What an awful nightmare: Israel dreams that Hafez al-Assad dips his feet in the Kinneret (Seaof Galilee). The water reaches his hips. Then his shoulders. He swims. Assad swims in theKinneret!!!
At this moment of utter horror Israel wakes up, all covered with cold sweat. But then the happyrealization comes: It us only a bad dream. In reality the opposite has happened: the awfulpeace has exploded. The Clinton-Assad summit was a failure. No peace, no withdrawal, nodismantling of settlements, no referendum, no need for the votes of Shass. What a release!What happiness! Israel and Ehud Barak take a deep breath, heard from Washington to Teheran. Wehave been saved!
Israel is the realm of myths. Nothing is ever discussed rationally, facts don’t count. TVviewers want drama, newspaper readers want headlines that cry out. Everything is reduced topictures. On the one side, “to eat Humus in Damascus.” On the other: “Assad dips his feet in theKinneret.”
I am trying to get upset, and do not succeed. Assad swims in the Kinneret? So what? What the hellis the debate all about?
Assad wants to go back to the line of the June 4, 1967. At that time, the Syrians were sitting onthe shores of the Kinneret, making their Mangal (barbecue) on the stones. Israel says:Impossible, the “international” border must be restored. This is the border fixed by the 1923agreement between the French overlords of Syria and the British overlords of Palestine. Itleaves 10 (ten!) meters between Syria and the water of the Kinneret. The Syrians, by the way,never recognized this “colonial” border. Well, it transpires that Israel does not reallywant this border either, but only talks about it. Israel wants a new border, 100 (hundred!)meters from the water.
(We Israelis are principled people. Or, rather. a many-principled people. In principle, wewant that between us and Lebanon the June 4, 1967, line, and not the “international” border,shall be restored. On the Palestinian front, we do not want to return to the June 4 “Green Line”under any circumstances. On the Jordanian front we have returned in principle to theinternational border, but in practice have stayed “by lease” on the June 4 line. On theEgyptian front, the international border and the June 4 line were identical.)
Back to Assad’s barbecue. Two quite different matters have become mixed up. One: Theownership of the water. Two: The location of the border.
The water of the Kinneret belong to Israel (and, indirectly, to Jordan and Palestine too)according to the old agreements. So does the water reaching the Kinneret from the sources ofthe Banias, Dan and Hazbani . Israel cannot give it up, at least not until a future RegionalUnion will apportion all the waters in the region by general consent.
The problem is not new. During the 19 years in which the Syrians were sitting on the shores of theKinneret, years of much tension and many shooting incidents, the Syrians did not try to takethe Kinneret water for themselves. (One Syrian attempt to divert the water of one of thesources was promptly stopped when Israel bombarded the bulldozers.)
In short, the water issue is an important subject in the future negotiations forIsraeli-Syrian peace. There, the vital interests of Israel must be secured. But does thatconcern the location of the border?
Aha, say the “experts”, of course it does. We need a strip of land between the sea and the Syrianarmy, in order to defend the water. But that’s ridiculous.
If the “international” border will be restored, there will be a distance of ten meters betweenthe sea and the first Syrian soldier. What shall we do there? Station our tanks? They willhardly be able to turn around. If the Syrian army will want to provoke us, it will be able tocapture the shore before breakfast.
Aha, answer the experts. That’s why we want a hundred meters. Nu, so what? Will that stop theSyrian army, if it will want to steal our water, rather than the knowledge that that will be acasus belli for us?
There is no logic here, only sloganeering and obfuscation. Peace with Syria is of utmostimportance. It will make it much easier for the Palestinians too to make peace, since thePalestinian rejection front located in Damascus, which rejects any peace at all, willdisappear. It will make an orderly retreat from Lebanon possible. Together with theIsraeli-Palestinian peace, it will remove the last obstacle on the way to “normalization”with the Arab world. Not to mention the Humus in Damascus.
For that I am ready to allow Assad to dip his long feet in the Kinneret. May it add to his health.