Want to make a hit? To acquire a villa in the Galilee practically for nothing? To double yourmoney within two or three years? To make a sure bet? Go and buy houses on the Golan heights.Quick!
Israel is going to quit the heights. If not tomorrow, then on the day after. In order to make iteasier, the Prime Minister is going to bribe the settlers with huge compensations.
The clever ones among the settlers are already trying to make arrangements. They arediscreetly gathering information about appropriate places in the Galilee. One of theKibbutz movements is already preparing the transfer. Others have hired lawyers. Just incase.
At the last elections, the public has spoken unequivocally. The “Third way” election list,which was adopted by the leadership of the Golan settlers, got just 26,290 votes, much lessthan the minimum required for a seat, less than the personal list of a well-known glamour girl.All the other lists that supported the Golan settlements were soundly beaten. The Israelivoter just decided that he was fed up with the settlements, that it is far more important to getout of Lebanon and to prevent war with Syria, which is able to rain chemical and biologicalmissiles on the towns of Israel.
I try to pity the Golan settlers. It ain’t easy.
Of course, they are not fanatics like the Gush Emunim people on the West Bank. They don’t hold onto the beard of the Messiah. They were just looking for “quality of life” and fell in love withthe beautiful landscape. Ay, there’s the rub.
Every settler on the Golan knew fully well that he is sitting on land stolen by force from humanbeings vegetating in refugee camps only some tens of miles from them. Some 150 thousand men,women and children were living on the Golan heights before the occupation, as did theirforefathers for generations. Some of us remember the lights blinking on the Golan heightsopposite Tiberias. Some time ago I met in Europe a Palestinian writer, member of a well-knownfamily, who fled in 1948 to Syria and earned his living as a teacher on the Golan. He told me aboutthe teeming life in the villages there. An observant traveler can still discover the remnantsof these villages hidden behind trees and bushes.
One needs a lot of insensitivity in order to find “quality of life” on the ruins of the lives oftens of thousands of human beings. Therefore, the settlers are in need of alibis. “All theIsraeli government have sent us here.” Indeed? Nobody was “sent”, except the soldiers sent todefend them. The settlers went there on their own free will, like the gamblers who go these daysto the casino in Jericho. They exerted immense pressure on the Israeli governments, whichwere compelled to bow to their will.
Further: “The Syrians have shelled the kibbuzim from the heights and given them hell for manyyears.” Not exactly. Israeli historians have already discovered that most of the borderincidents before 1967 were provoked by our side, in order to take possession of the disputedlands in the “demilitarized zone”. Ariel Sharon was a master of this game.
And further: “The Golan heights are essential for the security of Israel.” Nonsense. In theera of Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian missiles, the strategic value of the Golan is nil.
So what remains? There remain the sorrow and disappointment of thousands of Israeli familiesthat built their life there. They will have to start a new life in Israel. The state must helpthem. I do not say: They have gambled and lost, now it’s their own business. In my opinion, thesuccessive governments of Israel bear a part of the responsibility, because they haveencouraged the settlers, manipulated them for their ends and bowed to their whims. Thegovernment must buy their properties and pay fair compensations. With some luck, thegovernment will be able to sell them to the Syrians. If it does not allow the angel ofdestruction, Ariel Sharon, to devastate Katzrin as he has devastated Yamit.
Some settlers still dream of “renting the area from the Syrians” or of staying on under Syrianrule. That’s pathetic. In Syria, 150 thousand refugees are waiting for the day when they can gohome – to their homes that will be rebuilt or to the homes of the settlers.
The area will go back to what it was before 1967: the “Syrian heights”. That’s what we calledthem then, and that’s what they will be called again. If everything will work out, we will visitthe Hermon mountain as we are visiting Nueiba, which was given back to Egypt. Who knows, maybethe Syrians will build a casino in Katzrin, as the Egyptians did in Taba and the Palestinians inJericho.