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What would Israel get for giving up the Golan Heights, a tangible and, many generals think, an indispensable asset?
Oh, it would get a promise, by the trustworthy Syrian government, to end its support of Hizballah. But how likely is it that that promise would be kept? Doesn’t the Syrian elite depend for its wellbeing on what it can milk from cash-cow Lebanon? And isn’t Hizballah the best, or by now the only way, that Syria can continue to hold onto its role, and that moo-cow milking, in Lebanon? Besides, given how Hizballah has managed to arm and re-arm again and again, and given that Hamas itself, without any Syria to trans-ship Iranian arms, is threat enough, why would one give up such a tangible asset for the sake of a promise when, if the Syrian Alawites are to stay in power, they must always try to placate the real Muslims by being plus royalists que le roi, and the currency of that is always, for Muslim Arabs, how fervent one is in anti-Israeli activities?
To suggest that the Alawites, who make up 12% of the population, and who have been collaborating so closely with Iran in supporting Hizballah partly because they feel they need the legitimacy as Muslims that Iranian approval and an Iranian cleric’s fatwa help to supply, why would they endanger this by leaving the camp of anti-Israel stalwarts?
It makes no sense. It would open the Alawites up to new charges. Now, they would not merely be seen as pseudo-Muslims, with their syncretistic cult of Mary. Now they would be seen, if they ceased to be part of the anti-Israel camp -- and obviously that is what Olmert and Livni think they can achieve by handing over the Golan – not merely as quasi-Muslims, but clearly as enemies. And the fact that on Christmas and Good Friday government offices close in Syria would suggest that those Alawites are crypto-Christians. And the Ikhwan, supported by Saudi-financed television channels, could make life impossible for Syria.
And there is one more terrible thing. Israel did not, as it had every right to do under the laws of war, keep the Sinai. Rather, Israel gave to Saint Sadat territory that he, and much of the world, treated as “sacred Egyptian territory,” even though most of it did not become part of Egypt until the 1920s. (See, on this, the discussion in the Diary of Col. Richard Meinertzhagen, and his map of the Sinai.) Israel still acts as if it does not have a perfect right, under the Palestine Mandate and under Resolution 242, to hold onto all of the “West Bank” and, if it so wishes -- but obviously it does not wish -- Gaza. But about two places -- the Golan Heights, and the Old City of Jerusalem -- the Israeli government and people clearly decided, when they decided to annex, and never to give up, both the Old City and the Golan Heights.
In the death throes of his terrible tenure, in his awful administration, if Ehud Olmert were -- in defiance of the overwhelming will of the people and of common sense -- to suggest an Israeli willingness to give up what all former Israeli governments maintained would never be given up and was no longer subject to negotiation, once the annexation of the Golan had taken place, then what would happen with the Old City of Jerusalem? The Arabs are quick to focus on precedents. They took the surrender to Saint Sadat of the entire Sinai as a precedent, and in their view a conclusive one, for the future surrender of other territories won in the Six-Day War, a war of self-defense. And they will not drop it.
There may be, there sometimes is, an argument for assisted suicide. But that happens in the case of individuals, in physical torment. Israel is a state. It can survive, if it takes the long view, the very long view, and does not allow the most disreputable and shallow members of its political class to throw their own country to the wolves, to save themselves, if they can, or possibly just to save them from the pain of having to see things clearly, and steadily, and whole. For that would be, for these people, too taxing, and too painful.
Posted by Hugh at May 25, 2008 7:07 PM
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What would Israel get for the Golan Heights?
Screwed.
===============
Olmert should be impeached, or whatever the equivalent is in Israel, for even suggesting the possibility.
He should then be horse-whipped, tarred and feathered, and run out of town on a rail.
Posted by: joeblough![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 25, 2008 7:26 PM
joeblough,
if Israel did that, then it would be hard to tell the difference between them and their neighbors.
at May 25, 2008 7:35 PM
Dumbo,
Then are you saying that Israel continue to make deals without any tangible benefit. How much land has been back for peace to date?
I agree Israel should get rid of Olmert and bring back Netanyahu.. So far the only person to correctly perceive the country's neighbors for what they are.
Posted by: lonewolf at May 25, 2008 8:22 PM
"What would Israel get for the Golan Heights?"
incoming rockets.
at May 25, 2008 8:42 PM
"What would Israel get for giving up the Golan Heights, a tangible and, many generals think, an indispensable asset? "
Israel will get war.
Posted by: Vince at May 25, 2008 8:53 PM
Dumbo:
OK.
How about impeached with extreme prejudice.
==============
Although frankly, I think his actions border on treason, and the penalties for that are traditionally rather severe.
Posted by: joeblough at May 25, 2008 10:27 PM
As I understand it, the ordinary Israeli-in-the-street, by an overwhelming majority, wants to hang onto the Golan Heights, for reasons both of practical strategy (many can remember being showered with artillery fire from those commanding heights; and it is, also, part of their major watershed), deep history (it is part of the traditional territory of the tribe of Dan), and the simple fact that lots of them now live or holiday there and love the place.
I hope they prevail. It's simple common sense.
We're in a race. Will the majority of Israelis 'get' - really, deeply 'get' - the kind of war that they're in, before people like Olmert put them in a strategic hole so deep they need sheer miracle to get out of it?
Bat Yeor's books haven't achieved that illumination, that paradigm shift. Caroline Glick's columns haven't, yet. Maybe Bostom's latest, coming hot on the heels of Benny Morris' insistence that 'it always was a jihad', might bring Israel to the tipping point. I think the work of MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch has also helped.
Mr Spencer - do you have anyone lined up to translate your books into Hebrew? Into Russian? Many Israelis are competent in English...but many are not.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 25, 2008 11:56 PM
So somebody wants to know what Israel will get in return for the Golan heights? Ask someone in the Indian army.
In 1965 Pakistan waged one of its jihads against India. The war lasted barely a month. The Indians were plagued by jihadi infiltrators sneaking in thanks to a strategic mountain pass, the Haji Pir Pass. The Indians captured this pass with great pluck and derring-do. The Indian politicians gave it back to Pakistan in the negotiations held at Tashkent, in return for promises of good behavior. The jihadis are still infiltrating. India is still suffering from terrorist attacks. Olmert, be warned. Read up some 20th century history of a little known war of Sept. 1965. Then you will REINFORCE your Golan defenses!
at May 26, 2008 10:08 AM
Fitzgerald: What would Israel get for the Golan Heights?
bupkus
Posted by: justamomof4 at May 26, 2008 12:07 PM
That's real smart. Keep breaking off Israel and handing the pieces to the Mohammedans until there's nothing left but one brick for the Jews to sit on.
It's so unreal, so surreal. I can't stand the talk about politics and "strategy". Who cares about all that? The bottom line is that this is someone's COUNTRY. This is someone's HOMELAND. What right does anyone have to make them give up even one stone from the ground?
at May 26, 2008 4:13 PM
Hedgehog - you're Indian?
Sikhs and Rajput, meet IDF/ Tsahal. Share information, share history.
Now consider, also, the Knights Hospitallers of St John, Malta, 1565.
Consider the much-mythologised Knights Templar.
I am sure that the history of Ethiopia, and that of the Maronites, and the Tsar's assault against the Muslims in the south, should also, if examined, prove to contain some heroes whose names are worth remembering. The rollback of Islam by the Spaniards, Portuguese, Normans (Sicily), Greeks, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Serbs, should be receiving assiduous study in Infidel military academies all over the world.
Knights of St John, Sikhs and Rajputs, and Tsahal = the special antibodies produced when Golden Rule civilisations, devoted to the principles of oathkeeping and reciprocity, encounter the amoral supremacism and ultraviolence of Jihad.
WE have to hurry up and make sure our modern-day Knights learn from history, what worked and what didn't in the long war of self-defence against the Jihad.
Rule #1 - MOST MUSLIMS HABITUALLY LIE TO INFIDELS. Watch what they do not what they say - though what they say amongst themselves, when they think Infidels are not listening, is generally a more reliable guide to their real plans, especially if it chimes with the instructions in the Book of War, or Qur'an.
Rule #2 - JIHAD-MINDED MUSLIMS NEVER KEEP PROMISES TO INFIDELS - so don't promise them anything and don't give them anything significant or valuable; don't give them ANYTHING they could conceivably, in future, use against you.
Rule #3 - If Muslim jihadis and jihad-enabling states sing out for a truce or treaty, they are feeling weak and want a timeout. HIT HARDER AND DON'T STOP.
Rule #4 - If you do make a truce or treaty with Muslims, treat it exactly the same way they do - go right ahead and double-cross them, if that will advantage the non-Muslim side. Jihadi Muslims are convinced all Kuffar are liars and treacherous anyway, so...why bother trying to get them to believe otherwise? Let them know what it's like to 'be done by as you did'. If *they* break the agreement - flatten them.
Rule #5: Since their aim is always, always, always, to gobble up more territory, bit by bit, Infidels must help each other to prevent this, everywhere that military Jihad is currently being waged against , or within, non-Muslim states - Philippines, India, Thailand, Ethiopia, Israel, S Russia.
No 'land for 'peace' anywhere, no jizya, no surrender to the Mafia of Political Islam.
I'm not a military strategist. I'm just a middle aged housewife, but what I've just suggested seems to me to follow logically from what Spencer and others - like Bat Yeor and Bostom - have taught us all, here, about the way that Muslims wage war.
at May 27, 2008 3:05 AM
Dumbledoresarmy: Hedgehog is as Indian as Geronimo. Actually I'm a bit cut off right now from today's India, so most of my experiences are dated. The media gives us overkill of day to day stuff but I don't rely too much on it because of dhimmitude and Lefties having taken over much of the Indian press.
Your rules of dealing with Islam ought to be required reading for today's politicians. The idiots are merrily leading/sending us up the creek without a paddle.
at May 27, 2008 9:58 AM
They will recieve a military arse-kicking from which they may not recover. The high ground- seize it and hold it.
/that is all
at May 27, 2008 12:42 PM
Israel gave to Saint Sadat territory that he, and much of the world, treated as “sacred Egyptian territory,” even though most of it did not become part of Egypt until the 1920s.
No. In a 1906 agreement with the British (then administering Egypt), the Ottoman Empire agreed that Egypt controlled the entire Sinai. (The British, on behalf of Egypt, has been asserting that position since at least the 1890s.) In 1926, the British High Commissioner for Palestine (which Britain was then administering) sent a letter to the Foreign Minister of Egypt (which had become independent in 1922), saying that "the Palestine and Egyptian frontier as defined in the year 1906 will be in no way affected by the delimitation of the frontiers of the mandated territory of Palestine." In other words, the British confirmed the 1906 agreement, under which Egypt already held the Sinai.
Posted by: Seamus at May 27, 2008 6:04 PM
The British, on behalf of Egypt, has been asserting that position since at least the 1890s.
I meant to say that the Brits *had* been asserting that position since the 1890s.
In fact, the precise date is 1892. According to a U.S. State Department monograph regarding the Israel-Egypt border: "On May 8, 1892, a firman issued by the Sultan of Turkey granted to the Khedive Abbas of Egypt the right to administer Sinai, which right was reiterated in notes exchanged between the United Kingdom and Turkey in May 1906. Also, in 1892 a British unilateral declaration, to which Turkey did not respond, was made locating the boundary in a straight line from immediately east of Al 'Arish to the head of the Gulf of Aqaba."
Source: http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS046.pdf
Posted by: Seamus at May 28, 2008 4:49 PM
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