
Minted mango trees that
will only ripen in four years.

The Golan Concession

Settlers have mixed feelings about the price of peace with Syria.

AVI MACHLIS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Katzrin, Israel

R

osh HaShana may be a
time of year when Jews
around the world pray for
peace, but for the 16,000
Jewish residents of the Golan
Heights, those prayers were somewhat
more difficult to recite this year.
They know that the price for
peace with Syria is likely to be the
return of all or most of the Golan,
the strategic plateau Israel captured
from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day
War. Although Prime Minister Ehud
Barak has so far placed priority on
peacemaking with the Palestinians,

few people of the Golan are ignor-
ing his pledges to swiftly strike a
deal with Syria as well.
"We are praying for peace — a
peace with the Golan," says Sammy
Bar-Lev, head of the regional council
of Katzrin, the Golan's largest town,
with 6,500 residents.
"It must be a peace we can live
with, not a Yamit-style peace," he
adds, recalling the return of that
Sinai settlement to Egypt in 1982,
in which some Israeli settlers were
forcefully evicted and the town was
razed.
Later that year, Israel passed a bill
that applied Israeli law and jurisdic-
tion to the Golan. The international
community never recognized the

move, and the de facto annexation
has provided the Golan's Jewish resi-
dents with little reassurance about
their future.
Bar-Lev, a 30-year resident of the
Golan, talks of years of uncertainty as
successive governments debated the
territory's fate. He is sure that the
Israeli public will reject any agreement
with Hafez Assad, Syria's president,
that involves the return of the Golan.
Nevertheless, Bar-Lev wants Barak
to make his strategy clear. "Life is
continuing here as usual," he says.
"Of course, people are a bit more
worried, and even angry at the gov-
ernment for not making clear what
are the red lines.
But at least nothing is happening yet."

For Katzrin residents, the tempo-
rary delay in reviving the peace talks
is little consolation. Many are con-
fused by the government's policies
and despondent about the prospect of
losing their homes. However, none of
those interviewed talked of any plans
to violently oppose an Israeli with-
drawal.
In part, the moderation reflects the
differences between Golan settlers
and their counterparts in the West
Bank, which include those who are
vehemently opposed to any Israeli
withdrawal from those areas.
For West Bank settlers, life has
been a constant struggle against the
indigenous Palestinian population
who accuse Israel of stealing their

9/17
1999