Leaving the Golan

Canadian forces are leaving the Golan Heights after 32 years without peace being withing sight. I can remember when Canadian forces were first deployed and so it was a bit of shock to realize that it has actually been 32 years since their original arrival. The Toronto Star carries a report of the Canadian forces pull-out but it has made no mention that the Canadian deployment as UN peacekeepers to the Golan Heights mission also represented the largest single loss of life for Canadian forces engaged in peacekeeping abroad when Syria fired on an unarmed transport carrying Canadian peacekeepers to deployment.

The Toronto Star contends that the Israelis originally acquired the Golan Heights in the Six Days War:

More than 12,000 Canadian troops passed through the Golan's narrow UN Disengagement Observer Force buffer zone during Canada's decades-long presence on the escarpment east of the Sea of Galilee. The 1,150 square-kilometre territory, although part of Syria, has been under Israeli military occupation since it was captured during the final two days of the 1967 Six Day War. Israel unilaterally annexed the part of the Golan under its control in 1981.

But this is not entirely accurate. Only the southern portion of the Golan Heights plateau came under Israeli control in 1967. It was not until the Yom Kippur War when Syria attacked Israel that almost the entirety of the Golan Heights came under Israeli control. Under the UN ceasefire agreement of 1974 a small narrow section was returned to Syria as a demilitarized zone.

But the Toronto Star cannot leave well enough alone and cannot pass up an opportunity to take a cheap shot at the Israeli governments.

Several Israeli governments have indicated a willingness to return the Golan to Syria as part of a comprehensive peace agreement. But the territory, representing one of the few tracts of sparsely populated green space in Israel's possession, also provides Israel with exclusive access to the Galilee watershed, one of the region's most precious water sources.

But here's the other side of the deal. Despite the Annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981 by the Israeli Begin government successive Israeli administrations have offered to returned most of the Golan Heights to Syrian control providing Syria will sign a peace agreement with Israel and will not re-militarize the Golan Heights. In fact, the US attempted to broker a deal concerning the return of the Golan Heights in 1999-2000 but guess who refused to get on board and I will give you a hint; it was not Israelis.

The Golan Heights may represent a “green area” and access to the Galilee watershed but a people who made the desert bloom and are also world leaders in desalination techniques can certainly go back to living without the green or blue of the Golan Heights but what they cannot accept is militarization of the plateau by a country that has a long and belligerent history of threatening the security of her citizens.