For the benefit of those of my readers who don't know this history inside-out already...

[lethargic_man]

The problem with maps like this:

(linked to from this BBC news report) is that they never point out that between 1949 and 1967 the Syrians used to sit atop the supposedly demilitarised Golan Heights, and shell the Israeli farmers in the Ḥula valley below. (The Israeli farmers in their tractors couldn't hear the shells falling, so had to post boy scouts at the sides of the fields with white flags, to catch their attention.)

That is (inter alia) why the Golan Heights are so strategically important. (And vice versa: at present the Israelis can look down across the Syrian plain towards Damascus.)

Comments

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

While I really do take your point, the overwhelming feeling is still one of "dude, that was forty years ago and the rest of the world is doing its damndest to move on from this old crap".

I find myself unable condone British or American occupation of Iraq while not extending the same logical rational to Israeli occupation of the Territories. You don't nick other people's countries. That's what Gulf War 1 and even WW2 were about.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I would be happy^* (in this context at least) for the Golan Heights to be handed back, if it were guaranteeable that this did not compromise Israeli security. Which would, to me, mean a fanged international peace-keeping presence; preferably EU (since the Israelis no longer trust the UN as far as they can throw it).

As for the other Territories, if the Jordanians and Egyptians hadn't nicked the territory that the UN had voted for a Palestinian state sixty years ago this Thursday, the last fifty-eight years worth of conflict might not have happened. And again, I would be happy to see the West Bank handed back if I were sure this did not compromise Israeli security; which, given the P.A.'s record on the matter, I would, again, want monitored by an international force.

If all of this comes out of the process starting shortly in Annapolis, I would be happy.

Sadly, I would also be very surprised.

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

Then I think we're in complete agreement.