Day 7

Dilemmas

Today we went to the Golan Heights. Technically, Israel annexed the heights after the Six Day War. Nonetheless, the Heights are commonly understood to be negotiable territory in any future talks with Syria.

Our first stop was Debanyas. After 1948, this part of the heights was neutral territory, but Syria eventually extended its own sovereignty over the area. In 1994 when Rabin indicated that the entire heights were on the table, Asad made him confirm that he meant all Syrian territory that was occupied during the war. Rabin gave Warren Christopher the go ahead to inform Asad that the June 4th 1967 lines were on the table, thus including Debanyas in the negotiations. It's hard to say weather or not Rabin was being sincere. Some think was only saying the entire Heights were negotiable so that the Syrians and Palestinians would rush to sign a deal with Israel because the first one to sign would gain more. Thus Israel would minimize the concessions it would have to make to both as the rush would significantly shorten both the Syrian and Palestinian time horizons, weakening their bargaining power.

After we talked about the strategic importance of the Heights at Debanyas, a lot of people wanted to go to the Golan Heights winery. Ronnie had told me last night that Diane wanted to visit the winery, but that he didn’t see what the point was. I agreed and said that we should go the lookout over the UN compound and Syria instead. Today I mentioned it again and Ronnie decided to abandon the winery visit, much to Diane's dismay. Everyone else seemed pretty indifferent, but man I was pretty excited to see Syria.

So we go up to the lookout, and it's a bit more odd than I expected. There are all these metal silhouette things of soldiers everywhere, plus barbed wire metal animal sculptures lining the road to the top of the lookout. There is also a dinosaur made out of scrap metal. It's about 3 meters tall and I have no idea why the hell it's there. I asked Ronnie and he really didn’t know either. We looked down into Syria and said something like.. "yup there's Syria." Damascus was about 60km away.

On the way back I started talking with Dotan and Liron. They are both convinced that there will be a war with Syria this summer. I read an article about this possibility in the Jpost the other day. Basically the belief is that Syria feels that negotiations are not possible, and that the best course of action would be to launch a limited war against Israel in the Heights to force them to the bargaining table again. The strategy is similar to Egypt's strategy during the 1973 war. The difference this time is that Syria will have a harder time relying on international forces putting the necessary pressure on Israel to stop the war, and then go to the bargaining table. In 1973, both the Russians and the Americans desperately wanted to avoid confrontation, and so both were willing to do more to end hostilities in the region. Now, the Cold War is over and so Syria can't expect a similar post conflict situation, especially with Bush in office. So that's why I think a war won't happen this summer. However, I think that Asad will try negotiations again based on the promises Rabin made in 1994. Israeli politics will be too fragmented to offer what Rabin offered, and so the talks will fail. That is when Asad will launch another war. He will wait until Bush is out and the new American administration will be more likely to pressure Israel and work with Syria. I expect that the attack will come right after another Hezbollah attack and probably a major Hamas rocket offensive from the Gaza Strip so that the Syrians will face a diluted and weakened IDF.

Speaking of which, Ronnie told me and Casey that there was in fact a huge Hamas rocket attack coming from the Gaza Strip today. The southern town of Sderot is being pummeled hard, and a lot of people are being injured. They are considering evacuating it. The attack is mean to provoke Israel to respond, which will then unite the Fatah and Hamas factions that have been slaughtering each other against a common enemy.

Later that night we went back to the hotel and I met this Orthodox Jew who spoke Arabic. So we chatted a bit in the hotel lobby and I'm sure it was an odd sight. He had worked in Arabic media analysis in the states for 5 years before realizing that he needed to become an Orthodox Jew and a religious Zionist. He said that he used to be a moderate peacenik, but then after reading a lot of vile stuff about Jews in the Arabic media, decided that it was worthless. Now he's living in Israel and studying, looking to marry a Sephardi Jewish woman soon. His sister is on the birthright trip, and she's a nice girl, but I think she's a little puzzled as to how her brother all of a sudden became so religious.

Jesse gathered us around to talk a little abut Yad Vashem and Har Herzl. Yad Vashem is the holocaust museum and Har Herzl is the Arlington national cemetery of Israel. Both are very serious, very important places. We talked a bit about the holocaust and were asked to share our thoughts. Liron said that it's important because it proves that the whole world, or at least a significant proportion of it, has hated and will continue to hate the Jews until they are all gone. Jesse then talked a bit about how there has been a move in Europe teaching to include the holocaust within a general section on genocide instead of teaching it as a special section of its own. He "wasn't saying anything" but he pointed out that this move has gained momentum as the Arab population of Europe has increased.

So basically today was a little slow, but tomorrow I expect will be a big day. Also I'm tired as hell, so I need to get out of here. Laila tov.