There was bill before the Israeli Knesset which required a vote to be held in the Knesset before any land was offered or exchanged by any Israeli administration and must be carried by at least two-thirds of the house. I am unsure what stage the bill is and the last report suggested a final vote would not come until the winter session of the Knesset.
US President George W. Bush suggested to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel would withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for a complete disbandment of the Syrian-Iranian alliance, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida reported Friday. According to the report, the offer was made in a secret letter from Bush delivered to Assad by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his recent visit to Damascus.
The letter included an American proposal to reach "a quick and satisfactory solution" to the Golan issue in return for defined moves and a declaration that the Syria would abandon its alliance with Iran once and for all.
A Palestinian source close to Abbas told the paper that the offer was included "in a secret letter sent personally by President Bush. "In the letter, Bush suggested finalizing the agreement within several weeks, before the US presidential elections, in order to push the Middle East peace process, an achievement the president will be able to proudly present before leaving the White House in January."
The same source added that the delegation accompanying Abbas on his visit to Syria "was unaware of the letter or its details, and the US insisted that this be carried out secretly and far away from the official channels." The newspaper went on to report that the American ambassador to Damascus was not informed about the issue as well. The source added that the real objective of Abbas' arrival in Damascus was to deliver the letter to Assad.
The introduction of such legislation was to protect the Israeli state in the event of a weak Israeli administration selling out the Jewish people.
No one needs peace with the Syrians and certainly not at the price of such a strategic asset and natural resource of the Golan Heights. Israel has already been pressured by the Americans to sacrifice land for peace in the Gaza Strip and has yet to receive anything but Kassams in return.
The Syrians have nothing substantial to offer the Israelis for the Golan which represents huge returns in both tourism and agriculture for Israel, as well as, one of the major sources of fresh water available to the Israelis in the region. The Golan Heights has been held longer than by the Israelis than by the Syrians. The majority of citizens residing in the Golan Heights are Israeli citizens. If anything, the Israeli historical claim to the Golan Heights are far stronger than the pretenious Syrian ones.
In the 19th century the Jewish philanthropist Rothschild bought approximately 18,000 hectares of the Golan Heights and the Jewish National Fund still holds the original deeds and title to this land today.
The French had no legal right to offer the Golan to its Syria clients as the land was part of the original Palestinian mandate and reserved for the Jewish homeland in a legally binding decision made at the San Remo conference in 1922 and put under mandate by League of Nations in 1923. The land was illegally transferred away in March 1923 by the British to the French under their mandate in order to enlist French support for the British securing the oil fields of Mosul, Iraq. Furthermore, Syria lost the Golan Heights in its war of aggression against Israel, and in a sane world, this would be the end of it.
There is a chance this report is false, after all it resides on the integrity of Palestinian Authority official, but it aptly captures the prevailing American ethos which has consistently treated its alleged ally as nothing more than a spoil of war. So far there has been no word if the Israelis have countered offered California to Mexico.
2 comments:
I told you so
"in a sane world, this would be the end of it."
Truer words were never spoken.
Good post, Kateland.
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